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> Spy Games now available for electronic download, print pre-order, Does Ghostwalker really eat spies?
JM Hardy
post May 19 2011, 02:51 PM
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The latest Shadowrun sourcebook, Spy Games, is out now (Battleshop, DrivethruRPG)! It provides an update on the intrigue-filled city of Denver--find out what Ghostwalker's been up to and why the different sectors of the city are pushing for a renegotiation of the Treaty of Denver. The book also tells you what you need to know about conducting intelligence operations, including a briefing on counterintelligence and details on using spirits in intelligence operations, and of course it contains a nice helping of new spy gear and new spells, adept abilities, and metamagics. All this, and dozens of plot hooks and information on other global espionage hotspots, including Brussels, London, Kansai, and Austin!

For more info, let's check out the official summary:

CITY OF SECRETS

Listen to the whispers—they’re all over town. People have secrets, millions of secrets, and some of them are so explosive they could shift the balance of power in the Treaty City of Denver. Normally, the great dragon Ghostwalker’s tight grip would keep the city under control, but some of the whispers moving around town say that Ghostwalker hasn’t been himself lately. The powers of Denver are scrambling, the Treaty is about to be renegotiated, and information is the hottest commodity in town.

Spy Games brings Shadowrun players to the espionage-filled city of Denver, where secrets are bought and sold, and sometimes the price is paid in blood. Accessing these secrets may mean using cutting-edge surveillance gear or powerful magic, or it could mean turning back the clock and breaking out low-tech cloak-and-dagger approaches that the techheads of the world would never expect. Spy Games provides the setting information, gear statistics, and game rules players need to dive into Sixth World spycraft.

Spy Games is for use with Shadowrun, Twentieth Anniversary Edition.

Jason H.
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hobgoblin
post May 19 2011, 04:45 PM
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So 23 pages of goodies and how to hide them, interesting.

btw, seems the jackpoint page name drops two unknown (to me) books:
- Street Legends
- Unfriendly Skies

And wtf is Hestaby doing at the UN?!

(do not have the full pdf yet, just looking at the sample from drivethrurpg).
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hermit
post May 19 2011, 06:43 PM
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Who did the cover art? And is Deep Shadows some kind of concept book, a series, or what? Books like War? I sure hope not.
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JM Hardy
post May 19 2011, 06:59 PM
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QUOTE (hermit @ May 19 2011, 01:43 PM) *
Who did the cover art? And is Deep Shadows some kind of concept book, a series, or what? Books like War? I sure hope not.


Cover art is by Eric Williams. Deep shadows is a series of books where each book is built around a theme, and features place information, gear, and other material related to that theme. They'll have one or two locations that will be the most detailed locations, and generally shorter bits of information about them. War! and Spy Games are the first two of these kinds of books; the next is Conspiracy Theories.

Jason H.
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Patrick Goodman
post May 19 2011, 07:00 PM
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The cover is by Eric Williams. (EDIT: Ninjad by Hardy...figures.)
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hermit
post May 19 2011, 07:26 PM
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Thanks (to both). The cover's real pretty. Can't say about the book because I don't have it (yet, I suppose).

Conspiracy theories is the London-centric book, right?
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Udoshi
post May 19 2011, 08:00 PM
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Are there any crunchy rules for fluff and gear in this book, or is it another useless Amazonia-book with a page or two of stuff slapped on it, like war?
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Critias
post May 19 2011, 08:08 PM
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QUOTE (Udoshi @ May 19 2011, 03:00 PM) *
Are there any crunchy rules for fluff and gear in this book, or is it another useless Amazonia-book with a page or two of stuff slapped on it, like war?

Get a post like that not a half dozen comments in, and yet people still wonder why most of the devs, writers, etc, choose to spend most of their time elsewhere on the 'net. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

The preview pdf is right there, contents page(s) and all. Feel free to take a look.
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hermit
post May 19 2011, 08:20 PM
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To be quite honest, it's not like we published a book as deeply flawed as War (and Attitude also wasn't exactly top of the line, though better). While it's unfair to condemn the book straight away ... well, it'S not like this comes out of the blue. And unless you ban all who don't suck up to you, you will get such voices for some time anyway. It's publishing, you gotta learn to live with that (even if your stuff objectively is good, some 20% are gonna hate it).

Since my download works now, I'm just skimming, but there seems about as much equipment and rules as there was in Attitude. 83 pages Denver, 48 opages of background fluff and other places, 30 pages equipment and rules. Well, it was 17 pages in Attitude and 26 in War (though it really felt like the reverse - Attitude was 17 pages of interesting and useful stuff and War was 26 pages of fail). So it's a bit more than War. Can't say if there're rules scattered through the background fluff sections (Espionage 101), but I hope not. That went very badly in War.
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Critias
post May 19 2011, 08:26 PM
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QUOTE (hermit @ May 19 2011, 03:20 PM) *
To be quite honest, it's not like we published a book as deeply flawed as War (and Attitude also wasn't exactly top of the line, though better). While it's unfair to condemn the book straight away ... well, unless you ban all who don't suck up to you, you will get such voices for some time. It's publishing, you gotta learn to live with that (even if your stuff objectively is good, some 20% are gonna hate it).

It's not a matter of arguing about War's popularity, or talking about banning, or demanding sucking up -- note, please, I mentioned none of those things, you did -- it's just me pointing out a basic truth. Acting like an asshole to every dev and constantly bad-mouthing their work before even looking at it means it's less fun to hang out here for the devs. It's not rocket science. I see people on here fling stones around willy-nilly, then complaining about a lack of dev interaction; well, you aren't likely to get both at the same time.

There's a world of difference between constructive criticism, a productive dialogue between consumer and producer, and the level of vitriol and entitlement that's been leveled around here since War. Don't be surprised that so few of us choose to hang out here, that's all I'm saying.

And, for the record, the closest you'll come to rules/crunch mixed in with the Tradecraft chapter is a series of NPC templates presented there, very clearly delineated from the rest of the chapter, presented in a shaded text-box and clearly marked as OOC game information (but there within easy page-flipping distance from the discussions about their various roles and agencies, for ease of reference/use).
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sabs
post May 19 2011, 08:28 PM
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Do you notice the correlation between the Level of Vitriol and the Production of War? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
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hermit
post May 19 2011, 08:31 PM
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QUOTE
It's not a matter of arguing about War's popularity, or talking about banning, or demanding sucking up -- note, please, I mentioned none of those things, you did -- it's just me pointing out a basic truth

Fair enough. But War! and the ... way soem authors trolled here in the aftermath after they were not praised to high heaven for their writing left an impression by itself.

QUOTE
There's a world of difference between constructive criticism, a productive dialogue between consumer and producer, and the level of vitriol and entitlement that's been leveled around here since War. Don't be surprised that so few of us choose to hang out here, that's all I'm saying.

Certainly not.

QUOTE
And, for the record, the closest you'll come to rules/crunch mixed in with the Tradecraft chapter is a series of NPC templates presented there, very clearly delineated from the rest of the chapter, presented in a shaded text-box and clearly OOC (but there within easy page-flipping distance from the discussions about their various roles and agencies, for ease of reference/use).

Yeah, just seen that. It's surely an improvement on the War mishmash. That's been done in Attitude already and I liked it there, too.
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Critias
post May 19 2011, 08:33 PM
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Hermit, just an aside, but please note a quick edit I made of my last post (handling your question about mixing IC/OOC stuff).
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CanRay
post May 19 2011, 08:35 PM
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Scanned through it, seems interesting. But I thought the same of War! until I hit that ER Waiting Room.

One thing I did notice, Clean Car Coating is listed and described, but no price, availability or modification slots are listed for it. And I doubt it's the only item that's missing (Again, no fine toothed comb.).

The update for Denver and the Data Haven/Nexus is greatly appreciated, however. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
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hermit
post May 19 2011, 08:43 PM
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@Critas: Thanks. Edited.

And yes, Clean Car Coating misses price and potential mod slots (though really, mod slots for paint ...?).
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Critias
post May 19 2011, 09:04 PM
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QUOTE (hermit @ May 19 2011, 03:31 PM) *
Yeah, just seen that. It's surely an improvement on the War mishmash. That's been done in Attitude already and I liked it there, too.

Which is part of my point, and part of why the constant dredging up of War! gets so frustrating. Lots of us very quickly caught on that War! was kind of the "African Child" (Get Him To the Greek? Anyone? Anyone?) of recent Shadowrun products. The very day War! hit, we started to talk about what needed to change to keep it from happening again. When folks act like those changes absolutely never happened, several releases later, it gets a little irritating.

We're trying to listen. We're trying to make changes. Some of you guys even (grudgingly?) have admitted that recent products have improved over War!, every once in a while. So then when every release is greeted by "LOL herp derp more War? I hate them all and their mothers smell funny!" before folks even crack the e-cover open and take a peek inside, it gets a little old.

I'm the last guy that's gonna claim every book is perfect. Heck, Way of the Adept was all mine, writing-wise, and I've still admitted that parts of it didn't turn out quite like I would have liked. I'm not passing the buck or claiming we're batting a thousand, here. I'm just wishing the feedback could be a little more constructive, in order to encourage discourse instead of defense.
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Udoshi
post May 19 2011, 09:29 PM
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QUOTE (Critias @ May 19 2011, 01:08 PM) *
Get a post like that not a half dozen comments in, and yet people still wonder why most of the devs, writers, etc, choose to spend most of their time elsewhere on the 'net. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)


Hey, please excuse me if I want SOME insight into a product I'm interested in buying, before putting money down for it.

At the time of my posting there wasn't a lot of details about what's actually -inside- the book. The battleshop preview has, the table of contents and the intro fiction and... thats it. Compare to This Old Drone's preview, which actually had a hint of interesting useful things for people to look at before hand.

And, well, now there is. Post accomplished, I guess.

You see, I'm actaully playing a spy type in an upcoming game. I want this book to be good, to be worth it, to not cause my gm to roll his eyes at Yet Another Splatbook. I want him to go 'holy crap, this is great, lets all use it'. Coming from someone who loved Attitude, I think you're headed in the right direction.

Since you want some constructive criticism, I figure I'd chime in with my 2 cents. I LIKED the older book design schemes: You want magic stuff, buy street magic, you want setting stuff, buy corporate enclaves or seattle 2072. Currently, it feels like they're kind of being crammed together in one book just to charge a bit more. On the flipside, I'm not sure there's a lot of content left to be treaded for a 200 page book to be made just one of the other.

But yeah. WAR! is basically catalyst's black sheep right now. Sorry if its pushing the devs sensitive buttons right now, but damn, take some pride in your work. Way of the Adept did wonders in my faith that some content producers still understand the system, and what needs shoring up and improvement. Attitude made me laugh, and I rather enjoyed the expanded clothing section ( would it have killed you to put the german arsenal 2072 clothing options in this section too?). Just becuase I enjoy debating rules on here all the time, doesn't mean I won't appreciate a good product.

Spy games, well. We'll see.
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Critias
post May 19 2011, 09:40 PM
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QUOTE (Udoshi @ May 19 2011, 04:29 PM) *
Hey, please excuse me if I want SOME insight into a product I'm interested in buying, before putting money down for it.

C'mon, man. Go read your post. Is that closer to "Hey, can I get some insight," or "Hey, you guys write shit?" Honestly. And then, note that in the same breath you bemoan a lack of information about what's in the book, and mention that the table of contents is there, clearly visible to all and sundry. I mean, it's the table of contents. If that's not "some insight into the product," I don't know what is. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

QUOTE
Way of the Adept did wonders in my faith that some content producers still understand the system, and what needs shoring up and improvement.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, I very much enjoyed working on it. Just do us the favor of remembering not every book is War!, okay? Or, at least understand how treating every book like War! (sight unseen) might explain the scarcity of dev commentary of late, is all I'm saying.
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hermit
post May 19 2011, 09:43 PM
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QUOTE
We're trying to listen. We're trying to make changes. Some of you guys even (grudgingly?) have admitted that recent products have improved over War!, every once in a while.

Nah, not grudgingly. Me, I want good SR products. I am deeply disappointed by bad products. I am not happy at all about any bad product. But that doesn't mean I pretend to be happy. And yes, there has been improvement in the line. Credit where credit is due.

QUOTE
would it have killed you to put the german arsenal 2072 clothing options in this section too?

To clarify: No options, just different mix-and-match clothes from different brands. There's a wealth more in the Berlin book (fluff only, though) and AAS' personal homepage (some crunch to the fluff), though.

Really, the Berlin book ought to be translated. Right now, it's my benchmark for a truly great SR book. I have to go way, way back to books that are flavored by nostalgia to find one I like as much.
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CanRay
post May 19 2011, 10:03 PM
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QUOTE (Critias @ May 19 2011, 03:08 PM) *
Get a post like that not a half dozen comments in, and yet people still wonder why most of the devs, writers, etc, choose to spend most of their time elsewhere on the 'net. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

*Cough*

THIS! IS! DUMPSHOCK!!! *Kicks random person into a bottomless pit*

Sorry, couldn't help it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
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Udoshi
post May 19 2011, 10:29 PM
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QUOTE (CanRay @ May 19 2011, 03:03 PM) *
*Cough*

THIS! IS! DUMPSHOCK!!! *Kicks random person into a bottomless pit*

Sorry, couldn't help it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)


More like DUMBSHOCK! Haha! Cause it is. Most of the time.

*ahem*

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I think the shortbus has enough seating for all of us, anyway.
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CanRay
post May 19 2011, 10:48 PM
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Actually, most of us are quite intelligent. Just opinionated and unabashedly willing to say what we think without caring about other people's feelings.

Not quite Internet Trolls, but not exactly safe for public consumption either.

Which, ironically, makes this forum perfect, both In Character and Out Of Character. Go figure.
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redwulf25
post May 19 2011, 11:38 PM
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QUOTE (JM Hardy @ May 19 2011, 01:59 PM) *
Cover art is by Eric Williams. Deep shadows is a series of books where each book is built around a theme, and features place information, gear, and other material related to that theme. They'll have one or two locations that will be the most detailed locations, and generally shorter bits of information about them. War! and Spy Games are the first two of these kinds of books; the next is Conspiracy Theories.

Jason H.


Well, when's that one coming out? Sounds perfect for fleshing out the conspiracy theorist contact of my groups hacker.
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CanRay
post May 19 2011, 11:42 PM
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Conspiracy Theories is a conspiracy put out by Topps and CGL to take money away from us in exchange for a PDF or a book!!!
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hermit
post May 19 2011, 11:43 PM
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So. I read the parts that interested me most: everything except for Denver. Okay, no, just the "hotspots", since they cover a number of actually interesting settings.

I gotta say, this is an improvement on War and Attitude. It's back to a Shadows of Europe level. Editing still could use improvement, but the margin of typos and grammar, format and other errors is back to the level of older books, which is alright I guess. Still, another glance-over would have been nice. The less errors, the better the impression.

Now, to the meat of the section.

The E.C. chapter has some bumpyness and sounds like it was written by a German (Lars, were you very tired when writing this? Uusally, your English is better), though I found it makes sense for German-Dutch Ecotope in a way. It's an interesting writeup though and makes me want to know more about Brussles, E.C. London surprised me most in that it did not make me want to type a colourful, insulting rant. It was a logical development of the SoE plot and respectful to canon for the most part. I care a great deal about London as a setting, and while I miss Lord Marchment, they backpedaled from their making this yet another Seattle clone setting apparently. That's the right choice. Maybe, just maybe, conspiracy Theories will not be an utter and total disaster. Now, Kansei and Austin are only marginally interesting but at least add some local hat to the settings. Berlin South here, with Lone Star; Ninja Samurai Corpers duking it out with Katanas there. Those settings will not win the cake but hey, they're okay. They even tell you why you might be interested in them, which is something that Bogota in War didn't manage in 50-odd pages. Improvement. A nitpick: It's the Yamato ideal, not the Yasuhito ideal. Nairobi is nice to see a mention too, since Africa usually is mentioned only in an offhand way, dismissed as the home of hellhole feral places where people eat each other habitually and love ghouls. And finally, Tel Aviv, another city I've long hoped to hear from again. and it's done reasonably well (as in, SoA quality) again.

Tradecraft looks ok too. Loose Alliance level write-ups of agencies and the likes. I'll read that too, but tomorrow. More then. Unless it'S seriously bad, then I'll just stop.

QUOTE
Well, when's that one coming out?

I hope not too soon. I'd hate to see yet another hackjob book like Attitude and it's wasted potential because no direction and editing happened.
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