I just finished 2XS. Options

[emo samurai]

So. Fucking. Awesome. Any other books with those characters?

[Ancient History]

House of the Sun by Nigel Findley

[emo samurai]

That's it? Okay. Are there any other books by him?

[Adam]

Shadowplay and Lone Wolf. All four books are very tangentially linked in that they share characters.

[HMHVV Hunter]

I have to agree; 2XS remains to this day one of the best Shadowrun books I've ever read.

I've been trying for years to find a copy of House of the Sun, but haven't had any luck.

There aren't many books with those characters written by Findley because, sadly, Findley died back in 1995. It's a shame, I know.

One book by Mel Odom ("Run Hard, Die Fast") starred Argent (who I believe was in 2XS), but I didn't get past the halfway point of the book before selling it back. It was just sooooo boring.

[SL James]

... and lame, too.

[emo samurai]

WHY!!! WHY DID HE HAVE TO DIE!!!!! SR would be, like, 50 times better if he stayed alive. Assuming he didn't go on to write bestsellers or something.

[DocMortand]

[nezumi]

[emo samurai]

What do you think Nigel would have come up with? Also, why did the insect shaman die when the two magicians in the party went astral? I thought he was only vulnerable when he was astral, too.

[Backgammon]

[emo samurai]

What, his weren't good or something? I rather liked Aztlan.

[Backgammon]

Sure, me too. But his locations tend to be unplayable, with a certain flavour of "cops here have panther assault cannons as standard, and know your every move, always. You are stupid. The GM will kill you." Great flavour, poor gaming.

[Grinder]

That was a major flaw of Aztlan, yes.

[Arkelias]

True, but I thought it made sense given what Aztlan was supposed to be. You could always work with rebels as well. I always reserved Aztlan for a place only very experienced runners would venture, and I loved the sourcebook.

Oh and after you finish House of the Sun (not as good as 2XS but definitely a solid novel) I'd highly recommend Burning Bright by Tom Dowd. It's a toss up as to whether it or 2XS is the best Shadowrun novel ever.

[Daddy's Litt...]

2XS. I raided Snow fox' library for them. 2XS, no question.

[mintcar]

[SL James]

[Kagetenshi]

[Backgammon]

My problem with his locations book, and admitedly I'm only thinking of Tir Tarngire and Aztlan here, is that while, yes they have a cool setting with a SOLID cyberpunk feel, he wasn't thiking of them as GAME sourcebooks. To me, Findley was an amazing author and imaginative person, but he lacked gaming considerations.

Repressive, invasive governements with highly armed police forces are really cool. It's however extremely hard to play somewhere where 1 slip and boom the police kills you dead, period. You either make it away scot free or you die. I prefer settings that have more player error tolerance, since as a GM it gives more flexibility. These are indeed game concerns, not setting flavour concerns, but I think good locations take these things into consideration.

Sure, as a GM you can lighten the setting to your taste. I'm not saying Aztlan is 200 odd pages of wasted dead trees. My next campaing is actually going to be in Aztlan! But when I can't use a setting "out of the box", to me that means it's not well written (or rather not well thought-out).

I also get that some groups here have no problems with a setting where drawing your gun means you die, but the majority of groups like to shoot stuff a little every now and then, and the setting has to permit you to do that in he name of fun.

[Arkelias]

I think it's a matter of personal taste. I saw Tir Tairngire and Aztlan as extensions of the game rather than default starting locations. As a GM if you've run the game long enough to have your characters become major players in say the Seattle shadows then either book is very useful. Suddenly you can present challenges to a group that are completely different than anything they've dealt with before.

To get into the Tir they need to use finesse and once their they have they have to be much more careful than they might be elsewhere. That said the Tir is mostly wilderness and one of the three major cities (Portland) has an active shadow community. There are definitely ways in and out.

When I look at the London sourcebook I see an alternate starting location. It's not all that different from Seattle in a lot of respects, and players would do just fine there. The same holds true to much of the NAN.

One of the things that I love about Shadowrun over D&D is things like this. Not all nations are equal, because in the real world...not all nations are equal. A group of criminals today would have a much tougher time operating in Washington D.C. than they would in Mexico City.

*shrugs* Just my two Nuyen =)

[ShadowDragon8685]

Arkelias, you're kidding me, right?

Washington, D.C. is the best possible places for a criminal to start off, as long as they don't do anything stupid and get near Capitol Hill or anywhere run by the G.

Think about it. In D.C., all private gun ownership is flat-out illeagal. Cops have to hand in their service arms before going off-duty, cash-delivery trucks can't carry firearms, homeowners can't own a weapon to protect themselves and their property with...

It is criminal paradise. As evidenced by the fact that it has the highest murder rate in the country. As long as you don't draw the ire of the G, the DCPD is not that much of a big deal. You're a criminal, so gun laws don't concern you. You know what that means? It means there's aproximately a zero chance of some outside idiot getting trigger-happy on your Runs. The corporate guards are limited to nightsticks, maybe tazers.

Of course, in Mexico City, I imagine you can just bribe the polize to look away, as long as you don't get near the G there, either... :)

[Arkelias]

No, I'm not kidding. Have you been to Mexico City? *shudders*

Let me give you an example. In Mexico City I walk up to someone on the street in broad daylight pull out my gun and say, "Get in my Van". No one notices or cares and the cops are too busy planting drugs on tourists to intervene even if they cared to do so. People can carry around fully automatic weapons anywhere but the nicest areas of town without really causing more than a few frightened locals (who wouldn't even bother calling the cops).

Now let's look at the same scenario in Washington D.C. I walk up in broad daylight and kidnap a child off the street. One person probably video taped it and 14 others called the cops on their cell phones. Especially if I pulled out an automatic weapon. Next thing I know six cop cars are combing the streets looking for my van, and they've probably also dispatched a chopper to scan from the air. Even if they don't catch me right away there is now an Amber alert on every freeway and news station with a rough description of me and my van and a current picture of the child. Most likely the FBI is called in as well to help recover them.

That's what I meant by the differences between Seattle as a whole and the Tir. But you are probably right...I should have said Malibu instead of Washington D.C. =)

[nezumi]

Considering the two major crime sprees that happened around here in the last few years went on for a good, long time before they ended (mostly because the perps didn't know when to quit, I'm thinking of the DC sniper and that group of bank robbers with the assault weapons), I'm not so sure about how bad it is to engage in crime in DC. Then again, in both cases I think they did most of their work in the DC metropolitan area, but not in DC proper.

I imagine that with "DC" spanning two states, a district and large coastal areas, snuggled happily between two major crime capitals (Baltimore and Richmond), in a lot of ways it's not too different from our SR Seattle.

[Daddy's Litt...]

My brother lives outside Dc. He said the snipers were in the suburbs. Virginia and Maryland. More open exposed areas. Not the cities. But open areas where there was lots of traffic