Thoughts about Vice, surprised nobody else has gotten to this yet... Options

[Jaid]

the bad: vice is a little bit sloppy on the editing in a few places. there's a few repeating paragraphs (i can recall noticing 2, specifically, where it repeated the entire paragraph) a reference to page "XX", a few places where it said something along the lines of "it isn't <something>, it's <the same something>", and such, getting names mixed up. also, there's a place where it talks about lone star being the police force in seattle when the context places it after the switch to KE as law enforcement.

also, there is an abrupt change from shadowposts intermixed with shadowtalk to "this is OOC RPG book material" with no notice that felt really out of place...

the good: overall, it reads well. apart from the stuff i mentioned above, the editing is pretty solid, the material is laid out in a fairly orderly manner. i didn't notice much in the way of internally inconsistent comments, and we get a hint about what happened to dragonslayer (an old shadowtalker who didn't make it to 4th, for those who don't know). since i haven't noticed any previews (i expect that will change eventually though) i'll give you a chapter-by-chapter summary.

Crime Pays: starts off with the basics about different kinds of crimes; what they are, how they're done, and most have a "do-it-yourself" column attached to them to give you an idea of how it might work on a small scale. It then goes on into a discussion of the major syndicates; the mafia, the triads, the yakuza, the vory, and the ghost cartels, each with a specific example of the organisation structure in addition to generalised information. specifics about certain branches are sparse, if they are even present at all; this is not a detailed breakdown of crime syndicates in seattle or denver or any other city, it's more of a worldwide overview.

Ethnic Syndicates: discusses specific organised crime groups that are not quite as global as the above. for those who missed them above, this includes the seoulpa rings (including a few specifics about the komun'go; for those of you who have emergence, but don't plan to pick up vice, the short version is that they're still around, including Kaz Yakamura, so far as the shadows know, but that the yakuza are now aware of their existence and would be very busy killing them if they weren't so busy having a war with the mafia. the komun'go have lots of cash, but little manpower, and are likely to be hiring a lot of independants as we as trying to expand their numbers, of course). it also includes the koshari (for those who used the old denver missions extensively, this may be useful but is not required), the fanti pirates (off the coast of africa), the zobop (caribbean area, basically voodoo organised crime groups), the kabul maffiya (afghanistan region), and the grey wolves (turkey, greece, the balkans; parts of europe and the middle east, basically).

Gangs: starts with an overview of the relative power of certain gangs, split into three tiers. tier one is basically international gangs. tier two is large gangs that are not international. tier three are the rest of them. again, this is a global look at gangs, not for a specific city. it then talks about specific gangs as examples of the various tiers; tier one includes the Ancients, Comando Verde (mostly based in metropole), Chaos Engine (a matrix gang), the Yardies (london and parts of europe) and the cutters (added by someone other than the main shadowposter). tier two includes the Ardientes (Los Angeles), the Vikings (scandinavia), the Cocotona (Aztlan), the Numbers gang (mostly prison-based gang in Azania), and the First Nations (seattle gang, allied with the komun'go). Third tier covers a lot of gangs, mostly by type; go-gangs, matrix gangs, turf gangs, wizzer gangs, theme gangs, etc. specific examples are given, mostly not very in-depth, which i won't specify here.

Other Outfits: basically non-syndicate organisations that are more specialised. specifically discusses organleggers (there are 3 major organisations worldwide, by the way), crackers, fences (who apparently have a global VPN sorta thing going on), and a few smaller players (babel network; ID forgers, caduceus; street docs, chimera; assassins, hubbard's crew; kidnap and ransom, in-secure; security company that hires shadowrunners to test defenses, ya'mas; small-scale rogue military group, bang & stick; weapons trafficking, and technitions; distractions.

Dangerous Minds: dealing with independants. the only ones you're likely to recognise are Kane, and Netcat adds in Slamm-O (in a rather non-complementary manner, of course). Teachdaire sounds familiar from somewhere (a specially-invited shadowtalker? maybe in fiction somewhere?) and snowbird is also on the list, and is one of the shadowtalkers for the vice book.

The Law: basically discussing crime and related punishments, and how they can vary from place to place. specifically talks about extraterritoriality and what that means for the average 'runner. also discusses various law enforcement organisations, including lone star, knight errant, wolverine, and the PCC police, scotland yard, and the neotokyo police.

Game Information: frustratingly, there is not so much as a chapter heading for this chapter. one moment, you're reading about cooperation and lack thereof between different law enforcement agencies, and then on the next page it's suddenly no more shadowtalk, just an abrupt transition to giving advice about how to incorporate the material in the book. while it's handy to have, some sort of visible separation beyond the sudden change in tone of writing would be nice. this is the only chapter not to include a short story at the start of it, though it's hard to know if that's deliberate or not (it would make sense, since it's hard to write a piece of fiction dealing with incorporating the setting information into your specific games; but on the other hand, it could just have wound up in the same place as the chapter heading).

also, there is no index in the PDF as far as i can tell; presumably, there will not be one in the book either.