Unpublished Drafts - Free for All, Chapters that might have been Options

[Ancient History]

For everybody who doesn't know me, I'm Bobby Derie and I used to write for Shadowrun. Several weeks back I terminated all my contracts with Catalyst Game Labs, the current license holders of Shadowrun, and withdrew all of my drafts for upcoming products. I made a promise then that I would release these drafts free to the public at some point, and now seems like a good time.

For anyone that might be interested in what might have been, these are my original final drafts for the Shadowrun sourcebooks Runner's Toolkit, Sixth World Almanac, Corporate Guide and Attitude. I had to edit and proof them mostly on my own, so you know who to blame if you come across a typo or something that doesn't add up correctly.

Disclaimer: The Topps Company, Inc. has sole ownership of the names, and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. The Topps Company, Inc. is not affiliated with the author, Robert Derie, in any official capacity whatsoever. The information contained in these documents is for non-commercial entertainment purposes only.

The following draft was originally submitted for Runner's Toolkit:

• Pre-Generated Auxillary Character and Kit System (PACKS)

The following drafts were originally submitted for the Sixth World Almanac:

• The Year 2029
  
• Amazonia
  
• Aztlan
  
• Canton Confederation
  
• Caribbean League
  
• Confederation of American States
  
• Indian Union
  
• Japanese Imperial State
  
• Peru
  
• Tír na nÓg
  
• Yakut
  
• All Sixth world nation drafts

The following drafts were originally submitted for Corporate Guide:

• The Megacorporate Shuffle
  
• Mitsuhama
  
• Manadyne & Mangadyne
  
• All three corporate drafts

The following draft was originally submitted for Attitude:

• The Untethered Life

[Synner667]

Astonishing work !!

[HappyDaze]

Thank you. I love downloading SR stuff for free!

[otakusensei]

Downloading now. I've never been so disappointed to see your work.

[Udoshi]

HAHAH.

I don't have to buy the RTK to get PACKS now! Suck it, loren greedman!

AH, i think i love you.

[Sticks]

I'm with Otakuensei on this, many thanks bobby and a damn shame we have to see this on Dumpshock

[phillosopherp]

Bobby I really appreciate you giving this stuff to us. I would pay you for it directly but I know you couldn't legally except it anyway! Thanks for giving this to your fans and the fans of the game, at least this way if the stuff that does come blows we can use what you wrote!

[Synner667]

Bobby I really appreciate you giving this stuff to us. I would pay you for it directly but I know you couldn't legally except it anyway! Thanks for giving this to your fans and the fans of the game, at least this way if the stuff that does come blows we can use what you wrote!

Why can't you pay him ??

Surely, you can donate cash to a paypal a/c ??

[Ancient History]

I cannot accept any money for these. Shadowrun is copyright of Topps, if I accept any money then I would be profiting on their property. I have very specifically included a disclaimer that these are being released for non-commercial entertainment purposes only.

More specifically, I also refuse to accept your money. You've been great fans, you deserve it, and this stuff goes to waste without anyone to read it.

[Synner667]

Fair enough - thank you for clearing that up.

As a related topic, does that also apply for fan produced material ??

[Ancient History]

Yeah, you really aren't supposed to profit on any Shadowrun material you produce. I believe it's fine to make it for your own satisfaction, to trade it around with your friends, to post it to the internet (please use Topps' disclaimers, available from Shadowrun4.com), but not to sell it or receive money for it.

[crizh]

Thanks for these Bobby.

I never really got any good feedback previously, would you be willing to discuss some of the PACKS stuff?

Specifics that spring to mind are the Pilot 1 agents in the Bot-net Herder and everything about the Gunsel Karcist. I'd love to see the community polishing these up in the way CGL ought to have been over the last year....

[Jaid]

just looking through PACKS, and i'm a little confused. in many of the profiles you have a 'required' logic + intuition. however, in the main writeup, you tell us that the knowledge skills are considered to be bought with BP... and so far as i can tell, the log + int wouldn't usually cover the BP cost anyways.

which makes me wonder... what exactly is the log + int required for?

(and on a side note, your gunsel karcist really needs more resonance, or his essence loss will take away that minimum resonance entirely, but i presume that was just something you hadn't caught in your self-proofreading)

edit: or is minimum resonance/magic supposed to be minimum *after* essence loss?

[outlawpoet]

Thanks AH, you're a champion, and when I win the lottery, you'll write all the sourcebooks in Fifth Edition.

[JM Hardy]

just looking through PACKS, and i'm a little confused. in many of the profiles you have a 'required' logic + intuition. however, in the main writeup, you tell us that the knowledge skills are considered to be bought with BP... and so far as i can tell, the log + int wouldn't usually cover the BP cost anyways.

which makes me wonder... what exactly is the log + int required for?

(and on a side note, your gunsel karcist really needs more resonance, or his essence loss will take away that minimum essence entirely, but i presume that was just something you hadn't caught in your self-proofreading)

Speaking of "self-proofreading," that wasn't all that was done on this document. It appears that this is the version that was reviewed by 5 proofreaders and received some development work by me. I see that Mark Dynna is mentioned in your header--did you talk to the other proofers about giving away the results of their efforts? Personally, I don't recall hearing from you about that.

Which makes me wonder about the other articles. Are they first drafts, or ones that were edited by others? Are you giving away the work of anyone else?

Jason H.

EDIT: Later in the thread, Bobby said that all changes made were made by his own proofing pass. So my statement that he was using work done by others was incorrect, and I retract it.

[Starglyte]

Glad to see that San Antonio finally got some love from someone in the Aztlan section, but I got to point out that according to the Neo-A guide to North America, the Alamo was moved to Dallas/Ft.Worth before the Azzies took San Antonio.

[Synner667]

Yeah, you really aren't supposed to profit on any Shadowrun material you produce. I believe it's fine to make it for your own satisfaction, to trade it around with your friends, to post it to the internet (please use Topps' disclaimers, available from Shadowrun4.com), but not to sell it or receive money for it.

Hmmm, ok.

Thanks for that - much appreciated.

[otakusensei]

Speaking of "self-proofreading," that wasn't all that was done on this document. It appears that this is the version that was reviewed by 5 proofreaders and received some development work by me. I see that Mark Dynna is mentioned in your header--did you talk to the other proofers about giving away the results of their efforts? Personally, I don't recall hearing from you about that.

Which makes me wonder about the other articles. Are they first drafts, or ones that were edited by others? Are you giving away the work of anyone else?

Jason H.

Seeing as you're like, who know, line dev and all; couldn't you just look it up?

[Fuchs]

Thanks, AH.

[Rojo]

Thanks...
Good stuff
Rojo

[JM Hardy]

Seeing as you're like, who know, line dev and all; couldn't you just look it up?

Sure. Just giving Bobby a chance to set the record straight first.

Jason H.

[Jaid]

HAHAH.

I don't have to buy the RTK to get PACKS now! Suck it, loren greedman!

AH, i think i love you.

errmmm... i should point out, the author himself indicated this is a *draft*.

now, some of it, perhaps even *most* of it, is quite solid. but if you go through it with a fine-toothed comb (which, so far as i can tell, has not been done, at least for the entire document... for example, it looks like many of the rigger kits (not profiles) have combat drones with no weapons for them...) you're likely to find at least a few spots that could use some polishing. (i believe there's also a few examples of software that can't run on the owner's hardware, to provide a further example).

so... yes, an absolutely tremendous amount of work went into this. but there's still a tremendous amount of work to be done to bring it to the point where it would be ready for print, still (which i'm sure would have been done if circumstances weren't what they are). which, so far as i am concerned, most likely means that anything CGL comes out with along these lines in the near future is either going to be a *lot* less comprehensive (ie nowhere near as many profiles/kits), or it's going to be really, *really* full of errors. (or both).

this is an awful lot of work to share with us. thank you, Bobby, for letting us have a look.

[Fuchs]

I was not aware that proofreading a text made the proofreader co-author or gave him a similar position.

[JM Hardy]

I was not aware that proofreading a text made the proofreader co-author or gave him a similar position.

Didn't say they were. But it's work, isn't it? Is there some reason there work should be unacknowledged, or they should have no say in how it is used?

Jason H.

[Fuchs]

Didn't say they were. But it's work, isn't it? Is there some reason there work should be unacknowledged, or they should have no say in how it is used?

Jason H.

No. Proofreading shouldn't give you any say about what the author of the text can do with it.