From: http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=21450


I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of the Wizkids/Fanpro/Shadowrun corp structure - but what does this mean for the futrue of SR? Any thing?

Sort of. Wizkids (more specifically, Jordan Wiseman) owns the Shadowrun RPG rights. They've licensed the rights to publish the RPG to Fanpro, but they kept the miniatures and CCG rights to themselves (even though Duels didn't really do very well). The video game rights are held by FASA interactive, which was bought out by Microsoft sometime in the 90's.

What might afftect the Fanpro license is that Wizkids has now contracted with Great White Games/Pinnacle to produce a RPG version of Pirates and Battletech. Since Wizkids also owns the rights to Battletech, which is licensed to Fanpro, this makes things look bad for a rerelease of Mechwarrior. Pinnacle produces the spectacularily popular Savage Worlds game system, and the upcoming Pirates RPG will be running with that system. If they do exceptionally well, Fanpro's continued holding of the Shadowrun license could be jeopardized, and then we'd see an official Savage Shadowrun version on the market.

Spectacularly popular in the sense that I've never seen it mentioned anywhere but dumpshock, and usually by Cain.

I'm not saying it isn't a great game. I've never even seen it on a shelf, so I'm the last one to ask about it. I've just gotten the impression that Cain has some sort of hardon for the game, so you may want to take his statements about it with a grain of salt.

I thought that was the whole point of dumpshock

fair 'nough

For that to be a possibility it would depend heavily on what the current licensing conditions were. Given that Shadowrun 4 is just out a year and selling well itself, and with a number of products near release, yanking the rights from Fanpro or allowing a duplicate product to be produced by someone else might not only be difficult, but also I'd suggest outlandishly foolish.

Of course sillier things have happened, but that senario would have to be quite a longshot right now.

Better than Nuclear War (the card game, not the actual thing )?

No worries there, at last notice Wizkids was apparently pleased with Shadowrun's results and FanPro's license... but then again knowing the whole story behind Pinnacle's Mechwarrior, the Dark Ages license (and knowing that an RPG isn't currently on the docket, but rather scenario packs for Wizkid's clicky collectible miniatures game) would have put things in perspective anyway.

I should qualify: beer-and-pretzels role-playing game. Few things can compare to Nuclear War (the card game or the real thing).

~J

Different lines, I guess. MW Dark Ages isn't the same as Classic BT.

They haven't and aren't. They're doing scenario packs for the MechWarrior: Dark Ages game.

Spectaculiarily popular in that it won the 2003 Origins Gamer's Choice award. Just some perspective.

Having played it enough times, I can tell you that it's as loaded with tactical options as any edition of Shadowrun, and runs substantially faster than anything else on the market. Surprisingly enough, it's neither "rules lite" nor "beer and pretzels" quality; after being introduced to Wushu, I'd have to give that the prize.

AFAIK, this is correct. Mechwarrior is the RPG, and Classic BT is the miniature game. It's worth repeating that the different rights for the same IP can be held by different people: Wizkids has the Shadowrun miniature and novel rights, while Fanpro has the RPG, and FASA Interactive/Microsoft has the rights to the video game. I have no idea who holds the movie rights.

With a side of perspective: Not only was that a couple of years ago, but those awards are voted upon by workers in the gaming industry, not actual people. So trying to connect that with doing "exceptionally well", by which I assume you mean sales to the general public, is rather dubious.

EDIT Well that isn't entirely accurate. The Gamer's Choice section of the awards are nominated by said non-people, and then voted on based off of email address. Which is to say voted on by internet, by people that know about the voting. So, um, yeah. It is one step closer to reality, and two steps sideways.

Of course I don't know what their sales are of Savage World based RPGs. I don't even know personally if the game system is any good or particularly suited to Shadowrun. Never played it. I just know that I haven't seen people requesting Savage World players/groups on the local FLGS cork bulletin board, nor have I seen game times for it on their public calendar whiteboard. Not even Deadlands, oddly enough. So I'm inclined to call spectacular hyperbole on your assessment of it's popularity.

You mean like World of Darkness in 2004 (despite it being on the decline).

Or Angel winning best Roleplaying game 2003, despite the fact that the game barely exists anymore, and is in fact almost 100% dead?

Or Lord of the Rings with best roleplaying game in 2002, despite the fact that the game is now defunct?

An award from 2 years ago doesn't mean squat now. Just some perspective...

Actually 2 years ago, because they are numbered for the year before they are awarded. The ones that will be awarded shortly are the "2005" awards. But pretty much.

Best guess.

Correction: Angel was a supplement for Eden Studio's Cinematic Unisystem line, and that's still going strong. You're not comparing a game line, you're comparing one specific splatbook.

I thought I'd have that same problem, but then I tried it. In actuality, this doesn't happen a whole hell of a lot, because no character ever carries an iron fan, rapier, broadsword, halberd, brass knuckles, and tactical baton all at the same time. Players tend to stick with their one or two favorite weapons. What the rules do help with is Jackie Chan-style wild action, where you're grabbing anything you can find. The abstraction in weaponless combat isn't any worse than any system that only has a generic "unarmed combat" skill in the base book; you need to look up Deadlands:Reloaded for advanced martial arts styles.

Savage Worlds is lighter than any version of Shadowrun, but in comparison to the systems that are advertised as "Rules Lite", it definitely falls on the mid-to-high crunch side. For example, Capes and Wushu are extremely low crunch. Capes doesn't even have character creation as we understand it, and Wushu's entire core rulebook is about 14 pages long. Everway, one of my favorite games that no one has ever heard of, is also light enough to make Savage Worlds look like it's super-crunchy.

Shadowrun itself is somewhat less crunchy than systems like HERO or GURPS, but it's definitely more crunchy than WoD, Cinematic Uni, TriStat, or so on. Basically, Shadowrun tends to fall on the high-crunch side of things, Savage Worlds I'd classify as mid-crunch, and Wushu as low-crunch. Savage Worlds might be light in relation to Shadowrun, but so are most games out there; this doesn't make Savage Worlds rules-light.

No, I'm comparing "best RPG" to "best RPG." Angel won "Best RPG." It did not win "Best splatbook." As the "best RPG" of 2003, it is, by your reckoning, spectacularly popular. This despite the fact that it is all but dead.

Ummm, yeah it is. "Unarmed combat" is much more focused than "fighting." Every character on a savage worlds planet is Jackie Chan to some extent. That doesn't sit well with me. Obviously YMMV, but I'd house rule the hell out of it, because it's a huge flaw in a system IMO.

Man, that's too bad.

It never really comes up, since no one switches out from broadswords to rapiers to halberds throughout the course of one combat. The best way of thinking about it is this: there's no silly non-proficiency penalty. You can buy Edges to represent your specialization with particular weapons, but you don't have to track different penalites for using different weapons.

That's their business model. They put out each setting as a "separate RPG", even though they all follow the same rules. Really, you could combine Buffy and Angel into one RPG without effort. It would be the same thing if SJGames put out a full set of the GURPS rules with each supplement. I think several of the GoO games are also like this: they're still the same Tri-Stat RPG, even though they run under different settings.

IIRC, it's only the three by Kenson. Born to Run, Posion Agendas, and Fallen Angels.

Having difficulty using a weapon I've never seen before doesn't sound silly to me.

Doesn't change the fact that it won best RPG and is not spectacularly popular. Keep trying.

Not "never seen before". It's more like assuming that you've had a generalized training, instead of a specific one. Sure, the zweihander guy probably doesn't know how to use a set of nunchucks; but since typical fantasy settings wouldn't include both zweihanders and nunchucks, it's not an issue. You just say that "These are the common weapons in this setting, and anyone with basic training is familiar with all of them."

I've never actually seen a real sniper rifle before, but that doesn't mean that I'd be any more incompetent with it than I would be with the rifles I have seen. I've also picked up quite a few hand weapons over the years, and they're not that difficult to get the basics for. I can't see rationally penalizing someone for using a shinai when they can handle a katana, even though most systems would classify a shinai as a club and a katana as a sword. Similarily, once you've learned to handle one polearm, you can pretty much handle everything else in it's class: there's not much difference between a glaive, a halberd, and a lochaber, they're all chopping polearms. A naginata, spear, and pike are all primarily poking-style polearms, and the differences won't slow you down noticeably.

Savage Worlds handles this as an abstraction. It makes things much easier. You then bring the realism in by simply restricting the weapons availiable. That way, the polearm guy isn't equally skilled with a lightsaber, since the lightsaber doesn't exist. It also becomes much easier to make a combat generalist, which both discourages hyperspecialization while still allowing specialties and tons of character flexibility.

It also didn't win a popularity award, it won a critical choice award. It's entirely possible (and commonplace) for something to win critical acclaim, yet not be popular in the slightest. Just look at the reviews for most fine-art movies. Savage Worlds won a Gamer's Choice award. IIRC, so did the Shadowrun Supplemental; I remember voting for Adam that particular year. So, the Origins Gamer's Choice awards are strictly based on popularity among gamers. You're not realistically suggesting that Adam's work is substandard, "all but dead", or otherwise unpopular? He puts out some of the best fan-based Shadowrun material in existence!

There's also Drops of Corruption by JM Hardy.

basic military training includes, at least nowadays, introductory courses to grenades, grenade launchers, anti-tank weapons, and machine guns. i would be surprised if the same were not true in the 60s and 70s.

as for learning them at a high level of proficiency... honestly, a lot of that stuff is so dead simple that there's simply not much higher you can go than 'proficient'. it doesn't take much practice to become an artist with a grenade launcher, especially if you've already got a basic proficiency with other firearms.

After doing a quick bit of research, apparently basic bazooka training was part of standard Army basic as early as the 50's. As I said, basic grenade launchers were taught in WW2. So, being proficient in the use of either is to be expected in a soldier of that era.

Also, I don't own the book, but I seem to recall that the backflap makes a big deal about the "Phoenix Program", some sort of super-secret specops deal. I was under the impression that this was a big part of the plot point campaign. But since I haven't played it, would you be willing to explain?