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Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 29 2015, 08:41 AM

Currently we had a discussion about haters (especially about SR5) on Dumpshock and how it will cause the death of our beloved forum. Here is the statement of Deathstrobe that made me feel to comment:

@DeathStrobe: Hate is quite a strong word and I think you see it from a wrong perspective. I assume I can speak for all of us at DS, that it is quite the opposite. We love the game. We love it so much, that we are sometimes over-protective. The game was part of our youth as well as it a part of our life now. We saw it growing up, we supported its first steps and we spent a lot of money, so that it could become what it is now. We donated for the kickstarter-project, so that “Shadowrun Returns” could be realized, we kept the game and the corresponding discussions alive and supported fellow gamers with our experience - at times as the “official SR-forum” was not even existing.

The community is small, we are nerds, but we are proud of it and I think that what we have, the community, is more than a “customer-seller” relationship. Shadowrun is not only a product, for us it is a big part of our life (because it sucks up a lot of our free-time). The problem is, that if you are involved so tight into something, it becomes a personal matter. And because we care, it hurts if we see that something might go wrong. Like parents, that only try to protect their children and therefore sometimes become overprotective (and also too critical), we simply cannot stand beside, silently watching what is happening. We have the urge to do at least “something”, which is commenting. We feel that we have the right to tell the devs what we think, and unfortunately we don´t have a personality structure, that makes us bow or back back down, just because “officials” are around.

We are the ones, that keep them on the ground because we feel equal. We are the ones who tell the officials what they messed up with and what needs to be done. We are the hard but honest truth. We are Dumpshock. If they cannot stand the critic, they really shouldn´t take place in the official discussions, they shouldn´t host the forums, they shouldn´t be available at all. IMHO this is the price you have to pay, if you go public in a small but enthusiastic community. Yes we are hard discussion partners, but we have never been unfair. And if we have been so, we apologized for it. For us, such discussions are not “nerds vs. developers” for us it is “fans vs. fans that can really make a change”. We are on their side and the only thing we demand, is that our opinion is heard, that our opinion is taken serious.

I personally appreciate every Line-dev that has the balls to come here and if they feel offended, they might have the same fals impression you got. This was surely not intented.

Sorry for the long post. Here is a 9-gag-potato(e). *imagine potatoe-picture*

Posted by: sk8bcn Apr 29 2015, 09:16 AM

Positive post.

Though that would be the way I perceive DS:

"Hi, we are SR-lovers, but we are the grognards old guard.

SR-writer, if you wanna see every gamesystem failure, story developpement failure, editing failure, come on Dumpshock. That is what makes us believe that DS is a legitimate place for Shadowrun-lovers/writers.

You'll get the review of your work filled with hatred. We'll tell you that your the most idiotic guy in the world (you wrote War, didn't ya?), that you don't know geography at all (couldn't you google earth Bogota?), that you're an amateur (can't proofread?), that you're book is unplayable (even for reason like costs differe from 1 page to another), you kill SR slowly (SR5 books just can't be sold, with the shit it is), you're unable to keep the storyline (that retconning!), you don't know future (go back to cyberpunk or transhumanism, depending on who posts), you've got no clue on computers (matrix!), you could have kept the exceptionnal system we once had (SR2/3/4 depending on who you talk too), your story arcs are just the same since 20 years (rahhh bodysnatchers...), so actually, that you got no clue at all.

We'll be a bit nicer with the past (like for exemple, story flaws from the beginning -NAN for exemple-) but that's nostalgia.

We don't understand that you don't hear what we've got to say, because we're right (-sk8bcn's note: and that's probably true-), but we can't behave differently than negative old grognards and we don't understand why this has more weight in the balance rather than the quality of our ideas.

So now, come back and adapt!

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 29 2015, 01:24 PM

Ähm....yeah. This is ALSO a way you can see it.

Posted by: Not of this World Apr 29 2015, 03:34 PM

The change from 3rd edition to 4thwas not less butal on the forums. I continued to play 3rd edition but saw no reason to hangout in the hostile environment which Dumpshock was. There weren't much in the way of other SR communities to go to back then.

now we have the Shadowrun.com and Shadowrun Tabletop communities to compete. Even though I am among the oldest of grognards, I am tempted to join them more and here less.

Posted by: Oracle Apr 29 2015, 03:56 PM

Please name me one nerd-interest, were there is no edition wars....

Posted by: Machiavelli Apr 30 2015, 05:41 AM

Besides, even if there is hate (and i know, i am one of them), you do not have to participate. If you have proper questions, you get the most competent aswers on DS. If you ask for opinons, and whine afterwards that no one shared your side of view, you should not go to the Internet.

Edit:...and if you gome to DS as a Line Developer // official and want the people celebrate you for what you are, you are indeed in the wrong place. ^^

Posted by: sk8bcn Apr 30 2015, 01:15 PM

This is sure! I've seldom saw so much knowledge about a game.

That's DS very strong point.

But I also see why newcommers wouldn't come here. They go were the news are the hottest and that's were the devs go. And devs don't go here 'cause they get bullied.


The only freelancer I see here are those whom DS has a very positive opinion about (Critias, Bull, Wakanashi are those I think about).


I guess Ancient History departure dosn't help too.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Apr 30 2015, 07:59 PM

I don't think I've ever participated in an acrimonious rules related argument here. Reading them from the sidelines they usually make me laugh. If people were like me they'd just think they were funny.

The bottom line is that some of the guys on DS have thought about the rules for years, including very specific details about statistical outcomes, and know them better than someone who might have been contracted within relatively recent history to work on the game.

So naturally they flip when the official guy hasn't thought of everything they have.

I think these things go together. Here you have people who really know the rules, but because they know and care, they're going to flip if something official falls short for them in some way.

If I were a dev I'd come here anonymously to get the best advice on rules and statistics first before writing anything. I guess it's like going to see Yoda or something.

Posted by: Umidori Apr 30 2015, 09:13 PM

I started out really, really, really, really excited about SR5.

I came around Dumpshock more than I had in six months. I browsed the Shadowrun official website, which I'd never bothered to do before. I read the sneak-peek story snippets, and I riddled my way through the puzzles that gave access to new excerpts. I got the preview PDFs and was like, "Some problems here and there, but they're previews - the problems will get fixed, and aside from those, this looks really promising!" and I was still really excited. I lost sleep thinking about the new edition, speculating, geeking out.

Then the actual release date came around. I borrowed money to be able to buy the PDF without having to wait for my next paycheck to come in. I got a hold of the file and I tore into the book, and was still excited. "There are a lot of errors and omissions, but those will get fixed! This is a good first step! I can't wait to play! My SR group can't wait to play!"

Then as I dug deeper and deeper, I kept finding more problems. "Wait... that CAN'T be the end of the rules for this subject! They leave so much unexplained! Did I miss a section elsewhere in the book that explains this?" Entire game systems simply didn't make sense or simply were incomplete to the point of barely being functional for the most basic of uses, and certainly not functional for anything remotely complicated. New changes and additions didn't make sense, broke suspension of disbelief, and seemed forced and unnecessary. Rules contradicted each other. "Ehh, they'll fix these! Give them some time to recover from the launch! They'll correct things in a few months."

Fixes never came. Corrections never came. And the more time I spent waiting for them, the more time I had to work around them to play the game, the more frustrated I felt. I started out with great expectations, but ended up feeling like I had wasted my money. The complaints I had of the system went unheard, uncommented on, unfixed - even now, much, much later.

None of that feeling of disappointment comes from Dumpshock.

I and many others on Dumpshock started out quite fervently optimistic. It is the flaws of the game system that turned me and those like me to bitter disappointment. It is the failure of CGL to respect their customers, by putting out badly made material with glaring, obvious flaws and then refusing to fix those flaws years down the line. They made a few token comments well after the fact, saying they were going to work on improving the quality of their materials and how they get produced, but it was far too little, far too late.

~Umi

Posted by: Umidori Apr 30 2015, 09:24 PM

People complain about Dumpshock being full of stubborn, grumpy folks. Well, in a sense it is. But that's missing the point and the nature of the community.

We're not the newbie boards here to attract fresh customers for CGL - that's not our job, and if it were, we'd expect to be paid for it. No, we're a community of dedicated, knowledgeable, fiercely involved regulars. We come here to hash out the nitty gritty, and we don't sugar coat things. If something is a turd, we call it a turd, without stopping to polish it first. We're not shills, we're not a PR team, we're not marketers. We're the people who play the damn game so much we know it better than many of the Freelancers do. We're going to assess the system critically, from the standpoint of hardcore players who take the time to deeply analyze and pore through the rules and continously push the envelope. Because that's just who we are. That's just what we do.

If you value deep analysis, this is the place for you. If you're more interested in cheerleading for CGL and glossing over the flaws and imperfections of the system, you're in the wrong place.

~Umi

Posted by: Fatum Apr 30 2015, 10:10 PM

Why Dumphock is not a good place for Developers? That's an easy one.
Because dumpshock regulars are not the target audience. There's a whole lot of complaining, but not nearly enough buying books going on here. You say the dumpshocked are knowledgeable, and that could be true - but who the hell cares? That doesn't sell books, nor improve them in the eyes of the target audience. So yeah, the new fluff contradicts some obscure book from the previous edition that is long out of print, big fragging deal, no one who matters will notice. Professionalism is about being paid for your work, not about maintaining any standards or anything.

Draft beer sampling.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Apr 30 2015, 10:15 PM

I beg to differ... Seen many a preference war over draft beers.

Posted by: Fatum Apr 30 2015, 10:32 PM

A-ha! Not edition wars, though!

Posted by: kzt May 1 2015, 05:29 AM

Really? Can you cite the dictionary that defines professionalism like that? A common definition of professionalism is something like this: "the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well".

The word you want is mercenary. Mercenary: "one that serves merely for wages".

If you want to argue that the current CGL crowd are mercenaries, solely interested in the paycheck, then I don't think you'll get a lot of arguments here, but is that really the best defense you can come up with?

Posted by: nezumi May 1 2015, 10:36 AM

In my experience, RPG freelancers (including the CGL crowd) don't get paid enough for their work to cover the sandwiches they eat while working. "Well paid" in the industry generally comes out to $5/hr. Not sure how applicable 'mercenary' is there.

People write for Shadowrun because they enjoy writing and they enjoy Shadowrun. That's all. What does Dumpshock offer? A tremendous braintrust of knowledge and experience across all different fields, a LOT of math background, and a lot of honest, critical eyes for reviewing. What's the cost? Basically a beaker of acid poured directly into the brain. Forever. I can't speak for other writers, but when *I* write, I like the criticism. It's how you get better. And after I put something out there, while I try not to, I still loiter around the major news sources to see what the feedback is. And BEFORE I write, I spend a few days collecting fan information, to see what problems have already been detected. At the same time, I try not to post (unless a direct question has been asked) because that will influence the results. I also tend to read the opinions of people who share my view of the game. I don't read up on my work at fantasy boards or 4chan, because I don't want to incorporate their vision.

I only do this for a certain amount of time. After a period, I'm on the next project. And worse, at dumpshock particularly, there's sort of a 'we never forget!' vibe to it. So if I wrote something bad, I'd probably hear about it once or twice a month for the rest of my dumpshock experience, which makes me less inclined to hang around. There's certainly no reason for me to become especially involved in the community (since I can read everyone's responses without signing in).

This is just for me personally though. If someone felt the hurt of Dumpshock outweighed the benefit, I'd tell them not to visit. You're not going to be a good writer if you're too upset to write, or if you're afraid of upsetting a single fan. You're always going to be upsetting someone; that's the nature of doing anything for mass consumption. At some point you need to say 'screw it'.

Why are there as few freelancers as there are here? I don't know. I've been hanging out with some other games (sorry Shadowrun) and I'm a little surprised how infrequently those freelancers are involved with their forums as well. Or maybe it is a conscious decision that we are no longer the target audience. I don't know.

Posted by: Critias May 1 2015, 12:25 PM

What do you think we get paid, man?

Because, seriously, this is the wrongest thing -- and honestly the most insulting -- that I've ever seen posted here.

Posted by: Shortstraw May 1 2015, 01:49 PM

I seem to remember a big kerfuffle some years back about freelancers not being paid

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 1 2015, 02:14 PM

Beg to differ... Same Brew with different process, timings, mellowing, etc... Sounds like an "Edition" to me.
Look at the "Edition" Wars for Coke and Pepsi... Sheesh. *shakes Head*

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 1 2015, 02:21 PM

I would be happy getting paid "Sandwich Money", but sadly, my writing is probably not even up to that standard (I tend to incorporate from way too many sources when I write). But to be honest, I write to write, and I like to think my campaign documents are not too shabby, even if I pull from everything.... The money is likely secondary, unless you do it for a living. And to my knowledge, most Shadowrun Freelancers do not write for a living. That is a hard row to how.

I do appreciate your efforts (good or bad), though, Critias, because they make me think.

Posted by: Sendaz May 1 2015, 02:53 PM

See I would not see Coke vs Pepsi as an 'edition'' war.... that is like comparing SR and CP2020, similar but not editions.


Now classic Coke vs New Coke would be an edition war, but then someone would have had to like New Coke which went away anyway.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 1 2015, 02:59 PM

Which is what I was talking about, Sendaz... I said Coke AND Pepsi, not Coke vs. Pepsi.

Original Coke, New Coke, Interim Coke... Blah Blah Blah...
Pepsi does the same thing. Just decide already. *sheesh*

I have seen beers do the same thing. Total Edition Wars.

Posted by: Umidori May 1 2015, 07:28 PM

That's great! Because I have literally sworn off ever buying another product from CGL ever again. They suckered me with SR5, they won't sucker me in the future. They have lost a customer for life.

If they want to actively alienate the hardcore players because they write that section of the community off as expendible, so be it. But that sort of obvious bad faith tends to promote a bad reputation which works against you in the long run. Although I suppose if they cared about their reputation, that whole embezzling thing wouldn't have happened...

~Umi

Posted by: PraetorGradivus May 1 2015, 07:43 PM

If I had a nickle for every person that ever told me that about Games workshop, well, you know...
And they're still in buisness.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 1 2015, 08:52 PM

I have not given them a dime in something like 20 years, so they did not stay open on my dime.

Posted by: Umidori May 1 2015, 10:13 PM

Part of the reason they persist is that they make most of their money on non-SR products. By all accounts, their Battletech stuff is actually decent quality, which is really all you need with as passionate a fanbase as that universe has.

~Umi

Posted by: Bearclaw May 1 2015, 10:21 PM

5th ed is the only SR edition that is incomplete in my library. I have bought every single book published, up to the 5th ed main book.
I play, and I buy books. I play with a group of people who play and buy books.
CGL can act like the old guard doesn't buy, but that's due to bad product, not lack of desire to give some one our money for large books.
I'm just buying them from Evil Hat now.

Posted by: Backgammon May 2 2015, 12:52 AM

I always come check Dumpshock when one of my books is released, to come see what the worse flaws with my product are. I use the main forums and reddit to see what 99% of fans think, then I check Dumpshock so I know what the worse failings are so I'm not surprised by them later and also so I learn not to do those mistakes again. So, there.

Posted by: kzt May 2 2015, 03:46 AM

I'm not the guy who said you only do it for the money. That was the guy defending the state of the current game, arguing that quality of the freelancer's and line editor's work didn't matter as long as their pay check cleared. At least that was what he seemed to be saying by defining "professionalism" as being paid.

Posted by: Umidori May 2 2015, 04:06 AM

I feel bad for the freelancers.

They get fleeced from the get go. Then their work gets chopped up and used for whatever, without any real feedback or understanding on the part of the editors. Then players are like, "Wow, this supplemental book written by X is pretty bad", because CGL printed the first draft and just ignored the freelancer's revisions, or slap-dashedly "edited" a working set of rules or a solid story into a total mess, or in some other way screwed up otherwise decent work.

So we're left with the writers and artists being asked to produce work without solid direction or support, on a deadline, for crap pay, which gets edited into oblivion, which will never have any of its inevitable errors fixed even when those fixes are handed to the people in charge on a silver platter, and for which the writers and artists take most of the blame for the resulting mess because editors aren't anywhere near as visible.

Everyone loses, because the people at the top are incompetant. And when profits drop as a result they simply pay the freelancers even less than before and cut even more corners in production. The people who make the mistakes don't pay any consequences - they just shovel them onto whoever is beneath them.

~Umi

Posted by: Glyph May 2 2015, 06:40 AM

Yeah, they really need editors who can look at the big picture, so you don't have things getting double-nerfed, or have glaring omissions and contradictions. They also need a keener eye to spot glaringly stupid bullshit that keeps popping up - part of it may be people writing without a clear understanding of how the game and the game world work, but an editor's job is to catch these things.

Example - in Street Grimoire, page 41, where they completely mess up why spirits are paired with spell categories; it is because spirits can only give bonuses to spells in that category. It does NOT mean that having an earth elemental as a healing spirit means you can only have it do things related to healing!! Trying to tie spirit services to spell categories doesn't work - they are two completely different things. And it probably happened because the writer had no real understanding of that rule, and an editor didn't catch it.

Posted by: Voran May 2 2015, 08:40 AM

I'm comfortable with the idea that a game system has passed me on. Its like D&D, I was collecting stuff from it for like 30 years of my life. Partially as my real life responsibilities took hold my time to invest in games became less, and my connection with them faded. Same goes with SR, heck, I've still got my 1st edition stuff. DNA/DOA is like 5 feet away from me atop one of my drawers. Again I kept up through around middle-4e.

I'm disappointed I'm not really representative of the target audience anymore, and as much as I'd like to feel there's some 'deserving' of reciprocity or something, I also realize that's unrealistic. And while I recognize names from when I first started posting here, I also accept that much like me, not all of us stick around. I only really decided to look back in on SR5 as my email was reminding me about Shadowrun Chronicles which I had kickstarter donated back when it opened up.

Eh, its the cycle of life. We're not going to be able to connect our perspective with newcomers, and they'll just get frustrated that we don't agree with them. Heh, I see it in grad school, the fresh from undergrad that think they know the world and can't understand us dinosaurs, and us dinosaurs with tacit and experiential knowledge going "You need to look at the big picture..." we're never going to connect until they get 'to be our age' and have to deal with the youngin generation themselves.

Posted by: Sengir May 3 2015, 10:03 PM

Well, SR 5 seems to be selling well enough. And core books are the cash cows of any system, no matter how well XTRO:Forklifts may be written

Posted by: Machiavelli May 4 2015, 06:48 AM

Honestly, I don´t think that this is, what Fatum meant (at least i hope). We have to differ between the phrasing and the intention of what was said. I understood it as "dumsphock doesn´t host as many users as the official forum. We are talking about a small group of players and the rules were made for everyone". Did i get that right?

Posted by: Cain May 7 2015, 10:43 AM

Honestly, I think it's because the official forums are filled with yes-men, while Dumpshock is willing to provide honest (if overly blunt) critiques.

Yes, I think CGL treats the Shadowrun freelancers like crap. And the editorial staff seems content to let things lie. But the writers have to share some blame, too. We've seen that a great deal of the unproofed writing that CGL receives is loaded with errors-- typos, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and so on. And while it's the proofreader's job to fix that, they're supposed to be a last check, not a first line of correction. The writer is supposed to correct their own work, and then the proofreaders are supposed to correct anything they miss-- because let's face it, it's rare to catch all your own mistakes.

That said... as a professional writer, I'd be downright embarrassed to turn in work with as many errors as we see in the published work. It'd make me look like an illiterate oaf. I've seen fewer mistakes per page when correcting high school essays! And to be fair, I'd hate to deal with that level of criticism of my own work. Heck, dealing with criticism as a writer is a whole art unto itself, so I would feel more welcome among a more forgiving audience.

But at the same time... if I want to improve my work, I take the time to listen to the harshest critics. "You do great work, man!" is not a helpful way to improve my art. "You suck, and here's why" has always been more helpful, at least when I'm willing to hear it.

Posted by: binarywraith May 7 2015, 12:25 PM

As a note, the thread on the official forums requesting rules clarification just stopped being updated ~6 months ago without explanation. There's 30 pages of requests in there without answers.

Posted by: Wakshaani May 9 2015, 04:57 AM

Well that's not good. I'll try and poke a head in there next week and see if I can drop some answers.

I've been on hiatus since November, only getting back in the mix April 1st, and am currently working on A Future Product.

But when it comes to Dumpshock, I was here before Freelancing, I'm here while Freelancing, and I'll be here after Jason gets tired of me and cuts me loose. It's all good! And, yeah, I actually *like* swinging through here to see if I screwed something up and, if so, where/how. It's how I get better at writing, and, some day, I want to make a living at this. (And, believe me, we don't get paid enough to do this for a living. My pay is basicly slipped into my local game store and some Kickstarters. If anyone says we do this for MONEY, they're confused. We do it for love, with a lil' sidecash for hobbies.)

Some people take things more personal than others, some have a "Haters gonna hate" swagger, and most are somewhere in between.

Mind you, I used my RL nephew, who I adore, in a story in A Different Upcoming Product, and killed him off on the page. When he's older, I'll have to show it to him and be like, "Look! You're famous! Kinda. Sorta. Vaguely. And, er... dead. But hey! Name in book!" It was about the most literal "You have to be willing to kill your babies" moment for me yet.

When that product comes out, I'll be sneaking around, reading stuff for a week or so before I'll actually speak up, but... I'll be reading all the same. Yes, even those of you who HATE it. All I ask is that you don't just stomp around and yell, but that you point things out and explain *why* they don't work. Constructive criticism.

(Tho, really, you're gonna have to let War -go-. It's been years, it was the transition book, and some of the memes about it don't actually exist. (And, no, I didn't work on that one, so it isn't personal) ... pick on the SR5 core book, pick on Run n Gun, but let War die already, okay? Love you!)

Posted by: binarywraith May 11 2015, 01:07 AM

Just as soon as we get a book we can't find 0-day errata points on, or someone prints new material that retcons the dumbest of it.

Seriously, though, the way to get people to stop complaining about error-filled and badly written works is to publish something good. We'd all love to see it, and would be very happy for it.

Posted by: apple May 11 2015, 01:16 AM

As soon as all people responsible for the Auschwitz Adventure Park are gone we can talk about letting it go.

SYL

Posted by: Wothanoz May 11 2015, 05:48 AM

That. These. Words. Exist. Is very bothersome. Eeesh. There's a reason I don't buy many of the secondary books for SR. The stuff I really need rules for(Magic, Decking, Rigging, Gear, Guns, etc) I will cash out for. But... man, I'm not even sure I know the world anymore.

Honestly, I don't use anything past year of the comet(or even that supplement). I'm perpetually stuck in the 2060s, I guess. That's what I liked, and things just... got... weird after that.

Posted by: Voran May 11 2015, 06:14 AM

I wouldn't mind another Hawaii adventure I do find it delicious that even in a crazy 6th world, Hawaii has its shit together better than we currently do. Even with explosions and dragons

Posted by: Bull May 11 2015, 06:18 AM

It's one of a couple things that's gotten twisted around a bit and blown out of proportion. It's like a game of telephone or some Urban Legend, where every retelling magnifies and adds to it.

It's slightly less than half a page long. Two thirds of that (4 paragraphs) describes the area, which is a twisted, blighted place magically scarred by the nazi horrors that took place there in WWII filled with twisted, angry spirits. The last two paragraphs describes a magical, effectively cursed artifact that can be found there (This was I think supposed to be a loose tie-in to the Artifact/Magical stuff we were doing at the time), a rusty old scalpel used by a nazi surgeon to experiment on people with, and how someone might hire a team of runners to risk their lives against the spirits to recover it.

This has somehow gotten twisted in the telling into this full blown adventure where runners heroically slaughter the noble ghosts of the Jews for awesome Nazi Magic Loots!

Next up, ask them about how a single line of Shadowtalk in a vehicle PDF release discussing how refugees were using a minisub to escape war-torn Bogota via the Bogota river, and somehow it got blown into this who thing about how CGL magcially decided that Bogota borders the ocean. That's a fun rant too.

Now, to be fair, the War! article does refer to the spirits of ghosts, which is not a choice I'd have used (What "ghosts" are, exactly, in Shadowrun has been a subject of discussion going back to first edition, but ultimately it always translates into "Spirits imprinted by their surrounding and the emotions linked those surrounding", which begs the question of exactly what Spirits are, but that ends up effectively a theological debate that Shadowrun isn't answering anytime soon). It's also in general not a particularly good section. But... Again, it's been overblown and grows in the telling.

I find it amusing.

Posted by: bannockburn May 11 2015, 07:40 AM

Trivializing a trivialization of mass murder. I have no words.

Maybe it's just a matter of being from Germany, where this is a touchy subject, but with "I find it amusing", you just lost a lot of respect I previously had for you.

Posted by: Bull May 11 2015, 08:46 AM

I suspect that it may be a German thing, and I can understand that. And don't get me wrong, I don't find the original subject amusing at all.

But we're talking a fictionalized game, with ghosts/spirits/magic, where the player characters are, by and large, mass murdering terrorists.

Second, nothing in the write up ever even attempts to apologize, whitewash, or in any way say "Hey, what the Nazi's did was 'ok'." In fact, it says the exact opposite. It says taht what they did was so terrifying, so horrible that it scarred the vary landscape for the next 130 years to the point where magic and astral space itself is completely fragged up.

Even the scalpel, the magic McGuffin device taht's mentioned, it's essentially a cursed magical item. It's not like "Oh hey, trael here and get this awesome Holy Avenger +5". It's a magic weapon that imposes penalties on you for using it, because it induces horrific flashbacks to the terrible things done with it.

And at the end of the day, it's entirely keeping within the scope of the Shadowrun world to say "Hey, some unscrupulous bastard may try to hire someone to get in there and steal this for them." It's not presented as a trophy to be won, but as a job to do, a dirty one. Much like the lying, murdering, mass destruction, kidnapping,a nd all the othe rterrible things most Shadowrunners do on a daily basis.

And it's also just an adventure seed. Take that, flip it around. You get hired to get in there and destroy the horrible object before someone else can get it. Now it's a hooder adventure.

Nothing I said, and nothing in the original write up condones anything that happened at Auschwitz. And what is presented are not innocent, happy Jewish spirits... They're twisted, terrible spirits of vengeance created from the echoes of the fear and terror and evil committed at that place.

What I find amusing is simply the fact that a couple people were so hurt and so angry at CGL over the events that happened a few years ago that they have taken every opportunity to trash anything that gets worked on. And they take something minor and blow it out of proportion. And then it gets parroted, and added onto. It's a bad game of telephone. I'd almost be willing to bet that half the people who repeat this stuff actually believe that the book really does talk about Shadowrunners murdering Jewish ghosts for Magical Nazi Loot and that we really did write in about the docks of Bogota at the beaches of the whatever ocean, either because they've simply never read the section in question and are just repeating what they've heard, or they simply no longer remember what it says because they've said something else so often they believe that now instead.

I'll be honest. War is a terrible book. I didn't like it when it was in playtesting. I didn't like it when it was released. I think the Auschwitz section should have likely been left on the cutting room floor, because I generally believe on erring on the side of caution. But that doesn't change the fact that the section really isn't all that objectionable, and that it's been over-inflated by years of constant badmouthing. And if you knew the politics and beliefs of the author of that section, you would understand that never in a million years was there ever an ounce of disrespect intended.

Anyway, I'm out. I'd been avoiding this thread anyway because seriously, when a thread basically says "Hey, we hate you, asshole, and you shouldn't be posting here" right in the thread title, that's a pretty big flashing neon sign that says "this will be unpleasant and you have better things to do with your time." I misclicked, and then only read because Wothanoz post and he's someone i know from way back and know he's just recently come back to the boards. My mistake. And I knew I shouldn't have posted, because it was just asking to be jumped on. But I did and I did. I've said my piece now, and I have no intention of getting dragged into a flamey argument. It's been hashed out before, and people will believe what they believe.

Bull

Posted by: hermit May 11 2015, 08:51 AM

*snip reply*

I hoped it was just a lapse or maybe oversensitivity on my part. I hould have listened to my conscience more. I have no polite words for you, or anybody currently working on this game any more.

Posted by: bannockburn May 11 2015, 08:53 AM

Please don't try to rationalize further. I cringed in the first two lines. There's a reason why the parts in question are removed from the German Fronteinsatz, not the least of which that we have laws against this kind of speech.

You find it amusing that people get angry about a highly volatile subject, and that's your right. But it doesn't make it remotely understandable for people who are actually offended by that thing.

Personally, I've not even been in. I've not read the thread and just mis-clicked and landed on your posting. I also see no further need for discussion on that subject.

Posted by: Sendaz May 11 2015, 08:54 AM

For whatever's its worth Bull, we do appreciate you chiming in on this despite knowing what it will bring on.

Posted by: Critias May 11 2015, 08:58 AM

Well, that escalated quickly.

Posted by: apple May 11 2015, 10:30 AM

May I ask if Jason Hardy still think that the Ausschwitz Adventure Park was a good idea? Is he still amused by the thought that brave Runners venture deep into the Auschwitz Dungeon to hunt for necromantic artifacts, to sell them for some hefty gold reward? I mean ¥ reward? Because I still remember a discussion on the official SR4 forums where the question was raised if that really was the intention and the answer was a "Yeah, it sounds cool, right" from one of the (semi)officials.





But of course I am quite sure that I completely misunderstood everything. In that case I would be terrible sorry of course.



Ah, yes, how often did we hear that now from freelancers in the last 3 years?

SYL

Posted by: Sengir May 11 2015, 11:18 AM

Let's have a look at the original text, shall we?

What Bull describes is how things could have been done, but as written it's raiding the tomb of horrors under a magic dome for necromantic treasures. From terminology to spirit rules, the whole section does not mesh with SR. And since those stupid "real ghost" the players encounter happen to be in Auschwitz, there are indeed unfortunate connotations... Under the heading "Arbeit macht frei", that certainly helped...

Posted by: apple May 11 2015, 11:21 AM

Perhaps Bull didn´t read the final version as well. Amusing, isn´t it?

SYL

Posted by: Sengir May 11 2015, 11:38 AM

Bull didn't write it...and I like to think that if he had proofed that section, we would have been spared spiritual barriers and Dollars. Say what you want about him, I can't imagine him slipping up on Dollars vs. Nuyen

Posted by: Medicineman May 11 2015, 11:41 AM

Just so you can Understand us Germans
Our Nazi Past is as disturbing to Us as 9-11 is to You.
Imagine how You would feel if someone wrote a similar "Run" in the Twin Towers (killing the Spirits of Firefighters and Office Workers that died there, etc.....)

with a final Dance concerning this Topic
(because I really don't want to talk about it anymore)
Medicineman

Posted by: sk8bcn May 11 2015, 12:19 PM

The start of the thread was supposed to be positive.

Well, anyways, I stand with Bull on that one.

ok that plot hook sucks and is of bad taste, but doesn't deserve more than ignoring it. I mean, it's not like writin a full Werewolf book about Nazi's and the Umbra and... No?


Those subjects are touchy. But honestly, I can't stand how much hate backfires with this.

I mean, why not just ignoring? Why? Especially in these troubles days when you can get murdered for making parodies of Allah? I know the scale has nothing to do between the two, but this philosophy works for both: "Common, it's not worth hate."

(I hope this won't be misunderstood it's just supposed to be a call for peace)

Posted by: apple May 11 2015, 12:38 PM

That is of course a possibility. But then again Jason Hardy was responsible for WAR! and is responsible for SR5. If you a really want the answer for "what happened to dumpshock" you should not ignore one of the many reasons. It´s not about errata for everyone.

SYL

Posted by: Modular Man May 11 2015, 12:45 PM

I second the call for peace. I value the opinions displayed, but there's no fixing that book now anyway. I dislike it, personally (some parts more, some parts less), but that's not the point of this thread.

Sadly, yes.

Shall we get on with the original topic? Please? Because I really am interested in that.

I used to come here mostly for ideas. Ideas on how to tweak my game, ideas on different uses of gear. I come out here to learn new tricks and to get notified on the holes in the system to be avoided.
It seems to me that some freelancers did so, too. Because as I remember it, the splash grenade packed with something slippery that finally made it into stats in "Spy Games" originated here, and some time before that book (or am I wrong?).

I think that this forum is the most knowledgeable think tank on Shadowrun, but has a tendency to be impolite and to hold onto grudges.
Lately, Dumpshock seems to be stuck, though. Not many original ideas on how to play the new edition (or even the recent old one), just a lot of "Yeah, fifth edition is bad anyway." That's sad, because this place used to be awesome.

That's how I feel about it. Granted, I don't read every thread and mostly pick to my own interests. But still.

Posted by: Kyrel May 11 2015, 12:59 PM

>Edit<

Forget my question. The topic's come back on track now apparently, and I don't want to derail it again.

Posted by: Sengir May 11 2015, 01:46 PM

Because somebody was wrong on the internet.

I agree with Bull insofar as that section has become a symbol for every grudge people harbor about the product line -- but that's because the section really is spectacularly bad, even without any undead Jews. In fact, those undead Jews only are a problem because it was written without regard to how "ghosts" work in SR.

So I'm fine with not mentioning the War, but don't tell me it was just overhyped...

Posted by: binarywraith May 11 2015, 06:53 PM

I'm going to say this as calmly and politely as I can.

There is no perspective in which that part of War! having been published as written is excusable. A writer produced it, editors (presumably) read it, it was approved for publication. It is a (per Bull's statement) throwaway adventure hook that is literally illegal to publish in Germany, SR's main overseas fanbase. If it didn't matter, who could even defend it being published as a good idea?

This is why a few people here don't have much goodwill for giving the flaws of new publications passes. Because there have been glaring flaws, which have been defended as not a big deal, for years.

Edit : Improved civility, this topic hits a nerve with me.

Posted by: Wothanoz May 11 2015, 07:24 PM

I'm not knocking ya or nothin, but your opinion is exactly one of the reasons I stopped buying anything that was more "plot" based for SR. Year of the Comet was... Well, I wasn't a fan, I'll tell ya. I think I gave my copy to a younger guy who was getting into SR about the time I was burning out. Not sure. But, yeah, I jsut got increasingly disenfranchised with the way the setting was going. And it kept going that way, so I just said "frag it" and pauled things in the late 50s, early 60s, ignored most of the events after-that.

So at best, I play in a divergent SR universe from the canon, and I'm happy with that. Shadowrun isn't about the epic battles of household names, but about unknown, unseen criminals who are either remember in obituaries, or retire to some quiet place and live out their days in relative comfort. It's my opinion that nothing the runners do should ever seriously alter the setting to the point that regular people would know.

Posted by: Cochise May 11 2015, 08:25 PM

Not necessarily defending Bull (or anyone else involved) there but I'm hard pressed to find any German law that would have made that fiction "illegal to publish". Yes, we're pretty sensitive - if not over sensitive - to the underlying subject and we do have a lot of laws that revolve around that particular aspect of the past ... but none that would have prohibited the (1 to 1 translated) publication of said plot hook except for "good taste" and "avoiding economical suicide" on that (and future) product(s) of the franchise.

Nonetheless, ...



... if it really had been that unimportant they certainly could have spared themselves the trouble.

Posted by: Sengir May 11 2015, 09:07 PM

Now that is a part which has really gotten disconnected from reality: German law restricts certain kinds of speech deemed harmful to society, but a couple of paragraphs with a possibly distasteful approach to the Holocaust don't come close to meeting the banhammer.
I guess the idea stems from the fact that German law and "youth protection" is famously trigger-happy when it comes to PC games, but that does not extend to other media.

To put things somewhat into perspective: The fucking Turner Diaries are legal here. They are on the list of media considered "socio-ethically disorienting" for the youth, which brings extra hoops even for adults, but still very much "legal to publish". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udo_Walendy also initially made that list for declaring everybody but Hitler started WWII, but successfully sued to get off.

Posted by: Sendaz May 11 2015, 09:10 PM

I always wondered if part of where the plot came from was due to the divergence of ED from SR.

While SR retains their dragons and IE, they have to tread a lot more carefully about any other crossovers, so as to not overly step on another company's IP.

So while they continued to use some older Age artifacts somebody probably lifted a page from a fairly new show at the time in the form of Warehouse 13, to where artefact like devices were being spawned in this age.

Now they could have bizarre items without being tied to ED and handwave it through the low ebb in mana.

The premise is interesting, even if the application should have been handled better.

Posted by: binarywraith May 11 2015, 10:01 PM

Honestly, I'm pretty sure it was probably contributed by someone with Bull's attitude, who didn't think it was a problem and just wanted to toss in a traditional RPG dungeon crawl hook as a sidebar without ever considering the implications.

Posted by: Stahlseele May 11 2015, 10:22 PM

Same guy who threw in poisoning gypsy wells into war! as well i think?

Posted by: Aaron May 12 2015, 12:57 AM

For what it's worth, I take great comfort in my abilities as a writer and/or designer when my work doesn't garner any comment on Dumpshock. =i)

Posted by: PraetorGradivus May 12 2015, 04:02 AM

I bought every 4th edition PDF but skipped from 3rd to 4th and never played it till I started a character on an online game a few weeks ago. I double checked, and indeed I own War... I've been slowly reading those 4th PDFs because I'm in that online game...but I guess I'll be skipping War since there seems so much hate generated by it.

We've moved apart but I personally know Frank Chadwick who designed a lot of those old SPI games, Command Decision, Space:1889 etc and is about to have his second novel. Plenty of people don't like the way he designed things . But I got to tell you, I have nevr seen him phased by someone's criticism about anything he's published. If the critism is valid and there's a work around he incorporates it into his next game. If you take everything personally being a game developer isn't the job for you.

Having said that. I wish people would state why they think something is broken without resorting to saying thing like 'it's stupid', 'it's a piece of turd', etc. You can get your point across without breaking Wheaton's Law.

Posted by: binarywraith May 12 2015, 06:54 AM

In the case of War!'s issues, generally 'It's stupid' is the kindest criticism available. When the book includes a submersible escape to the sea from a landlocked city 8600 feet above sea level on a plateau in the middle of the Andes mountains, down a river that has a 515 foot tall waterfall just 20 miles out of town. Said falls dry up in the winter at times.

Just total basic research failure.

Posted by: Critias May 12 2015, 07:14 AM

On the topic of basic research failures, I'll just go ahead and take my lumps, I guess, but this is kind of what Bull's talking about (and, in fact, he mentioned that somewhere in his post, but seems to have been overlooked because of the much-more-understandably-emotionally-charged complaints about War).

It doesn't matter if we like War or not, or if we're actually defending War, but just by pointing out that this claim is incorrect -- this repeated, and repeated, and repeated, claim -- I know I'm lining up to take a punch for appearing to defend War, but...oh well. I want people to dislike War for things that are actually wrong with it, and not for this, so I'm going to pipe up. That wasn't in War. There's nothing in War, at all, about this. People say it, but it just plain didn't happen that way.

That was in Deadly Waves. And, furthermore, there's nothing at all about an escape to sea. There's nothing about docks, or Bogota being a port city, or the submersible going all the way to the ocean, or anything else that people parrot over and over again. The exact quote, the entire quote, is "They can also serve as a way out of Bogotá, if you have the connections. There isn’t much of the way in amenities, so remember your own bucket." That's it. I don't care for it one way or the other, but I wish people would just get it right when they complain about it; what book it's in, and what it actually says.

But just like Bull mentioned, people play "telephone," even in the internet age, and it gets repeated, and changed in the telling, over and over again, until I've seen people -- pedantic, bright, people, who otherwise know their game lore -- claim stuff that simply isn't true. But it gets stated with such certainty, and it gets repeated, and it's in there with so much other stuff to be mad about, that the accuracy doesn't matter, it just gets repeated again. Like it did right here, right now.

Hate stuff if you wanna hate stuff. Lord knows, I do. Let's just hate stuff for the right reasons, huh?

Posted by: Machiavelli May 12 2015, 02:22 PM

100% agree. BTW we wanted to go back to the topic, not restart a flame-thread that is aeons old. WAR war a bad book, agreed. Because of several reasons. Also agreed. But this is not the topic folks.

Posted by: Cain May 12 2015, 03:59 PM

Crit is certainly right that War! is a dead horse, but the legacy of what it started lives on. The failures of that book live on to this day: from the poor editorial direction, the shoddy content control, poorly thought out rules, totally ignoring the proofreaders (and not paying them, I'm still waiting on my credit from four years ago), and accepting work that required that much proofreading in the first place.

We do harp on War! for being the start, but it didn't end there. Those same problems are still going on, and probably deserve more mention.

Posted by: Wakshaani May 12 2015, 04:49 PM

See what I mean about letting that one go? It's just an ugly situation and we're all better off just moving on.

As you can see, more than a few of us still keep an eye on here, and the other Shadowrun places online, and even contribute chunks here and there. Mostly there, confessedly, but that's because Dumpshockers can largely take care of themselves... you don't need the help that newcomers do, since you've pretty well got this. Yeah, we're giving you new toys and new plots officially, but tossing stuff onto the boards, not so much.

But you guys *are* our community.

And I always appreciate the feedback, good or bad, as well as direction. When you want new politics, we try to get new politics in there. When you want new magical threats, we try to get them in there. When you want old favorites revisited, we try and get that done, too. It's slow-going, and there's quite a few things that get slaughtered by wordcount and opportunity, but we do try.

Keep in mind, this doesn't mean true fanservice. We're not going to give you want you want every time. Sometimes, for the narrative, you have to go the other way. Maybe we kill someone that you like. Maybe the badguys get a win. Maybe some rule hole gets closed down to improve the game but your characters all used it and you're ticked. It has to be done now and then because, all fanservice all the time? That route never ends well for anybody.

All I ask is that when you vent at us, as is *absolutely* your right, at least keep it current? Let's say from Storm Front, which closed the book on SR4 and opened up plots for SR5, onwards. We know editing's an issue and it's getting improved each time, but still a problem. Valid. Totally valid and being worked on, ut it's still not perfect. (But don't expect absolutely perfect. There's not a game produce made today without at LEAST a typo in it, no matter the company. Getting the number as close to zero as possible is the ultimate goal here.)

So, Storm Front, forward. Can we run with this as a mutual bridge? Otherwise, it's kind of like picking on Dolph Ziggler by making fun of his time on the Spirit Squad. He's moved on and gotten better. Let's all try to do the same.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 12 2015, 04:55 PM

Who's Dolph Ziggler?

Posted by: Stahlseele May 12 2015, 04:59 PM

Storm Front?
Was that the one with the Dragon Civil war and eating 70k people in GeMiTo in 6 months?
Or was that the one with the nanite virus via secondary touch and matrix infects you and takes over your brain?
Or that Ares has a bad new Rifle and is goign down because of that?

I lost track somewhere . .


Dolph Ziggler is a Wrestler with WWF.
Wak you silly people ^^

Posted by: Draco18s May 12 2015, 05:28 PM

This is the spot I have to jump in, because this exact description is my job right now, only with my boss being both the "person in charge" and "the end user" and still not getting the fact that his disappointment is because of his own inability to give direction.



Fuck. </rational discussion>

Posted by: Wakshaani May 12 2015, 05:39 PM

Don't mistake a symptom for the disease. Just sayin'.
(Mind you, the rest has some validity.)



The WWE now.

And, yes, I be silly, but the point's a valid one. People get better over time and with practice. I just couldn't think of many actors who I could slot in as quickly and who still have neatness to 'em. I mean, I could compare the lead from House to his old job on Black Adder, but people are likely to miss that. Harrison Ford's move from Bellhop to Star Wars ROgue's a good one, but Ford's ... not exactly been good for a while.

Hrm.

Ariana Grande of today compared to 'the airheaded one' from Victorious?

Lor dknows we all have bad Goth poetry in our old high school Trapper Keepers.

The goal is to *get* *better*.

Posted by: Stahlseele May 12 2015, 05:43 PM

... Nerd! *snickers* ^^

Posted by: Wakshaani May 12 2015, 06:14 PM

It's true.

Heck, if it wasn't for the age cap, I'd be trying out for King of the Nerds (on TBS) even now.

(But I'd wash out on the calculus. It's what stood between me and my Comp Sci degree! Harumph!)

Posted by: DireRadiant May 12 2015, 07:15 PM

Dumpshock has absolutely no value to a freelancer.

Let's imagine you are a freelancer and you are writing a piece for CGL. From the moment you propose and submit you cannot discuss anything about what you are writing until the moment it is published. By the time it is published any feedback is useless for that piece of writing. The feedback is also effectively useless for any future feedback since none of it is worth the pain of reading.

Dumpshockers have two courses to give feedback. Stand up and be counted by contributing directly to the next piece of writing. Or you can review and discuss in a manner that encourages the freelancers to want to read and interact with you.

Everything else is just yelling into the dark.

Posted by: Grinder May 12 2015, 07:30 PM

This is so wrong.

Posted by: Fatum May 12 2015, 07:54 PM

I'm not even sure if this is serious. I remember a rather solid thread with criticisms for pretty much every page of Storm Front. From dragon hordes to Red Anya being privy to what the Great Dragons discuss on their secret meetings, and runners being hired to loot an exiled Great's hoard. (I believe that was also the thread where the claims of "professionalism" meaning "paid for that work" were first thrown around in response to the criticism of such writing being simply unprofessional).

Furthermore, every consequent major release got a dumpshock discussion worth hundreds of posts. Has that lead to any improvement in... well, anything, even editing? Has the new ruleset become any less of a disappointment for that? Has the material being published become any more accommodating of existing fluff for that? Or is the counter-argument still "stop discussing War!", as if the newer releases are principally better?

Dumpshock discussions are by now, for all I see, indeed yelling into the dark. The publisher is not interested in pandering to the desires of some handful of grognards; that investment simply does not pay off for it, when even the stuff like Parazoology or Core Fifth is bought up.

Posted by: binarywraith May 13 2015, 12:58 AM

You say this as if 'contributing directly to the next piece of writing' is a matter of effort rather than employment.

If feedback on the quality of their work is demoralizing and discouraging to the freelancers then that says something about the quality of the products they are putting their names on. I don't mean to be a dick, but that's how it is. If you put out a product with your name on it, you need to be prepared for critical reception, especially if the product doesn't hold up to the hype.

Even if we limit our discussion to Storm Front forward, how does that absolve the nightmare proofing/editing state of SR5 core? Or that the core SR5 books have ended up with 4+ page errata documents full of things that were straight up left out?

SR5 : http://cdn.shadowruntabletop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/E-CAT2700E_SR5-Errata.pdf
Street Grimoire : http://cdn.shadowruntabletop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/E-CAT27003E_SG-Errata.pdf?4713c7
Run & Gun : http://cdn.shadowruntabletop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/E-CAT27002E_RG-Errata.pdf?4713c7

That's just the official errata, there is an entire forum full of it over at the official forums. Run Faster's been out six months and hasn't yet had any published despite a growing thread of issues over on the official forums.

This is a clear and ongoing problem, and no amount of 'they'll get better' solves it.

Posted by: Jaid May 13 2015, 02:15 AM

getting better is nice, inasmuch as it actually happens. getting better before asking us to pay for it would be a lot nicer.

they've had poor incorporation of basic proofreading for a while now; either they aren't listening, or aren't having it done, or should find different people to do it (and based on what we can observe, it's probably the first of those options).

so not only are they asking us to buy stuff before they get better at it, but they don't really seem to be getting particularly better at it.

and on a side note, while it certainly isn't worthwhile to get drowned in negativity, there are good things to be gained from coming here as well. it may not be good for those who don't have a (very) thick skin, but if you aren't too bothered by the negativity, it can actually be a good place to be.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 13 2015, 02:57 AM

Sounds like the plot to a bad 80s Japanese video game.

Posted by: PraetorGradivus May 13 2015, 06:24 AM

This is what I was talking about. "It's stupid' isn't a constructive criticism, it's a subset of the Red Herring Fallacy.
It has no place in a conversation other than to inflame the person/people who don't hold your viewpoint.
It also doesn't help the game developer improve upon errors he made.
And let's face it- is it more important to humiliate the game developer or is it more important he recieve constructive critism that he can use to improve his products in the future.

PS I apologize to those of you who are offended at my use of him as a neutral pronoun- it's how I learned it, and it's how I'm comfortable writing.

Posted by: sk8bcn May 13 2015, 08:16 AM

DireRadiant made me think about one point:

Why no communication about the next books beeing worked on?

This puzzles me strategically.

For exemple, Red Brick always stated pretty explicitely what they would work on, on it generated excitation. This is a good thing for the upcomming release, a chance for the autor to grab ideas and a good way to get of feel of the communities expectations.


So what's the point of that politic?

Posted by: Critias May 13 2015, 08:45 AM

Speaking only for myself, I don't talk about what I'm working on because even if I thought I'd get a positive reception, NDAs say I can't talk about stuff until official channels talk about it, and because if I decided to talk about it earlier, anyways, I still couldn't/wouldn't use any ideas that I might find on the internet somewhere.

Posted by: toturi May 13 2015, 08:49 AM

When you feel strongly about something, it can be difficult to quantify precisely what you are upset about.

If you do not feel strongly about something, it is less likely that you would be posting about it.

So in effect, you are looking for the sweet spot where you are pissed enough to do something about it but not so pissed as to be incoherent or capable of only venting.

From the amount of vitriol, you can gauge the depth and scale of the screw up. You won't know where or how you did so. But eventually someone will calm down enough and be rational enough to post a list of constructive criticisms.

As far as I am concerned, what the writer needs to do is look for these nuggets and scale them up to fit the size of the crowd's reaction. As an example: I EPIC fail at music. So I am one of those people that all I can do to criticise lousy music is to say that it SUXXORS. Someone who is better at music can come along and articulate my complaints better.

Posted by: Umidori May 13 2015, 09:14 AM

So Dumpshock doesn't allow images, but I'm sure many of you are familiar of the animated .gif of Michael Jackson eatting popcorn.

That's me right now - just picture it in your mind.

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/296/328/d64.gif

Posted by: binarywraith May 13 2015, 09:49 AM

I suspect they stopped publishing previews because people were tearing apart the errors in them and then being appalled that they persisted into published versions.

Posted by: apple May 13 2015, 10:07 AM

Valid point.

However it should be added that the negative points of WAR! were already discussed to death, with full details and interpretatoin for literally every sentence in the book. Even on the German official forum there was 26 page Discussion. So if you want to talk about WAR! you will find every argument and counter argument known to men in the archives of dumpshock, Pegaus, rpg.net, SR4forums, SR Nexus etc. And it can be assumend that those who participate in the disccuion *know* these arguments. After all both sides (those defending that Bogoto can be escaped vie sub and those who don´t like the Ausschwitz Adventure Park Raiding idea, how amusing it may sound as a dungeon crawl) talked about them in full details for the last years.

After such a long time with hundreds of pages of discussion everywhere it can be understandable if someone shortens the discussion to a "one sentence statement". You would be right of course if we would discuss Boston Lockdown (AFAIK the latest of the books) and would only have the point "Its Bullshit" or "It´s chocolate cookie in paper form" and nothing else.

########################################

Why no Paizo system? Public available full beta previews where the community can comment and improve the books from the beginning? Of course the line developer from Paizi incorporates feedback from the community, playtesters and authors back into the original document, unlike in some other RPGs.

SYL

Posted by: Critias May 13 2015, 10:50 AM

Really?

Posted by: apple May 13 2015, 11:04 AM

Deadly Waves IIRC.

SYL

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 13 2015, 02:22 PM

Didn't you get the last Telephone call Critias?
But yes, Deadly Waves.

Posted by: Draco18s May 13 2015, 03:36 PM

Slow, the spell.
There. Have a the word 100% valid complaint about War! Because nothing about it makes a lick of sense.
Can we move on now?

Great, thanks.

Now back to "not installing a firewall on my office network because I know jack and all about how to do so, but my boss is too cheap to hire somebody who does and I'm 'close enough.'" I told him I don't know what I'm doing and the instructions that came with it aren't working as expected and he told me he didn't like my attitude (note: the Internet has been down for 24 hours now and we haven't been able to do much actual work).

Posted by: Sengir May 13 2015, 11:12 PM

Calling the book we don't want to discuss but somehow still do horrible isn't a red herring, "it's horrible" is the mutually agreed-upon starting point. Even by the authors, Bulls complaint about the Auschwitz chapter being blown out of proportion still included the obligate "War is a terrible book".
Naming that book in a discussion about SR5 releases on the other hand might qualify, because for all the problems they have, they just don't compare to War! (in a positive sense).

Posted by: PraetorGradivus May 14 2015, 03:17 AM

You are entitled as anyone is to your opinion- and if you think calling something stupid is appropriate, so be it. I don't.
However, I minored in Philosophy and got perfect grades in every class associated with it. Starting an argument with its stupid or he's stupid is a subset of the Red Herring Fallacy.

But if we were going to discount every single argument that is technically a formal or informal fallacy on this site we would have to dicount most of the threads.

Now, if I could only have gotten perfect grades in typing and spelling that might be more useful to me now

Posted by: Adam May 14 2015, 04:03 AM

Every single announcement you make creates a set of expectations and stresses. I wrote about it a bunch here: http://adamjury.com/2013/making-announcements-pitfalls-products/

Posted by: Wakshaani May 14 2015, 12:20 PM

Of course its serious.

(Interesting that the three examples all come from the same chapter, but, that's no biggie ... I was in the threads earlier and I know my stuff got grumbled about as well. Some of which was valid, some of which I disagreed with, and some of which was a matter of editing.)

I don't remember Storm Front being blasted that badly, in general, but one or two chapters didn't land as well as I'd have liked. Still, that's a topic that's chewable.



Editing's getting better each time, and writing's improving. Is it, say, the Return of Nigel Findley? Not yet, but new writers have been brought in and are digging in, older writers are helping where able, and the art continues to kick ass.

As for fluff, there are several of us who go through and try to double-check things for clashes. One or two things get through, but I can't think of anything huge off the top of my head that made it through. (There's one thing I didn't -agree- with, but it wasn't my call, not my writing, and not my job to say otherwise.)

However, here's a great place for you to chime in with any direct fluff issues since Storm Front. The ones I know about, I'll chime in as best I can. One or two might be tied in with NDA stuff, but where something was changed, or where we screw up, I'll let it be known if I can. I'm still ticked at myself for a hiccup with some corporate fluff I made. It happens, and I have to be more careful in the future.



There's, like, what, five of us writers in this very thread? Six? You'll forgive me if I don't match my view of shouting into the dark with yours, I hope.

An errata -does- keep rolling out, due to, you know, feedback, which comes from here, the official boards, and other places. It's slow, and a tad tricky since it's asking people to do work for free, but it -does- keep rolling out.

I'd love for a day to come along where a book is perfect at launch, but I don't know of *any* RPG book ever made that hits that level, so I can just hope for a continuing reduction in mistakes. Those who want to help can, of course, ask to be proofreaders.



And then there's this. I, for one, don't want to go up against anything legal. This is why you see me use Currrent Project or Future Product on a regular basis, rather than, say, "Book of Totally Awesome Guns!" or whatever. Until the people above say otherwise, it's radio silence and I ain't about to be the one to break it.

And, yeah, using ideas that are on a forum that you read is all KINDS of legal knot issues that I, for one, don't want to get involved with. Noooo thank you. So, would I like to bounce ideas of you guys to see where X or Y could be improved? Hell yeah! But, not allowed. Heck, I've had to bail out of several threads that I'd have loved to read because it's been too similar to something I've got on teh way, or am currently working on, and I can't risk cross-polination.

And that makes for a Sad Panda.

Posted by: binarywraith May 14 2015, 12:39 PM

This is a statement that requires support. Run Faster still has the same off page references, spelling errors, misplaced charts, and references to qualities not yet published anywhere that have been a plague on the SR5 line. We are 5 core rulebooks and two full years into this edition, and basic editing is still lacking. I personally think we're well past the point where 'it's a little better' is acceptable quality from products that CGL wants $50 a pop for.

Posted by: nezumi May 14 2015, 02:03 PM

I disagree with this pretty aggressively.

If I'm writing something, there are three major reasons I hit the forum. For this example, let's say I'm writing a location book. (Note: I do NOT write for CGL in any capacity, and all of my Shadowrun work involves drop bears, but I do sometimes get paid for words.)

1) Basic research. Shadowrun as a setting goes back for like a million years. I've been around for a long time, but not THAT long. What has already been written? What's established canon, and what's head-canon? Dumpshock knows. Someone has asked about that location, and with a little searching, I can find those discussions. That gives me references, clarifications, issues. Yes, I still need to do my own footwork and follow up on those leads, but DS tells me what some of those leads are.

2) Problems that need fixing/fan things that are really cool. I'm writing a setting book, so what settings questions do people have issues with? They're asking where all these Native Americans came from? well maybe I can look into that. They want to know how modern industry survives in an environment rife with paracritters? Alright, let's make sure we talk about how that works out. Someone found out about this awesome cult that lives in the middle of the area I'm researching? Yoink! A lot of people want more dark and gritty, or more epic, or more whatever. Let me see if I can work some of those plot hooks in there.

3) Post-publication do-betters. Apparently people don't like that I write it "ShadowRun" instead of Shadowrun. The editor didn't catch that, but there it is. So now I know for next time. People Really enjoyed my side bars, or felt my chapter was too dry. Next time, I'll do better.

None of this involves my posting at all, and therefore, it doesn't violate any NDAs.

Sure, dumpshock can't force freelancers to read and integrate comments. For a freelance who refuses to visit, yeah, we're shouting in the dark. But do freelancers benefit from visiting? Absolutely.

Posted by: Draco18s May 14 2015, 02:56 PM

I write it "ShadowRun" so there. :B
(at least when I'm not being a lazy arse, anyway)

Posted by: Sendaz May 14 2015, 04:10 PM

"Shadowrun" would also have been acceptable.

Posted by: Draco18s May 14 2015, 04:16 PM

http://www.masterzdm.com/NCD/showprofile.php?User=889 is always fun to hear.

Posted by: Fatum May 14 2015, 07:04 PM

There were heaps of criticism for pretty much every chapter, except maybe for the one on vampires. But we were both there, anyway.

Well, it wasn't War!

Yeah, new art is as a rule good.

Glorious! Surely that means some feedback will be incorporated, right? Hahaha.

Yeah, sweet sweet errata that entirely depends on the enthusiasm of its writers, takes ages to arrive, addresses single digit percentages of the issues with the books, and sometimes adds new ones.

I remember a few RPG books with rules that did not contradict themselves at every turn. Like, you know, Shadowrun cores 1-4.

And become spellcheckers who can't even correct grammar, much less fluff or crunch, as it was reported here CGL proofreaders do? What a breathtaking prospect.

Posted by: Sengir May 14 2015, 09:41 PM

Not someone, something. Something which has even been disowned by its creators, there is little offense to be had in calling that stupid, terrible, an abomination which should never have been sent to the printers, whatever.

And exactly that undisputed badness is why we should try to get over bringing it up in every discussion. Why not 6WA or Corp Guide, just don't mention the war...

Posted by: apple May 15 2015, 02:55 PM

That is certainly true and the reason why both German and French authors advertise the respective localized version with "Come to us! Massive improvements! 100+ Errata discussion went into the book"

SYL

Posted by: Shemhazai May 15 2015, 06:11 PM

I've recently been looking over some 1st edition stuff. I think the books today are much better.

Posted by: apple May 15 2015, 06:41 PM

Well, the German SR4 first print 2005 from Fanpro (they went bankrupt after that) was not really a light in the darkness either. Thankfully Pegaus has a higher quality standad.

MfG

Posted by: Garvel May 16 2015, 12:24 PM

Learning that makes me sad too . So it's a legal reason, that all the good ideas posted on forums generally can't be used? What a waste of potential. Most posters would be proud if their ideas would become RAW in later released books.

Isn't there a way around that problem?

This was mentioned earlier in this discussion. I also heard from another example of an RPG system asking their fans what they want for the new edition and using their ideas for improvement. How come other RPGs can use ideas from fans without any legal trouble?

Posted by: apple May 16 2015, 12:33 PM

Thats quite easy and depends on the terms of use for the forum: these kind of producer forums have usually a note with "If you become part of the forum, we may incorporate any idea found on the forum without any payment, legal obgligations etc. You forfeit every right for your idea. Thanks!"

For a computer game it sounds like:


Or in short version: "everything you do on our servers belongs to us. If you cure cancer and end world hunger, we get credits for it".

Dumpshock is an independent forum and that may create some additional obstacles.

MfG

Posted by: Garvel May 16 2015, 01:29 PM

Ok. So if you wanted fan ideas you could actually use as a freelancer, the only option would be to create such a producer forum elsewhere. Then you could make a post on dumpshock about the project you are working on, asking the people to discuss their ideas in the new forum, if they want their suggestions to be heard.

Yeah, I can see how that is out of the range of what a freelancer is allowed to decide .
It's a shame though, with the ideas of many heads instead of just one, the final result could imho become much better.

Posted by: apple May 16 2015, 01:40 PM

Well, perhaps the official SR4 forums already have such a TOS.

Posted by: Draco18s May 16 2015, 01:55 PM

You know. I suppose those of us who wouldn't mind having our ideas "stolen" could indicate as such in our signatures. "CGL is hereby authorized to utilize any ideas or content present in this poster's posts."

There's another game that I would kill to get their designers to think about some of the game design suggestions I've made. Not "they haven't integrated any of my ideas" but on a more fundamental level that they're making decisions almost 180 degrees counter to what would be considered "good for the game." The game is turning into a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c, basically. One where balance is so nebulous as to be meaningless (too hard under one set very predictable conditions, too easy under the other very predictable scenario, with the stated design goal that it will be balanced across that spectrum (hint: its not)).

Posted by: Wakshaani May 16 2015, 03:48 PM

Yeah, legalese is required and while *technically* I was pre-law, I ain't a lawyer and I certainly have no training in THIS field.

So, it'd have to be over on the official forums, and probably a single thread with a big blinky disclaimer that says "All ideas posted here belong to us. GIVE US YOUR BRAINMEATS, MWU-HAHAHAHAA!!!"

Which, you know, quite a few of us are willing to do, but I confess that getting paid for it's kinda nice.

Posted by: Draco18s May 16 2015, 04:35 PM

Now if only the software running the official forums wasn't utter garbage...

Posted by: binarywraith May 16 2015, 05:24 PM

Too true. I have no idea how it lags that badly under such limited load. I can only assume they skimp on their servers as much as they skimp on their web updates.

Posted by: flowswithdrek May 16 2015, 07:56 PM

I don't get this whole can't use ideas that have been posted in public because of legal reasons. I was under the impression that the idea itself cannot be copyrighted, just a specific implementation of it. As an example, shadowrun uses the whole magic returns to the Earth and links it to a cycle based on the Mayan calendar. Anyone else can do the same thing, they just need to change the specific details. So if this can be done, why can't someone use an idea posted on a forum?

Posted by: Nath May 16 2015, 11:18 PM

As far as I understand, the issue was originally brought up in the early days of the Internet, when there were no forums, only mailing lists and websites, and people thought it would be a good idea if content from the most popular websites was to be officially released into books. Clearly, the website owner word that he would be honored provided no guarantee he wouldn't sue later for copyright infringement, nor would it guarantee that said owner hadn't actually copied it from another website. But that whole discussion was about using those website content full-text. It's different if for an original text featuring previous ideas.

Ideas are not copyrighted, thought there is a really fine line. Using similar characters names and description for instance, or the strings of events of a story can be ruled a copyright infringement. However, in the situation we are discussing, they may be based on concepts for which the license holder has copyrights.

Say I wrote a story about Aztechnology pyramid-shaped offices in Seattle being blown up by a tactical nuke, and the plot shows up in an adventure. Aztechnology and the shape of their office were originally in books that belong to the intellectual property of Topps, Inc. So there only is one isolated element, the tactical nuke, that was original to my work. Since tactical nukes are a real thing, I actually own squat about the idea. If in my story the tactical nuke is smuggled in an ice cream truck, and that shows up in the adventure too, that's two points of similarity and the beginning of an argument. While the RPG industry has little precedents for such case, there have been some with fan fictions (I've read about a ruling, concluding you have no copyright at all over a work that make fair use (non-licensed) of copyrighted elements who belong to someone else - in which case a story about Aztechnology pyramid being blown up has no copyright, while one about an unnamed corporation headquartered in Central America would...).

Anyway, the legal advice the company got likely is: don't take the chance, don't do it.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 16 2015, 11:48 PM

That's like how the guys who were responsible for Lone Wolf McQuade sued the guys who were responsible for Walker: Texas Ranger.

Posted by: Sendaz May 17 2015, 05:08 AM

http://www.leagle.com/decision/19971548961FSupp587_11450.xml/LONE%20WOLF%20McQUADE%20ASSOCIATES%20v.%20CBS%20INC.

that was some fun reading.

Posted by: Stumps May 17 2015, 08:50 PM

On the value of Dumpshock:
Dumpshock is an invaluable test lab. If I want to see a variety of reactions to any given concept, with critically sharp responses; Dumpshock is where I will go. I usually post my ruleset alternatives here simply because if I still like the concepts after they have been chewed threw the rounds at Dumpshock, then I consider them well tempered. Many times folks point out simple and obvious mistakes that I have made (this happened just a few days ago in fact), and I appreciate that.
Granted; I'm just a hobby goer, so I don't have a team to bounce anything off of.
However, Dumpshock has always had a special talent at rulebook thrashing.
I don't think the best rulebook ever written would survive without a scratch here, but I also don't think anything should.
It's somewhat like crash tests; the question isn't whether it will come out without a scratch, but whether the disastrous mess of the crash test produced results that were acceptable.

I would probably never have gotten my personal method for Initiative finally ironed out just the way I like it without the onslaught of round after round, and thread after thread, of arguing back and forth over various matters related to the subject.

Debating, especially when it's seemingly pedantic and frustrating, is often a great fuel for producing creative solutions and motivations to find solutions to on-going puzzles.


On the legality of interacting with forums, etc...:
This is another reason I preferred giving up on giving a crap about any of this kind of stuff.
Whether it's writing, drawing, music, game designs, or whatever...

Perhaps this is because I had a very bad run-in with IP law at a very early age when I was a bright eyed novice convinced I was going to create and draw my own comic book, and ended up years later walking away not able to touch my own IP because I was naive and didn't (at the time) understand the effective leverage between copyright and creative control - I, unfortunately, only retained the latter; thinking the publisher was doing me a favor in taking over the copyright part (as I said; very young and very naive).

That took about a decade for me to get over, and it pretty much ruined my passion for doing commercial artwork.
In fact, it practically ruined my passion and trust in doing anything commercial for a very long time.

I don't have anything to offer in regards to the writers, or the forum about how to solve legal issues, or whether it matters or not.
What I can say is, anything I write is fully available for anyone to use for any purpose ever without checking with me.

I have the same position on all of my creative works - my music is made with the same availability.

My position has become:
The work itself is not the valuable aspect; I am.
If someone likes my work, then they can pay me to work if they want to hire me for something, and in so doing they will be paying me for working.
I don't want to be paid for the work itself (the object, IP, etc...), however.

So, again, I don't have anything to offer you folks wrapped up in various commercial tethers.
All I can say is that I found the creative process far more enjoyable once I stopped concerning over legal issues and just stopped trying to "own" things; instead focusing on just creating and letting it get out there however it can go.

Cheers,
Stumps

Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 17 2015, 10:10 PM

Posted by: darthmord May 18 2015, 04:45 AM

This is why when I was in grad school and I was writing papers, they'd get reviewed by the two toughest English Comp instructors in the school. One was a master at content shaping/formatting and the other knew APA format inside and out. If I made it through with just a mere ten corrections, I considered it a VERY good day.

I still have people ask me how I could tolerate seeing my papers all marked up in green ink. My Response: "Critiques are the only way to get better. I don't want 'rah rah, you did great' responses. I want the paper to bleed if it needs to bleed."

Posted by: Medicineman May 18 2015, 07:24 AM

No Way Jose .
If You ,Darthmord (or anybody else), does good Work, I'm going to mention it
(sometimes People just need positive feedback, even if they pretend they don't)

With a commendatory Dance
Medicineman

Posted by: freudqo May 18 2015, 08:51 AM

I've had to write on very different subjects than the one at stake, but with editing and correcting with very high standard.

I've had to correct hundred of pages of my work covered in red or green or blue ink, with margin full of comments on how I should have presented this or that differently. The post-it or the mail or the oral comment I got when doing it was in the vicinity of "it's really good, here are a few corrections, keep on like this!".

Just to say that it's entirely not incompatible to receive both a positive feedback and a paper covered in green ink. Actually, even without a positive feedback, the guy which corrects your work spending his time to make comments on it is actually quite a positive thing. If I have to review something that I find not interesting or in which I don't find anything positive, I'll just reject it or send a few comments on how the guy should restart from scratch.

Just to say

Posted by: carmachu May 18 2015, 10:35 PM

@DeathStrobe:

No offense but this is so much BS. I own more games then I can count and no game, NO GAME COMPANY, has as much editing issues as CGL. They are, by far and away, the worse at editing and proof reading that If I didnt know any better and covered up the name on the game and manufacturer, that it almost come across as an indie game in the editing, proofreading, and incorporating errata.

No, they get no slack on this. They need to do better. Period. This issue has been done to death, but your handwaving it away as "unable to single handly solve all the issues of the hobby" is just BS. We dont want them to solve the issues of the hobby, we want CGL to get their act together and produce something that reads like its professionally done. Because frankly its alot of basic mistakes, whether in process or lack there of.

Their Battletech line has their house in order and process in order. They need to follow suit on the Shadowrun side.

Posted by: carmachu May 18 2015, 11:12 PM

I think your wrong there. It is big deal in so much that folks who bought those books aren't buying them because you contradict what was once part of the game. because that thing you insulted just now ends up driving off or driving away customers.

Don't believe me? Recall the dungeons and dragons 4e rollout where game designers did piss on what came before in there roll out. And look what that got them. a fan base thay ended up divided and an edition that got cut short.

Posted by: Stumps May 18 2015, 11:27 PM

Haha!

Indeed; SR's editing and organization is notorious - and that's absolutely not a Dumpshock fashion or zeitgeist perspective.
Back when I first started SR, our GM had already played SR in the past and warned immediately of this issue.
In fact, the books (SR2 at the time) were littered with stickies and cross references.
This was back on dial-up and only slightly after the manual IP address entering days (you know; the "yellow pages of the internet" days), so definitely before Dumpshock.

My personal joke is that SR reads as if dictated by Jeff Goldblum trying to give a work-tour of a Nuclear Power Plant after a hang-over.
I used to call 3-ring-bindering SR core books (where you just slice up the book and rearrange it and cut parts out and paste them yourself where they all flow together more easily) "Jeffersoning", referring to the the Jefferson Bible - because by the time you get done doing that, you have sliced about as much out as Jefferson sliced out of the Bible in making his version of it.

Nostalgia has me enjoying all of this, but indeed - SR taught me how to organize material by being a great example of what doesn't work.
In fact, I use many of those lessons several times a year in documentation for training information at our company, so - in a way - thank you SR!

Also - a general philosophy in regards to information dispersion:
If a bunch of people continue over time to be confused by the presentation of the information, then there is a problem in the presentation of the information and not a problem with the receivers of the information.

I deal with this every day (working in a tech support department).
If we have a known issue, place it on the message prompt for folks calling in, and folks still are ringing through in spite of the message prompt, then regardless how straight-forward we may think that message is - it has to be changed to something different until we get something that folks can easily understand and follow.

The simplest test is what I call the Greenhorn-Time test (I use this with training material for employees).
That means you:
1: Take your material as it will be presented
2: Grab someone who does not normally interact with that material
3: Give them a specific problem to look for a solution for
4: Time how long it takes them to find that solution
5: Keep track of whether they found the correct solution in full (but don't tell them; just note it down)

If your end result is something like 10 minutes at 50-60% accuracy (for a book), then I'd say you need to remap the text for better clarity.

And yes, it is entirely possible to get this right. In writing technical documents and indexing them, I can guarantee that it is entirely possible to get folks to find a solution to a problem in manual texts within under 2 minutes with at least 90% accuracy without any familiarity with the material.
Heck; our Field Manuals in the Army were easier to thumb through than SR, and those manuals were far larger and for entire switch trucks with a massive amount of electronic gear to turn on and operate correctly...and if the government can do it...I have faith that SR could easily do so...but you need to actually "bug test" your book as a reference book.

Cheers,
Stumps

Posted by: carmachu May 18 2015, 11:44 PM

honestly this. You've articulated what I have put my finger on. It's what's been lost with the huge plot arcs With large npcs masterminding everything. Less about crminals vs corps, What drew me in decades ago

Posted by: toturi May 19 2015, 04:51 AM

I think it is about scale. The character can retire to some quiet place in comfort, if he is so motivated.

But the thing about epic scale runs with world shaking plot arcs is that the runners can be part of that. But it isn't going to be likely that they are going to be remembered for the epic battle of household names.

If they survive, they may boast of it. Some people will say they don't believe it, because there's no proof (which can be precisely the point). Or they can low key it and few people really know what happened and the people in charge can spin whatever story they want to explain what happened.

Posted by: KarmaInferno May 19 2015, 05:57 AM

It took me this long to notice it, but...

What the heck is a "dumphock"?




-k

Posted by: Glyph May 19 2015, 07:02 AM

They have just about always had huge mega-arcs going on, though. Nostalgia aside, I think that is one area that has actually improved a bit - they have mega-events, but focus more on getting the characters involved in the factions and double-dealing, rather than gushing over their overpowered author-Sue great dragons and immortal elves. Mostly.

Posted by: Wothanoz May 19 2015, 07:16 AM

I will point towards Privateer press and their popular IKRPG game. It's... uh. Well, it's comparable to SR in terms of contradictory rules, rules that might be rules or might be flavor text, and just terrible layout. It's actually got a very similar feel to it.

Granted, not excusing bad editing and layout, just saying it's not uncommon.

Posted by: sk8bcn May 19 2015, 07:41 AM

Agrees. I don't like that at all.


But I don't think it's the vast majority. I didn't like Heroes because of the inconsistency ofthe characters (1 season a baddy, one season a good guy...).

Posted by: Stumps May 19 2015, 07:57 AM

Why wouldn't any reference manual for game play, which will be used during game play, be crafted with expedience and clarity as the principle governing direction?

Or perhaps better phrased; why would anyone with the awareness of the use of the text, who is also involved in the creation of that text, want for less than this?

I've long wondered, aside from cost factors, why the texts aren't written in two forms: A) Standard text B) In-Game text?

(A) is employed to deliver the setting, mood, background, and at-length discussions of rules in a casually drifting format.
(B) is employed as a field-manual style of text which is efficiently designed to very cleanly list the rules and cross reference the rules, and is formatted for the easiest means of notation, memorization, and/or referencing.

For (B), think of a standard Bible with Book, Chapter, and Verse format and central columns which indicate cross references to other Books, Chapters, and Verses which a nearby listed verse in the current page relates to.
You could even use various colors of text to indicate various levels of information priority (just as the Bible uses red to indicate the priority importance of its divine characters speaking; i.e. more important information).

Take this image, and replace it with SR related words and subject material.
http://biblebuyingguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Hebrew-Greek-Key-Word-Study-Bible-ESV-008.jpg

...would be nice.

Posted by: Wothanoz May 19 2015, 09:51 AM

Hey man, not everyone is Steve Jackson. That's a company who I have the greatest trust that their products will generally make sense and be fairly easy to read and understand, and fairly solid.

Posted by: Stumps May 19 2015, 10:13 AM

Hey Wothanoz,

Why wouldn't it be possible for SR to follow suit?


Also...I wonder if anyone has taken it upon themselves to rewrite any of the books before...

Cheers,
Stumps

Posted by: Sendaz May 19 2015, 11:18 AM

Same thing as a PooPawn?

Posted by: nezumi May 19 2015, 01:13 PM

Funny, I almost jumped on you to explain how any old player should know what dumpshock is I guess you beatt me.

Posted by: Draco18s May 19 2015, 02:19 PM

I'll admit that the board game I helped create and Kickstart had some problems with the rulebook. We didn't realize how painful it was to look up a specific question until after it had shipped. And it mostly had to do with the rules starting with the basics, and progressing through the turn order in detail. So the stuff that happened first got detailed first. The failing was that there were specific questions which we didn't know would be asked and when the mind goes "ok, what section of the game is that under, oh this portion" and you'd look there and the answer wouldn't be there, because it had been addressed earlier.

Hell, I was running a demo of the game at a convention, had one table ask me a clarifying question (for which I was able to supply the answer), but I was looking it up in the rule book just to prove that it was actually in the rule book and I couldn't find it. The rule book was only a dozen pages long and there was no index, so we'd mostly made sure that every rule was in it and that it was laid out without running onto an extra page (and thus cost more to produce, because the minimum number of pages you can add to a center-fold-stapled booklet is four). We'd tried to organize it as best we could, but we had no experience doing it before.

There were also weird one-off coincidences where Card A and Card B would combine to have a unexpected detrimental effect that we hadn't seen come up prior ("So if you draw one card as a zombie, but this card says you draw one less, how many do I draw?" Uh...first FAQ question! You draw one! Because, um, ah, the zombie says "your card draw is set to 1" that trumps the other modifiers, whew). That one made it into the rulebook (and got a little sidebar), but there've been a few others since release.

TL;DR:
Sometimes there's only so much you can do, but a company like CGL ought to know the right way to do it, and they consistently show that they do with Battletech.

Posted by: Wothanoz May 19 2015, 06:05 PM

I suppose there's nothing stopping them. However, SJgames has a very successful flagship(and it's not gurps. It's Munchkin) line that brings in the cash for it. And extremely high standards for contribution.

Posted by: carmachu May 19 2015, 08:32 PM

So......one other thats fairly bad in the industry. OK. Hell I'll even throw in Games Workshop for free.

Still not anywhere near what deathstrobe claimed as a industry wide problem. Not on the scale that was claimed across the board.

Posted by: carmachu May 19 2015, 08:35 PM

In the background. Looking over my shelf alot of it prior to 4th was much much more localized plots and such. seattle, denver, and areas around NA. Not really like it is now world wide. Globe spanning plots and places.

But it could also be the grognard in me too.

Posted by: Stahlseele May 19 2015, 08:49 PM

Yes, and for CGL it IS Shadowrun actually . . Compared to Battletech it makes much more money, if i remember correctly.
Battletech used to be subsidized by Shadowrun because Battletech, for the longest time, still wasn't self sufficient in terms of money.
And they still treat the leech that is Battletech better than the cash cow Shadowrun for some fucked up reason i can't quite understand.

Posted by: Fatum May 19 2015, 11:33 PM

I've read a few codices of theirs; and they're nowhere as bad.
Oh, and errata and clarifications don't take a year to arrive.

Posted by: binarywraith May 20 2015, 12:44 AM

Because that's a ton of work with zero chance of compensation. If you're going to that much effort, it's honestly a better idea to just roll something of your own you can sell on kickstarter or drivethrurpg and at least maybe recoup some of your time.

Posted by: Stumps May 20 2015, 01:19 AM

hmm...
http://archerfansite.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/DrKrieger.jpg

Posted by: DeathStrobe May 20 2015, 04:31 AM

Oh yeah? Ever play a Fantasy Flight board game or card game? Or how about the Mage Knight board game? Or how about the biggest RPG in the industry, where is the errata for D&D5?

I don't know what games you play, but it seems like everytime I pick up a new game there is a few dozen or more problems with the rules depending on how complex they are. And to be fair, Shadowrun is pretty damn complex.

Name me one rule system that is as complex as SR and has no errors, typos, contradictory rules, etc, or at the least fewer.

Posted by: Stumps May 20 2015, 04:56 AM

Which should be motivation to have even better clarity.

The most disorganized book I can think of is the Bible and we've managed to figure out a way to organize it.
I have faith that Shadowrun could be organized a tad better than its track record.

I'm not stating that the various teams involved over time have miserably failed, or are some manner of degraded in respect for the issue, but it would definitely be nice if it were one of the higher levels of priority for such a complicated game.

I think the issue may be even further pressed with the expectation of expedience persistent inherently in Western culture now in the advent of impulsive information grabbing and wiki-culture.
It's a bit hard to run a boolean search or hit ctrl+f on a piece of paper (which is why I get, or make, a PDF copy of every one of my books and use that 90% of the time...it's far easier to find things in SR texts this way).

Posted by: Medicineman May 20 2015, 05:36 AM

Yes thats for Sure not only the Rules but the Game world too !


1 Hero Systems
2 Palladium Rifts ( the Rules are Wrong and unbalanced and lead to Powergaming Extreme, but they're not contradictory)

No System is perfect ,that for sure, but lots of systems are either better more clarified ( But I don't know that many systems as well as Shadowrun to judge/compare them in profound)

HokaHey
Medicineman

Posted by: Sendaz May 20 2015, 06:34 AM

Errrr... just compare ESV and KJV

Please note this is not intended to say which version is better or to condone either's usage so please do not shoot me.
Rather we are just discussing differences between the 'editions' for comparison to the quote above.

KJV uses more older words of which some have changed in their meaningover the centuries and one almost needs a working knowledge of 17th century English to really understand the original intent.
And do not forget KJV had many known translation errors that they have been errataing for 400 years.

ESV , which is itself an updated form of the RSV, has switched to more modern English, but that means there can still be translation issues and they have *only* had 14 years to errata it since its creation in 2001 although they are supposedly sourced from a better source text. (aka the Alexadrian texts vs the KJV which used the Masoric texts )
And there are still debates about which version is more accurate.
Plus they dropped the Apocrypha entirely initially and you thought SR dropping Skinlink was a big issue! In 2009 they did finally get that added back in.
So they took 8 years to get their equivalent of Skinlink back in print.

Suddenly the Rigger's Handbook and Chrome Flesh books seems like they are right around the corner no?

And that is just two editions that are considered to be fairly close to each other and you will still see squabbles there about RAW vs RAI there.

So 'organized' is still a bit of a subjective term.

Posted by: Stumps May 20 2015, 07:31 AM

That's meaning, not sectional reference.
Both of those use the same method for organizing and referencing the vast mess that is caused from a religion trying to make a rulebook out of material from three textual cultures over 700 years in spread with hardly any intending to be combined with the others in the way so desired by the current form of the tome.

It's a successful method, I'll say that.
"John 3:16"
See? It's so easy people write several sentences on a poster board in 9 characters of information.

Posted by: Sendaz May 20 2015, 09:13 AM

But it is relevant when the sectional referencing leads to contradictory verses.

Lets say we are sitting down to a game of 'Catacombs & Christians' and head on over to Chargen so we look up origins, but this leads us to two different verse sections.

Genesis 1:25–27, the story where God creates the world in seven days, clearly states that humans were created after other animals, and that man and woman were created at the same time.
In Genesis 2:18–22, which launches the story of Adam and Eve, animals were created after man, and woman was created from the rib of man.

So we have one Chargen where if we have an animal companion, we make up the pet first THEN the PCs.

The other Chargen has the male PCs coming first, then any pets with the one drawback that female PCs have to have a Male PC donate a rib for their creation.

Here we have a case of someone copy and pasting in sections (verses) together into the book without checking with each other that has survived nigh unto 1700+ years of editing.

So it is not so unlike when we see stuff in 5th that was literally copy and pasted into the book even though the rules themselves have changed regarding some of those parts.

Doesn't make it right, but it does happen.

Edit: And we do agree that there should be better organizing on the SR side. I seem to recall Jordan mentioning 'the Book' which was sort of a guide for canon in the way back when.
I do not know how currently any new writer gets to check against canon, but the feel right now I get is it seems more down to the individual to look it up on their own rather than being able to consult one single source.
Maybe that would be a good starting point.

Posted by: freudqo May 20 2015, 09:23 AM

It's my understanding that RAW interpretation is quite hard, and that many people choose RAI instead, with sometimes slightly contradictory outcomes.

Posted by: Stumps May 20 2015, 09:33 AM

At least you can cite Book, Chapter, and Verse of their contradictory rules.
I can't give you as nearly exact coordinates for such in Shadowrun.

Posted by: Sendaz May 20 2015, 09:42 AM

Touché

Posted by: Stumps May 20 2015, 09:45 AM

It would really be nice to be able to be capable of referencing Shadowrun as easily as one can reference a bible, though...especially if I were one who had to work on a new edition and had to reference the previous method of something.
Perhaps Shadowrun is in need of being bibilographed (I know...it's not a real word )?

Posted by: Stumps May 20 2015, 10:05 AM

You know...the more I think about this, the more odd it seems that a fantasy game hasn't used the biblical format...even if in tongue in cheek form.

Huh...

Posted by: Medicineman May 20 2015, 10:11 AM

DSA (the Dark Eye), the most known/played German Fantasy RPG, is referred to as a Bible (by some and luckily not by all)
The Dark Eye has the same Impact for RPG in Germany as D&D has (had) in the US
(and whenever I tell fellow German Players that Ulli Kiesow ( the Inventorof the Dark Eye) was my first GM
its a bit like .....telling You Guys that Dave Arneson would be the first GM .But I'll never Brag with that fact because I didn't like Ulli Kiesow as a Person and I don't like DSA at all !)

with a Non-Biblical Dance
Medicineman

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein May 20 2015, 01:46 PM

I give you Star Fleet Battles.

Posted by: Draco18s May 20 2015, 02:17 PM

I'm not even sure Dogs in the Vineyard does, and that game is blatantly religious.* I'm half-convinced the game is satirical in nature, but basically there aren't enough rules to bother giving them chapter and verse numbers.

*You play as Mormon missionaries who are directly empowered by god to do god's work, (side note: I never spell "god" with a capital G unless quoting scripture) and as such pretty much anything you do is considered a justifiable action. Town full of prostitutes and demons? Burn it to the ground. Town with one prostitute and no demons? Burn it to the ground (although your mortal superiors might get a little upset with you). The mechanics boil down to how to resolve dice rolls in a contested situation (character vs. character) and one global rule, "GM says 'yes' or rolls dice."

Posted by: Jaid May 20 2015, 02:41 PM

obviously, you haven't seen the same conversations with killer cyborg on the rifts forums that i have

(in short: the rules in palladium contradict each other all the time, and are notoriously unclear and require constant rulings from the GM to even function at all. ridiculously so. i would not use palladium as an example of good editing).

Posted by: sk8bcn May 20 2015, 02:46 PM

Well, maybe CLG lacks of a community manager.

With federation from CLG, I guess we could have a very complete wikia about shadowrun.

The existing one is nice, but probably could be improved and maintained and this would be gold for SR-autors.

Posted by: Medicineman May 20 2015, 03:25 PM

Nope have never been in any Palladium Forums and I don't like Siembieda's behaviour (from what I heard and read in other Forums) .I just played it for a couple of Years. I still have 30 + Books ( & TMNT, Robotech ,etc,etc, nearly 40 Books alltogether)
and Its been 15 Years since I stopped playing it ,but as far as I remember the Rules are coherent
The Powerlevel is totally unbalanced and Demigods and Hatchling Dragons together with Scholars , City Rats and Juicers and Glitterboys in the same Team with mutated Cat Girls, etc.
is ridiculous, but the Rules themselves were quite consequent. (partially overpowered, imbalanced and in Need of Houseruling though)


I wasn't referring to Editing(Which I can't judge) just the coherence of the Rules themselves.
I never ever considered them unclear or contradicting....

with a Dance from last Century
Medicineman

Posted by: carmachu May 20 2015, 08:39 PM

Nowadays yes. Edition or two prior? They didn't even know what errata was and took more then a year if ever.