[X] My Assistant

[Sengir]

Bull didn't write it...and I like to think that if he had proofed that section, we would have been spared spiritual barriers and Dollars. Say what you want about him, I can't imagine him slipping up on Dollars vs. Nuyen (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Medicineman]

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.

Just so you can Understand us Germans
Our Nazi Past is as disturbing to Us as 9-11 is to You.
Imagine how You would feel if someone wrote a similar "Run" in the Twin Towers (killing the Spirits of Firefighters and Office Workers that died there, etc.....)

with a final Dance concerning this Topic
(because I really don't want to talk about it anymore)
Medicineman

[sk8bcn]

The start of the thread was supposed to be positive.

Well, anyways, I stand with Bull on that one.

ok that plot hook sucks and is of bad taste, but doesn't deserve more than ignoring it. I mean, it's not like writin a full Werewolf book about Nazi's and the Umbra and... No?


Those subjects are touchy. But honestly, I can't stand how much hate backfires with this.

I mean, why not just ignoring? Why? Especially in these troubles days when you can get murdered for making parodies of Allah? I know the scale has nothing to do between the two, but this philosophy works for both: "Common, it's not worth hate."

(I hope this won't be misunderstood it's just supposed to be a call for peace)

[apple]

I mean, why not just ignoring?

That is of course a possibility. But then again Jason Hardy was responsible for WAR! and is responsible for SR5. If you a really want the answer for "what happened to dumpshock" you should not ignore one of the many reasons. It´s not about errata for everyone.

SYL

[Modular Man]

I second the call for peace. I value the opinions displayed, but there's no fixing that book now anyway. I dislike it, personally (some parts more, some parts less), but that's not the point of this thread.

Well, that escalated quickly.

Sadly, yes.

Shall we get on with the original topic? Please? Because I really am interested in that.

I used to come here mostly for ideas. Ideas on how to tweak my game, ideas on different uses of gear. I come out here to learn new tricks and to get notified on the holes in the system to be avoided.
It seems to me that some freelancers did so, too. Because as I remember it, the splash grenade packed with something slippery that finally made it into stats in "Spy Games" originated here, and some time before that book (or am I wrong?).

I think that this forum is the most knowledgeable think tank on Shadowrun, but has a tendency to be impolite and to hold onto grudges.
Lately, Dumpshock seems to be stuck, though. Not many original ideas on how to play the new edition (or even the recent old one), just a lot of "Yeah, fifth edition is bad anyway." That's sad, because this place used to be awesome.

That's how I feel about it. Granted, I don't read every thread and mostly pick to my own interests. But still.

[Kyrel]

>Edit<

Forget my question. The topic's come back on track now apparently, and I don't want to derail it again.

[Sengir]

I mean, why not just ignoring?

Because somebody was wrong on the internet.

I agree with Bull insofar as that section has become a symbol for every grudge people harbor about the product line -- but that's because the section really is spectacularly bad, even without any undead Jews. In fact, those undead Jews only are a problem because it was written without regard to how "ghosts" work in SR.

So I'm fine with not mentioning the War, but don't tell me it was just overhyped...

[binarywraith]

The start of the thread was supposed to be positive.

Well, anyways, I stand with Bull on that one.

ok that plot hook sucks and is of bad taste, but doesn't deserve more than ignoring it. I mean, it's not like writin a full Werewolf book about Nazi's and the Umbra and... No?


Those subjects are touchy. But honestly, I can't stand how much hate backfires with this.

I mean, why not just ignoring? Why? Especially in these troubles days when you can get murdered for making parodies of Allah? I know the scale has nothing to do between the two, but this philosophy works for both: "Common, it's not worth hate."

(I hope this won't be misunderstood it's just supposed to be a call for peace)

I'm going to say this as calmly and politely as I can.

There is no perspective in which that part of War! having been published as written is excusable. A writer produced it, editors (presumably) read it, it was approved for publication. It is a (per Bull's statement) throwaway adventure hook that is literally illegal to publish in Germany, SR's main overseas fanbase. If it didn't matter, who could even defend it being published as a good idea?

This is why a few people here don't have much goodwill for giving the flaws of new publications passes. Because there have been glaring flaws, which have been defended as not a big deal, for years.

Edit : Improved civility, this topic hits a nerve with me.

[Wothanoz]

I'm going to say this as calmly and politely as I can.

There is no perspective in which that part of War! having been published as written is excusable. A writer produced it, editors (presumably) read it, it was approved for publication. It is a (per Bull's statement) throwaway adventure hook that is literally illegal to publish in Germany, SR's main overseas fanbase. If it didn't matter, who could even defend it being published as a good idea?

This is why a few people here don't have much goodwill for giving the flaws of new publications passes. Because there have been glaring flaws, which have been defended as not a big deal, for years.

Edit : Improved civility, this topic hits a nerve with me.

I'm not knocking ya or nothin, but your opinion is exactly one of the reasons I stopped buying anything that was more "plot" based for SR. Year of the Comet was... Well, I wasn't a fan, I'll tell ya. I think I gave my copy to a younger guy who was getting into SR about the time I was burning out. Not sure. But, yeah, I jsut got increasingly disenfranchised with the way the setting was going. And it kept going that way, so I just said "frag it" and pauled things in the late 50s, early 60s, ignored most of the events after-that.

So at best, I play in a divergent SR universe from the canon, and I'm happy with that. Shadowrun isn't about the epic battles of household names, but about unknown, unseen criminals who are either remember in obituaries, or retire to some quiet place and live out their days in relative comfort. It's my opinion that nothing the runners do should ever seriously alter the setting to the point that regular people would know.

[Cochise]

It is a (per Bull's statement) throwaway adventure hook that is literally illegal to publish in Germany, SR's main overseas fanbase.

Not necessarily defending Bull (or anyone else involved) there but I'm hard pressed to find any German law that would have made that fiction "illegal to publish". Yes, we're pretty sensitive - if not over sensitive - to the underlying subject and we do have a lot of laws that revolve around that particular aspect of the past ... but none that would have prohibited the (1 to 1 translated) publication of said plot hook except for "good taste" and "avoiding economical suicide" on that (and future) product(s) of the franchise.

Nonetheless, ...

If it didn't matter, who could even defend it being published as a good idea?

... if it really had been that unimportant they certainly could have spared themselves the trouble.

[Sengir]

It is a (per Bull's statement) throwaway adventure hook that is literally illegal to publish in Germany

Now that is a part which has really gotten disconnected from reality: German law restricts certain kinds of speech deemed harmful to society, but a couple of paragraphs with a possibly distasteful approach to the Holocaust don't come close to meeting the banhammer.
I guess the idea stems from the fact that German law and "youth protection" is famously trigger-happy when it comes to PC games, but that does not extend to other media.

To put things somewhat into perspective: The fucking Turner Diaries are legal here. They are on the list of media considered "socio-ethically disorienting" for the youth, which brings extra hoops even for adults, but still very much "legal to publish". Udo Walendy also initially made that list for declaring everybody but Hitler started WWII, but successfully sued to get off.

[Sendaz]

I always wondered if part of where the plot came from was due to the divergence of ED from SR.

While SR retains their dragons and IE, they have to tread a lot more carefully about any other crossovers, so as to not overly step on another company's IP.

So while they continued to use some older Age artifacts somebody probably lifted a page from a fairly new show at the time in the form of Warehouse 13, to where artefact like devices were being spawned in this age.

Now they could have bizarre items without being tied to ED and handwave it through the low ebb in mana.

The premise is interesting, even if the application should have been handled better.

[binarywraith]

Honestly, I'm pretty sure it was probably contributed by someone with Bull's attitude, who didn't think it was a problem and just wanted to toss in a traditional RPG dungeon crawl hook as a sidebar without ever considering the implications.

[Stahlseele]

Same guy who threw in poisoning gypsy wells into war! as well i think?

[Aaron]

For what it's worth, I take great comfort in my abilities as a writer and/or designer when my work doesn't garner any comment on Dumpshock. =i)

[PraetorGradivus]

I bought every 4th edition PDF but skipped from 3rd to 4th and never played it till I started a character on an online game a few weeks ago. I double checked, and indeed I own War... I've been slowly reading those 4th PDFs because I'm in that online game...but I guess I'll be skipping War since there seems so much hate generated by it.

We've moved apart but I personally know Frank Chadwick who designed a lot of those old SPI games, Command Decision, Space:1889 etc and is about to have his second novel. Plenty of people don't like the way he designed things . But I got to tell you, I have nevr seen him phased by someone's criticism about anything he's published. If the critism is valid and there's a work around he incorporates it into his next game. If you take everything personally being a game developer isn't the job for you.

Having said that. I wish people would state why they think something is broken without resorting to saying thing like 'it's stupid', 'it's a piece of turd', etc. You can get your point across without breaking Wheaton's Law.

[binarywraith]

In the case of War!'s issues, generally 'It's stupid' is the kindest criticism available. When the book includes a submersible escape to the sea from a landlocked city 8600 feet above sea level on a plateau in the middle of the Andes mountains, down a river that has a 515 foot tall waterfall just 20 miles out of town. Said falls dry up in the winter at times.

Just total basic research failure.

[Critias]

In the case of War!'s issues, generally 'It's stupid' is the kindest criticism available. When the book includes a submersible escape to the sea from a landlocked city 8600 feet above sea level on a plateau in the middle of the Andes mountains, down a river that has a 515 foot tall waterfall just 20 miles out of town. Said falls dry up in the winter at times.

Just total basic research failure.

On the topic of basic research failures, I'll just go ahead and take my lumps, I guess, but this is kind of what Bull's talking about (and, in fact, he mentioned that somewhere in his post, but seems to have been overlooked because of the much-more-understandably-emotionally-charged complaints about War).

It doesn't matter if we like War or not, or if we're actually defending War, but just by pointing out that this claim is incorrect -- this repeated, and repeated, and repeated, claim -- I know I'm lining up to take a punch for appearing to defend War, but...oh well. I want people to dislike War for things that are actually wrong with it, and not for this, so I'm going to pipe up. That wasn't in War. There's nothing in War, at all, about this. People say it, but it just plain didn't happen that way.

That was in Deadly Waves. And, furthermore, there's nothing at all about an escape to sea. There's nothing about docks, or Bogota being a port city, or the submersible going all the way to the ocean, or anything else that people parrot over and over again. The exact quote, the entire quote, is "They can also serve as a way out of Bogotá, if you have the connections. There isn’t much of the way in amenities, so remember your own bucket." That's it. I don't care for it one way or the other, but I wish people would just get it right when they complain about it; what book it's in, and what it actually says.

But just like Bull mentioned, people play "telephone," even in the internet age, and it gets repeated, and changed in the telling, over and over again, until I've seen people -- pedantic, bright, people, who otherwise know their game lore -- claim stuff that simply isn't true. But it gets stated with such certainty, and it gets repeated, and it's in there with so much other stuff to be mad about, that the accuracy doesn't matter, it just gets repeated again. Like it did right here, right now.

Hate stuff if you wanna hate stuff. Lord knows, I do. Let's just hate stuff for the right reasons, huh?

[Machiavelli]

100% agree. BTW we wanted to go back to the topic, not restart a flame-thread that is aeons old. WAR war a bad book, agreed. Because of several reasons. Also agreed. But this is not the topic folks.

[Cain]

Crit is certainly right that War! is a dead horse, but the legacy of what it started lives on. The failures of that book live on to this day: from the poor editorial direction, the shoddy content control, poorly thought out rules, totally ignoring the proofreaders (and not paying them, I'm still waiting on my credit from four years ago), and accepting work that required that much proofreading in the first place.

We do harp on War! for being the start, but it didn't end there. Those same problems are still going on, and probably deserve more mention.

[Wakshaani]

See what I mean about letting that one go? It's just an ugly situation and we're all better off just moving on.

As you can see, more than a few of us still keep an eye on here, and the other Shadowrun places online, and even contribute chunks here and there. Mostly there, confessedly, but that's because Dumpshockers can largely take care of themselves... you don't need the help that newcomers do, since you've pretty well got this. Yeah, we're giving you new toys and new plots officially, but tossing stuff onto the boards, not so much.

But you guys *are* our community.

And I always appreciate the feedback, good or bad, as well as direction. When you want new politics, we try to get new politics in there. When you want new magical threats, we try to get them in there. When you want old favorites revisited, we try and get that done, too. It's slow-going, and there's quite a few things that get slaughtered by wordcount and opportunity, but we do try.

Keep in mind, this doesn't mean true fanservice. We're not going to give you want you want every time. Sometimes, for the narrative, you have to go the other way. Maybe we kill someone that you like. Maybe the badguys get a win. Maybe some rule hole gets closed down to improve the game but your characters all used it and you're ticked. It has to be done now and then because, all fanservice all the time? That route never ends well for anybody.

All I ask is that when you vent at us, as is *absolutely* your right, at least keep it current? Let's say from Storm Front, which closed the book on SR4 and opened up plots for SR5, onwards. We know editing's an issue and it's getting improved each time, but still a problem. Valid. Totally valid and being worked on, ut it's still not perfect. (But don't expect absolutely perfect. There's not a game produce made today without at LEAST a typo in it, no matter the company. Getting the number as close to zero as possible is the ultimate goal here.)

So, Storm Front, forward. Can we run with this as a mutual bridge? Otherwise, it's kind of like picking on Dolph Ziggler by making fun of his time on the Spirit Squad. He's moved on and gotten better. Let's all try to do the same.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

So, Storm Front, forward. Can we run with this as a mutual bridge? Otherwise, it's kind of like picking on Dolph Ziggler by making fun of his time on the Spirit Squad. He's moved on and gotten better. Let's all try to do the same.

Who's Dolph Ziggler?

[Stahlseele]

Storm Front?
Was that the one with the Dragon Civil war and eating 70k people in GeMiTo in 6 months?
Or was that the one with the nanite virus via secondary touch and matrix infects you and takes over your brain?
Or that Ares has a bad new Rifle and is goign down because of that?

I lost track somewhere . .


Dolph Ziggler is a Wrestler with WWF.
Wak you silly people ^^

[Draco18s]

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.

This is the spot I have to jump in, because this exact description is my job right now, only with my boss being both the "person in charge" and "the end user" and still not getting the fact that his disappointment is because of his own inability to give direction.

War!

Fuck. </rational discussion>

[Wakshaani]

Storm Front?
Or that Ares has a bad new Rifle and is goign down because of that?

Don't mistake a symptom for the disease. Just sayin'.
(Mind you, the rest has some validity.)

I lost track somewhere . .


Dolph Ziggler is a Wrestler with WWF.
Wak you silly people ^^

The WWE now. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

And, yes, I be silly, but the point's a valid one. People get better over time and with practice. I just couldn't think of many actors who I could slot in as quickly and who still have neatness to 'em. I mean, I could compare the lead from House to his old job on Black Adder, but people are likely to miss that. Harrison Ford's move from Bellhop to Star Wars ROgue's a good one, but Ford's ... not exactly been good for a while.

Hrm.

Ariana Grande of today compared to 'the airheaded one' from Victorious?

Lor dknows we all have bad Goth poetry in our old high school Trapper Keepers.

The goal is to *get* *better*.