The Gaming Den

Wasn't Catalyst stealing from Topps? I'm kind of surprised that Topps didn't transfer the license to someone without a history of stealing from them.

No, LLC was taking from Catalyst with the good old "oh, I didn't know that wasn't MY money" defense. Topps still got paid, as far as I know.

I seem to recall some business about stiffing them on foreign royalties and underreporting sales figures.

Oh, that's just business as usual. You get in trouble if you don't do that.

Rawbeard wrote:Do you need a hug?

I need a hug. These awesome folks have decided to make an RPG in collaboration with CGL. Shitfuck.

You can have that hug. Every day someone decides to work with or for CGL is a sad day. If they at least did not print shit on paper and made some decent products instead...

I was looking at SR5's matrix section and apparently they just directly stole the GOD concept from FT.

Par for the course?

Silent Wayfarer wrote:I was looking at SR5's matrix section and apparently they just directly stole the GOD concept from FT.

Par for the course?

The Grid Overwatch Division is not mine. It's originally from Target: Matrix I believe.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

Silent Wayfarer wrote:I was looking at SR5's matrix section and apparently they just directly stole the GOD concept from FT.

Par for the course?

The Grid Overwatch Division is not mine. It's originally from Target: Matrix I believe.

-Username17

Shows how much I know!

I went to Dragon Con this weekend, and at the Steve Jackson Booth I ran across the Atlas guy. He had a bunch of cool stuff (some new Ars Magica stuff) but one of the things that stood out was Shadowrun 5. He had taken 60 copies off the Catalyst guys going to PAX. When I talked to him on Monday, he only had 3 copies of SR5 left.

I almost bought it, but i couldnt make myself give Catalyst money.

Even if SR5 sells like hotcakes, that only suggests that people are hungry for a better SR rules system after SR4A.

it suggests shadowrun itself is still a sought after universe for people, because it mixes the two big cool styles of fantasy and scifi together.
honestly? after the bulldrek i have read about SR5 by now, i'd sooner play SR4 than 5, and me and my group as a whole decided that SR4 wasn't for us . .

CGL is all about spending the remaining cred of the setting and riding as far as the good will of the few remaining crews will take them. In the end the table top version of Shadowrun will die a lonely death when even the most diehard and clueless refuse to pay for Hardy's scraps and finish his job at the table. No one at CGL is laughing all the way to the bank on SR5.

And that's fine. Shadowrun Returns isn't awful. SR4 isn't awful, and SR4A is awfully pretty if that counts for anything. The reference tables are great. We have things to do and ways to enjoy the setting that don't involve CGL. If they were a little more prolific in leveraging the license, or produced a better product, I might be more bent out of shape. But the fact is that we can pretty much ignore the actual license holder because they've really marginalized themselves. It's nice. My players don't know any of the new Shadowrun books, and I don't tell them about them. I just write my own stuff and have a slightly better release schedule than CGL. I'm guessing about the same production costs as well.

I have exactly zero interest in SR5 but has anyone played or attempted a session with the new rule set? Anyone planning to give it a review?

Sounds like you have more than zero interest

I'm in a few PbP games. So far, the biggest thing I want to complain about is how horrible the new Priority build system is. Second place goes to how dumb the whole wireless bonus thing is.

The biggest thing I like is...hmmm. Nothing yet, really. Maybe going back to old-school initiative. Although to be fair, there are still whole sections of the game I haven't interacted with yet (new Matrix, new magic-preparations, etc).

phlapjackage wrote:Sounds like you have more than zero interest .

I'll qualify: I have zero interest in adapting SR5 based on what I've read. But I remain open to influence.

I did take a look at it once, for my sins.

Whenever there was progress in the game they subverted it, like the wireless Matrix. They rolled back pretty much everything they could, like the priority system. They changed things arbitrarily and for no apparent purpose, like the magic preparations. As I understand it they even, and I love this, managed to retroactively explain away the terrible characterization that came from having a bunch of hacks and scabs finish off fourth edition by making them delusions in Fastjack's oncoming dementia, in the process pretty much destroying characters that some of us originated and rendering an unclear amount of the stuff we worked on as never having happened.

Aside from the covers (which are awful) especially the brony edition (awful AND stupid, a combination Jason Hardy specializes in), the book is fairly pretty. That's really all I can say.

SR5 feels less like a development of a new edition and more like mid-stage between third and fourth. That is not a good thing.

Their willingness to shit all over their product is astonishing.

There are apparently far more grognards who <3 3rd edition than I realised.

vagrant wrote:There are apparently far more grognards who <3 3rd edition than I realised.

One of my players in a 4E campaign I run *constantly* compares the rules to SR3 when they turn out to differ. I'm using Ends of the Matrix, and he still bristles at the idea of people accepting a constant wireless presence.

Did you hit him on the head with his IPAD* while shoving his iphone* up his ass?

* Replace IPAD and Iphone with Android equivalents if necessary.

I wonder what the reaction would be if SR5 came out as SR4. Would people compare it favourably to 3rd or not?

sabs wrote:Did you hit him on the head with his IPAD* while shoving his iphone* up his ass?

He doesn't like smartphones, and only even has a plain cellphone because of social/family pressure.

So he's a luddite?

Okay then Why is he playing shadowrun?