The Shadowrun Situation

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:35 pm

@Frank:
i know right!
ghouls are in allready, so are orks(super mutants) and trolls(deathclaws)
Hell, you can even have robots, so AI or Jar-Head works too!

Vehicles are in too.
Stances for firing too.
Turn Based/real time mix too.
Robots so drones are in too.
insect spirits are in too(mutated insects)
magic might be a bit harder to do though.
and the matrix . . well, it could be narrowed down to a single computer science test . . and the dialoge options which force different tests . .

i wish i could do such stuff, i would have modded the game into shadowrun years ago <.<

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 5:15 am

You could reuse Ghoul sprites, but Shadowrun Ghouls aren't anything like Fallout Ghouls. Shadowrun Ghouls play more like Deathclaws - they are fast and tough and rip things up with their claws. Fallout Ghouls are fragile but super good at technical skills and extremely resistant to radiation background counts.

Shadowrun Ghouls are borderline insane and bad at technical skills and distance vision. Also they are dual creatures so they suffer tremendously in background counts. While a Fallout Ghoul goes into the team as a medic, mechanic, or laser gunner, a Shadowrun Ghoul goes into the team as a skirmisher who sneaks around the edges and silences lone sentries with brutal melee attacks.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 8:22 am

Yah, some changes would have to be made, that much is clear . .

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:08 pm

Good to hear Fallout is getting some love (even if just tactics based one), be nice to get more info on what's going down in the midwest of that setting. Anyway, speaking of "Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker", I truly do hope this project hasn't been dropped, otherwise wondering the news on the project.

Also, if any moderate funds were needed, seems Frank could get a decent amount from around here in no time.

raben-aas · Post by **raben-aas** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:56 am

Just to keep you updated: there's a new page for the Shadowrun MMO by Cliffhanger that also has some visuals:

http://www.shadowrun.com

Cya!

AAS

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 1:45 pm

Yeah, but i liked the older forums better . .
I hate the new page with a passion x.x

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 3:58 pm

What is the scoop on the tabletop Shadowrun? I've lost track and I don't know if Catalyst still has the license, whether they're releasing books or even a 5th edition.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 3:59 pm

Catalyst has the license, and they released Shadowrun 2050, because Fucking up the plot line wasn't good enough. They have to go back in time, and fuck the timeline as well.

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:26 pm

There's definitely shoddy editing in FFG books. I actually mostly enjoy their W40k RPGs, but it's despite a laxness with their editing and rules stuff. There's a LOT of occasions where examples won't match the current state of the rules. The rules for healing are batshit insane and incomprehensible and have been subject to multiple rounds of revision *per game they've been in*. There was a time in Rogue Trader where half the psychic rules were literally unplayable because they didn't tell you what difficulty class you were supposed to use (but everyone assumed the default +0, and stuff mostly functioned.)

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:53 pm

virgil wrote:What is the scoop on the tabletop Shadowrun? I've lost track and I don't know if Catalyst still has the license, whether they're releasing books or even a 5th edition.

Catalyst retains the SR license and has published a LOT of products in the past two years. I think possibly more books in the past two years than the previous four.

They have seriously unleashed just an avalanche of new products in the past two years, especially this past year. I think they had seven new products for Gencon alone.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:57 pm

Schwarzkopf wrote:
virgil wrote:What is the scoop on the tabletop Shadowrun? I've lost track and I don't know if Catalyst still has the license, whether they're releasing books or even a 5th edition.
Catalyst retains the SR license and has published a LOT of products in the past two years. I think possibly more books in the past two years than the previous four.

They have seriously unleashed just an avalanche of new products in the past two years, especially this past year. I think they had seven new products for Gencon alone.

I have no idea if "number of SR products released" is a reasonable barometer for "financial health of a corporation". If it is, Catalyst is doing awesome.

Oops, I have no idea why I quoted, I thought I clicked edit.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Sep 28, 2012 2:18 am

Number of products is not a good indication of corporate health, nor is it a good indication of health of the line. In this case, the number of products has gone up by the simple expedient of making shovelware that has no editorial oversight.

This is basically the direction of White Wolf. Turns out that if you don't concern yourself overmuch with whether you can get your books into stores and make incredibly tiny print runs of over priced unedited crap for direct sale, and just shovel out works by fanbois, you can maintain a high publishing rate even with a collapsed brand.

-Username17

Otakusensei · Post by **Otakusensei** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:39 pm

Hey Frank and AH, you got a mention.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editoria ... at-it-is-n

I saw that PAR was doing a piece on Shadowrun and sent an email to the author. I'm glad she followed up on it, but I wish it was a little more hard hitting. Still, I understand what she's working with and the scandal is quickly slipping into a past only a few people care about.

Couldn't resist jumping in the comments and throwing an elbow at Jason though. I'd hate for someone to pick up, er, download the latest SR release and think the whole game is like that...

Dr_Noface · Post by **Dr_Noface** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:52 pm

"FrankTrollman"

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:07 pm

A self-proclaimed former freelancer, at that.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:30 pm

Ancient History got a nod-in, too.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 9:38 pm

Yes, what a nod.

Otakusensei · Post by **Otakusensei** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 10:16 pm

I pointed her at the threads here and on Dumpshock. On a better week I would have been able to give her better details.

My heart still jumped a little when I first saw that someone was writing about the table top game. Too bad it was more a cry for justice than real fanboy glee.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 10:21 pm

I'm not good at letting go. It's like going to a zoo and seeing your ex-girlfriend on a happy date with her new boyfriend - and then she turns around and she's got a black eye and broken teeth in a crooked smile.

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Thu Oct 25, 2012 2:53 pm

Just out of curiosity, if you had total control over the Shadowrun IP and a decent chunk of money, what would you guys do with it? Would you try and advance the 4e background in preparation for 5e, or patch the mechanical holes in 4e, or what?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Oct 25, 2012 3:00 pm

I'd probably come out with 5e, and and either pretend the last half or so of 4e never existed or do the full reboot to 2050.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Thu Oct 25, 2012 3:06 pm

After 'Attitude' was released I sold all my SR stuff, some of it going back to my days as a 1st ed. player in junior high school, and used the money to buy an iPad. I knew if I stuck with the game I would be too tempted to give CGL my money to get a 'fix'... even knowing the clusterfuck process of how the game is made. I admit I was also a little addicted to the game universe. I knew canon maybe a little too well, actually maintained a personal SR encyclopedia, and felt personally offended by shitty writing, shitty editing and Hardy's 'meh' mentality. Which is really sad. I needed a clean break.

While I still miss SR from time to time there are other games, and arguably better games, that scratch the same itch as Shadowrun for me. A 5th edition might tempt me back but only if it's taken out of CGL's hands and 4th ed. continuity is wiped (much how 2nd ed. Earthdawn continuity was wiped by RedBrick) or completely rewritten from scratch. Like an Ultimate Comics Shadowrun.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Oct 25, 2012 4:15 pm

AncientHistory wrote:I'd probably come out with 5e, and and either pretend the last half or so of 4e never existed or do the full reboot to 2050.

I don't think that's enough of a reboot. Yeah, everyone can agree that Amazonia going to war over people planting too many trees is incomprehensible in its basic stupidity on every level, but can you name any Shadowrun time period whose canon isn't full of stupid shit? When Shadowrun came out, it was set sixty-one years in the future, and twenty-three years later a lot of those predictions are hopelessly silly sounding. Acid rain was supposed to have killed us all, but global warming never happened? The Soviet Union invades Europe? Huh?

And let's not forget that well before 6WA came out the setting had some fucking stupid plot twists. What would you want to nix? Furries? Ghost Walker? Aztechnology repeatedly holding the idiot ball like they were a saturday morning cartoon villain? Los Angeles sinking into a crater bigger than the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? The biggest naval fortress on the planet getting overrun by a single Mexican mechanized infantry regiment? The fact of the matter is that however far you want to rewind the Shadowrun plotline, you're still stuck with flatly indefensible plot choices early in the timeline. Shadowrun's future history writing has always been extremely hit and miss. For fuck's sake, they didn't bother even checking to see that India was the world's biggest superpower until twenty sixty fucking three. Somehow that shit just slipped the minds of every single author of every single book until Shadows of Asia.

Wesley Street wrote:After 'Attitude' was released I sold all my SR stuff, some of it going back to my days as a 1st ed. player in junior high school, and used the money to buy an iPad. I knew if I stuck with the game I would be too tempted to give CGL my money to get a 'fix'... even knowing the clusterfuck process of how the game is made. I admit I was also a little addicted to the game universe. I knew canon maybe a little too well, actually maintained a personal SR encyclopedia, and felt personally offended by shitty writing, shitty editing and Hardy's 'meh' mentality. Which is really sad. I needed a clean break.

While I still miss SR from time to time there are other games, and arguably better games, that scratch the same itch as Shadowrun for me. A 5th edition might tempt me back but only if it's taken out of CGL's hands and 4th ed. continuity is wiped (much how 2nd ed. Earthdawn continuity was wiped by RedBrick) or completely rewritten from scratch. Like an Ultimate Comics Shadowrun.

That's basically where I am. I don't think you can fix Shadowrun's metaplot without a chainsaw, and once you're doing that you might as well do a full fucking Ultimates Reboot. For fuck's sake, even Jordan Weisman doesn't want to keep the fundamental tenets of magic constant and is adding a whole extra magic world for Hermetics to play in so that they are more different from Shaman. That's probably more fundamental than what I'd do, but that kind of ground-up rethinking is something I think needs to happen.

The whole planet and the whole future history need to be rethought. And it needs to be a new edition that explicitly does away with all the stupid shit of the Jason Hardy Years. And frankly a lot of the stupid shit of the Jordan Weisman Years. This has not aged well.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Thu Oct 25, 2012 4:39 pm

Hey man, you are never going to get me to quit on glam-punk elves.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Thu Oct 25, 2012 4:56 pm

Gibson/Sterling-style cyberpunk has been hit with the double whammy of:

1. not aging well as a sci-fi theme and
2. tropes and technologies emerging into our current day, thus losing their luster

To be fair, every near-future sci-fi writer at the time was predicting a USSR/European land war so I can forgive that miscalculation. However the balkanization of the US and Canada due to a forced anti-Caucasian apartheid by magical First Americans is dumb and falls a little too close to the 'noble savage' conceit. And that was in the Big Blue Book history fluff.

The 'Heartbreaker' thread showed that it's possible to capture the same tone of SR without recreating the same mistakes but you won't get there without pissing off the purists. Which means as a company the publisher would need to focus on bringing in new players to the game rather than pandering to an aging base. Y'know... what they should be doing anyway.