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 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.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.
