What 3rd edition Shadowrun book would you recommend as being the most useful to a newcomer running 4th edition?

I'll be grabbing two copies of the main rulebook (1 for the table, 1 for the GM- that's me) plus another sourcebook to round out the shipping.

I don't have much background on the campaign as of yet, except that the first game session will be a flashback to a failed bank robbery. The next few sessions will take place with the runners in prison, so naturally organized crime will be a big theme.

Corporate Download caught my eye as I was searching the product list, but I figured that I'd ask the wisdom of Dumpshock before I made a choice of my own .

The Shadows of.. books provide you with a nice overview of Europe, North America or Asia. Very useful to get a feel for the world (even though some countries saw a major shake during 2065-2070, like TT or Poland).

Seconded. " Shadows of ________"

Or "Target:_____" are REALLY nice to use. they can span multiple editions, because they 're really just source material, not rules.

At over 6 RL years old, making it about 12 game years old, the info in Coporate Download is getting a bit dated. It also contains info that tends to be that way.

I second (EDIT:make that third vote I guess ) the The Shadows of Xxxx suggestion. Which one depends on where you plan to run. This is only speculation, but I suspect that if your group is cool with the far east then The Shadows of Asia will work well because it should mesh with the upcoming Runner Havens. The 2 main cities in Runner Havens are Seattle and Hong Kong. While Hong Kong got a bit of coverage in SoA, it is really only a blub. So once you get both those books you should have nice detail for Hong Kong along with lots of info, although a bit dated, on the surrounding area so it'll be easy to let your runners stretch their legs a bit from time to time.

EDIT: If you don't want to run in Hong Kong till Runner Havens is out you can always start your group off somewhere else in the area. India. Eastern Russia. Once of the ex-China states.

I actually don´t have Corp Download, so I don´t know about that one. Seattle will be covered in one of the first (if not the first) SR4 sourcebooks, otherwise I would have recommended New Seattle. Shadows of... books are the best ones to pick up after that I think. Depending on the continent you play in. If there´s money for it I´d pick up all of them. You don´t even have to read them all the way through to have use for them. If you get it in your head to run a scenario somewere you could look up the place. If players ask about some remote place you could do the same. Very useful.

I´ve got a few books about powerplayers, like I guess Corp Download is. Dragons of the Sixth World for example. Thing is that powerplayers, corps and syndicates are covered in the location books too, so I think those give more valuable insight by placing it all in a context, even though books like DotSW and Loose Alliances go into more detail.

I didn´t find Mob War and Underworld sourcebooks very memorable myself. Again prefering to settle for more local details about criminal activities. But they may be your cup of tea as you´re doing the prison thing.

Sprawl Survival Guide has some nice info everyone, especially people who has had a run-in with the law, would find useful. A lot of that stuff has been published in the SR4 main book now, but not everything.

Welcome to the shadows!

All the proposals made yet have thair merits. (even those described as less memorable).

If you realy only want to buy one singel SR3 sb, thoug, id recomand not taking the Shadows of ... since allthoug they are very usefull, you´d probably have enough setting-info for a starting champain in Runner Havens once it is out, until the next SR4 sb comes out. Dragons is nice, too, but realy not so usefull for beginners I think.
The SprawlSG may be a bit outdated soon an the essencial parts to get a catch on lifestyle were reprinted in the SR4 core book.
If you want to elaborate on the prison theme, SOTA64 gives a good insight, but much of the book will be obsolate rules-wise, so I wouldn´t take this.

My hot tip would be Loose Alliances, since its rather new and wount be outdated this fast I think. Allso it provides a lot of different Players apart from the big ones roughly covered in SR4 (and which are allso not this hard to improvise, just wath movies). LA on the other hand will give you many ideas, providing color to your champain, which are not so easily extrapolated from the corerules I think and it will be usefull fore some time even when other SR4 sbs come out! So if You can get along without a location-book until Runner Heavens is out, which is not that hard to do I think, i´d vote for Loose Aliances. But thats just MHO

... I feel a bit bad about dising Mob War and Underworld actually. I only read them ones, and they had the right atmosphere. They just didn´t give me anything I could use at the time.

As a new GM (at least to SR), the top book I can recommend is Mr. J's Little Black Book. As an experienced GM, it's almost a throwaway, but for those without oodles of experience in the setting, especially coming from more limited games (read: That Other Game), it's invaluable.

You've GOT to get State of the Art: 2064 if you're running a prison campaign. The info in there is great for that.

"Shadows of ..." are all great, another resource for beginning GMs to Shadowrun is Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book. It has some information for players as well and can be used as a good primer to what it means to be a shadowrunner and the aspects of the shadowrun.

The contact list can also give players ideas for fleshing out their contacts, though the stats will have to be adjusted by the GM. (Personally, most of my players don't know the exact stats of their contacts)

I reccomend Sprawl Survival Guide and Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book.

Dragons of the 6th World is a good one. I would also recommend Corp. Download, Lone Star (if you can find it), any od the Shadows of.. books. Also, if you can find it, the old 2nd edition of the Seattle Source Book. Yeah some of the info is way out of date, but the places of interest section is great. It also outlines all the districts in Seattle and has quite a few usefull maps. Plus, most online sites sell it for about $10. Most of the Target books are worth getting, though I would not recommend the Target Matrix book as the matrix has undergone quite a few changes. The Azlan Source book is good along with the Tir book. It is hard to limit the list of good oop books since many of them have akot of usefull backround info. The Underworld book was pretty good detailing many of the major organised crime groups. Smugglers Havens was good too. It might be easier to list the ones to stay away from .

Even Target: Matrix is quite useful - changing the hardware layer does not necessarily change the content, especially if people liked it.

But the Matrix could be too much to deal with for a beginning group.
Tir and Atzlan are nice to read, but the firt country is in a major change in current SR4 setting (which isn't outlined yet) and Atzlan is imo no place to have a lot of runs.