Recently, as in earlier today, I almost picked a web fight over something traditionally stupid. Namely the two elven nations in Shadowrun and the general stupidity that is the Immortal Elves and Great Dragons in what is otherwise a decent setting for a fun game.

Rather than spew the bile I hadn't quite been aware I was holding, I figured it would be fun to have people share their own wierd Setting bits, things that were otherwise 'rotten apples' in otherwise pristine fruitbaskets...

Give me your bile, your hate, your burning rage, struggling to be free...

For starters, people that don't read up on a subject before posting their uninformed opinion on it really get my goat.

For some kind of reason, several fantasy worlds still have full-fledged Vikings in an otherwise medieval setting. That kinda stuff always bothered me.

But Vikings are awesome!

Norse kingdoms are way more awesome.

Well, Ancient... I know all about your excessive facination with the Immortal Elves and Great Dragons, and all the weird twisty little secrets of Shadowrun canon.

Sadly, unlike you, I have neither the time, nor inclination to read up on all that shit, which to ME is absolute shit, just to not get your goat when I call it... well... Shit.

I don't need to step in the cow pie to know I don't want it on my shoe. I don't need to read every last wankish uberelf fangeek developer wet dream to know I don't want it in my game.

So take your goat and shove it up your ass.

Myself, I enjoy the Elven nations in SR (despite some logical mistakes). A game can't have enough Elven fascists to either make  snobby PCs who have a reason to kick ass, or to have a obnoxious fraction of NPCs whose butts to kick you enjoy.

What I don't like are the cooler-than-thou Immortal Elves and Great Dragons who are the Demi-God Protectors Of Metahumanity Against The Horrors(TM). That's something that needs to get kicked back into the Earthdawn can.

I'm in nearly total agreement there, Skyrock.  Obnoxious factions players can hate? Sure.  Elven Fascists to be the more bad people in a world full of bad people? No problem.

IE and GD's that should be put out to pasture to slowly die of neglect so the game can move past that crap? All for it.

I have to agree with Spike, the elf kingdoms of SR always came across rather, excuse my Sperethiel, shitty. It got worse after Earthdawn came out. Maybe they retconned it into shape again with some of their metaplot, but I've been kinda out of the loop since then. To be honest, I even had problems with their native American kingdoms. The wars were over much too quickly, especially once everyone had magic. Always a weird mixture between post-apocalyptic and cyberpunk...

Ah, the foundation of the Native American Nations... Don't get me started about this one. The whole victory by Ghost Dance thing was cheesy, the war ended far to smooth, and I'm still wondering how there could be enough Natives to settle half North America _and_ keep a working infrastructure despite the general low education and high out-of-work rate among Natives in nowadays USA. (The whole gulag thing against Natives in the SR history shouldn't have done much to improve this issue.)

However, they make a cool setting. I like the whole conflict angle of tradition/magic vs modern/technology among the Natives, and I especially like the Pueblo as there is actually a mixture of cyberpunk and fantasy stuff - something where the strengths of SRs weird genre melting-pot really shine and create something unique.

Well, everything's better than the Germany source book. Oh my, what a excrement storage unit...

But the problem of the magic-vs-tech stuff in Shadowrun is that it's never purely magic-vs-tech. Native-americans-with-magic vs. WASPs-with-Tech does mix up too many conflicts at once, and we're back to the Noble Savage and the White Man's Burden.

Aye, many of those conflicts turn out to quickly as the black&white thing you mentioned, such as a crappy version of Winnetou with guns and fireballs added.

I like the moments where both sides have interesting points... As Humanis Policlub and the real threat of trogs who come out of the transformation process as deranged psychotics.
Or where things really meld, as with the high-tech Pueblos who combine Native traditions with cutting edge technology.

SR has always been the most typical FASA system: They come up with great ideas (Tactics via pools! Class-building via Essence! Tech vs Magic! Dungeoncrawls with laser guns and Native orc samurai!), but when it comes down to write out the ideas in full they fuck it completely up. Something like commercially successful heartbreakers...

Quote from: SpikeWell, Ancient... I know all about your excessive facination with the Immortal Elves and Great Dragons, and all the weird twisty little secrets of Shadowrun canon.

Sadly, unlike you, I have neither the time, nor inclination to read up on all that shit, which to ME is absolute shit, just to not get your goat when I call it... well... Shit.

I don't need to step in the cow pie to know I don't want it on my shoe. I don't need to read every last wankish uberelf fangeek developer wet dream to know I don't want it in my game.

So take your goat and shove it up your ass.

To give Spike-and this thread-some perspective, this is me handing Spike his ass for being an obtuse little shit. See Spike, if you want to be heard and taken seriously, you should be informed. If you prefer to be ignorant, that's your prerogative, but somebody's always going to come along and tell you what an ignorant cuss you are.

Plus, hey. I'm not the wanker that started a thread to bitch about the fact you got your ass handed to you because you couldn't be bothered not to comment on something you knew jack shit about.

Quote from: Ancient HistoryPlus, hey. I'm not the wanker that started a thread to bitch about the fact you got your ass handed to you because you couldn't be bothered not to comment on something you knew jack shit about.

Got my ass handed to me???

What world do you live in? Oh, wait... I know the answer to this one. You live in a world populated by Immortal Elves and Great Dragons, given our extensive knowledge of the subject.

You picked a fight about something tengental to my point, which was already somewhat a tangental point someone else had made in the thread: namely that oregon and ireland hardly qualify as ass ends of anywhere that no one wants with the point that if I hadn't read books I shouldn't comment.

Only: TT and Tir na Nog aren't going to tell me anything about Oregon I don't know from having fucking been there...which was my original fucking point.

Go back and re-read the OP... if you have time away from your precious collection of fictional lore... and realize I made this thread here... oh, which you so fucking politely asked me to do... to bitch about any given setting elements that just irritate.

I didn't want a fight with you, which is why its here, not there... but I'll be damned before I let that mean I'm not willing to speak my fucking mind just because you don't fucking like what I have to say.  The mumblings of an obssessive compulsive elfwanker don't scare me in the least.

Translation: Blah blah I talk about things I know shit about and hope all the crap I spout will keep people from realizing I'm a fucking baby that can't admit when I'm wrong blah blah.