Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Shadowhack on <10-13-19/1129:16>
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I asked him on his Facebook page why he or members of his team don't come out more to defend the game. This was his response....
The main reasons I don't speak out are:
1) Internet kerfluffles are not always as large as they seem. Each internet channel--Reddit, forums, Facebook, Twitter--have their own constituencies, and none of them, as far as I have been able to tell, represent the player base at large. So it's not great for me to assume that because one channel, or many, have gone negative that I absolutely need to do something about it.
2) Even if I did do something about it, arguing about a creative work where people can form their own opinions rarely leads anywhere good. People are seldom talked into liking something they don't like, and arguments with the more vitriolic detractors don't go anywhere. The work, flawed as it might be, has to stand for itself. So we issued errata to make it as easy as possible for people to play the game. But directly engaging the critics tends to be time-consuming and mire people in a discussion that goes nowhere.
I have one book at the printers, another about to go on sale electronically, a third close to going to print, and another I need to try to get to print in just over a month. I trust players to decide for themselves whether they like them or not, and I have my hands full getting them out!
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Personally, I don't think anyone needs to "defend" anything.
What I do wish they would do is engage with the community more. The complete radio silence, at least officially, from Catalyst is, to me, not a good sign. Even a simple statement from official channels on these forums (pinned threads exist for a reason) along the lines of "Hey, we are working on errata, stay tuned" followed up by a weekly one-liner like "Yep, still working away on this" would go a long way in building goodwill and showing players that they are actively trying to improve, I think.
Banshee is, for lack of a better term, a shining light in the darkness that is the silence from Catalyst when it comes to engaging the player base, in that he regularly answers questions and clarifies what the intent behind certain rules were when they were written.
I don't need Catalyst to "defend" their works. I need them to show that they are listening to constructive feedback (and no, that does not include listening to people saying "YOU SUCK!") and providing timely errata and FAQ/Designer's Notes documents. They've put out one Errata document that resolved some of the issues with the CRB; they have a long way to go before I consider buying any 6th Edition books, personally, and just focusing on releasing new books is not the way to go. While I get that they are a business and they (and their writers) only get paid when they sell product, I also have to consider what I want to spend my money on based on the quality of the products that have already been released.
All that being said, once the next set of Errata is released, or if they release an FAQ before that (unlikely as it seems), I'll re-evaluate what I personally think of the quality of their product. If they just keep releasing new books without focusing on Errata for the existing one, well, then I have my own answer at least.
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If wishes were fishes and we all swam in riches: I'd like to see an errata process here similar to the BattleTech side of CGL where rules questions can be asked and formally answered, to include formal errata being issued along with that answer as necessary, right here on the forum.
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If wishes were fishes and we all swam in riches: I'd like to see an errata process here similar to the BattleTech side of CGL where rules questions can be asked and formally answered, to include formal errata being issued along with that answer as necessary, right here on the forum.
Heh, I like that. I'm partial to "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd have Christmas every day".
But yeah, Battletech is a great example of a developer actively engaging with the community. I've mentioned it in other threads, but Games Workshop in the recent couple of years really turned themselves around too, and are now releasing frequent errata documents per faction in the game, as well as two annual Big FAQ documents and an annual "Chapter Approved" document which is basically a super-compilation of core rules changes and points adjustments.
If Catalyst was able to approach the Battletech side for Shadowrun engagement I think that would be an incredible boost to the line as a whole.
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If wishes were fishes and we all swam in riches: I'd like to see an errata process here similar to the BattleTech side of CGL where rules questions can be asked and formally answered, to include formal errata being issued along with that answer as necessary, right here on the forum.
I’ve been advocating for this since before we got the errata team going. So @4 years? After many years it became apparent it Ain’t gonna happen because Randall bills could give two shits about shadowrun.
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@adzling
I'm going to call you out on that. There's no reason for that kind of language, man...
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If wishes were fishes and we all swam in riches: I'd like to see an errata process here similar to the BattleTech side of CGL where rules questions can be asked and formally answered, to include formal errata being issued along with that answer as necessary, right here on the forum.
I’ve been advocating for this since before we got the errata team going. So @4 years? After many years it became apparent it Ain’t gonna happen because Randall bills could give two shits about shadowrun.
It probably has something to do with the different nature of RPGs from Board Games. Discrete, binary answers are much easier to come up with for board games where GMs aren't expected to have to use common sense to adjudicate things. That's an implicit assumption in RPGs. And the kinds of rules questions that RPGs generate can be more fuzzy in nature than those for a GM-less board game.
But that being said, yes we both would like to see the same thing.
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@adzling
I'm going to call you out on that. There's no reason for that kind of language, man...
If only you knew my man, if only you knew.
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This is my opinion on 6th edition. It is only an opinion.
I can understand the viewpoint of needing to allow people to form their own opinions on the work presented and not engaging on venues like social media platforms. However, I am firmly of the opinion that whoever is producing a product, regardless of the nature of that product, must learn to match consumer demands. I find this to be particularly true of RPG's, where there are a large number of alternative RPG products available in the market. Complicating that issue even more is the fact that players and GMs can home brew rules to match their desired game.
Defending their work may be a difficult thing for the producers of 6th edition to do, for any number of reasons. At the end of the day, however, they are in the business of selling books and gaming materials. If they are unwilling to address the issues that are being brought up by unhappy consumers of their product, then they will have to deal with the consequences. Perhaps there won't be any, maybe as they continue to pump out materials the criticism will slow or stop.
My personal opinion of the situation is that they were forced to push out an inferior product in an attempt to earn a profit. I don't believe that the tactic they are using, which is essentially the same profit they seemed to be using for 5th edition, will be successful. It is highly dependent on purchasing additional materials to address the issues with the initial printing and with the current costs associated with that, no only in terms of monetary value but also needing to read, absorb, and implement the additional content, I believe that they will not see a successful implementation.
Speaking for my group, we are declining to purchase any 6th edition materials and are home brewing our own Shadowrun system. We love the game setting and wish to continue to play it, but don't believe it is necessary to spend hundreds of dollars on purchasing new books and materials until some of the underlying fundamental issues with the game are addressed by the game producers.
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After reading his answer, I get his reasons behind it.
They have already released the product, it out there for people to like or hate. Trying to defend - heck, even engage about- the product, especially in this day and age, just invites more abuse.
No matter what he said, you know everyone else would just get inflamed that this wasn't addressed, or that wasn't fixed, or they used the wrong color, or how dare they release a hard cover book with sharp edges...
Look, i'll say it first: I have yet to even read a single official page of 6e yet.. I just don't have the time right now.
AND: I have no doubt at all that there is probably 10,000 and 1 things in the book that could have been done better. And (once I block out a lot of screeching here on the forums) I also see a lot of things they did do better... maybe things are moving in the right direction? Maybe not?
I'll give you all the same advice I give anyone else. Get off your ass, GO to the store, Pick up a physical copy, and READ some of it. You should know after 10 pages if you can handle the grammar, editing and spelling errors. As to rules working... well... that will depend on you I'm afraid. Some people just need a general feel for the rules to play, Some need the rules engraved in stone before they can.
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...or they used the wrong color, or how dare they release a hard cover book with sharp edges...
...(once I block out a lot of screeching here on the forums)...
... As to rules working... well... that will depend on you I'm afraid. Some people just need a general feel for the rules to play, Some need the rules engraved in stone before they can.
This is unfairly and rudely dismissive. A lot of people, not least of which our own Lormyr, have put serious effort into long, detailed dissections of 6e. They've taken it apart and calmly, carefully, and patiently explained the issues they've found lurking. To characterise this as "screeching" is completely unwarranted.
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CGL has been burned before with Shadowrun when a publicized release date fell through. I'm guessing that plays a big role in them always keeping their cards close to their chest: Unless they have it at hand and know when they're going to release it, they're not giving out details.
That said, I think a monthly errata-news thingy would be useful.
As for on-forum Q&A: We had that with SR5, it fell through and I still extremely disagree with some of the answers. So YMMV.
Reaver does bring up a good point, which I tend to forget: Parsing rules can be tough for some. Just like math and memorisation can be, which is why I like some of the 6w changes: making it easier to play for those. For rule parsing, I really hope for a FAQ within half a year.
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Reaver does bring up a good point, which I tend to forget: Parsing rules can be tough for some.
Did you just suggest that the people who dislike 6e are merely too stupid to understand it correctly?
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Reaver does bring up a good point, which I tend to forget: Parsing rules can be tough for some.
Did you just suggest that the people who dislike 6e are merely too stupid to understand it correctly?
Oh, yes, the screeching characterization was completely unwarranted... ::)
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So basically the response was.
They don't represent the fanbase, so I don't care what they think.
And I don't need to explain why we made the chooses we made, I'm to busy making money.
Then they wonder why they are losing respect within the fanbase.
I get that the new game was not made for me, and my players.
Truth be told I am most likely going to move back to 3rd if I ever start playing again, currently playing Wrath & Glory (WH40k RPG).
But to blow off any amount of players like that is not cool.
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This is my opinion on 6th edition. It is only an opinion.
1. However, I am firmly of the opinion that whoever is producing a product, regardless of the nature of that product, must learn to match consumer demands. I find this to be particularly true of RPG's, where there are a large number of alternative RPG products available in the market. Complicating that issue even more is the fact that players and GMs can home brew rules to match their desired game.
2. My personal opinion of the situation is that they were forced to push out an inferior product in an attempt to earn a profit.
3. I don't believe that the tactic they are using ... will be successful. It is highly dependent on purchasing additional materials to address the issues with the initial printing and with the current costs associated with that, no only in terms of monetary value but also needing to read, absorb, and implement the additional content, I believe that they will not see a successful implementation.
4. We love the game setting and wish to continue to play it, but don't believe it is necessary to spend hundreds of dollars on purchasing new books and materials until some of the underlying fundamental issues with the game are addressed by the game producers.
Hey Kato, nice food for thought. Following post is not to assault your opinion, just to provide a different perspective.
1. Complete market orientation can be harmful for the company. The larger consumer base the company has, the more problematic is to adjust product development to cater for everyone. In an extreme case, the product could be so skewed from all the various perspectives of customers, that in fact no customers will enjoy it. Also attempting to cater for all the customer base can lead to overload of feedback data which can cause paralysis by analysis. Thus the company might not get anywhere in their attempt to adjust the product towards all their customers.
2. I agree that it seems that the company was under pressure to release the new edition, but I wouldn't suspect only profit driven decision. From what it is stated, 6th edition is a 30th anniversary release, If I am not mistaken, anniversary editions have been done before by Shadowrun developers. The factor of time can often be neglected in product launch. Being at the market in the right time can have significant influence towards overall marketing strategy. Usually there isn't single factor responsible for a business decision, but a complex interrelated networks of influential factors.
3. I have all 3 current SR6 materials, errata pdf of Core Rule Book, Neo-Anarchist Streepedia and No Future. Non of the additional materials are necessary to play Shadowrun besides the CRB. These additional materials are extremely rule light, 90 % if not more is setting information which demands very little mechanical implementation. The main content of additional material so far are plot hooks, idea generation, setting immersion and depth, overall enhancing the role-play part of Shadowrun rather than crunch. Rigger book was announced, so mechanical expansions are to come, we will see how it goes.
4. As I mentioned in number 3, Core Rule book is what is necessary. You also stated yourself that people home brew their own editions, Shadowrun hacks based on different mechanical base are also circulating around the Matrix. However it is not necessary to spend hundreds of USD, I spend 60 bucks for 3 books. Divided by the number of players in a group, the relative weight of monetary expense is quite low.
In general, quite interesting marketing research was published in a book by Byron Sharp, called How Brands Grow. In order for a company to grow, the company has to sell more products to larger amounts of people, which in this case are new players. In addition, customers are natural switchers, playing different systems, home brewing and what not. Long standing customers tend to pick their favourites and seldom provide substantial revenue stream.
If we look at what Sixth Edition is doing, it is cutting of length, cutting of crunch, sacrificing simulation and heavy dice rolling for role play and speed. The two additional books are complementary towards this idea, as they provide less rules and more setting favouring new players.
I understand that CGL is applying Radio Silence, just going into discussions here on the forum can be quite fruitless, mentally draining and yielding no value in the end, rather creating more pressure. In addition, once something is on the internet it can spiral out of control and context extremely fast, creating harm instead of intended help and good customer service. All in all I feel that CGL at their drawing board was like: old school players will be pissed at us, sorry dudes, but if we want to keep the game going, we need to make changes and attract new players. You probably won't be happy, but you are happy with previous editions and you would be playing those anyway.
Final comment, I am not affiliated with the company, I am a Marketing student and I work for a company which is doing a lot of R&D and new product launches. Again Kato, by no means I mean this as a dismiss of your opinion, it simply sparked my thinking and I wanted to contribute with my perspective.
Cheers
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Reaver does bring up a good point, which I tend to forget: Parsing rules can be tough for some.
Did you just suggest that the people who dislike 6e are merely too stupid to understand it correctly?
Oh, yes, the screeching characterization was completely unwarranted... ::)
I believe penllawen needs to stop using Cram while on the forum, due to suffering from the side-effects.
Reaver said the following: "Some people just need a general feel for the rules to play, Some need the rules engraved in stone before they can." And that made me realise that I too often go 'well this is obvious, understandable and easy to handle', without realising not everyone will manage to parse several disjoint phrases together to come to how things work. Which is why I noted a FAQ is a very good idea: What is obvious for some, will not at all be for others.
I'd say the act of interpreting my words as claiming criticasters are 'too stupid to understand 6w', actually proves my point that indeed we too easily forget some people need things spelled out in more detail to be able to grasp what truly is meant. Because I cannot see any way anyone would get that from my post, especially given the FAQ statement, yet someone still failed to grasp my intent and jumped to a really strange conclusion. As such, evidence that we really can use a FAQ.
Speaking of FAQ, a personal one:
Q: "Did you just suggest that the people who dislike 6e are merely too stupid to understand it correctly?"
A: "No. I said nothing about whether people like or dislike 6w. Just that I too easily forget not everyone is skilled at rule-parsing, which I should keep in mind. Also that is why I believe a FAQ really should pop up, in other words what I meant is that I believe errata do not suffice since there are some things not everyone is capable of parsing out of the CRB."
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This is my opinion on 6th edition. It is only an opinion.
1. However, I am firmly of the opinion that whoever is producing a product, regardless of the nature of that product, must learn to match consumer demands. I find this to be particularly true of RPG's, where there are a large number of alternative RPG products available in the market. Complicating that issue even more is the fact that players and GMs can home brew rules to match their desired game.
1. Complete market orientation can be harmful for the company. The larger consumer base the company has, the more problematic is to adjust product development to cater for everyone. In an extreme case, the product could be so skewed from all the various perspectives of customers, that in fact no customers will enjoy it. Also attempting to cater for all the customer base can lead to overload of feedback data which can cause paralysis by analysis. Thus the company might not get anywhere in their attempt to adjust the product towards all their customers.
I agree that a company should have some clear definitions of their primary customer segments. Wasting to much energy on secondary or tertiary segment Will risk loosing their primary segment. THAT said their Main issue is a quality issue. Bad editing, contradicting rules etc. No primary segment prefers that, so it wouldnt hurt them putting some energy in that area.
Edge, armour, fixed melee dmg, minor/major actions those are All subjective qualities, meaning various customer groups have different preferences. (I for instance like the ones Ive listed, except fixed melee dmg) In that area I think you are correct in your assessment. But no primary segment gets catered to if you put in more errors.
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Reaver does bring up a good point, which I tend to forget: Parsing rules can be tough for some.
Did you just suggest that the people who dislike 6e are merely too stupid to understand it correctly?
Oh, yes, the screeching characterization was completely unwarranted... ::)
I believe penllawen needs to stop using Cram while on the forum, due to suffering from the side-effects.
Reaver said the following: "Some people just need a general feel for the rules to play, Some need the rules engraved in stone before they can." And that made me realise that I too often go 'well this is obvious, understandable and easy to handle', without realising not everyone will manage to parse several disjoint phrases together to come to how things work. Which is why I noted a FAQ is a very good idea: What is obvious for some, will not at all be for others.
I'd say the act of interpreting my words as claiming criticasters are 'too stupid to understand 6w', actually proves my point that indeed we too easily forget some people need things spelled out in more detail to be able to grasp what truly is meant. Because I cannot see any way anyone would get that from my post, especially given the FAQ statement, yet someone still failed to grasp my intent and jumped to a really strange conclusion. As such, evidence that we really can use a FAQ.
Speaking of FAQ, a personal one:
Q: "Did you just suggest that the people who dislike 6e are merely too stupid to understand it correctly?"
A: "No. I said nothing about whether people like or dislike 6w. Just that I too easily forget not everyone is skilled at rule-parsing, which I should keep in mind. Also that is why I believe a FAQ really should pop up, in other words what I meant is that I believe errata do not suffice since there are some things not everyone is capable of parsing out of the CRB."
For what it's worth, I didn't read that in what you said either. As a matter of fact, it's a very "I understand something that may have slipped my mind in earlier things" type of statement.
As for Mr. Hardy's statement, at least he said something. You can agree or disagree with what he said, but he did respond and mentioned why you probably not hear future responses. He responded to something, you got what you wanted (for those that wanted it), now you can start complaining it's not how you wanted it, but that's a different gripe.
As for the whole SR6 thing in general, I'm staying a lurker mostly. Partially due to me not playing/running 6E and partially due to forum hypocrisy. You can have threads that praise things based on nothing but opinion, but mention something negative based on intelligent analysis and you have committed an atrocity. It's like someone is't allowed to voice an honest opinion if it doesn't tow the party line.
For those that like 6E, I hope you enjoy, for those that don't I hope you find something that you do. Peace
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Reaver does bring up a good point, which I tend to forget: Parsing rules can be tough for some.
Did you just suggest that the people who dislike 6e are merely too stupid to understand it correctly?
While I disagree with Michael and SSDR about allot on 6E this seem to me to be deliberately trying to start an argument.
Fact, some people have trouble with math. That statement does not in any way say someone is too stupid to do math.
I have an easy time with crunchy systems however I have a few friends with proven higher IQ's than me have issues with exactly those.
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I wasn't sure how I felt about this for awhile. Given that Jason Hardy is both the sole point of contact for PR (Unless you expect freelancers to promote the product for free), and that he is also lead developer, I think his stance is rational based on time available. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure he's the only one who manages the Facebook page and other lines of communication for Shadowrun. However, a company that does not look at consumer feedback is doomed for failure.
If it was just Jason hardy and a bunch of freelancers, then the stance on focusing on making the next product good makes sense. My criticism there would be that it's better to slow down and spend more time on each product's quality rather than rushing them out the door as quickly as possible. Especially with tabletop RPGs, it's not like the core of your consumers are going anywhere if you don't do a complete system update every 5-6 years, and nobody can reasonably expect 2-3 splatbooks or more each year from indie press. However, comma, CGL doesn't really qualify as indie press. Shadowrun might be staffed like it, but CGL is not putting sufficient resources into it.
This makes sense as a from a short-term business perspective: the core of the consumer base isn't going anywhere. Create products that fit the minimum standards of that core base and distribute as quickly as possible for maximum profit. In the short term, it doesn't make sense to spend more money improving the quality of the book if it will not increase the number of sales. It's the double-edge of a niche consumer base: you're unlikely to lose a large amount of your base, but you're unlikely to gain a large amount of people, either.
There are two things that might've improved the quality of the book: more rounds of editing, and more playtesting. (Warning: Terrible math ahead. The short answer is that it doesn't make financial sense for CGL to improve the quality of SR in the short-term, and without any sort of creative or ambitious motivator, they won't take the risks to produce a better quality product and make more money in the long-term.)
A lot of the "change blindness" would require a developmental editor. Typos and grammatical errors can be fixed by any proofreader with a basic glossary of game terminology. I checked a few sites for rates on editors- I may be off, since most of them were for novel editors. I also ignored a lot of the per-page rates, since game books have bigger pages. Developmental editors were 2.5 to 9 cents/word and proofreaders were 1 to 2 cents/word. A quick word count on my copy of 6e puts us at about 202,000 words (Give or take some, I just C+V'ed my PDF copy into word for the word count, it might've grabbed page numbers). Ignoring the time factor, this puts us at about $5,050 to $18,180 for one pass from the developmental editor, and $2,020 to $4,040 for a pass from the proofreader. Just going by ebook sales, if they're making 65% profit off of their DTRPG number, then they'll get $13 per copy sold. Based on costs of shipping and markup, this is probably pretty close to what they make for their hard copies, but I'm unsure about that so I'm not going to speculate there.
So then the question is: Would another round of proofreading bring in another 155 - 310 sales? Would a round of developmental editing bring in another 388 - 1,398 sales? An editor at 9 cents/word seems on the high end for the TTRPG industry, but keep in mind that you will get what you pay for. A well-edited book would have alleviated a lot of the concerns people have with the edition, that's true. But there are other issues that editing wouldn't solve- namely, new game mechanics and weaknesses in those new mechanics.
This is where additional playtesting would come in. This is very much a time-based thing, and would have to be handled in-house by developers. Let's say that CGL an intern handle communication and any setup (Paid, hopefully- but likely at $7.25/hour), and also has Jason Hardy involved- it doesn't make sense to do playtesting if you don't have any decision makers involved whatsoever. For now, I'm not going to factor in Mr. Hardy's salary because he's also busy being lead developer, PR manager, and Facebook manager due to staffing issues with CGL. I'm going to assume playtesters are volunteers or perhaps unpaid interns that the paid intern lords over.
For good playtesting, you can't just send the quickstart rules and a survey. This worked with DND Next because it was an "open" playtest and they had a ton of playtesters. You can also bet they did some closed playtesting, too. For this playtesting, someone needs to observe and take notes. I'm assuming the best possible scenario where they're only looking at one table at a time, so that they don't miss things.
Each session is going to be maybe four hours, maybe shorter depending on what's being tested. This is maybe 30 minutes of setup/prep at the beginning, a 3 hour session (interspersed with pauses for questions/clarification as needed), and then 30 minutes discussion at the end. It's also 4 hours in my example because then I can say this intern does 2 of these per day, meaning 10 in a week. Ignoring any basic costs for renting space for the playtest (Or maybe have it over skype), this ends up costing CGL $290 for 10 playtests, or $29/playtest. 10 playtests also costs them a week of time, plus whatever time is needed to implement changes. Although this is likely inaccurate, let's say that each playtest comes up with, on average, 333 words that need to be rewritten. Why? Because CGL likely pays 3 cents/word and $10 is easy to add. This is likely an overestimate, but keep in mind the new words will also need to be proofed and edited. So the total cost of each playtest comes up to $39.
Let's do this for 10 weeks- we get 100 playtests in, at a cost of $3,900. To recoup this, CGL must sell 300 copies, and delay release by 10 weeks. There are more efficient ways of playtesting, in a shorter amount of time, but I don't think the quality would improve unless you put more people on it or spend more time on the rewrite. Would 100 additional playtests improve the quality of the book enough so that 300 additional people would buy it?
Now, this number is even more uncertain than the editing one: I have no idea how CGL runs playtests, their effectiveness, overall cost per playtest, etc.
So, based on my shit-tier math we would need to spend $26,120 to fix the rules weaknesses, change blindness, typos, and other editing issues. This would require another 2,009 sales to break even. This is only a portion of their sales, but SR6We is currently sitting in the "platinum" tier (1,000 - 2,000 sales) on DTRPG. I don't have a way of finding SR 6We's total sales across all platforms, but I'm guessing it's at least 5,000 - 10,000 total. Either way, this would require a sizable increase in their customer base. So in the short-term, it's better to stick to the minimum basic requirements needed to maintain the core customer base.
HOWEVER, comma, there are long-term issues with only doing the minimum. Although it's unlikely that the core customer base for Shadowrun products will disappear completely, it's entirely possible that core consumers will stick to the editions they already have, go to older versions, or jump ship completely. If players stick to what they already have, then it's a loss for CGL. If they go to older versions, then if CGL controls those versions (IE, 5e), then CGL will not lose money, but it won't improve 6w's sales, either, and will hurt them in the long run... Nobody's going to purchase the 6w Rigger book if they don't have the 6e CRB. It's also possible that they're hard cover fans, and will buy used books on the cheap rather than get the print-on-demand stuff. And if they jump ship, CGL sees none of that. It's hard to get back a consumer base without significant improvements- dumpshock is very small at this point, but there's more than a few groups of SR players who stopped purchasing new editions after 4e, WAR! or 5e came out. It's true that CGL can't take credit for all of that, and that in other TTRPGs there are groups that still stick to the original systems put out in the 80s and 90s. But I think SR has a larger crowd doing this than most.
I don't think 6wE will cause CGL or the Shadowrun brand to fold, or close up shop. Even if it starts making less money, that just means CGL puts less money into it. It might revert back to Topps after 5-10 years of decline, until some other sucker tries to pick it up and make a new edition. But in the meantime, it means that the SR community will shrink, and there will be even more loss of freelancers, writers, and editors with a solid knowledge of the IP. SR 8e created by the Whatevername LLC will not be the same product.
But, I'm keeping up my optimism on the unpaid errata team producing more errata, which is doing the job that pays thousands of dollars for free.
And let's look at the other side of things: Let's say that CGL did drop 26 grand onto 6e. The delayed release may have hurt them a little on the marketing side, but I don't think it'd be too much. CPRed left people in anticipation of the core book, which won't be out for awhile, so there may be people looking to "get their fix" from a shadowrun game in the mean time. If, say, the editing, proofing, and playtesting got 6e to the quality/popularity of the CPRed QSR, it would've put them into Adamantine Tier (5000+). Maybe less if there were more FLGS purchases/CGL site purchases, etc. Either way, that's at least 3000 additional purchases, for a sum of 39k. That's a $13,000 net profit. That's also an additional 3000 potential customers for all the splatbooks, sourcebooks, adventure modules, and what have you.
But it is a risk- if all of that either didn't improve the quality (Or improved the quality but didn't improve popularity), then CGL would be 26k down the drain. Even if my numbers above were terribly off (10k? 50k?), it's a clear risk: will putting more effort into the quality of the product increase its customers?
I had a point here, relevant to the question of customer outreach. If we go back to our paid intern, and pay them $7.25 an hour to spend 10 hours/week addressing concerns (About an hour each day, just to get the important stuff and reach out to developers as needed), then it would cost them about $3,770 per year (They're a part-timer, so no health insurance or anything to worry about). The question here is: would having a dedicated PR/Customer outreach intern bring in at least 290 additional sales each year, either on 6e or another Shadowrun product?
To sum up: Once, I was at a Wendy's during the afternoon- it wasn't too busy, but it took about 20 minutes to get my order done. Why? Because there was only one employee there, managing both the drive-thru and the register. I don't blame the employee for the store being understaffed and the meal taking too long. I agree that it's too much to have the lead developer also be the primary PR for a large product. I don't think the solution is "Jason Hardy needs to get better at his job," I think it's "CGL needs to take risks and put more resources into the Shadowrun IP if they want to grow the brand." I don't have any clear answers for the financial/business questions, but I don't have the full picture of CGL's business, either. I just wanted to put things into perspective for why I think things are the way they are with the Shadowrun brand.
Also: Is it 6We or 6w? 6we?
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This is my opinion on 6th edition. It is only an opinion.
1. However, I am firmly of the opinion that whoever is producing a product, regardless of the nature of that product, must learn to match consumer demands. I find this to be particularly true of RPG's, where there are a large number of alternative RPG products available in the market. Complicating that issue even more is the fact that players and GMs can home brew rules to match their desired game.
2. My personal opinion of the situation is that they were forced to push out an inferior product in an attempt to earn a profit.
3. I don't believe that the tactic they are using ... will be successful. It is highly dependent on purchasing additional materials to address the issues with the initial printing and with the current costs associated with that, no only in terms of monetary value but also needing to read, absorb, and implement the additional content, I believe that they will not see a successful implementation.
4. We love the game setting and wish to continue to play it, but don't believe it is necessary to spend hundreds of dollars on purchasing new books and materials until some of the underlying fundamental issues with the game are addressed by the game producers.
Hey Kato, nice food for thought. Following post is not to assault your opinion, just to provide a different perspective.
1. Complete market orientation can be harmful for the company. The larger consumer base the company has, the more problematic is to adjust product development to cater for everyone. In an extreme case, the product could be so skewed from all the various perspectives of customers, that in fact no customers will enjoy it. Also attempting to cater for all the customer base can lead to overload of feedback data which can cause paralysis by analysis. Thus the company might not get anywhere in their attempt to adjust the product towards all their customers.
2. I agree that it seems that the company was under pressure to release the new edition, but I wouldn't suspect only profit driven decision. From what it is stated, 6th edition is a 30th anniversary release, If I am not mistaken, anniversary editions have been done before by Shadowrun developers. The factor of time can often be neglected in product launch. Being at the market in the right time can have significant influence towards overall marketing strategy. Usually there isn't single factor responsible for a business decision, but a complex interrelated networks of influential factors.
3. I have all 3 current SR6 materials, errata pdf of Core Rule Book, Neo-Anarchist Streepedia and No Future. Non of the additional materials are necessary to play Shadowrun besides the CRB. These additional materials are extremely rule light, 90 % if not more is setting information which demands very little mechanical implementation. The main content of additional material so far are plot hooks, idea generation, setting immersion and depth, overall enhancing the role-play part of Shadowrun rather than crunch. Rigger book was announced, so mechanical expansions are to come, we will see how it goes.
4. As I mentioned in number 3, Core Rule book is what is necessary. You also stated yourself that people home brew their own editions, Shadowrun hacks based on different mechanical base are also circulating around the Matrix. However it is not necessary to spend hundreds of USD, I spend 60 bucks for 3 books. Divided by the number of players in a group, the relative weight of monetary expense is quite low.
In general, quite interesting marketing research was published in a book by Byron Sharp, called How Brands Grow. In order for a company to grow, the company has to sell more products to larger amounts of people, which in this case are new players. In addition, customers are natural switchers, playing different systems, home brewing and what not. Long standing customers tend to pick their favourites and seldom provide substantial revenue stream.
If we look at what Sixth Edition is doing, it is cutting of length, cutting of crunch, sacrificing simulation and heavy dice rolling for role play and speed. The two additional books are complementary towards this idea, as they provide less rules and more setting favouring new players.
I understand that CGL is applying Radio Silence, just going into discussions here on the forum can be quite fruitless, mentally draining and yielding no value in the end, rather creating more pressure. In addition, once something is on the internet it can spiral out of control and context extremely fast, creating harm instead of intended help and good customer service. All in all I feel that CGL at their drawing board was like: old school players will be pissed at us, sorry dudes, but if we want to keep the game going, we need to make changes and attract new players. You probably won't be happy, but you are happy with previous editions and you would be playing those anyway.
Final comment, I am not affiliated with the company, I am a Marketing student and I work for a company which is doing a lot of R&D and new product launches. Again Kato, by no means I mean this as a dismiss of your opinion, it simply sparked my thinking and I wanted to contribute with my perspective.
Cheers
I certainly won't take it as a dismissal. I'm more than happy to have a conversation that examines the economics behind Shadowrun and the current RPG market in general! I find it interesting how current markets forces are shaping the RPG market, for better or worse.
I am trying to find an article that I read a while ago, but I'm having trouble locating it. If I find it I will post the reference, but to summarize, it reflected on how the "original" target market for table top RPG's was aging out and that companies which still produced table top style materials were having difficulty attracting new consumers. The main reason behind this was the video game alternatives to table top RPG's. As a side note I think this is why 4th Edition D&D was created the way it was...sort of an attempt to create some of the WOW market with a table top version. At least that is always what it seemed to me when I played it.
Organic growth is certainly achieved when a company is able to sell more product to a larger market than it previously had, but I'm not sure if that is what is happening here. I feel like many many RPG's are playing a defensive strategy, just attempting to maintain market share. Shadowrun seems to be struggling to find an identity in today's market place. There was an interesting video on Youtube that had some of the writers examining the way certain things in Shadowrun are phasing out due to shifts in societal perceptions of what is considered high tech. For instance, the credstick, which may have been seen as futuristic and cool in the 80's and early 90's, is almost archaic and seen as a form of untraceable currency rather than the future of the way our currency will be handled. With that in mind, Shadowrun has always sought to be a cyberpunk/fantasy crossover with futuristic overtones. I'm just not sure it is putting image across with new players.
I think that the major problem that Shadowrun will face in the future is with the change in the way new generations will view product quality. As I'm sure you know, the generation that is moving in to fill the current consumer markets are brand insensitive. They are quality and price sensitive, which presents a problem in the manner that Catalyst is producing their printed product. I think that Catalyst needs to solve their editing issues above all. It makes the finished product look inferior and like it was rushed through production. For a market that is not necessarily married to any brand, but considers "bang for the buck", the quality issues that plague Shadowrun printed materials may prove to be a major thorn in their side.
Above all, I believe that the creators truly need to start addressing the issues being brought up by critics, even if they do not believe that those critics represent the market as a whole. There is that old saying about how a good services will be shared with additional person but a bad service will be shared with ten additional people. In my particular case, I am one of the ten people who have not been convinced to purchase any 6th edition materials. I'll admit I bought the 6th edition starter box, because it was the only product out at the time. But then I started listening to people who were playing 6th edition when the additional resources came out and the reviews were, at best, mixed. I became lukewarm in my desire to purchase additional materials due to those mixed reviews. The radio silence initiated is not helping that cause at all.
Sorry it was long winded! I rarely get to engage in the economic/business side of the RPG world. I'm usually made to due those mundane things like come up with story lines and plot hooks...you know...boring stuff haha.
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THAT said their Main issue is a quality issue. Bad editing, contradicting rules etc. No primary segment prefers that, so it wouldnt hurt them putting some energy in that area.
...those are All subjective qualities, meaning various customer groups have different preferences.
But no primary segment gets catered to if you put in more errors.
Thanks for your response. I agree with you on this 100%. We can only assume what led the company to roll out even if the game is flawed, using words of Mr. Hardy. My assumption is that similar competing products were to hit the market and CGL announced SR6 going out, so they simply had to go for it and suffer the cluster fragg.
First errata is out and folks here are gathering data for second one. Let's see where it goes. Hopefully the amount of errors decrease and the clarity will increase.
You can have threads that praise things based on nothing but opinion, but mention something negative based on intelligent analysis and you have committed an atrocity. It's like someone is't allowed to voice an honest opinion if it doesn't tow the party line.
For those that like 6E, I hope you enjoy, for those that don't I hope you find something that you do. Peace
I mean no harm sir. I just want to say that there seem to be cases where the analysis gets blown out of proportion to an extent in which people from the Demo team are (from the readers perspective) almost ignored in the discussion. I would compare it to patients ignoring the doctor, even though it might be a far fetched example. That is another side of the barricade. As Mr. Hardy said, time will show and it's up to players to decide what they like or don't.
It is an interesting thought though, to look at various communication channels (forums, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Discord ) as separate "hosts", which might not reflect the actual consumer base, because there are more lurkers running silent on the Matrix or AR vertigo folks which just don't go to such hosts and voice their opinions.
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@0B
Just wanted to say thanks for your post. Fascinating train of thought.
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@0B
Just wanted to say thanks for your post. Fascinating train of thought.
I appreciate it- I think the train hopped the track, meandered through the woods, and then remembered it was a train, though...
Still, it bothers me that there's this idea in the TTRPG industry, and writing in general, that "nobody does this to make money." It's not true- someone's making money, just not the ones creating the product.
That's why I always despise when criticism of a game system turns into criticism of the developers and writers. In game dev, you balance quality, number of features, and resources. With a crunchy system like SR, your resources of time and money are already strained, so you need a significant amount of resources if you want high quality.
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@0B
Just wanted to say thanks for your post. Fascinating train of thought.
I appreciate it- I think the train hopped the track, meandered through the woods, and then remembered it was a train, though...
Still, it bothers me that there's this idea in the TTRPG industry, and writing in general, that "nobody does this to make money." It's not true- someone's making money, just not the ones creating the product.
That's why I always despise when criticism of a game system turns into criticism of the developers and writers. In game dev, you balance quality, number of features, and resources. With a crunchy system like SR, your resources of time and money are already strained, so you need a significant amount of resources if you want high quality.
As someone who works in software development, I can tell you that this isn’t limited to just games. My life would be a lot easier if it was, believe me.
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One thing not mentioned about delays is the potential for it to cascade. A delay in getting a product ready for printing by just two weeks can potentially lead to months of delays in printing as the printer can’t just fudge their other obligations to make room for your delay. You go to the back of the line if you don’t make your production window and get printed when there is an opening for your product. This also then leads to additional potential delays in shipping as you have to wait for availability on a cargo ship. This potentially increases costs as well as fuel prices can go up and you have to warehouse the books until they can be shipped. Then, of course, you are looking at who knows how long for the books to clear Customs. It is very possible that any delay in getting to the printers meant not only missing a soft launch at GenCon but also meant a chance of missing a launch at all during the 30th Anniversary year at all. That could have been far worse than releasing a flawed product.
It’s fair to criticize some of the errors. It’s not fair to assume CGL doesn’t give a drek about the product because it was released with flaws. There’s a lot that goes into the supply chain management that most people don’t know anything about. Sometimes it really is better to release something you know needs work on time than to release far outside your best release window. Trust me, we do it with software every single day.
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I'm curious at what point he would feel a need to say something.
I mean, when the DTRPG ratings, which can only be offered by people who own the book are rapidly dropping over time and hovering around 2.5 now...
It's easy to blame toxic communities for feedback when you don't want to hear, much less admit, that a product you put out isn't up to snuff.
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I'm curious at what point he would feel a need to say something.
I mean, when the DTRPG ratings, which can only be offered by people who own the book are rapidly dropping over time and hovering around 2.5 now...
It's easy to blame toxic communities for feedback when you don't want to hear, much less admit, that a product you put out isn't up to snuff.
And yet, the sales are still going up. Weird how that is.
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After over thirty years of roelplaying, wargaming, and generally living the geek life, I've come to one iron-clad conclusion about new editions, new factions, new sequels to geeky films, or whatever...
33% of the fan base will declare the new edition to be terrible and shout that the game has been Ruined Forever!
33% of the fan base will declare the new edition to be excelled and shout that the game has been Perfected At Last!
34% of the fan base will decide that the new edition has some pro's and some con's; Mostly they just want the other two groups to Shut Up So We Can Play!
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No, it's 33%/33%/33%. You forgot 1% "Perfectly Ruined Forever At Last Shut Up So We Can Play Something Else!".
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And yet, the sales are still going up. Weird how that is.
I can only speculate, and in fairness I have no actual idea how strongly this does or does not apply to this particular case, but lots of people leap before they look. My personal experience and observations have been that this is especially endemic when it comes to the nerd (said with affection) community and buying games. I know an absolutely ludicrous amount of people that bought new games before they ever tried them or read them, many of which still sit unused on shelves.
I am confident that anyone who has extensive friends in the community would find the same upon honest reflection.
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It’s fair to criticize some of the errors. It’s not fair to assume CGL doesn’t give a drek about the product because it was released with flaws. There’s a lot that goes into the supply chain management that most people don’t know anything about. Sometimes it really is better to release something you know needs work on time than to release far outside your best release window. Trust me, we do it with software every single day.
Yeah, but you would be a little bit more carefull if you had to print out the software for distribution, right? ::)
I´ll leave it to you of it´s fair that CGL doesn´t give a drek about Shadowrun as a franchise, but it´s definetely fair to claim that they don´t don´t give a drek about the community, even before these statements. Many of the most frequently criticed problems of the previous edition - and most importantly, the horribly bad editing in general! - are not only alive and well, but even worse this time. It sometimes feels like as if most of the community feedback was used to find ways to further disimprove the game.
"What, spirits are broken? Great, let´s remove the need for binding and change the damage/soak balance in a way that makes even more invincible ;D"
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Yeah, but you would be a little bit more carefull if you had to print out the software for distribution, right? ::)
Well, seeing as I am the QA lead for a rather large platform with international use, I can tell you that my team and I work extremely hard to make sure the product is as good as it can be. Sometimes, however, you know that you absolutely have to put a release out even if there are known issues with it because business demands dictate it. I've had more than one conversation with the product owner about these known issues and that we have to put the release out and then fix the problems in the next go-around. Honestly, I don't think people who don't work in vaguely related fields can really understand what it's like and all the internal and external factors that go into the decision making process. I've got a software release this week that I'm working my hoop off to make sure everything is ready. It's almost there but there's one rather big thing that isn't ready yet. It's not critical to platform operations but, if we get it nailed down in time, will save me literally a day of work and prevent us from having to deal with an annoyed client because of how long a change takes. We can't delay the release, however, so...
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... but it´s definetely fair to claim that they don´t don´t give a drek about the community, even before these statements....
Care to tell me which community he doesn't care about?
The Reddit community?
The Twitter community?
The Facebook community?
The Forum community?
The Wiki Community?
The Flat Earth community?
Maybe you missed the point of Hardy's post. Maybe you haven't been paying attention to Social Media....
But there are LOTS of "communities" out there... And they are all little tribal fiefdoms, and NONE of them represent the total player base. But what they all have in common is that they all like their narrow little focus on one part of Shadowrun.... And rarely do these groups have a lot of overlap....
Twitter likes the social commentary of Shadowrun.. and wants all the social issues cleaned up so it works with their narrow view of the Shadowrun Social systems...
Reddit likes the crunch side of Shadowrun, and hates it when people limit or remove their "crunch" as they feel it limits their options....
Facebook loves the matrix and wants to see it stream lined even more into a narrative system with no dice used at all...
The Flat Earthers love the fact that their are magical races in SR, and want more of them... Especially a lizard race to help prove their claims that the lizard people really rule the planet....
And on it goes....
And the ONE thing they all have in common is that they will ALL whine and cry on their chosen platform WHEN or IF Hardy even mentions one of their pet topics, and they don't agree with what he said.... There is nothing he can say that will make all of the groups happy... So why bother?
IF no matter what you say is going to result in 70% of the "communties" grabbing pitchforks.. why bother saying anything at all?
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Yet the one thing that every platform, even this forum agrees on is that the editing is somehow worse than the terrible editing that plagued SR5, and has been a known and widely bitched about problem for seven years.
But nah, it's just people upset about their pet issues. ;)
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The Flat Earthers love the fact that their are magical races in SR, and want more of them... Especially a lizard race to help prove their claims that the lizard people really rule the planet....
Oh, please don't give them any ideas...
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Yet the one thing that every platform, even this forum agrees on is that the editing is somehow worse than the terrible editing that plagued SR5, and has been a known and widely bitched about problem for seven years.
But nah, it's just people upset about their pet issues. ;)
Re-read my first post...
The are, and always will be issues in SR.
I am speaking to the volume of which some do cry fowl....
Everyone demands things "for the community".... even if that is a community of one, or one million.... and with the breath of communities out there... the true number is closer to one than to one million... and when start "demanding" (as some communities have), why bother when you already know they just get more riled up (usually because you didn't drop everything to do it their way)...
And if you think I'm wrong... look at the products of many companies that caved to "community" pressure before. They have found out that community != sales.
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So your issue isn't that the game has notable, publicly called out issues, it's that people are complaining about it louder than you prefer?
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1st Edition: God, the matrix sucks! Every time it's the Decker's turn, we have to wait until the GM and the player do there one-on-one before getting back to the action!. And magic is so overpowered! How can my cybered-up samurai be knocked out by one spell!!
2nd Edition: Sure, they fixed X, but Y is still broken!!
3rd Edition: What the hell is with the Action figures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun_Duels)! They've ruined Shadowrun forever.
4th Edition: Wireless? Now anyone with a commlink can hack my cool cyberarm?? And they've totally fragged over magic by making Shamans and Hermetics use the same rules!
5th Edition: Crying out loud! Technomancers can do anything and are ruining my cool characters! And there's too much power behind spirits! And don't even get me started on Skill Limits....
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Got to love how I'm always treated as not part of the community by nay-sayers. I believe SR5 editing was worse? I'm not even considered part of this forum. To do something I haven't done in, like, forever: Despite years of inactivity I'm still #3 in post-count. And when it comes to angry people: I probably am in the top ten of received warnings without a permanent ban, thanks to the expiration time. How am I not part of the forum?? O_O I am both active and angry!
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Got to love how I'm always treated as not part of the community...
Shuddup and git back in your dank dark corner of the forums where you belong!!!
:D
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Got to love how I'm always treated as not part of the community...
Shuddup and git back in your dank dark corner of the forums where you belong!!!
Getting angrier and more active! ;D
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I disagree but also agree with Jason Hardy.
I agree that an ongoing discussion on any platform will lead to nowhere, because views can not be easily changed. Because good luck converting/persuasing an online persona who is upset or doesn't like something..
And of course, he is responsible for this product, and will need to stand behind his/their choices (to some extent)
Nevertheless I disagree with the complete radio silence and complete lack of interaction with the community on any platform.
Updates, Progress info, Acknowledgements of certain issues etc. are vital to keep a franchise and community going.
Personally I was very hyped for 6th Edition, coming from 2nd Edition and with a good 20 year break of Shadowrun GMing and Roleplaying I was ready to jump in the GM chair again and run a new Shadowrun campaign with 6th edition. Bought the CRB PDF, agreed to give the Edge metagame, Armor soak and Melee changes a try, but.... I couldn't fall in love.
Maybe because I skipped the previous versions, I couldn't connect with this whole ruleset, It just goes all around the place (2nd Edition also fried your brain though..) It still feels like there is for each type of character a separate ruleset inside the ruleset, not a real streamlined cohesion between them all, still a lot of specific rules and exceptions to look up.
But alas, probably because I got older ;) and experienced other systems which are more my current taste, this edition fell short to pull me back in, and that is a shame because i would love to see again a big Troll waving a minigun around. ;)
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Nevertheless I disagree with the complete radio silence and complete lack of interaction with the community on any platform.
Updates, Progress info, Acknowledgements of certain issues etc. are vital to keep a franchise and community going.
Completely agree there. They need some media management.
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5th Edition: Crying out loud! Technomancers can do anything and are ruining my cool characters! And there's too much power behind spirits! And don't even get me started on Skill Limits....
- I´m sorry, but when was there ever a significant amount of players complaining about Technomancers in 5th Edition? Or are you missing a negation here?
- The complaints about Spirits were 100% valid, and yet the problem has gotten even worse in 6th Edition. Your attempt to paint the community as nitpicky crybabies who just "don´t get" the ineffable plan of the devs not only comes off as incredibly smug; the examples you choose even support the stance that there was no consideration for the most frequently criticized problems of 5th Edition when making 6th. Pro Tipp: If a lot of people frequently complain about a certain aspect of the game, it´s usually not because they are all hating grognards, it´s because there is a legitimate issue.
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I am trying to find an article that I read a while ago, but I'm having trouble locating it. If I find it I will post the reference, but to summarize, it reflected on how the "original" target market for table top RPG's was aging out and that companies which still produced table top style materials were having difficulty attracting new consumers. The main reason behind this was the video game alternatives to table top RPG's.
Organic growth is certainly achieved when a company is able to sell more product to a larger market than it previously had, but I'm not sure if that is what is happening here. I feel like many many RPG's are playing a defensive strategy, just attempting to maintain market share. Shadowrun seems to be struggling to find an identity in today's market place.
There was an interesting video on Youtube that had some of the writers examining the way certain things in Shadowrun are phasing out due to shifts in societal perceptions of what is considered high tech. For instance, the credstick, which may have been seen as futuristic and cool in the 80's and early 90's, is almost archaic and seen as a form of untraceable currency rather than the future of the way our currency will be handled. With that in mind, Shadowrun has always sought to be a cyberpunk/fantasy crossover with futuristic overtones. I'm just not sure it is putting image across with new players.
I think that the major problem that Shadowrun will face in the future is with the change in the way new generations will view product quality. As I'm sure you know, the generation that is moving in to fill the current consumer markets are brand insensitive. They are quality and price sensitive, which presents a problem in the manner that Catalyst is producing their printed product. I think that Catalyst needs to solve their editing issues above all. It makes the finished product look inferior and like it was rushed through production. For a market that is not necessarily married to any brand, but considers "bang for the buck", the quality issues that plague Shadowrun printed materials may prove to be a major thorn in their side.
Above all, I believe that the creators truly need to start addressing the issues being brought up by critics, even if they do not believe that those critics represent the market as a whole. There is that old saying about how a good services will be shared with additional person but a bad service will be shared with ten additional people. In my particular case, I am one of the ten people who have not been convinced to purchase any 6th edition materials. I'll admit I bought the 6th edition starter box, because it was the only product out at the time. But then I started listening to people who were playing 6th edition when the additional resources came out and the reviews were, at best, mixed. I became lukewarm in my desire to purchase additional materials due to those mixed reviews. The radio silence initiated is not helping that cause at all.
Hey Kato! Awesome ideas, some proper marketing crunch there ;D
Spot on! Ageing of the target customer base is one reason for changes, second one is competition and threat from highly innovative industry, like Entertainment is. There is so much content out there, that long standing titles need to be re-introduced and often changed, modified or expanded. ( Battlefied, D&D, Batman, you name it). It would be interesting to see the if there is a correlation between attention span of young people and development of entertainment industry ( correlation is not causation, but it can lead to interesting insight ).
I agree that RPG tabletops are playing a defensive, or entrenched type of strategy, just holding on to their market share, trying to diversify. I assume that there was a time when TTRPG peaked, booming with new systems. Could we make an argument here, that if economies experience cycles, TTRPG's experience the same ? So that there are times when they peak and times when they drop ?
Now this is an amazing perspective. I would love to see that video. I can relate to this, as for me reading about Eurowars from today's perspective didn't make sense in my mind. Why would Russia go in with full scale military, when as we can see on Ukraine case, hybrid warfare on multiple fronts (media, cyber, politics, economics, society) is proving to work quite well ( from a warfare perspective ). It could be totally justifiable thinking when authors wrote those books decades ago.
On the other hand, we have things like LEO and Arcology habitats, Mars base, and the Corp monopolies being crazy accurate. Space X can land a returning rocket from space on a drone ship. Google is getting 2.5 billion Eur fines for abusing dominant market power, Facebook is used to manipulate elections. Volkswagen cheats on their emission output data. Volcanoes erupt and halts air traffic in large parts of Europe, Boston gets winters which can outright kill people. Sounds like Shadowrun to me.
I agree to a point. Yes the CRB is flawed. No one can argue about that. How much tho, is subjective.
Neo - Anarchist streetpedia and No Future are in my eyes outright great. Yesterday I was laughing my ass off reading how sports work in the Sixth world. Very entertaining writing, they kept the oldschool concept where you had parts of text as a forum conversation.
You are right that consumers are not brand sensitive anymore and they want quality and releasing badly edited product will not bring other customers along, it will discourage others by words of mouth, which is the strongest type of advertisement.
However I am an example of disregarding the negative fuzz.The added value of such deeply evolved setting with its own history and flavour is for me (and I hope that also for some other consumers) more than mistakes in editing.
Finally, there is a radio silence which is understandable but also a missed marketing opportunity. But I disagree that Catalyst doesn't give a damn about the community, as I find it almost rude towards all the people with " Catalyst Demo team" handle here on the forums. (That is more of a reaction towards other posts than you what you wrote)
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But I disagree that Catalyst doesn't give a damn about the community, as I find it almost rude towards all the people with " Catalyst Demo team" handle here on the forums. (That is more of a reaction towards other posts than you what you wrote)
Note that Demo Team agents are in no way, shape, or form official reps for Catalyst. It sounds counter-intuitive since they literally have "Catalyst" on their forum profiles, but they're just volunteers who run Shadowrun missions in an organized capacity.
You can become one too! Or at least, you used to. Not sure what that process is like any more.
* I say "just" with the utmost amount of respect for you guys, no shade intended...
EDIT:
"Do you want to know more?" https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=8653.0
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5th Edition: Crying out loud! Technomancers can do anything and are ruining my cool characters! And there's too much power behind spirits! And don't even get me started on Skill Limits....
- I´m sorry, but when was there ever a significant amount of players complaining about Technomancers in 5th Edition? Or are you missing a negation here?
- The complaints about Spirits were 100% valid, and yet the problem has gotten even worse in 6th Edition. Your attempt to paint the community as nitpicky crybabies who just "don´t get" the ineffable plan of the devs not only comes off as incredibly smug; the examples you choose even support the stance that there was no consideration for the most frequently criticized problems of 5th Edition when making 6th. Pro Tipp: If a lot of people frequently complain about a certain aspect of the game, it´s usually not because they are all hating grognards, it´s because there is a legitimate issue.
I was making up bogus arguments, but sure, go ahead and turn my parody into reality.
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Note that Demo Team agents are in no way, shape, or form official reps for Catalyst. It sounds counter-intuitive since they literally have "Catalyst" on their forum profiles, but they're just volunteers who run Shadowrun missions in an organized capacity.
You can become one too! Or at least, you used to. Not sure what that process is like any more.
* I say "just" with the utmost amount of respect for you guys, no shade intended...
EDIT:
"Do you want to know more?" https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=8653.0
Doesn't that still mean that Demo team is part of Catalyst ? If you are a volunteer for a Company, are you not part of the company ? If you are a volunteer in active reserves in the Military, doesn't it mean that you are part of the Military ?
Edit: So you want to say that all these clarifications and answers provided by people with Catalyst demo team handle are answers which come from people unaffiliated with the game developers of Catalyst ? Didn't Banshee literally wrote Matrix section in 6E ?
Didn't Hardy just responded to direct question from a community member? Because I feel that is the name of this thread.
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Note that Demo Team agents are in no way, shape, or form official reps for Catalyst. It sounds counter-intuitive since they literally have "Catalyst" on their forum profiles, but they're just volunteers who run Shadowrun missions in an organized capacity.
You can become one too! Or at least, you used to. Not sure what that process is like any more.
* I say "just" with the utmost amount of respect for you guys, no shade intended...
EDIT:
"Do you want to know more?" https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=8653.0
Doesn't that still mean that Demo team is part of Catalyst ? If you are a volunteer for a Company, are you not part of the company ? If you are a volunteer in active reserves in the Military, doesn't it mean that you are part of the Military ?
Edit: So you want to say that all these clarifications and answers provided by people with Catalyst demo team handle are answers which come from people unaffiliated with the game developers of Catalyst ?
Demo team makes no call on how the game is designed. They may pass suggestions up the ladder, but when running the game, they have to abide by the rulings of official developers. You aren't part of the company, simply a representative. And if you volunteer for the active reserves, you're still getting paid by the government...
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Banshee is a freelancer as well, so wrote stuff as freelancer, not as Demo Team Agent. Agents are volunteers solely paid in PDFs, when active as agents at open events we represent the company but cannot speak for it.
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Demo team makes no call on how the game is designed. They may pass suggestions up the ladder, but when running the game, they have to abide by the rulings of official developers. You aren't part of the company, simply a representative. And if you volunteer for the active reserves, you're still getting paid by the government...
Probably I phrased it in a bad way. I understand that Demo team is not Game Design team, but as you said, Demo team can be viewed as representative and thus can be considered as people affiliated to Catalyst. From there I derive the argument, that saying that Catalyst doesn't give a damn about community is not completely true, as we have here dedicated individuals affiliated with Catalyst which do give a lot of damn to answer, gather feed back and talk to the community.
I understand that the Military example is far fetched, but everyone in the Military get's payed by the Government some more some less, depends on their contribution, so one can view it, that they (Professionals as well as Active reserves) are all part of a larger structure.
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Demo team makes no call on how the game is designed. They may pass suggestions up the ladder, but when running the game, they have to abide by the rulings of official developers. You aren't part of the company, simply a representative. And if you volunteer for the active reserves, you're still getting paid by the government...
Probably I phrased it in a bad way. I understand that Demo team is not Game Design team, but as you said, Demo team can be viewed as representative and thus can be considered as people affiliated to Catalyst. From there I derive the argument, that saying that Catalyst doesn't give a damn about community is not completely true, as we have here dedicated individuals affiliated with Catalyst which do give a lot of damn to answer, gather feed back and talk to the community.
I understand that the Military example is far fetched, but everyone in the Military get's payed by the Government some more some less, depends on their contribution, so one can view it, that they (Professionals as well as Active reserves) are all part of a larger structure.
Just add my opinion and hopefully add some clarity.
As a Demo Team Agent yes we are seen publicly as an extension of CGL, but that is also very much a contradiction in and of itself. We are only tasked with running the games as unpaid volunteers and have no real knowledge or influence on what or when CGL does what it does. Even on new product releases most Agents do not find out anything until at best a few days before they go public.
Now though, as freelancer which I also am is a slightly different story, but only in so much as I know more about upcoming products and farther in advance and do get paid by CGL for the work I do it is only on a per project basis. I still am not a CGL employee and can't comment on what, when, or how they do things.
So ultimately while it may appear publicly that myself and demo agents are an extension of CGL, we are in reality just a slightly more knowledgeable SR fan as any of you and even are comments and suggestions on rules are just that unless officially approved and supported by CGL.
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@PatrolDeer
Your example is inherently flawed. Army Reserves are part of the Army. They are not voluntary reps, they are a direct part of the chain of command.
Demo Team agents do not report to Catalyst as contractors, nor do they receive direct compensation for hours worked. When a Catalyst Demo Agent makes a statement on the forums, they are speaking as private individuals unaffiliated with Catalyst.
When they run Demo Games at a local store or at an event, they are partially representing Catalyst as a company and receive compensation in the form of free PDFs. But their statements are still their own, and Catalyst is not liable for anything an Agent says or does.
Therein lies the difference; when a reservist reports for duty, their parent unit is directly responsible for that person's actions. This is not the case with Demo Agents: in other words, when someone with "Catalyst Demo Team" on their forum profile makes a statement on the forum, chances are it's just a personal opinion and not a statement that has been officially endorsed by Catalyst.
Do with that information what you will.
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Heck, I've got "Errata Team" tag on my forum profile and I can't even speak for the Errata Team, much less CGL. (Which, like Demo Agents, are also unpaid volunteers who are not CGL employees)
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For years I had the personal title "I do not work for Catalyst" because somehow people got the wrong impression and I needed that disclaimer just in case.
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Alright this obviously went out of control.
You don't work for Catalyst, you are volunteers. Thank you for all your hard work on this forum, who ever you are and for whom ever you work for.
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This has been an informative discussion so far. There are many things that I previously didn't know about TTRPG development that I know now. I'm also glad that for the most part this discussion has been very civil and people have been respectful of each others views.
Personally I think all of his comments make perfect sense. If I were in his position I might feel the exact same way. Shadowrun is probably one of the top 5 TTRPG IPs in the world right now so the pressure to perform from TOPPS, or whomever might be dictating release dates, is probably very high and comes with an expectation of "fast" profit. Under those conditions I'm not unhappy with the product as it is now with errata coming out over time. I just hope the errata is integrated into the pdf as it is released.
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This has been an informative discussion so far. There are many things that I previously didn't know about TTRPG development that I know now. I'm also glad that for the most part this discussion has been very civil and people have been respectful of each others views.
Personally I think all of his comments make perfect sense. If I were in his position I might feel the exact same way. Shadowrun is probably one of the top 5 TTRPG IPs in the world right now so the pressure to perform from TOPPS, or whomever might be dictating release dates, is probably very high and comes with an expectation of "fast" profit. Under those conditions I'm not unhappy with the product as it is now with errata coming out over time. I just hope the errata is integrated into the pdf as it is released.
There is no pressure to perform from Topps. Topps does not give two tugs on a dead dog's leash so long as their license fees get paid and CGL doesn't manage to somehow completely devalue the brand. Not that they haven't tried, what with that sidebar that's still in 'War!'.
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Not that they haven't tried, what with that sidebar that's still in 'War!'.
What side bar are you referring to?
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The problem that every one including CGL Shadowrun seems to forget it that TTRPGs are a word of mouth industry.
Both the players and the brick-and-mortar stores being the key salesman, that has change only a little with Drivethru coming into the picture.
Yes, you need to draw in new players to keep the boat afloat, but you need to keep players for these new products to reach the new players.
Having worked at a Tabletop/CCG game store for many years, I can say that there a many new game out there every day.
We had a day set aside per month at the store where the owner, myself and the other manager would comb the Alliance catalog to see what was new.
And truth be told if we had not heard about the items listed we didn't buy them unless one of the demo reps or players brought them up or asked for them.
That said, while you have to bring in new player, your main avenue for doing this are the demo reps or players.
You may get some from Drivethru, but the one paragraph intro is not for the most part going to convince players to buy it unless they have heard about it from the demo reps or players. So keeping the players you have is also important. Brand recognition was also a big part of our sales at the store. If a new D&D, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Magic, etc. book/set came out we would buy it right away. This was no indicator of the quality of the product, just that the name would sell it. This is an issues that the sales numbers on Drivethru fail to address.
AS for the sales numbers for 6th on Drivethru. I have no doubt that the game appeals to some members of the RPG community, but the ratings for the game speak volumes about the quality of the game. Editing issues, layout, missing or hard to follow rules, contradictory rule, etc..
While, as has been pointed out, a lot of this can be house ruled or figured out if you are familiar with older edition.
This is not a good look for the brand, and brings into question CGL commitment to the line, as this is not a new thing.
While I like 5th edition (being my 3rd favorite), it was littered with these problem from the get-go, showing a disturbing trend with the shadowrun product line in general.
And from what I have seen, a continual trend in the TTRPG and gaming industry in general (quantity over quality).
And for as much as I like Drivetru, I think it has a lot to do with this issues. The ease (in-relative terms to having to reprint) with which companies can put out a product, and get errata to the players through it has IMHO destroyed quality control throughout the industry, not just with CGL. If you need to get the product out to meet a deadline, just do it you can fix it later. This has also lead to this attitude within the gaming community of acceptance of substandard work and the "just house rule it" position.
All-in-all the response by Jason Hardy, calls into question CGL Shadowruns commitment to the product as anything other then a money grab.
While I agree with his point that it is a waste of time to debate players on the finer points of the game (he not going to change my mind about armor or the all or nothing effect system), failing to address the fundamental issues such as editing, layout, missing or hard to follow rules, contradictory rule, etc. is showing a lack of caring about the product. You can say that the errata team is working on it all you want but their track record for this tends to speak for itself (5th edition errata anyone).
This has been an informative discussion so far. There are many things that I previously didn't know about TTRPG development that I know now. I'm also glad that for the most part this discussion has been very civil and people have been respectful of each others views.
Personally I think all of his comments make perfect sense. If I were in his position I might feel the exact same way. Shadowrun is probably one of the top 5 TTRPG IPs in the world right now so the pressure to perform from TOPPS, or whomever might be dictating release dates, is probably very high and comes with an expectation of "fast" profit. Under those conditions I'm not unhappy with the product as it is now with errata coming out over time. I just hope the errata is integrated into the pdf as it is released.
I am sorry to put it this way, but this is a relative observation.
I am not saying you are wrong, but Shadowrun is one of the 5 top TTRPG IP because there isn't a top 10.
IF you look at the list for the most part the top five have been the top five for over 20 years and barring one or two going out of business will probable be the top 5 for the next 20 years.
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Not that they haven't tried, what with that sidebar that's still in 'War!'.
What side bar are you referring to?
"Arbeit Macht Frei". The one that suggests a dungeon crawl against the ghosts of murdered Jews at Auschwitz-Berkenhau to find a Nazi mass murderer's favorite scalpel, which is apparently a haunted weapon focus.
The one Pegasus had to cut out to publish the book because that content is illegal to publish in Germany.
When you manage to make a less respectful take on the Holocaust than White Wolf publishing as Black Dog Game Factory, you have hit a new low.
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Not that they haven't tried, what with that sidebar that's still in 'War!'.
What side bar are you referring to?
"Arbeit Macht Frei". The one that suggests a dungeon crawl against the ghosts of murdered Jews at Auschwitz-Berkenhau to find a Nazi mass murderer's favorite scalpel, which is apparently a haunted weapon focus.
The one Pegasus had to cut out to publish the book because that content is illegal to publish in Germany.
When you manage to make a less respectful take on the Holocaust than White Wolf publishing as Black Dog Game Factory, you have hit a new low.
I can find no reference to anything by that name in the DTF or the PDF of the North American releases.. I can find "Fleshfinder"... which is similar. But, its not a "Dungeon crawl", nor a weapon foci. It is something much darker, and ties into another book.
Mind you, considering German sensors, I'm amazed the words " Auschwitz II" weren't enough to get it banned considering they have banned "morphine" from digital media in the past.
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I can find no reference to anything by that name in the DTF or the PDF of the North American releases.. I can find "Fleshfinder"... which is similar. But, its not a "Dungeon crawl", nor a weapon foci. It is something much darker, and ties into another book.
You're looking for the section right above "The Fleshfinder." In the NA version, it's titled "Work Brings Freedom" which is a loose translation of Arbeit Macht Frei. Arbeit Macht Frei is written on the walls of Auschwitz.
It's incredibly insensitive, to the point of appearing intentionally so. Following that up with the Fleshfinder arc just doubled down.
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Plus, whoever wrote that thing clearly has no idea how Shadowrun magic items work.
Deep within the bowels of Auschwitz II during WWII, Dr. Eduard Wirths conducted and supervised thousands of odd experiments on the human body. He tested mustard gas on innocents. He mutilated twins. He held people in tanks of ice water for hours or until dead. He exposed prisoners to malaria. He forced them to drink seawater. One particular implement from his experiments, a rusted old scalpel, was left in the labs. Over many years, it was energized by the various ghosts passing by it, feeding off their death energies. At this point, it’s taken on a life of its own. The rusty old scalpel craves death. It only finds itself at home when flush with warm blood. Although this makes it a remarkably effective weapon, anyone holding it is subject to the sounds of its past victims. As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and suffers a –4 dice pool modifier to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only suffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥
This is a D20 modern cursed magic item, not anything that works in Shadowrun. Weapon foci are a thing, and do what the author was groping towards, but do not in any way work like this.
As to the dungeon crawl, how else does one interpret this?
For your average runner, Auschwitz II is suicide. Only the most enterprising groups will survive the trip. But such a trip can result in great rewards (see The Fleshfinder, below).
The section also goes out of its way to place an arms dealer peddling 'anti-ghost weaponry' in the area, with no details anywhere of what that would consist of, and the intended targets being the haunted spirits of those murdered in the camps.
The whole thing is disgusting.
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The whole thing is disgusting.
As the reality....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele
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The whole thing is disgusting.
As the reality....
That's the point, though. Even though there is a historical character parallel, it is in incredibly bad taste to make a narrative where you would take those events and pit characters against the restless spirits of dead holocaust victims for some loot. The German government told them that was not going to be printed in their country, but in reality it should never have made it into any version of the book.
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The one Pegasus had to cut out to publish the book because that content is illegal to publish in Germany.
Please don't be so overdramatic.
Nothing on that bar is illegal in Germany.
Would have gotten Pegasus a lot of bad press and maybe a torch-wielding online mob if they printed it, but no problems with the law.
The scenario could be considered bad taste, but that's not enough to make something illegal, especially in about all Western countries outside of Germany and England.
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The one Pegasus had to cut out to publish the book because that content is illegal to publish in Germany.
Please don't be so overdramatic.
Nothing on that bar is illegal in Germany.
Would have gotten Pegasus a lot of bad press and maybe a torch-wielding online mob if they printed it, but no problems with the law.
The scenario could be considered bad taste, but that's not enough to make something illegal, especially in about all Western countries outside of Germany and England.
Not mention if you just did a quick search on these forums, people have actually asked what was going with the old concentration camps, and how they interact with the mana scape...
You may not agree with how they handled it, fair enough, but there is interest on the topic.
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It´s illegal to deny that the holocaust happened or to desecrate the memory of its victims, but it´s a quite stretch that the sidebar in WAR! is falling under that. It´s a bit tasteless at worst, and there´s a still distinction between tasteless and offensive.
Also, it´s canon in the german publications as well that the remnants of the concentration camps are severely haunted, just like other places of mass murder. And that fact has been used as a setpiece/plot hook as well. There is a (btw, pretty damn good) setting/campaign book about Munich for early 4th Edition that lists the KZ Dachau as a no-go-area because of its tainted astral space. In the featured campaign, a radical arnachist Terrorist sets of a series of attacks against the wealthy elite of the city. One of his "actions" involves kidnapping a well-known far-right pundit (I think it was a humanis leader), outfitting him with a camera and releasing him in the concentration camp at night, were he gets hunted and killed by the spirits.
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I don’t have war but from the description in this thread and others. It sounds like the side bar mission was to be hired by a nazi to grab a Nazi scalpel out of the place while killing Jewish holocost victim spirits.
That seems pretty close to desecrating their memory to me but I don’t live there and don’t know the rules.
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I don’t have war but from the description in this thread and others. It sounds like the side bar mission was to be hired by a nazi to grab a Nazi scalpel out of the place while killing Jewish holocost victim spirits.
That seems pretty close to desecrating their memory to me but I don’t live there and don’t know the rules.
Actually, it's none of those.
The first part describes Tetsuo Shuumatsu, an arms dealer specializing in weapons against ghosts and his (foolish) attempts at trying to bring down the magical barrier around the town and camp. It expressly says that everything going in there is a suicide mission. No where does it detail any missions to go in, nor any details on killing holocaust victim's spirits.
The second part is more towards desecration, since it details a scalpel the foolhardy can find, if they get in, survive, find it, and get out. It's worth 10,000¥, but (as stated above), it's written up more like a D&D cursed weapon and really isn't worth the effort to go in. Which is why it's a bit disturbing in my opinion, and makes me wonder about the author. The little I have found out makes me not so curious to know more.
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Now you have piked my curiosity, Fastjack.
What did you find out?
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Now you have piked my curiosity, Fastjack.
What did you find out?
Seconded. I would like to know more. You can shoot us a PM if you're not comfortable posting your findings in public space.
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I think you can find the same things he found simply by googling the author's name.
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i just read the section in war and tbh it's not bad imho.
it's not encouraging PCs to go kill holocaust ghosts, that's for sure.
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I think you can find the same things he found simply by googling the author's name.
Yep...
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should i post the @ three paragraphs in questions so people can judge for themselves?
frankly i don't understand the hand wringing over this, in my reading it's not at all what folks on the interwebs have said it is.
is this even the right thread to discuss this?
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should i post the @ three paragraphs in questions so people can judge for themselves?
frankly i don't understand the hand wringing over this, in my reading it's not at all what folks on the interwebs have said it is.
is this even the right thread to discuss this?
One .. no, this is not the place (in my opinion anyway)
Two ... it's been almost 10 years since that book was released. None of those authors are even still active ... especially the one who wrote that particular section. Let it die ... it has zero bearing on current product
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noted and agree Banshee.
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How transparent are other game companies compared to CGL in their processes/errata/criticism? I suppose the only other one I've paid attention to is WotC, just because of D&D, but WotC isn't really comparable to most TTRPG companies
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Paizo is pretty transparent and responsive.
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Plus, whoever wrote that thing clearly has no idea how Shadowrun magic items work.
Deep within the bowels of Auschwitz II during WWII, Dr. Eduard Wirths conducted and supervised thousands of odd experiments on the human body. He tested mustard gas on innocents. He mutilated twins. He held people in tanks of ice water for hours or until dead. He exposed prisoners to malaria. He forced them to drink seawater. One particular implement from his experiments, a rusted old scalpel, was left in the labs. Over many years, it was energized by the various ghosts passing by it, feeding off their death energies. At this point, it’s taken on a life of its own. The rusty old scalpel craves death. It only finds itself at home when flush with warm blood. Although this makes it a remarkably effective weapon, anyone holding it is subject to the sounds of its past victims. As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and suffers a –4 dice pool modifier to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only suffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥
This is a D20 modern cursed magic item, not anything that works in Shadowrun. Weapon foci are a thing, and do what the author was groping towards, but do not in any way work like this.
As to the dungeon crawl, how else does one interpret this?
For your average runner, Auschwitz II is suicide. Only the most enterprising groups will survive the trip. But such a trip can result in great rewards (see The Fleshfinder, below).
The section also goes out of its way to place an arms dealer peddling 'anti-ghost weaponry' in the area, with no details anywhere of what that would consist of, and the intended targets being the haunted spirits of those murdered in the camps.
The whole thing is disgusting.
Disgusting makes no sense. It's shadowrun. the whole setting is based on the premise that humans do terrible things. is the problem because it happens in real life? because we have human trafficking, terrorism. there is nothing wrong that paragraph or the adventure idea.
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Paizo is pretty transparent and responsive.
As far as I can say, the same goes for FFG.
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I think you can find the same things he found simply by googling the author's name.
Might be a dumb question, but who is the author of said paragraph?
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I think you can find the same things he found simply by googling the author's name.
Might be a dumb question, but who is the author of said paragraph?
There were 4 authors credited for the book:
David Hill, Aaron Pavao, Michael Wich, Filamena Young
None of whom have written anything for SR (to my knowledge) for some time. Of those, I know Aaron was active until after the release of 5e... Filamena has written several other books for other systems.
Hill, and Wich are harder to pin down as there are multiple authors with the same names....
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If my memory serves, David Hill is David A. Hill Jr, a pen name for Olivia Hill.
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If my memory serves, David Hill is David A. Hill Jr, a pen name for Olivia Hill.
They seem to be separate people, but they do work on a lot of the same projects. I was able to track down a Bio for both of them.
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If my memory serves, David Hill is David A. Hill Jr, a pen name for Olivia Hill.
They seem to be separate people, but they do work on a lot of the same projects. I was able to track down a Bio for both of them.
Okay, let's nip this in the bud. No more discussing of the authors, it's coming a bit closer to doxxing them and their information.
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Mooods
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Stuff like this is a prime example of why 6e's choice to ditch agents was 100% the right one.
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Plus, whoever wrote that thing clearly has no idea how Shadowrun magic items work.
Deep within the bowels of Auschwitz II during WWII, Dr. Eduard Wirths conducted and supervised thousands of odd experiments on the human body. He tested mustard gas on innocents. He mutilated twins. He held people in tanks of ice water for hours or until dead. He exposed prisoners to malaria. He forced them to drink seawater. One particular implement from his experiments, a rusted old scalpel, was left in the labs. Over many years, it was energized by the various ghosts passing by it, feeding off their death energies. At this point, it’s taken on a life of its own. The rusty old scalpel craves death. It only finds itself at home when flush with warm blood. Although this makes it a remarkably effective weapon, anyone holding it is subject to the sounds of its past victims. As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and suffers a –4 dice pool modifier to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only suffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥
This is a D20 modern cursed magic item, not anything that works in Shadowrun. Weapon foci are a thing, and do what the author was groping towards, but do not in any way work like this.
As to the dungeon crawl, how else does one interpret this?
For your average runner, Auschwitz II is suicide. Only the most enterprising groups will survive the trip. But such a trip can result in great rewards (see The Fleshfinder, below).
The section also goes out of its way to place an arms dealer peddling 'anti-ghost weaponry' in the area, with no details anywhere of what that would consist of, and the intended targets being the haunted spirits of those murdered in the camps.
The whole thing is disgusting.
Disgusting makes no sense. It's shadowrun. the whole setting is based on the premise that humans do terrible things. is the problem because it happens in real life? because we have human trafficking, terrorism. there is nothing wrong that paragraph or the adventure idea.
You don't see anything wrong with expecting PCs to go destroy the ghosts of holocaust victims to get fat loots? At best it is in very poor taste, at worst it's anti-semitic propaganda. You could possibly make idea tasteful by using the ghosts to create a moral dilemma but if you're selling a book maybe jusy steer clear of re-killing victims of a major humanitarian atrocity.
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Plus, whoever wrote that thing clearly has no idea how Shadowrun magic items work.
Deep within the bowels of Auschwitz II during WWII, Dr. Eduard Wirths conducted and supervised thousands of odd experiments on the human body. He tested mustard gas on innocents. He mutilated twins. He held people in tanks of ice water for hours or until dead. He exposed prisoners to malaria. He forced them to drink seawater. One particular implement from his experiments, a rusted old scalpel, was left in the labs. Over many years, it was energized by the various ghosts passing by it, feeding off their death energies. At this point, it’s taken on a life of its own. The rusty old scalpel craves death. It only finds itself at home when flush with warm blood. Although this makes it a remarkably effective weapon, anyone holding it is subject to the sounds of its past victims. As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and suffers a –4 dice pool modifier to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only suffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥
This is a D20 modern cursed magic item, not anything that works in Shadowrun. Weapon foci are a thing, and do what the author was groping towards, but do not in any way work like this.
As to the dungeon crawl, how else does one interpret this?
For your average runner, Auschwitz II is suicide. Only the most enterprising groups will survive the trip. But such a trip can result in great rewards (see The Fleshfinder, below).
The section also goes out of its way to place an arms dealer peddling 'anti-ghost weaponry' in the area, with no details anywhere of what that would consist of, and the intended targets being the haunted spirits of those murdered in the camps.
The whole thing is disgusting.
Disgusting makes no sense. It's shadowrun. the whole setting is based on the premise that humans do terrible things. is the problem because it happens in real life? because we have human trafficking, terrorism. there is nothing wrong that paragraph or the adventure idea.
You don't see anything wrong with expecting PCs to go destroy the ghosts of holocaust victims to get fat loots? At best it is in very poor taste, at worst it's anti-semitic propaganda. You could possibly make idea tasteful by using the ghosts to create a moral dilemma but if you're selling a book maybe jusy steer clear of re-killing victims of a major humanitarian atrocity.
Here's sone perspective for you Leith,
There is an ENTIRE country that flies pictures of Adolf Hitler on a special day.....
No, they are not in Europe, and be my guest in telling all 1.1 billion of them that Hilter was a very bad man.... they don't care.
Like it or not, the internet is a GLOBAL community. And mathimatically, not even 1% share your views or values..... What you find 'disgusting' other people go "Meh".
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How about we stop turning a single paragraph from a decade-old book into a flamewar just because the SR6-hate bandwagon is starting to get boring, and get back to the SR6-hate bandwagon? Just pimp it if you want to spice it up.
Here, let me fuel it: CGL should try to do more-frequent generic news updates that aren't just Facebook posts, keeping people at least a tiny bit in the loop, perhaps just every month. As simple as teasing a booktitle and posting some update on errata process, please.
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CGL should try to do more-frequent generic news updates that aren't just Facebook posts, keeping people at least a tiny bit in the loop, perhaps just every month. As simple as teasing a booktitle and posting some update on errata process, please.
Can I get a drek-yeah!?
Fully support this...