 Shadowrun Fourth Edition BBB Review, A review for the rest of us.... |
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 Sep 14 2005, 12:37 AM
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#26
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Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill.  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,545 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Gloomy Boise Idaho Member No.: 2,006  |
I've got the flu, my chapter a day will continue
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Sep 14 2005, 03:00 AM
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#27
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Target Group: Members Posts: 24 Joined: 13-January 05 Member No.: 6,974 |
To be honest, AR seems like something to help the game appeal to a new generation of gamers that have been steeped in the would of FPS games. Doesn't it feel like AR is like a game hud at times? "Ok, so my Ammo-count is on the lower lefthand side of my FoV, and my biomonitor readout is next to that. An image of my current smartlinked weapon is sitting just above the ammo display, and the signals from my teammates commlinks are overlaid upon a map one of my contacts scrounged up for us. But I can't just shake the feeling that I might respawn at the front door if I die." |
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Sep 20 2005, 07:00 PM
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#28
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Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill. Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,545 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Gloomy Boise Idaho Member No.: 2,006 |
Ok sorry for the delay :)
Life on the Edge The Great. The tone. The whole chapter has an excellent tone to it. Upbeat, energetic. Well done. This chapter is very informative, from the new AR to the Megas, and the seedier side of life in the shadows. It gives a very good overview of life in the 2070s. It is well formatted so that you can flip through it pretty quick and find the information you need. The Good. Halfway through the chapter there is a sidebar that tells you what’s what. Explains abbreviations and defines words. I really liked that. simple and solid. Excellent. The Bad. The Mega Corp description are a little skimpy. Since Corp. Download is now way behind the curve information wise I was hoping for a more detailed spread on the mega's. There very well may be one later in the book so I will keep an eye out for it. The Ugly. Not necessarily a problem with the chapter as it is with some of the concepts introduced in the chapter. I would like to meat whoever thought up PAN's and introduce them to a little thing I like to call "the criminal mind". Cause after all, Shadowrunners aren’t street heroes fighting the injustice of corporate slave drivers. Were all common or not so common criminals. And a criminal would not carry a BEACON on him telling everyone he met who he was, where he has been and what his favorite beer is. Then create stupid reasons why you would, and penalize you for not. The PAN is the single most ridiculous concept introduced in this book. |
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Sep 20 2005, 07:04 PM
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#29
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
I'll cast my vote on Technomancers for that award. |
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Sep 20 2005, 07:14 PM
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#30
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Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill. Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,545 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Gloomy Boise Idaho Member No.: 2,006 |
I haven't gotten to that chapter yet.
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Sep 20 2005, 07:19 PM
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#31
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 445 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,567 |
I'll agree with you shadow on alot of your points. Though I'll disagree on some.
First. I liked buzzkill. Not as much as I liked and enjoyed the 2nd ed story, but I liked buzzkill and the ideas it bring and how it kinda sets the tone for what working in the shadows is like. The fiction infront of each chapter I like. The font sucks granted, but the idea is nice (something stolen from whitewolf where they end each chapter this way). But it gives you more of a feel for the world, gives new players a better sense of the world and how things work, and if you read close you can find more than one plot hook in there. PAN's. Personaly I like the concept. And later on they say hey shadowrunners when they use these, ushualy stick to hidden, and don't have social profiles, and if they do its ushualy full of dirty lies (like most dating profiles coincidentaly). Later they prety much say yeah pans are used by everyone, shadowrunners tend to keep things on more of a low tone. But as I said I like the concept. To me it brings together and makes things a little less clunky. Realy depends on your GMing style though I think. If you like to nitpick everything, then your shadowrunners are going to believe that PAN's are their worst enemy. If you go with more of a freeflow approach, then they're a great tool. If you're somewhere in between they end up being a double edged sword so to speak. (But I'll shut up now because later in the book alot of this is discussed) |
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Sep 20 2005, 08:18 PM
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#32
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
I'd like to point out that PANs exist today... they simply are less sophisticated. I can and have interconnected all of the electronic devices on my person (My Bluetooth PDA, my cell phone, my MP3 player, my PSP, etc.). It isn't very likely that when I activate my Bluetooth PDA, someone will try to hack it (or hack my cellphone, or whatever... It happened to Paris Hilton, I suppose it can happen to me). While I think it might be a bit ludicrous to think that "everyone will have one", there are a fair number of folks who walk into internet cafes, plop down their laptop and plug themselves in. The concept is sound, the ubiquity probably isn't.
I'll have to cast my vote with Fortune on the technomancers. I like them, really I do, but the human body as a wireless transmitter? At least require them to use a commlink as a transceiver. |
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Sep 21 2005, 01:42 PM
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#33
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 445 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,567 |
For the Technomancer wireless transmitter thing I'll point you to the section entitled "The abstract nature of rules".
For the other part, the ubiquity isn't here atm. But 65 years in the future I would say it could easily be there. |
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Sep 21 2005, 02:04 PM
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#34
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
The rules have nothing to do with it (i.e. they are pretty similar between Hackers and Technomancers, and they work fine). Technomancers as part of the setting have been deliberately obfuscated with a lot of hand-waving, such that they are better off being NPC plot elements than something playable as a PC. Even the fluff that is there is weak... System Failure strongly implies that many are folks who were stuck on the Matrix when it crashed, but I can hardly believe that all of them were 'trode users without even the most basic of implants. If the same section in System Failure said something about "the subject's cyberware being spontaneously rejected and had to be removed" then we'd be getting somewhere. |
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Sep 21 2005, 05:47 PM
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#35
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 445 Joined: 18-August 05 Member No.: 7,567 |
I was refering to the wireless transmitter part but oh well. It all depends on how you want to have them be in your game, just like otaku. |
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Sep 21 2005, 05:55 PM
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#36
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 232 Joined: 19-October 04 Member No.: 6,773 |
I dont understand where people keep getting the idea that Technomancers dont have datajacks or cyberware. Just because your powergaming chatacter wouldnt have them doesnt mean most technomancers in the Shadowrun universe dont. I would ventuer to guess that most technomancers DO have datajacks. Remember, people in the SR world dont have access to the SR rule book.
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Sep 21 2005, 06:06 PM
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#37
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Running, running, running Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,220 Joined: 18-October 04 From: North Carolina Member No.: 6,769 |
i think that people say technos wont have datajacks come from the fact that their resonance decreases like magic with installer cyber, from what i heard
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Sep 21 2005, 06:29 PM
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#38
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Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill. Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,545 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Gloomy Boise Idaho Member No.: 2,006 |
Why would they have Datajacks? They don't need them to connect to the AR world or the matrix. And that is the problem people have with them, they're vaguely magical but not, nature. |
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Sep 21 2005, 06:36 PM
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#39
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
The default Technomancer archetype in the book doesn't have any cyberware. They seem to be really pushing this point, for some reason. I don't think any of the magic archetypes have cyberware either, unlike the Combat Mage archetype in SR2. If they wanted Technomancers to have a small amount of cyberware, wouldn't the archetype have it?
I know that when our group finally spits out a technomancer, it will probably have a datajack and/or other mundane cyberware, simply because it makes sense. *shrugs* But I'm not going to defend those elements of technomancers that contradicts the Sixth World game history (or the laws of physics, for that matter). All I'm saying is that there had better be a good explanation for all this when Unwired comes out. I'll be happy to play and enjoy technomancers in our group's games, but I also expect a semi-reasonable explanation for it all. |
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Sep 21 2005, 06:42 PM
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#40
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 829 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 770 |
The initial technomancers are implied to have been some of the folks who were online during the second crash, or surviving Otaku. Most, if not all of these people would have some cyberware. In the 5 years since then, there have been more people developing technomancer abilities spontaneously - this is where the cyber-free archetypes are being pulled from. |
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Sep 21 2005, 06:47 PM
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#41
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Mr. Johnson Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,587 Joined: 25-January 05 From: Berkeley, CA Member No.: 7,014 |
But there is no indication in SR4 that these so-called "post-Crash technomancers" even exist. From the references in the book, the technomancers are described as literally being the people who were stuck in the Matrix during the Crash 2.0, and the otaku who have changed since then. There are no references to post-Crash technomancers emerging spontaneously. I double-checked SR4 just to be sure. Even in the flavor text on p70, the "latent technomancer" Carrie was caught in the Crash 2.0 in the East Coast Stock Exchange as a Matrix investor. I'm not going to deny that it would be a great explanation. But that's not an explanation that is given in SR4. Maybe in Unwired, they'll say that such technomancers occur spontaneously, but so far it isn't in canon. EDIT: I'm pretty much guilty of cluttering up this thread and taking it way off-topic. :-( Further discussion of technomancers in the appropriate forum here, folks: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...pic=9941&st=225 |
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Sep 21 2005, 07:24 PM
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#42
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 829 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 770 |
Hmm....the closest I can come up with is: From the technomancer quality description pg. 80
Not explicitly stated, but strongly implies that: a) yes, there's a bit of a ret-con for otaku & cyberware b) the wording ("have emerged" and "since") implies people becoming technomancers is an ongoing occurance, or at least a one-shot event with a very random and stretched out onset time. Though I agree that this needs to be spelled out much clearer when they get the chance. |
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Sep 22 2005, 11:39 PM
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#43
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 113 Joined: 16-October 03 Member No.: 5,725 |
Remarkably enough, a few days ago (possibly close to when the above was posted), a friend and I were discussing the same thing. Neither of us have seen SR4. He was going on about how he "really" wanted to see Shadowrun done, and it involved corps regularly using the technology available to them, like that seen in the movie Minority Report, to hunt down anyone who opposed them. He stated he felt runners having lifestyles with homes was crazy (because the corps would just show up and haul you away if you stayed in one spot), and he wanted to see a more Cyberpunk-like atmosphere where people were living on the street and their bikes, cars, and occasional RV. I told him that was an acceptable way to do things, but just not how canon Shadowrun had gotten done. Little did I know . . . |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 30th November 2025 - 10:16 AM |
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