The reissuing of classic books Options

[KunoNoOni]

So being new to shadowrun I was wondering whats up with the reissuing of classic books? Are they still viable in sr4?


KunoNoOni

[Catadmin]

Are you talking about Source material or novels?

A couple of source books are available in .pdf format with the Corporate Guide on Battleshop and DriveThruRPG.com. And several novels recently became available also in e-format. But I doubt any of them will be physically reprinted. (That's just my personal opinion, though, and I know nothing for fact in regards to this).

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

If you mean stuff like the Urban Samurai's Catalogue, then no. They are not 4 edition compatible.

[KunoNoOni]

WOW, yeah sorry about not being too clear with my question. I was talking about the source books.

KunoNoOni

[Catadmin]

It's okay. I misread the question to begin with. I thought you were asking if any were coming out.

Metaplot is still good. Rules, not so much. But if you found a classic adventure you wanted to run, I would think all you have to do is tweak the rules-based stuff to equal 4th edition and it should work just fine.

[KarmaInferno]

And, well, technically, some folks still run older edition games.

Don't tell the roleplaying police that, though.




-karma

[Bull]

Statwuise, no, not compatible.

But WELL worth it for the background material. There's a lot of flavor that is, IMO, largely missing from 4th edition fluff. Plus, knowing the games history is never a bad thing.

For example, the Street Samurai Catalogue. It has pictures of all the quipment in it, and some in game shadowtalk for each. It also gave us the fun little in fighting between Neon Samurai and... Blah, it's late. I can;t remember off the top of my head his sparring partner. But there was some great stuff in there.

I highly recoomend getting and reading all the older source material that you can. It will greatly broaden your Shadowrun knowledge and world view.

[Martin_DeVries_I...]

That would be Nightfire, the Ares company man. He and Neon Samurai were arguing over whether NS had murdered his father, or if Ares had and was covering it up. It was a lot of fun to read those older books and see the personalities come through. Just like in Shadowtech, with KAM and The Smiling Bandit.

[hermit]

Those were the days.

[Abstruse]

I actually read the old books more than the new ones, even when I'm running a game. There's a very strong story being told in those books that has a lot more planning and forethought applied to it than what seems to be shown in 4e. Plot notes from one book carry over to the next. UB gets referenced in Tir Tairngire which leads into Aztechnology which closes with something a mystery that has clues given in the Denver boxed set and so on.

[CodeBreaker]

And for anyone interested in the Matrix many of the early edition Matrix books are well worth the read. They tend to go into more depth about how everything started up, which helps you understand just how different the internet and the Matrix really are.

[imperialus]

I actually read the old books more than the new ones, even when I'm running a game. There's a very strong story being told in those books that has a lot more planning and forethought applied to it than what seems to be shown in 4e. Plot notes from one book carry over to the next. UB gets referenced in Tir Tairngire which leads into Aztechnology which closes with something a mystery that has clues given in the Denver boxed set and so on.

I'm not sure you're giving 4th ed enough credit. There've been a ton of references to Ghost Cartels and Tempo. In (I think it was) Corp Guide Haze posted something, and the poster immediately after him basically told him to go die in a hole. There's still a ton of metaplot in SR4A, the Shadowtalkers seem to have a lot more personality now with the vignettes that they participate in, (especially with the 10 Jackpointers) and For the most part I think there has been a lot of coherence to it too.

Back in previous eds the only times the only shadowtalkers that really stuck out in my head were a few of the big names (Laughing Man, Big D, Wordsmyth ect.) and Hatchetman, mainly because of the short story where he talked about his cyberzomibification.

I must admit I liked the catalog format though.