I apologize in advance if this post comes across as brash but I just endured 15 minutes of waiting for the page to load and I'm VERY tired of that. With all the money CGL makes from this game you'd think they would care enough to upgrade the forums, it's PATHETIC.
With that said, let me ask you this, Carmody. Do you actually read all the short stories and fluff over and over in Run and Gun? I know I don't. I read them the first time and never again, after the initial read all they are is clutter that I don't want. I use Run and Gun now only for looking at gear. On top of that glaring issue I find it annoying that each new book adds more rules to a game already heavily bogged down by rules. The game is overly complex for no good reason and piling on more pointless rules just feels like more filler. Yeah, that's just my opinion, but it bothers me. These books should be resources for character creation and npc design, not a bunch of short stories, jack pointers eating up half the book with their conversations, and tons of pointless rules.
I find character creation frustrating. First I need to look at the core book, then run and gun, then run faster, then rigger 5, then chrome flesh, then hard targets, all that just to make a street samurai, arguably the most basic archetype in the game. 6 books to make a simple character, that is ridiculous and feels like it's only this way so CGL can force me to buy lots of books, it does not feel like they're trying to write the books to give me a good value or experience, it feels greedy. When you need to look at 6 rules options books to make a character the company has failed. On top of that every damn book is riddled with errors and it turns 5th edition into a constant internet scouring frustration. I've spent so many hours on the internet trying to find out how the rules work because the books are published in an extremely poor manner. It just feels like bullshit. You charge $40 or $50 per book and you can't even make one of them without forcing customers to hunt for clariifaction on how things are supposed to work. And you know why that sucks? Because we need to wait for errata for a lot of different books, and that takes YEARS. If the character options were condensed into 1 or 2, maybe 3 books, we'd have all the errata by now. I mean seriously, the whole point of buying a hardcopy book is so you don't need to go on the internet, but that just isn't possible.
Look at dungeons and dragons 5th edition, they're doing the opposite. They produce less books and they're higher quality. When you buy the monster manual it doesn't have 30 pages of short stories and another 45 pages of Drizzt talking to Elminster and a bunch of other people. I open the book, find the monsters I need, and I'm good to go. That's how shadowrun books should be, packed with as much character creation tools as possible. I'm a damn good customer, I buy a LOT of shadowrun products, but I'm also disgruntled because I feel like I'm being screwed around. Seriously, these short stories, while great, are pointless to include in such books. Everything in a character option book should be usable forever, short stories are read once or twice and then they just bog down the book and make it harder to find what I'm looking for.
Anyway, I think I've made my point. Make the books focused, let me buy what I want and don't make me pay for products that are infested with errors.You print 60 novels, I'll buy all of them guaranteed, I don't even read the teasers. I play Anarchy now, it's more fun and it just feels superior, but I still need to buy new books and convert things, I just want those things to be in a neat package. Sorry if this is overly aggressive but I think a lot of us are tired of the poor editing and these ancient and pathetic forums. Get your shit together, please! And despite my harsh criticisms I love this game and I love and appreciate all the writers.