Bring the new comers up to speed, What resources would it take Options

[WeaverMount]

So I just can't get my hands on a the overwhelming bulk of shadowrun source material. There are a few top notch cashes online, but they aren't organize at all. The Sixth World wiki has a good structure, but is painfully shallow. Being new myself I'm not even sure what I don't know about eds 1-3 and the novels. Is there any chance of some sort of (semi) official compendium. Might a champion arise from the community to write micro reviews of the old books in terms of their relevance to a fourth ed game? Is anyone bribable? or are the whelps doomed to wonder the Sixth Word Wiki dreaming of what it could be...

[fistandantilus4....]

Well I'm bribeable, but I don't think you have anything I want. *shrug*

Are you looking for something along the lines of a newbie's guide, like Rules to Run By? Or a guide of what books to get and read (such as NewSeattle or 2XS)? Or are you looking for someone to recap the pertinent part of the last 20 years, since that is in the font of the BBB .... more or less?

[Bira]

You don't really need to know everything about previous editions to enjoy SR 4. The corebook contains everything you need to start playing, and the supplements have all the extra rules you might need. That's generally true of the other editions (i.e, if you play SR3, you don't really need stuff from SR2 or 1).

Each edition assumes the metaplot from previous ones is in the past, and makes it so you don't need those past books to play, either. They can be fun to read if you're into that sort of thing, but if any "past" knowledge is required for a "modern" book, the "modern" book will have everything you need to know.

[Ol' Scratch]

I think he's more interested in source material than rules. Things like the Sprawl Survival Guide or Shadows of North America, of which 4th Edition doesn't "officially" have very much of even if most of the content is compatible. For example, how is anyone who only has the 4th Edition books supposed to know much of anything about Ehran or Harlequinn? What is all this Dunkelzahn's Will malarky the core book briefly mentions? Universal Brotherhood? etc.

[imperialus]

I dunno looking at some of the stuff in the 4th ed book a lot of it does assume familiarity with previous editions. Fastjack talking about Captain Chaos' death in the BBB, referances to Hatchetman in the cyberzombie section of Augmented and a few others. None of it is "nessesary" but the fluff would make a lot more sense if there was some way that new players could find out about it.

Maby if Catalyst were to publish a PDF of some of the best "fluff" of previous editions. Just short stories, shadowtalk, ect with no game stats or anything like that. Package it up call it "Legends from the Shadows" or something and sell it for 15-20 bucks. A lot of the old sourcebooks are available on PDF anyhow so collecting it together wouldn't be a huge amount of work. Heck I'd buy it just to have that stuff in one place. The persistant and living story is part of what makes Shadowrun great but I can see how new players would have a tough time getting their heads around it.

Most DS'rs have been with the game for several editions now so a lot of it is second nature to us, but when I think about it from the perspective of someone new to the game with no one to explain the details to them or hand them a stack of old sourcebooks to read I can see how some people might find it frustrating.

If I were to plug my nominations for inclusion with the book I'd suggest off the top of my head:
1) Hatchetman's story (probably one of the best peices of fiction to ever appear in a sourcebook)
2) The rules for Urban Brawl
3) And so it Came to Pass from 1st 2nd and 3rd edition.
4) at least something about the corp war that killed Fuchi
5) Chicago
6) the Archology
7) Dunkelzahn, his death and his will

[Gelare]

8) Stuff about Morgan and Megaera, which got nothing more than a cameo appearance in the history section.
9) Universal Brotherhood
10) Horrors
11) Harlequinn and friends(/enemies/rivals/whatever circumstance dictates)
12) Thor Shot platforms
13) Omega Orders
14) More on HMMVV (or whatever that damn virus is called)
15) What caused Crash 1.0?

And surely more I don't know about, being a newcomer myself. I could definitely go for something like this, official or unofficial.

[WeaverMount]

The doctor got my request right. And Bira is right as well SR4 is totally playable and throughly enjoyable.

The bits of setting I feel like I'm most missing are:
1) Pop culture. I think the core rules mentions 2 pop icons and 1 video game. The fluff talks about how omnipresent the monoculture is, and I'd like to run at least a recognizable version of it, if not a cannon version.

2) The corps. So for its Renraku does computers and made the AIs, Ares does guns and space, Azzis are in some bad hoodoo, Seader-Krupp is really really big and has a dragon. I'd like to see the mega corps get a direct and superficial treatment like the magical organizations in street magic. I know they are all corps, but I'd like to give the corps at least a few notes of canonical flavor.

3) This is more general, but 5-10 page lexicon would absolutely rule. For example I don't need explicit rules for Urban Brawl, but I didn't even know it was organized into a League until a magical organization listed League membership as a requirement to join! Does it look like Carwars style Area fight, or underground boxing. Is magic allowed? Is it a fight to the death or is it just REALLY full contact football? If there were even just 20 words published or referenced somewhere a 4th EDer would find it I could put it into my game. I get the feeling that there are 20 years of good ideas that could be made playable with a similarly tinny write up.

I'm coming to shadow run from Whitewolf, GURPs, and D&D. Fun games all, but my first move as a GM was to gut the setting because they all sucked/weren't there at all. And the ironny for me now is that I'm involved in a game with an deep rich setting I actively enjoy, but its just hard to get all.
I hope I'm not coming across as whinny, the community is great and the publish material is fun, playable and well supported.

[Dashifen]

1) Your best bet here is the book Sprawl Survival Guide. It's a SR3 book, but there's very few rules and mostly information about pop culture.

2) There will be a book in SR4 called Corporate Enclaves which will discuss the current state of affairs with respect to the world's megacorporations. I think it's hopefully going to be released this year, but I'll leave it to the powers that be to correct me if I'm wrong. Until then, you're best bet is to get as much information from SR4, Aug, and Street Magic. You could try to go back and find the old books about corporations (e.g., Corporate Shadowfiles, Corporate Download, etc.).

--

If you want more focused information, I would also suggest the following books:

• Shadows of North America
• Shadows of Europe
• Shadows of Asia
• System Failure
• Dragons of the Sixth World
• Year of the Comet

Those all have good setting information, the first three about the areas mentioned, System Failure dealing with the Crash 2.0 and the fallout therefrom, DotSW is relatively self-explanitory, and YotC covers information about Changelings and other events of 2061.

[imperialus]

I'd also recommend Neo-Anarchists Guide to Real Life. It's an old 2nd ed SB but it has literally a metric ton of information about day to day life. To quote the back:

"Grab the kids! Hide the wife! The Neo-Anarchists are back! This time, those fun-loving anarchists speak out on everything from transorbital travel and security systems to coffin motels and fast food. Nothing is sacred, profanity reigns, and there's more data than you can shake a chip at."

[Dashifen]

I often think of the Sprawl Survival Guide as the SR3 equivalent and update to the Neo-Anarchists Guide to Real Life, so you might be able to get away with one or the other.

[Adam]

[Dashifen]

Oh! Well, then. Ignore everything I said under #2.

[WeaverMount]

Chicago and the Archology aer coved enough to run them, especially after runner's haven. The Dunkelzhan's Will section on Ancient files as an amazing resource. Likewise the SR/ED horror cross reference is simply staggering. I think those 4 are coved enough to be usable. But I just have to ask about the Omega Orders...

[Ancient History]

Ah! The Omega Order...

Basically, the Corporate Court keeps intercorporate warfare from completely trashing the global economy. They do this by authorizing a certain amount of retaliation against a given corp that's being too much of a pain in the ass by another (usually a rival) corp. An Omega Order, hypothetically, allows completely unchecked aggression against a single target by any megacorp. In other words, it's open season. If Ares, Saeder-Krupp, and MCT all wanted to use a limited nuclear exchange to take out the target corp's assets, that would be cool. More details in Corporate Shadowfiles.

The CC has never issued an Omega Order, but they came really close in the early days of Aztlan/Aztechnology, which has come to be known as the Veracruz Incident. Check Aztlan for more info.

[WeaverMount]

Thought you might poke your head in... thnx

[Wakshaani]

Well, luckily, Dumpshock is FILLED with people who're happy to fill you in on anything that you need.

There's only so much room in the core book, so, if it was a choice between a rule on grenades and a section on Aztechnology's new brand of air freshener, well...

[Begby]

My group pretty much plays it like this:

If we have the book and know the history or rule, can cite it or find it, we run with it.

Pure and simple. Don't beat yourself up because you imagined a government agency that is supersceded by a sourcebook, just go with it, describe it as you have, and stick a post-it note in the book with a little tag something like "already made my own". Source books, Canonical references, locations, rules and maps are made to be revised, changed and broken. A soucebook may be $30, but your imagination is priceless.

[Slash_Thompson]

If you're looking for more information on the corporations, Corporate Download from 3rd ed is a good place to start; just make sure to cross-reference it with the 4th ed corporate information to bring the 'landscape' up to date before you start running with it.

threats 2 may be worth looking into if you're really curious what went down with Cross Applied Technologies (CATco)

I think both are even still in-print, although once the current runs are out I doubt they'll reprint them.

[Dashifen]

It should be noted that if you're going to be at GenCon, the booth usually has old products for sale. I don't know if their discounted or not, but it's a place to look.

[WeaverMount]

@Ancient History: The Sixth World Wiki claims Art Dankwalther had an omega order issued against him. Any comment/clarification about you "Never issued" line?

[Ophis]

An Omega Order is issued against a corporation not an individual, I would suspect.

[otakusensei]

The more I read these forums, the more it feel like Shadowland.

Honestly, if you're looking to bring yourself up to speed and haven't been with SR since 1st edition there are a couple of sure fire things you can do.

1. Hit the used or bargain section at the local games store. There was good stuff in every book, buy them all.

2. Read the forums and figure out what books you need to target to learn about that really interesting sounding thing you heard.

3. When you do learn somethign cool, update the Sixth World Wiki. I'm guilty of keeping my knowledge to myself. but can you imagine how cool that would be to have it all right there?

4. And this is important, listen to everything Ancient Files has to say

If you aren't so worried about legality or morality look around online. I happen to know for a fact that nearly every SR book is available online in pdf by some soul who is putting them together as a labor of love. In exchange though I suggest you make sure every one of your friends buys every SR 4 book that comes out so that everyone can enjoy this game in the future and our shadowy new masters at Catalyst Game Systems can continue to eat and do this for a living (the lucky bastards).

[James McMurray]

[WeaverMount]

Otakusensei

[Adarael]

Updated it and cleaned up some random spelling/phrasing. The only meaty changes were the addition of information on the corporate court's 'secret accords' that may grant an Omega Order, and the following clarification:

an omega order is against any corporation, not just a mega.