The Shadowrun Situation

[TheFlatline]

There's a few people stating that it felt like the authors never had read/played SR before. Which is obvious. They're all Batttletech writers.

[Stahlseele]

And it is jason hardys brainchild, correct?

[Stahlseele]

ZITAT("WAR Impressum")
Copyright© 2011 e Topps Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Ok now what does this mean?
as long as it's still 2010, they don't own copyright on their own book?
and if this is indeed the case, WHO DOES?
or is it free to copy? . .
Highly improbable, i know . .
Also, is something like that allowed to be fixed by errata, if this is more or less something legalese?

[Fuchs]

Well, the mindless fanboys will eat it up, as usual.

[Ancient History]

There's a few people stating that it felt like the authors never had read/played SR before. Which is obvious. They're all Batttletech writers.

Well, no. Aaron (who, last I checked, did the rules) has been contributing to SR products for a while now, notably the revamped Matrix rules in SR4A and contributions in Unwired and Runner Companion. David A. Hill Jr. and Filamena Young are new, having previously done some freelancing for nWoD.

Michael Wich is new to SR, and I know nothing of what he's done previous to 10 Jackpointers.

And it is jason hardys brainchild, correct?

No. The original concept (back when it was called Dogs of War) dates back to Peter Taylor about three years ago. The concept has since undergone many revisions in concept and tone, most notably the massive inclusion of Bogota. It can rightly be said to be the first product produced mainly under Jason's editorial and development fiat.

The 2011 thing is just legalese.

[TheFlatline]

I stand corrected. Still some interesting complaints in the dumpshock thread.

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, but technically, you have it in "print" that they do not own the copyright to what they are selling just yet O.o
Yes,i realize that that's silly, but people have won lawsuits about coffee because it did not say HOT on the side . . Also, a woman successfully claimed legal ownership of the sun . .
Ownership is 9 tenths of the law after all . .

[Blasted]

I would bet that this is nothing new, so if Topps wants to change the license holder, they still keep the back catalogue.

[adamjury]

I would bet that this is nothing new, so if Topps wants to change the license holder, they still keep the back catalogue.

Look at any Shadowrun book from FanPro through Catalyst: copyright is always applied to the property owner, not the publisher.

The 2011 date in the book just means they intended for it to be first distributed in print that year. It holds little legal water and isn't a legal requirement for it to be on the book.

Yeah, but technically, you have it in "print" that they do not own the copyright to what they are selling just yet O.o

Legally, they -- Topps -- owns the copyright when IMR fulfills the terms of the contract between the creator and IMR. Nothing more. Nothing less.

[Lokathor]

I like that I can now "officially" buy a Thor Shot. I don't like that it's only as expensive as ten Signal 9 EotM commlink transmitters (It should probably be far more).

[Aryxbez]

Whoa, an Orbital weapon?! In what supplement exactly?

System Failure maybe? I've tried looking in the sixth world wiki: http://wiki.dumpshock.com/index.php/Thor_shot

Also, what's Thor Shot's price, or at least, where can I find the "Signal 9 EotM commlinks"?

[Lokathor]

In War!, and the price tag is a measly 1.2 Billion nuyen. Availability 144F.

Also, they've got aircraft carriers and other stuff. Also, commlinks and programs up to rating 10. And ways to harden your drones to make them more magic resistant like you can with vehicles. And stuff.

EotM is this wonderful mini-book here:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48836

[Fucks]

So, uh, Who's read anything in War! now that it's out?

I have. The book is crap.

[kzt]

I have. The book is crap.

So it seems like it's continuing a trend, where the more work done by the current crew the more it sucks?

[Otakusensei]

I have. The book is crap.

So it seems like it's continuing a trend, where the more work done by the current crew the more it sucks?

It would be one thing if Jason and crew did fantastic work, with a fine attention to detail and firm grasp of the history combined with a vision for the future.

But that's not the case.

The work being done is only considered passable because of the current management at CGL. I'll hold off on any sepecifics about War! until I read it. But given Jason's poor performance and careless disregard for the setting I don't see why anyone should be optimistic, or forgiving.

[Username17]

I didn't read the final product. I don't think I will. What I saw of the stuff that was in production did not make me at all optimistic. Jason and his crew of scabs don't know what they are doing. But worse, they don't even know what they should be doing. They have no self awareness at all. When they come up with stupid ideas they are incapable of recognizing that they are stupid ideas.

Let's ignore his stupid as fuck trees idea. Let's ignore all the secret shit and talk about his dev blog comments. He said that he was excited about War! because of the NPCs in Bogotá. Wat? Seriously, he went on a rant about the cool thing about war is the personalities of individuals. How out of touch can you possibly get? The personalities of individuals matters all the time, during an actual war you get to care about other stuff. Like supply lines, military hardware, propaganda, national lines, and the training strength of soldiers. Some NPC in Bogotá could have been written in any book. People buy a book called "War!" because they want to drive a tank down a city street and geek out about military strategy and equipment.

It isn't that the mechanics and equipment in that book were badly written and are bad for the game - although I do have every reason to believe that is the case. It's that the inmates left in the asylum have shown no understanding of what something that wasn't bad for the game would even look like.

-Username17

[crizh]

I've given the crunch a quick skim and while there appear to be some things that are quite nice there does seem to be a lot of stuff that betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how the rules system works and some stuff that just leaves me standing jaw agape at the sheer lunacy of it.

I seem to recall having a massive running battle with someone, it might have been Fuchs, about the advisability of a spell that created a low-pass impulse filter, a bit like a Dune shield, that reduced the Power of all damage by a co-efficient determined by net successes. It was for a stupid high power 'thought experiment' game I suggested to test the feasibility of stating up Mary Sue type fourth world characters.

The game and the spell in question weren't exactly my finest hour.

Have a look at the 'Slow' spell in War!

Someone needs to explain to those guys how the Smart Armour vehicle mod works. And how Nexuses work. And, and...

[Fuchs]

Wasn't me you had that discussion with, at least I do not recall any such thread Unless it was related to Great Dragons, IEs and the military.

[Orca]

Does War! help at all with larger combats, bigger & tougher vehicles, or the stuff Frank mentioned about supply lines, propaganda, training etc? It sounds like they have some new military hardware at least.

[crizh]

Wasn't me you had that discussion with, at least I do not recall any such thread Unless it was related to Great Dragons, IEs and the military.

Sample Custom Spell.

Shield

Combining the best qualities of Deflection and Physical Barrier this Spell creates a field that re-routes incident energy away from the target.

The field has a low-pass impulse filter which permits a low level of kinetic or electromagnetic energy to pass through it unchanged allowing the target to interact normally with his environment. Any energy incident on the barrier with a greater impulse than this maximum has all it's excess energy diverted away from the target. All damage to the target has it's DV reduced by a factor of Hits/3 (round up).

The field forms a variable distance, controlled by the target, up to a foot, from the targets skin. This has side-effect of reducing the targets effective Strength for calculating Unarmed Melee DV by Hits to a minimum of 1.

Drain: Force/2 + 3

I posted that in response to your arbitrarily large truck full of explosives. You'd given up reading the thread by that point I think.

[Stahlseele]

Does War! help at all with larger combats, bigger & tougher vehicles, or the stuff Frank mentioned about supply lines, propaganda, training etc? It sounds like they have some new military hardware at least.

Doesn't look like it does . .
Seems to be about 110 pages about bogota and then the rest for some new gear for everybody . .
including a thor shot plattform in orbit for 1.3billion nuyen with an availability of 144f, which basically ammounts to available when lofwyr owes you something big and can still kill you in a heartbeat, if he thinks you're aiming it at something he does not want destroyed . .
armor that's basically 3 or 4 times as expensive as normal armor but allows you to factor in strength when tryint to see how much armor you can carry.
a new adept power that might as well be called dump stat, because it allows to substitute a mental attribute for a physical one, as you would on the astral plane . .

[Fuchs]

Wasn't me you had that discussion with, at least I do not recall any such thread Unless it was related to Great Dragons, IEs and the military.

Sample Custom Spell.

Shield

Combining the best qualities of Deflection and Physical Barrier this Spell creates a field that re-routes incident energy away from the target.

The field has a low-pass impulse filter which permits a low level of kinetic or electromagnetic energy to pass through it unchanged allowing the target to interact normally with his environment. Any energy incident on the barrier with a greater impulse than this maximum has all it's excess energy diverted away from the target. All damage to the target has it's DV reduced by a factor of Hits/3 (round up).

The field forms a variable distance, controlled by the target, up to a foot, from the targets skin. This has side-effect of reducing the targets effective Strength for calculating Unarmed Melee DV by Hits to a minimum of 1.

Drain: Force/2 + 3

I posted that in response to your arbitrarily large truck full of explosives. You'd given up reading the thread by that point I think.

Ah, I dimly recall something.

[Ancient History]

<sigh> Ghost dammit. They went with the trees plot. Link to earlier in the thread talking about the trees plot.

[Stahlseele]

I say you and frank do your own shadowrun. With blackjack and hookers!
And fluff/crunch that fits together and makes a certain ammount of sense . .

[TheFlatline]

Seems to be about 110 pages about bogota and then the rest for some new gear for everybody . .

So... err... why do I, a SR player/GM, give a tinker's ass about Bogota? I'm still kind of hazy on this.