Jong, really, let it go. It's not worth the hassle or the time. Discussions are pointless when one of the sides has nothing constructive to add but resorts to the hammering the same points over and over in some righteous attempt to accomplish pretty much nothing.
James will continue to gripe, interpret things any which way he wants to fuel his righteous crusade and then put words in peoples' mouths to justify his points. Some of his criticism is quite valid but after a while its lost in all the bile. The trick is not to let it phase you. I have it on good authority it's his MO and he's not going to stop. The good news is no matter how much noise he makes James is neither representative of the DSF nor of the buying audience, and SR4 is definitely here to stay.
Not only has reception, by both the industry and those who really matter (the buying public) to all the projects he's so eloquently declaimed as craptacular, been overwhelmingly positive (both in terms of sales, customer feedback and reviews), but sales of both SR4 and the last few SR3 products are significantly better than predicted, all-new buyers are up, people are returning to SR who had given up on SR3, and the development direction is set for the next couple of years.
Full Version: The mood of SR4
i'd like to point out that James has never said SR4 wasn't popular.
Synner, Jong, and the rest of the Freelancer team:
I'd like to say Thank You. The Dumpshock community went up in arms over the new edition and it took us all awhile to regain our composure. Then with System Failure, it all happened again on a smaller scale. Through it all, the writer's group has stayed calm and not been offended by all of the screaming (or at least hidden it well
)
Edit to fix my idiotic mistake...
I'd like to say Thank You. The Dumpshock community went up in arms over the new edition and it took us all awhile to regain our composure. Then with System Failure, it all happened again on a smaller scale. Through it all, the writer's group has stayed calm and not been offended by all of the screaming (or at least hidden it well
)Edit to fix my idiotic mistake...
heh. you may have meant Jong.
Synner, no problem. It has come to the point where one needs only to copy & paste posts from the past zillion threads.
D'oh....Sorry....Yes, meant Jong.
I'm a little unclear as to how or why something has to address the same specific fears to be the same genre. Snow Crash, Burning Chrome, and Dreams of Flesh and Sand all took place in the nineties and early 2000s. Many of those dates are in the past. To keep it the same, you'd either have to update it so that it's still a good hearty bit of fear mongering about the near future, or you'd have to modify it so that it's a congratulatory tale about how the present day could have been so much worse.
Call me crazy, by I think that you're closer to the original genre if you move it forward so that it's still near future than you are if you allow it to stagnate into alternate history. Cyberpunk isn't about "How bad things could have gone" it's about "How bad things can get." And that means that just as the old cyberpunk books extrapolated from the fears of their day, new cyberpunk has to borrow from the fears of our day.
-Frank
Call me crazy, by I think that you're closer to the original genre if you move it forward so that it's still near future than you are if you allow it to stagnate into alternate history. Cyberpunk isn't about "How bad things could have gone" it's about "How bad things can get." And that means that just as the old cyberpunk books extrapolated from the fears of their day, new cyberpunk has to borrow from the fears of our day.
-Frank
To be clear, thoug I agree with SL Jones in manny points, I still do not think, SF & SR4 to be crap. There are actually many things about SR4, that I realy love. Allso I think the SoXY books were rather decent (well SoAsia was realy a bit to cuddlyplushhug-style for me), even if I missed several things in these books as well.
So I still think these books are worth my money, but I hope pointing out the flaws I percive in these products will have an impact on future sb´s and make tham even more interesting to me.
@SF
I know, that this should only set the basic events an story-seeds for 65-70, I would just have loved it, if the Timeline had been included and thougt it would have been a good chance to do so.
@SR4
as writen elsewere, there may be as much or more background-info in SR4 as in previous corebooks (especially the livestyle section was rather expansive, mirroring a bit of the very usefull SR3 SSG). But since there are no sb´s yet and no new novels, I´ve got problems getting the right fealing. This surely allso has to do with the illustrations of the book, many of which I would realy call "craptacular". The entry fiction to every chapter helped a good bit, thoug!
PS: Just saw rollerball (the remake) on flatvid, this was craptacular
So I still think these books are worth my money, but I hope pointing out the flaws I percive in these products will have an impact on future sb´s and make tham even more interesting to me.
@SF
I know, that this should only set the basic events an story-seeds for 65-70, I would just have loved it, if the Timeline had been included and thougt it would have been a good chance to do so.
@SR4
as writen elsewere, there may be as much or more background-info in SR4 as in previous corebooks (especially the livestyle section was rather expansive, mirroring a bit of the very usefull SR3 SSG). But since there are no sb´s yet and no new novels, I´ve got problems getting the right fealing. This surely allso has to do with the illustrations of the book, many of which I would realy call "craptacular". The entry fiction to every chapter helped a good bit, thoug!
PS: Just saw rollerball (the remake) on flatvid, this was craptacular
| QUOTE |
| I'm a little unclear as to how or why something has to address the same specific fears to be the same genre. |
Thanks, Frank. I've been staying out of these discussions despite my desire to jump in.
Apparently people who think genre evolution is possible are in the minority, at least with regards to cyberpunk. I've always had a pretty broad interpretation of what the genre was, though - and the wonderful thing about genre is nobody can tell me I'm doing it wrong, in an objective sense.
| QUOTE (MK Ultra) |
| So I still think these books are worth my money, but I hope pointing out the flaws I percive in these products will have an impact on future sb´s and make them even more interesting to me. |
As I've said on numerous occasions, constructive criticism is not only welcomed, it's appreciated, and more often than not it's taken into account. Those who know me know this as a fact at least as regards to my own contributions to SR (I can't speak for the other writers, but I know more than a couple hang out around here and keep an ear out for constructive feedback) - in fact one of the best learning experiences for me was the feedback I recieved on my very first piece (the Lofwyr chapter of DotSW). Writers aren't going to be follow up on every piece of intelligent and well thought-out criticism, often times because our vision of the SR world is slightly different and sometimes because we write to the developers' specifications.
For some reason though insulting, deprecating and reductionist tirades are guaranteed not to produce any postive effects, and for the most part they're just tuned out.
For instance, you voiced a valid complaint that you would have liked SF to include a timeline for the missing years. It's important that you know that it was a conscious decision and there were reasons we chose not too beyond the obvious (we didn't want to box ourselves in unnecessarily). Some of those reasons will become obvious in the releases over the next couple of years. However, at no point did any official source at FanPro (nor to the best of my knowledge, anyone amongst the freelancers) announce that the book would cover the missing years.
Just posted this, to say, I don´t want to be offensive! I allways had faith in you authors, that the missing years will be claryfied later on. But Y´know *melodic* "..the waiting is the hardest time" 
I am allso with Frank and Adarael in that cyberpunk-genre should be updated with time, just had a problem pointing out these changes.
I am allso with Frank and Adarael in that cyberpunk-genre should be updated with time, just had a problem pointing out these changes.
| QUOTE (MK Ultra) |
| @SF I know, that this should only set the basic events an story-seeds for 65-70, I would just have loved it, if the Timeline had been included and thougt it would have been a good chance to do so. |
Yeah, but then everybody would be making threads like: "We need a sourcebook about what happened to Aztechnology in 2067!!"
or
"What am I gonna do, they wrecked my campaign now because XXXXX got killed, I want to know more about it!"
And then everybody gets pissed off because their favourite bit of the timeline isn't detailed enough for them.
| QUOTE (Bullet Raven) |
| And then everybody gets pissed off because their favourite bit of the timeline isn't detailed enough for them. |
Actually that was precisely one of the arguments that led to not including even a sketchy timeline of events. Another was not to box in people who will not want to make the five year leap at all and will veer from the 206x into their own timelines.
I think they make your employers sound more like scum.
| QUOTE (Mr.Platinum) |
| I think they make your employers sound more like scum. |
I don't quite follow, can you expand on that?
| QUOTE (Mr.Platinum) |
| I think they make your employers sound more like scum. |
???
I agree with a choice not to provide little tidbits of a timeline over a 5 year period. It allows those style source books to "start fresh" instead of being reigned in by things that have already been written, but perhaps not thought through for an entire time period.
I think Mister Platinum's been eating crazy pills again. Or maybe he somehow posted to the wrong thread? Or...or...something. I dunno.
| QUOTE (Aku) |
| I agree with a choice not to provide little tidbits of a timeline over a 5 year period. It allows those style source books to "start fresh" instead of being reigned in by things that have already been written, but perhaps not thought through for an entire time period. |
*Cough* *California* *Cough Cough*
Yeah. If anything, I wish they'd said even less about the timeline in between 2065 and 2070.
-Frank
Yeah! I'm pissed about California. I wanted to kill General Saito!
Dude was I shocked when the NA map came out 
actually, I´m still shocked
... well positively so, actually. Was about time this Ute-Nation direct democracy experiment failed
But I´m a bit disapointed about 2 or 3 police states in NA vanishing (cant be sure about the new Tir regim)
actually, I´m still shocked
... well positively so, actually. Was about time this Ute-Nation direct democracy experiment failed
But I´m a bit disapointed about 2 or 3 police states in NA vanishing (cant be sure about the new Tir regim)
| QUOTE |
| Yeah! I'm pissed about California. I wanted to kill General Saito! |
Then do it. Who's stopping you?
Him being dead and drowned in the Pacific! And what's different with the new regime? How is it different from the old one? Aside from Lugh being gone.
| QUOTE (JongWK) | ||
Then do it. Who's stopping you? |
You guys, indirectly.
Because some of us like Shadowrun's setting so much we keep our games "canon," or "pure," or whatever you want to call it. Or, rather, we try to. And being told just enough to give us a massive plot hook (but not enough to actually do anything with it, for fear of then having to retroactively change history once the timeline catches up to our own games) has a lot of people kind of pissy.
It may be the fact that I've just started to run Shadowrun again, but I find myself quite interested in what James has to say in regards to how the current timeline has made for an overly optimistic world. In truth, I've had some similar conversations with a friend of mine about this sort of thing and though we've never come down to it, I think there is a different feeling to the game with the new edition out. I'm not certain that it's a bad thing, mind you, but it is not the "more-or-less cyberpunk feeling" of Shadowrun before the third edition.
I was always of the mind that the main theme of cyberpunk was that everything was subject to the notion of economic determinism. No matter what ideology you subscribed to it became all too clear that only the bottom line ever counted, and that corporations had the right idea. Related to that, we would take the concept of a meritocratic state so far that the rich were successful because they deserved it and therefore, the poor were failures because they also deserved it (gotta take the bad with the good, right?). For me, anyway, cyberpunk was always having so much information available and yet having little or no chance to make important choices in your life. It was about characters knowing about this abundance of information and lack of freedom, and these characters consigning themselves to it because the system was the amalgamation of the will of entities an order of magnitude larger than most nation-states.
To be honest, this isn't made abundantly clear within the covers of SR4, but it can easily be implemented I suppose. I think SR4 was published as it is to allow for a wide assortment of ways to play the game with the setting information presented. Sure, there are still megacorporations out there ruling the world, but what they do and what they mean can be completely different depending on the GM and players' interpretations and inclinations.
I've interpreted the lack of cyberpunk angst to be a product of living with megacorporations for more than thirty years. A new generation has grown up not knowing of a time without the extraterritoriality of Ares, Aztech, Saeder-Krupp and the rest of the megacorporate gang. Perhps it's considered old hat by the new school to keep the anti-corporate rhetoric going for too long. Maybe their shadowrunner ideology is more akin to fulfilling an economic need with legal and political deniability and expecting to be fairly rewarded by these same megacorporations for their services. Not exactly realistic, or bright for that matter, but this misplaced optimism allows for the audience to shake their heads in the knowledge that even these bright-eyed runners will soon be as jaded and broken as the old school runners who barely survived themselves.
At least, that's how I'm going to run things...
I was always of the mind that the main theme of cyberpunk was that everything was subject to the notion of economic determinism. No matter what ideology you subscribed to it became all too clear that only the bottom line ever counted, and that corporations had the right idea. Related to that, we would take the concept of a meritocratic state so far that the rich were successful because they deserved it and therefore, the poor were failures because they also deserved it (gotta take the bad with the good, right?). For me, anyway, cyberpunk was always having so much information available and yet having little or no chance to make important choices in your life. It was about characters knowing about this abundance of information and lack of freedom, and these characters consigning themselves to it because the system was the amalgamation of the will of entities an order of magnitude larger than most nation-states.
To be honest, this isn't made abundantly clear within the covers of SR4, but it can easily be implemented I suppose. I think SR4 was published as it is to allow for a wide assortment of ways to play the game with the setting information presented. Sure, there are still megacorporations out there ruling the world, but what they do and what they mean can be completely different depending on the GM and players' interpretations and inclinations.
I've interpreted the lack of cyberpunk angst to be a product of living with megacorporations for more than thirty years. A new generation has grown up not knowing of a time without the extraterritoriality of Ares, Aztech, Saeder-Krupp and the rest of the megacorporate gang. Perhps it's considered old hat by the new school to keep the anti-corporate rhetoric going for too long. Maybe their shadowrunner ideology is more akin to fulfilling an economic need with legal and political deniability and expecting to be fairly rewarded by these same megacorporations for their services. Not exactly realistic, or bright for that matter, but this misplaced optimism allows for the audience to shake their heads in the knowledge that even these bright-eyed runners will soon be as jaded and broken as the old school runners who barely survived themselves.
At least, that's how I'm going to run things...
Some options:
* Set your campaign in the 2065-70 time period.
* Have him gone from power and presumed dead, but let the players find out he's alive and hiding. It'd be like hunting down modern-day war criminals, and I'm sure there are enough people willing to pay money to see him dead.
* Play a prologue to your campaign, where your players have to kill Saito during the 65-70 period.
* If you want it in your campaign: time travel.
* Have him come back as a corrupt kami, inside a living host (possibly a leading metahuman politician). Finding the truth and exposing it would be the goals here, as well as banishing him once and for all.
IIRC, the only canon thing FanPro has stated is that he's gone before the quake. Really, what is stopping you? There have been several times in SR history where several things were happening at more or less the same time, so one team couldn't be part in all of them, and I don't remember it being a problem.
* Set your campaign in the 2065-70 time period.
* Have him gone from power and presumed dead, but let the players find out he's alive and hiding. It'd be like hunting down modern-day war criminals, and I'm sure there are enough people willing to pay money to see him dead.
* Play a prologue to your campaign, where your players have to kill Saito during the 65-70 period.
* If you want it in your campaign: time travel.
* Have him come back as a corrupt kami, inside a living host (possibly a leading metahuman politician). Finding the truth and exposing it would be the goals here, as well as banishing him once and for all.
IIRC, the only canon thing FanPro has stated is that he's gone before the quake. Really, what is stopping you? There have been several times in SR history where several things were happening at more or less the same time, so one team couldn't be part in all of them, and I don't remember it being a problem.
eh. the optimism James is talking about is more related to world events, i think. it just seems like the "good guys" (Rinelle ke'Tesrae, Yucutan rebels, Hestaby, etcetera) are winning a lot more often than the "bad guys". the fact that there are good guys and bad guys in the first place is somewhat upsetting but also somewhat unavoidable; the fact that the good guys are not, by and large, being crushed under the oppressive heel of the bad guys is a subtle trend i hadn't noticed until James pointed it out, but one i'm not comfortable with now that i see it.
the problem with the lack of a 2065-70 timeline is, it's not like future SR writers are going to leave it alone. sure, it's murky and undefined now, but it's going to gain definition pretty quickly as more books come out. granted, this is something of a universal problem inherent in RPGs--not every event prior to the RPG's present is going to be defined, and retroactively defining them is always going to step on someone's toes. but 2065-70 is a really important section of the timeline; not defining it concentrates that problem and makes sure the writers are going to step on everyone's toes, every time they pick up their pens.
and, honestly, it seems like FanPro is getting into the habit of saying "you know, i don't feel like doing the work; let's just leave it undefined and make the GMs do it for us."
the problem with the lack of a 2065-70 timeline is, it's not like future SR writers are going to leave it alone. sure, it's murky and undefined now, but it's going to gain definition pretty quickly as more books come out. granted, this is something of a universal problem inherent in RPGs--not every event prior to the RPG's present is going to be defined, and retroactively defining them is always going to step on someone's toes. but 2065-70 is a really important section of the timeline; not defining it concentrates that problem and makes sure the writers are going to step on everyone's toes, every time they pick up their pens.
and, honestly, it seems like FanPro is getting into the habit of saying "you know, i don't feel like doing the work; let's just leave it undefined and make the GMs do it for us."
| QUOTE (Critias) |
| Because some of us like Shadowrun's setting so much we keep our games "canon," or "pure," or whatever you want to call it. Or, rather, we try to. And being told just enough to give us a massive plot hook (but not enough to actually do anything with it, for fear of then having to retroactively change history once the timeline catches up to our own games) has a lot of people kind of pissy. |
I keep my game as canonical as it is possible, and I'm not pissy about this. Maybe I'm part of the other "lot of people" who think it's great to have enough freedom to do as they please.
(...) I was about to go off about a Highlander campaign (set in Imperial Rome) I'm playing in. It's historically accurate, but that hasn't meant we can't slightly alter events. Hell, in my sheet's gear section, I have "1 Holy Grail" listed (the things you do when you disguise yourself as Joseph of Arimatea...).
Anyway, I'm digressing.
Well, I see this point about the optimism and I´d agree with it in part, but then again, who says the good guys are the good guys? In my SR the good guys and the bad guys are all more or less dirty&dark-gray, just of another flavor. Who says, the Rinelle is not starting to chop off heads off all the royal folks (even children and "good guys"). Who says, the PCC gives the downtrodden worker class of Ute real opotunety instead of just opening up a fiewe sweatshops and taking away even the illusory freedom the Ute had? Who says Hestaby wont have annoying peaple for breakfast? Will the Salish treat the Tsimshian as equals and will the Haida be less oppressive then the Tsimshian were?
They will surely more or less do this in my game.
But I agree about the Timeline thing. I don´t nead a full flashed historybook, but a tabel of importent events would be nice!
They will surely more or less do this in my game.
But I agree about the Timeline thing. I don´t nead a full flashed historybook, but a tabel of importent events would be nice!
I actually see the whole Good Guys/Bad Guys thing where the Good Guys always won as receding in the last few years. In the early 90s, we had Insect Spirits and The Horrors, and they were BAD. Then we had white hat organizations and people like Dunkelzahn and Harlequin to repeatedly three stooge them.
Aztechnology were portrayed as senselessly wicked villains in the early material, and they never won anything on camera during the first 3 editions of Shadowrun. They were thwarted at every single turn by shadowrunner teams and virtuous immortal elves.
And now? Well, Aztechnology has laid off some of the overt evil and regressed to a background state of routine villainy. There's no more world destruction bulldrek to worry about, so everyone is fracturing off. Knight Errant cut a deal with the Invae and are no longer white hats to get your unconditional support. Dunkelzahn's gone.
All the White Hats and Black Hats are dead. Everybody left over is just wearing a shade of gray.
-Frank
Aztechnology were portrayed as senselessly wicked villains in the early material, and they never won anything on camera during the first 3 editions of Shadowrun. They were thwarted at every single turn by shadowrunner teams and virtuous immortal elves.
And now? Well, Aztechnology has laid off some of the overt evil and regressed to a background state of routine villainy. There's no more world destruction bulldrek to worry about, so everyone is fracturing off. Knight Errant cut a deal with the Invae and are no longer white hats to get your unconditional support. Dunkelzahn's gone.
All the White Hats and Black Hats are dead. Everybody left over is just wearing a shade of gray.
-Frank
well, maybe the Rinelle is pulling a French Revolution in your game, but i don't see it happening in SR4. you can always modify the game to be darker, but i'm more talking about the game as presented.
to a point, FrankTrollman. yes, i'm pleased that the world-ending threats are going away. but the trend continues at smaller scales, too.
to a point, FrankTrollman. yes, i'm pleased that the world-ending threats are going away. but the trend continues at smaller scales, too.
| QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Jan 5 2006, 04:31 PM) |
| All the White Hats and Black Hats are dead. Everybody left over is just wearing a shade of gray. |
While an impressively dramatic statement, it's still obviously hyperbole.
It's true that previous editions kept throwing powerful "fad antagonists" at us: Humanis! Dragons! Immortal elves! Bug spirits! Deus! Blood mages! Shedim! Horrors!
Were these foes obliterated? No; they just exist in different, less glaringly-new forms. They might seem less spectacular than before because not as much energy is getting spent telling their stories, but is Aztechnology truly any less evil? Is Deus causing less trouble now that he escaped the arcology? Is Lofwyr any less of a multi-ton bastard?
Sure, Dunk's demise gave the "good guys" less leverage. But now we have Harlequin actively crusading again, and the Draco Foundation is in full swing (in conjunction with Assets, Inc.). Ghostwalker seems to have honorable intentions if not a hardcore attitude. Wuxing seems like a shiny-happy megacorp, but how many skeletons do they have in their corporate closet? Do we really know anything substantial about Horizons? They could be international financial paladins for all we know -- they could be the new "good guys."
So it seems to me that the real complaint should be more along the lines of: "No especially potent faction is getting a lot of facetime lately in the fiction. That makes the gameworld seem bland compared the previous editions."
I suspect a fair bit of confusion will be dispelled once the first few books come out.
Agreed (with the appropriate level of guarded optimism).
second that
| QUOTE (Reprisal) |
| To be honest, this isn't made abundantly clear within the covers of SR4, but it can easily be implemented I suppose. I think SR4 was published as it is to allow for a wide assortment of ways to play the game with the setting information presented. Sure, there are still megacorporations out there ruling the world, but what they do and what they mean can be completely different depending on the GM and players' interpretations and inclinations. |
Couldn't the exact same thing be said of SR1, SR2 and SR3 - if you chose to compare just the contents of the core books?
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| Rinelle ke'Tesrae, Yucutan rebels, Hestaby, etcetera |
If you're assuming we're taking anything close to a happy-ending-good-guys-win-out solution to any of those you're in for a shock (or not, if you've been paying attention to the revelations in the books leading up to the end of SR3). But we'll get to them soon enough, starting with the Yucatan...
Now that I think of it, and for what it's worth, the stuff I wrote for SoLA is probably some of the most dystopic and dark setting stuff I've got to write so far. That's not to say the book is all dark, in fact, it pretty much runs the full range of environments and plots the other Shadows of did- but my impression is the dark stuff is definitely darker...
| QUOTE (JongWK) |
| I suspect a fair bit of confusion will be dispelled once the first few books come out. |
Yeah, yeah. Wait until the next book It'll be good. You'll See. You'll see.
I'm getting pretty sick and tired of reading the same crap and getting the same half-assed result back from a bunch of fanboys-turned-freelancers.
So you can take your books and your game and shove it up your collective asses.
| QUOTE ( Posted by Critias (Strikes Again/Ha-ha-ha!!!)) |
| You guys, indirectly. Because some of us like Shadowrun's setting so much we keep our games "canon," or "pure," or whatever you want to call it. Or, rather, we try to. And being told just enough to give us a massive plot hook (but not enough to actually do anything with it, for fear of then having to retroactively change history once the timeline catches up to our own games) has a lot of people kind of pissy. |
I don't get it... who are you insulting? And is eating annoying people such a bad thing?
edit: Oh, you're insulting the freelancers. And how do you freelance for Shadowrun, anyway? Writing for Shadowrun seems pretty specialized; it seems to have little application outside of writing for fantasy or cyberpunk.
i'm not sure how i see how Critias was insulting anyone with that particular post.
| QUOTE (emo samurai) |
| And is eating annoying people such a bad thing? |
Well, you´r right
Even one of the nicer Dragons in ED was known as "devourer of cities", thoug he claimed he only ever ate one city
Anyway, Dragons -all of them- are at least as ambivalent as the megas. Even the Big D would have had his share of scrued over runners - besides others he pissed off! He was not all popcorn and fruitcakes (but I´d buy a PlushPrez I guess).
Edit: @ mfb
I think emo´s talking about SL J
James--Take a deep breath and chill out. Like it or not, the system is here. If you like it, keep reading and posting. If you decide not to like it, that's fine.
The point really comes down to whether or not you choose to be polite and constructive, or rude and vulgar.
The point really comes down to whether or not you choose to be polite and constructive, or rude and vulgar.
| QUOTE |
| constructive criticism is not only welcomed, it's appreciated, and more often than not it's taken into account. |
The key there is constructive criticism. If you explain why you dislike the system and lay it out in a polite, simple to understand way, then you'll get somewhere. Cursing and using foul language is going to get you nowhere.
I've read some of your posts and can understand several of your points of contention. What I don't understand is why you continue to post in the SR4 sub-forum since you obviously have chosen to not switch over to the new system or appreciate the work that the writers have done.
If you want to create a step by step post with everything that is wrong with System Failure, SR4 and the direction of the line development, please do. Then, people can either voice their support or explain how they perceived the changes. Cluttering up threads with your venomous spite isn't going to change what has already happened or convince the staff that they should listen to your input on future products.
----------------------------------------
Re: The mood of SR4--There isn't enough material out yet for me to have a good impression of the overall ambience of the new system. I'm going to run my games the same way I always have and each campaign is a little different. In a bounty hunting campaign, where all the runners are legitimate, legal, SINned members of society, I paint the sky and streets differently than the same city with a set of hard-core professional killers. Their perceptions and outlooks on the world bring different parts of the world to life.
A simple analogy could be the simple shift in focus from watching the rain splatter across your windshield to looking through the rain at the cars driving around you. The rain could be day to day life, interactions with the clerk at a stuffer-shack, and you don't see any of it because you are focussed on the prize. Or watch the rudimentary images, each small piece building to form a larger whole, and be side-swiped by a world you never knew existed.
"Are we black hats, white hats or somewhere in between" will all depend on your perception and how much of the truth and the bigger picture you see.
I've read some of your posts and can understand several of your points of contention. What I don't understand is why you continue to post in the SR4 sub-forum since you obviously have chosen to not switch over to the new system or appreciate the work that the writers have done.
If you want to create a step by step post with everything that is wrong with System Failure, SR4 and the direction of the line development, please do. Then, people can either voice their support or explain how they perceived the changes. Cluttering up threads with your venomous spite isn't going to change what has already happened or convince the staff that they should listen to your input on future products.
----------------------------------------
Re: The mood of SR4--There isn't enough material out yet for me to have a good impression of the overall ambience of the new system. I'm going to run my games the same way I always have and each campaign is a little different. In a bounty hunting campaign, where all the runners are legitimate, legal, SINned members of society, I paint the sky and streets differently than the same city with a set of hard-core professional killers. Their perceptions and outlooks on the world bring different parts of the world to life.
A simple analogy could be the simple shift in focus from watching the rain splatter across your windshield to looking through the rain at the cars driving around you. The rain could be day to day life, interactions with the clerk at a stuffer-shack, and you don't see any of it because you are focussed on the prize. Or watch the rudimentary images, each small piece building to form a larger whole, and be side-swiped by a world you never knew existed.
"Are we black hats, white hats or somewhere in between" will all depend on your perception and how much of the truth and the bigger picture you see.
Hey, one thing you can use to realy get on the nerves of your players and distract them is this overall conectedness (speking of this, maybe the UB was right in the end, they just got it wrong, themselves ). This actually isn´t such a new thing, only more flashy with all the AR stuff. But at least in SR4 everybodys got a comlink w headset or fullblown implant, so you can have there contacts talk to them, while they are chatting with somebody else, all while they are on ther way throu the sprawl. My players realy fast lost it, who they were talking at the moment and even faster who was actually present and whos just hanging on the waves
). This actually isn´t such a new thing, only more flashy with all the AR stuff. But at least in SR4 everybodys got a comlink w headset or fullblown implant, so you can have there contacts talk to them, while they are chatting with somebody else, all while they are on ther way throu the sprawl. My players realy fast lost it, who they were talking at the moment and even faster who was actually present and whos just hanging on the waves
| QUOTE (SL James @ Jan 6 2006, 02:06 AM) |
| So you can take your books and your game and shove it up your collective asses. |
| QUOTE (Synner) |
| For some reason though insulting, deprecating and reductionist tirades are guaranteed not to produce any postive effects, and for the most part they're just tuned out. |
Thank you James for so eloquently underlining my point for our readers, and thanks yet again for another highly enjoyable piece of intelligent, throught-provoking, incisive and truly constructive criticism. I'll be sure to take it up with all the interested parties.
As I've said before SR4 as a system is here to stay. It's not a testimony of its popularity or even commercial success, it's merely a statement fact. Shadowrun is no longer the game you liked to play, so be it. It's moved on, grown and changed in ways you don't like. Get over it , we're not going back and you should move on. Don't like it, don't use it. You've obviously not FanPro's intended audience, you've got the creative juices to keep your own setting afloat and, in case it's escaped you, your tirades are accomplishing nothing but preaching to the converted and adding nothing to creative and constructive debate.
If you don't like the last batch of releases, I'm sorry to say I can pretty much assure you you won't like what's coming. I can also say without shadow of a doubt that none of your posts in the past few months (unlike some of your posts under your previous alias) are likely to make me - as a writer and contributor to SR4 - change a single thing about what I'm going to be putting on paper. I honestly don't care if this matters to you or not, I'm just stating it because other people's negative but constructive feedback has and will continue to make an impact.
Since you're disdainful of FanPro's chosen direction (to put it mildly), if there really is no redeeming virtue to SR4, if it's a game you don't intend to follow, its becoming increasingly obscure why you continue to waste everyone's time by posting on a SR4 dedicated forum. Move on, get back to enjoying SR3, and "the golden age". We're definitely not going back.
If on the other hand you think you have something to add useful and constructive to add then save us all some hassle and step down from the soap box or make some constructive contributions for a change (unless this is an ego-trip thing in which case disregard this post).
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For those of you still interested in this thread, despite the bile - SR4's mood, as well as its game setting, is still very much in flux. This is in large part due to FanPro chosing not to ground the atmosphere of the base book in one specific setting like in previous editions and providing a pre-packed backdrop that grounds Life in the Seventies in one limiting locale.
Much of the SR4 setting is still being fully developed and it will continue to be sketched out in the next few releases - specifically the upcoming location books Runner Havens and Corp Enclaves, but also with (as Rob announced at GenCon) a higher level of fiction content in the core rulebooks (as compared to SR3). We're also making a very conscious decision to leave a good portion of the missing years murky. Light will undoubtedly be shed on the changes to the megas, the rise of Horizon, the new geopolitics of North Am and even the California situation (essentially everything we seeded in SF) sooner or later, but even then we'll be keeping the murkiness as much as possible...
| QUOTE |
| So you can take your books and your game and shove it up your collective asses. |
"Yesss... give in to your hate... I can feel it SWELLING WITHIN YOU..."
</emperor>
| QUOTE (Synner) |
| Get over it and move on. |
i really don't think i'm going to do either. i will instead continue to promote the gaming style i wish to pursue, in hopes that others will discover it, like it, and join me. if i continue to be a minority, so be it. there's nothing wrong with being a vocal minority.
haha, Adareal, James is the emperor.
| QUOTE (emo samurai @ Jan 5 2006, 09:08 PM) | ||
I don't get it... who are you insulting? And is eating annoying people such a bad thing? edit: Oh, you're insulting the freelancers. And how do you freelance for Shadowrun, anyway? Writing for Shadowrun seems pretty specialized; it seems to have little application outside of writing for fantasy or cyberpunk. |
When I insult people, emo, I leave very little doubt or question in people's minds as to the targets of my glorious wrath. I wasn't insulting anyone. I was answering the "who's stopping you?" question.
Canon itself is what's stopping us.
Canon not being defined yet, to be more specific, and how that (if you want to play in a canon game) stops us from being able to define things ourselves. There are some of us on here who play in a shared-world, on-line, game. In order to keep things fair and balanced and open for everyone who drops by and fits in the play-style, we keep our timeline as canon as possible. This 5 year jump full of unanswered questions (that are sure to be answered in upcoming publications) is, in many ways, a dead end, not just a speed bump, for our game world. Or, perhaps better stated, a mine field. If we advance our in-game timeline, we must do so carefully and precariously, setting tippy-toe after tippy-toe amidst horrible explosives, so that we can advance the overall story to 2070, but not advance any of the nitpicky details of the game world (what exactly happened to Saito, what exactly happened in the Tir, what exactly happened there, what exactly happened here) -- because any attempt on our part to "fill in" those details, and answer those questions, would immediately be null and void once the canon, official, published version comes out.
To put it another way -- for some of us, our complaints with System Failure weren't about what was written, but rather what wasn't. There are a ton of details that we don't have, that make it difficult, if not impossible, to advance the timeline without significantly glossing over some major, major, events.
The devil is, very literally, in the details.
I'm sorry (not really, but going through the motions is polite) if the above is still somehow viewed as an "insult" rather than a "greivance" by anyone.
| QUOTE (mfb) | ||
i really don't think i'm going to do either. i will instead continue to promote the gaming style i wish to pursue, in hopes that others will discover it, like it, and join me. if i continue to be a minority, so be it. there's nothing wrong with being a vocal minority. haha, Adareal, James is the emperor. |
mfb, I know you were involved in some of the play testing. Any thoughts of submitting some writing to try directing SR4 along some of the lines that you've got in mind? Myself, I have to agree that after seeing it pointed out, I can see some of the seemingly happier things James pointed out (although that attitudes getting tiresome). I do also remember some of those undertones that came with it as well though.
Yes, hestaby is on the Tir council, and fed Glasgian to Lowfyr to get it like so much grapes (great mental image really)
Yes, the Yucatan is rebelling, with help from Amazonia, and got their asses handed to them with biological warfare, so badly that even the Azzies are backing out of the area. The area in contest is such a wasteland that it was featured in Target:wastelands
The Rinelle is fighting the man. Well the man and his secret police are winning. I had some fun running some games a bit back where a player joined the Tir ghosts and got to go destroy a few cells. Killed about a few dozen rebels with her squad. On call Kill Squads: The answer to revolutions everywhere.
But I was thinking about this jsut the other day, but in the context of movies. it's been a while since I've seen the good guys lose. The 'good guys' in SR have been winning , even if the cost is atrocious.Then I saw "Skeleton Key" and "The Layer Cake" , which made me feel a bit better. And I've been wanting a bit more of that in my SR lately as well. Hopefully Synner will deliver and get us some more of that grit that we've been looking for (some of us anyways).
But seriosuly mfb, write some stuff up. I like the tone you present when you talk about your games, and I'd like to see some of that reflected in canon. Any hope?
eh, it's kinda tempting to push something up to them. but i just don't play SR4, and the game i plan on playing is going to differ (technomancers) in several (technomancers) significant (technomancers) ways (technomancers) from (tech) SR4 (nomancers). i think a lot of not-nice things about SR4, and to be honest, about the people who play it. it'd be kinda ign'ant of me to try and cram my view of SR down their throat in any official capacity.
I agree with you on a few points there (technomancers) but to be honest, I'd rather see some of what others are looking for come through than none. But I understand you're not wanting to come off as hypocritical. Don't want to help what you hate and all that. Hope you'll at least post your changes in the flavor if you're not going to submit it.
i'm sure something can be worked out.
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