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[lspahn72]

Please no flammin....Ijust a question...

It seems to me that over the last 3 years or so most of the web based suppliments have really died down. Now im sure most people have had families and careers that eat alot of that time away, but were are the younger crowd??? Or more importantly is there a much smaller number of people say under 20 that still play tabletop games??? Is this reflective of peoples REAL short attention span?

Love to hear some other thoughts????

[BishopMcQ]

I would personally label it the natural progression. Interest in gaming systems, in my opinion, is very much like the ebb and flow of the tide. Right now, SR may seem to be at a lower mark than before but it will change. I would say with the CCG revolution, there are fewer under 20 gamers than before, but in time they may serve as a gateway into other genres--including table-top gaming.

The only accurate way to test my theory would be to do an analysis of the number of web-based supplements for all the gaming systems on the market today in comparison to what was out there 5 or 10 years ago. I would say though that Dumpshock demostrates the thriving nature of tabletop gaming, at least for ShadowRun.

Differing opinions?

[Panzergeist]

I do miss Blackjack's page. He made some great character ideas. Though I prefer anvils to cows.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Almost everyone I know who had websites with original content has since grown out of gaming or SR and couldn't give rat's ass. I know of a couple of people who sold out and write for FanPro/WK and still have pages, but... meh.

I had one but couldn't maintain it for a year and someone else took care of it. I came back, didn't want to run it, and they got a co-admin. The original holder has since left (and is definitely incapacitated now because he's getting shot at in Iraq) and gave up interest. It didn't help that I took all of my Shadowrun files and deleted them (this is like the fourth or fifth time I did it, but this time I deleted stuff some people used, and stuff other people wrote for me but have since vanished), let's just say, because.

I am thinking about taking what the third party still has (I actually d/l'ed them) of mine and rewriting them because after reading a couple of SR supplements that came out in this period, I'm a bit concerned about the material--specifically when one of my co-conspirators has outright said that he felt like his stuff was ripped off (this is kind of like spud's FCG and the eerily similar one created in CC).

[Ancient History]

I'm not much for making original content myself. I just like arranging the given in different ways.

Crimsondude 2.0: I've done the deletion thing too. Many times. Still get the urge, sometimes.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Just out of curiosity, do you ever wish that you hadn't?

[Arethusa]

[Joker9125]

This might be a little off topic but here goes.....

Im currently 18 and got into SR this year at college. My roomate was the one to first get into it, I remember him and our GM sitting there for like a week going over rules and character concepts and me thinking (If i hear one more thing about a cyberarm or stunbolt im gonna beat those D&D nerds to death) but eventually I decided to try it and wound up liking it. Im on my summer break and me and my GM recently moved to the same city(we had no clue the other was moving untill it actually happened, wierd huh?) and its just the two of us here. Does anyone know where we can find an existing group in the Memphis TN area?

[Adam]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

I prefer "sell out" to "buy in," but that's another discussion.

The hassle isn't that big of a deal--particularly when it's not worth the trouble to do more than bitch about it. Seriously, what am I going to do? Sue someone for utilizing something I wrote that was credited to myself, but included the boilerplate disclaimer that it was unauthorized, and contained info and terms which were property of FASA? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Besides, of all of the pages and files and characters and stories (most of which never saw the light of day, and even those that did rarely reached beyond a very small audience of SR players who'd care) it happened three possible times and weren't exactly earth-shaking. They can even be explained away, and I sometimes think maybe it was inspired by something I wrote. It is more of a desire that if someone wanted to use something, they could have asked. "Gee, why'd you write X?"

Now if someone had expropriated elements of a short story I wrote about Nadja Daviar, then I'd be furious beyond reason because, frankly, the guns and teams and crap I could do in my sleep (which is how I plan to do anything SR-related this summer), but I put my soul into that story (and seeing this thread tore open the wound that came with erasing it). Hubert Selby Jr. once said, "When you write about somebody you hate, write about them with love . . .” That's exactly what I did with Daviar when I started writing a story that originally placed here in a supporting role. I didn't like her for many reasons, but throughout the DHS there were aspects of her and other characters (I think the only two chacters that were one-dimensional were Oscuro and Damien Knight) that belied the seeming air of perfection in her (especially since metaplot info and shadowtalk info differ about her). There were fundamental aspects of her persona which wanted to write about. In the end, I wrote the one story in which I cared about a character. I loved the character and put a great deal of thought and consideration, and love, into the story as a result. I wanted to do so much with the character (which I never did, and for various, never will). That was when I began spending sleepless nights creating (mostly SR) fiction--cosmically, the circumstances had a great deal to do with the story ever being written--and (to tie theis whole post together) there are things which I would find particularly upsetting were I to ever see them in someone else's work. In my case, with what I mentioned above, it's not that big of a deal. I'm not missing sleep over it. I'm just going to do it better. Perhaps one day I can discuss an idea with Rob what I discussed with Mike several years ago.

I also have to consider, and I think this is also a reason why some of the really good stuff isn't online, the fact that the EuroSB/SoE project had to become private for there to ever be a SoE written by those very people. Plus there are authors who have their own websites where they can put their material (Kenson, Peters, Carey, Szeto, et al.) and even I generally presume their material to be superior to a comparable product because, at the least, they can probably write it better because they've been held to professional standards.

This is also why I may or may not put my full ass into any new site or material if I ever desire getting published. Writing the article (which I wouldn't have written had real-life not provided the inspiration) about how and why it should be easier to see a former specfor-blackops-bodyguard-turned-shadowrunner in light of the current booming marketplace of military and law enforcement-trained personnel serving in multiple roles (some of which aren't quite legal), I now have to wonder whether to type it up and put it on the web, or type it up and send it to Rob Boyle as the possible intro chapter on clandestine organizations and "company men."

[Synner]

[Kagetenshi]

I've never understood the urge for deletion. I'm an inveterate record-keeper. I save everything, more or less. I'm currently resisting the urge to make a backup of AH's entire site against the possibility of his deciding one day to delete the whole thing; the loss of information horrifies me on an emotional level.

Ah, the joys of being obsessive-compulsive.

~J

[Ancient History]

I'm not currently in delete-the-site mode. I am in update-revise-expand-the-site mode.

Crimsondude 2.0: Yeah, there have been times when I deleted things when I really wished I hadn't. Mainly because I had to go back and re-do it.

[Sahandrian]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Synner: Thanks for clarifying the SB thing.

Actually, because I never had my own computer in college when I wrote them (and because I was very paranoid about keeping anything on my home computer) it was all on Zip disks. And I know enough about computers to know that (although one disk is corrupt) if I really wanted to I could try and retrieve some of it, but not all of it. I just can't do it. As far as I'm concerned, the files are as gone as the noteboks full of musings and fiction that Ive left in trashbins in cities I will never return to. I am a strong believer in preservation through destruction. Because if I had then, I wouldn't think about them. But since I don't, I won't forget.

[Kagetenshi]

I don't forget things just because I have them recorded. I do realize that some people do, however.

You'll probably hear about me being carted off to the loony bin in a few years, babbling every memory I have stored away in the recesses of my brain.

~J

[CircuitBoyBlue]

Right, like a shadowrun player would ever go loony...

I totally dig the preservation through destruction thing. But as much as I actually understand it, I still feel compelled to make a joke mocking US foreign policy...

[A Clockwork Lime]

[DV8]

Updating and maintaining my website is all about two things; Am I playing the game? Do I have the time? Yes, and yes equals a frequently updated website.

[Shadowrunner13]

I think I'm in the same boat as DV8... I just updated my page for the first time in four months. I don't play SR as often as I used to and with my baby girl at home, I don't have the time I once did. It seems more economical for me to stockpile goodies until I have a chunk of time to burn and do it all in one shot.

The fact that I have more hobbies than free hours in a week doesn't help matters either...

SR13

[DV8]

Well, as long as I keep getting an average 1000+ pageviews a day, I'll keep making sure my website is maintained on at least a semi-regular basis.