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> Street Legends (new sourcebook announced by CGL), Stat 'em all! (Review of the Preview)
Grinder
post May 23 2011, 06:50 AM
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http://www.shadowrun4.com/products/upcoming-products/

QUOTE
STREET LEGENDS (Setting)

Swap Bullets between shots, or Shots between bullets

At the end of a run, you’ve either got a good story to tell, or you’re dead. Live long enough, and you’ll get enough stories to fill a book, and some of them will be killer. There is a certain class of people out on the streets that runners love to talk about, the people at the center of the stories swapped late at night over a round of wiper fluid hooch. Some of them are good, some of them are lucky, and some of them are among the most powerful creatures of the Sixth World. All of them, in their own way, are legends.

Street Legends profiles forty renowned figures in the Sixth World, including JackPoint stalwarts such as Haze, Kane and Puck; classic runners like Serrin Shamander and Tommy Talon; and powerful behind-the-scenes figures including Lugh Surehand, Nadja Daviar, and the great dragon Lofwyr. Learn about hunting vampires with Martin De Vries, breaking into impossible places with The Smiling Bandit, and trying to put a face to the elusive Hans Brackhaus.

Street Legends contains short fiction bringing these characters to life, as well as text describing each person and what makes them a legend. Also, each and every person profiled has complete game stats. Even the dragons.


I'm not really excited. Who needs game stats for Lofwyr or Harlequin?
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hermit
post May 23 2011, 06:56 AM
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Especially considering how these stats will rub someone the wrong way. Because with statted NPCs that'S always the case. I can see why Serrin or Talon can be statted (though do your research when you do this!), but overall ... I dunno. I'm more interested in whatever happened to 99 bottles.
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Mäx
post May 23 2011, 08:21 AM
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QUOTE (Grinder @ May 23 2011, 09:50 AM) *
I'm not really excited. Who needs game stats for Lofwyr or Harlequin?

I don't know, but doesn't really matter if the fluffy bits are crunchy, you can always just ignore the stats.
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Sengir
post May 23 2011, 09:18 AM
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(and that's not an argument against atheism)


Well, I though I was on my way to reconciling with CGL...the new books are not exactly great, but they show promise and care instead of carelessly throwing some textual hackjobs at us. Then I read the new product announcements in Spy Games and headed to http://www.shadowrun4.com/products/upcoming-products/ to find some more info...if only I didn't


QUOTE
STREET LEGENDS (Setting)

Swap Bullets between shots, or Shots between bullets

At the end of a run, you’ve either got a good story to tell, or you’re dead. Live long enough, and you’ll get enough stories to fill a book, and some of them will be killer. There is a certain class of people out on the streets that runners love to talk about, the people at the center of the stories swapped late at night over a round of wiper fluid hooch. Some of them are good, some of them are lucky, and some of them are among the most powerful creatures of the Sixth World. All of them, in their own way, are legends.

Street Legends profiles forty renowned figures in the Sixth World, including JackPoint stalwarts such as Haze, Kane and Puck; classic runners like Serrin Shamander and Tommy Talon; and powerful behind-the-scenes figures including Lugh Surehand, Nadja Daviar, and the great dragon Lofwyr. Learn about hunting vampires with Martin De Vries, breaking into impossible places with The Smiling Bandit, and trying to put a face to the elusive Hans Brackhaus.

Street Legends contains short fiction bringing these characters to life, as well as text describing each person and what makes them a legend. Also, each and every person profiled has complete game stats. Even the dragons.


I think I will just let this speak for itself, because I hate to sound like Frank with his caps lock stuck...
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Sengir
post May 23 2011, 09:33 AM
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Eh, I'm getting old...
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Grinder
post May 23 2011, 09:36 AM
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Seems so. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)
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Sengir
post May 23 2011, 09:39 AM
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Great, so I can sit on the porch and gripe at the depraved state of today's youth. Where's my rocking chair?
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LurkerOutThere
post May 23 2011, 10:01 AM
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Well I'm pretty optimistic. But then again i love any book with info on characters in the world. This love goes double if it's got shadowtalk on the characters and pictures so i can plunk it down in front of my players who haven't been playing the game forever and say "This is what you could reasonably look up on this character." Any setting immersion is good by me. If you don't like the stats in the book, change them. That's not a reason to be afraid of statting characters.

Further in regards to Harly and Golden Snout: One of the things I really really really hated about the H modules back in the day is the he doesn't have stats, he just beats you mentality, because what drew me to shadowrun is everyone can bite it.
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TheOOB
post May 23 2011, 10:14 AM
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Ehh, the info in the book sounds interesting, but I hope it's cheap. With no options for player characters, no pre-made adventures, and what sounds to be disjointed setting info(a little bit about a lot of things, so not enough to really help you build a campaign), there doesn't seem like there will be much in enhance the SR experience, just provide an interesting read.

EDIT: Woot 1,000 posts.
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Grinder
post May 23 2011, 10:27 AM
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Well, it seems to be that's the way CGL wants to go...

QUOTE
ARTIFACTS UNBOUND (Campaign)

Four artifacts have been found. Some of the most powerful people in the Sixth World have been after them, and many people have died in the globetrotting hunt to bring these objects together. Now that they have been recovered, their powers can be unleashed—or the artifacts can be scattered, lost again until another generation summons the courage and the knowledge to dredge them up.

Artifacts Unbound concludes the Dawn of the Artifacts campaign that makes gamemasters and players free to determine the events of the campaign. Filled with adventure seeds, basic setting information, and NPC statistics, Artifacts Unbound lets gamemasters select the elements that would work best in their campaign and design a thrilling story for their game. Easy to use and flexible, this book can be used with players who have gone through the entire Dawn of the Artifacts campaign, or with players just learning about the artifacts and their effect on the Sixth World.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES (Deep Shadows)

War rages in Central America, spies race here and there across the globe, and tales continue to spread of four powerful artifacts and the feats accomplished by those who manage to get their hands on them. To many, the world is becoming more disordered and unpredictable—but there are those who look underneath the surface chaos and see order, or even a plan. They see people and organizations who pull the strings and make the world shake, and they wonder if they can find out what these people are up to before it’s too late.

Conspiracy Theories is a deep dive into the underbelly of the Sixth World, a place filled with crackpot theories and insane ideas that would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that some of them are most assuredly true. If the want to stay alive, shadowrunners need to know this information so they can stay a step ahead of the forces that may be massing against them behind the scenes. If they want to prosper, they really need to know this data, because any runner worth a damn knows that manipulating people based on what they believe is true is a great way to make a few nuyen.

Bringing together plot elements from War!, Spy Games, and the Dawn of the Artifacts series, Conspiracy Theories adds a twisted element to Shadowrun games.

CORPORATE INTRIGUE (Campaign)

You could dabble in organized crime. You could do some smash-and-grabs. You could find all sorts of ways to pick up a few nuyen here and there. But everyone in the Sixth World knows that if you want to make a play for the big bucks, the real high-level stuff, you’ve got to get in bed with the corps.

The corps have the money, and they’ve got all the power that comes with it. If you want to have some of that cash and some of that pull for yourself, you’re going to need to stay alert, move quickly, and remember that while corps are willing to pay for things that help them, deep down they really hate sharing what they’ve got with anyone. Including shadowrunners. Especially shadowrunners.

Corporate Intrigue provides a wealth of plot points and adventure ideas to allow gamemasters to develop corporate-centered campaigns. Building on information provided in Corporate Guide, Corporate Intrigue provides the story information, location details, and NPC statistics to make running a corporate-themed campaign as easy, fun, and brutal as you want it to be.


No metaplot, just random NPCs, locations and half-assed adventure seeds.
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Kesendeja
post May 23 2011, 10:36 AM
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Way back when this book was called Prime Runners, and i admit to getting alot of use out of it. So personally I'm looking forward to the new book. I especially hope to catch up on some dearly loved NPC's.
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Sengir
post May 23 2011, 10:55 AM
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QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ May 23 2011, 11:01 AM) *
That's not a reason to be afraid of statting characters.

If something has stats, it's confined to those stats. Any further activity of these characters will be limited by those stats...unless they are so vague that you might as well have none

And of course, if it has stats players will kill it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
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Tiralee
post May 23 2011, 11:32 AM
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If it's got stats, you can kill it.



Although I've always had a soft spot for old Martin DeVris, Vampiric Vampire hunter, if only because I sold him a weapon focus once. I want to see that Aztechnology Mage's face when he tries to reclaim that F10 Obsidian sacrificial dagger from Martin....

-Tir
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LurkerOutThere
post May 23 2011, 11:47 AM
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QUOTE
If it's got stats, you can kill it.


I will never understand why people think this is a negative thing.
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hermit
post May 23 2011, 11:56 AM
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QUOTE
No metaplot, just random NPCs, locations and half-assed adventure seeds.

Wasn'T Conspiracy Theories supposed to destroy revisit the London setting? Seems more like this is more of the Deep Shadows books. Not my favourites, but so far, Spy Gamesis not War!. It's as you said, it's showing some promise.

I wonder why they focus so heavily on canned NPCs though. It's not like that'S what makes a setting usable. Setting info does (suprise). NPCs need to be statted for every group'S playing style. In canned adventures, adapting NPCs to my group's power level is the most time intensive part in preparation for me.

YMMV, but since I hardly ever use official NPC stats anyway, I don't care much for the numbers. I'm interested in what they made of these NPCs stores - okay, some of them, not all. I could care less about most Jackpointers.

If I were to stat Harlekin, btw, I'd build him via standard rules, and give him 1 Karma for ach year of his life (that's around 10.000 Karma). Same with Lofwyr (using the Dragon PC rules, and a custom dragon race called great form that adds half the base stat value again). I'm positive the attributes actually assigend to them will be ludicrously low. So I will ignore them anyway.

Overall, that book seems a tad superfluous. I'd prefer just a story book, but meh, I can deal with ignoring stats.
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Magus
post May 23 2011, 11:56 AM
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Because most if not all of the street legends should only be PLOT Devices and the stats left open to the GM. I DO NOT want Lofwyrs stat or Harley's they cause ripples in the Meta Plot that change the world. I do not want to be contrained to a static number. If I want Harley to be a triple digit Initiate then I will do so because the module says I can make up his stats to do what I need him to do.

This book looked good until they stated everyone will be statted. I would love the Fluff involved but seriously Jason Hardy and CGL, for the love of Ghost Why?
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suoq
post May 23 2011, 12:13 PM
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"Harley uses his 'Expert Edge' ability."
"What does that do?"
"It allows him to use edge multiple times for the same action"
"That's not in the book!"
"You got the Player's edition. It's in the GM's edition. Right here. In blue ink."
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Magus
post May 23 2011, 12:16 PM
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LOL Awesome suoq!
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Prime Mover
post May 23 2011, 02:31 PM
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If it's got stats, you can kill it.

QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ May 23 2011, 06:47 AM) *
I will never understand why people think this is a negative thing.


Prime Runners was a mixed bag of runners when it came out including some Prime runners and some not so prime runners. But I got plenty of use and story seeds out of it. As for stating some power players I think it's well past time. If I'm not happy with them as a GM I can adjust them...and having something rather then nothing to go on is a benefit. I'm really really curious to see the take on some of these npc's.

Let's look at the stating of unkillable's another way. Just because Richard Villers is never stated doesn't mean he's immortal or all powerful. I imagine his physical stats are underwhelming. Granted his security is probably tighter then a national leaders. My players will probably never get a chance to take a shot at him but that doesnt mean they couldn't if they really wanted too. And other then messing with my fanboy canon sensibilities it's just a game and my game after all. I'd let them try.
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Tymeaus Jalynsfe...
post May 23 2011, 02:39 PM
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QUOTE (Prime Mover @ May 23 2011, 07:31 AM) *
If it's got stats, you can kill it.



Prime Runners was a mixed bag of runners when it came out including some Prime runners and some not so prime runners. But I got plenty of use and story seeds out of it. As for stating some power players I think it's well past time. If I'm not happy with them as a GM I can adjust them...and having something rather then nothing to go on is a benefit. I'm really really curious to see the take on some of these npc's.

Let's look at the stating of unkillable's another way. Just because Richard Villers is never stated doesn't mean he's immortal or all powerful. I imagine his physical stats are underwhelming. Granted his security is probably tighter then a national leaders. My players will probably never get a chance to take a shot at him but that doesnt mean they couldn't if they really wanted too. And other then messing with my fanboy canon sensibilities it's just a game and my game after all. I'd let them try.


Indeed... At least let them have the chance, even if it is doomed to failure. Who knows, they might get lucky... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I am happy to see this book coming out, personally.
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Vuron
post May 23 2011, 02:46 PM
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I looked back at Prime Runners not that long ago and it was underwhelming. Many of the the NPCs that received full stat blocks weren't that useful and many of the the ones that were useful were either hideously overpowered or underpowered.

A book of Prime Runners is useful for GMs that don't have the time to build a new Prime Runner every time they need one but often these types of projects turn into an excuse for massive fanwank.

From a sales perspective it's probably fine to include stats for the IEs and GDs because some people will buy those products just to have them but from a utility perspective there doesn't seem to be a consensus to how powerful NPCs should be vis-a-vis the PCs. Some people will view a Initiate 10+ Mage as target practice and others will be turned into sidekicks by the DMPC.

Personally I'd limit the NPCs with actual statblocks to the Superior class NPCs (Frosty, Man of Many Names) and leave anyone truly superhuman (FastJack, IEs, GDs) without stats.
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Magus
post May 23 2011, 02:51 PM
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Did Dragons of the Sixth World for 3ed have all thier stats? I cannot remember as I never picked that one up. I would an e-book similiar to Legends, but I do not want to stat up FastJack. I do not want to hear at my table
"I am better than Jack, so I am gonna hack his site and Spoof his Persona"

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Sengir
post May 23 2011, 03:13 PM
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QUOTE (Magus @ May 23 2011, 03:51 PM) *
Did Dragons of the Sixth World for 3ed have all thier stats?

Of course not. So far, Great Dragons and other power players have always been the mysterious power players behind the scenes, and not some puny NPCs to throw at your players - so they didn't even need stats, players would never take a shot at Big L anyway.

IMO this book idea can be summed up in three words: Desperate attention whoring. Now all we need is a "Shadowrun prequels" series which reveals stuff like the Nightwraith Incident - because prequels have worked well in just about every SciFi universe, right?
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hobgoblin
post May 23 2011, 03:16 PM
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QUOTE (Magus @ May 23 2011, 04:51 PM) *
Did Dragons of the Sixth World for 3ed have all thier stats? I cannot remember as I never picked that one up. I would an e-book similiar to Legends, but I do not want to stat up FastJack. I do not want to hear at my table
"I am better than Jack, so I am gonna hack his site and Spoof his Persona"

And that is when ol' Jack calls in his web of contacts and basically drop bear the PC into oblivion...

That is one thing that is seriously overlooked in SR, and other games of similar settings, your strength is as much who you know as what you can do...

Take the latter books of Dark Heresy for instance, when the power of the character shifts from being about gears and skill to being about the authority that comes with ones position...

Hell. Back in SR3, Slamm-O was considered dangerous not (just) because of skill. He also had the ability to go from prankster to biz in zero flat.
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Wakshaani
post May 23 2011, 03:17 PM
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Well, we've got stats for Great Dragons, and several have been published before (Mostly the younger ones, mind you, but still)

So, getting an actual statblock for Lofwyr? No big.

I didn't see a mention of any Immortal Elves, but, Conspiracy looks like a place that they'd pop up in. Be kinda nice to see them put on paper, just because I have a bad taste in my mouth to this day of the Harley-Erhan "This is too cool for you to participate in, but you can watch us" Eliminster-ish swordfight from way back. And finding out if Harley is a 10th, 12th, 50th, or 100th rank intiate will at least end the endless loops of talk around here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
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