[Chase]

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.

[Critias]

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?

[FastJack]

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.

[Chase]

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.

[raben-aas]

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

[Chase]

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.

[raben-aas]

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.

[Chase]

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. 

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.

[raben-aas]

You have bias.

What? Who? Me? No? NEVARRRRRR!!!

[Zen Shooter]

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.

[Crimsondude]

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.

[kanislatrans]

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!

[Baquette]

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.

[machineiv]

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.

[Baquette]

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?