Shadowrun resources?

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Scipio
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Shadowrun resources?

Post by Scipio »

Figured we might start some link repositories for web based resources of games, and if they get decent sized I can sticky em. Guess which game this one is for, chummers? Yep, Shadowrun! :D I'll start with a handy Sperethiel lexicon I found today.

http://ancientfiles.dumpshock.com/Spere ... ionary.htm

I have a feeling my new character may end up repeating "Gerelan-o makkalos te-sersakhan, goro." More than once. (Translation: Forgive the stupidity of my friend, outsider.)
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Re: Shadowrun resources?

Post by Scipio »

Heh,meant to post this on the Monte Mal boards. Fever delerium wins. :P
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Re: Shadowrun resources?

Post by Zilfer »

Heh, I like shadowrun so I might be interested which reminds me 5e is out now isn't it?!?!?!?
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Re: Shadowrun resources?

Post by High Priest Mikhal »

Zilfer wrote:Heh, I like shadowrun so I might be interested which reminds me 5e is out now isn't it?!?!?!?
Still pre-order. But from looking at the quick start guide I'm skipping this one as well. Catalyst Labs took a game (which FASA had put a lot of love and real world science into) and threw out all the rules that worked for three editions, all the logic that kept things believable, and made it into something I have to agree with William Gibson (author of The Neuromancer) regarding his thoughts on the game. SR4's rules just felt so cookie-cutter it felt like all the flavor of the various roles had been removed. And of course the big factor: no more slang. I even sent off an e-mail asking why and they just said, "Well, no one still says 'groovy' anymore, and we feel that using actual swear words is acceptable now." Who cares about swearing? The slang was a huge part of the setting.

I'll take the first three editions any day. So it was more complex, but not that much! It had the slang, the unique magic traditions with variant styles, simpler metamagic, and was just plain more believable. Okay, technomancers and commlinks I'll give them credit for, albeit the former translated into some of the rules for otaku, and differences in hacking and rigging maintained if only because of nostalgia.

That reminds me. I've got a new sprawl for SR I began working on thirteen years ago that I just never finished. All the changes as SR3 went on and then the first part of SR4 up to tempo kept setting my work back. No, I don't think I'll be posting it here or on the SR boards; so few even remember SR3 rules anymore it's unlikely to find an audience.

EDIT: The new PC game Shadowrun Returns has apparently been out for a couple weeks (of course it's released during my medical/financial crisis in July; Murphy's law). It's gotten pretty good reviews so far and, though I swore I wouldn't do it, I transferred money from Savings to Checking just to be able to buy it. Yes, I am a hopeless shadowfan.
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Re: Shadowrun resources?

Post by High Priest Mikhal »

A bit of a necro-post but then everyone on Dumpshock is well aware of the ghastly mistakes made in Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall. Nothing gameplay wise, but continuity errors that show how the developers didn't do their homework.

Ghostwalker: This great dragon wasn't around in 2054, still trapped in whatever metaplane his astral form went to before the end of the Fourth World. His reference by Vauclair is jarring as no one knew the dragon existed prior to Dec. 24, 2061, when his astral form tore its way free from the DC Rift formed by Dunkelzahn's suicide. (He planned his death, knowing its immediate need as well as the consequences--some good, some bad--for centuries to come; great dragons are like master chess players in that they know what's going to happen before it does, only in terms of centuries instead of moves.)

APEX: Something a lot of us older players do not like is how Catalyst Labs made AIs so populous in SR4. Prior to that, there were only three. And none of them were called APEX. At least not in the English books; there are German-language only books that were never translated. Further, of those three that did exist they were utterly beyond any control by mere metahumans or even great dragons.

Commlinks: Prior to SR4 there was nothing called a commlink. Pocket secretaries (p-secs for short), pocket computers, even TactiComs (Tactical Communications devices), but not one device ever called a "commlink."

Idols: Harebrained Schemes' treatment of the idols of the Adversary and the Horned Man as one in the same says they didn't even bother to glance at their descriptions. The two are very different. The Adversary, although often equated with Satan, is more the archetypal rebel. The Horned Man is the mythical inspiration for gods like Herne and Cernnunos (Belenus) and is much, much more nature-oriented than they make it sound. They did get the part about parts of the Allied German States being very intolerant of the Awakened, even to the point of literal witch burnings, and of Awakened from such states who destroyed their Gift with cyberware (the most famous is the rigger Valkyrie, companion to Stephen Kenson's character, Tommy Talon, who became a setting character after the first novel). Oh, and it was Kenson himself who replied to my email about the devs dropping the slang. He's one of the authors I hold in very low esteem for contributing to the atrocity that was SR4. After the SR4 Seattle sourcebook I just quit buying anything else Catalyst Labs published, apparently as did millions of others.

Toxic Spirits: In Shadowrun, toxic spirits cannot be summoned by any sane shaman and are not unique spirits per se but "toxic" versions of regular nature spirits, spirits of man, and spirits of the elements. Only toxic shamans and toxic wujen can summon them; regular shamans can't summon spirits at all in toxic domains. Clearly no one stopped to think that allowing them to be summoned in the video game would blow suspension of disbelief out of the water and several miles inland.

Lofwyr, Saeder-Krupp, and Wilhelmina: This one is minor but again indicates Harebrained Schemes didn't do their homework. Wilhemina's last name is misspelled. It's Graff-Beloit, not Graff-Benoit. Her story is rather interesting in that she "mysteriously" suffered a stroke that killed her the same day a file appeared on Shadowland about the great dragon Lofwyr in the sourcebook Dragons of the Sixth World. Further she was in space when it happened, where it's all one giant mana warp that acts as the ultimate barrier to magic. If anyone has the power to breach even that it would be a great dragon, especially one with the magical resources that Saeder-Krupp, and thus Lofwyr, possess. Especially since she's waged a subtle war on the dragon ever since he bought out S-K from her husband in that ruthless, Machiavellian way dragons do things.

There are other little things that add up to sour Dragonfall for those of us who know the setting pre-SR4. Same as the first campaign and the system in general (Skill maximums are not predicated on Attributes, adept powers are called somatic powers and not chi powers, and one cannot normally be both a magician and an adept). Got questions on things pre-Fourth Edition Shadowrun? Post them here. I know the setting and rules better than I know the back of my own hand--literally. No offense hijacking your thread, Scipio. I'd take it to Dumpshock but my knowledge is largely superfluous there.
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Re: Shadowrun resources?

Post by Zilfer »

Well Thread Necro!

You seem to have a huuuuuge amount of knowledge prior to when I started playing off and on. That is so Wiz!!!!!! It's most of a side thing we do a few sessions every year. I've moved onto 5e because in 4e you can do some pretty ridiculous things in the system. There was a lot of prior history that is only suggested at in current works I think, and it seems you like the older editions a lot but my group wouldn't be willing to go backwards unfortunately, and relearn the system AGAIN when we don't play it very much but background information on Dunkelzahn, and the setting is awesome.

I know Dunkelzahn left a chess set to Damien Knight I believe who he helped get Ares, and then there also is Harlequin, Immortal Elves that I've always been curious about.

I'm not sure which slang you are talking about but they have quiet a bit of slang still thrown around the SR boards, though I don't really go to DUMPSHOCK. In the books for SR4 it also has a list of slang in there as a bit of a primer and a quick google search can find you even more from older editions chum! :)
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