Better Than Bad Options

[binarywraith]

Apparently CGL doesn't even bother to announce new books anymore! A friend pointed this out on DTRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/259492/

Righteous Fire
Kill or be killed. Eye for an eye. Get yours while you can. Shadowrunners—and most of the other residents of the Sixth World—are told from birth that those are the principles you must follow to survive. Thinking of others is for suckers. Take care of your own and hope you don’t die early.

But some runners think that’s no way to live. They know the world is stacked against them, and they’ve decided they like those odds. They choose to fight for what they think is right. They use shadowruns to take from people who don’t deserve what they have and give to those who need it. They seek hidden information that can right wrongs. It’s not easy, and it doesn’t always pay as well as outright theft, but who do they tell stories about centuries later—Robin Hood, or the jerk thief from a few forests away who only thought of himself?

Better than Bad is a shadowrunners’ guide to hooding, the art of committing crime to help those in need. With plot information, shadowrunning techniques and tactics, and advice to help runners work to bring good into the world, the book is the first definitive guide to shadowrunning with a conscience. It also includes information on a hot spot for working to right wrongs—Pretoria, in the African nation of Azania

Better than Bad is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, and most of the material can also be used with Shadowrun: Anarchy.

Anyone happen to pick this up? Five years into SR5 seems like a strange point to actually talk about the whys of shadowrunning, but this does have some promise!

[Wakshaani]

I was just swinging over to announce this. (I would have been in sooner but I'm behind on deadlines and am trying to crank some work out.)

If you're a fan of the flavor from SR 1 and 2 (or to a lesser level SR 3), then this is a book that you'll want. It's about Hooding and less-professional runs, from working for a jaded spouse looking for revenge to helping out a reporter or the Mothers of Metahumans, to crime groups that aren't Megacorp big but still influential... it's about putting the Punk back into Cyberpunk.

It's not for everyone but I think that it'll set well with a lot of the old crew around Dumpshock.

[binarywraith]

I'm also hearing it's got some crunch to give mundanes something to do with their build that isn't strictly inferior to magic, so that could be cool. May have to break down and give CGL money.

[Sengir]

it's about putting the Punk back into Cyberpunk.

That sums it up pretty well...at times it's obviously just short summaries from Loose Alliances, on the other hand that will be new information for a lot of players (Loose Alliances is from 2005) and it's nice that the presence is at least acknowledged.

The most interesting part of the new crunch is the "Grey" ware grade: Essence x 0.75, Cost x 1.3...but Awakened chars lose an extra magic point per item. Interesting idea to have Essence reductions which don't benefit magicians, although it's really weird from a fluff POV. What's even weirder is that this is supposed to come from an unground, fly-by-night outfit who have at the same time developed some kind of antimagic compound which can be applied to armor (think the Redundant Manufacturing mod from WAR!), applied as a tattoo, or even injected to temporarily burn out Awakened victims.

[Koekepan]

I like where you're going with this.

Still not into 5th Ed, but I do like that you're concerning yourselves with the feel. Thumbs up!

[binarywraith]

I'd love to see the old Neo-Anarchist spirit get a lot more back into the game.

[Wakshaani]

I'd love to see the old Neo-Anarchist spirit get a lot more back into the game.

That's the idea!

If this sells well, the upper management will look into more, similar-style, books in the future. (And, yes, we see the irony in that.)

Inside, you get to see a samurai fight like a boss, see a father ask you to bring his son's attackers to justice, and a whole heck of a lot more. (Said samurai story also has an update on The Underground Formerly Known As the Ork underground as well. Nota big one, but one that shows some of what's happening down there. Maybe your players will care, maybe not … every table's different.)

There are a bajillion plot hooks in there for your team, too.

I dig it, but, I'm biased, so. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[binarywraith]

The bad part is I'm not sure if it'll sell, because even most of the die-hards I know have given up on SR5. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[KCKitsune]

The bad part is I'm not sure if it'll sell, because even most of the die-hards I know have given up on SR5. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Who can blame them? I mean, the number of screw ups that Catalyst made... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

I mean for me, the ONLY good thing that Catalyst did was make the Positive and Negative qualities not be multiples of 5. It made them much more balanced.

[Iduno]

Who can blame them? I mean, the number of screw ups that Catalyst made... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

I mean for me, the ONLY good thing that Catalyst did was make the Positive and Negative qualities not be multiples of 5. It made them much more balanced.

Halving the amount of edge spirits have helped the scaling some, although it was probably the least important possible fix for bringing the power of summoning into line with other actions.

I like the direction this book looks like it's heading, but after all of the broken promises and bad ideas, the book would have to be impossibly good to get most people I've talked to interested enough in SR5 to pick it up. I don't envy Wakshaani being in that position. I hope it works out.

[Sengir]

Nothing much to do on a WE, so at least I could read some more...

The book actually uses the term "antifa", given current sensitivities I would have expected to have that term to be bowdlerized. It's a single paragraph, which is one of those summaries from Loose Alliances, but somehow that tiny non-omission of old canon makes me happy


Secondly and somewhat less surprisingly, that "Grey armor" has some weird rules stuff:
Add 1 bonus die per rating of Grey Mana integration to resist any targeted magical attacks or effects, including area of effect and beneficial magic. Any Awakened character wearing armor or clothing with grey mana integration suffers a dice pool penalty to any skill test involving their Magic attribute equal to the rating and permanently reduces the Force and hits of any spell the wearer is currently sustaining by 1.
Sooo...Adepts can just wear that stuff with all the benefits and very few side effects? Attribute Boost and the few other abilities whose pool is Magic + X obviously suffer, but most adept stuff works like before. And "resist any targeted magical attacks or effects, including area of effect and beneficial magic"? How often does one roll to resist beneficial magic?

[binarywraith]

I think it's less 'bonus against beneficial magic' and more 'you are required to resist beneficial magic', but without the text in front if me I'm spitballing on intent.

[Beta]

Regarding goodies for mundanes, there is also a mundane-only quality that let's you improve your favorite weapon (improve damage, accuracy, etc).

Inside, you get to see a samurai fight like a boss, see a father ask you to bring his son's attackers to justice, and a whole heck of a lot more. (Said samurai story also has an update on The Underground Formerly Known As the Ork underground as well. Nota big one, but one that shows some of what's happening down there. Maybe your players will care, maybe not … every table's different.)

Just a warning: if you are a sentimental softy like me, do NOT read the story about the samurai during lunch at work, at your desk, right before having to go talk to people.

The bad part is I'm not sure if it'll sell, because even most of the die-hards I know have given up on SR5. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

I'm not sure how drivethrurpg chooses their positioning of hot titles (i.e. purely on sales, inducements from the company selling the product, or just what), but for whatever it is worth, Better Than Bad was in the first slot for I think two weeks after it came out, now having slide to number two. This just could mean that SR sells in pdf more than a lot of other games (or that their physical distribution is weak enough that people give up and buy the pdfs), but I think that at the very least it means that the game still has a fair number of eyeballs on it.

[Iduno]

Regarding goodies for mundanes, there is also a mundane-only quality that let's you improve your favorite weapon (improve damage, accuracy, etc).

What's the cost relative to other options like "being an adept" or "putting those points into money for bioware"?

[Wakshaani]

Just a warning: if you are a sentimental softy like me, do NOT read the story about the samurai during lunch at work, at your desk, right before having to go talk to people.

For what it's worth, I cried while writing it.

[hermit]

Mundanes get some useful stuff in this book, sorta.

Grey Mana Defense, Grey Mana tattoos and the gun quality seem decent enough, though (Special Modifications isn't going to be of much use to me, but playstyles differ), but other stuff (Greyware!) is nerfed from the get-go, again, so much that it is essentially worthless. So it's a mixed bag for mundanes, and still nowhere near the power-up Kill Code and Forbidden Lore were for the Awakened, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. Guess we gotta be glad not everything was written by Vampire McStu or some TM fangirl this time. Which is not to say the Awakened don't get stuff in BtB, in fact they get a bunch of good stuff (including a quality formerly available for mundanes and mancers, now mancer-exclusive). Some stuff in BtB is useful for mundanes, but it's not exactly the focus of the book, much like Kill Code.

And yes, this means the Neo-Anarchist supplement again gives handouts primarily to the privileged.

What's the cost relative to other options like "being an adept" or "putting those points into money for bioware"?

Cyberware still loses out big time. I mean, many Greyware implants - if they're even available as Greyware (the wording is so vague and the authors apparently have totally different ideas of what it should mean, nobody knows) - won't have any function other than draining essence (and, okay, give you a slight hits boosts that are as likely to happen as a win at a slot machine). Greyware does little to make cyberware actually viable, and whether or not it interacts with an internal router? Who knows. The book's not even mentioning this possibility. I would suspect it has no WiFi boni to give, so none to transfer to the router (meaning Greyware wired and reaction boosters are inherently incompatible, yay cyberware).

[Sengir]

Cyberware still loses out big time. I mean, many Greyware implants - if they're even available as Greyware (the wording is so vague and the authors apparently have totally different ideas of what it should mean, nobody knows)

The wording ("If a piece of cyberware cannot be obvious and has no wireless component, it cannot be taken as GreyWare") is not vague at all. A condition "not A and not B" is only fulfilled if both A and B are false, therefore all ware which has a wireless component, or can be obvious, or both can be Greyware. RL example, "if you are not 18 and not accompanied by a parental guardian" means minors have to bring a guardian, not that both the condition "18" and "accompanied by a parental guardian" have to be fulfilled (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
The author has stated that what he meant to say was something different, but what the section does say is the above.

[hermit]

There is not even a definition what kind of cyberware can be obvious with the exception of cyberarms, which do not qualify for Greyware.

[Sengir]

There is not even a definition what kind of cyberware can be obvious with the exception of cyberarms, which do not qualify for Greyware.

Uhm, of course they qualify. Cyberlimbs can be obvious, therefore the condition "If a piece of cyberware cannot be obvious" is not fulfilled, therefore the main clause "it cannot be taken as GreyWare" does not apply.


If you'd like to have it formally, the conditional in the book is

not(obvious) and not(wireless) => not(greyware possible)

There are no other requirements and not other conditions which allow something the be Greyware, therefore "not(obvious) and not(wireless)" is both necessary and sufficient and we have a a logical equivalency

not(obvious) and not(wireless) <=> not(greyware possible)

...which is equivalent to its contraposition

not[not(obvious) and not(wireless)] <=> not[not(greyware possible)]

applying De Morgan's laws yields

not[not(obvious)] or not[not(wireless)] <=> not[not(greyware possible)]

and after simplifying the double negations we finally get

obvious or wireless <=> greyware possible

(note that in this context "or" means "and/or", not "either or")

[binarywraith]

Per the author:

Author here. Greyware is dope. It needed limits. It can't be wireless. It must be obvious. There are some lore reasons which may not be ovbious yet. Still, as intended, if you CAN take it as obvious, AND do so, then that qualifies it for Greyware. However, unless there is also a wireless bonus to the ware, it cannot be taken as greyware.

MUST have the normal ability to be taken wireless. MUST be obvious whether the normal ware is obvious or not.

If the ware CANNOT be obvious, it cannot be greyware.
If the ware CANNOT be wireless, it cannot be greyware.
If the ware CAN be wireless AND CAN be obvious, it CAN be greyware.

Therefore Cyberlimbs do not qualify as they do not offer a wireless bonus.

Badly written section there, that a bit of competent copyediting would likely have caught and clarified. I feel bad for the freelancers who work on this stuff these days because CGL is absolutely not showing their work off in a flattering light.

[Sengir]

Per the author:

As I said (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

The author has stated that what he meant to say was something different, but what the section does say is the above.

And while I normally tend to hold the author's intent over the written wording, that's because normally an author saying "whoops, I didn't want that" means that the intended version solves a problem. In this case it would create, well, not a problem, just a useless block of text because Greyware would be unusable...