Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: imperialus on <12-14-10/1240:19>
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So I haven't had a huge amount of time to skim the book so far but figured I'd get a discussion on it started...
What are your impressions so far?
I've read the first bit of the Bigota chapter, going to withhold judgment until I've read the whole thing but so far it hasn't really 'grabbed' me... Not sure if I'd have too much use for it.
The gear chapter on the other hand I'm liking a lot... Yes there is power creep, comlinks and programs can now go up to rating 10 but the availability and cost scales put them right around the cost of a descent piece of deltaware, which I'm cool with... PC's aren't just going to pick up a rating 8 comlink from their friendly local fixer.
Battle Rifles fill a niche that I think has been missing in every iteration of Shadowrun prior to this. A high powered rifle capable of SA and BF is a great option for a lot of character concepts. I managed to jury rig one together out using the Cannon Companion rules and modding the hell out of a sporting rifle but it still didn't feel quite right.
Not only that but the power creep is focused almost entirely on the mundane. It gives some good options for high karma mundanes and helps them keep pace with the nastiness than 3rd or 4th grade initiates can dish out in a campaign with a higher power level... I'm not sure what I think of "Soft Weave armour" yet... Seems to negate a lot of the disadvantages that low body characters have. There's a few other individual pieces of gear that I'm a little leery of but they tend to be pretty situational.
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I havent been able to look at War yet, (i buy physical copies first) but it sounds like a mission set that i would love to run "Tank Girl" through, oh crap that reminds me, i havent introduced her to yall yet, damn i need to get writing again.
that said i always liked the idea of runnng black ops in the middle of a combat zone, very Mogadishu or Bosnia.
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Lots of room for that sort of stuff on all the different sides of the conflict. Aztech and Amazonia are just the big ones. The more I read into the fluff parts of the chapter the more I'm liking it. Lots of really cool details on the ways that the face of warfare has changed by 2070. Just as an example the Azzie vanguard was in a large part made up of blood spirits and their 'first strike' was on the magical front too and served to slow the growth of the rain forest and somehow get rid of a lot of the nature spirits that Amazonia was relying on to bolster the front lines. Really neat to see how the conflict played out.
Yes there's typo's and editing errors but all things considered I think that Catalyst seems to be doing a fairly good job picking itself up after the past few months unpleasantness. It's certainly a step up from some of the problems in the 6th World Almanac. It's no Ghost Cartels or Corporate Enclaves but it's a pretty well put together book.
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I'm not sure what I think of "Soft Weave armour" yet... Seems to negate a lot of the disadvantages that low body characters have.
Not really, as those characters are very unlikely to have more then 1 or 2 strength.
Except maybe for a Charisma 10 pornomancer with Mind over Machine power for charisma, allowing her to substitute charisma for strength. :o
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I'm not sure what I think of "Soft Weave armour" yet... Seems to negate a lot of the disadvantages that low body characters have.
Not really, as those characters are very unlikely to have more then 1 or 2 strength.
Except maybe for a Charisma 10 pornomancer with Mind over Machine power for charisma, allowing her to substitute charisma for strength. :o
Actually, I don't think that will help when it comes to wearing armor. It looks like Mind Over Matter only allows you to substitute for tests, not for derived stats.
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I like the concept of this book very much. A major regional shootout is a very innovative campaign concept for Shadowrun, never done before. The writing and editing, though, are often sloppy. But I'm glad to see the game recovering from the late unpleasantness.
The Ares HVBR confuses me. The advantage of the HVAR from ARS is that it fires smaller rounds faster. The HVBR from W! fires larger rounds, but only in burst-fire or semiauto. So how is it a high velocity anything?
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Battle rifles are shite (to put it lightly); thy souldn't have made the cut at all. The concept was approached wrong and the inelegant soution provided (they originally could go FA) just doesn't work. I can say they'll not make any appearences at my table (mostly cause my players willuse customization rules to make them FA ayway).
But I'll save more of my SRun gun rants for other times...
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Read it yesterday and it has some interesting stuff. As one who enjoyed the high power games that were 2nd and 3rd edition I am glad to see an option for such games in 4th.
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When I read the battle rifles, I keep picturing Mass Effect assault rifles...
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The core idea behind Battle Rifles isn't bad. The problem is, honestly, SR4, and the way that Shadowrun has always categorized guns (and the fact that guns have no caliber outside of generic weapon class bullet size). But the real problem was how "tight" the damage ranges are for SR4. They don't give you a lot of wiggle room between gun classes.
And at the end of the day, the real problem is that Battle Rifles just replaced Machine Guns. They're cheaper and easier to get, and do as much damage as a HMG. In playtesting, they were mostly BF/FA guns (and were even cheaper than they are now), so thankfully a whole bunch of us sending in playtest notes going "Hey, these are frraggin' broken!" helped a little. But still, as Caine points out, it won't take much to modify them to use belt feeds and to fire FA anyway. So they end up being a cheaper and better alternative to the Machine Gun class of weapons.
Bull
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When I read the battle rifles, I keep picturing Mass Effect assault rifles...
And yeah, I keep picturing the Halo Battle Rifle...
(http://www.techarena.in/files/image/guide/092009/Halo_3_ODST/halo_battle_rifle.JPG)
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Any more or solid good info on some of the established, high tier merc companies like MET2000, Combat Inc, or 10K Daggers? I know we get a few lines in Runner Havens, but I have been hoping for more ever sense Fields of Fire back in 2nd Ed...Also, are there any rules or guidelines for creating one in S4?
And speaking of FoF, any official word on what happened to Matador, and what if any relation to Picador? Just wondering.
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And at the end of the day, the real problem is that Battle Rifles just replaced Machine Guns. They're cheaper and easier to get, and do as much damage as a HMG.
I think the problem here is with the machine gun damage ratings and not with battle rifles.
Honestly, an MMMG should have the same damage code as battle rifles and HMG should have something like 8P AP-3.
And speaking of FoF, any official word on what happened to Matador, and what if any relation to Picador? Just wondering.
Picador was Matadors second-in-command until the latter died from a snipers bullet to the head, while patrolling Salish-Tsimian border sometine in 2062.
Thats from SOTA 2063, not WAR.
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I think the problem here is with the machine gun damage ratings and not with battle rifles.
Honestly, an MMMG should have the same damage code as battle rifles and HMG should have something like 8P AP-3.
Maybe, but at the end of the day, games should bow to a certain amount of balance "internal mechanics logic" as well.
Stripping aside classifications, it comes down to this: You have two guns that do 7P. I'll even choose the most expensive, hardest to get of Gun B, and the cheapest, easiest to get of Gun A.
Gun A costs 6500¥, has a 15F Availability code, 1200 meter max range, can only fire FA, has -3 AP, and recoil comp.
Gun B costs 3600¥, has a 12F Availability code, 1500 meter max range, can fire SA and BF, has -1 AP, and 4 recoil comp. Gun B also fire High Velocity rounds. This is kind of an error, as originally it could fire FA, but was trimmed down. So it does nothing in it's default state. However, this becomes an advantage when you mod the weapon.
It costs the same amount (a small fire selection modification) to change the FA gun to BF and/or SA and the BF/SA gun to FA.
Gun B has almost all the advantages. The only thing Gun A has going for it is FA out of the box and 2 Armor Pen, which is very nice. But not worth double the price, especially when I can't get that gun at Character creation, whereas I can still get Gun B.
Oh, plus, Gun A uses the Heavy Weapons skill, while Gun B uses the Automatics skill. Also important.
I only know a little bit about real world guns, and most of that comes from listening to my Airsoft MilSim playing roommate and playing video games. I don't really care that much about "real world" gun stuff. I'm not playing in the real world. I'm playing in a game. And at the end of the day, as a game designer, a GM, and even as a player, what matters to me are the weapons stats. And when you introduce a new class of gun that completely and utterly nullifies an earlier class of gun by being cheaper, better, faster, stronger, etc... Something is wrong.
Bull
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War doesn't go into great detail on the merc's groups (fluff on them written from Aufheben's perspective). But if you want more on Matador/Picador and the fall out, check out the short story Best Served Cold by Pete Taylor in the SR4A (p. 140).
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I may be wrong and if I am please explain. The Battle Rifle is moded to accept/shoot high power rounds which gives it it's stated DV. That DV with a "minor" mod to the rifle making it FA capable negates machine guns? Is that correct? My answer would be to apply the mod allowing high power rounds to machine guns which are already FA capable and you still have the difference between the classifications.
WAR! seems to have created the new classification by integrating a mod into a whole range of weapons rather than creating a new base weapon. I am sure I am missing some meaningful point which negates my understanding but I can't really find it. I also understand that my "solution" could be seen as even more power creep but as I said earlier I don't see that as a real problem.
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Its not really a mod if the weapon gets its own range char; that is a weapon type. As Bull defined, there is no provision from what calibre of weapon you are using. Also, as it was pointed out, an MMG and a Battle rifle IRL use the same calibre or round.
The problem is with how the rules stand, it is now cheaper and easier to make an MMG out of a Battle Rifle, and said weapon now gets a +1 power. Instead of working off the MMG as the basis for the battle rifle, we instead have something pulled out of the air which doesn't fit the existing weapons structure.
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A few questions:
Is there much to connect to Ghost Cartels and any follow-up actions taken by the various factions within?
Does it cover the Aztlan/Amazonia conflict in a broad sense? Ie-naval action, does CAS march into their old territories? Allies on either side being drawn into the confilict? It's sounding like the "battle of bogota".
Actually - are there any pdf previews? A table of contents or other snippets?
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Its not really a mod if the weapon gets its own range char; that is a weapon type. As Bull defined, there is no provision from what calibre of weapon you are using. Also, as it was pointed out, an MMG and a Battle rifle IRL use the same calibre or round.
The problem is with how the rules stand, it is now cheaper and easier to make an MMG out of a Battle Rifle, and said weapon now gets a +1 power. Instead of working off the MMG as the basis for the battle rifle, we instead have something pulled out of the air which doesn't fit the existing weapons structure.
Wow, this is reminding me of 150 tonners from BT.
So is there going to be come kind of correction, or does it look like these are going to stand as-is?
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Strangely I broke the news about those damn Ares mechs on the battletech boards....
Doubtful they get corrections, but we'll see; there were, as we said, some changes made after PT nots went in.
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Bototá, Mercenaries and The War deal mostly in the Aztlan/Amazonia fight (about 100 pages...;))
The rest deals with global hotspots like Marienbad Council (free republic with backing from GD Schwarzkopf), Free Republic of Poland (warzone between Evo and S-K), Somalia (Pretty much the same as our world), Nepal (Saeder-Krupp vs Nepal's monarchy) and Albuequerque (Tech war between Corps). Game Information has rules for running Military/Merc Campaigns, New uses for old skills, rules for large dice pools/flight time/strategic combat/aerial combat/etc., New Gear and Naval equipment/rules.
There's also some talk about CAS/Aztlan troubles -- CAS apparently found a couple of spies, but I haven't had a chance to do a complete read-through yet, just a skim.
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Strangely I broke the news about those damn Ares mechs on the battletech boards....
Doubtful they get corrections, but we'll see; there were, as we said, some changes made after PT nots went in.
Well, at least all heck won't break loose here Caine...hopefully.
Bototá, Mercenaries and The War deal mostly in the Aztlan/Amazonia fight (about 100 pages...;))
The rest deals with global hotspots like Marienbad Council (free republic with backing from GD Schwarzkopf), Free Republic of Poland (warzone between Evo and S-K), Somalia (Pretty much the same as our world), Nepal (Saeder-Krupp vs Nepal's monarchy) and Albuequerque (Tech war between Corps). Game Information has rules for running Military/Merc Campaigns, New uses for old skills, rules for large dice pools/flight time/strategic combat/aerial combat/etc., New Gear and Naval equipment/rules.
There's also some talk about CAS/Aztlan troubles -- CAS apparently found a couple of spies, but I haven't had a chance to do a complete read-through yet, just a skim.
Kot will be happy about that...
8)
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Hell yeah i am. Finally something i can bite on. :)
And as for the Battle Rifle controversy, i think it's time all those advances bring a new category of guns into play.
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I may be wrong and if I am please explain. The Battle Rifle is moded to accept/shoot high power rounds which gives it it's stated DV. That DV with a "minor" mod to the rifle making it FA capable negates machine guns? Is that correct? My answer would be to apply the mod allowing high power rounds to machine guns which are already FA capable and you still have the difference between the classifications.
WAR! seems to have created the new classification by integrating a mod into a whole range of weapons rather than creating a new base weapon. I am sure I am missing some meaningful point which negates my understanding but I can't really find it. I also understand that my "solution" could be seen as even more power creep but as I said earlier I don't see that as a real problem.
Nope, Battle Rifles do not have high power rounds mod as standard.
They just shoot bigger bullets and as such do more damage then an assault rifle does, except for that one assault rifle that has that mod as standard.
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Bototá, Mercenaries and The War deal mostly in the Aztlan/Amazonia fight (about 100 pages...;))
The rest deals with global hotspots like Marienbad Council (free republic with backing from GD Schwarzkopf), Free Republic of Poland (warzone between Evo and S-K), Somalia (Pretty much the same as our world), Nepal (Saeder-Krupp vs Nepal's monarchy) and Albuequerque (Tech war between Corps). Game Information has rules for running Military/Merc Campaigns, New uses for old skills, rules for large dice pools/flight time/strategic combat/aerial combat/etc., New Gear and Naval equipment/rules.
There's also some talk about CAS/Aztlan troubles -- CAS apparently found a couple of spies, but I haven't had a chance to do a complete read-through yet, just a skim.
Thanks! That is more information than stated in the release on this site! I hope they put up some previews. Otherwise, I'll need to wait to flip through a hard copy in store before i decide to buy.
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So what's the deal with high power rounds? W! says that they give a -2 dice pool penalty due to recoil. Does that mean they double all recoil penalties? Or is that -2 in addition to regular recoil penalties? How does this fit in with the existing recoil penalty rules?
Frankly, I'd like to see some serious revision to this section in future pdfs.
And what were they thinking with monofilament grenades? When monowire in ARS costs a thousand nuyen per meter, how does a monofilament grenade containing "hundreds of meters of monofilament" cost 150 nuyen? And even at that price, why would you want one? An HE grenade costs less than a third of that, does similar damage, and has a bigger area of effect. (The reason you'd want one at that price is to take it apart and sell the hundreds of meters of monofilament inside it for a thousand nuyen each.)
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I'd think that it's the same as the -1 per bullet for normal ammo. So, if you burst fire 3 bullets, you're looking at -4 recoil (1st bullet's free, 2nd & 3rd get -2 cumulative).
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One thing about the monofilament grenade may be that after it explodes you have monofilament deployed over an area? No it does not say that but the stuff does not desolve after the gernade explodes. Just a thought.
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True, but monofilament lying on the ground won't do much damage. I can't see it getting "caught" in tree branches or anything else either, since it's monofilament and would probably cut through such stuff.
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And what were they thinking with monofilament grenades? When monowire in ARS costs a thousand nuyen per meter, how does a monofilament grenade containing "hundreds of meters of monofilament" cost 150 nuyen? And even at that price, why would you want one? An HE grenade costs less than a third of that, does similar damage, and has a bigger area of effect. (The reason you'd want one at that price is to take it apart and sell the hundreds of meters of monofilament inside it for a thousand nuyen each.)
1. I'd suggest that a monofilament grenade is probably a whole lot quieter than a regular grenade. It just needs compressed air or something similar to spray the wire around. Makes it a great option for covert ops.
2. It'd also probably be scary as hell to see someone get hit by that. A soldier is probably used to seeing people get hit by shrapnel and the like but seeing someone get sliced into bite sized chunks, not so much.
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I think if you were to use a monofiliment gernade in a jungle setting you could chop a lot of brush down. More than a regular gernade would at least. The other thing is that if you are in the area where a monofiliment gernade went off you could suffer damage in later turns as you try and get out. No it would not stick to walls or anything but being in the blast area means you are likely to have the stuff all over you.
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Well, that brings up the question the of how do you "clean" an area where a monofilament grenade went off?
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Well, that brings up the question the of how do you "clean" an area where a monofilament grenade went off?
Clean it of monofilament, or clean it of the human leftovers after the blast?
'Cause I was thinking a water elemental to really rinse it down, myself... ;D
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Clean it of monofilament. I mean, if it's going to be troublesome after the blast so you can't walk through the area...
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Well, that brings up the question the of how do you "clean" an area where a monofilament grenade went off?
Something the developer (I mean in game manafacturer by that) really did not care about. For real life examples look at mines and minefields all over the Middle East. This could indicate that the gernade is meant to be used from a defensive point as its use just adds more stuff the enemy has to deal with to get at your location.
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Clean it of monofilament. I mean, if it's going to be troublesome after the blast so you can't walk through the area...
I know, I just wanted to work in a water elemental/squeegee joke, is all. ;)
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Use a magnet? :P
Even a mormon could do this, i bet.
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Use a magnet? :P
Even a mormon could do this, i bet.
That's assuming the nanowire is made of ferrous material and not another material. I'd think, because of it's strength, it's probably made of carbon or some carbonite blend of materials, preventing it from being detected by magnetic anomaly and metal detectors.
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Well, probably. Any adhesive substance would suffice, like scotch monotape, or some kind of adhesive gel.
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I'd suspect that the grenade is actually made of a degradable substance of some sort, or designed so that the molecular cohesion breaks down after a couple of hours or days. If for no other reason than you wouldn't want to risk your own troops using them on the enemy, taking that position, and then a couple of them "tripping" over the loose line on the ground and cutting their own feet off.
Man, I'm going to have FUN with these if any player of mine ever decides to use them They're a little bit like Shadowruns version of a Deck of Many things. Very cool when they work, and they suck balls when they do not.
Bull
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Use a magnet? :P
Even a mormon could do this, i bet.
I'm going to admit that I'm not sure just what that second line is trying to communicate, but the phraseology "Even a mormon" raises some alarms. Please be cautious about painting people of a religion with an overly broad brush. We'll count this as an admonition, not a warning, for the moment.
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I would figure that a bunch of small bits of wire that will cut through anything will happily work their way below ground level once their initial explosive velocity is spent. Sooner or later they'll run into something caustic or hot enough to break down their chemical structure.
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I figured he meant "moron" and just typoed, myself, for what it's worth.
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I figured he meant "moron" and just typoed, myself, for what it's worth.
Yeah, I thought that might be one possibility.
Jason H.
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I'm going to admit that I'm not sure just what that second line is trying to communicate, but the phraseology "Even a mormon" raises some alarms. Please be cautious about painting people of a religion with an overly broad brush. We'll count this as an admonition, not a warning, for the moment.
JM, i don't have anything against Mormons (damn, i didn't use Capital M though, my bad). It's just a recurring trolling meme involving a chat room with Mormon evangelists getting pestered with the question 'How do magnets work' by trolls.
If it sounded like i'm discriminating this religion, then i apologize. It won't happen again.
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I'm going to admit that I'm not sure just what that second line is trying to communicate, but the phraseology "Even a mormon" raises some alarms. Please be cautious about painting people of a religion with an overly broad brush. We'll count this as an admonition, not a warning, for the moment.
JM, i don't have anything against Mormons (damn, i didn't use Capital M though, my bad). It's just a recurring trolling meme involving a chat room with Mormon evangelists getting pestered with the question 'How do magnets work' by trolls.
If it sounded like i'm discriminating this religion, then i apologize. It won't happen again.
All right, done and done. No harm, no foul, no permanent record.
Jason H.
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Good. I sometimes don't understand myself even. I think i need a 'is-it-comperhensible' checker plugin. =='
Note to self: This meme is pretty obscure. And stupid, when you think of it. Don't use it again.
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I'm inclined to go with the "suppressed" grenade option posted earlier. Some modern offensive (HE in SR terms) grenades use what's essentially a notched wire wrapped casing to deliver their force over an area without having the problem of a larger kill radius like a defensive grenade (Frag in SR terms). They're not that far removed from how a "monowire grenade" driven by an explosive core would work, and I'm of the opinion that monowire would likely combust if you set off a charge right next to it. Get that sucker driven by compressed gas, however, and now we're cooking. Still a pretty loud pop, but nothing like setting off a grenade driven by explosives.
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Sure, we can speculate about what effects beyond those listed in W! a monowire grenade might have, but the canon includes none of that. It's still a very expensive, but not any more effective, alternative to an HE grenade. But it is a heck of a bargain on monowire by the meter.
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Maybe the Monowire Grenade works using only pressure, not an explosion? I'm not good enough physics-wise to explain that, but it should be possible.
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I would figure that a bunch of small bits of wire that will cut through anything will happily work their way below ground level once their initial explosive velocity is spent. Sooner or later they'll run into something caustic or hot enough to break down their chemical structure.
I can just picture it now:
Private Clueless: "Uhh... SAAARGE!!"
Sergeant Irate: "What is it now, private??"
PC: "I threw the mono-grenade like in basic, but something's not right!"
SI: "What's not right?"
PC: "The wires cut the enemy apart real good, but then when they fell to the ground, they started burrowing and ... well, look!"
PC points to a large hole falling deep within the earth, the air is hot from the heat of molten magma and the smell of brimstone fills the air. A well dress gentleman with blood red skin floats up out of the whole.
Lucifer: "My thanks, gents. That science of yours is a miraculous thing. Opened the gate to hell without a problem."
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I'm going to admit that I'm not sure just what that second line is trying to communicate, but the phraseology "Even a mormon" raises some alarms. Please be cautious about painting people of a religion with an overly broad brush. We'll count this as an admonition, not a warning, for the moment.
JM, i don't have anything against Mormons (damn, i didn't use Capital M though, my bad). It's just a recurring trolling meme involving a chat room with Mormon evangelists getting pestered with the question 'How do magnets work' by trolls.
If it sounded like i'm discriminating this religion, then i apologize. It won't happen again.
In that case, I suggest we ban Kot, for perpetuating any lame internet meme :) Especially anything that references ICP. Oi vey. ;)
Bull
P.S. Before anyone asks, all internet memes are lame :)
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I may house rule Monofilement gernades to be a "supressive fire" device for the left over filiment after the explosion. Probably for two or three turns only though. Makes it a little bit more useful and diffrent enough from frags in my mind. I can see a runner dropping one behind to slow down the "bad guys" or security firing a few over the heads of the runners to explode in fron of them to slow escape.
I like the idea and DV of the gernade just feel it needs a little "something" to make it work in such a way that runners and security are going to say "Yes, please!"
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Sure, we can speculate about what effects beyond those listed in W! a monowire grenade might have, but the canon includes none of that. It's still a very expensive, but not any more effective, alternative to an HE grenade. But it is a heck of a bargain on monowire by the meter.
This might be a potentially interesting house rule: change the Blast to "10m radius," so you get uniform damage over the area.
Thoughts?
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Maybe the Monowire Grenade works using only pressure, not an explosion? I'm not good enough physics-wise to explain that, but it should be possible.
Physics-wise, it doesn't to any initial damage as mono-wire has next to no mass. The air friction alone would make it pretty much impossible to even cover any area with wire so that it acts as entanglement or deterrent.
Well, that brings up the question the of how do you "clean" an area where a monofilament grenade went off?
Of course, burning mono-wire is trivial – you could clear such areas with a flame thrower.
But the real fun fact is that it contains "hundreds of meters of monofilament", while having a list price of 150¥. As mono-wire costs 1.000¥ per meter, salvaging or stripping such grenades to sell the wire at the usual 30% will make you rich. Heck, even at 10%, it's instant money.
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That made me thinkig - how the hell do they keep all that monowire inside, without it cutting through the grenade. The same method can be used for cleaning, i think.
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What are your impressions so far?
That it anounces the return of archery regiments: It has software that allows you to synchronize two arrows shot from the same bow so they add their damage together.
Also, given the new rules of grenade damage stacking, full bursts of grenade do more damage than the cruise missiles listed in the book.
Yes there is power creep, comlinks and programs can now go up to rating 10 but the availability and cost scales put them right around the cost of a descent piece of deltaware, which I'm cool with...
Given that military commlinks in military armor were rated 4-6 in Arsenal and the Corporate Court uplink in Unwired is statted with rating 8 (Firewall 9), the new ratings for mere commlinks issued to soldieres are simply off the scale, which is just sad.
Not only that but the power creep is focused almost entirely on the mundane.
Sadly, no. Slow cast at force 5 allows you to pretty much ignore any kinetic attack and explosion, including Thor shots, while at the same time creating invisible rip-fields for vehicles and air-crafts when placed correctly – which is LoS.
Recharge is funny until you realize that it doesn't just mean that mages will only drive electric vehicles, but that a bound spirit of man can use this spell to supply entire cities with really clean energy – just build really large batteries.
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That made me thinkig - how the hell do they keep all that monowire inside, without it cutting through the grenade. The same method can be used for cleaning, i think.
Well, drawing from the source fiction, monowire doesn't cut through diamond or itself. Diamond, while nigh impossible to cut does shatter easily. So I'd think that what you have is essentially an explosive core (possibly encased in synthetic diamond) surrounded by monowire lengths anchored to diamond bolas. Core goes boom, the diamond balls fly out and the monowire unspools between each pair. The balls provide the mass and the velocity, the wire cuts anything between them.
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BTW what I like about WAR! (even though others may hate it) is the mixing of in-game and out-of-game info on the same page.
I passionately HATE flipping through a book or discovering at a much later time that there is no stats/game info on a certain topic /slash/ having to guess which parts of in-game info I'm just now reading will be covered later in the book stat-wise.
I know it's not the traditional SR presentation style (that means: it totally IS the traditional way (helloo, Street Samurai Catalogue), but was dropped after 1st or 2nd edition I think), but it really increases usability at the gaming table.
As long as both kinds of information are seperated on the page (i.e. by using text boxes) I'm TOTALLY fine with that.
Plus, WAR! has some great artwork (I'm not talking about my pieces, I'm talking about pages 31, 58 (great!), 62, 67 (I am a HUGE fan of in-game ads! Bring 'em on!!), 82, 86, 124 (awesome!), 128 (may well be my favorite piece at all, I love the composition, the cold-hearted cruelty, the "Best Dad" mug, the detached expression of the two people ... brillant), 152 (I love character pics like that)).
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Maybe the Monowire Grenade works using only pressure, not an explosion? I'm not good enough physics-wise to explain that, but it should be possible.
Physics-wise, it doesn't to any initial damage as mono-wire has next to no mass. The air friction alone would make it pretty much impossible to even cover any area with wire so that it acts as entanglement or deterrent.
Seems like the easy answer to this is having a monofilament line with little weight pellets spaced along its length. The weight pellets catch the momentum from the blast and drag the mono-line along. In that case I totally do not grok how the mono-filament grenade does "similar" damage to a HE grenade. Well, maybe similar DV but you'd think the monofilament would negate armor almost entirely.
Edit: Nomad Zophiel beat me to the punch but my second point still stands, i.e. how are these things not *way* more effective than standard HE grenades? BTW, what are the stats on them? I don't have the book yet. If I buy it at all, I'll wait until I can order the "pdf+print version" deal.
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I'm not sure what to think of War!, as I'm not sure the book knows what it wants to be.
The secondary information on the main theater, Bogota, is stunning. We learn a lot about the latent racism against metas (and vice-versa), the promotion of 'tribal' law vis-a-vis gangs, their favorite sports, and the history of the city through the eyes of people there.
My confusion in regards to all this information is this: Isn't this a warzone? We're talking about the front line of conventional combined arms against guerilla warfare with magic thrown in, and people are still looking to party at the clubs?
This city, that has no central government after an Azzie missile strike levelled City Hall?
This city that has been seeded by magical, people-eating demon trees as an area denial tactic?
Why the hell are people still in this city?
Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of information on Bogota that would make an excellent addition to 6WA. Is War! the best place to put it? I'm not sure. It pushes the actual conflict into the background. Giving it a first read, the only reason that I would know there's a war on is because the Jackpointers say "this place would be great if there wasn't a war on."
Editing. I saw it in 6WA, and I see it here, and I'm concerned about the quality of product. It's the job of someone reviewing to ignore SGS (spelling/grammar/syntax) unless it breaks immersion. On the flipside, manuscripts sent to agents are tossed out if readers catch more than three SGS errors within a portion of the manuscript. They do this because they feel the writer doesn't care enough about his product.
Sadly, this is the sense I am getting. Issues are cropping up, such as SGS errors, repeated inserts, or glaring contradictions in style. These things would be picked up in a post-layout proofread, and they're not. Errors that a Word spellcheck would catch are cropping up. To me, this is a grave concern. I would treat 6WA as an unhappy one-time thing, but War! is starting to show a trend and it's not one I want to see.
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I'm a little confused, personally, about how people keep seeming to be so surprised that a good chunk of War! was dedicated to Bogota.
War!--Tensions have been growing between Aztlan and Amazonia for a while. It's time they erupt! This book will provide info on the war, on Bogota, and on the latest military gear being used in the fighting. Rules for mercenary campaigns should be in there too!
That's Jason's post over on the Upcoming Releases thread, where he described the book. I'll say it again, just to stay crystal clear -- I don't have War! yet, because for some reason I thought it would be smart to pay my Spring semester tuition ahead of time and buy my wife a hojillion dollar Dyson vacuum cleaner at the same time -- so I'll admit that I don't have the actual product, and can't actually see what amount of book was dedicated to which topics, or anything like that.
But I can see that it was stated in a pretty straightforward fashion that a good chunk of the book would be on Bogota, some more would be on the Aztlan/Amazonian war in particular, and then it would blossom out into more general military gear/army stuff/more generic "not necessarily this war" type info.
I ask this sincerely (not to be snarky), but was there some other product description floating around somewhere? I don't scour the 'net like I used to since the official forum went up, but was there a book description elsewhere that made it sound different, or were people just seeing the name "War!" instead of "War in the Amazon!" or something, maybe? I'm trying to understand the surprise, here, is all. Anyone got a page count of how much covers Bogota, how much covers that main war, how much covers war in general, or something like that?
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I think part of it may be backlash. After not getting the Shadows of Latin America out, then having Vice and Ghost Cartels covering LA, some fans thought the Bogota section may have been the main influence of the book, but weren't expect it to be almost 100 pages of info...
Me, I'm happy with it. :)
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It's not so much surprise that Bogota is so heavily covered(after all, it is the flashpoint of the conflict) but it seemed to me that the war itself wasn't even in the backseat - it was in the trunk.
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I like the info on Bogotá, too – but I can understand that if you're looking for info on WAAAAAR!, the long section about Bogotá can be ... misleading. Even confusing. Maybe even irritating.
What I do not agree with is the reception of artwork in WAR!
It is not "average" or "ok".
Most of it is GREAT, and if (pardon) the racial pix of Companion were half as good I'd be ecstatic.
I am not talking about the three pix I did, and I wasn't involved in ANY of the other art (I only saw it in the PDF), but calling THAT art "yeah, ok" by SR standards of ALL editions (big hands edition included) is not giving the art the love and attention it deserves.
Could some pieces be better? They always can. But they are a minority in WAR!, and WAR! contains MAINLY good pix, SEVERAL great pix, and even a pic or three of epic quality (for SR and even for RPGs in general, and again: not mine).
And even though I understand and even agree to Frank's review in a lot of ways, griping about "that bishop pic" is plainly unfair (as the quality of the pic is near-perfect (wasn't me) – and he gripes about it because in layouting it was placed adjacent to a female orc writeup ... ooooh weeell (FYI: the pic's on p48, and the NPC it belongs to is p47 – OMG! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD! What CRAPPY art!)
Sorry for my rant.
I'll take my pills now and shuddup...
AAS
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In regards to the Bishop:
The art itself is fine, but you always want to have your image layout refer to the text it's aligned to. If there's a picture of the Bishop, put it next to his writeup. If that cannot be done, perhaps byline it to avoid confusion. Simply titling it 'Bishop so-and-so' would lead people to remember "Oh hey, that's the guy I read about on page 45."
As to the war itself...Not much of it is actually covered in the book. Bogota covers right about 50% of the book, and it doesn't get much into the war until after the dump.
edit: Of, not if.
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So the pic on p47 and p48 were mixed up. That is an error, you are right. What offends me is picking out this little mistake in layouting as an example of "artwork issues". And it is NOT an artwork issue.
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So the pic on p47 and p48 were mixed up. That is an error, you are right. What offends me is picking out this little mistake in layouting as an example of "artwork issues". And it is NOT an artwork issue.
You have bias. :P
You're correct; it's a layout issue. A design problem. It could be corrected by shifting the portrait to the right page, or bylining the portrait if space is a concern.
Art is, however, subjective. What one person adores, another despises. :P
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You have bias.
What? Who? Me? No? NEVARRRRRR!!!
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Now that I've moved on from the equipment lists, I'm seeing what Chase is seeing. I like the concept, but is someone going to organize this book, or what? It's called War!, but I've got to hunt around the document to find out who's at war with who, and why. I've got no problem with the Bogota section, but it should be in the back, after the info on the conflict.
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A list of cities that did not clear out while war raged in and around them:
Grozny
Beirut
Baghdad
Sarajevo
Mogadishu
Madrid
Barcelona
Paris
Berlin
Vienna
Prague
Moscow
Leningrad
Stalingrad
Tokyo
Manilla
Richmond
What makes Shadowrun's Bogota any different from these cities? Virtually all of the western US was an insurgency warzone during the Ghost Dance war without creating civilan exodus. The same is true of eastern and central Europe in the EuroWars. Tripoli is in the middle of the Desert Wars grounds.
Life goes on and does not stop and start just because of war.
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just finished a read through on War! overall, i really like it. Took me 3 days to wade through the Bogotá section. As an avowed fluff aficionado I was quite happy with the info. I feel I could safely drop a team into the region and have a sufficiently good time with out winging it.
The art was top notch...I like the direction things are going with the interior art and am a big fan of Echo's covers.Would have liked to see a scantily clad elf chicha on the cover but,hey, thats just me.*grin*
?
as a former resident of Albuquerque I was pleased to see it mentioned....have always wondered about its status in the 6th world...wonder if you can still get huevos rancheros at the Frontier on centeral in 2072?
my favorite part so far is the Makwa Miskozi. Fraggin biodrone grizzlies in armor...that my friends, is truely
Epic!
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I hope I am correct here.
First, I am not a English native speaker, so please be patient, perhaps I write something down wrong or I understand something not correctly. I am playing SR4 mostly English, since the other language versions are not that advanced. Overall I really like SR as a dark future fictional RPG. However with WAR new in our round there were some questions, before we are going to use it.
There is the chapter "WORK BRINGS FREEDOM". Perhaps we misunderstood something, so perhaps something can put some light on it.
1) I am not quite sure if we have understood the basic magic rules and the advanced rules in Street Magic. What exactly was this magical dome which cut off Oswiecim and Auschwitz? A barrier similar to the barrier found in the former state of Ireland or in Tibet? I ask because we have a mage in our group with high arcana skill and he wants to do the same (for his spirit prison project).
2) What exactly are the "angry and hungry dead."? Because after our understanding of the magic rules c, there are not "dead" in SR. There are shedim dead bodies, ancester spirits or spirits gone mad/toxic etc. What kind of magic are they, where can I find the rules?
3) I understand that Auschwitz is now a treasure groove and a runner place. But exactly what are these necromantic artifacts mentioned in the text? Where can I find the rules for necromancy (can I summon the dead as a mage as a initiate power because i do not find the rules for summoning dead people in Street Magic? Or is this anchestor spirit, summonend normally? Which magic tradition? A normal one? Or a toxic one? Where can I find the rules for these necromatic artefacts? Are they normal magic items or true artifacts? Where can I get the values of this arctifacts?
4) What are "weapons necessary to take down ghosts"? Spirit have immunity, so we use high powered rifles and weapon focus and magic. What other weapons do we need? What spirit class are "ghosts", I mean from the rules?
5) The slow spell seems very powerful. Can it realy stop a tank gun which shoots you with a force 1 spell and you simply step aside? Does this provide total immunity to every kind of bullet? Can I put this spell in a level 1 sustaining focus and be immune to bullets. The streetsamurai wants to use this spell and I cannot find anything in the rules that he is not right.
6) Do you know a good web adress where I can get a shadowrun map of bogota, atzlan and amazonian? I mean with the war on it.
7) I am not quite sure, we have an German in our group and he seems a little bit confused about the treasure hunt (I love treasure hunts, you can do everythign there) in Auschwitz. I said to him that there are only the ghosts of the village people, he asked if there are the ghosts of the Jew too. He does not want to kill jew ghosts.
Thank you and sorry again for my bad english.
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There is the chapter "WORK BRINGS FREEDOM". Perhaps we misunderstood something, so perhaps something can put some light on it.
Yeah. I penned it. I'd love to help.
1) I am not quite sure if we have understood the basic magic rules and the advanced rules in Street Magic. What exactly was this magical dome which cut off Oswiecim and Auschwitz? A barrier similar to the barrier found in the former state of Ireland or in Tibet? I ask because we have a mage in our group with high arcana skill and he wants to do the same (for his spirit prison project).
It's supposed to be very functionally similar to the one in Ireland.
2) What exactly are the "angry and hungry dead."? Because after our understanding of the magic rules c, there are not "dead" in SR. There are shedim dead bodies, ancester spirits or spirits gone mad/toxic etc. What kind of magic are they, where can I find the rules?
When I wrote the section, I didn't define them because I wanted to leave them as a sort of urban legend, something you could take and run with. I'm not sure if the implication made it across, but they are akin to ancestor spirits.
3) I understand that Auschwitz is now a treasure groove and a runner place. But exactly what are these necromantic artifacts mentioned in the text? Where can I find the rules for necromancy (can I summon the dead as a mage as a initiate power because i do not find the rules for summoning dead people in Street Magic? Or is this anchestor spirit, summonend normally? Which magic tradition? A normal one? Or a toxic one? Where can I find the rules for these necromatic artefacts? Are they normal magic items or true artifacts? Where can I get the values of this arctifacts?
Again, that's a rumor. I wanted to write something up on that, but I didn't have much space to work with. I would say that most are traditional magic items, with a possibility of a true artifact, depending on what you wanted in your campaign.
4) What are "weapons necessary to take down ghosts"? Spirit have immunity, so we use high powered rifles and weapon focus and magic. What other weapons do we need? What spirit class are "ghosts", I mean from the rules?
Exactly as you said, spirits have immunity. You'd need particular things, high-powered rifles, et cetera.
7) I am not quite sure, we have an German in our group and he seems a little bit confused about the treasure hunt (I love treasure hunts, you can do everythign there) in Auschwitz. I said to him that there are only the ghosts of the village people, he asked if there are the ghosts of the Jew too. He does not want to kill jew ghosts.
It should have been villagers. I haven't read the final version, but it was supposed to be all natives, not prisoners.
Thank you and sorry again for my bad english.
No problems. Thank you for your reasonable questions.
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Yeah. I penned it. I'd love to help.
Thank you, that is very nice. :-)
It's supposed to be very functionally similar to the one in Ireland.
Who created it?
Was a man able to pass before into this dome?
I'm not sure if the implication made it across, but they are akin to ancestor spirits.
So this dome was build with the awakening 2011 and killed all the inhabitants of the village and turned into anchester spirits?
I would say that most are traditional magic items, with a possibility of a true artifact, depending on what you wanted in your campaign.
Who put them there?
Exactly as you said, spirits have immunity. You'd need particular things, high-powered rifles, et cetera.
We use normal assault rifles with normal modifications like smartlink and gasventil and ammunition. So this fixer/dealer is selling military weapon and weapon focus?
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I hope I am correct here.
7) I am not quite sure, we have an German in our group and he seems a little bit confused about the treasure hunt (I love treasure hunts, you can do everythign there) in Auschwitz. I said to him that there are only the ghosts of the village people
Sorry about the threadjack, but this made me laugh and I just wanted to thank you for the visual. My emphasis.
http://ilike.myspacecdn.com/play#Village+People:Macho+Man:15381:s65181.6417.16496.1.1.11%2Cstd_26530e66a10bc4ec7a9d171bdf1169e6
Not even sure if this link works. :D
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There is the chapter "WORK BRINGS FREEDOM". Perhaps we misunderstood something, so perhaps something can put some light on it.
Yeah. I penned it. I'd love to help.
I'm sorry, but the write-up seems to be a the attempt of converting a standard D&D-adventure hook into SR. Sort of like Loot the Forbidden Tomb. A dungeon crawl-kind of adventure whose premise is to loot the evil, necromantic artifacts [what should that be, btw? I doubt that it's supported by the rules] - and since evil artifacts are always guarded by evil spirits let's take an evil place... let's take Ausschwitz. :(
SR canon has made it clear that the place has a extremely high background count and that the spirits roaming there are the former victims and not humble farmers who want to live a life in peace.
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let's take Ausschwitz. :(
SR canon has made it clear that the place has a extremely high background count and that the spirits roaming there are the former victims and not humble farmers who want to live a life in peace.
Pagerefs would be nice or even just book refs, i know about the background count part, but that second part is news to me and intresting considering that excistance of actual ghost in the setting as a whole hasn't never been really confirmed.
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Shadows of Europe, iirc (am away from my books atm).
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Oswiecim, from Shadows of Europe:
After the Awakening, many former battlefields and sites of carnage from Europe's many wars became haunted by ghosts. Even the recent Euro Wars left their mark, as witnessed by the specters lingering in the battlefields of Pustynia near Warsaw-Lodz. But the most haunted and spiritually corrupt areas by far are those where great massacres occurred, particularly former Nazi concentration camps and the Warsaw ghetto.
The city of Oswiecim stands right next to the Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis' largest concentration camp. For over twenty years after the Awakening, the ghosts of this camp's victims drove all life from this region, occasionally haunting nearby areas and even Krakow as well. The Sylvestrines erected a massive spirit barrier (Force 8 ) around the area in 2035, and maintain it to this day along with patrols of watchers.
Within the barrier, thousands of apparitions, specters, and unique ghosts (see pp. 120-2, MitS) are contained, waiting to unleash their pain, misery, and wrath on any metahumans foolish enough to venture within. The camp itself has a Background Count of 5 (petering down to 3 in Oswiecim and 2 or 1 a few kilometers out), and the gas chambers and other buildings razed by the Nazis to hide their atrocities appear as (sometimes materialized) astral constructs (see pp. 100-2, T: AL).
So, really, all War! did was knock down the barrier and introduce some guy to spread rumors about necromantic artifacts (which a GM may or may not want to stat up), in order to get people to pay him money and equip themselves to go kill ghosts.
Ghosts that have been there since SR3, six years ago.
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The details about the ghosts of Auschwitz are in the Poland section of Shadows of Europe. I wonder if other former concentration camps have similar?
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Ghosts that have been there since SR3, six years ago.
Thanks for the page reference. I never had a problem with Ghosts, but with necromantic artifacts and the premise of using Auschwitz as a lame excuse for a dungeon-crawl.
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Ghosts that have been there since SR3, six years ago.
Thanks for the page reference.
I, uh, actually forgot the page reference, now that you mention it. 229, just for the record.
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Minor details! :D
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Minor details! :D
Are you kiddin'? Don't tell any of my professors I quoted something -- even in a forum post -- without a proper citation, they'll skin me alive! :o
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It's supposed to be very functionally similar to the one in Ireland.
You mean Tír na nÓg. And no, it does not:
The Sylvestrines erected a massive spirit barrier (Force 8 ) around the area in 2035, and maintain it to this day along with patrols of watchers.
It was there to keep the spectres in, not people out. You could go there and loot the city all day long while "killing" ghosts that would return anyway. No need to knock the barrier down and risking retribution by the Sylvestrines.
Since you seem new to this: Spirit Barriers is a variant of Astral Barrier limited to spirits. While Astral Barrier only affected astral and dual beings, Spirit Barrier only affected Spirits, so even astrally perceiving awakened could cross it just fine. (Not that it's a good idea to walk around like that near Auschwitz.)
Again, that's a rumor.
Unfortunately, it sure doesn't sound that way.
It should have been villagers. I haven't read the final version, but it was supposed to be all natives, not prisoners.
Unfortunately, it's mostely the prisoners that turned into ghost, sprectres and the like:
The city of Oswiecim stands right next to the Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis' largest concentration camp. For over twenty years after the Awakening, the ghosts of this camp's victims drove all life from this region, occasionally haunting nearby areas and even Krakow as well.
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Minor details! :D
Are you kiddin'? Don't tell any of my professors I quoted something -- even in a forum post -- without a proper citation, they'll skin me alive! :o
;D
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That's a great idea. Start selling a story about "necromantic artifacts" to the DF and the Atlanteans. Get together a heavy team, get the standard half up front and access to milspec gear. Go shopping. . .and run away as fast as you can with a fist full of Availability 30F loot!
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That's a great idea. Start selling a story about "necromantic artifacts" to the DF and the Atlanteans. Get together a heavy team, get the standard half up front and access to milspec gear. Go shopping. . .and run away as fast as you can with a fist full of Availability 30F loot!
Except for the part about trying to run away from groups like the DF and Atlanteans, at least. ;D
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We're discussing War! in the German Forums too and most of the Poster/SR-Players don't like
the Idea of sending their Runners on a "Auschwitz Dungeon Crawl " and shooting the Ghosts/Spirits of the Concentration Camps Victims.
That was not a good Idea of CGL (spoken politely) !
Hough!
Medicineman
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We're discussing War! in the German Forums too and most of the Poster/SR-Players don't like
the Idea of sending their Runners on a "Auschwitz Dungeon Crawl " and shooting the Ghosts/Spirits of the Concentration Camps Victims.
That was not a good Idea of CGL (spoken politely) !
Hough!
Medicineman
So, honestly, did any of you have the same reaction when Shadows of Europe came out? Then it wasn't a dungeon crawl, sure, but the ghosts of the Auschwitz victims were first presented as monstrous undead beasts that were terrorizing the countryside there, not in this section of War!.
I'm genuinely curious, here, because I know that I, at least, never noticed that section of SoE before the current uproar over this section of War!, and I'm wondering if I'm the only one, or what other reason there is for this current indignation (when no such indignation seemed to exist when the concentration camp victims were first turned into monsters six years ago).
Is the big deal that it's a "dungeon crawl" this time around?
And just to clarify (again), if people just don't like it, that's cool, they just don't like it. I can get that, honestly. I guess I'm just confused why this is all of a sudden so offensive, but SoE wasn't.
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Is the big deal that it's a "dungeon crawl" this time around?
Probably, as that removes the modicum of respect such things should be treated. (And somewhat were in SoE, the magic books, etc.)
Those small inconsistencies to the setting that accumulate are most likely not helping either.
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So, honestly, did any of you have the same reaction when Shadows of Europe came out?
I don't think so.
All I remember from it was that Ausschwitz is a High Background Area and the Spirits (ImO a different thing than a Ghost) are roaming in the KZs ,being held in Check by a Church Order and a Mana Barrier.
I personally never played there.
And No ,as far as I remember this was never an Issue....but it is now
Is the big deal that it's a "dungeon crawl" this time around?
No ,I think its the "Kill the Victims one more Time" Idea
And this is true for me personally too.
I don't mind a Dungeoncrawl (hey I played D&D for 25 Years and I've grown into RPG by Dungeoncrawling) :D
but for Me as a German...I really would'nt want to "kill" the Victims of our Past a second Time
A disgusting (or is revolting the better Word ?) Thought
one personal thing though :)
contrary to Hermit from DS Forum I don't Intend to insult anybody
I'm open for Discussion
with an open Dance
Medicineman
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Can't you and hermit just stop insulting each other? That's annyoing as fuck.
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but for Me as a German...I really would'nt want to "kill" the Victims of our Past a second Time
A disgusting (or is revolting the better Word ?) Thought
Well luckily ghost in SR aren't actually people from the past, at least not according to Running Wild.
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@Critias
Maybe a more american example as translation of what Medicinman said.
Imagining the victims of the 9/11 would become all ghost and to help the world you have to kill this "monsters" again.
Sorry for my choice of words and it isn't my intention to disrespect the victims or their Memory, but I hope that this example clear that point of discussion.
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I agree with you on that, Medicineman. Auschwitz-Birkenau KL area is good as a danger zone around which runs can be organized: hunt the loose spirits, help maintaining the barrier, find weak spots, protect the barrier from external threats(possessed mages, BBG's, Shedim, and such) and so on. But not as a place where you run. It's just too much. Besides that's a controversial idea at best, there are two basic outcomes:
A) The whole idea behind Auschwitz-Birkenau KL will be trivialized and turned into a pointless killzone. And that's bad. Really bad. Just imagine someone doing that to any of the sites on which Native American people were murdered/herded into a reserve, where they died of sickness, starvation, and such. As a reminder - i'm living in Poland, i was born and raised here, and was reminded of the nazi's and communist russians atrocities on every step of my life. I visited Auschitz once. It's something you can't forget. Ever.
B) The game will be realistic enough to show how it was/is/will be in the Auschwitz zone. I've been there, done that, and i will tell you - that is a terribly bad idea. Emotional scars aside, it feels plain wrong afterwards. I know people who were playing rpg's on graves. That's as much wrong. I don't really know how to express myself now, as i even can't do that in polish. But it would not be a good game that people enjoyed, that i know for sure.
I know there is still the possibility to have a shadowrun game taking place in the Auschwitz zone that will take the middle road successfully, and wont trivialize the place, nor emotionally hurt anyone. But i doubt that.
So if you can, run outside. There can be enough War! just beyond the barrier.
P.S. I know i went all weepy here. But i can't really stay cool when it comes to that place.
UV: 9/11 isn't that close to what happened in Auschwitz. But yes, the emotional load US has because of it is a good way to get the picture.
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Well luckily ghost in SR aren't actually people from the past, at least not according to Running Wild.
They are at least assumed to be "imprints" and "echos" of the dead. So it still feels a lot like grave-dancing.
As an aside, there indeed will be "necromantic artifacts" to hunt and sell around there – all those ghost's Chains. Those are objects imbued with the Hidden Life power of the ghost tied to it and allow you to summon and enslave those ghosts of the prisoners like any Free Spirit. Combined with the heading, it adds a whole new level of wrong.
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A) The whole idea behind Auschwitz-Birkenau KL will be trivialized and turned into a pointless killzone. And that's bad. Really bad. Just imagine someone doing that to any of the sites on which Native American people were murdered/herded into a reserve, where they died of sickness, starvation, and such. As a reminder - i'm living in Poland, i was born and raised here, and was reminded of the nazi's and communist russians atrocities on every step of my life. I visited Auschitz once. It's something you can't forget. Ever.
Or playing drug addiction as something that turns the victims into "monsters" controlled by an evil free plant spirit. . .oops, done that. Or treating the cartels who have currently turned Mexico into a RL war zone as. . .oh, right. Oh, or how about bunraku parlors just in case you like your human trafficking with less grey area. Exploiting children (see Children thread) seems to be about the only place the source material doesn't go. I'm not saying that the Shoa should be a setting for an adventure, far from it. On the other hand, I can see how it could be very emotionally powerful, even therapeutic to have characters do some good in and for a place so wretched. SR does offer up some very mature themes, some with a little symbolic distance and some straight up. If they're trivialized by the GM's using them, there's nothing you or I or anyone else can really do about that.
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Of course, you could also play it as finding alternative methods to lay the ghosts to rest. For instance, the item they discuss as an "unholy artifact". Maybe if you destroy something like that, some or all of the ghosts will find peace and disperse.
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Nomad, nothing, besides preaching like i just did. Or you, for the matter. You've got the point better than i did, though.
So, yeah. If you want to do a Auschwitz run that would do some good, then yes, i'd say 'okay'. Just don't make any research, and let your team get through all those crazed, malicious spirits and plant the cleansing device/spirit trap, then bolt before it starts to work(or not), and get out of there in time, and without casualties. That would be a good game if done right. Heh. Seems like i overdid it again. It's good to get an outside-of-your-head perspective once in a while.
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Of course, you could also play it as finding alternative methods to lay the ghosts to rest. For instance, the item they discuss as an "unholy artifact". Maybe if you destroy something like that, some or all of the ghosts will find peace and disperse.
Which has just given me an idea . . . a series of runs/missions to do with finding and using such an "unholy artifact", in competition/opposition with a group who wishes to glorify/emulate the tragedy and atrocity of Auschwitz. It would probably get nasty.
Alamos 20K has been off the radar for too long, or maybe Nationale Aktion are the bad guys. And if some enterprising GM could figure a way to tie in Genom Corp in Swtizerland . . .
Pardon the choice of words, I'm really not intending any offence to anybody.
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So, honestly, did any of you have the same reaction when Shadows of Europe came out? Then it wasn't a dungeon crawl, sure, but the ghosts of the Auschwitz victims were first presented as monstrous undead beasts that were terrorizing the countryside there, not in this section of War!.
I'm genuinely curious, here, because I know that I, at least, never noticed that section of SoE before the current uproar over this section of War!, and I'm wondering if I'm the only one, or what other reason there is for this current indignation (when no such indignation seemed to exist when the concentration camp victims were first turned into monsters six years ago).
Is the big deal that it's a "dungeon crawl" this time around?
And just to clarify (again), if people just don't like it, that's cool, they just don't like it. I can get that, honestly. I guess I'm just confused why this is all of a sudden so offensive, but SoE wasn't.
SoE is actually where I got the idea for the section in question. I spent a good deal of time reading SoE again when I wrote what I did for War. Maybe the direction was off, but I wanted to take that, and turn it a little in another direction.
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A) The whole idea behind Auschwitz-Birkenau KL will be trivialized and turned into a pointless killzone. And that's bad. Really bad. Just imagine someone doing that to any of the sites on which Native American people were murdered/herded into a reserve, where they died of sickness, starvation, and such. As a reminder - i'm living in Poland, i was born and raised here, and was reminded of the nazi's and communist russians atrocities on every step of my life. I visited Auschitz once. It's something you can't forget. Ever.
My great-grandfather died at Auschwitz. I sympathize. Silly point maybe, but I had my (late) grandfather read the section in question, to see if there were any glaring problems. He said it was strange, but he knew it was not only clearly a work of fiction, but had sufficient pathos that it'd make the people playing think about what they were doing.
That said, Native Americans, in my opinion, have often received rather poor treatment in Shadowrun supplements, often bordering on offensive if not just crossing the line. So, to each their own.
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Of course, you could also play it as finding alternative methods to lay the ghosts to rest. For instance, the item they discuss as an "unholy artifact". Maybe if you destroy something like that, some or all of the ghosts will find peace and disperse.
I even considered specifically mentioning that. I was hoping the implication would come through. When doing SR writing, I try to avoid too obviously 'good guy' solutions. I try to err on the side of just presenting it as it is, and letting the table decide where they want to take it. That's not only a viable solution, that's absolutely how my regular table would handle it.
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[...]
Well, you said we should not be afraid to take our criticism here, so I'm just going to start my career with a crosspost from DS (http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=33712&view=findpost&p=1020005): ;)
So, really, all War! did was knock down the barrier
First of all, it turned an Astral Barrier into an impenetrable magic dome straight from your favourity fantasy cliche. Even if the backstory got changed to incorporate the Silvestrines pimping their barrier, the question would be how they did it. The knowledge to turn a place into a proto-Caer is not exactly commonplace, and I doubt the Tir Elves are trading.
and introduce some guy to spread rumors about necromantic artifacts (which a GM may or may not want to stat up), in order to get people to pay him money and equip themselves to try and go kill ghosts.
So this sounds like an in-character rumor section to you?
As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and su ffers a –4 dice pool modifierer to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only su ffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥
(The weapon in question is the favourite scalpel of Eduard Wirths (http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Wirths"), the runner's Arbeit which Macht Frei is to recover it)
Ghosts that have been there since SR3, six years ago.
Spirits which are called "ghosts" have been around since some time. However, in tune with the "belief makes reality" approach towards magical traditions, the exact nature of these entities has always been left open to the beliefs of the player/character. They may be the actual spirits of the dead, or they may be malicious impositors, or even just believe that they are the "rebirth" of a certain person (just like some IRL people do). Establishing ghosts, and pre-awakeing one to boot, throws all of these conventions overboard. And it brings a jackload of unfortunate consequences - just imagine what would happen if the ghost of a dead corpsec could get back to point the finger at you.
Additional stuff which does not fit
- The idea of Auschwitz as a "treasure trove" with its "necromatic artifacts". Shadowrun is not your "magic items everywhere" universe. Foci do not pop into existence just from being exposed to magic, complete with attunement to the place's background count. They do not take a life of their own. They DO become dual-natured, which the blade in question is not - rules-wise the mysterious magic blade is an ordinary knife with upped stats, not a weapon focus
- - Now let us suppose such an item, which violates everything known about enchanting so far, and dates back to before the Awakening, did indeed exist in the universe. Every corp and research group even remotely involved with magic would pay millions to get a look at it, not a puny 10k.
- Weapons which take down ghosts. Again, this sounds like the magic Sword of Doom +5, not like Shadowrun.
- The "cabal of wizards" thing. Sure, there are magic groups, but it just sounds...I guess I'm repeating myself
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First of all, it turned an Astral Barrier into an impenetrable magic dome straight from your favourity fantasy cliche. Even if the backstory got changed to incorporate the Silvestrines pimping their barrier, the question would be how they did it. The knowledge to turn a place into a proto-Caer is not exactly commonplace, and I doubt the Tir Elves are trading.
Kaer. And it's not like a Kaer. More like a Citadel. And it doesn't have to withstand Horror attacks, just keep the twisted spirits inside. That's probably why it's easier to set up and maintain. Just remember, you can make a Force 12 dual Barrier with a starting character. Or even better, if you take a Power Focus. Now imagine what a whole order of Christian mages(i bet they pack heavy protection spells) can do. Especially if they've been keeping that wall up for a long time.
- Weapons which take down ghosts. Again, this sounds like the magic Sword of Doom +5, not like Shadowrun.
Weapon Foci. A +1 sword, for example. We have these already in SR.
As for the rest of it, you're discussing content of War!. I haven't seen that yet, so i can't really say anything.
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Spirits which are called "ghosts" have been around since some time. However, in tune with the "belief makes reality" approach towards magical traditions, the exact nature of these entities has always been left open to the beliefs of the player/character. They may be the actual spirits of the dead, or they may be malicious impositors, or even just believe that they are the "rebirth" of a certain person (just like some IRL people do). Establishing ghosts, and pre-awakeing one to boot, throws all of these conventions overboard.
Considering that according to Running Wild "ghosts are wild spirits that have become imprinted by the dead, turning up as echoes of the deceased", i fail to see the problem in existance of those ghosts.
And as was pointed out to you over at dumpshock, there has been ghosts in Auschwitz since SOE, so this isn't really a valid complaint against the new book.
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So this sounds like an in-character rumor section to you?
As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and su ffers a –4 dice pool modifierer to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only su ffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥
(The weapon in question is the favourite scalpel of Eduard Wirths (http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Wirths"), the runner's Arbeit which Macht Frei is to recover it)
I mentioned that as a rumored item, but I didn't stat it. I guess it got statted up in the final draft pass. Sorry about that.
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Battle rifles...
IRL, you are firing a 7.62x51mm round, which has been pointed out is the default medium machine gun round, think US M60. The difference between the M60 (full auto) and say the FN FAL is weight, the FN FAL weighs 9.81 lbs. while the M60 weighs in at 23 lbs. Simple physics, the heavier M60 doesn't transfer the same amount of recoil to the use that the lighter FN FAL does. One of the major reasons for going to the 5.56x45mm round was the desire to achieve greater accuracy by reducing the felt recoil, which was found to precipitate flinching on the part of the shooter. The velocity of the 5.56x45mm at the muzzle is 3,100 fps (62gr. FMJBT) while the 7.62x51mm is 2,800 fps (150gr. FMJ). Negligible difference in velocity really, however...energy it is vastly different, 7.62x51mm has 2,584 ft. lbs. vs 5.56x45mm with 1,309 ft. lbs..
SR.
We really have three scales...dwarf, human, and troll. A battle rifle for a dwarf would be unwieldy by virtue of its length. For a human it would deliver a lot of recoil and not be fun to shoot. A troll would find the battle rifle a wee bit small. If you scale up the battle rifle to better fit the troll you add weight to the weapon which would really negate the felt recoil and I think that the temptation would be to upsize the caliber of round being fired. Carrying out this line of thought (again IMO) you end up with a troll armed with a battle rifle that is shooting a cartridge that is 60-70% more powerful than what your average human would be comfortable shooting. So, the troll gets even more combat punch, not sure how that would go over really.
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Kaer. And it's not like a Kaer. More like a Citadel. And it doesn't have to withstand Horror attacks, just keep the twisted spirits inside.
That would be the old ward. The new one is your standard "magic dome" and supposedly kept people both in and out. Which was bad enough, until the author tried to explain it as "something similar to the one in Tir na nOg". Si tacuisses...
- Weapons which take down ghosts. Again, this sounds like the magic Sword of Doom +5, not like Shadowrun.
Exactly. There are terms for it, yet the author did not use them. And they are not hard to come by (avail R*5 if memory serves), which the author seems to have ignored. Just like many other parts of the book, the writers seemed to be blissfully ignorant of both the hard rules and fluff. When reading the book, I was constantly thinking "nice story, but where's the common thread and the Shadowrun in it?"
@Mäx: SoE is an in-character account. Characters can believe in ghosts, consider the Aesir as the only true gods and believe the Azzies' spin as much as they want. Proclaiming "here be ghosts, the Norse tradition got it right and Aztech actually are nice fellows" out of character is something different altogether. ;)
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The Ghost issue...
With a last name of Schmidt...well let us just say I would not have gone that route. I am not, implying any malice on the part of the author. SR deals with a lot of hot button issues, racism, violence, addiction, religion, etc., the fact that we are operating in a fictional future we often work in the 'what can I bring new to the table' mode. The drive to bring something new to the setting is ever present and can put blinders on us, it has for me.
When writing up the JIS entry...specifically the Aokigahara Forest section...I was excited at first when it was listed as a site of interest. Then I did a Google search and saw the photos of some of the people who have commited suicide there, not a yearbook photo of them but how they were found in the forest. What started out as something that I thought was going to be a cool adventure hook turned into a real torment to write. In the end, I was not happy with the result but I didn't know how to do a write up that would be both respectful of the human tragedy involved and the desire to create something interesting for GM's.
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Hey, shadowkids. It has been some little while. As much as I've been trying to distance myself from CGL and Shadowrun under its current direction, I would like to step in for just a moment and provide a bit of perspective on War! and its development.
Just in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not an unbiased observer. Spoiler alert on the rest of the links in this paragraph, you have been warned. The current crop of freelancers (http://www.scribd.com/doc/44345378/SR-Thread-1) and I have our differences, and one of the last things I did before Jason asked for me to be booted from the freelancing pool is voice my opinion on War! and the upcoming plot. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/36866775/Shadowrun-Spy-Games-Chat-Mars-21)
War! didn't begin with SR line developer Jason M. Hardy, or War! writers Aaron Pavao, David Hill, Filamena Young, and Michael Wich. It started out as a proposal by former SR line dev Peter "Synner" Taylor, and that book - which was to be titled Dogs of War, but which had to be renamed because White Wolf published their own book of the same title before War! was finished - was a very different animal. Really, it was supposed to be a massive update and re-imagining of the Fields of Fire sourcebook, detailing miltech, military hotspots, and how to run a mercenary campaign.
Dogs of War was never made, and Peter Taylor didn't last as line dev. In the interim, as the production schedule slowed to a crawl, the focus and concept of the book that was to be War! changed substantially. By the time I left, Bogotá had taken a prominent place in the book - the argument being that it would present an alternative campaign style (mercenaries instead of shadowrunners) and a ready-made setting to accommodate that style (war-torn Bogotá). There was a great deal of argument about this among freelancers - I personally did not feel Bogotá was exactly a mercenary hotspot, among other reasons.
Really, I had almost nothing to do with War! before I left. I remember reviewing some of the early drafts about Bogotá (I believe I impolitely referred to a lot of it as simply "shit," which wasn't terribly productive), and I might have spoken to Aaron once or twice on mechanics - but that's it. I was out before the final drafts were complete. So, I can't say exactly what went on in the editorial process, but given my experience under the current developer, I can guess.
Freelancers are paid to write, not edit or fact-check someone else's work. In the past, freelancers who had the time and the devotion would go over the drafts before or after layout, looking for the errors that creep in. Catching typos and silly mistakes is a labor of love, generally thankless and always unpaid. I can't tell you definitively if that did or did not happen with War!, but given the state of the document - and again, my experience with the SR line developer - I would be very surprised if this is the case.
Please understand, I'm not making a qualitative judgment about the writing. Whatever my personal feelings towards David Hill, I think he and Filamena Young are fine and technically proficient writers. I have worked in the past with Aaron on SR projects, and while we may well argue and butt heads on many things, I respect his ability to write and work. Michael Wich's work I am not generally familiar with, but I doubt he would be responsible for the excess of typographical and language errors found throughout the book. The presence of these errors is a quantitative measure of the book's editorial stage, and by that standard War! was very poorly edited indeed.
Before I left, the SR line developer had already frustrated several freelancers with his general unwillingness to incorporate suggested corrections. There were many corrections to problems in the Sixth World Almanac and Corporate Guide that freelancers had noted and posted corrections to weeks before the final draft was sent to the printers which were completely ignored, and which found their way into the final products. I personally wasted several days trying to put in corrected stats for PACKS, after errors had unintentionally been introduced during the proofing stage.
Jason was more willing to knowingly print a flawed document than to incorporate the changes someone else more familiar with the material had worked out. That is, has been, and will be the continuing standard for Shadowrun while he is SR line developer. Despite his laudable claims to produce higher quality products for Shadowrun, the books published under his direction - Corporate Guide, Sixth World Almanac, and now War! - have been some of the sloppiest and error-laden productions ever released for Shadowrun to date. I can say this with some authority, because I can reach down any SR book from the last twenty years and compare it directly, and I have.
Believe it or not, I'm not here to villify or insult Jason. The position of SR line developer opens a person up to a great deal of honest criticism. The quality of the line reflects directly on the line developer, the quality of the products is a direct measurement of their skills and standards. Jason has claimed he wants to produce the best Shadowrun books he can, for as long as they will let him, and he is under pressure to perform from the fans, from the freelancers, and last but not least his own bosses, Randall Bills and Loren Coleman, who want to see product out the door.
The long and the short of it is, however, that people will buy War! Nothing I, or Frank Trollman, or Critias, or anyone else on the internet says or does will do much to affect PDF sales. I doubt anything we say will affect hardcopy sales, when and if they occur, at all. Because as poorly as the book is edited, as bad as the plotline is, as crap as the actual writing and art and mechanics may be - and those last four are qualitative assessments - people are going to buy War!. It has new guns, toys, spells, adept powers, vehicles, missiles, Thor shots. Overpowered? All the better. Shadowrun as a brand is still strong enough that people will buy it just because it is an official release, just because it has more and better gear than their books at home. People want good Shadowrun products, but in the absence of that they'll take whatever they can get.
I don't say that to insult everyone that likes War!, who actually enjoys the Bogotá writeup or thinks the bit with the carnivorous trees is inspired and works perfectly in the metaplot. Fuck anyone that tells you what you can or cannot enjoy. Even War!'s most dark and dreary detractors admit there are gems in the rough in this book, and I know anyone that enjoys RPGs for any length of time has read and sometimes used a book considered "crap" or "ridiculous" by the self-appointed elites and know-it-alls of the 'net. You can have my Dragon Magic signed by Brom when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
By the same token, that does not mean you need to defend War! or its contents. This advice I will extend especially to War!'s writers, though I doubt most of them need it or would heed it coming from me. People will make of War! what they will. The last thing this book needs is for someone to come in and act as an apologist for its faults, or try to brush away many of the very real errors made in the book. One thing every writer has to learn at some point is that a work has to stand, or fall, on its own merits and flaws. If you have to try and explain or cover your ass, then you've failed to communicate something essential to the audience. That happens. Those besides the authors of the book, keep in mind that people who don't like the book are not attacking you just because you happen to like it. Don't take criticism of the book to be criticism of yourself, and don't start flaming people or arguing with them about it. It is as unlikely they will change your opinion as it is you will change theirs.
Finally (thanks for reading this far! Home stretch!), if anyone is still considering buying this book: read everything, decide whether or not the book sounds like something you want, and then make your decision. I'll be honest: the book has problems. I don't like it, I don't like where Shadowrun is going, and I'm not going to follow it there - because War! is a taste of the products that are to come. If you buy War!, than like it or not you're endorsing its vision of Shadowrun, of what SR is going to be. If you're cool with that, it's your money and your game. Either way, good night, and Ghost bless.
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If I have any complaint about the Auschwitz material in WAR! it's that it's so unnecessary. WWII? Really? 125 years is a long time, Jack. Ignoring all the genocides which have happened since then in real life, the 6th world is full of shit like that without the need to dip into the old cliche. How many times have death camps come up in the setting? Natives were put in concentration camps. Metas were put in concentration camps. Institutional genocide is a reoccurring part of the 6th world. Draw from that and leave the dead Jews be.
On a similar note, if you want to talk about war in Shadowrun, there are so many conflicts, unique to the setting, to draw from. The 2040s are more interesting to me than the 1940s. That's why I play this game. Use the setting. Fill it out a little, hey? Every chance to put something in print is a chance to turn a light on somewhere in this world. Maybe holocaust shit is like the "Take the A Train" of atrocity (a standard that everyone who wants to gig needs to know how to cover,) but I... fuggit, no. I stick by my earlier statement. Played out. Leave it be.
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@ Kontact
The way I look at it as a writer, sometimes we try things and they work and are roundly accepted, other times...not so much. I don't believe that there is any author who is able to please everybody, it does take a fair amount of testicular fortitude to put yourself out there though.
@ Ancient History
When I hear things like "I am not here to -fill in the blank-" you can normally bet your bottom dollar that is exactly what you are here for. Combined with Frank Trollman's posting here I am pretty certain you are here for one reason. KNOCK IT OFF!
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@ Ancient History
When I hear things like "I am not here to -fill in the blank-" you can normally bet your bottom dollar that is exactly what you are here for. Combined with Frank Trollman's posting here I am pretty certain you are here for one reason. KNOCK IT OFF!
For whatever that may count: I'm not Frank. Or Stahlseele, for that matter.
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It doesn't really matter actually...the intent is the same.
Look, feel free to discuss War! in a civil manner without personal attacks and don't post the same link in multiple threads as far as I am concerned you are golden.
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Tranq Frollman is far more sedate than his namesake...
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@Mäx: SoE is an in-character account. Characters can believe in ghosts, consider the Aesir as the only true gods and believe the Azzies' spin as much as they want. Proclaiming "here be ghosts, the Norse tradition got it right and Aztech actually are nice fellows" out of character is something different altogether. ;)
Oh, and once again you conveniently disregarded the first line of my post quoting the explanation of what exactly Ghosts are in SR.
The fact is that ghosts exist in SR and have existed for a long time before WAR was written and it's also pretty much a fact that ghosts in SR aren't actually spirits of the dead.
You seem to be selectively ignoring a lot of prior setting material just so you have more think to whine about in regard to that piece of WAR.
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Okay, i can get both sides points. So i'll just stay back and wait till i can get War! and find out for myself if it's worse, better, or on the same level as the other books.
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!!! warning, wall of text!!!
Collected grumblings and debugging for stuff in war.
Concerning Slow spell:
What force is required to slow things up.
When 1 success slows up to 200kg mass.
And force restricts amount of eligible successes. F1 spell max successes 1 and so on..
Battle rifles...
IRL, you are firing a 7.62x51mm round, which has been pointed out is the default medium machine gun round, think US M60. The difference between the M60 (full auto) and say the FN FAL is weight, the FN FAL weighs 9.81 lbs. while the M60 weighs in at 23 lbs. Simple physics, the heavier M60 doesn't transfer the same amount of recoil to the use that the lighter FN FAL does. One of the major reasons for going to the 5.56x45mm round was the desire to achieve greater accuracy by reducing the felt recoil, which was found to precipitate flinching on the part of the shooter. The velocity of the 5.56x45mm at the muzzle is 3,100 fps (62gr. FMJBT) while the 7.62x51mm is 2,800 fps (150gr. FMJ). Negligible difference in velocity really, however...energy it is vastly different, 7.62x51mm has 2,584 ft. lbs. vs 5.56x45mm with 1,309 ft. lbs..
Okay, using quick and dirty conversion into meters and kilograms (1 meter= 3 feet and 1 kilogram = 2 lbs) and given stats.
Single 7.62 round has approximately 430,66 m.kg energy. Meaning a force 3 spell is required to stop a single round. Up to and including 6 rounds the formula for required spell force is twice the amount of rounds +1. Seventh round changes the formula to twice the amount of rounds +2. Full burst requiring force 22 spell with 22 successes.. Doesn't seem that broken anymore...
5.56 rounds ended up with appromately 218,16 m.kg energy. Meaning force 2 to stop single round. And result formula is number of rounds +1 all the way to 10 rounds. So full burst requires force 11 spell with 11 successes.
Moving metahumans are entirely different matter. And I am not exacly certain of my math (I am no mathematician), but weight multiplied by speed should give us the moving energy which the spell is sipping away. Using average weight and speed from SR4A.
Combat round is 3 seconds long. A troll on average weights 300kg, and can move 15/35 meters walking/running in a round.
5 meters/second for 300 kg is 1500 m.kg worth of energy, requiring a force 8 spell to affect the walking troll.
11 meters/second while running means 3300 m.kg worth of energy, requiring force 18 spell.
A dwarf 50 kg to keep it simple (it's a skinny dwarf) and 8/20 movement.
2 m/s x50kg = 100m.kg/second = force 1 spell.
6 m/s x50kg = 300m.kg/second = force 2 spell.
Humans and elves calculated with weight of 80 kg, orks 120 kg. Speed for all three 10/25.
3m/s x 80kg = 240m.kg/second = force 2 for humands and elves.
3m/s x 120kg = 360m.kg/sec = force 2 for orks.
8m/s x 80kg = 640m.kg/sec = force 4 for humans and elves.
8m/s x 120kg = 960m.kg/sec =force 5 for orks.
Hmm.. Assuming my calculations are even remotely correct, I can claim this spell is not broken. But is there any need for spell like this? for combat, stun spells take the enemy out easier. For area denial there is the new cloud spell. And even for its designated purpose, the halo jumps, we have the working halo 'chutes themselves, and spells like levitate and catfall (altough the catfall is only for short distances).
For protective purposes we already had the armor spell, which does not break until sustaining is stopped, no matter how many rounds it soaks.
Still need to figure how this spell would effect explosions. What force to mitigate what size of an explosion and so on. But given this numbercrunching I might actually allow this spell to my players.
Recharge spell:
Where can I find how long the caster needs to sustain the spell until it becomes permanent on different battery sizes. Without any information on that, one might as well assume a mage can recharge a battery large enough to power up a city with neglictable (sp.?) effort.
Battle rifles:
Medium machineguns already had stat of damage 6, ap -2. So shouldn't a battle rifle firing same cartridge have same damage? It is too easy to make a FA capable battle rifle and thus obsolete medium machineguns. I think I will restat BRs to MMG damage/AP to keep things consisted.
Otherwise I miss maps and timeline of the conflict, and layouts of 6th world armies. And strategic goals for all involved factions.
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Battle rifles:
Medium machineguns already had stat of damage 6, ap -2. So shouldn't a battle rifle firing same cartridge have same damage? It is too easy to make a FA capable battle rifle and thus obsolete medium machineguns. I think I will restat BRs to MMG damage/AP to keep things consisted.
I would devinedly do it the other way around and restat MMG:s to same dame code as battle rifles and HMG:s to somethink like 8P AP -2 or 3
Because to me personally at least the battle rifles stats make a whole lot more sense then the RAW stats for machine-guns do 8)
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I would devinedly do it the other way around and restat MMG:s to same dame code as battle rifles and HMG:s to somethink like 8P AP -2 or 3
Because to me personally at least the battle rifles stats make a whole lot more sense then the RAW stats for machine-guns do 8)
That's the other possibility. Will have to figure something out before my next game 8)
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Oh, and once again you conveniently disregarded the first line of my post quoting the explanation of what exactly Ghosts are in SR.
The fact is that ghosts exist in SR and have existed for a long time before WAR was written and it's also pretty much a fact that ghosts in SR aren't actually spirits of the dead.
You seem to be selectively ignoring a lot of prior setting material just so you have more think to whine about in regard to that piece of WAR.
Funny, I could have sworn that in my very first post in this thread I already wrote something about what ghosts are, what they are not, and how the "angry and hungry dead" with their "past existences" violate these concepts. Matter of fact, I still see it at the top of page 8...
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Okay, using quick and dirty conversion into meters and kilograms (1 meter= 3 feet and 1 kilogram = 2 lbs) and given stats.
Single 7.62 round has approximately 430,66 m.kg energy. Meaning a force 3 spell is required to stop a single round. Up to and including 6 rounds the formula for required spell force is twice the amount of rounds +1. Seventh round changes the formula to twice the amount of rounds +2. Full burst requiring force 22 spell with 22 successes.. Doesn't seem that broken anymore...
5.56 rounds ended up with appromately 218,16 m.kg energy. Meaning force 2 to stop single round. And result formula is number of rounds +1 all the way to 10 rounds. So full burst requires force 11 spell with 11 successes.
Moving metahumans are entirely different matter. And I am not exacly certain of my math (I am no mathematician), but weight multiplied by speed should give us the moving energy which the spell is sipping away. Using average weight and speed from SR4A.
Combat round is 3 seconds long. A troll on average weights 300kg, and can move 15/35 meters walking/running in a round.
5 meters/second for 300 kg is 1500 m.kg worth of energy, requiring a force 8 spell to affect the walking troll.
11 meters/second while running means 3300 m.kg worth of energy, requiring force 18 spell.
A dwarf 50 kg to keep it simple (it's a skinny dwarf) and 8/20 movement.
2 m/s x50kg = 100m.kg/second = force 1 spell.
6 m/s x50kg = 300m.kg/second = force 2 spell.
Humans and elves calculated with weight of 80 kg, orks 120 kg. Speed for all three 10/25.
3m/s x 80kg = 240m.kg/second = force 2 for humands and elves.
3m/s x 120kg = 360m.kg/sec = force 2 for orks.
8m/s x 80kg = 640m.kg/sec = force 4 for humans and elves.
8m/s x 120kg = 960m.kg/sec =force 5 for orks.
Hmm.. Assuming my calculations are even remotely correct, I can claim this spell is not broken.
Your main error is that you obviously confused momentum with mass, despite using the correct formulas. The bullet weight for each weapon you used in your example is way below 200kg under these non-relativistic conditions. The spell description is talking about reducing the kinetic energy (and by implication also the momentum) of any object with a mass below 200kg per net hit => Despite having a momentum (mass * velocity) way over 200kg*m/s each individual bullet of a burst still has only a mass below 200kg and thus is subject to the spell's effect even at force 1. Hell even many artillery shells do not exceed a projectile mass of 200kg per individual round. So all bullets in your example would enter the area of effect and then being slowed down to a speed of 1 m/s and their momentum would be decreased accordingly. Going deeper into the physical implications of that spell you'll sooner or later end up with the fact that this spell breaks newton physics and possibly relativistics on so many levels that it seriously get's into a position where it more or less alters the fabric of time and space ... something that sorcery in SR is unable to do according to it's very own definition.
Still need to figure how this spell would effect explosions.
Since the spell does not exclude the gas molecules within the area of effect and explictily includes explosions as being affected there's not much need to "figure out" something. Neither (larger) object below a mass of 200kg nor the explosion's blast itself are unaffected => The blast's movement as well as any shrapnell with a mass of less than 200kg would be restricted to a travelling speed of 1 m/s within the area of effect beginning with force 1. The spell description simply doesn't care for momentum, (physical) force or derived pressure values despite mentioning that force is unaffected and only velocity being "restricted". So the explosion's effects are more or less limited to it's thermal and optical effects.
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Your main error is that you obviously confused momentum with mass, despite using the correct formulas. The bullet weight for each weapon you used in your example is way below 200kg under these non-relativistic conditions. The spell description is talking about reducing the kinetic energy (and by implication also the momentum) of any object with a mass below 200kg per net hit => Despite having a momentum (mass * velocity) way over 200kg*m/s each individual bullet of a burst still has only a mass below 200kg and thus is subject to the spell's effect even at force 1. Hell even many artillery shells do not exceed a projectile mass of 200kg per individual round. So all bullets in your example would enter the area of effect and then being slowed down to a speed of 1 m/s and their momentum would be decreased accordingly. Going deeper into the physical implications of that spell you'll sooner or later end up with the fact that this spell breaks newton physics and possibly relativistics on so many levels that it seriously get's into a position where it more or less alters the fabric of time and space ... something that sorcery in SR is unable to do according to it's very own definition.
Whoops.
Obviously I am no physician either ;D
Indeed the spell talks about mass moving in area, not the amount of momentum in the area. In an effort to make this spell working, changing the mass to momentum might be suitable. Magicians do not need an immunity spell.
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Funny, I could have sworn that in my very first post in this thread I already wrote something about what ghosts are, what they are not, and how the "angry and hungry dead" with their "past existences" violate these concepts. Matter of fact, I still see it at the top of page 8...
Yes and i quoted you on that and posted exactly what ghosts are in SR, im not suprised i have to state this again, as you seem very keen on ignoring that part of my post in your search of more stuff to whine about considering that piece of bad writing.
Pointing out errors is one think, but attacking the writer on stuff that has been canon for years isn't really cool.
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Funny, I could have sworn that in my very first post in this thread I already wrote something about what ghosts are, what they are not, and how the "angry and hungry dead" with their "past existences" violate these concepts. Matter of fact, I still see it at the top of page 8...
Just a curiosity. If I'd have written, "believed past existences," or "would-be past existences," would you still be arguing this point?
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On the Slow spell, remember that it's Total Mass in the affected area, not mass of each object.
The spell ends when the caster stops sustaining it or the amount of mass moving in the area of effect exceeds 200kg per hit on the Spellcasting test.
So, two people walking through the area (average male american mass = 86.6 kg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_weight)) with full kit (100 pounds for the USMC, roughly 45.4 kg, including weapon IIRC) you now have 264 kg of soldier moving through the area. Add in a third person, you have 396. So, a three man SpecOps team requires Force 2 just to create a kinetics-proof area around them. And don't forget that they're moving at 1 m/s, themselves, so an ally wouldn't want to cast this on them.
If you cast it between your people and the enemy, they go around and start shooting again, congrats, you've blocked one line of fire, might have been better off using Physical Barrier. Best use would be to cast it on top of the enemy, slowing their escape, but remember, for every 3 enemies, you need 2 points of Force. On a battlefield, with shots fired, kg in the area will change quickly.
What the spell needs an errrata for is to put Object Resistance firmly and clearly on the table.
If you use Object Resistance, then it needs 3 hits before it affects bullets or grenades (Manufactured High-Tech Objects and Materials, which includes metal alloys) and 5+ to stop a missile (Highly Processed Objects, including computers, drones and vehicles, I think a missile counts). And let the soldiers resist with Body, for crying out loud.
If you want to get silly with the physics implication, don't forget to calculate in the grass shifting in the wind, air molecules moving, the molecules of the earth vibrating... I've yet to meet a game interface with physics that doesn't get silly at the extremes.
Edit
To correct spelling.
Also, wouldn't destroying kinetic energy be considered a "Major Change", thus imposing an extra +2 Drain (+1 Physical Spell, +2 AoE is what I figure the current +3 is from).
I think the same argument could be made for Levitate, come to think of it, since that spell essentially says "gravity, go away". Something about ignoring fundamental physics just screams "Major Change" to me...
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as you seem very keen on ignoring that part of my post
I ignore points which already have been addressed. My very first posting already described why "there have been ghosts in Auschwitz since SR3" misses the point AND paraphrased the omniscient view of them in both 3rd and 4th edition.
So since then your replies to me so far have consisted of "there have been ghosts in Auschwitz since SR3" and repititions of the rules for ghosts, both being points I already dealt with, what exactly should I tell you? C&P my previous replies?
@machineiv: While reading War, I often thought "great, but that doesn't sound like Shadowrun at all". So yes, some relatively minor terminology changes would already have done a lot to make it sound less like "loot the ForbiddenTomb of f-ing Darkness" - which also says a lot about the state of CGL's editorial work. As said over on DS, probably more about that than about the actual writers.
But at least your attention grabbing with Nazi references worked out perfectly. Without the heading I would probably not have picked that part as an example of what went wrong with War, and a lot of other people would probably have ignored it, too ;)
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as you seem very keen on ignoring that part of my post
I ignore points which already have been addressed. My very first posting already described why "there have been ghosts in Auschwitz since SR3" misses the point AND paraphrased the omniscient view of them in both 3rd and 4th edition.
So since then your replies to me so far have consisted of "there have been ghosts in Auschwitz since SR3" and repititions of the rules for ghosts, both being points I already dealt with, what exactly should I tell you? C&P my previous replies?
You didn't address it very constructively...
Here's what you said:
Ghosts that have been there since SR3, six years ago.
Spirits which are called "ghosts" have been around since some time. However, in tune with the "belief makes reality" approach towards magical traditions, the exact nature of these entities has always been left open to the beliefs of the player/character. They may be the actual spirits of the dead, or they may be malicious impositors, or even just believe that they are the "rebirth" of a certain person (just like some IRL people do). Establishing ghosts, and pre-awakeing one to boot, throws all of these conventions overboard. And it brings a jackload of unfortunate consequences - just imagine what would happen if the ghost of a dead corpsec could get back to point the finger at you.
Here's why that doesn't address it:
The tone of the War! article sounds more certain that they are "ghosts" than you like, okay; however, if someone tells me "Ghosts" in SR4A, from a RAW perspective, look up the SR4A definition of ghosts to discover:
There are few spirits more controversial, especially among mundanes, than the entities lumped together as ghosts. Most magicians believe that these malicious beings are nothing more than wild Spirits of Man. However, most mundanes feel that these things are tied to teh souls of metahumans who have died. Legally, neither side has a leg to stand on in most countries, though there are a few backwaters where ghost testimonies are admissible in court. Psychologically, these spirits often have inexplicable levels of information about the lives of the deceased = though even those who ascribe to the beliefs in their metahuman origins admit that ghosts can lie.
So anytime someone says there's a "ghost" in Shadowrun, regardless of in-game or out-of-game omniscient context, go back to that definition and discover, lo and behold, that they may or may not actually be ghosts in the real world sense of the word. Further, the article in War! doesn't say they show up in the 1940's or the 2010's or 2050's (I realize that the SR3 book which originally covers this ground does actually give a more detailed history, that's not the point).
Personally, I shrug my shoulders, at "ghosts" from the 5th World. Weirder things happen in Shadowrun than the sudden appearance of "ghosts" representative of 5th age atrocities. Except to consider the whole using RW tragedy for game world plot hooks potentially bad form. Though I do like the
potential "grant them rest" plot line suggested by several.
You'll also notice that, in that very description, they cite ghosts being used as witnesses in jury trials. This idea is presented in the 6WA, as well:
In Charleston, South Carolina, the first ever case solved with the help of one of the criminal victim’s ghosts is closed by Julius Wren, a magician with degrees in both criminology and thaumaturgy. The serial killer is captured after Wren studies the ghost’s actions, which revealed evidence that led to the murderer’s arrest and conviction.
So yes, you did give a reason to dislike how he worded things, but your reason ignored established definitions, metaplot, and backstory. Try again.
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Chamaera thanks for butting that down with more eloquent words then what i could muster in my trutration with him.
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One final time on slow spell.
Different approach this time.
Problem: area denial/immunity effect it grants at very low force.
Solution: remove the area.
Making this spell target: los, allows it to excel in its primary purpose (halo jumps, and other single target speed alterations) while negating the troublesome "sphere of immunity". Since the drain value would also be lowered, making multacasting trivial for medium-high power magicians, it would still be eligible for group insertations. Group of three human spec ops needing 3 F1 spells.
I have wasted enough time and forum space with this spell already.
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Personally, I shrug my shoulders, at "ghosts" from the 5th World. Weirder things happen in Shadowrun than the sudden appearance of "ghosts" representative of 5th age atrocities. Except to consider the whole using RW tragedy for game world plot hooks potentially bad form. Though I do like the
potential "grant them rest" plot line suggested by several.
Well, there are ghosts in Earthdawn. Like Namegiver spirits (souls) that say behind on purpose, or can be summoned. Nethermancers can also summon Namegiver spirits, if they know their Name. Also, there's a few types of undead made from Namegiver spirits - shades, demiwraiths, and such. So, there's a way. And if you look at the SR history, you might easily consider that it's not really a common knowledge.
As for the Auschwitz 'evil spirits', they're more 'human spirits(souls?) tormented by the corruption(emotional bacground count) of the areas, and their own memories(or remnants of those). Don't count any spirits of their captors - i didn't manage to find any info on deaths there. So it's possible there weren't any.
So, yes, they are evil. But more like those from ED, they were twisted into being 'evil' by the sheer corruption of the place.
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that they may or may not actually be ghosts in the real world sense of the word.
Exactly. While in the Arbeit macht frei section, we learn that the ghosts are "the angry and hungry dead [...] living out echoes of their past existences as harmless villagers." No maybe, just here be ghosts. Undead ghosts with necromatic treasures. Like foci which just popped into existence without being dual-natured.
You'll also notice that, in that very description, they cite ghosts being used as witnesses in jury trials. This idea is presented in the 6WA, as well:
1.) The idea of spirits guiding investigators to the victim's body or other evidence actually dates back to SM
2.) This is perfectly compatible with the idea of wild spirits which are just somehow connected to the dead or the murder itself
3.) According to the 6WA, West Berlin was "liberated" 25 years ago, making the current date 2081. And the black flood did nothing to the European coastline. And the whole leadership of some japancorp committed suicide TWICE. And... ;)
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1.) The idea of spirits guiding investigators to the victim's body or other evidence actually dates back to SM
I would claim it can be traced back to one of the SR2 magic books (probably Grimoire).
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that they may or may not actually be ghosts in the real world sense of the word.
Exactly. While in the Arbeit macht frei section, we learn that the ghosts are "the angry and hungry dead [...] living out echoes of their past existences as harmless villagers." No maybe, just here be ghosts. Undead ghosts with necromatic treasures. Like foci which just popped into existence without being dual-natured.
If you're going to get hung up on exactly one word where the author (who has already stated that the intent was an in-world fluff piece) calls them "dead" instead of "ghosts", you'll never be happy with a game product for any system.
You'll also notice that, in that very description, they cite ghosts being used as witnesses in jury trials. This idea is presented in the 6WA, as well:
1.) The idea of spirits guiding investigators to the victim's body or other evidence actually dates back to SM
2.) This is perfectly compatible with the idea of wild spirits which are just somehow connected to the dead or the murder itself
3.) According to the 6WA, West Berlin was "liberated" 25 years ago, making the current date 2081. And the black flood did nothing to the European coastline. And the whole leadership of some japancorp committed suicide TWICE. And... ;)
Since you provide ample cases where spirits commonly called "ghosts" are used to provide evidence in a court of law, did you, perhaps, speak in haste when you said the following:
Establishing ghosts, and pre-awakeing one to boot, throws all of these conventions overboard. And it brings a jackload of unfortunate consequences - just imagine what would happen if the ghost of a dead corpsec could get back to point the finger at you.
There is nothing stopping a GM from using the existing rules, as they stood prior to the publication of War!, from doing exactly what you suggest in your original post. And you have now provided two additional examples to support this, even if you called into question the one from 6WA by pointing out several unrelated errors in 6WA.
I'm not going to argue the quality of the editing of War!, or 6WA because, frankly, the editing and layout are rife with unprofessional mistakes in both products. But, to repeatedly harp on this one point, written with an in-game slant (if semi-omniscient, it still reads like an in-game document to me) detracts from any legitimate complaints while simultaneously making the book seem worse than it is.
On a slight side note, I'm actually enjoying War!, all the mistakes aside. I won't buy a dead-tree copy if they don't fix the genuine editing and layout errors (I leave a good and dedicated hunt for errors to those with more time and practice, and to being posted in the errata forum), but the main focus (the war between the A's centered in Bogota) is enjoyable, and surprisingly well thought out. Read an abbreviated timeline for the run up to WW1, WW2, the War of the Roses, or the 2nd Iraq War, they read an awful lot like the Bogota History chapter, just on a larger canvas.
EDITED
For clarity & spelling/grammer/word choice.
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I thought in game comments were always attributed to someone. When you read a section about a place from the point of view of someone there, you get a name and an introduction. So you know who's voice this is and can understand that they only tell one side of the story, or the truth that isn't in the media, or whatever. Motivation, a connection. But I didn't see that mentioned anywhere in the snippets from War! posted around. Some questions on that:
Am I missing something?
How can the author claim that the information is from a source in game without telling you who the source is? Doesn't the comment loose vital context?
What is the point of not doing that? Doesn't it break consistency and confuse the reader?
On a more general note:
Why should we as consumers put up with it? Why should anyone be expected to buy something with so little care put into making it?
Why should anyone feel the need to defend it? Because it's official?
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I thought in game comments were always attributed to someone. When you read a section about a place from the point of view of someone there, you get a name and an introduction. So you know who's voice this is and can understand that they only tell one side of the story, or the truth that isn't in the media, or whatever. Motivation, a connection. But I didn't see that mentioned anywhere in the snippets from War! posted around. Some questions on that:
Am I missing something?
No, you're not missing anything, failure to clarify that this is in-game content was a gross oversight on the part of the Design / Editing team. However, the writing style, approach, and content is more consistent with an in-game monologue than an "official omniscient" writeup. Additionally, while providing author information is typical of Shadowrun products, all non-dry, non-rules text being in-game documents is also typical of Shadowrun products. Therefore, lacking a clear in/out context, it seems equally plausible to take either side of the argument.
Furthermore, my entire point has been that the criticism of ghosts as relates to this article hangs on a single word used once in the entire write-up, "dead".
How can the author claim that the information is from a source in game without telling you who the source is? Doesn't the comment loose vital context?
What is the point of not doing that? Doesn't it break consistency and confuse the reader?
As these are re-wordings of the initial statement and question, or are addressed by my previous answer, see above.
On a more general note:
Why should we as consumers put up with it? Why should anyone be expected to buy something with so little care put into making it?
You shouldn't necessarily put up with it. I've already defended a number of criticisms and stated my personal intention not to purchase a hard-copy (I already bought the PDF, for the Bogota story and some of the gear, I'm reasonably happy with the purchase, though 18$ is a bit of a stretch) if Catalyst cannot/will not address the editing/layout/design issues rampant throughout this book. The case of failing to cite an in-game author for the articles in the Global Hotspots chapter would be one of these issues.
I have so far spent most of my time in this thread arguing the "ghost problem" that has been brought up, it's a non-starter as this has been addressed in the history of the game world multiple times, but for one word out of 354. When compared with the legitimate problems that impede War! from being a great book, this is making a mountain out of a molehill.
Why should anyone feel the need to defend it? Because it's official?
I don't defend the book as a whole, I only defend those parts with which I agree and like. I haven't seen anyone defend the whole book, everyone has their gripes, and everyone always will with a published product. I've already given my reasons pointing out the very thin basis for the whole "ghost" criticism.
I am not afraid to walk away from canon in favor of what I prefer, though if it's well written (I'm not saying this is), and logical or reasonable in setting (which most of what I've read in War! is), then I'm not going to argue about it, I will just take my story in a different direction.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I hope I've offered up reasonable, and clear, answers to your questions, at least as pertains to my own participation in this conversation, Otakusensei.
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Nah, you're good. But I don't agree about the rationalizing of the section as in game or omniscient. I got no indication that the piece was anything other than intended to be speaking directly to the GM, and those sections normally include facts and point out ambiguity so as to leave options for interpretation but not to confuse. Just like sections written in character have a voice and flavor, and tie in to the setting and material by riding a personality.
Coming out after the fact (in the middle of the shit storm, points for that) and claiming that the section was in character seems like a cop out. Not the least requirement of being in character is the requirement of a character. Dead ghosts or not, poorly written sections getting a pass by development and going on sale by a company with a history of declining quality is pretty shitty. And I really care about this game. Hence my angry barrage of questions. Thanks for taking the time to answer them.
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I own every Shadowrun 4 release so far, and War! is no exception. That said I will not be purchasing their next release until after I hear what the community has to say. It's not that I thought War! was that bad, I actually liked most of it. The problem is how unprofessional and rushed it feels. So many typos and errors abound and after the Sixth World Almanac (which I love) had these errors you'd think they'd proofread these things. I don't think it's unreasonable for customers to expect a product to be proofread.
That said I think War! has a lot of great ideas, I'd love to see an expansion on the actual composition of units and military tactics, and maybe MilSpecTech will have some of that in it in addition to more gear. Either way I hope that CGL uses this as an opportunity to incorporate our feedback and make more excellent Shadowrun 4 books. I have to say Seattle 2072 is my favorite sourcebook by far, so I know you guys can pump out amazing stuff, you just need to make sure you proofread these things before they get released. If the print version fixes the majority of these errors I'll happily pick it up and support you guys for your dedication to quality.
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I thought in game comments were always attributed to someone. When you read a section about a place from the point of view of someone there, you get a name and an introduction. So you know who's voice this is and can understand that they only tell one side of the story, or the truth that isn't in the media, or whatever. Motivation, a connection. But I didn't see that mentioned anywhere in the snippets from War! posted around. Some questions on that:
Am I missing something?
What exactly are you looking for?
Facts at Your Fingertips - provided by Hard Exit
Bogatá History - provided by Snopes
Bogatá Culture - provided by Marcos
Mercenaries - provided by Aufheben
- Local Hitters - posted by Glasswalker
The War - provided by Hard Exit
- Motivations - posted by Aufheben
- Rumors - posted by Snopes
- Small Unit Tactics - posted by Marcos
- The Troops - posted by Marcos
- Aztlan - posted by Hard Exit
- The Tribals - posted by Hard Exit
- Cartels - posted by Hard Exit
- Battlegrounds - posted by Marcos
- Bogatá Today - posted by Glasswalker
- La Magica is the Tribe's Alone - posted by Kat o' Nine Tales
- Sacred Life, Sacred Death - posted by Marcos
- Obeah - posted by DangerSensei
Bogatá Neighborhoods
- Hot Zones and Hotter Zones - posted by Glasswalker
As for Global Hotspots, that is set up with a short piece of fiction, then three game ideas for adventures in the hotspots. Different than other Location books, but not something that I'd consider a "deal-breaker" on buying the book.
I mean, c'mon guys, are you all now just bitching for bitching's sake? It's pretty clear to me how the book is laid out. Facts, History, Culture, Mercenaries, War and Neighborhoods are all written from in-game perspective. While Hotspots and Game Information are written from a GM/Player's perspect. Or, to put it simply, p. 5 through 114 is Fluff, p. 115 through 180 is Crunch.
In my opinion, the content/layout/design "issues" aren't issues at all, since it's set-up similar to other location books (Feral Cities, Corporate Enclaves, etc.) with the only change I can see being that the "minor" entries of locations are written in a GM perspective instead of an IC perspective. If that minor change will prevent you from buying the book, so be it. But don't try to blow this up into an reason to boycott materials and demand things from the development team.
Now, if you're demanding better editing on typos and such, I can't say anything about it since I haven't gone through the book with a fine toothed comb (yet). But I consider a PDF purchase to be a "last Beta" from the team to pick up on stuff like this. The print street-date hasn't been announced yet (or it may have been, I've been checking in from my phone while taking breaks packing and moving and may have missed it), so there's plenty of time for us, the fans, to post errata (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=1936.0) so they can get it fixed before going to print, AND also update the PDF so you can get your corrected PDF free update notice from DriveThruRPG and BattleCorps.
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I have to say Seattle 2072 is my favorite sourcebook by far, so I know you guys can pump out amazing stuff, you just need to make sure you proofread these things before they get released. If the print version fixes the majority of these errors I'll happily pick it up and support you guys for your dedication to quality.
Sadly most of the folks responsible for Seattle 2072 have left CGL in the meantime. Especially the loss of Adam Jury, who did the fantastic layout of that book, is a major blow for CGL, as War! proves.
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Just found a copy of the 'Auschwitz' part on DS. I'm going to write one word: Outrageous.
There will be no other comment on this matter from me.
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Just found a copy of the 'Auschwitz' part on DS. I'm going to write one word: Outrageous.
There will be no other comment on this matter from me.
:) now You understand me and most of the German Folk ?!
with a strongly disapointed Dance
Medicineman
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In my opinion, the content/layout/design "issues" aren't issues at all, since it's set-up similar to other location books (Feral Cities, Corporate Enclaves, etc.) with the only change I can see being that the "minor" entries of locations are written in a GM perspective instead of an IC perspective. If that minor change will prevent you from buying the book, so be it. But don't try to blow this up into an reason to boycott materials and demand things from the development team.
Now, if you're demanding better editing on typos and such, I can't say anything about it since I haven't gone through the book with a fine toothed comb (yet). But I consider a PDF purchase to be a "last Beta" from the team to pick up on stuff like this. The print street-date hasn't been announced yet (or it may have been, I've been checking in from my phone while taking breaks packing and moving and may have missed it), so there's plenty of time for us, the fans, to post errata (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=1936.0) so they can get it fixed before going to print, AND also update the PDF so you can get your corrected PDF free update notice from DriveThruRPG and BattleCorps.
I largely agree with you on the content and design, FastJack, though I'm a bit bugged by the Auschwitz stuff, but, like comedy, either nothing's off limits or everything is off limits. I doubt that I personally will run anything at a real-life concentration camp, though I can see why some would & Nomad's shown at least one way to do so without trivializing or disrespecting the history of the location. Beyond that, any gripes I might have fall under the header of "you can't please everyone all the time".
On layout, I would have liked to see an introduction to tie the book together, I recognize this isn't something they can slip in to the printer at the last second and that it's a personal preference, not a requirement for a good book. The actual issues with layout that I feel are justified:
- One giant table for all vehicles, instead of several small tables that could have been placed near the relevant vehicles. It would have improved flow and referencing to have a "Naval Vehicles Table", "Ground Vehicles Table", etc placed with the relevant vehicles, instead of reading about a tank, then scrolling 4 pages to see the stats for the tank.
- Sections in Global Hotspots are written to feel in-game, but are (even by your estimation) out-of-game, some of the phraseology and insinuations made in them don't fit the out-of-game knowledge canon. These should have either been attributable in-game articles, to avoid the confusion (the Work Makes Freedom article has been beaten to death as an example of the confusion and consternation), or re-written to remove the phraseology/insinuations.
This isn't exactly comprehensive, since I haven't finished reading everything in detail, and the second one I'm only even familiar with due to reviewing the articles when responding to criticisms of them. Taken in game, the Global Hotspot articles work well (Auschwitz dungeon delving aside).
Grammer/spelling/other technical errors, you're right, the best way to deal with them (and this book has more than it's fair share) is to contribute to the errata discussion (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=1936.0) and hope they're resolved before printing.
For me personally, I am not calling for a general boycott of CGL, or a specific boycott of War!. Any one of the issues that have been brought up (and demonstrated as legitimate), I would shrug my shoulders and grab this book once it hits shelves, even owning the PDF. However, the combination of all these issues, together, makes a product that lacks the professionalism I would expect when paying 48 dollars (PDF, already bought, plus dead-tree copy) for a 184 (including covers) page book. As such, I, personally hope that everyone contributes to the errata what they can (I'll be getting into it myself tonight), so that when the dead-tree copy comes out, I can rush out and buy it. That being said, we shouldn't have to be CGL's editing team, and I can understand people who are upset about it.
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If you're going to get hung up on exactly one word
Hey, I did not turn this into a discussion about the ghostlyness of ghosts...
where the author (who has already stated that the intent was an in-world fluff piece)
Sure the author did not intend to write such a screwup. I'll even give the editorial staff the benefit of doubt and assume they were not bought off by the competition to sabotage W!. Intentions are nice and well, problem is CGL doesn't sell bloody intentions.
What they do sell is a collection of rough drafts done by authors who mostly have little or no prior experience in writing for Shadowrun (David Hill has 6WA as his previous Shadowrun resume...oh well). Editorial work is completely absent, there is no fact checking, no spell checking, not even the general topic of some sections fits into the book (hotspots which are no hotspots, street festivals in a war zone...). Sad thing is that outside of this context, some of the work is actually not bad. For example I love the picture on p 30, just the architecture, setting (dude where's my jungle) and figures in the foreground have little to do with Shadowrun...
Since you provide ample cases where spirits commonly called "ghosts" are used to provide evidence in a court of law, did you, perhaps, speak in haste when you said the following:
Annecdotal reports of spirits helping to find the body equate a witness saying "he did it"?
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Oh yeah, let the hate flow.... :P
I see some people still have a dislike of anything from Catalyst these days.
Haven't read the book yet (though I do have the pdf) but seems to be a bit of whining and proprietary gnashing of teeth going on....
Or Much Ado About Nothing. I will hold final judgment until after I give it a good look over. ;D
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I thought in game comments were always attributed to someone. When you read a section about a place from the point of view of someone there, you get a name and an introduction. So you know who's voice this is and can understand that they only tell one side of the story, or the truth that isn't in the media, or whatever. Motivation, a connection. But I didn't see that mentioned anywhere in the snippets from War! posted around. Some questions on that:
Am I missing something?
What exactly are you looking for?
Facts at Your Fingertips - provided by Hard Exit
Bogatá History - provided by Snopes
Bogatá Culture - provided by Marcos
Mercenaries - provided by Aufheben
- Local Hitters - posted by Glasswalker
The War - provided by Hard Exit
- Motivations - posted by Aufheben
- Rumors - posted by Snopes
- Small Unit Tactics - posted by Marcos
- The Troops - posted by Marcos
- Aztlan - posted by Hard Exit
- The Tribals - posted by Hard Exit
- Cartels - posted by Hard Exit
- Battlegrounds - posted by Marcos
- Bogatá Today - posted by Glasswalker
- La Magica is the Tribe's Alone - posted by Kat o' Nine Tales
- Sacred Life, Sacred Death - posted by Marcos
- Obeah - posted by DangerSensei
Bogatá Neighborhoods
- Hot Zones and Hotter Zones - posted by Glasswalker
As for Global Hotspots, that is set up with a short piece of fiction, then three game ideas for adventures in the hotspots. Different than other Location books, but not something that I'd consider a "deal-breaker" on buying the book.
I mean, c'mon guys, are you all now just bitching for bitching's sake? It's pretty clear to me how the book is laid out. Facts, History, Culture, Mercenaries, War and Neighborhoods are all written from in-game perspective. While Hotspots and Game Information are written from a GM/Player's perspect. Or, to put it simply, p. 5 through 114 is Fluff, p. 115 through 180 is Crunch.
In my opinion, the content/layout/design "issues" aren't issues at all, since it's set-up similar to other location books (Feral Cities, Corporate Enclaves, etc.) with the only change I can see being that the "minor" entries of locations are written in a GM perspective instead of an IC perspective. If that minor change will prevent you from buying the book, so be it. But don't try to blow this up into an reason to boycott materials and demand things from the development team.
Now, if you're demanding better editing on typos and such, I can't say anything about it since I haven't gone through the book with a fine toothed comb (yet). But I consider a PDF purchase to be a "last Beta" from the team to pick up on stuff like this. The print street-date hasn't been announced yet (or it may have been, I've been checking in from my phone while taking breaks packing and moving and may have missed it), so there's plenty of time for us, the fans, to post errata (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=1936.0) so they can get it fixed before going to print, AND also update the PDF so you can get your corrected PDF free update notice from DriveThruRPG and BattleCorps.
Good, looks like I didn't miss anything.
Who wrote Arbeit macht frei(other than David Hill Jr.)? Who's voice is this? You can't have in character writing without a character, and if it isn't in character the section is poorly written. It stands as a shining example of the writers and the developer not knowing what they are doing, and not caring about Shadowrun.
Rationalize it how you want. You're the one who smells like turd polish.
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Oh yeah, let the hate flow.... :P
I see some people still have a dislike of anything from Catalyst these days.
Haven't read the book yet (though I do have the pdf) but seems to be a bit of whining and proprietary gnashing of teeth going on....
Or Much Ado About Nothing. I will hold final judgment until after I give it a good look over. ;D
That's the way it seems to go with everything. I mean, cripes. Some people are just never happy. As the old saying goes, "You can't please everybody. And if you can you are clearly a sorcerer and must be burned at the stake." Or something like that.
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I once joked that we had banned everything that someone had a problem with from our weekly shadowrun game....we were left role-playing a group of guys who gather up carts in a Kong-Walmart parking lot.... ;D
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I once joked that we had banned everything that someone had a problem with from our weekly shadowrun game....we were left role-playing a group of guys who gather up carts in a Kong-Walmart parking lot.... ;D
Ugh, what a stupid game! ::) Everyone knows they have drones to do that for them! Why would they waste nuyen paying real people to go do that? Your whole campaign clashes with canon at every level, you're playing Shadowrun wrong, blah blah blah all the usual rants. >:(
;D
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Who wrote Arbeit macht frei(other than David Hill Jr.)? Who's voice is this? You can't have in character writing without a character, and if it isn't in character the section is poorly written. It stands as a shining example of the writers and the developer not knowing what they are doing, and not caring about Shadowrun.
Work Brings Freedom is NOT an in-character piece. It is written as an proposed adventure idea that a GM may use for his players.
I did notice before that someone commented on some of the Native American depictions in Shadowrun. If you want you're game to be completely politically correct on all fronts, then go ahead and play that way. You can ignore these four paragraphs in the book and still have a lot of fun with the book. I applaud the design team for working with a subject that many would not touch because of the very nature of the subject. I, for one, would handle an adventure like this very delicately because I genuinely feel for the victims of the camps, just as I feel for the Native Americans and what they went through.
To give you an idea of a touchy subject, one of my former players would get incredibly upset whenever we discussed anything to do with the Titanic sinking. And he wants to kill James Cameron for making his movie. In his case, his (great-?)grandfather died when the ship sank and it was a very personal loss to the family and a very solemn event. To see a movie make a bajillion dollars off something that his family takes very seriously is a big hardship.
And now, a list of events that, if we ban discussion of the Nazi camps, we have to also ban:
Native American genocide and relocation to reservations
Japanese-American concentration camps
"Rape Squads" that have been prominent in Eastern Europe, Africa, Mexico, Latin & South America
Slavery (past AND present)
Australian Aboriginal mistreatment
South African Apartheid
Swiss bank "neutrality" and holding Nazi gold/art/etc. stolen from Jews
The treatment of Catholics by Roman Pantheists
ugh... I could go on, but it's stuff that just pisses people off. Seriously guys, I'd rather they have the guts to say that "this could happen" in the Sixth World, rather than take a politically-correct view and ignore it.
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Oh yeah, let the hate flow.... :P
I see some people still have a dislike of anything from Catalyst these days.
Haven't read the book yet (though I do have the pdf) but seems to be a bit of whining and proprietary gnashing of teeth going on....
Or Much Ado About Nothing. I will hold final judgment until after I give it a good look over. ;D
That's the way it seems to go with everything. I mean, cripes. Some people are just never happy. As the old saying goes, "You can't please everybody. And if you can you are clearly a sorcerer and must be burned at the stake." Or something like that.
Yeah, quite ridiculous.
Well, there is also a section of ex-freelancers and players who have decided that Catalyst is the devil and must be challenged at all times. This comes from a thought that they are destroying everything Shadowrun. As true as that may or may not be, some of the opposition are ex-freelancers.
Take that as you will. I guess I am saying, quite a bit of bias in those post.
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Yeah, quite ridiculous.
Well, there is also a section of ex-freelancers and players who have decided that Catalyst is the devil and must be challenged at all times. This comes from a thought that they are destroying everything Shadowrun. As true as that may or may not be, some of the opposition are ex-freelancers.
Take that as you will. I guess I am saying, quite a bit of bias in those post.
Oh no doubt. It's the same with everything. People get let go, they get bitter. Others just don't like the changes. And some are just jerks. And of course there are those with legitimate criticisms who are polite and try to be constructive, but they tend to get drowned out by the others.
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Haven't read the book yet
So without reading a single word of the book, you have decided that people complaining about it are having a preconceived notion. Riiiiight...
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So without reading a single word of the book, you have decided that people complaining about it are having a preconceived notion. Riiiiight...
He did say he has the PDF. Or did you miss that part?
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So without reading a single word of the book, you have decided that people complaining about it are having a preconceived notion. Riiiiight...
He did say he has the PDF. Or did you miss that part?
See, they don't read whole post either... :)
He also missed the part about holding judgment until reading my pdf that I own that I will be reading completely.
But I do see some more whining... ::)
Edit: And no, I am talking about the people that were going to bash War! even if it was the greatest Shadowrun sourcebook ever made. Like you....
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So without reading a single word of the book, you have decided that people complaining about it are having a preconceived notion. Riiiiight...
He did say he has the PDF. Or did you miss that part?
Sorry to tell you, but owning a book does not equate reading it.
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No, it usually means in process of. Give it a break.
Wow, really... Really?
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[q
Sorry to tell you, but owning a book does not equate reading it.
Really? Thank you for that. Now I know.
(http://www.rollogrady.com/wp-content/themes/widgetimgs/tmyk.gif)
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No, it usually means in process of. Give it a break.
Wow, really... Really?
I realize you'd really like retconn to that statement now, but "Haven't read" means "Haven't read", no matter how you twist and turn it.
So next time you try to discuss something, please don't take your point apart all by yourself. Leave some fun for the others.
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Sorry to tell you, but reading a PDF does not equate reading the book. ;)
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No, it usually means in process of. Give it a break.
Wow, really... Really?
I realize you'd really like retconn to that statement now, but "Haven't read" means "Haven't read", no matter how you twist and turn it.
So next time you try to discuss something, please don't take your point apart all by yourself. Leave some fun for the others.
*sigh*
Oh God, this may be hopeless.
When I wrote said post you obviously read whatever way you wanted to see it, I had pretty much just bought the damn pdf and was browsing around seeing what people said.
Then I noticed that certain people were bashing the book, people who are still a bit bitter about how things went down. Since I had just bought the pdf of course I had not read it yet. I did not think it was required to inform everybody of the details of my buying habits and pdf reading schedule. No where in the post did I say I have had the pdf and it was just sitting there. But, this is what you want to see so of course it isn't correct, it is an assumption.
You know what they say about people who assume. Ass and u are part of that saying.
So, As I have been reading said pdf since making said post, I can truly say....
Stop with the bitchy little whining! It is unbecoming....
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Sorry to tell you, but reading a PDF does not equate reading the book. ;)
Yeah, because you know. It doesn't have paper pages.... Lol..
Amazing, really it is...
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Also, basic English, an uncompleted action has not been performed, if you start reading, but stop before you finish the document (say, to write down notes for an errata), then you have not read the document, you are in the process of reading the document.
If I walk to the store, I have not walked to the store until I arrive at the store. If I stop walking at the half-way point, then I can only say that I have walked half-way to the store.
Ergo, if Darkeus says he has not read War!, you may assume he has read zero, 1, or 185 (skipping the words "War" and "Catalyst Game Labs" presented on the third page of the PDF file, specifically, the B/W internal cover page).
If you don't like the imprecise and indistinct nature of the English language, I suggest Esperanto.
... Sorry, I honestly couldn't resist turning the power of English to crazy purposes... smite me if you must, but at least admit it was funny. ;D
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Also, basic English, an uncompleted action has not been performed, if you start reading, but stop before you finish the document (say, to write down notes for an errata), then you have not read the document, you are in the process of reading the document.
If I walk to the store, I have not walked to the store until I arrive at the store. If I stop walking at the half-way point, then I can only say that I have walked half-way to the store.
Ergo, if Darkeus says he has not read War!, you may assume he has read zero, 1, or 185 (skipping the words "War" and "Catalyst Game Labs" presented on the third page of the PDF file, specifically, the B/W internal cover page).
If you don't like the imprecise and indistinct nature of the English language, I suggest Esperanto.
... Sorry, I honestly couldn't resist turning the power of English to crazy purposes... smite me if you must, but at least admit it was funny. ;D
Oh, I used to be an English major back during my younger days. I find this hilariously funny. Why would I smite for this! :)
Applause all the way.
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Who wrote Arbeit macht frei(other than David Hill Jr.)? Who's voice is this? You can't have in character writing without a character, and if it isn't in character the section is poorly written. It stands as a shining example of the writers and the developer not knowing what they are doing, and not caring about Shadowrun.
Work Brings Freedom is NOT an in-character piece. It is written as an proposed adventure idea that a GM may use for his players.
I did notice before that someone commented on some of the Native American depictions in Shadowrun. If you want you're game to be completely politically correct on all fronts, then go ahead and play that way. You can ignore these four paragraphs in the book and still have a lot of fun with the book. I applaud the design team for working with a subject that many would not touch because of the very nature of the subject. I, for one, would handle an adventure like this very delicately because I genuinely feel for the victims of the camps, just as I feel for the Native Americans and what they went through.
To give you an idea of a touchy subject, one of my former players would get incredibly upset whenever we discussed anything to do with the Titanic sinking. And he wants to kill James Cameron for making his movie. In his case, his (great-?)grandfather died when the ship sank and it was a very personal loss to the family and a very solemn event. To see a movie make a bajillion dollars off something that his family takes very seriously is a big hardship.
And now, a list of events that, if we ban discussion of the Nazi camps, we have to also ban:
Native American genocide and relocation to reservations
Japanese-American concentration camps
"Rape Squads" that have been prominent in Eastern Europe, Africa, Mexico, Latin & South America
Slavery (past AND present)
Australian Aboriginal mistreatment
South African Apartheid
Swiss bank "neutrality" and holding Nazi gold/art/etc. stolen from Jews
The treatment of Catholics by Roman Pantheists
ugh... I could go on, but it's stuff that just pisses people off. Seriously guys, I'd rather they have the guts to say that "this could happen" in the Sixth World, rather than take a politically-correct view and ignore it.
Shadowrun shouldn't avoid subjects that bother people, and it never has. In fact, 4th edition renewed and expanded the list of taboo subjects that Shadowrun covered. I chose to point out, and you're defending one pretty awful section of the book. But I chose that one section because it's pretty clear that it's garbage, should not have been printed and was a good example of the general quality of the book. I point out the authors own attempts to back pedal on it claiming that it's meant as rumors. I argue that is poor writing and shows a lack of understanding of the setting as well as previous material. It leads to the greater problem, the reason I even talk about this here.
My argument is that the handling of these subjects in War! is crap. Not the handling of them in general, or in Shadowrun, but in this book. If you're going to cover something that big and important, that you know people are still sensitive about, then for your own sake you should do the best work you can on it. Titanic(the movie) was a better representation of its event than Arbeit Macht Frei was a reference. Not in a personal taste sort of way, but in the amount of work and care and polish that went into it and the shear level of insult. It's tasteless to use a tragedy as the backdrop to a chintzy love story, but it's repulsive to suggest that you may like to role play someone going into Auschwitz to plunder the place while you destroy the ghosts of the victims of the holocaust. That's a totally different level. That's Uwe Boll making a movie about... oh God.
Ok, I'm stepping aside here. As I was writing the above, and I had no idea that Uwe Boll was making a movie about Auschwitz. Holy shit. That's so bad I... I don't have words. I just did a search to make sure I was spelling his name right, and I found, wow.
Take a breath, and back to the point...
The problem with War! isn't specifically the lack of editing and review. It isn't the generally poor quality of the writing, or the writers lack of familiarity with the setting. Those can explain each other. It isn't even the tasteless, and honestly pointless, inclusion of settings and suggestions that offend without substance. It's all of that. It's the cheap feeling of the layout and low level of quality when compared with other books from the recent past. Remember SR4A and Seattle 2072? You think that War! is going to be winning any awards? It's that War! is the business practices of CGL that cause and perpetuate those problems made manifest. It's that the problems that got them into the mess where they make crap product aren't fixed yet, and War! is their report card.
Is it readable? Yes, but it has a lot of errors.
Is it the best they could do? It had better be, cause they want you to buy it.
Does it stand up to the books of the recent past? No, it stands on them; and hopes you'll keep buying because you're either unaware or too enamored of copyright to care.
Is it worth the money you've spent? No.
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No, it usually means in process of. Give it a break.
Wow, really... Really?
I realize you'd really like retconn to that statement now, but "Haven't read" means "Haven't read", no matter how you twist and turn it.
So next time you try to discuss something, please don't take your point apart all by yourself. Leave some fun for the others.
*sigh*
Oh God, this may be hopeless.
When I wrote said post you obviously read whatever way you wanted to see it, I had pretty much just bought the damn pdf and was browsing around seeing what people said.
Then I noticed that certain people were bashing the book, people who are still a bit bitter about how things went down. Since I had just bought the pdf of course I had not read it yet. I did not think it was required to inform everybody of the details of my buying habits and pdf reading schedule. No where in the post did I say I have had the pdf and it was just sitting there. But, this is what you want to see so of course it isn't correct, it is an assumption.
You know what they say about people who assume. Ass and u are part of that saying.
So, As I have been reading said pdf since making said post, I can truly say....
Stop with the bitchy little whining! It is unbecoming....
This represents the time when this conversation should stop and we should go back to discussing the book itself before sanctions come out.
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Indeed, just tired of the people who would criticize the book, no matter what.
The book does have faults, most egregiously the editing and spelling errors. Heck, Bogata isn't even a place I would really use.
But the book isn't some disaster or the end of teh Shadowrun world either.
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The book does have faults, most egregiously the editing and spelling errors. Heck, Bogata isn't even a place I would really use.
Richmond and DeeCee would make for an interesting battleground...
I suppose, though, that it makes sense to be Bogata, reading over the 4e books, Aztlan and Amazonia have been gearing for war for quite a while. Logical flashpoint would be a divided city along their respective border where both could mass ground forces. So I can't fault the choice, even if war in CalFree, or Corp/Asamando swarm into a Brush War in the Kingdoms of Nigeria would have been more interesting in some regards.
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The book does have faults, most egregiously the editing and spelling errors. Heck, Bogata isn't even a place I would really use.
Richmond and DeeCee would make for an interesting battleground...
I suppose, though, that it makes sense to be Bogata, reading over the 4e books, Aztlan and Amazonia have been gearing for war for quite a while. Logical flashpoint would be a divided city along their respective border where both could mass ground forces. So I can't fault the choice, even if war in CalFree, or Corp/Asamando swarm into a Brush War in the Kingdoms of Nigeria would have been more interesting in some regards.
Oh, I am not criticizing the choice of Bogata at all. It is actually a fine choice for all the reasons you stated.
I was just saying that it is not somewhere my current campaign would be taking my PCs, I should have made that clear. :)
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Indeed, just tired of the people who would criticize the book, no matter what.
The book does have faults, most egregiously the editing and spelling errors. Heck, Bogata isn't even a place I would really use.
But the book isn't some disaster or the end of teh Shadowrun world either.
If it makes you feel any better I think the smartstaff is really a great idea. Not handled the right way, not really balanced, but that goes with a lot of the book.
There are some really good ideas in War!, but they aren't given the treatment they diverse; that any Shadowrun supplement deserves. I have a problem with CGL, I'm not trying to say I'm unbiased or that I'm even looking at this product from an unbiased perspective. I'm saying I love this game and I hate what the current group of people that call themselves CGL are doing to it. It worries me when I do look at a product like this and see a poor vision and a really low level of professionalism and know that people will buy it and convince themselves that it's really great; or worth $18 for the gear section.
There are flaws, a lot of flaws. The books getting released aren't getting any better, they are getting sloppier. That means something.
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Would I like every single book to be absolutely perfect? Yes. But you have to remember, Barry Bonds has 762 home runs (#1 of all time), but he's also got 1,757 strikeouts (15th most of all time). Not every book is going to be a home run. I'm still going to buy the ones that aren't, because I like the setting.
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Indeed, just tired of the people who would criticize the book, no matter what.
The book does have faults, most egregiously the editing and spelling errors. Heck, Bogata isn't even a place I would really use.
But the book isn't some disaster or the end of teh Shadowrun world either.
If it makes you feel any better I think the smartstaff is really a great idea. Not handled the right way, not really balanced, but that goes with a lot of the book.
There are some really good ideas in War!, but they aren't given the treatment they diverse; that any Shadowrun supplement deserves. I have a problem with CGL, I'm not trying to say I'm unbiased or that I'm even looking at this product from an unbiased perspective. I'm saying I love this game and I hate what the current group of people that call themselves CGL are doing to it. It worries me when I do look at a product like this and see a poor vision and a really low level of professionalism and know that people will buy it and convince themselves that it's really great; or worth $18 for the gear section.
There are flaws, a lot of flaws. The books getting released aren't getting any better, they are getting sloppier. That means something.
And you actually lay out your complaints in a logical and thought out manner. I appreciate that.
Look, everybody is allowed to have an opinion, and debate is a great thing when done with manners. There are those however that feel like they need to bash the game no matter what and created accounts on here to do so.
The book is not perfect. The spelling and grammar errors should have been picked up with proper editing. There is some power creep that I can see (I am also of the opinion that most of this gear is meant for higher powered military games or runners who are half mercs).
On the other hand, I am also a long time Shadowrun fan (18 years an counting) but I am not as taken back by the changes. The Shadowrun world cannot stay static, it has to evolve. Look, either CGL will start to focus their vision a bit more, maybe they will eventually lose the license and someone else will grab the mantel; either way the world of Shadowrun continues to change.
Then again, I am also of the mind that Shadowrun was truly never fully Cyberpunk to begin with. It has always been some hybrid of Fantasy and Cyberpunk Sci-Fi. I don't totally mind the changes to Noir and transhumanism, as the cyberpunk genre has moved to teh same themes.
It is okay to have doubts about the direction of Shadowrun and to have an opinion about CGL and all of that, even if it is negative. Thank you freedom ;)
On the other hand, it is not cool to crap in other people's Cheerios and tell them they suck because they still enjoy Shadowrun and enjoy War!. To each their own. Not that I am saying your doing that either, just speaking in general.
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Personally, i question the influence of Topps on CGL. Akin to the influence of Hasbro on WotC. Like, the game line(s) are being made secondary to business/profit.
Any announcements on this?
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Personally, i question the influence of Topps on CGL. Akin to the influence of Hasbro on WotC. Like, the game line(s) are being made secondary to business/profit.
Any announcements on this?
Topps doesn't have a ton of influence on the game line. They've been very cooperative and gracious about letting us do our thing, so I wouldn't blame them.
Jason H.
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Indeed, just tired of the people who would criticize the book, no matter what.
The book does have faults, most egregiously the editing and spelling errors. Heck, Bogata isn't even a place I would really use.
But the book isn't some disaster or the end of teh Shadowrun world either.
If it makes you feel any better I think the smartstaff is really a great idea. Not handled the right way, not really balanced, but that goes with a lot of the book.
There are some really good ideas in War!, but they aren't given the treatment they diverse; that any Shadowrun supplement deserves. I have a problem with CGL, I'm not trying to say I'm unbiased or that I'm even looking at this product from an unbiased perspective. I'm saying I love this game and I hate what the current group of people that call themselves CGL are doing to it. It worries me when I do look at a product like this and see a poor vision and a really low level of professionalism and know that people will buy it and convince themselves that it's really great; or worth $18 for the gear section.
There are flaws, a lot of flaws. The books getting released aren't getting any better, they are getting sloppier. That means something.
And you actually lay out your complaints in a logical and thought out manner. I appreciate that.
Look, everybody is allowed to have an opinion, and debate is a great thing when done with manners. There are those however that feel like they need to bash the game no matter what and created accounts on here to do so.
The book is not perfect. The spelling and grammar errors should have been picked up with proper editing. There is some power creep that I can see (I am also of the opinion that most of this gear is meant for higher powered military games or runners who are half mercs).
On the other hand, I am also a long time Shadowrun fan (18 years an counting) but I am not as taken back by the changes. The Shadowrun world cannot stay static, it has to evolve. Look, either CGL will start to focus their vision a bit more, maybe they will eventually lose the license and someone else will grab the mantel; either way the world of Shadowrun continues to change.
Then again, I am also of the mind that Shadowrun was truly never fully Cyberpunk to begin with. It has always been some hybrid of Fantasy and Cyberpunk Sci-Fi. I don't totally mind the changes to Noir and transhumanism, as the cyberpunk genre has moved to teh same themes.
It is okay to have doubts about the direction of Shadowrun and to have an opinion about CGL and all of that, even if it is negative. Thank you freedom ;)
On the other hand, it is not cool to crap in other people's Cheerios and tell them they suck because they still enjoy Shadowrun and enjoy War!. To each their own. Not that I am saying your doing that either, just speaking in general.
Opinions are one thing, facts are another. The book feels like it was thrown together, I don't think that's a stylistic choice. The typos are a perfect example of what I'm saying. With a little more time, with a closer eye to detail and a better understanding of the tools this could have been an alright book. With a better vision it may have been a great book. I'll let people shoot it out over style choices any day, to each their own. But I don't like sloppy work. And it really bothers me when people try to explain away very clear flaws that could have been, and in the past have been, avoided. I remember getting pissed at some hairy grammar on the back cover of Seattle 2072. War! is a far cry from that level of disappointment, in the wrong direction.
Shadowrun hasn't been static at all, and I don't want it to be. I just want to see it get better with each release. 4th ed made a boat load of changes to the system and the setting that have in some places only been touched on. A lot of that was Rob and crew, and honestly I liked most of the changes, and accepted the others because it was by and large consistent and for the most part well presented. Someone cared and it showed. SR4 and SR4A were handled well for the most part, save some pretty questionable AI rules and a weak hacking system. I don't really care for Frank Trollman's replacement, and I admit the matrix as it appears in SR4A is the best yet. But it makes things difficult sometimes, like when you're a hacker. Or an AI. That's why Shadowrun needs a solid and knowledgeable line developer with a strong vision and a firm grasp on the setting. That's why it need freelancers who know and love the setting, maybe more than is strictly healthy. It's not an easy system to write for, especially with SR4's style of including everything as a template to be tweaked and upgraded as somewhat modular.
Also, the guy who calls himself Fastjack? There's always a point in every athletes life when they need to recognize that they just don't have it anymore.
I won't even go into the doping.
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I find I really cannot argue too much against those points because I agree with a lot.
No, the book is not the best Sourcebook I have ever seen. I don't think it is horrible but I can see your point of view.
I guess I tend to be a bit more patient. I am willing to wait and see if things get better. Trust me, I am not one to just sit and worship all things Shadowrun, if CGL screws it up then I will say something.
War! is put together rough, I will agree. I just wouldn't call it the apocalypse just yet... :)
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I find I really cannot argue too much against those points because I agree with a lot.
No, the book is not the best Sourcebook I have ever seen. I don't think it is horrible but I can see your point of view.
I guess I tend to be a bit more patient. I am willing to wait and see if things get better. Trust me, I am not one to just sit and worship all things Shadowrun, if CGL screws it up then I will say something.
War! is put together rough, I will agree. I just wouldn't call it the apocalypse just yet... :)
Man, I wish I could still agree with that. But I've followed this whole sad story so long that now I'm just bitching about the end times because I still love this fucking game. When SR5 launches in 2015 we'll all look back on this and laugh.
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Yo, I don't want to put a damper on all the complaining, or complaining about complaining, but I've got a question which might be a little presumptuous.
So, like, one thing that I've universally seen praise for, regarding War!, is (I assume,) Aaron's rules for the Leadership skill. I've got to say, I'm pretty excited about the idea of a skill which has been a skill group staple (for, what, six years?) finally getting rules to govern it.
Here's the presumptuous part. Any chance we could see these rules as downloadable SR4a errata? It just seems that this is essential information which should have been included in the core rules instead of a supplement...
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I find I really cannot argue too much against those points because I agree with a lot.
No, the book is not the best Sourcebook I have ever seen. I don't think it is horrible but I can see your point of view.
I guess I tend to be a bit more patient. I am willing to wait and see if things get better. Trust me, I am not one to just sit and worship all things Shadowrun, if CGL screws it up then I will say something.
War! is put together rough, I will agree. I just wouldn't call it the apocalypse just yet... :)
Man, I wish I could still agree with that. But I've followed this whole sad story so long that now I'm just bitching about the end times because I still love this fucking game. When SR5 launches in 2015 we'll all look back on this and laugh.
Man, I love it too. Been my go to game for 18 years now, I just won't give up on it. I guess I just don't hate where it is at as much as others. Hey, I can respect opinions not my own (such a novel thing on the net... :))
Eh, in the end, I guess we both love Shadowrun. Isn't that what matters? ;D
And hey, as long as 5th edition Shadowrun doesn't jump the shark like 4th edition D&D did then I think we will be okay. ;D
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I find I really cannot argue too much against those points because I agree with a lot.
No, the book is not the best Sourcebook I have ever seen. I don't think it is horrible but I can see your point of view.
I guess I tend to be a bit more patient. I am willing to wait and see if things get better. Trust me, I am not one to just sit and worship all things Shadowrun, if CGL screws it up then I will say something.
War! is put together rough, I will agree. I just wouldn't call it the apocalypse just yet... :)
Man, I wish I could still agree with that. But I've followed this whole sad story so long that now I'm just bitching about the end times because I still love this fucking game. When SR5 launches in 2015 we'll all look back on this and laugh.
Man, I love it too. Been my go to game for 18 years now, I just won't give up on it. I guess I just don't hate where it is at as much as others. Hey, I can respect opinions not my own (such a novel thing on the net... :))
Eh, in the end, I guess we both love Shadowrun. Isn't that what matters? ;D
And hey, as long as 5th edition Shadowrun doesn't jump the shark like 4th edition D&D did then I think we will be okay. ;D
I agree, it's all about playing the game you love. But I think we have vastly different estimations of the ability of it's current stewards. I deeply fear a 5th ed. by Jason Hardy.
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Yo, I don't want to put a damper on all the complaining, or complaining about complaining, but I've got a question which might be a little presumptuous.
So, like, one thing that I've universally seen praise for, regarding War!, is (I assume,) Aaron's rules for the Leadership skill. I've got to say, I'm pretty excited about the idea of a skill which has been a skill group staple (for, what, six years?) finally getting rules to govern it.
Here's the presumptuous part. Any chance we could see these rules as downloadable SR4a errata? It just seems that this is essential information which should have been included in the core rules instead of a supplement...
Including them in War! is basically the same, except for those groups that don't accept War! as playable material. It's a shame too, because those are some solid rules and a great use for an under loved skill.
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I find I really cannot argue too much against those points because I agree with a lot.
No, the book is not the best Sourcebook I have ever seen. I don't think it is horrible but I can see your point of view.
I guess I tend to be a bit more patient. I am willing to wait and see if things get better. Trust me, I am not one to just sit and worship all things Shadowrun, if CGL screws it up then I will say something.
War! is put together rough, I will agree. I just wouldn't call it the apocalypse just yet... :)
Man, I wish I could still agree with that. But I've followed this whole sad story so long that now I'm just bitching about the end times because I still love this fucking game. When SR5 launches in 2015 we'll all look back on this and laugh.
Man, I love it too. Been my go to game for 18 years now, I just won't give up on it. I guess I just don't hate where it is at as much as others. Hey, I can respect opinions not my own (such a novel thing on the net... :))
Eh, in the end, I guess we both love Shadowrun. Isn't that what matters? ;D
And hey, as long as 5th edition Shadowrun doesn't jump the shark like 4th edition D&D did then I think we will be okay. ;D
I agree, it's all about playing the game you love. But I think we have vastly different estimations of the ability of it's current stewards. I deeply fear a 5th ed. by Jason Hardy.
Eh, I think I have more patience for seeing improvement. I wouldn't say that is an indicator of what I think of their ability.
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I find I really cannot argue too much against those points because I agree with a lot.
No, the book is not the best Sourcebook I have ever seen. I don't think it is horrible but I can see your point of view.
I guess I tend to be a bit more patient. I am willing to wait and see if things get better. Trust me, I am not one to just sit and worship all things Shadowrun, if CGL screws it up then I will say something.
War! is put together rough, I will agree. I just wouldn't call it the apocalypse just yet... :)
Man, I wish I could still agree with that. But I've followed this whole sad story so long that now I'm just bitching about the end times because I still love this fucking game. When SR5 launches in 2015 we'll all look back on this and laugh.
Man, I love it too. Been my go to game for 18 years now, I just won't give up on it. I guess I just don't hate where it is at as much as others. Hey, I can respect opinions not my own (such a novel thing on the net... :))
Eh, in the end, I guess we both love Shadowrun. Isn't that what matters? ;D
And hey, as long as 5th edition Shadowrun doesn't jump the shark like 4th edition D&D did then I think we will be okay. ;D
I agree, it's all about playing the game you love. But I think we have vastly different estimations of the ability of it's current stewards. I deeply fear a 5th ed. by Jason Hardy.
Eh, I think I have more patience for seeing improvement. I wouldn't say that is an indicator of what I think of their ability.
I agree that they can most likely do better work. But just like in my own work, if I don't do the best I can do, why do anything? If I'm kept from doing a job to a level of satisfaction I consider professional, I would rather leave my position and find work elsewhere instead of perform substandard work.
That's why I'm so bothered by War! and the recent releases, the ones that Jason inherited as well. I see a steady decline well past the point where they should have pulled the book and gave it another once over. The typos again, there's just no excuse.
Man, did I want to hope that things could turn around. But after talking to Jason initially and giving it the better part of a year, the situation is actually worse than I expected. So if it seems like I'm not cutting them any slack, it's because I don't think they've earned any. At other companies, people would get fired for this type of work. I know I would.
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Gentlemen?
Knock it off.
Thank you.
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Gentlemen?
Knock it off.
Thank you.
I'm sorry? I thought we were having a pretty sedate conversation about War! and the state of CGL here. If stating my dislike of the current regime is against the TOS, I must have missed that too.
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It's not against the TOS. Just at this point, neither you (nor anyone arguing with you) are accomplishing anything except wasting bandwidth and creating a generally negative and combative atmosphere. Repeating the same thing more than a couple of times just gets old, and gets really annoying, really fast (And I'm not picking on you Otaku, I'm directing this at everyone in the thread that keeps coming back to repost things over and over).
There is a point in any discussion where the people involved have to realize that they're simply circling the conversation and that it's stopped being creative, constructive, or informative. This thread reached that point several pages back.
Bull
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It's not against the TOS. Just at this point, neither you (nor anyone arguing with you) are accomplishing anything except wasting bandwidth and creating a generally negative and combative atmosphere. Repeating the same thing more than a couple of times just gets old, and gets really annoying, really fast (And I'm not picking on you Otaku, I'm directing this at everyone in the thread that keeps coming back to repost things over and over).
There is a point in any discussion where the people involved have to realize that they're simply circling the conversation and that it's stopped being creative, constructive, or informative. This thread reached that point several pages back.
Bull
That's funny, because I had a different take. I actually caught myself being what I felt was too negative and dialing it back during the course of the thread. And it beat a lot of DS threads because we managed to stay on topic without bringing up ridiculous or inflammatory situations and scenarios.
I'll admit I tend to rehash a bit from post to post, but it's a pretty common part of conversation. No one is stopping anyone, including you, from bring up another section of War! and what you think/feel about it.
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Just remember, a lot of the freelancers/writers/developers are active on this forum and they have feelings. Discussing the good/bad of a product is okay, but when you start to question the skills and abilities of the people producing the work, it's no longer seen as polite discussion and looks a lot more like you have an axe to grind against certain persons. And I'm not saying you do, just that it appears that way to the readers of the forum.
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Just remember, a lot of the freelancers/writers/developers are active on this forum and they have feelings. Discussing the good/bad of a product is okay, but when you start to question the skills and abilities of the people producing the work, it's no longer seen as polite discussion and looks a lot more like you have an axe to grind against certain persons. And I'm not saying you do, just that it appears that way to the readers of the forum.
Nah, I do have an axe to grind, I'm not shy about that. And there are some examples of poor work in War!. I'm here to offer my opinion and state the facts in the product that CGL has put up for sale. That they intend people to pay for.
On that note I'm glad that purchasing a PDF normally allows people access to updates to the PDF due to errata. I certainly hope that the PDF is updated soon and that these errors do not find their way into print copies. Which are notoriously more expensive to update.
(Look Mah! New content!)
(Also, I gotta sleep sometime :) )
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Including them in War! is basically the same,
So, does that mean that Leadership rules wouldn't even be useful in a regular SR game? Are they totally focused on squad-based combat? If yes, why is that part of the Influence skill group instead of Intimidation?
Feh... I don't know..
I'm not into high-powered games, so War isn't currently on my agenda, but having working rules for a skill that, as of now, is almost entirely redundant... that's a plus.
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Including them in War! is basically the same,
So, does that mean that Leadership rules wouldn't even be useful in a regular SR game? Are they totally focused on squad-based combat? If yes, why is that part of the Influence skill group instead of Intimidation?
Feh... I don't know..
Oh, no! I think the rules are a great addition to the game. It's just sort of the same thing if they add them in a source book or in the core.
You're right that they should be in SR4A, and should be included in a new edition if it has similar mechanics. But adding it into SR4A at this point is pretty difficult. They'd have to toss it in the errata, and people tend to dislike new rules presented in the errata. Better to leave it to a supplement, it's what they're for. It's just a bummer that they had to appear in War!, given it's present state.
I will state though, that expanded rules for Leadership make perfect sense in a book called War!. Especially given it's original scope.
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Including them in War! is basically the same,
So, does that mean that Leadership rules wouldn't even be useful in a regular SR game? Are they totally focused on squad-based combat? If yes, why is that part of the Influence skill group instead of Intimidation?
Feh... I don't know..
I'm not into high-powered games, so War isn't currently on my agenda, but having working rules for a skill that, as of now, is almost entirely redundant... that's a plus.
As a guy who's long had characters invest in Leadership (for no good reason), I've got to say I love 'em. I was a big Small Unit Tactics guy in SR3 (to put it mildly), so having the rules from War! comes as a real boon.
Of course, I just watched The Losers and The A-Team in the same week I ran a Shadowrun game for a new group, so I've kind of got that sort of "on the fly Leadership" on the brain, mind you...;) But I honestly think the Leadership rules presented in War! are quite well done. The payoff for a good roll isn't as potentially game-breaking as it was with SUT in SR3 (so it's not a "must-have" the way SUT could be), but they're tangible enough benefits that I think it'll just be fun to be a guy with a solid Leadership ability, using these rules.
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Personally, i question the influence of Topps on CGL. Akin to the influence of Hasbro on WotC. Like, the game line(s) are being made secondary to business/profit.
Any announcements on this?
Topps doesn't have a ton of influence on the game line. They've been very cooperative and gracious about letting us do our thing, so I wouldn't blame them.
Jason H.
Acknowledged.
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Including them in War! is basically the same,
So, does that mean that Leadership rules wouldn't even be useful in a regular SR game? Are they totally focused on squad-based combat? If yes, why is that part of the Influence skill group instead of Intimidation?
Feh... I don't know..
I'm not into high-powered games, so War isn't currently on my agenda, but having working rules for a skill that, as of now, is almost entirely redundant... that's a plus.
To answer your question, yes the rules would be useful in a regular SR game. No they aren't totally focused on squad-based combat, they're focused on a person leading a squad in combat, what is any runner team if not a small squad, perhaps with less discipline and no uniforms.
A new rule printed in a new rule book does not need to be incorporated into the core rulebook via errata in order to apply generally to all games played. The information and rules provided in Vice apply regardless of whether or not you're running a game where everyone is a member of the mob. Corporate Guide tells you the ins and outs of corporations, even if your characters aren't playing corporate runners.
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I have to say I am glad to see some Leadership rules. It is a looked over skill and I am glad to see it get some functionality. It seems to me that War! isn't a bad place to put said rules, even though it is correct that a Shadowrunning team is totally a small squad and maybe it should have been in SR4A.
But that is neither here nor there, they exist now so that is awesome.
Edit: Awww, I must have offended some cats. My negative rep went from 0 to 4 in one day. Way to be passive-aggressive.... :)
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I'm not offended. And i didn't see any other cats here. :D
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Any chance we could see these rules as downloadable SR4a errata
You mean like the errata that went into the second printing of Augmentation? ::)
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Any chance we could see these rules as downloadable SR4a errata
You mean like the errata that went into the second printing of Augmentation? ::)
Or the one in the newest printing of Runners Companion ;)
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I'm not offended. And i didn't see any other cats here. :D
Lol. Yeah, I got that habit of calling people "cats" from my uncle. Old ass 50's term...
It just comes out sometimes.... :D
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See? This is why I find it baffling that they cut the Slang completely out of SR4. It doesn't just vanish from our lexicon, even if it falls out of fashion! Dialing it back I get, but just cutting it? Bah.
I started slipping it into Missions occasionally (One of the key NPCs for the new Season uses it frequently, as he's a cranky old former shadowrunner). I also noticed some of it made it's way into the fiction in Spells & Chrome, which was cool.
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The slang never disappears in my campaigns. ;)
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Well, slang likes to cycle.
Ten years from now, people might start saying "phat," "pimp" or "tha bomb" again.
Though, at the rate VH1 recycles culture into entertainment.. maybe it'll take a week..
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There is a line in the SR novel Night's Pawn, when the hero, Jason Chase (already considered an "old timer" in the early 50s!) has just gotten the drop on some home invaders looking to punch his ticket and uses the word F*** (not sure I can use that word, but if you DONT know what it is, then welll....). To which one invader replies: "He said F***, how quaint".
Don't know why, but I always liked that.
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I'm sorry? I thought we were having a pretty sedate conversation about War! and the state of CGL here. If stating my dislike of the current regime is against the TOS, I must have missed that too.
Would have been nice if Helbie was a little clearer why he posted, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say the "...and the state of CGL..." part of the conversation is off topic. Might be better to spin that off into its own conversation.
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Then I noticed that certain people were bashing the book, people who are still a bit bitter about how things went down.
If I was with that crowd, I certainly wouldn't be defending David Hill as merely inexperienced with his new assignment (who wouldn't be?) and needing some editorial guidance...so maybe you should tone down your "the ex-freelancers are out to get us" paranoia a bit.
And no, W! is certainly not the apocalypse, as that word implies a sudden event which brings an end to something. War! is merely the continuation of a disturbing trend which ironically began after the realease of the much-laudated Seattle 2072. Vice was kinda "meh", but every product line has those. Then came the Corporate Layout Nightmare and especially the 6WA, baffling fans everywhere with incredibly poor factchecking and continuity errors. And now War!...well, at least the rules and equipment sections are well done overall. Given that the next book scheduled is MilSpec equipment (because a warfare sourcebook would have been the wrong place for that), I doubt the equipment sections are going to survive the slow whithering....
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I'm sorry? I thought we were having a pretty sedate conversation about War! and the state of CGL here. If stating my dislike of the current regime is against the TOS, I must have missed that too.
Would have been nice if Helbie was a little clearer why he posted, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say the "...and the state of CGL..." part of the conversation is off topic. Might be better to spin that off into its own conversation.
I can see that, but I think War! so perfectly shows the points people have in regards to the decline in quality, lack of care in CGL products and the inability to Jason to develop compelling material that it is on topic in this thread. Certainly no more off topic than Bull talking about the lingo from earlier editions making a come back and why he approves. I also wouldn't want to start a new "CGL Situation" thread on this forum since it's far more useful for everyone to bring up specific failures in a product then to start a new thread that basically says "I don't like you".
Though if someone has anything they'd like to bring up that deals directly with CGL or their current business practices it would make sense in a thread like that. The freelancer chat transcript that Ancient History posted in others forums might be a good place to start with that.
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Given that the next book scheduled is MilSpec equipment (because a warfare sourcebook would have been the wrong place for that)
MillSpec Tech isn't a full sourcebook, it's PDF suplement for WAR, containing all the gear they couldn't fit into WAR.
Most likely similiar in size and cost to Digital grimoire and This Old Drone.
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Given that the next book scheduled is MilSpec equipment (because a warfare sourcebook would have been the wrong place for that)
MillSpec Tech isn't a full sourcebook, it's PDF suplement for WAR, containing all the gear they couldn't fit into WAR.
Most likely similiar in size and cost to Digital grimoire and This Old Drone.
The gear section of War! had some nice stuff, even if most of it needed a bit longer to cook. It's a bit short as well, given how much page space was spent on Bogota. I certainly hope this isn't like video game makers that hold something back from a $60 game so they can hit you with a $15 DLC pack a month later. Granted the prices here are most likely lower, but it still seems like double dipping.
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well location and setting have always sold worse then "bling". But at the same time there would be a vocal reaction of they only pushed gear books.
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I certainly hope this isn't like video game makers that hold something back from a $60 game so they can hit you with a $15 DLC pack a month later.
No, of course not. That's totally different.
It's not like IMR is currently a bit tight on, well, everything. And just ignore this silly publisher Pegasus, integrating Digital Grimoire into the german release of Street Magic. ::)
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And just ignore this silly publisher Pegasus, integrating Digital Grimoire into the german release of Street Magic. ::)
What's wrong with that?
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What's wrong with that?
Irony and sarcasm without tags obviously doesn't transfer too well ...
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I certainly hope this isn't like video game makers that hold something back from a $60 game so they can hit you with a $15 DLC pack a month later.
No, of course not. That's totally different.
It's not like IMR is currently a bit tight on, well, everything. And just ignore this silly publisher Pegasus, integrating Digital Grimoire into the german release of Street Magic. ::)
That is a fantastic idea.
I didn't have as much of a problem with Digital Grimoire. It came out late enough that it really seemed like material that was cut for time or needed more work and was put out later. It also had some really interesting stuff in it.
Milspec Gear scares me because it's coming so close on the heels of War! and it's anemic gear section. Of course I'm comparing War! to Fields of Fire, and I understand that those are very different products.
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I Now, if you're demanding better editing on typos and such, I can't say anything about it since I haven't gone through the book with a fine toothed comb (yet). But I consider a PDF purchase to be a "last Beta" from the team to pick up on stuff like this. The print street-date hasn't been announced yet (or it may have been, I've been checking in from my phone while taking breaks packing and moving and may have missed it), so there's plenty of time for us, the fans, to post errata (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=1936.0) so they can get it fixed before going to print, AND also update the PDF so you can get your corrected PDF free update notice from DriveThruRPG and BattleCorps.
Call me crazy, but $18 seems like a hefty toll to beta-test a product that seems to have somehow made it to publication without encountering a spellcheck.
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I Now, if you're demanding better editing on typos and such, I can't say anything about it since I haven't gone through the book with a fine toothed comb (yet). But I consider a PDF purchase to be a "last Beta" from the team to pick up on stuff like this. The print street-date hasn't been announced yet (or it may have been, I've been checking in from my phone while taking breaks packing and moving and may have missed it), so there's plenty of time for us, the fans, to post errata (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=1936.0) so they can get it fixed before going to print, AND also update the PDF so you can get your corrected PDF free update notice from DriveThruRPG and BattleCorps.
Call me crazy, but $18 seems like a hefty toll to beta-test a product that seems to have somehow made it to publication without encountering a spellcheck.
Well, considering that at some point, they re-release the PDF with the corrections, then it's not really.
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Well, considering that at some point, they re-release the PDF with the corrections, then it's not really.
It might be just me, but I didn't get too many updates on my PDFs ...
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Well, considering that at some point, they re-release the PDF with the corrections, then it's not really.
It might be just me, but I didn't get too many updates on my PDFs ...
I've gotten updates on all the PDFs I purchased through DriveThruRPG, BattleCorps and Paizo when the original files have been updated from errata and such.
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Well, considering that at some point, they re-release the PDF with the corrections, then it's not really.
It might be just me, but I didn't get too many updates on my PDFs ...
I've gotten updates on all the PDFs I purchased through DriveThruRPG, BattleCorps and Paizo when the original files have been updated from errata and such.
I still recall a time when most of the typos in CGL product were caught before the PDF was available. I think we called it 2009. Books weren't perfect, but they weren't War!
It's pretty common place for video game companies to ship a game in late beta and expect people to sit and wait for the patches, or make their own, when they run into trouble. It's accepted, but it's sloppy. And it should not be replicated in book publishing. If you're going to put up a beta, then do what Minecraft is doing. Put up a workable beta, charge a small amount, like half price. Anyone who wants to can buy in early and gets the future updates for free. Once the product is finished it goes up for the finished price.
I appreciate the fact that PDFs get updated, but it shouldn't be abused to put out unfinished product early.
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I'm curious to hear from those who have been around shadowrun long enough to be familiar with "Fields of Fire". So far from what I've seen on forums "War" seems to be a different kind of book. As "Fields of Fire" is one of my all time favorites I'm really curious as to how others think "War" compares. Thoughts?
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I'm curious to hear from those who have been around shadowrun long enough to be familiar with "Fields of Fire". So far from what I've seen on forums "War" seems to be a different kind of book. As "Fields of Fire" is one of my all time favorites I'm really curious as to how others think "War" compares. Thoughts?
Two totally separate products. War! is more like Feral Cities or Runner's Havens crossed with Emergence, a close look at a major location during a plot event and then some general information on a some other locations. There's also a gear section, but that takes up 27 of 184 pages. There's 110 pages on Bogota and the war as it applies to Bogota. So if you're a fan, the book might be up your ally. Bring your own map though.
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Much appreciated. Been taking a closer look at the SWA so might be able to do something with maps from that. Though with such a small price difference between the PDF and print I plan to wait.
I'm curious to hear from those who have been around shadowrun long enough to be familiar with "Fields of Fire". So far from what I've seen on forums "War" seems to be a different kind of book. As "Fields of Fire" is one of my all time favorites I'm really curious as to how others think "War" compares. Thoughts?
Two totally separate products. War! is more like Feral Cities or Runner's Havens crossed with Emergence, a close look at a major location during a plot event and then some general information on a some other locations. There's also a gear section, but that takes up 27 of 184 pages. There's 110 pages on Bogota and the war as it applies to Bogota. So if you're a fan, the book might be up your ally. Bring your own map though.
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Much appreciated. Been taking a closer look at the SWA so might be able to do something with maps from that. Though with such a small price difference between the PDF and print I plan to wait.
I'm curious to hear from those who have been around shadowrun long enough to be familiar with "Fields of Fire". So far from what I've seen on forums "War" seems to be a different kind of book. As "Fields of Fire" is one of my all time favorites I'm really curious as to how others think "War" compares. Thoughts?
Two totally separate products. War! is more like Feral Cities or Runner's Havens crossed with Emergence, a close look at a major location during a plot event and then some general information on a some other locations. There's also a gear section, but that takes up 27 of 184 pages. There's 110 pages on Bogota and the war as it applies to Bogota. So if you're a fan, the book might be up your ally. Bring your own map though.
There are some maps, floating around from a German forum. I saw them in one of these threads:
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=33712
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51136
I'm having a search-fu failure tonight, but I would start with the DS thread. The one at the Den is a bit long in the tooth, but worth skimming through if you're curious.
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Given that the next book scheduled is MilSpec equipment (because a warfare sourcebook would have been the wrong place for that)
MillSpec Tech isn't a full sourcebook, it's PDF suplement for WAR, containing all the gear they couldn't fit into WAR.
Most likely similiar in size and cost to Digital grimoire and This Old Drone.
The gear section of War! had some nice stuff, even if most of it needed a bit longer to cook. It's a bit short as well, given how much page space was spent on Bogota. I certainly hope this isn't like video game makers that hold something back from a $60 game so they can hit you with a $15 DLC pack a month later. Granted the prices here are most likely lower, but it still seems like double dipping.
I don't mind a War! B-sides book for gear...
It is the most compartmentalized topic and is pure gratuity.
If anything, I appreciate it being kept separate from the Bogata location/event, as well as a return to the promise of the digital releases.
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I've gotten updates on all the PDFs I purchased through DriveThruRPG, BattleCorps and Paizo when the original files have been updated from errata and such.
I just went through my relevant e-mail-inbox an the results are as follows:
Since 2005 I got these product updates for my PDFs that were exclusively bought at BattleCorps (which is more or less "the source" itself):
- Shadowrun 4 - update to Errata 1.3
- Street Magic
- Digital Grimoire
- Shadowrun 4A
I can't blame them for not necessarily providing a 1.8 version of the old SR4 rules and I'm more than willing to give them credit for providing a (two times updated) version of Street Magic with the new cover, but I never got updates for Arsenal, Unwired, Augmentation, Runner's Companion, Running Wild, Corporate Enclaves, Feral Cities or Ghost Cartels. I'm quite sure that at least Arsenal and Unwired do have erratae in their print versions that so far weren't given to me in an updated PDF file. Not so sure about Augmentation, RC and RW. Corporate Enclaves, Feral Cities and Ghost Cartels (all more or less on the same level as WAR! in terms of product relevance) haven't seen Errata either ... So my personal hopes for seeing an updated PDF version of WAR! are rather low. YMMV of course.
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I have errata for most of my Shadowrun pdfs. Not near my book but I know I have Unwired errata and Arsenal errata. Yep, and Street Magic errata.
I am sure errata will make its way out to War! as well, and it needs it when it comes to spelling and grammar.
Otherwise, it isn't too bad of a book. Not great at all but decent for an area in Shadowrun I may never use in my campaign.
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I have errata for most of my Shadowrun pdfs. Not near my book but I know I have Unwired errata and Arsenal errata. Yep, and Street Magic errata.
I am sure errata will make its way out to War! as well, and it needs it when it comes to spelling and grammar.
I wouldn't be nearly that optimistic, considering that we haven't gotten errata for Augmentation(German version has errata included) nor Runners Companion(which even has an errated english version out as hard cover)
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I have errata for most of my Shadowrun pdfs. Not near my book but I know I have Unwired errata and Arsenal errata. Yep, and Street Magic errata.
The problem there being: While I have access to errata for Street Magic, Arsenal and Unwired (as published) on the SR4 homepage I do NOT have an updated PDF that includes that errata for the latter two. I can live with that, since both these books are in far better shape in terms of structure, design and spell-checking. Regardless of my personal feelings about certain stuff in WAR! my main issue lies with its production quality. Given the fact that people paid 18$ for their "beta" PDF, FastJack's and your hopes for actually getting a fully updated version for WAR! are quite optimistic if not too optimistic, because books that have far less problems so far didn't get errata either.
And since so far I haven't seen any errata (separate or fully integrated) for my Augmentation, Running Wild and Runner's Companion (more or less core stuff instead of supplements like WAR!, Feral Cities or Ghost Cartels), I'm just not in the mood for benefit of doubt or optimism in general.
I am sure errata will make its way out to War! as well, and it needs it when it comes to spelling and grammar.
And I'm quite "positive" that I won't see something like that anytime soon ... unless of course the current debate about quality actually rings a bell with "the powers that be" ... something I haven't high hopes about either.
Otherwise, it isn't too bad of a book. Not great at all but decent for an area in Shadowrun I may never use in my campaign.
More power to you, if you really consider this book as "not too bad" ... It's just a feeling that I and at least "some others" don't share.
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Given that the next book scheduled is MilSpec equipment (because a warfare sourcebook would have been the wrong place for that)
MillSpec Tech isn't a full sourcebook, it's PDF suplement for WAR, containing all the gear they couldn't fit into WAR.
Most likely similiar in size and cost to Digital grimoire and This Old Drone.
The gear section of War! had some nice stuff, even if most of it needed a bit longer to cook. It's a bit short as well, given how much page space was spent on Bogota. I certainly hope this isn't like video game makers that hold something back from a $60 game so they can hit you with a $15 DLC pack a month later. Granted the prices here are most likely lower, but it still seems like double dipping.
I don't mind a War! B-sides book for gear...
It is the most compartmentalized topic and is pure gratuity.
If anything, I appreciate it being kept separate from the Bogata location/event, as well as a return to the promise of the digital releases.
Let's be honest. They put 31 pages worth of stuff to spend ¥ and karma on so people would even buy the book. Without that it's the Bogota sourcebook that wouldn't move enough copies to pay for the printing and about 60 pages from the military operations book we'll never see complete. You can spend $18 for the PDF. Then they come out with another 20 odd pages (I'm guessing at size here) of the same type of stuff to spend ¥ and karma on, and they charge you another $7 (going off the last web sup.) for that? That there sounds like horse barding to me.
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I may be alone in this... I like the Bogota info more than I like the gear.
More gear and stuff is nice, but if I wanted a game that focused on digging out the best & most awesome gear to kill things with, I'd still be playing DnD. I buy these books for story, baby, a generic 100+ "here's the military stats and capabilities of the major players" book? Yawn. I'm not playing Warhammer 40k, either. A Shadowrun book needs a story to move, even the core supplements break 50/50 on story and "stuff", even if the story is broken into broad subjects (magical groups, network topology), it's still story.
I think, honestly, the biggest problem with War! is that they named it "War!", I barely pay attention to the product announcements and I knew it was a book about a specific war, centered around Bogota. If you expected something other than 70% Bogota, you had your head in the sand.
I like toys as much as the next runner, but it's not what gets me to buy books. I consider buying PDFs for the gear, but I'll wait and see what some of the people I trust on this forum have to say about Mil-Spec Tech before grabbing it. There seemed like a little much in the way of power creep in War!, and this game doesn't need more of that.
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More power to you, if you really consider this book as "not too bad" ... It's just a feeling that I and at least "some others" don't share.
Yours is not an opinion that is shared by all as well. We can agree on that, sorry you hate the book.
Also, "not too bad" also means not that good as well. Average, decent, nothing spectacular yet not horrible. I don't hate it like some do but I recognize that it is not the best book ever released for Shadowrun either. Far from it.
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Yours is not an opinion that is shared by all as well.
May I ask where I claimed that my views are shared by "all"? Sorry, if this get's kinda rude: Learn to read / understand and refrain from making stupid assertions.
We can agree on that, sorry you hate the book.
And just another instance where I have to suggest that you should seriously improve your reading comprehension, since I nowhere stated that I "hate" the book. I pointed out that it has serious problems with editorial quality and that I - unlike you and FastJack - see no good reason for believing that I'll see an updated PDF version ... thus expecting that my so-called "beta" PDF (not my words, remember?!) will remain the only one I'll ever get within an acceptable time frame. No word about hating the product. If I were to "hate" the product I wouldn't even be talking here anymore with the dim hope that CGL get's their act together and starts to publish with better quality again. I'd just stop spending money on them ...
Also, "not too bad" also means not that good as well.
So? I never doubted that part of your answer, or did I?
I don't hate it like some do but I recognize that it is not the best book ever released for Shadowrun either. Far from it.
Actually I don't even think about what you might feel, since your feelings - apart from your statement that the book is "not so bad" - have pretty much nothing to do with what I wrote or what I care for.
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I've gotten updates on all the PDFs I purchased through DriveThruRPG, BattleCorps and Paizo when the original files have been updated from errata and such.
As pointed out, it's "if" rather than "when – Augmentation has a second printing with corrections, but neither published errata (there is an unreleased errata since August 2008) nor corrected PDF.
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Much appreciated. Been taking a closer look at the SWA so might be able to do something with maps from that.
The "maps" in the 6WA are modern-day satellite photos with Shadowrun borders and locations painted on. So geographical information is limited at best (go spot the rivers), and any changes in coastlines etc. are not reflected at all. Since the maps are in Mercator Projection, one could of course find places of interest with relative ease...if there was a grid on the "map". It isn't.
And errata? That's an in-joke, just like Holostreets.
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Maybe it's about time to get the source file of Wordman's Sixth World Map and update it.
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Maybe it's about time to get the source file of Wordman's Sixth World Map and update it.
No, it's time for CGL to find an answer to this (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=1999.0).
Back in the day, German and US books were incompatible because Fanpro decided to just write their own stuff. TPTB saw that it sucked, so these days Pegasus (new German publisher) has to get approval from CGL before they change anything. Yet the books are drifting apart again, this time because our books correct stuff which the US publisher doesn't give a damn about.
And while we are at it, why not resurrect some other traditions as well?
- Instead of changing torublesome rules, release must-have equipment which ignores these rules. Reflex Triggers didn't make it, but SoftWeave Armor and military matrix gear do the same job.
- Spread similar stuff over at least five books if you can. One book for "not your average runner toys" kind of hardware? Nah, better one warfare sourcebook, one PDF supplement, one espionage book...
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Spread similar stuff over at least five books if you can. One book for "not your average runner toys" kind of hardware? Nah, better one warfare sourcebook, one PDF supplement, one espionage book..
I'm all for constructive criticism towards things fans feel CGL is doing wrong, but this particular "sin" is hardly something to lay at their feet.
Street Samurai Catalog, Shadowtech, Grimoire, Fields of Fire, Rigger Black Book, Rigger 2, Rigger 3, Cannon Companion, Man and Machine, Magic in the Shadows, SOTA '63, SOTA '64...there have always been a ton of books that have hardware (and dis/advantages, and spells, and other new gear) spread out between them. There are plenty of old SR1 and SR2 books that had crunch in 'em, and it almost always would've been nicer to have it all in one book, sure.
When you consider how much this trope goes back to first edition, it's a little silly to act like this is something that's just cropped up in the last eight or nine months.
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Spread similar stuff over at least five books if you can. One book for "not your average runner toys" kind of hardware? Nah, better one warfare sourcebook, one PDF supplement, one espionage book..
I'm all for constructive criticism towards things fans feel CGL is doing wrong, but this particular "sin" is hardly something to lay at their feet.
Street Samurai Catalog, Shadowtech, Grimoire, Fields of Fire, Rigger Black Book, Rigger 2, Rigger 3, Cannon Companion, Man and Machine, Magic in the Shadows, SOTA '63, SOTA '64...there have always been a ton of books that have hardware (and dis/advantages, and spells, and other new gear) spread out between them. There are plenty of old SR1 and SR2 books that had crunch in 'em, and it almost always would've been nicer to have it all in one book, sure.
When you consider how much this trope goes back to first edition, it's a little silly to act like this is something that's just cropped up in the last eight or nine months.
Which he isn't doing. He's explicitly talking about the resurrection of traditions that had better stay dead.
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But my point is that there's no "resurrection" taking place. That wasn't a tradition, and then wasn't the tradition for a while, and then now all of a sudden it is, again. That's just always been part of the format. Core book lists core material, and then more specific books come out with more specific gear in them.
It's not something to be resurrected, because it's never been dead. From the very first books released under SR4, that was how it was done. Arsenal, Augmentation, Unwired, Street Magic...the tradition can't "stay dead" because the tradition never was "dead."
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Street Samurai Catalog, Shadowtech, Grimoire, Fields of Fire, Rigger Black Book, Rigger 2, Rigger 3, Cannon Companion, Man and Machine, Magic in the Shadows, SOTA '63, SOTA '64...there have always been a ton of books that have hardware (and dis/advantages, and spells, and other new gear) spread out between them. There are plenty of old SR1 and SR2 books that had crunch in 'em, and it almost always would've been nicer to have it all in one book, sure.
Which is why I asked "And while we are at it, why not resurrect some other traditions as well?" (and in case you also missed that, that was sarcasm).
SR4 introduced the laudable concept of Corebooks - one book for avanced magic, one book for more equipment, one book for new cyber, and so on. If the bread and butter stuff is not enough for you, get the respective Sourcebook. There's one for critters, one for boondock areas...
Even a warfare book would have fit nicely into that scheme, one book for everything that is more than simply shadowruning. Instead, all the stuff gets spread over several books.
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Forgive me for being difficult but I was under the impression the plan was to seperate books out by subject and limit gear and heavy crunch from the more fluff based source books? The reasoning I was to understand was so that players might not have to get every book just the core rules where as the GM of the group was free to pick up the fluff and story books to flesh out their games with.
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Forgive me for being difficult but I was under the impression the plan was to seperate books out by subject and limit gear and heavy crunch from the more fluff based source books? The reasoning I was to understand was so that players might not have to get every book just the core rules where as the GM of the group was free to pick up the fluff and story books to flesh out their games with.
Yeah, just because that's a good (arguably great) idea doesn't mean that people aren't going to belly-ache that it's an attempt to sell more books. Heaven forbid a business try and sell their product, of course. :o
There is more than enough crunch already that most people don't need more, unless that's all they play the game for. Bring on more fluff books! Because, honestly, with everyone talking about how great the world of shadowrun is, I look at my bookshelf and I see a core rulebook (about 50/50 fluff/crunch split), five hardbound rules supplements (20/80 fluff/crunch), one softcover monster book (30/70 fluff/crunch), one hardbound setting book (100/0 fluff/crunch), three softcover setting books (80/20 fluff/crunch). War comes in as another setting softcover (70/30 fluff/crunch).
By my measure, that's a pretty damn crunchy breakdown, and people are complaining that there wasn't enough crunch in War? To much setting? What is this, DnD?
Unless the crunch specifically fixes something generally seen as bad (I've heard lots of complaints on the disease rules, for example), cut the crunch down and stick it in digital supplements, don't waste good paper on crunch until you've got a heck of a lot more flesh on the 4th edition 6W bones. People who want their power creep can opt not to buy books that expand the world's stage and instead buy the gear PDFs.
Spy Games, please be very fluffy. There's plenty of espionage gear out there already, be fluffy...
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Street Samurai Catalog, Shadowtech, Grimoire, Fields of Fire, Rigger Black Book, Rigger 2, Rigger 3, Cannon Companion, Man and Machine, Magic in the Shadows, SOTA '63, SOTA '64...there have always been a ton of books that have hardware (and dis/advantages, and spells, and other new gear) spread out between them. There are plenty of old SR1 and SR2 books that had crunch in 'em, and it almost always would've been nicer to have it all in one book, sure.
Which is why I asked "And while we are at it, why not resurrect some other traditions as well?" (and in case you also missed that, that was sarcasm).
SR4 introduced the laudable concept of Corebooks - one book for avanced magic, one book for more equipment, one book for new cyber, and so on. If the bread and butter stuff is not enough for you, get the respective Sourcebook. There's one for critters, one for boondock areas...
Even a warfare book would have fit nicely into that scheme, one book for everything that is more than simply shadowruning. Instead, all the stuff gets spread over several books.
I'm not sure if you didn't read my later post, or just ignored it.
Just what "several" books are you talking about? War! has top tier military gear in it. Spy Games will have espionage-specific gear in it (and I can tell you, first hand, that the notes for it specifically stated not to put genuine military stuff in, as it would be covered by War!). One for military stuff, one for spy stuff (and both clearly labeled as such by the title of the book).
What's the problem? How does this break the core SR4 pattern (which has actually been the core SR pattern, an unbroken trend for about the last twenty years, as I pointed out in my post)?
Spy Games, please be very fluffy. There's plenty of espionage gear out there already, be fluffy...
I can tell you right up front, there's an entire Tradecraft chapter, and at least half of the Places of Interest chapter, that you should be very, very, pleased with.
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There is more than enough crunch already that most people don't need more, unless that's all they play the game for. Bring on more fluff books! Because, honestly, with everyone talking about how great the world of shadowrun is, I look at my bookshelf and I see a core rulebook (about 50/50 fluff/crunch split), five hardbound rules supplements (20/80 fluff/crunch), one softcover monster book (30/70 fluff/crunch), one hardbound setting book (100/0 fluff/crunch), three softcover setting books (80/20 fluff/crunch). War comes in as another setting softcover (70/30 fluff/crunch).
By my measure, that's a pretty damn crunchy breakdown, and people are complaining that there wasn't enough crunch in War? To much setting? What is this, DnD?
A book named "War!", and not, say "Target: Bogotá"*, could have more material on how wars are fought in the 6th World (methods, troops, etc.), and less on a single place. Also, it could mention Gurkhas in Nepal ...
*: I in no way imply a "Target: Bogotá" book couldn't have been good.
Spy Games, please be very fluffy. There's plenty of espionage gear out there already, be fluffy...
I'd rewrite that to "talk about how 6th-Worlders do espionage".
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It was. The new plan are weird mixtures of setting, campaign and crunch in one.
When I first heard about it (from AH complaining on Dumpshock), I even liked the idea of having all the stuff to run a military campaign in one self-contained release, instead of just another Arsenal. Just the result...well
@Critias: And what do small teams of specialists (like shadowrunners are) do in top tier militaries? Intel, sabotage, radio games and all that certainly are part of it.
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iirc, crunch have always outsold fluff. This being true for all games across hobby history.
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Actually, War! takes the same track as Corporate Enclaves, Feral Cities and similar books took. Focused on the one or two major subjects (in the other books, they were two cities, in War! it was Bogata and Mercenaries), a couple fluff pieces on minor subjects, then toss in some crunch to go along with it.
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I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue. I like blue.
At some point people get tired of the same statement being repeated over and over...by the same group of inidividuals. I am all for polite discourse and even opinions that I strongly disagree with...at some point though if new information cannot be added to discussion all you have is "I like blue. I like blue. I like blue."
For those who think things were better in the old days, I have 1st and 2nd edition SR books with BLANK pages (i.e. I am missing entire pages)! Rest assured, freelancers and CGL staff have heard your point. ;D
BTW...I really do like blue!
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BTW...I really do like blue!
I disagree! Red is the superior color. ANd since I disagree, and my opinion is the only one that can possibly be correct, then your opinion is wrong. Thus, you are invalidated. ;)
Back on topic, yes, this is an issue, and yes, this is something being discussed. And hopefully steps will be taken to prevent some of this from happening in the future. But as John points out, no book has ever been perfect. But for the record, I do agree taht War! was a bit further than is tolerable, IMO.
Bull
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Very mature, guys.
Perhaps the issue isn't that the blue loving folks just can't stop talking about their love of the color. Perhaps they have an issue with the quality of the Shadowrun line and it really is degrading at a rapid rate and shows no sign of getting any better regardless of the sometimes weak, superficial or misguided excuses being made.
I just got done reading the document linked below to my wife, and she said sadly "Do they even like Shadowrun?"
Ya know what? I had to ask myself the same question.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/45944623/Shadowrun-Artifacts-Unbound-Project-Spec (http://www.scribd.com/doc/45944623/Shadowrun-Artifacts-Unbound-Project-Spec)
So if we sound like a broken record, if some of us sound like we just can't let go of an issue, just can't see it the other way; it might be because we love this game, we aren't seeing that dedication reflected in the product and we are showing it here in a public forum. And perhaps, we aren't all a bunch of malcontents or (as I was called in the Champaign Room) a hater who just want to see CGL burn.
And I like blue as well. It's my favorite color as a matter of fact.
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Hey, great. Now we're doing bad work not just before a print copy is out, not just before a pdf is out, not just before a product gets to layout and proofing, not just before the rough draft, but before we even turn in proposals. As soon as a book spec gets leaked, all the writers are Shadowrun haters. Awesome. At least we've got a lot less typing to do, now. ;D
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I gotta say, I agree with Critias on this one...
Granted, I don't like the whole dragonball feeling of the artifacts in this leaked document any more than the next person who remembers how bad Z & onwards were, but it's a spec, potentially incomplete, potentially completely pulled out of someone's ass. It's not the final product. And, assuming the spec is legit, hopefully, right now, given the reception its gotten, someone is lining out that bit about them being ripped out of a mediocre 80's anime.
Aside from that, the spec wasn't even terribly offensive. Yes, it'd be nice to say the reading pre-reqs are "every Shadowrun book ever written", but meh. wait until you have something to actually judge before repeating your broken record.
And yes, though poorly said, that's exactly what John Schmidt was getting at, it does no one any good to sit here saying "I think War is proof that CGL is beyond hope, the end is nie!" as their only response to "well, maybe it's not so bad" (which itself has become the only response remaining). Debate stops being debate when its an echo chamber.
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Sometimes (not often, but sometimes), I hate the internet.
Before the internet, the first chance people got to see any news about movies, books or games was after the product was developed and already on the way to market. It meant that the people working on these products had a chance to make the products the best they could be.
Now, with the internet, creators announce "Hey, we're working on X!" They are immediately bombarded by fans who demand that only certain actors should be considered for the role (http://kotaku.com/5715112/uncharted-movie-gets-awkward-actor-plea), try to publish material without the author's permission (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dyq5mn2Xs4) or just try to garner new players (do I really need to link to D&D's edition wars?).
The point is (and was, and has been said before), you can't please everybody everytime. Complaining about products BEFORE they are even in development does NOT help the development process, because all it causes is forcing the developers and authors to second-guess themselves while still developing the product. Instead, they see the complaints and may go back and start re-writing what they have already completed. This means that deadline they have is incredibly closer and they can't spend as much time with FACT-CHECKING and PROOFREADING since the fans are complaining (on top of the other complaints) that the products take too long to be released.
Whether you like where Shadowrun is going or not, I genuinely appreciate each and every fan out there, because it's with fans like us that the products are sold, which means more products can be made. And, if you really, really think things are going the "wrong way" you have two choices: Stop buying the product and start writing your own timeline, events and adventures for the game, or go out and buy the IP from Topps so you can then dictate how it should be written (just remember, you're not going to please everyone, so you might wind up with some fans complaining that you're "ruining" the product they love).
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Sometimes (not often, but sometimes), I hate the internet.
Before the internet, the first chance people got to see any news about movies, books or games was after the product was developed and already on the way to market. It meant that the people working on these products had a chance to make the products the best they could be.
Now, with the internet, creators announce "Hey, we're working on X!" They are immediately bombarded by fans who demand that only certain actors should be considered for the role (http://kotaku.com/5715112/uncharted-movie-gets-awkward-actor-plea), try to publish material without the author's permission (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dyq5mn2Xs4) or just try to garner new players (do I really need to link to D&D's edition wars?).
To be fair, I can point you to magazines where information on upcoming movies was leaked and people would write the producer / director / etc, or at least, write an opinion piece in their newspaper of choice back in the days before the internet.
Heck, I bet British broadsheets back in the day would pay street urchins to break into the Globe Theatre and steal Shakespeare's working notes or discarded drafts just to gossip about it.
Fact is, there was never a time or place where this didn't happen, the internet just makes it more obvious and gives it more attention. Besides, as long as writers/producers are strong willed about where they will take things, wouldn't knowing in advance what the audience want be a potential boon to the process? Take the good criticism, discard the bad. As a writer, one should be used to doing this already, I know every writing course I ever was involved in included criticism. It only made the end product stronger, as long as the author didn't bend to every critique offered.
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Otaku:
I posted it elsewhere, and I'll post one more time, then I'm done. I have actual writing to get back to (And even some research, though lord knows none of us freelancers do any of that :)).
That's an incomplete product spec. It's missing the second page. Also, there was some additional information in the email that accompanied it out to freelancers.
And I'm not sure what about that doesn't sound like Shadowrun. This is a book that's going to end up being a bit more like Mob War, I think. Lots of story ideas and adventure hooks. The Artifact concept has evolved a bit since Dawn originally started, and it's something I've already been playing around with in Missions. And this, I think, builds on some of that evolution. Sure, there's some big silly Immortal Elf plot afoot with teh MacGuffin artifacts. But there's a lot of other scrambling and interest that's happening as well, and there are plenty of other very old magical items kicking around. Things like the artifact from Bottled Demon. The Dragonheart. Half the stuff mentioned in Dunkie's Will. Plus artifacts mentioned throughout scattered products for the last 20 years. This product looks like it's going to focus on what some of these items are (at least in part), and ideas for adventures surrounding them that doesn't require you to be Frosty's little bitch until she steps in to save the day, or suck on Harley's peppermint flavored cock. (Sorry, if there's one area that tends to irritate me, it's the Immortal Elves).
Bull
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Sometimes (not often, but sometimes), I hate the internet.
Before the internet, the first chance people got to see any news about movies, books or games was after the product was developed and already on the way to market. It meant that the people working on these products had a chance to make the products the best they could be.
Now, with the internet, creators announce "Hey, we're working on X!" They are immediately bombarded by fans who demand that only certain actors should be considered for the role (http://kotaku.com/5715112/uncharted-movie-gets-awkward-actor-plea), try to publish material without the author's permission (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dyq5mn2Xs4) or just try to garner new players (do I really need to link to D&D's edition wars?).
To be fair, I can point you to magazines where information on upcoming movies was leaked and people would write the producer / director / etc, or at least, write an opinion piece in their newspaper of choice back in the days before the internet.
Heck, I bet British broadsheets back in the day would pay street urchins to break into the Globe Theatre and steal Shakespeare's working notes or discarded drafts just to gossip about it.
Fact is, there was never a time or place where this didn't happen, the internet just makes it more obvious and gives it more attention. Besides, as long as writers/producers are strong willed about where they will take things, wouldn't knowing in advance what the audience want be a potential boon to the process? Take the good criticism, discard the bad. As a writer, one should be used to doing this already, I know every writing course I ever was involved in included criticism. It only made the end product stronger, as long as the author didn't bend to every critique offered.
You're right, but the Internet also makes it more immediate. While they may have been stealing the gossip and notes back in the day, it would still take time for them to publish their information, so that most of it might come out months after it was received.
As for taking the good and tossing the bad, how do you decide what's good and what's bad? A good example is Wizard's changes to the Forgotten Realms. They listened to a lot of the criticism from the forums that there were too many heroes and gods, leading to the idea of the Spellplague and purge. The backlash from that decision is still being felt from the fans that had been quiet in the forums because they were happy with the status quo.
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You know what, this topic has drifted far afield. I'm simply going to lock it up for 24 hours and when we come back, it can get back on the topic of the book War!, or remain closed.
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So.. what are the odds of the rules crunch from War being copied over to the Milspec Gear web-only release for the players' benefit?
Also, whatever happened to 20 Rides? Daddy needs his rigger candy.
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So.. what are the odds of the rules crunch from War being copied over to the Milspec Gear web-only release for the players' benefit?
Also, whatever happened to 20 Rides? Daddy needs his rigger candy.
MilSpecTech's gear will be different than the gear in War. New toys for everyone!
Jason H.
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Sweet, Christmas comes twice.
8)
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Sweet, Christmas comes twice.
8)
And you get to pay for it twice, too!
Which is normally fine for a roleplaying game company to do, if it didn't sound so much like having to pay for the section of gear that got bumped from War! so they could bring you the full 110 pages of Bogota...
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Eh, we all pay for it one way or another eventually.
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Eh, we all pay for it one way or another eventually.
If you're talking about game material, you're wrong. If you're referring to the deeds we do in life, then I certainly hope so.
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Sweet, Christmas comes twice.
8)
And you get to pay for it twice, too!
Which is normally fine for a roleplaying game company to do, if it didn't sound so much like having to pay for the section of gear that got bumped from War! so they could bring you the full 110 pages of Bogota...
This assumption is incorrect. War was always supposed to have lots of setting material in with the gear. MilSpecTech is not stuff that got bumped from War; it's stuff that was generated because the eBook developer wanted to generate it.
Jason H.
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Sweet, Christmas comes twice.
8)
And you get to pay for it twice, too!
Which is normally fine for a roleplaying game company to do, if it didn't sound so much like having to pay for the section of gear that got bumped from War! so they could bring you the full 110 pages of Bogota...
This assumption is incorrect. War was always supposed to have lots of setting material in with the gear. MilSpecTech is not stuff that got bumped from War; it's stuff that was generated because the eBook developer wanted to generate it.
Jason H.
Seems a little odd coming so close on the heels of War! though. A web supplement of milspec gear would sell any time, as a development decision why wasn't 20 Rides slotted in there first? At the very least you'd be avoiding the very appearance of double dipping.
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Sweet, Christmas comes twice.
8)
And you get to pay for it twice, too!
Which is normally fine for a roleplaying game company to do, if it didn't sound so much like having to pay for the section of gear that got bumped from War! so they could bring you the full 110 pages of Bogota...
This assumption is incorrect. War was always supposed to have lots of setting material in with the gear. MilSpecTech is not stuff that got bumped from War; it's stuff that was generated because the eBook developer wanted to generate it.
Jason H.
Seems a little odd coming so close on the heels of War! though. A web supplement of milspec gear would sell any time, as a development decision why wasn't 20 Rides slotted in there first? At the very least you'd be avoiding the very appearance of double dipping.
It's coming on the heels of War! on purpose, as the two books work together. Those that want more gear will be able to get it; those that don't, don't have to. 20 Rides was not slotted before it mainly due to the simple fact that MilSpecTech's text was complete before 20 Rides.
Jason H.
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Still seems like releasing DLC the day a game comes out. It's a really nasty looking practice that the public puts up with only because there's no way to get access to the things they love without supporting the companies that hold the IP and maintain business practices that carry the appearance of corruption. It's nice to have you here to answer directly for the actions of CGL, but even with your clarification it's hard to figure out if this action is corruption or simply poor planning.
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Still seems like releasing DLC the day a game comes out. It's a really nasty looking practice that the public puts up with only because there's no way to get access to the things they love without supporting the companies that hold the IP and maintain business practices that carry the appearance of corruption. It's nice to have you here to answer directly for the actions of CGL, but even with your clarification it's hard to figure out if this action is corruption or simply poor planning.
How is it poor planning? Having a e-book with more military gear released near a book named War! sounds like good planning to me.
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Still seems like releasing DLC the day a game comes out. It's a really nasty looking practice that the public puts up with only because there's no way to get access to the things they love without supporting the companies that hold the IP and maintain business practices that carry the appearance of corruption. It's nice to have you here to answer directly for the actions of CGL, but even with your clarification it's hard to figure out if this action is corruption or simply poor planning.
How is it poor planning? Having a e-book with more military gear released near a book named War! sounds like good planning to me.
To each their own, but the situation as it stands means that all that military equipment was in rough format in CGLs possession at nearly the same time at some point. Why not just include it all in War!? Either it's because they just couldn't bare to lose a few pages from the 110 that Bogota got, or because they wanted to hit the fans that are buying War! for the gear for another $7 bucks. That's pretty raw to me, because as much as I love to buy every book that says Shadowrun on it (save the recent crop) I know a lot more that just buy for the crunch. And military crunch is, well, that much more crunchy.
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I don't have a problem with these extra releases. Digital Grimoire was great, and this could be too. War! had some problems, largely due to editing and a lack of proofreading. I'd love to see these addressed, and errata for that and other products, and I'm being cautiously optimistic about future products. That said there is absolutely nothing CGL could do to win over many of the people in this topic. If they release MilTechSpec and it has all kinds of problems, then go ahead and complain about it, but it's not DLC for War!. If it was you'd need to buy War! first, but as far as I know you don't have to, it's just an extra supplement. I hope it's a great release and is something my group will want to use. Only time will tell.
I'm not going to judge MilTechSpec until the product is out and the reviews are in, and I doubt accusing CGL of being corrupt is going to improve the product in anyway.
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To each their own, but the situation as it stands means that all that military equipment was in rough format in CGLs possession at nearly the same time at some point. Why not just include it all in War!? Either it's because they just couldn't bare to lose a few pages from the 110 that Bogota got, or because they wanted to hit the fans that are buying War! for the gear for another $7 bucks. That's pretty raw to me, because as much as I love to buy every book that says Shadowrun on it (save the recent crop) I know a lot more that just buy for the crunch. And military crunch is, well, that much more crunchy.
I get where you are coming from. But I view E-books as extra stuff that for what ever reason was not put into a physical book. I prefer fluff to crunch, but I won't make a call of whether more gear in WAR! would of been better at the expanse of fluff because I haven't read the book yet. Waiting for the paper version to come out before I make that judgement call.[
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Fair enough. Put keep in mind that everything that goes in to these books comes in piecemeal from freelancers and it's ultimately on the developer what's in one book or the other. While you don't need to buy War! to use the crunch in Milspec, you still need to buy both books to the get gear that was turned in during this time frame. I'm just saying that can, and to me has, been taken the wrong way and reflect poorly on a company that already has a pretty sullied reputation for both release schedule and business practices.
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What do you think they should do, in terms of constructive criticism. As a company how can they improve their product to the point that would make you want to buy it?
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What do you think they should do, in terms of constructive criticism. As a company how can they improve their product to the point that would make you want to buy it?
It's as easy as maintaining the same standards of quality and creativity that brought us SR4A.
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Still seems like releasing DLC the day a game comes out.
Well, there's a bit of a difference there. I won't presume that this would be the cause for it, but there may also be printing concerns. The extra pages found in Milspec, if included in WAR!, may have pushed the price point for WAR! beyond an acceptable amount, due to increased printing costs. So, that's a little different than the DLC example.
In regards to the initial point, I don't have problems with the Milspec release, so long as some of the same editing/proofing issues don't crop up. It wasn't material that would have been in WAR!, so I don't tend to view it as something cut and charged extra for, but something extra provided if I want it. That's just my opinion though, and not meant to reflect on other folks opinions.
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Still seems like releasing DLC the day a game comes out.
Well, there's a bit of a difference there. I won't presume that this would be the cause for it, but there may also be printing concerns. The extra pages found in Milspec, if included in WAR!, may have pushed the price point for WAR! beyond an acceptable amount, due to increased printing costs. So, that's a little different than the DLC example.
In regards to the initial point, I don't have problems with the Milspec release, so long as some of the same editing/proofing issues don't crop up. It wasn't material that would have been in WAR!, so I don't tend to view it as something cut and charged extra for, but something extra provided if I want it. That's just my opinion though, and not meant to reflect on other folks opinions.
I know that from a mechanical standpoint War! and Milspec are not required for each other. It's more specifically like content packs for a game like The Sims. How much of that content was ready to go at launch? Who made the call, and was it made for a reason that wasn't a cash grab?
I'm sure there wasn't space in War! as it appears in the PDF for another 20 pages of gear. It's just that there's so much Bogota in there, and so little general info about war I have to question the wisdom of focusing so much on the one and the motivation of leaving the other for a quickly released follow up product.
To be honest I wouldn't make such a big deal about this if there were more than 30 pages of gear that mostly covers stuff like nukes and aircraft carriers.
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What do you think they should do, in terms of constructive criticism. As a company how can they improve their product to the point that would make you want to buy it?
It's as easy as maintaining the same standards of quality and creativity that brought us SR4A.
I strongly agree with that sentiment, but even at that time we had digital releases. You could argue 10 Gangs should be in Vice, Digital Grimoire in Street Magic and so on. I will judge MilTechSpec as its own product, and I too strongly hope to see a return to the quality we've become accustomed to. I honestly think it just requires some more editing and proofreading. War! isn't as horribly flawed as some would make it seem. In fact Sixth World Almanac was up there with Seattle 2072 and SR4A, it just was marred by errors that brought it down a little (I still desperately want sidebar errata!). CGL writers have said they're listening, so let's wait and see what the next releases look like before we give up all hope.
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Otaku: I believe that the bulk of (if not all of) MilTech Spec was created by Peter Michelanka. Peter's a big fan of riggers and toys like this, and he's also head of the eBooks line. The stuff he's doing was always intended to be an eBook.
Bull
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What do you think they should do, in terms of constructive criticism. As a company how can they improve their product to the point that would make you want to buy it?
It's as easy as maintaining the same standards of quality and creativity that brought us SR4A.
I strongly agree with that sentiment, but even at that time we had digital releases. You could argue 10 Gangs should be in Vice, Digital Grimoire in Street Magic and so on. I will judge MilTechSpec as its own product, and I too strongly hope to see a return to the quality we've become accustomed to. I honestly think it just requires some more editing and proofreading. War! isn't as horribly flawed as some would make it seem. In fact Sixth World Almanac was up there with Seattle 2072 and SR4A, it just was marred by errors that brought it down a little (I still desperately want sidebar errata!). CGL writers have said they're listening, so let's wait and see what the next releases look like before we give up all hope.
I never got a good look at SWA. I'm really only familiar with War! because it's on Scribd. I've heard some of the complaints, like a pretty but flawed map and poor research, but I can't personally speak to any of it.
Digital Grimoire was quite good for a digital suppliment, and did contain stuff that was conceptually around when Street Magic was released. But no one would accuse them of holding the content back for a digital release. That's what I'd like to see to be honest, especially with the drastically delayed release schedule CGL holds. Something down the line to refresh the rules and liven things up. But even if someone else was working on the material in Milspec, as Bull has said, I still question the wisdom of double dipping the crunch fans like this.
However I'll recognize I've said my peace on this and go to bed before they lock this thread to. Night all.
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And, for what it's worth, ebook material goes up a whole different chain of command, under different contracts, through different channels, to different emails, etc, etc, than other SR material. For a little while I was juggling a Missions project, a "normal" SR piece, and an e-book all at once, and it required checking several different fileshares, Google groups, and that sort of thing.
It's not like MilTech Spec was material submitted for War! that was then nefariously plucked from the bosom of its pages and set aside to be a separate product. It was a separate product from the get-go, written by different people as part of a different title.
I'm really only familiar with War! because it's on Scribd.
Oh, nice. Leaked documents, private conversations, and project specs aren't enough, now that same person's got to host whole products for people to download without paying for. Perfect.
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I never got a good look at SWA. I'm really only familiar with War! because it's on Scribd. I've heard some of the complaints, like a pretty but flawed map and poor research, but I can't personally speak to any of it.
So all of this vitriol and complaints comes about a book that you haven't read? I'm confused there, or did I misunderstand what you said?
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I never got a good look at SWA. I'm really only familiar with War! because it's on Scribd. I've heard some of the complaints, like a pretty but flawed map and poor research, but I can't personally speak to any of it.
So all of this vitriol and complaints comes about a book that you haven't read? I'm confused there, or did I misunderstand what you said?
I think he's complaining about War! which he read without purchasing, and not Sixth World Almanac which he hasn't read at all and therefore he isn't complaining about SWA. SWA does have a lot of errors in it, but I heard rumors of an updated paper copy that fixed some, but I haven't seen it myself, nor has any errata been released. My book unfortunately has the side bar errors in it (basically missing two sidebars as they've had duplicate information put in them). It's a good product overall though, just marred by some errors that could (and may have been) fixed with errata.
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I think he's complaining about War! which he read without purchasing
If that's the case, that's even more sad in my eyes.
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This assumption is incorrect. War was always supposed to have lots of setting material in with the gear. MilSpecTech is not stuff that got bumped from War; it's stuff that was generated because the eBook developer wanted to generate it.
Jason H.
Otaku: I believe that the bulk of (if not all of) MilTech Spec was created by Peter Michelanka. Peter's a big fan of riggers and toys like this, and he's also head of the eBooks line. The stuff he's doing was always intended to be an eBook.
Bull
It's not like MilTech Spec was material submitted for War! that was then nefariously plucked from the bosom of its pages and set aside to be a separate product. It was a separate product from the get-go, written by different people as part of a different title.
If this is true, then someone should really change MillTech Specs description in the up coming products topic, because that description is pretty much "Book of gear that couldn't be fitted into WAR"
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I never got a good look at SWA. I'm really only familiar with War! because it's on Scribd. I've heard some of the complaints, like a pretty but flawed map and poor research, but I can't personally speak to any of it.
So all of this vitriol and complaints comes about a book that you haven't read? I'm confused there, or did I misunderstand what you said?
I think he's complaining about War! which he read without purchasing, and not Sixth World Almanac which he hasn't read at all and therefore he isn't complaining about SWA. SWA does have a lot of errors in it, but I heard rumors of an updated paper copy that fixed some, but I haven't seen it myself, nor has any errata been released. My book unfortunately has the side bar errors in it (basically missing two sidebars as they've had duplicate information put in them). It's a good product overall though, just marred by some errors that could (and may have been) fixed with errata.
Exactly right. I'm not going to slam SWA, because as much as I dislike CGLs business practices and as little faith as I have in their ability to produce a good book. As angry as this whole business makes me I try tol only speak about what I've seen. The fact that War! was leaked isn't my fault, and to be honest I won't be using it at any table I run nor do I truly consider the content legitimate; so it's a moot point from a sale perspective. And I won't be giving out any download locations either, publicly or privately. Personally I'm not afraid of piracy as much as bad business plans, but I respect that the owners of this product can go ahead and succeed or fail to make money of it any way they choose. As long as they pay their writers and artists I don't care if they only print one copy and try to sell it in Nepal or if they throw it up on the torrents themselves.
And Dread Moores, what's the difference between reading the book in a store and deciding not to purchase it and reading it online? Browsing in store is a time honored tradition where I come from. It's disingenuous if you use a book in a store game and never pay for it, just like if you play with a downloaded book you never bought a copy of. Ultimately it's up to what the person does with the material, and CGL has nothing to fear if their worried about me using the material in this book in a game.
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And Dread Moores, what's the difference between reading the book in a store and deciding not to purchase it and reading it online? Browsing in store is a time honored tradition where I come from.
Sure. Nothing wrong with that. Except for the fact that you put the book back and never have access to it again. There's no such guarantee here. I'd also be surprised if most fans would look over a book once in a store, browsing it, and come online to discuss their thoughts while still referring to very specific points of data in the book (like page numbers devoted to a section on Bogota), just from their own memory from a few hours of browsing in a store. Our opinions on piracy will likely differ though, and that's likely a topic best covered elsewhere.
Thanks for clarifying my confusion there though. It's best for me to let that part of the subject drop though, as it starts to walk the line in terms of ToS #11.
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You know, there's something I forgot to mention in my earlier posts. While I'll likely not find a lot of use out of the Bogota section, I did want to give some kudos to however covered the sections that provided some more information on the various merc organizations around the globe. There's some useful background material there, and it was one of the sections that really stood out in the book for me.
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Last eve I was surfing the Forums and I red most of the comments on this product.
War! is not that bad. Actually I like most of the ideas that were added in the book. I agree on the fact that some proof-reading (is that the word?) before publishing could be a wise move to avoid typos but I'm aware that the rules of publishing are harsh and that time is always short if there's the necessity of cash.
Personally I don't understand the whole matter about Sangre de Diablo. I always considered sourcebooks as simple resources. Tons of content but nobody forces me to use it. You don't like it? It makes no sense? Don't use it. I'm pretty sure that there will be plenty of people who will not follow that idea and an exact amount of people who will do the opposite. It's not the book, or its content, to be important but your stories. A Sourcebook is a mere tool that you can always put in a dark corner. Still I apprenciate that there's someone out there who keeps writing about Shadowrun and give me something I can work on to improve my own narrations.
On a lesser OT note I wish that Shadowrun was easier to get here in my Country but since most of the RPers here are focused on D&D and Vampire (Ewww) I guess I will have to wait and prasie Amazon.
Oh!
Happy New Year World, be nice.
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So.. what are the odds of the rules crunch from War being copied over to the Milspec Gear web-only release for the players' benefit?
Also, whatever happened to 20 Rides? Daddy needs his rigger candy.
MilSpecTech's gear will be different than the gear in War. New toys for everyone!
Jason H.
Haha, yeah, I figured it'd be new stuff. I just thought it might be a good opportunity to copy over some of the new rules for the benefit of players who might not be into reading about the setting their GM is using. Personally it cheeses me off a little when my players read setting books and can't help keep what they know separate from what their characters know. Knowing how their skills and the basic physics of the world work isn't the same as knowing the names and relationships of all the major players in the locale.
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Last eve I was surfing the Forums and I red most of the comments on this product.
War! is not that bad. Actually I like most of the ideas that were added in the book. I agree on the fact that some proof-reading (is that the word?) before publishing could be a wise move to avoid typos but I'm aware that the rules of publishing are harsh and that time is always short if there's the necessity of cash.
Personally I don't understand the whole matter about Sangre de Diablo. I always considered sourcebooks as simple resources. Tons of content but nobody forces me to use it. You don't like it? It makes no sense? Don't use it. I'm pretty sure that there will be plenty of people who will not follow that idea and an exact amount of people who will do the opposite. It's not the book, or its content, to be important but your stories. A Sourcebook is a mere tool that you can always put in a dark corner. Still I apprenciate that there's someone out there who keeps writing about Shadowrun and give me something I can work on to improve my own narrations.
On a lesser OT note I wish that Shadowrun was easier to get here in my Country but since most of the RPers here are focused on D&D and Vampire (Ewww) I guess I will have to wait and prasie Amazon.
Oh!
Happy New Year World, be nice.
I wouldn't say that everything in War! is terrible, even if I'm choosing not to use it or any of it's content in my games. The mercs section has been praised as being quite good almost universally. A lot of what's been said is opinion (by people who have a stated dislike for CGL), but there are a also real measurable items which point to decline in quality.
As a product it just doesn't hold up to past releases. For some of the specific items that people are angry about you may want to take a look at the implications of the Designate spell as it effects the matrix, the Slow spell as it effects bullets of all sizes and the section Work Brings Freedom which is seen by some to be in bad taste and poorly researched.