Dead Man's Switch - Gripe with the ending

[Captain Australia]

I might just wrap this in a massive spoiler blanket, but i just have two small gripes that I wanted to make about the endgame of Dead Man's Switch.

Not seeking agreement or anything, just wanted to have a very minor whine. If you agree or disagree please feel free.

I did enjoy the game, it felt like a labour of love to me. It looks like Dragonfall has improved on it (as I think the original DMS had some limiting design choices like basically making hired deckers useless because only person 1 can enter the matrix, and the forced combat mode all the time in a combat area .. minor annoying little stuff). For me the main attraction and achievement of the game is delivery of the universe and storytelling, and character interactions.

(Which is why I have a little whine about the end)


Firstly, you wind up in the manor of mega-powerful Telestrian. There's some dire end-of-the-world(ish) discussion, and you agree to undertake this run against the Brotherhood.

In the conversation, Telestrian mentions you are deeply in his debt, and have to do whatever he says. But his daughter does come in at one point, and he says, in essence, that he forgives your debt - you saved his daughters life, so that cancels out the attack you made against his Corporation.

He also acknowledges that you know about his bastard siblings, and that is information he would prefer "kept in the shadows"

So .. my two-fold problem.

In the ending, Telestrian refuses to pay you the agreed $1.5M, adjusting the amount down to $100k after deducting damages to his corporation.

The man was described somewhere as a straight-shooter, controlling, uses people like toilet paper, but straight shooting deal-maker. It annoyed me that he did that theatrical piece, because he already forgave those damages.

As narrative, it's meant for you to wind up with some reward, but not incentive to retire, so you take your 100k and all your learnings and continue running the shadows, THE END.

Since the story ended there anyway, would have preferred the payout. I also think Telestrian wouldn't risk shaking a hornets nest when it's "only money" and he has great enormous steaming piles of the stuff. He would want the shadowrunner to stay amicable (at least temporarily until he can be killed without the attempt coming back on Telestrian), because of the family secret he wants "kept in the shadows" and also recognising that with a small team the goon executed a major attack on his holdings.

OK, that's issue 1 - sorry, pedantic I know.

Issue two is the Dead Man's Switch fake-out.

My problem with this is just that .. well, checking credibility and credentials is the very first thing you'd do in that life. In the first communication where you've got Sam's dodgy bar-chum pretending to be a lawyer, it would be such a simple and easy step to chase down those credentials to check legitimacy. "What ? Bolster Bolster & Twitpants" doesnt exist ? or it exists but they've never heard of this guy ? Or it exists and the guy is a partner, but this photo on record doesnt match the person I saw on the vid-screen ? (even a quick call to the firm the following day might help establish bona-fides).

Just hard for me to accept that someone who lives that furtive and careful life would be so easily scammed.

But yeah, the game played a lot like a table-top roleplaying game (I only tried Shadowrun once, we didnt really like it .. too hard to describe the hacking aspect .. "ahead you see a dangerous looking ICE, what do you do ? er .. melt it !" .. but hey, that was 1998 or so --- the visualisations of the matrix in game are very good).

[Static]

The grand irony is that, despite (or in addition to) the issue with Telestrian's payout sum, the fact that at the endgame of DMS you get zero chance to even spend the (lesser sum) of money you do receive before the credits roll and the game is over. The counter-argument of it being more about the adventure than the sum is just wool over the eyes, imho-- long story short, I'd agreed with you on both points. Cheers.

[Cloud 13XX13]

I thought the game was well done, on average, but I can certainly agree with you, depending on how you make your character. I just finished Dead Man's Switch with my Elven Decker, highly specialized with an Intelligence of 9, a Charisma of 6, and Ettiquite proficiencies in Corporate, Security, and Shadowrunner languages. It seems difficult to believe that I was duped. However, I also chose to play the game as a character that was legit friends with Sam Watts who got caught up in the action and decided to keep going for reasons beyond the money, and perhaps even more important that Sam. The ending does in this way make the story feel real, and end well, but I agree, it does not work for every scenario or every character type. I enjoyed the game for the pure nostagic value of the whole experience, as I also played the table top a couple of times, and played the super nintendo version of Shadowrun to death, and this felt like a great throwback to that game, with a interesting storyline and a decent character development skill tree, though I felt that the charisma statistic was weak and underused in the game.

[Captain Australia]

Yeah, looks like Dragonfall has a much richer use of stats, enjoying it so far.

I seem to remember playing a Shadowrun game on the Commodore Amiga .. you can imagine the graphics .. we're talking .. dunno, 1990 ? The deckers carried around keyboards that looked a lot like Commodore Amigas, from memory...

[steelcoresoviet]

Okay, so.

At the time you meet Mr. T, he is smarting from 2 successful shadowruns, as well as having his heir kidnapped some days prior.

The conversation he has with you is initially whether he intends to let you survive.
He does, because you were only responsible for one of those runs, and helped Mary-Louise out with the other matter. He agrees not to kill you. What he doesn't do is forgive your debt.

Updating security, replacing turrets, paying out death benefits all cost money, and guess who gets stuck with the bill?

Such is life in the shadows...

[Captain Australia]

Originally posted by Steelcoresoviet:

What he doesn't do is forgive your debt.

Mate, I'm not making it up, unless you can excerpt for me the conversation with Telestrian and show me that I'm wrong, he certainly did make a very clear remark about being square.

At the start he suggests that you're on the hook for years or servitude (if he even permits you to live), for all of the damage that you did to his property.

The conversation continues, revelation here, revelation there, and then yes, at somse point his daughter comes in and says something like "oh it's you ! I'm so glad you're alive!"

I don't remember the exact words, but he says, something very much like: you destroyed millions in my company assets, but you did save my daughter's life - that makes us even. (And he registers suprise that Baron is the one that connected everybody via the matrix, I was disappointed that we didnt learn more about him, actually, he mentioned the 'cripple boy' or something like that ... was his name Harkeem ?).

Basically when his daughter comes in and recognises you as her rescuer, he says something like "thank you for confirming this is the guy who saved you - you have given me reason to forgive his trespasses against me"

The fact that he forgave the debt is further reinforced when you get to remark on your own motivations for taking the 'save the world' mission .. can't remember exactly again, but you get to say "look, I take a job, I get paid", or "chiz, chance to save the world" .. stuff like that.

Anyway, I didn't make the OP up. It's possible that he doesn't overtly state "I forgive your debt created by destroying my corporate property" .. but if not overtly stated, it's really heavily implied.

Anyway the implication was strong enough that when you get screwed for the money at the end of the game, it felt like a gaff to me and was annoying (not only because he forgave you, but also because it genuinely does seem counter to his interests to screw you over at that point - killing you would be fine eventually, but better to let you walk away with a trifling sum thinking its over, and kill you later)

Show me I'm a muddled idiot with an excerpt ?

[steelcoresoviet]

He doesn't screw you over. Not only does he not kill you to keep you quiet, but you leave with 15,000 nuyen, an astronomical sum for a single runner. And JT3 does you a favor, to include, but not limited to, more nuyen.

"but if not overtly stated, it's really heavily implied."
Did you get it in writing?
If not, you've just recieved a lesson about how the corporations treat their minions,
and it's anything but accidental.

[Captain Australia]

I get where you're coming from ... still not sure I'm with you though, mate.

It just felt contrived to me .. like if you're playing an old school pen & paper role-playing-game, it's 2am, everyone's a bit tired, and the GM uses a bit of the old deus ex machina to tie up some loose ends and give the story a bit of closure.

Just struggled a little with that character, his actions and underlying motivations, and the way the ending tied together..

To parallel it, in Dragonfall, the characters are, for the most part, wonderfully written. (I've not completed the game yet, so havent tasted it all, but your team especially are all very well put together). Personally, I especially like Dietrich, the punk rocker turned Shaman, but they're all really good.

[steelcoresoviet]

Originally posted by Captain Australia:

I get where you're coming from ... still not sure I'm with you though, mate.

It just felt contrived to me .. like if you're playing an old school pen & paper role-playing-game, it's 2am, everyone's a bit tired, and the GM uses a bit of the old deus ex machina to tie up some loose ends and give the story a bit of closure.

Just struggled a little with that character, his actions and underlying motivations, and the way the ending tied together..

To parallel it, in Dragonfall, the characters are, for the most part, wonderfully written. (I've not completed the game yet, so havent tasted it all, but your team especially are all very well put together). Personally, I especially like Dietrich, the punk rocker turned Shaman, but they're all really good.

Well, fair enough. I'm just a guy with an opinion. Disagreement isn't anything unheard of.
I get where you're coming from, too.

What a lot of people DIDN'T get that DMS is supposed to be very noir, so even if you win, the fabled payout doesn't arrive. And Sam's avenged... but still gone.

And also, unless you take the save the barrens boon from JT3, you're the same as him... you sold short the people who helped you out . Happy endings are sometimes elusive in SR.

[Sneaking Away Slowly]

Could of run an elf and took a job as VP of Security for JT3 since there was an opening. I figured my character would get paid more by the company eventually than what JT3 had in his pocket at the time DMS ended.

[Captain Australia]

I reckon becoming a wage slave is probably the antithesis of what the life of a Shadowrunner is all about.

And wouldn't the amount in thingamabob's pocket be something in the neighbourhood of 25,000,000Y on any given day ?

[////]

Originally posted by Captain Australia:

I reckon becoming a wage slave is probably the antithesis of what the life of a Shadowrunner is all about.

you ended up with some fat fat contacts. i think, that's what really important. it's up to your imagination what happens next. you now can go back to your stinking apartment and wait for another dead man's switch to trigger somewhere. :P maybe it's not a gripe about the ending, but readiness for a new adventure? ;P

[Captain Australia]

Maybe so.

Have to say, Dragonfall is fantastic.

The nearest parallel that springs to mind is ... er ...

"Dragonfall" is to "Dead Man's Switch"
... as ....
"The Lord of the Rings" is to "The Hobbit"

Talking about the books not the movies :/

(Meaning a grand work next to something that is lesser but still quite good)

If you liked that, you can get more from nerd analogies dot com.

[Butthead]

I liked both Dragonfall and Return but after ending both in a short time (pretty much junked 8 hours a day through several days, that alone tells you how much I liked them) I realy liked Dragonfall so much more. Not only because all game mechanics are tweaked to function and fit in better, mostly because of the main story twist of returns. I just couldnt bring myself into liking the whole bug from another plane plot.

It felt so weird and out of place even tho the first half was so fantastic. Investigate the death of your friend with the promise oto get lots of credit, even through it was very suspicous if he actually realy had the money, all somehow connected to a serial killer etc. I realy liked that. To bad it went south with weirdo bugs.

Anyways now on to community content and see if I can find some decent fan made stuff.Any recommendation? :)

[Captain Australia]

Hey - I've finished both campaigns, and found some fan made modules that look quality.

One is Shadorun Unlimited - basically a sandbox version with 30 or more runs that you can pick up randomly. You have rep with organisations like lone star and your fixers .. it sounds good.

There's another one .. disremember the name .. Penumbra Saga or something like that .. played a little bit and also looks good .. better than DMS in my opinion.

Just look at community content and pick highest rated all time.