 I read Runner Havens and then read New Seattle, big difference in quality |
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 Jan 26 2007, 05:05 PM
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#26
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Neophyte Runner  Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67  |
I totally understand the desire for more maps. Again, this is something the authors actually wanted, but it just couldn't be done (in the book, at least, I still feel we should have more on the website). As for neighborhood descriptions, can you give me some specifics about what you feel is missing from the Districts section of RH? The intent of that section is to inform the GM and players of the feel of each section of the city, so I'm curious what you find missing. |
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Jan 26 2007, 05:39 PM
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#27
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
Ummm... well, no. 1) The section you are quoting is being taken out of context. That was a response to the "new players don't need to be barraged by information" argument, not a statement that RH had insufficient information in this area. 2) I didn't buy Runner Havens. I could buy Runner Havens or New Seattle. Runner Havens seemed to have a cool idea with guidelines on how to "create a runner haven", but they didn't really seem like rules or anything I wouldn't automatically do on my own when setting a shadowrun somewhere. I had a choice of buying Runner Havens or New Seattle. New Seattle was cheaper and seemed to convey more information and rules, while RH seemed to have less of both. Also, since I had already set my campaign in Seattle, the Hong Kong stuff seemed more or less useless to me (even though, by coincidence, my campaign features a Triad operation smuggling in some technomancers from hong kong as part of a major power play happening). 3) If Runner Havens had the information you're suggesting then maybe it's layout was lacking somewhat, because I didn't see it when I flipped through it in a bookstore whereas New Seattle looked immediately useful, like I could start enhancing my campaign immediately with it. I'm not saying I didn't like Runner Havens, because I didn't buy it, just that New Seattle was really cool. Some people on this forum are saying that Seattle is even better, but I haven't seen it. |
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Jan 26 2007, 06:10 PM
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#28
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
I would really love to see a book that combined the ideas behind New Seattle and Sprawl Sites, but with more of an emphasis on "these are potential good shadowrun sites and here are some adventure ideas" listed in each area chapter. Maps in sprawl sites are cool and stuff, but they had almost no description of security for these locations. If I had descriptions of an overall area (for the various neighborhoods in seattle; say each one as its own chapter) and 3 or more sample run locations with maps, security ideas, a small paragraph or two for suggested variations, and adventure ideas associated with each mapped site, that would be really useful to me and I think to most new GMs. An extra chapter on a certain arcology wouldn't hurt, either...
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Jan 26 2007, 06:11 PM
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#29
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
They actually meant something in Seattle, but yeah, in NS it's empty wordcount. |
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Jan 26 2007, 07:53 PM
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#30
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 340 Joined: 18-September 06 From: Chicago (CZ) Member No.: 9,422 |
I thought that detail like that would just add depth to the game. THink about it, when you do something do you have a favorate spot you go to? People have their favorate coffee houses and restuarunts, runners do to.
What kind of runner are you? Are you a face who is used to upscale dining and haughty social events? If so what resturaunts would you frequent and what yuppie wine bar do you do your bussiness in? If I'm a technomancer do I hang out in the arcade all day, a computer lab, or in AR/VR all day? What about average joe runner/mr johnson who is a big sports fan? Where do they go. Depth, sorry that I loke to throw a fodder of details at my GM but it helps me get into character. |
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Jan 26 2007, 10:24 PM
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#31
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
Yeah, but New Seattle is there. And generally speaking available. :) (is it or Seattle been converted to PDF yet?). P.S. I think your feeling about not being able GM a Shadowrun game until reading New Seattle is more than a little illusionary. You might not GM a Shadowrun game set in Seattle that measured up to the requirements of a canon stickler. But to do that you should expect to drop the cash for a few books given the enormous breadth of SR material. On the otherhand running a Shadowrun game is very possible with just the core book alone and virtually no other SR experience or knowledge. |
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Jan 27 2007, 12:29 AM
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#32
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 |
This seems to be a fault common in RPGs today. To me it looks like they are trying to cover too much in a single book and as such don't provide as much info as the older books did. D20 is terrible about this with most of the new supplemental books being pitiful compared to those from the previous editions. Too bad that might be happening in SR4 too.
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Jan 27 2007, 12:53 AM
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#33
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,266 Joined: 3-June 06 From: UK Member No.: 8,638 |
I rather liked Runner Havens. While comparitively content light on Seattle itself compared to Seattle and New Seattle, that's hardly surprising, considering the disparity in word count. My favourite section in RH was the part about designing your own city, although I do feel that I could run something reasonable in Hong Kong or Seattle. Some more of the population, economics and crime stats that were so common in the older books would have been interesting, but ultimately that's flavour that can be added by an imaginative GM.
What I'd like to see more of is European (specifically UK) locations. |
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Jan 27 2007, 01:11 AM
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#34
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
It's a tough call for whoever has to make these decisions. Do you release two different books, Seattle and Hong Kong? Well, then fans might complain that they need to buy too many products to get to know the setting because its fractured in a weird way. You have two better products, which probably will please the fans more, thus you can charge more for them or at the same prices we could assume fans are more likely to buy them. But your expenses increase publishing and marketing two different books (or more). Plus, your total sales get segregated into those groups who buy Seattle and those groups who buy Hong Kong, thus you might find that while you sell more products overall, the percentage of profit each book is making is considerably lower than you would have expected. It can also interfere with your intentions to release other unrelated products. On the other hand, releasing them together saves time and marketing expense, plus it appeals to a broader market. Especially in this case because, as people have noted, Seattle was covered before and to re-release a Seattle book, it has to contain new stuff. But you've had to make some tough editing choices and cut it down to size to make it one reasonably affordable book that's easy to produce. Thus, you cover more topics ensuring more people will find some use out of it, then more specialized books that would have appealed to a smaller market but given them much more use. Individually, people are less satisfied with it, but there's more satisfaction overall (and thus more revenue). It's just a matter of tough marketing calls. They're not easy choices. Generally speaking, the latter choice (which I tend to think of as the 'magazine' strategy) is growing very popular within the RPG industry. You can see why here on this forum from time to time, with various people expressing opinions on all kinds of things they'd like to see. Presumably, these people would buy a product that at least touched on the subjects they were asking for, even if they didn't go into as much depth as they would have liked. Also, consider that by merely touching multiple subjects (say, Seattle and Hong Kong), they've still left themselves open to developing more specialized books with those topics later. You couldn't do it the other way around. Someone who bought Even Newer Seattle and Hong Kong would never buy Runner Havens after that. Also, by grouping the information together in a format that's even more marketable, like including Hong Kong info along with your Seattle info, you might spark interest for a subject in a reader who otherwise would have never been even briefly exposed to that information (so it would have been harder to sell a Hong Kong book after publishing Seattle than it would be to sell a Hong Kong book after publishing Runner Havens). I understand the marketing choices and why its being done the way it is, but I, too, agree with you that I'm sorry to see this happening with Shadowrun. |
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Jan 27 2007, 01:15 AM
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#35
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
What did this have in it? You're the first person I've heard say that and from the what brief look I had of the book, I didn't see any guidelines or rules at all other than "have lots of corps, have lots of crime, have lots of conflict" which is, I think, inherently obvious. I was expecting to have like a catalog of "features" or something you could use to describe/run different cities or... I don't know... something. Character generation for a city or some-such. |
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Jan 29 2007, 01:25 AM
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#36
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,512 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 392 |
I think that MrJ's LBB was much better for this than Runner Havens was. Random neighborhood generators, sample locations, etc. Of course MrJLBB was better than most books I've seen in a while in terms of fluff and GM aid. |
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Jan 29 2007, 01:45 AM
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#37
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Goettingen Member No.: 1,094 |
And why? :proof: :sarcasm: |
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Jan 29 2007, 02:58 AM
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#38
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 |
You hit the nail on the head. Publishing expenses are a major factor in these decisions now. One way around this would be to release more content on the web. A lot of these books are also available on PDF formats. That would save a lot of publishing expense, but it would do nothing about the creative expense of designing and putting it all together. What could work would be something like a "Shadowrunner's Travelguide Pamphlet" released as PDFs. Each one could be maybe 40 or 50 pages long, give or take, and focus on a given city. It would cover the regions, some detail about them and some sample locations, like in the older books. Sort of like the Shadowrunner's Guide to North America except that the chapters would be about a single major city and its immediate vicinity. |
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Jan 29 2007, 03:16 AM
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#39
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,748 Joined: 5-July 02 Member No.: 2,935 |
Small snag: by its agreement with WizKids, Fanpro cannot release a product exclusively as a PDF.
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Jan 29 2007, 04:30 AM
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#40
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 548 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,416 |
Really? Gotta love lawyers. |
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Jan 29 2007, 05:40 AM
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#41
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Purely electronic products are the sole domain of the portion of FASA that went to Microsoft. -Frank |
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Jan 29 2007, 05:53 AM
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#42
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 745 Joined: 2-January 07 From: Los Angeles, CA Member No.: 10,510 |
Wow. |
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Jan 29 2007, 07:27 AM
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#43
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
The old setting books didn't take themselves to seriously - so it was not that bad for the GSB not to make sense... though nothing beats the old Austria setting. The new one, on the other hand, is an encyclopedia with more pages and factual errors than the main book... and finally got it's own supplement trying to make sense, especially concerning politics. All in all, the german setting books most of the time are good examples of 'trying too hard'. |
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Jan 29 2007, 09:16 AM
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#44
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
Actually, this is incorrect. It wasn't "purely electronic products" that went to FASA Interactive and Microsoft, it was the rights to any and all SR and Battletech video and computer game-related products, period. FanPro's original license from Wizkids covered all Shadowrun and Battletech Classic-related roleplaying and table top game properties with a couple of notable exceptions. One was the novels (at the time Wizkids had other plans for those rights) and another was exclusively electronic products (chalk it up to pdf only sales being a fringe market at the time). While the former issue is in limbo for various reasons, FanPro is actively addressing the second issue. |
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Jan 29 2007, 09:48 AM
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#45
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Great, I'm a Dragon... Group: Retired Admins Posts: 6,699 Joined: 8-October 03 From: North Germany Member No.: 5,698 |
Yep. And the "romantic" (for a lack of a better description) anarchist ideas, like Free Berlin or all the major shadowtalkers coming from the anarchist' scene. :S |
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Jan 29 2007, 09:56 AM
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#46
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 107 Joined: 21-December 06 Member No.: 10,413 |
SR4 seems to be more GM driven then previous editions, and its reflected in RH.
The GM is supposed to tailor the environments to fit the story and type of story their running. ( Some GM's like to emphasize a more cyber punk element where others like a more current time with a few extra touches environment.) So the information provided gives the time frame and its up to the GM as to how things look and feel. |
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Jan 29 2007, 10:09 AM
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#47
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,629 Joined: 14-December 06 Member No.: 10,361 |
I wouldn't mind a book based on criminal operations and other shadowrunner relevant information. Info on perhaps big yakuza/mafia strongholds, more on those shifty seoulpa ring shenanigans. I wanna know some specific arms dealers, fences, johnsons, smugglers, deckers and other shadowy characters and how they operate within the city, and how they interconnect.
Also, rather than a whole gamut of hotels and bars I'd like to see some detailed info on some specific sites in the city, like some big parks, any beaches, a certain city block/carpark/street that is contested gang territory and has regular gang war. I want to know more about the various smuggling operations going in and out of seattle, what are the profitable goods to smuggle and to where, and what does it involve. It'd would be very cool to get involved in some independent black-market commodity trading. I don't need to know about a 13th coffin motel and whether the owner has a hard on for ethnic dwarves and hates albino trolls. |
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Jan 29 2007, 11:21 AM
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#48
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Great, I'm a Dragon... Group: Retired Admins Posts: 6,699 Joined: 8-October 03 From: North Germany Member No.: 5,698 |
Do you know Target: Smuggler Havens and Underworld sourcebook?
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Jan 29 2007, 02:16 PM
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#49
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Goettingen Member No.: 1,094 |
Aehm, you know there are german ADL-specific sbs after DidS 2? Like Brennpunkt ADL, Schockwellen, München Noir, the extended Hamburg Chapter of Runner Havens, which are quite different compared to the "gagaesque" DidS 1(1994!) and the encyclopedic DidS 2(2001!)(and I agree more or less with your opinion in both of these points)? And I hardly believe European Policlubs full of Anarchists are a Fanpro(Germany) invention... |
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Jan 29 2007, 02:21 PM
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#50
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Great, I'm a Dragon... Group: Retired Admins Posts: 6,699 Joined: 8-October 03 From: North Germany Member No.: 5,698 |
I know the books, yes. But all the books don't fix the broken setting, that the ADL is. It has too many small states, that somehow don't fit. I would enjoy the german setting much more if a new revolution re-unites germany and brings it under a rigid police-state. That way, the setting would become different from the north american continent ("They have an elven kingdom! We'll have one too! And a troll one and an dwarven one!") and anarchists become more realistic.
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 28th November 2025 - 03:42 AM |
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