Run & Gun is Live, I'll kill you to death!!!...with the help of this book Options

[Sichr]

When you can charge $25+ for a PDF why bother spending money to release a physical book? Not saying that's what they're doing, but it may make sense from a business standpoint to move away from physical books entirely (though I seriously doubt that is their plan).

Given the quality they are able to produce recently all the time, Id say it is much better if they stick with electronic versions. At least you can torrent it and avoid yourself to pay those 25$ for pre-alpha versions

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

And what, by all that's sacred, does THAT have to do with anything with printing?

Hard to actually pay for printing services if the cash flow is not where it should be. There is a Reason that POD is a big thing these days.
And there is a reason that Onyx path is so successful with it.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Given the quality they are able to produce recently all the time, Id say it is much better if they stick with electronic versions. At least you can torrent it and avoid yourself to pay those 25$ for pre-alpha versions

Out of Line... That is still no reason to Pirate stuff.

[Shortstraw]

Pirate first, buy later.

[Grinder]

Back to topic, dudes.

[Sichr]

Out of Line... That is still no reason to Pirate stuff.

TBH I bought every Shadowrun book starting with SR4 core. Run&Gun is the first book my hessitation won over the love for the game and will to support its producers. So I cannot actually discuss what is in the book, as I haven`t bought it and I haven`t even pirated it, and reading about the book here and on tabletop forums is the only way I can get some info about progress. I wonder if anyone is redacting the content after the e-release of the book, erratting it, fixing contradictions etc.

Well...it is Hardy/CGL we are talking about.
So I guess the answer is NO.

[binarywraith]

TBH I bought every Shadowrun book starting with SR4 core. Run&Gun is the first book my hessitation won over the love for the game and will to support its producers. So I cannot actually discuss what is in the book, as I haven`t bought it and I haven`t even pirated it, and reading about the book here and on tabletop forums is the only way I can get some info about progress. I wonder if anyone is redacting the content after the e-release of the book, erratting it, fixing contradictions etc.

Well...it is Hardy/CGL we are talking about.
So I guess the answer is NO.

To go by the core book and all releases since? Errata are a joke. We had freelancers compile a massive stack of errata for it, and lean as hard as they could on getting it published without even getting paid to do the work, and they didn't manage to get a quarter of it released. None of that in print, despite there being another printing in progress post-errata.

This is part of why I question their finances. Editorial work being neglected this badly is something that only happens in two cases. One, Hardy and the company figure we'll pay for anything they want to put out, so quality does not matter. Or two, they simply cannot afford either the time or the cost to actually proof and edit their products before release.

If someone's got a third reason for the shabby quality of these books, I'd love to hear it, because my conclusions are pretty demoralizing as a fan.

[Umidori]

Third option - criminal incompetance?

Instead of arrogantly believing the playerbase will pay for anything regardless of quality, it's possible they honestly don't see a problem with the quality of the materials they put out.

Although, that's probably the worst option of all. As the old saying goes, "Rogues are preferable to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest."

~Umi

[hermit]

Fourth option: the person doing the editorial work is not up to the job, doing the job part-time or beside other gigs, and just occasionally throws some stuff together and sends it to layout and printers.

[Umidori]

That still implies either negligence or incompetance on the part of the editor's employers. You don't just keep paying someone who screws up your products, unless you don't care about that for some reason.

Which brings us back to the question of what that reason is - either they think they can get away with shoveling drek, they can't afford to do anything but shovel drek, or they don't realize it's drek.

~Umi

[Jaid]

well considering their freelancers all seem to know it's drek, to the point where they (free of charge) compiled all the errata for them, I'm going to have to say I don't believe they're ignorant.

[Umidori]

Never underestimate the power of stupidity. There is no limit to how unbelievably ignorant (often willfully) people can be.

~Umi

[hermit]

That still implies either negligence or incompetance on the part of the editor's employers. You don't just keep paying someone who screws up your products, unless you don't care about that for some reason.

Or unless you have another reason to keep them employed. That reason can vary widely, from the person being a personal friend in need in an economy where they're extremely unlikely to find another job to support their wife and infant child, to the person knowing something about the company's owner that would harm the company when published (for the record, I'm not saying any of this is actually happening at CGL, just general ideas).

[X-Kalibur]

Or unless you have another reason to keep them employed. That reason can vary widely, from the person being a personal friend in need in an economy where they're extremely unlikely to find another job to support their wife and infant child, to the person knowing something about the company's owner that would harm the company when published (for the record, I'm not saying any of this is actually happening at CGL, just general ideas).

You'd be surprised how often this happens with doctors in medical groups too. Or maybe you wouldn't.

[Grinder]

Get back on topic, dude. As a reminder: the topic of this thread is the content of Run & Gun. You've discussed the editorial work long enough.

[Prime Mover]

15 Pages and search not turning up anything. Are HV rules missing from 5th edition?

[Jaid]

think i recall someone mentioning that there's a single gun that is HV (but no rules apart from that gun description). can't remember if it was GH3 or R&G though.

[DWC]

The Vindicator and HVAR both returned for Run and Gun. Neither includes any sort of rules for an improved rate of fire, which means that the two weapons are vastly inferior to anything else they compete with thanks to their awful damage codes.

[adamu]

Has anyone used the new hit location rules in actual play?
Do they work?

To me, they seem completely useless with those massive negative modifiers.
You're giving up three or four hits, that's three or four off your DV, and only IF you even can still score a net hit.

At first, I thought these might be useful for a high skill/low strength character, say, taking on some monster troll tank adversary. Even if little guy scored its, damage would be too low to do any good, so you can slow the beast down with low net hits and then those cool secondary effects.

But then I read that if their damage soak beats your net hits down, then you get no effects. So you are back to square one.

(As I read, I was figuring it was sort of like electrical melee attacks, where just a glancing blow could force all this big damage soak, etc. but apparently not so.)

So I am hoping someone has run some real numbers or tried it in real play, and can show me my impression is incorrect. I like systems that give more tactical options to the players than just hack and slash, but if they are just unworkable…(I can always just do a ton of regular damage and then throw in eye gouges and gonad stomps as fluff…).

[Curator]

i like that agile defender trait trading agility for willpower when using full defense

[Meatbag]

Maybe I'm half blind an' all stupid, but did we ever cover what the *other* balance reasons for double-Karma-after-chargen Qualities were? Other than nerfing Mystic Adepts a bit?

Because if anything breaks from just ignoring it, I'd like to know.

And..Actually, how does it corral Mystic Adepts? As noted, their power points get *significantly* more expensive after chargen (13+ Karma per Initiation) vs. 2 5 Karma at chargen. Take 10 points of shameless powergrab disadvantages and get 'em before they go out of style - blow 30 Karma on Power Points, get a Mentor Spirit, be happy with your free spells.

It puts them in a slightly tighter bind, yeah, because they're 30 precious Chargen Karma behind Adepts or Mages, but the correct answer is still "frontload the stuff that's gonna get real expensive later, then get the stuff that won't, as much." Which is, in my experience, the problem with using a superior Chargen Currency and an inferior In-Game Currency.

Also, back to the book we're supposed to be talking about! Ma'Fan weeps at the lack of ceramic knives and the vastly decreased quality of Cougar Fineblades,. Seriously, ceramic knives are a Snow Crash classic, perfect for pesky scanners - and all the other sneaky stuff is out of reach at chargen, so I would've liked to see them back.

While I'm at it, where's my shot selector system? C'mon! That's one of the few *cool* parts about using a revolver in SR, and it's not here anymore. And speaking of gun mods, we were promised three in Gun Heaven (Melee Hardening, Trigger Removal, Electronic Firing) but they're nowhere to be found, even through Gun Kata uses Melee Hardened guns.

And um..Why are there two versions of Gun Fu now? Firefight WAS Gun Kata back in the day, and now Firefight's some kinda Military Combative thing (I thought that was called Krav Maga, silly me, but Krav Maga doesn't even have any techniques for CQB with guns).

Overall, I'd like to have seen more old favorites back, like ceramic knives, gun mods and a vehicle section. A lot of ink could've been saved by ditching the gimmicks like..Combat chainsaws. two different kinds of archery, chakram fighting(?!?), chainmail and armored spacesuits. There comes a point where you have to ask yourself "this is neat, but how many people will actually use it?"

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

There is no reason for Double Karma after chargen (Especially since the "Karma" you spend in chargen is not all that efficient) for Qualities, balance or otherwise. Nothing breaks if you trash that in the shredder bin.

[JesterZero]

TJ is right. And as a general rule, using equivalent economies in both pre-chargen and post-chargen generally solves problems in game design.

I've used this houserule since about 2008; off the top of my head, I'd say it's been an unalloyed good.

[binarywraith]

Also, back to the book we're supposed to be talking about! Ma'Fan weeps at the lack of ceramic knives and the vastly decreased quality of Cougar Fineblades,. Seriously, ceramic knives are a Snow Crash classic, perfect for pesky scanners - and all the other sneaky stuff is out of reach at chargen, so I would've liked to see them back.

Remember, part of Catalyst's design ethos is to move -away- from Cyberpunk. Besides, the impression I've gotten from playing SR5 is that there is supposed to be such a security panopticon between the Matrix and wireless cameras everywhere that just defeating scanners isn't something most people will bother with.

The Cougars getting worse is sad, though. They've been a standby.

[Wakshaani]

Remember, part of Catalyst's design ethos is to move -away- from Cyberpunk. Besides, the impression I've gotten from playing SR5 is that there is supposed to be such a security panopticon between the Matrix and wireless cameras everywhere that just defeating scanners isn't something most people will bother with.

The Cougars getting worse is sad, though. They've been a standby.

Que? I can safely say that, no, there's no desire to move away from Cyberpunk from the crew either beside me or above. Pulling back some from Transhumanism, yes, but Cyberpunk as a whole is kinda the *goal*. That's for a whole other topic tho.

If there're any on-topic questions here, I'll happily answer where I can, but my contribution on this one was prety small. I need to pick up a copy for myself; it's teh one book I don't have over the past two years or so.