[ShadowsOfEurope] United Kingdom, That Green and unpleasant land... Options

[BIG BAD BEESTE]

Hi there Canid13, sorry that you felt "cheated" by the UK chapter. I assume you wanted a lot more detailed information on the whys and wherefores of how the Sixth World's UK state of affairs came to be. I expect you wanted to read something meaty so that you could set up and run a UK campaign straight of the pages. Unfortunately, as Synner and others have said it all boiled down to space restrictions and continuity of previously published materiel.

OK, so just to let you know, I'm the other author of this chapter. I am a Brit and have lived here in blighty for thirty years. Now whilst I have an inside view on the British lifestyle and our history, I admit that I haven't seen most of what our nation has to offer. But then again, although this is a small island its got a heck load of history and stuff associated with it. In brief, my intent was to bring over a feel of what makes the British tick - the atmosphere of a current Sixth World resident in that land, because it was intended to set that atmosphere across to the GM and their players (many of whom are not from the UK and have never seen it outside of a Hollywood cliche).

Therefore, the actual hard factual meat of locations and history was written as the writer would speak it to a newcomer. Most of whom do not want to be swamped with a heavy lesson of history and governments and monarchys because they will simply be in the background as compared to what events are "relevant" to running a game in the UK. Yes, the focus was for the Here and Now rather than the past. synner and myself tried to include the references as much as we could to support the main themes, but without going off on a tangent and exploring another subject altogether (even though it might have been something that we really wanted to explain in full).

However, what's done is done. You've mentioned that it was an update to an OOP sourcebook and thereby "missing" essential information. True, to an extent, on both accounts. It is an update because its been 15 years since Carl & Marc wrote the original and something had to happen in that time period. But we also included new stuff wherever we could. This was our attempt to temper the canon and to hopefully bring the UK to a stage where it could be changed into what people like yourself (IE: the consumer) want to see, buy, and play.

True again that it missed some really meaty information that we really wanted to include. Alas, for wordcount limitations. But yet again, this shouldn't prevent the chapter from being ueseful. It still brings across the essential skeleton of what the UK is and how it works along with several distinct characteristics. Hopefully, we can find space to expand upon this framework in the future products.

So keep watching and if you do have any questions please feel free to post here. We'll do our best to reply. Honest.

[Canid13]

Hi Beeste. Firstly, please don't get me wrong. I'm glad someone actually bothered to do a Europe sourcebook at all, since the Old World is usually the last place companies tend to look :o)

To be honest, I never expected to be able to pick up SoE and run stuff immediately. But I did expect to get some basic info which I could weave my story around. Okay, should Pendragon ever get to Seattle, he could possibly hire my players and perhaps if they went to the UK or something. That's all fine and dandy.

But what I'm really lacking is things like how, if at all, does life differ from Seattle. What's the sentiment on the streets and in the corp enclaves. What's the local beat bobby equipped with, and what backup does he have and the like. Will DocWagon or CrashCart contracts be honoured. How to the gangs differ, if at all. You know, the basic stuff which will have a massive and direct impact on a runner, even if he or she isn't on a job at the moment.

I can extrapolate some of this from New Seattle, and I guess add my own flair to the stuff, but it'd be nice to know how things work for real as opposed to "here's my best guess guys".

History is useful in filling in the gaps, since you can look at what's happened and generate a reasonable facsimile of what effect they'll have on people and things, and some new plot threads are always welcome (well, almost always).

Guess I'll just have to get used (again) to being in the minority.

[Demonseed Elite]

There's only so many words, though, and that level of detail takes a lot of words. Books like the old London Sourcebook, you just won't see much of anymore. They didn't sell well enough to rationalize their development costs. So, really, for that level of depth, you're mostly going to see it limited to a basic and global "shadowrunning lifestyle" or core default locations like Seattle. From there, gamemasters who want to shift the focus onto new areas are going to have to do some of the work themselves.

It's definitely not ideal, but unfortunately you can't really write every book how you'd really love to.

[Synner]

[Sepherim]

Besides, explaining how people feel, think and do is hard at best. That's something you need to "experiment" to know, mostly. I tried to do it in the Spanish chapter, and could only offer a quick view of things (not sure it made it in the final version, I haven't got my copy and there were too many versions to remember now which was in which ;) ).

[Canid13]

I appreciate your responces Beest and Synner. Hopefully I'll be able to get some use out of the book eventually. If not, well least I still get to say I've every 3rd edition book.

[BIG BAD BEESTE]

No worries Canid13, I hear your plea there. Whilst I did try to put over the bits you really wanted to know (IE: how things work and the UK perspective upon them) most of that got cut. Things like law and order, our attitude to cash, medicine/surgery, and the like. You'll find there is still the coverage of the day-to-day things like gangs, underworld organisations and the UK shadowrunning lifestyle at the end of the first section "The People" though. Not much, but I think it does get acorss the main differences between the UK and NA regions. As for DocWagon & Crashcart contracts - Nope! They don't exist in the UK. Well, not yet at any rate - there's some stuff in there about that too.

[SirBedevere]

[DrJest]

An excellent idea. It kind of reminds me of the old TORG Inifiniverse concept, where the universe was partly shaped by the actions of players around the world.

I don't have SoE yet, but I'm one of these old-timers who has the original OOP sourcebooks for most of this stuff (well, okay, I don't have Germany, so sue me :) ). I liked the original London sourcebook, and applauded FASA's good sense in turning it over to a couple of British gamers to write - God alone knows what we'd have had if the Yanks had done it themselves... :P

For those who took issue with the role of the aristocracy in the SR version of Britain, I think I can shed a little light. The hereditary aristos are fragging loaded, filthy stinking rich. I spent a few quality weekends with one many years ago (no names and no pack drill, cos her dad'd frigging kill me), and you would not believe how wealthy some of them are. And as that old adage states, money equals power. Now remember that most of those old noble families still think they should be running things (well.. actually, I'm a monarchist myself, but we'll slide over that for now ;) ), and the so-called "old boy network" is a working system that is frighteningly efficient.

Fast forward 50 years. Fragged off by decades of kowtowing to "lesser mortals", is it completely surprising that the aristocracy have decided to flex their influence muscles?