Hey there,

I haven't played since first edition. I've recently found a gaming group and we've decided to play Shadowrun. I purchased SR4 the other day and I'm reading through it. I'm excited, but I'd love to trouble the forum with a question.

Back with SR1, I was a sourcebook junkie. B/c of this, I'm tempted to shell out the cash for some of the SR3 expansions (man and machine in particular). But before I drop the money...

How well do the SR3 sourcebooks convert? Do the sourcebooks overpower the players? Is it too much information/options to drop on beginning players?

Lastly... Fanpro's site tells me that the magic book is coming in the near-ish future. Any clue on the release dates of other SR4 sourcebooks?

Thoughts?

-Thanks

they basicly dont convert, or atleast not cleanly. better to hold out for the new books i think

There's no point in buying old "toys" books, like M&M of Magic or Rigger. The locations or theme books are still pretty good though.

As for the SR4 books, they are all supposedly coming out this year. But that has as much worth as when politicians promise they won't raise taxes.

I'd buy System Failure and leave it at that for now.

Unless your looking for some flavor of say supplements giving information about Seatle, making a few changes to the setting with commlink addition, cyberdeckectonmy.

Nasrudith... huh?

i thought one of the books wasn't scheduled for this year at all? unwired, or something like that, wasn't it? (matrix book anyways, iirc).

Hmm....

Thanks for all of that... especially the link to the catalog, I hadn't seen that yet.

I think I'll be patient and wait out the releases. Hopefully the quarter predictions were based on legit expectations and we'll see all of the books out on time.

Thanks again

the nice thing with a new edition in a gaming group, is you dont have to feel "preassured" now, to buy a cartfull of supplements to be on "even ground"... everyone in the group has the exact same material to work with.

Until they start releasing sourcebooks. Then the "pressure" will be back, as much as ever.

eh, true, but with their release schedule, sr5™ might be here too

In our group, I was the one that bought EVERY SR3 book that came out. With the switch to SR4, you have everything you need to play. You don't need any SR3 material.

The more books you buy, the harder it gets for everyone to keep up, unless they take it as seriously as you do. All of the "flavor" books are just filled with material that you will probably never use, especially if you already have a campaign in mind as a GM. And the other sourcebooks don't convert very well... not that you'll miss any of it, having not played in a while.

If you wait until the SR4 books come out, everyone can keep up at once, and you don't have to worry about any of your conversions being wrong.

I have a copy of System Failure and it was worth the money I payed for it. It is a good source book to cross over from SR 3 to SR 4.

The 'Shadows of...' and 'Tagets' books are still qute good, just update the history and stuff.

I wish there was some sort of constant update like they have with Mechwarrior: Dark Age on the SR website.

I've found that being a GM is actually a good way to get sourcebooks. See, I have my group defray the costs of my picking up books... with 6 players, asking for 5 bucks apiece whenever a new book comes out covers the cost nicely, and since they're not coughing up a wad of cash in a lump, they don't mind the fact that the book is in my possession. Good way of guaranteeing books are available to the group at game, since a number of them prefer PDFs.

I'll add in my agreement to previous posts:
System Failure is easily converted but only really useful if you want your campaign to run "over" the events of 2064.

The Shadows of... books (America, Europe, Asia) are all still good and just need a little bit of "tweaking" to bring in line with SR4.

Dragons of the Sixth World will probably also be good for awhile if you want to do stuff with dragons.

Sprawl Survival Guide will also be good for awhile. In fact, many of the "standard" rules in SR4 came from SSG.

Basically, stay away from the "rule supplement" books. The "flavor" or "fluff" books are still worth it. However, if you can, I would recommend buying the cheaper PDF version of books rather than the printed. But that's a preference.

I can only imagine conversations over your gaming table...

"Cyber-controlled hellhounds with ruthenium dermal sheathes? Where do you come up with this shit?"
"Heh heh heh..."

Ah, you're saying you don't need SR3 stuff to run SR4? That's true.

Honestly, I hadn't read System Failure, but I think that in my game I'm going to tone down the "wireless is everywhere and in everything" aspect. I think they overdid it...

They only begin to implement wireless in System Failure (which I loved) - something like 3 cities have it by 2066. Then it probably snowballed using advertising money and the Dot AR bubble... I mean the Internet is only ten years old and it's everywhere. Imagine with a culture already addicted to information...

Here is a previous topic on the arrival speed of wireless.

Yeah, but I think that the wireless lifestyle in SR makes it too prevalent. Requiring people to broadcast their information is just rife for abuse...

You're only required to broadcast in certain areas, usually corp grounds or high class neighborhoods. Presumably those are the areas where the most watchful eyes would also be, in order to avoid as much abuse as possible (or allow it, depending on the area).

That gives me an idea: a mafia / yakuza run restaurant so fancy you're required to broadcast your info. Having free and easy access to the commlinks and SINs of tons of rich people could be useful.

My impression was that was only in A rated areas and above, along with workplaces (which is already coming). I think that comes more from the "new" government which took power after or rather due to System Failure. Considering that LA was sunk and thousands died from Winternight's attack, a few security measures were easy to implement (hell, they made not having a SIN a crime)...

Remember that vehicles already had to broadcast a VIN in 2060, so making people carry RFID tags doesn't seem so far off to me.

Obviously you can scale the wireless as desired. I've already made large parts of Seattle Dead Zones (the Ork Underground, the Barrens, the lower levels of some old super-apartment complexes).

Not having a SIN isn't a crime yet, it just means you could be seriously screwed if you get into any kind of trouble, you can't find a decent job, and you can't do the millions of other little things that make life worth living like having a bank account accessible from a booby bar.

Reread page 38 of SR4.

Well, you don't have to broadcast - it is legal to use an RFID which only activates when pinged, for example. I'm not exactly sure that knowing someone's SIN makes it that much easier to harm them. Everything pretty much requires a biometric conformation, making a SIN more like knowing a person's full name and date of birth. I agree that it's ripe for abuse in ways, but that's not exactly a turn off for me. Hell, knowing someone's cell number can give you access to everything about them if you hack the provider or just listen long enough... Anyway, I'm really not trying to convince you!