[X] My Assistant

[Bearclaw]

5th ed is the only SR edition that is incomplete in my library. I have bought every single book published, up to the 5th ed main book.
I play, and I buy books. I play with a group of people who play and buy books.
CGL can act like the old guard doesn't buy, but that's due to bad product, not lack of desire to give some one our money for large books.
I'm just buying them from Evil Hat now.

[Backgammon]

I always come check Dumpshock when one of my books is released, to come see what the worse flaws with my product are. I use the main forums and reddit to see what 99% of fans think, then I check Dumpshock so I know what the worse failings are so I'm not surprised by them later and also so I learn not to do those mistakes again. So, there.

[kzt]

Because, seriously, this is the wrongest thing -- and honestly the most insulting -- that I've ever seen posted here.

I'm not the guy who said you only do it for the money. That was the guy defending the state of the current game, arguing that quality of the freelancer's and line editor's work didn't matter as long as their pay check cleared. At least that was what he seemed to be saying by defining "professionalism" as being paid.

[Umidori]

I feel bad for the freelancers.

They get fleeced from the get go. Then their work gets chopped up and used for whatever, without any real feedback or understanding on the part of the editors. Then players are like, "Wow, this supplemental book written by X is pretty bad", because CGL printed the first draft and just ignored the freelancer's revisions, or slap-dashedly "edited" a working set of rules or a solid story into a total mess, or in some other way screwed up otherwise decent work.

So we're left with the writers and artists being asked to produce work without solid direction or support, on a deadline, for crap pay, which gets edited into oblivion, which will never have any of its inevitable errors fixed even when those fixes are handed to the people in charge on a silver platter, and for which the writers and artists take most of the blame for the resulting mess because editors aren't anywhere near as visible.

Everyone loses, because the people at the top are incompetant. And when profits drop as a result they simply pay the freelancers even less than before and cut even more corners in production. The people who make the mistakes don't pay any consequences - they just shovel them onto whoever is beneath them.

~Umi

[Glyph]

Yeah, they really need editors who can look at the big picture, so you don't have things getting double-nerfed, or have glaring omissions and contradictions. They also need a keener eye to spot glaringly stupid bullshit that keeps popping up - part of it may be people writing without a clear understanding of how the game and the game world work, but an editor's job is to catch these things.

Example - in Street Grimoire, page 41, where they completely mess up why spirits are paired with spell categories; it is because spirits can only give bonuses to spells in that category. It does NOT mean that having an earth elemental as a healing spirit means you can only have it do things related to healing!! Trying to tie spirit services to spell categories doesn't work - they are two completely different things. And it probably happened because the writer had no real understanding of that rule, and an editor didn't catch it.

[Voran]

I'm comfortable with the idea that a game system has passed me on. Its like D&D, I was collecting stuff from it for like 30 years of my life. Partially as my real life responsibilities took hold my time to invest in games became less, and my connection with them faded. Same goes with SR, heck, I've still got my 1st edition stuff. DNA/DOA is like 5 feet away from me atop one of my drawers. Again I kept up through around middle-4e.

I'm disappointed I'm not really representative of the target audience anymore, and as much as I'd like to feel there's some 'deserving' of reciprocity or something, I also realize that's unrealistic. And while I recognize names from when I first started posting here, I also accept that much like me, not all of us stick around. I only really decided to look back in on SR5 as my email was reminding me about Shadowrun Chronicles which I had kickstarter donated back when it opened up.

Eh, its the cycle of life. We're not going to be able to connect our perspective with newcomers, and they'll just get frustrated that we don't agree with them. Heh, I see it in grad school, the fresh from undergrad that think they know the world and can't understand us dinosaurs, and us dinosaurs with tacit and experiential knowledge going "You need to look at the big picture..." we're never going to connect until they get 'to be our age' and have to deal with the youngin generation themselves.

[Sengir]

Part of the reason they persist is that they make most of their money on non-SR products. By all accounts, their Battletech stuff is actually decent quality, which is really all you need with as passionate a fanbase as that universe has.

Well, SR 5 seems to be selling well enough. And core books are the cash cows of any system, no matter how well XTRO:Forklifts may be written

[Machiavelli]

Honestly, I don´t think that this is, what Fatum meant (at least i hope). We have to differ between the phrasing and the intention of what was said. I understood it as "dumsphock doesn´t host as many users as the official forum. We are talking about a small group of players and the rules were made for everyone". Did i get that right?

[Cain]

Honestly, I think it's because the official forums are filled with yes-men, while Dumpshock is willing to provide honest (if overly blunt) critiques.

Yes, I think CGL treats the Shadowrun freelancers like crap. And the editorial staff seems content to let things lie. But the writers have to share some blame, too. We've seen that a great deal of the unproofed writing that CGL receives is loaded with errors-- typos, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and so on. And while it's the proofreader's job to fix that, they're supposed to be a last check, not a first line of correction. The writer is supposed to correct their own work, and then the proofreaders are supposed to correct anything they miss-- because let's face it, it's rare to catch all your own mistakes.

That said... as a professional writer, I'd be downright embarrassed to turn in work with as many errors as we see in the published work. It'd make me look like an illiterate oaf. I've seen fewer mistakes per page when correcting high school essays! And to be fair, I'd hate to deal with that level of criticism of my own work. Heck, dealing with criticism as a writer is a whole art unto itself, so I would feel more welcome among a more forgiving audience.

But at the same time... if I want to improve my work, I take the time to listen to the harshest critics. "You do great work, man!" is not a helpful way to improve my art. "You suck, and here's why" has always been more helpful, at least when I'm willing to hear it.

[binarywraith]

As a note, the thread on the official forums requesting rules clarification just stopped being updated ~6 months ago without explanation. There's 30 pages of requests in there without answers.

[Wakshaani]

Well that's not good. I'll try and poke a head in there next week and see if I can drop some answers.

I've been on hiatus since November, only getting back in the mix April 1st, and am currently working on A Future Product.

But when it comes to Dumpshock, I was here before Freelancing, I'm here while Freelancing, and I'll be here after Jason gets tired of me and cuts me loose. It's all good! And, yeah, I actually *like* swinging through here to see if I screwed something up and, if so, where/how. It's how I get better at writing, and, some day, I want to make a living at this. (And, believe me, we don't get paid enough to do this for a living. My pay is basicly slipped into my local game store and some Kickstarters. If anyone says we do this for MONEY, they're confused. We do it for love, with a lil' sidecash for hobbies.)

Some people take things more personal than others, some have a "Haters gonna hate" swagger, and most are somewhere in between.

Mind you, I used my RL nephew, who I adore, in a story in A Different Upcoming Product, and killed him off on the page. When he's older, I'll have to show it to him and be like, "Look! You're famous! Kinda. Sorta. Vaguely. And, er... dead. But hey! Name in book!" It was about the most literal "You have to be willing to kill your babies" moment for me yet.

When that product comes out, I'll be sneaking around, reading stuff for a week or so before I'll actually speak up, but... I'll be reading all the same. Yes, even those of you who HATE it. All I ask is that you don't just stomp around and yell, but that you point things out and explain *why* they don't work. Constructive criticism.

(Tho, really, you're gonna have to let War -go-. It's been years, it was the transition book, and some of the memes about it don't actually exist. (And, no, I didn't work on that one, so it isn't personal) ... pick on the SR5 core book, pick on Run n Gun, but let War die already, okay? Love you!)

[binarywraith]

(Tho, really, you're gonna have to let War -go-. It's been years, it was the transition book, and some of the memes about it don't actually exist. (And, no, I didn't work on that one, so it isn't personal) ... pick on the SR5 core book, pick on Run n Gun, but let War die already, okay? Love you!)

Just as soon as we get a book we can't find 0-day errata points on, or someone prints new material that retcons the dumbest of it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Seriously, though, the way to get people to stop complaining about error-filled and badly written works is to publish something good. We'd all love to see it, and would be very happy for it.

[apple]

you're gonna have to let War -go-.

As soon as all people responsible for the Auschwitz Adventure Park are gone we can talk about letting it go. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

SYL

[Wothanoz]

As soon as all people responsible for the Auschwitz Adventure Park are gone we can talk about letting it go. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

SYL

That. These. Words. Exist. Is very bothersome. Eeesh. There's a reason I don't buy many of the secondary books for SR. The stuff I really need rules for(Magic, Decking, Rigging, Gear, Guns, etc) I will cash out for. But... man, I'm not even sure I know the world anymore.

Honestly, I don't use anything past year of the comet(or even that supplement). I'm perpetually stuck in the 2060s, I guess. That's what I liked, and things just... got... weird after that.

[Voran]

I wouldn't mind another Hawaii adventure (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I do find it delicious that even in a crazy 6th world, Hawaii has its shit together better than we currently do. Even with explosions and dragons (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Bull]

It's one of a couple things that's gotten twisted around a bit and blown out of proportion. It's like a game of telephone or some Urban Legend, where every retelling magnifies and adds to it.

It's slightly less than half a page long. Two thirds of that (4 paragraphs) describes the area, which is a twisted, blighted place magically scarred by the nazi horrors that took place there in WWII filled with twisted, angry spirits. The last two paragraphs describes a magical, effectively cursed artifact that can be found there (This was I think supposed to be a loose tie-in to the Artifact/Magical stuff we were doing at the time), a rusty old scalpel used by a nazi surgeon to experiment on people with, and how someone might hire a team of runners to risk their lives against the spirits to recover it.

This has somehow gotten twisted in the telling into this full blown adventure where runners heroically slaughter the noble ghosts of the Jews for awesome Nazi Magic Loots!

Next up, ask them about how a single line of Shadowtalk in a vehicle PDF release discussing how refugees were using a minisub to escape war-torn Bogota via the Bogota river, and somehow it got blown into this who thing about how CGL magcially decided that Bogota borders the ocean. That's a fun rant too.

Now, to be fair, the War! article does refer to the spirits of ghosts, which is not a choice I'd have used (What "ghosts" are, exactly, in Shadowrun has been a subject of discussion going back to first edition, but ultimately it always translates into "Spirits imprinted by their surrounding and the emotions linked those surrounding", which begs the question of exactly what Spirits are, but that ends up effectively a theological debate that Shadowrun isn't answering anytime soon). It's also in general not a particularly good section. But... Again, it's been overblown and grows in the telling.

I find it amusing.

[bannockburn]

Trivializing a trivialization of mass murder. I have no words.

Maybe it's just a matter of being from Germany, where this is a touchy subject, but with "I find it amusing", you just lost a lot of respect I previously had for you.

[Bull]

Trivializing a trivialization of mass murder. I have no words.

Maybe it's just a matter of being from Germany, where this is a touchy subject, but with "I find it amusing", you just lost a lot of respect I previously had for you.

I suspect that it may be a German thing, and I can understand that. And don't get me wrong, I don't find the original subject amusing at all.

But we're talking a fictionalized game, with ghosts/spirits/magic, where the player characters are, by and large, mass murdering terrorists.

Second, nothing in the write up ever even attempts to apologize, whitewash, or in any way say "Hey, what the Nazi's did was 'ok'." In fact, it says the exact opposite. It says taht what they did was so terrifying, so horrible that it scarred the vary landscape for the next 130 years to the point where magic and astral space itself is completely fragged up.

Even the scalpel, the magic McGuffin device taht's mentioned, it's essentially a cursed magical item. It's not like "Oh hey, trael here and get this awesome Holy Avenger +5". It's a magic weapon that imposes penalties on you for using it, because it induces horrific flashbacks to the terrible things done with it.

And at the end of the day, it's entirely keeping within the scope of the Shadowrun world to say "Hey, some unscrupulous bastard may try to hire someone to get in there and steal this for them." It's not presented as a trophy to be won, but as a job to do, a dirty one. Much like the lying, murdering, mass destruction, kidnapping,a nd all the othe rterrible things most Shadowrunners do on a daily basis.

And it's also just an adventure seed. Take that, flip it around. You get hired to get in there and destroy the horrible object before someone else can get it. Now it's a hooder adventure.

Nothing I said, and nothing in the original write up condones anything that happened at Auschwitz. And what is presented are not innocent, happy Jewish spirits... They're twisted, terrible spirits of vengeance created from the echoes of the fear and terror and evil committed at that place.

What I find amusing is simply the fact that a couple people were so hurt and so angry at CGL over the events that happened a few years ago that they have taken every opportunity to trash anything that gets worked on. And they take something minor and blow it out of proportion. And then it gets parroted, and added onto. It's a bad game of telephone. I'd almost be willing to bet that half the people who repeat this stuff actually believe that the book really does talk about Shadowrunners murdering Jewish ghosts for Magical Nazi Loot and that we really did write in about the docks of Bogota at the beaches of the whatever ocean, either because they've simply never read the section in question and are just repeating what they've heard, or they simply no longer remember what it says because they've said something else so often they believe that now instead.

I'll be honest. War is a terrible book. I didn't like it when it was in playtesting. I didn't like it when it was released. I think the Auschwitz section should have likely been left on the cutting room floor, because I generally believe on erring on the side of caution. But that doesn't change the fact that the section really isn't all that objectionable, and that it's been over-inflated by years of constant badmouthing. And if you knew the politics and beliefs of the author of that section, you would understand that never in a million years was there ever an ounce of disrespect intended.

Anyway, I'm out. I'd been avoiding this thread anyway because seriously, when a thread basically says "Hey, we hate you, asshole, and you shouldn't be posting here" right in the thread title, that's a pretty big flashing neon sign that says "this will be unpleasant and you have better things to do with your time." I misclicked, and then only read because Wothanoz post and he's someone i know from way back and know he's just recently come back to the boards. My mistake. And I knew I shouldn't have posted, because it was just asking to be jumped on. But I did and I did. I've said my piece now, and I have no intention of getting dragged into a flamey argument. It's been hashed out before, and people will believe what they believe.

Bull

[hermit]

*snip reply*

I hoped it was just a lapse or maybe oversensitivity on my part. I hould have listened to my conscience more. I have no polite words for you, or anybody currently working on this game any more.

[bannockburn]

Please don't try to rationalize further. I cringed in the first two lines. There's a reason why the parts in question are removed from the German Fronteinsatz, not the least of which that we have laws against this kind of speech.

You find it amusing that people get angry about a highly volatile subject, and that's your right. But it doesn't make it remotely understandable for people who are actually offended by that thing.

Personally, I've not even been in. I've not read the thread and just mis-clicked and landed on your posting. I also see no further need for discussion on that subject.

[Sendaz]

For whatever's its worth Bull, we do appreciate you chiming in on this despite knowing what it will bring on.

[Critias]

Well, that escalated quickly.

[apple]

I find it amusing.

May I ask if Jason Hardy still think that the Ausschwitz Adventure Park was a good idea? Is he still amused by the thought that brave Runners venture deep into the Auschwitz Dungeon to hunt for necromantic artifacts, to sell them for some hefty gold reward? I mean ¥ reward? Because I still remember a discussion on the official SR4 forums where the question was raised if that really was the intention and the answer was a "Yeah, it sounds cool, right" from one of the (semi)officials.

I understand that Auschwitz is now a treasure groove and a runner place. But exactly what are these necromantic artifacts mentioned in the text? Where can I find the rules for necromancy (can I summon the dead as a mage as a initiate power because i do not find the rules for summoning dead people in Street Magic? Or is this ancestor spirit, summonend normally? Which magic tradition? A normal one? Or a toxic one? Where can I find the rules for these necromatic artefacts? Are they normal magic items or true artifacts? Where can I get the values of this arctifacts?

Anwer by machineiv
I wanted to write something up on that, but I didn't have much space to work with. I would say that most are traditional magic items, with a possibility of a true artifact, depending on what you wanted in your campaign.

I am not quite sure, we have an German in our group and he seems a little bit confused about the treasure hunt (I love treasure hunts, you can do everything there) in Auschwitz. I said to him that there are only the ghosts of the village people, he asked if there are the ghosts of the Jews too. He does not want to kill jew ghosts.

Answer by machineiv
It should have been villagers. I haven't read the final version, but it was supposed to be all natives, not prisoners.

But of course I am quite sure that I completely misunderstood everything. In that case I would be terrible sorry of course.

I haven't read the final version

Ah, yes, how often did we hear that now from freelancers in the last 3 years?

SYL

[Sengir]

Let's have a look at the original text, shall we?

WORK BRINGS FREEDOM
Oswiecim was under a spiritual barrier for a number of years. Oswiecim was home to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most well known of the Nazi party’s concentration camps. During the Holocaust, 1.1 million people died within its walls. This led it to become one of the most haunted places on the planet. Ghosts of all shapes and sizes dwelled within, frightening out or murdering all residents of Oswiecim. Because of the sheer magnitude of the haunting, a great number of other things found home there. For the inclined occult investigator, Auschwitz-Birkenau is a treasure trove. It’s also a remarkably dangerous trap. Earlier this year, an entrepreneur named Tetsuo Shuumatsu hired a cabal of sorcerers, charging them with the removal of the barrier. He’s an arms dealer, one who specializes in the weapons necessary to take down ghosts. With such an infestation of ghosts, only a silly buyer would hesitate to pay top dollar for his wares. His greed opened this treasure trove to the public, allowing those without a sense of self-preservation to have a unique opportunity to drudge for necromantic artifacts
The town proper is effectively still a town, albeit a town inhabited by the angry and hungry dead. They don’t take kindly to the living, but aren’t necessarily hostile unless provoked. Many are simply living out echoes of their past existences as harmless villagers.

What Bull describes is how things could have been done, but as written it's raiding the tomb of horrors under a magic dome for necromantic treasures. From terminology to spirit rules, the whole section does not mesh with SR. And since those stupid "real ghost" the players encounter happen to be in Auschwitz, there are indeed unfortunate connotations... Under the heading "Arbeit macht frei", that certainly helped...

[apple]

Perhaps Bull didn´t read the final version as well. Amusing, isn´t it?

SYL