#19 Interlude

Hello again Before the Shadow fans!

There won't be a 'story so far' section here. This post is going to be a little different. If you're only reading for the storyline and/or gameplay recaps, you might want to skip this. We're going all-in on analysis today, and addressing a couple of concerns that have been raised by the readers.

We just finished module two, and the question marks have been floating around. The second part of any three-part series often comes under a lot of pressure and expectations, and this was no different. Module one was a tiny thing, just a couple of gameplay hours, and covered in four updates. Module two had to do all the worldbuilding that the first module didn't in preparation for module three, and it arguably suffered for it.

It had to: (i) familiarise us with the Saito/locals tension,

(ii) introduce us to important, new companions,

(iii) meaningfully raise the issue of metahuman rights,

(iv) introduce Shavarus,

(v) introduce Norton (who becomes centrally important in module three),

(vi) make Kali more powerful and autonomous, regardless of the route we chose in module one, and

(vii) introduce Tir Tairngire as a player.

We also had Aztechnology as a brief red herring in the beginning.

There's a lot of "stuff to do" here, and much of it was preparing us for the end of the campaign. As a result, to borrow my own simile from update five, our character gets knocked around like a ping-pong ball. The plot itself exists largely to introduce and partly develop all of these elements and I'd say the module suffers for it.

It's entertaining, but leans heavily on the diverse locations and combat situations for entertainment purposes. As a story, the pacing probably feels a little rushed. And since readers don't get to actually play the combat encounters, the real highlight (I assume) would be the improved conversations and the big Norton twist - which, granted, I still love.

Why else would I put it at the bottom of my website?

Shavarus as a villain was described by at least one reader as unsatisfying. His plans for the region were a potentially powerful story element, but the theme of sacrifice for the greater good versus enduring evil in the name of compassion was hardly the focus of the module. The mystery of finding Shavarus and unearthing Norton's identity took up a good bit of our time, followed by chasing the troll in a never-ending game of tag for the rest of the module.

Perhaps if major in-party friction happened over Shavarus's ideas, or we had side-quests that directly highlighted those thematic contrasts, it would have helped.

On that greater topic of combat, I'm planning to try and reduce the amount of combat feedback going forward. None of my regulars (far as I know) really play Dragonfall and care about the mechanics enough to warrant doing a full play-by-play of every fight. I've already reduced this but I'll try and limit it more - module three is going to have a full scale battle at the very end and I don't want readers drowning in lines and lines of 'he shot/she shot/he took damage/she dodged a bullet'.

If I succeed, it'll remove my biggest barrier to getting into the sequels.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next stage. Module three is a bona fide war plot, and it resolves all of the 'introducing' that was done in the second module. Factions and characters return, themes are well developed, and our conflicts with Saito, Tir and metahuman extremists all bear ferocious fruit. It's a fun telling of an important part of West Coast canon history in the Shadowrun universe.

In our next post, we'll get into it. See you later, runners.