S.O.X. in English?, Anyone have a translation? Options

[Tashiro]

I'd love to get my hands on this book, but I've no idea how to read French or German. Anyone know if / when it'll be translated to English, or has anyone actually taken the effort to fan-translate?

[Stalag]

Here you go:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/ge...3763enr.tst.pdf











(har har har XD )

[Tashiro]

Here you go:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/ge...3763enr.tst.pdf


(har har har XD )

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) Good one. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[snowRaven]

1) Get the french pdf
2) use translation software
3) Be prepared to re-arrange/re-write a lot of it so it makes sense...


That said:

Does anyone know if the german-only books are available in pdf anywhere? (REAL pdfs, NOT crappy, foul, scanned pirate-copies)

I'm talking mainly about: 'Münich Noir', 'SOX', 'Berlin', and 'Blut & Spiele' (as well as 'Rhein-Rhuhr Megaplex', if that's out yet)

[Blade]

To get the French pdf (choose Shadowrun - Edition 20ème anniversaire in the "gamme" selection box, and scroll down the page, SOX should be here for €15).

I don't know how useable an automatic translation is.

[Sengir]

Does anyone know if the german-only books are available in pdf anywhere? (REAL pdfs, NOT crappy, foul, scanned pirate-copies)

Sadly not and there is very little hope this might ever change. Pegasus does not own the rights for SOX and München Noir, while Fanpro has the rights to these books but (AFAIK) does not have the rights to publish anything Shadowrun-related. Thus there will be neither pdfs nor new print runs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

The French still have the rights to their edition of SOX, but I doubt they are allowed to publish stuff in English...

[snowRaven]

Sadly not and there is very little hope this might ever change. Pegasus does not own the rights for SOX and München Noir, while Fanpro has the rights to these books but (AFAIK) does not have the rights to publish anything Shadowrun-related. Thus there will be neither pdfs nor new print runs (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

The French still have the rights to their edition of SOX, but I doubt they are allowed to publish stuff in English...

Hmm...and Pegasus apparently doesn't publish their books in pdf either?

My german isn't good enough for it to be worth investing in a dead-tree book. With a pdf, however, I can use the crutch of online translation to help me with the interesting sections, and just skim the rest...

This is what I'm doing for french SOX btw (as well as the Marseille chapter of Runners Havens), though my french is a lot worse than my german so it's a bit more of a hassle...

[snowRaven]

Oh, and I should note, for those interested:

The French SOX book and the German SOX book contain two different, paralell (slightly intersecting) campaigns.

[Sengir]

Hmm...and Pegasus apparently doesn't publish their books in pdf either?

They recently started selling pdfs on drivethru, but so far only translated products...don't ask me why

[snowRaven]

I can understand selling the translated the pdf as pdfs...but doing the core books and not the setting books? *shrug*

[ravensmuse]

Oh, and I should note, for those interested:

The French SOX book and the German SOX book contain two different, paralell (slightly intersecting) campaigns.

Here's Nath with a good summary of French / German books, along with notation on this interesting "parallel" campaign:

To answer ravensmuse request, I made a short review of Shadowrun French-only releases (quite faster to do than for German products). Not sure it'll interest a lot of people, but feel free to ask for further details. I do not list Shadows of Europe (as it is not a French-only product), but knowing its content would probably help understand some things.

FRANCE
144 pages
ISBN: 2-7408-0147-5
Release: September, 1997
Date: May, 2057
Early in the process, Descartes Editeur submitted a list of the major highlights to FASA to be approved. As far as I understood, the project took a lot more time than planned, with some part being heavily reworked several times (hence some bizarreness like a Royal Army without having an actual king or queen). Major features are:
- France new regime is the Oligarchy (yes, it is the official name). Four families gets to sit on the Oligarchic council to rule the country. The country is divided into duchies, with one or several dukes gets to rule. Widely considered silly.
- Brittany is entirely covered by the Mist. By the rules, you can stay inside the Mist for twelve turn in the best case. After that, you cease to exist. Fluff has Lofwyr trying to enter and after being wounded by something in the astral. It is suggested the Mist is a cocoon for something nasty (read: Horror).
- A massive volcanic eruption destroyed Clermont-Ferrand and most of Auvergne. The largest dragon in the world is sleeping at the bottom of a caldera.
- The French Matrix is the most advanced grid in the world. French programmers designed the Corporate court system security. Foreign megacorporations just beg to work with them. They avoided the 2029 virus thanks to a kill-switch. La Passerelle ("The Gateway") is a single Red-10 node that segregates the French Matrix from the rest of the world (security tally has it cascading into an AI at 27).
- Monsieur de Fontainebleau is the richest man in France. He is a friend of both Damien Knight and M. Darke (sic). Owns a copy of the Book of Harrows. It is suggested he is working for the Horrors.
All the French authors working on Shadows of Europe knew and read the book. We willingly choose to rework or ignore its contents.

CAPITALES DES OMBRES
160 pages
ISBN: 978-2-915847-222
Release: March, 2008
Date: February, 2070
French version of Runner Havens. It features an additional chapter on Marseille, which is 16 pages long (thus quite shorter than Seattle and Hong Kong).
In France, Marseille was a fully independent city. In Shadows of Europe, its status got a passing mention, but it was practicaly described as under full control of Saeder-Krupp. Capital des Ombres retcons the autonomy status as mere political gesture with almost no practical effects (but it doesn't explain if and how law enforcement is affected), and Saeder-Krupp domination is also made a thing of the past. I must admit I was not fond of the move.
Otherwise, you get the classical elements of Marseille setting: shipping, various Mediterranean and Asian ethnic communities, the mob, hip hop and the allmighty football, plus urban brawl (a sport born in France according to Shadowbeat). It also provides small update to the French setting at large (Yohann de Kervelec as the new president, the death of Charles de Rohan, a possible alliance of ESUS and Index-Axa).

SOX
168 pages
ISBN: 978-2-915847-55-0
Release: July, 2009
Date: October, 2070 / April, 2071
The SOX book is a French-German joint project. The first 68 pages feature the description of the SOX area and is the same in both the French and German version. SOX is a walled radioactive area created after a nuclear accident in the French power plan in Cattenom in 2009, covering a part of France, a part of Germany and all of Luxembourg. I found the book to be sometimes unclear for instance on what is the exact level of security MET2000 enforce on the wall or inside the zone, how much exchange there is between the zone and the outside, or the zone and the corporations' arcologies, how important is the zone to corporations and smugglers, and so on. But so can every GM adjust the background the way he wants it. You can have a team of rookies sent with armored chemsuit and fully loaded weapons to fight against a gang using crossbows and rusted XXth Century firearms in an area where there are no police and SIN check to bother them, or experienced runners with a single knife and half a bottle of water, trying to get into an enclosed arcology, hunted by corporate forces, with toxic spirits geting in the way, knowing they're going to die from radiation poisoning anyway.
The last 96 pages is a French-only campaign titled Mauvais Présage (Bad Omen). The German version features another campaign, titled Hoffnungsstrahlen ("Beacon of Hope" ?). The original plan was to have the French and German campaigns connected, with each group triggering events that affect the other. That probably was a bit too ambitious. There still are a few links (but also some inconsistencies).

[ Spoiler ]

In the first adventure, the PC investigates the death of an old ork in Marseille. It turns out he died in robbery attempt that went bad, but also happens to be a former légionnaire that disappeared three decades ago (the reason the employer got interested in the first place) and suddenly resurfaced with traces of radiation.
The PC are sent into the SOX zone, performing some side quest to learn more. The ork was held in top secret prison inside SOX. A member of the aristocratic conspiracy put him there, along with several other people, as an "insurance" against his rivals. The intel the PC retrieved gets all the way up to the president. The PC get to break into the prison with the help of French military units involved . French airfighters officially involved in the "Rad War" (Desert War spin-off inside the SOX, with several national forces competing) leave the area of engagement to bomb Ares and Ruhrmetall units protecting the prison.
As expected, the surviving prisoners testimony unveils the truth on the aristocratic conspiracy, forcing most of its members to quit their positions or even leave the country. However, megacorporations decide economic sanctions against France for attacking Ares and Ruhrmetall assets, forcing the government to axe most of France extraterritoriality regulations.
The best thing about Mauvais Présage is that it is the very first published adventure that actually use the French background. On the other hand, I think it works a lot better if the players already know the French background, how the nobility controls the country, and the official history, so they can understand what's happening and how important are their findings.

ENCLAVES CORPORATISTES
168 pages
ISBN: 978-2-915847-56-7
Release: August, 2009
Date: February, 2071 / March, 2072 / October, 2072
French version of (you guessed it) Corporate Enclaves. It included the Manhattan PDF Only product as an additional chapter, and a few pages about Lille, in northern France (set in March, 2072). After the events of Mauvais Présage and the corporate economic sanctions, the French government offered them control of the Lille sprawl. And so you get a corp council and private police services.

CARTELS FANTÔMES
192 pages
ISBN: 78-2-915847-85-7
Release: September, 2010
Date: February-November, 2071
French version of Ghost Cartels. Written by a French-German team, it adds a chapter between The Source and The Final Cut, with five adventures in Europe (it should actually be played between Neo-Tokyo and Los Angeles). They take place in Rotterdam, Lille, Marseille, Genoa and Lisbon, as the PC follows the Olaya cartel envoy in Europe. The book first chapter also includes some news item linked to the European events.
There are two minor ties with SOX campaign Mauvais Présage first chapter: a minor NPC (who actually had significant chances of dying when she first appeared) returns in a more prominent position in Lille, and the PC may already have visited the night club in Marseille where some action will take place.
I took a part in writing that one (I reworked a bit the Genoa adventure to fix some issues) but never actually played it, so I can't really comment. I have the impression inserting a whole new chapter kinda "break the flow" of the original GC campaign. The adventures themselves are closer to First Taste than The Source, as the adventures are a lot more connected: though the team moves, the events in most cities have later consequences, and the relationships between the Olaya delegation members play a big role.

[Nemo]

The German version features another campaign, titled Hoffnungsstrahlen ("Beacon of Hope" ?).

That would better translate as "Rays of Hope"

[snowRaven]

Here's Nath with a good summary of French / German books, along with notation on this interesting "parallel" campaign:

Ah, great summaries! Thank you ravensmuse.

I agree with Nath that the retcon of Marseille is iffy, but I think I can use some of that chapter to help 'flesh out' the setting. Keeping the S-K control of the city and still having the underworld presence from 'Capitales des Ombres' and particularily 'Cartels Fantômes' can make for a very interesting place to run.

I didn't know that Ghost Cartels had an extra chapter in the French version before reading this, but now I've taken a quick look (and as a bonus I realized that my french is better than I remembered!) and it has some good stuff.

However, some parts are quite heavy on the railroading and most of it is the runners being 'lent out' to various local factions. Coupled with the times that happens in the rest of GC, it feels overdone and unimaginative, but there's enough substance there for an enterprising GM to work with. If I were to run GC over again, I'd let the PCs chose which part of the tour to take part in, Pacific Rim or Europe, and butcher the other part for 'extras'.

Some of the ideas are general enough to make good unrelated runs as well, in any city.

Now I just have to try and translate the German S.O.X. I have and see what I can use--which will be a pain! Since it's dead-tree I can't easily apply translation software... =(

[Nath]

For the record, here's what I understood of the German SOX campaign, Hoffnungsstrahen.

[ Spoiler ]

In Wölfe im Schafspelz, the PC start working for Pierre de Beaux, an executive assigned to ESUS offices in Karlsruhe, who investigate the explosion of a nuclear power plan in an ESUS arcology in Faulquemont, inside the SOX, in 2066. The PC must gather intelligence on a cult in Hamburg, the Path of Purification, and one of its former member, Frank Drengsheid. They discover the cult sent Drengscheid to Morgenrot Manor in the SOX four years ago, and someone called "Kernbeisser" is involved.

Aufbruch in Verberden covers how the PC enters the SOX on ESUS' behalf, before branching in one of the following chapters, which can be played in any order. They can go to Morgenrot Manor (Unter Ratten) or Faulquemont (Die überleben wollen). At some point, the PC will be ambushed by another team, who will leave evidence behind them that require the PC to perform a side quest (Licht aus!).

Unter Ratten takes place at Morgenrot Manor, in Sarrebruck. The manor is a smugglers base, and the PC will have to take side in an internal feud before getting the information they need. They learn the Path of Purification is an offshoot of the Disciple of Cleansing Fire, a powerful SOX group, part sect, part militia (and somehow tied to the great dragon Feuerschwinge), and Drengscheid moved to a place called the Cathedral of the Four Elements.

In Die überleben wollen, the PC move to Faulquemont area to find an ESUS security guard who survived (as a ghoul IIRC). His headware memory may still contain arcology security system records. A video footage show someone from ESUS must have helped Drengscheid getting a pass to enter the arcology.

Licht aus! is a side quest. Der Schrotter, a local power broker in Forbach, ask the PC to sabotage a power plant on Christmas eve in exchange for information on who ordered the team in Aufbruch in Verberden to attack them. The PC playing the French SOX campaign need the power plan to be shut down to break inside the prison. The data der Schrotter hands the PC allow them to locate the Cathedrals of the Four Elements, which happens to be the former Völklingen Ironworks.

As the last chapter, Erleuchtungen begins, Bern Reinhard, Pierre de Beaux's superior, accuse him of being the one who helped Drengscheid entering the arcology, and has him arrested, the PC matrix link cut and MET2000 sent after them. Reinhard is Kernbeisser, and he's the one who helped Drengscheid entering the Faulquemont arcology in 2066. The PC must reach the Cathedral of the Four Elements to capture the head of Disciples and find documents proving Reinhard role. As they arrive, the Disciples are about to summon a Force 10 Nuclear Toxic Spirit of Fire with radioactive materials collected in Faulquemont. After that, the PC still have to leave the SOX through smugglers' tunnels.

[Sengir]

Ah well, since I'm currently considering running it, somewhat extended summary of Hoffnungsstrahlen:

[ Spoiler ]

In 2068, the ESUS arcology in the SOX blew up due to a reactor meltdown, the reasons for which still have not been figured out. Deputy head of security Bernd Reinhards managed to shift all blame on his superior (apparently dead) but little else has happened, ESUS is not even sure whether it was an accident or sabotage. This has made Reinhards' deputy Pierre DeBeaux suspicious, and he grew even more suspicious when the body of one Frank Drengscheid was recovered from the ruins, who totally did not belong there.
The truth is that Drengscheid was a toxic shaman and member of the toxic cult named Jünger des Reinigenden Feuers ("Disciples of the Cleansing Fire"). The Disciples (I'll call them that from now on) wanted to blow up the ESUS arcology as a show of force and also to spread the taint they love so much by summoning a nuclear spirit in the reactor room. Problem was, how should one get into the reactor room? Simple have their front organisation Pfad der Reinheit ("Path of Purity", Path from now on) convert Reinhards so he can let Drengscheid in.

Enter the runners. DeBeaux has found out that Drengscheid had connections to the Path, so now he hires the runners to infiltrate the Path's recruitment camp by posing as prospective members. What they find out is that Drengscheid was moved into the SOX and that the cult has a friend called Kernbeisser, though no info on who that is.

Once in the SOX (the chapter revolving around that is called Aufbruch ins Verderben, btw (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ), the runners can do these two adventures in any order:
Unter Ratten ("Among rats") puts them into sort of a shadow war between various smuggler groups over a stopover point at the SOX/AGS border. After playing rearguard for the losing side of that battle, the runners are rewarded with a matrix intercept which proves how the Path brought Drengscheid into the SOX to join the Disciples in their "Cathedral of the Four Elements".

In Die überleben wollen ("those who want to survive", reference to the German title of Soylent Green) DeBeaux has found drone footage of several survivors from the arc hiding in a nearby city and wants the runners to interview them. What the runners learn from the survivors is that one of them claimed to have incriminating security logs from the day of the accident. Hell-bent on getting back at ESUS for abandoning them, he wandered off to find a way out of the SOX. The runners track him down in the ruins of a former amusement park, which has turned into a toxic domain following a stampede on the day of the original Cattenom explosion. The target is alive, though batshit insane and under influence of the resident free toxic spirit -- bonus Karma if the runners manage to get the data from his headware while leaving his head in place. What the runners learn from the logs is that somebody with admin access opened the doors to the reactor room for Drengscheid.

After completing both quests, DeBeaux calls the runners again after learning of a mysterious message sent from the SOX to ESUS, he has the coordinates of the source and wants the runners to find out who sent what. He also mentions that on pressure on him is increasing, somebody obviously wants to keep things under the wraps. The coordinates lead to Der Schrotter, the runners shut down the power plant for him (for the runners playing the French campaign), the reward is the original message -- one of the Disciples telling Kernbeißer that his warnings have arrived and he should continue to sabotage investigations on his side.

For the last chapter I couldn't think of more than Nath wrote, so see there (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[snowRaven]

Thank you Nath and Sengir, those summaries will help me quite a bit if I ever get around to translating the German campaign (which I very well might...I like some of the concepts there too much to just pass on them).

After a good read-through of the French campaign I'm not so sure about that one, though. It starts off great, but I think it gets out of hand toward the end...

Anyone that actually ran it and can give some advice/feedback?

[Buccaneer]

They recently started selling pdfs on drivethru, but so far only translated products...don't ask me why

In the PDF-Store http://pdf-shop.pegasus.de/ you can also find some books with german only location additions. Schattenstädte contains a very large section (over 50 pages) about Hamburg plus 16 pages about Marseille taken from the french version of the book. Konzernenklaven has nearly 50 pages about Greater Frankfurt (Main). And the latest release in the shop is the complete Berlin-Sourcebook.

[nightslasthero]

Drive Thru has a lot of the German PDF books for Shadowrun

Also why doesn't Catalyst translate the German and French books and sell them as PDFs? I assume they already have translators to translate the English stuff into the other two languages (at least the other two companies have them), so why not translate stuff that is already done and make it as a pdf?

[CanRay]

Drive Thru has a lot of the German PDF books for Shadowrun

Also why doesn't Catalyst translate the German and French books and sell them as PDFs? I assume they already have translators to translate the English stuff into the other two languages (at least the other two companies have them), so why not translate stuff that is already done and make it as a pdf?

Probably the other two companies that have the translators and don't see a profit in it when CGL gets the money.

Either that, or they're laughing at the poor unilingual-anglophones.

We do need the question answered. More duct tape?

[snowRaven]

We do need the question answered. More duct tape?

You buy the duct tape; I'll bring the chair!

(I'm already in europe, so...)

[Stahlseele]

*pats his german copy of SOX, Blut und Spiele, Berlin and Rhein-Ruhr Megaplex*

[nightslasthero]

Probably the other two companies that have the translators and don't see a profit in it when CGL gets the money.

Either that, or they're laughing at the poor unilingual-anglophones.

We do need the question answered. More duct tape?

More duct tape is indeed needed.

The simple solution would be to give the other two companies part of the profit for originally writing the material and for translating it. Give a boost to all three companies since there are English people who would love to have the other books.

[Jazz]

Probably the other two companies that have the translators and don't see a profit in it when CGL gets the money.

Either that, or they're laughing at the poor unilingual-anglophones.

We do need the question answered. More duct tape?

Three things, I think:
1. English -> French is easy work, because it's made by french guys that write a result in their langage.
French -> English isn't, because it'll be made by french guys that write a result in a foreign langage with a lot of crappy typos and engrish style.

It's not the same price than English -> French or Original works because you'll have to hire more reveiwers than on a usual product.

2. Maybe we french guys will be reading Running Wild next month. We're "quite" late, you see, so i don't know if they have the time to do that. Any "scenario only" supplement or pdf is guessed to be left out of our paper line products (guessed by me but I'm not omniscient). In pdf we have the SRM being translated, and most of rule pdf are integrated in the paperline supplements. But I think campaign like Horizon stuff or other will never be translated in french.

I would want but last release from Black Book Edition in paper for the rpg line was... Ghost Cartel, 2010 october the 19th. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

3. How many of you guys from USA ever played in SR's France or Germany ? Not that much future customers I guess ?
Name a french dragon. Hahaha.

Even us made nothing about THE Hahaha who lives in Marseille, France here. There's too much of "wait canon and see" from our translator team, I allready told them about that and we disagreed also a lot about we see our country. They wait, I want to write.

Anyway I too would be very interessed in reading what germans guys did with their part of the campaign.

Either that, or they're laughing at the poor unilingual-anglophones.

More like crying tbh.

[Sengir]

Anyway I too would be very interessed in reading what germans guys did with their part of the campaign.

I'd say we have far more setting than plot...
Berlin is no longer divided between anarchist East and corporate West, following a nanotech attack from a sprawl guerrilla cell the corps "liberated" the anarchist holdout. While the operation caused less bloodshed than the one against the West, there still was a public outcry (supported by political forces wanting to put the corps in their place), so the winner couldn't take the prize. Instead, the city is now divided (politically, not with walls) into 21 districts, which elect their representatives for the city council. Five of those districts are extraterritorial corp country, the others are divided into eight comparatively normal ones and 8 where "alternative" forces still are the majority. Obviously, the electoral procedure and compliance with council decision differs between districts...

In Rhine-Ruhr, Essen now is Big L's domain de jure. S-K representatives announced the company now wholly owned a 4 km radius around the Essen arcology, thus they declared the whole place extraterritorial and are now busy remodeling the city. Ares is meanwhile playing the thorn in the dragon's side by trying to take over the police contract for all of Northrhine-Ruhr.

PS: Here's a map of the new Berlin. Yellow = extraterritorial, black = anarchist, gray = normal.
http://www.shadowhelix.de/Datei:Übersicht_...gehörigkeit.png

[snowRaven]

*pats his german copy of SOX, Blut und Spiele, Berlin and Rhein-Ruhr Megaplex*

Is Blut and Spiele any good? My german sucks, but I like the idea of a book on urban brawl...