I've never actually read any of Kenson's books, so I can't comment on specifics, but it seems that the same principle still applies. At the end of the day, good fiction is good fiction, and bad fiction is bad fiction, regardless of the characters involved or their origins. It's the responsibility of the publisher to enforce quality control on what's going out with the Shadowrun logo on the cover, not the author's.

I was definitely talking about fiction as a whole as opposed to published fiction though, since the original post used the general term, and there might be ways in which the industry works that muck up the issue in ways that I'm not aware of. I won't pretend to be knowledgeable on the topic of how Fanpro operates on that front, because I honestly know jack shit about it.

Oh, the bitch of all bitches: He dies in the battle, but then gets resurrected to have such fun adventures as having Lofwyr hitch a ride in his aura/body in Ragnarock (I didn't spoil anything, because you shouldn't be reading that crap anyway).

Wow. Lamer than I remember. I just half-remembered him being at the battle at some bridge (where Mercury was one-shotting Horrors left and right, and Harlequin was impressed with Talon's magical prowess, IIRC)...and then the crap in Burning Time, the worst SR novel I've ever read (and the only one of Kenson's I gave a chance to, given just how much I enjoyed it). It never actually occured to me that the other ones would be...y'know...worse than what I already knew.

Tasslehoff is the perfect example of that rule-ignored-done-right.

Bull, any chance of getting a somewhat brighter color for your admin posts? The red is really tough to make out. I've noticed on at least three different monitors/machines, so I don't think that's it.

Anyone else have trouble with that particular red?

Sorry for the randomness, just finally thought to post that.

/hijack

Huh. I always saw it and thought "stop!" and looked away before accidentally reading your posts. That might explain a few of my PMs...

<laugh>

ok, how about Safety orange?

My next try will be blink tags and that crappy 1995 HTML cyclling rainbow color effect

Bull

Suggestion: a red "ADMIN POST" initial tag, and everything else in orange or something. The uninformative stuff is eye-grabbing, the informative stuff is easy to read.

~J

Thanks for losing the red it was murder on the eyes.

As a foreword, I have cleverly color-coded my post so that the "I think Bull is abusing his administrative privileges for personal reasons" portion is blue, in case you'd like to skip the (somewhat) off-topic crap and get into what I've observed about SR's magic and my own specific reasons to echo the "Steve Kenson BAD" sentiments as they pertain to it. I wish this forum had spoiler tags.

Okay, let me get this straight. If you're a freelancer, you've got carte blanche to personally, or via an administrative-privileged proxy, ban users who you perceive as being rude to you (because he used dirty words in his critique, ohnoes). As far as I know, SL_James has done work on official material as well. Doesn't that give him similar privilege?

I've seen people be rude to him (and he's deserved it, but I like to think everyone deserves it). Why are they still posting? Have they been warned? I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say you're still looking for excuses to use your privilege level to bully people you have a personal beef with. Is that how things work here?

I might not like what SL_James has to say, but I don't see how he's any less entitled to say it than dozens of other users who express similar viewpoints, with similar lack of concern for tact and other such pleasantries. I'm honestly more offended by what you did, and have done before along the same vein, than anything he's ever posted (and that's saying a lot, see the 9/11-themed SR motivational posters).

Anyhow, so as to not completely thread hijack... Shadowrun magic seems, as far as effect goes, mechanically, rooted in the largely D&D-introduced "magic as a direct and flashy type force" thing, with the throwing of fireballs, levitating of objects, summoning of badass spirit bruisers, and the like. While subtle divinations, prophecies, wardings, and the like are always part of it, it's definitely a high-magic type game. Recently, with the whole "metaplanes as places with geographic features that are widely known/visited" thing has further shifted magic in Shadowrun along the D&D/Planescape lines.

There have even been increasing forays into the post-cyberpunk concepts of integrating advanced technologies (though in this case, magic) into other more basic aspects of life, i.e. special effects illusionists on movies, magical security, cosmetic spells, magical medicine/drugs. Admittedly, with the whole AR fixation of the moment, I think such things will be back-burnered in favor of more pervasive AR, before AR stops being so cool and writers get back to magic.

The "spell as skill/ability" rather than "spell as item/resource" (i.e. knowing a spell, casting it and resisting drain, versus having a certain allotted number of uses of a given spell) was fairly unique at the time of the system's inception. Whether through concurrent development or inspiration/ripoff, this isn't the case any longer, but back in the day it was pretty unique and innovative for an RPG magic system.

Thematically, the initial magic systems of Shadowrun were based off of pulp knowledge of Hermeticism as envisioned and outlined by John Dee, and an equally pulp understanding of Native American shamanism. As it takes place in a "what if" type otherverse based on our world, however, it was inevitable that any and all traditions currently recorded/followed, now or in known history, would appear in rules and background. At this point, it's a melting pot.

Likewise, it's mostly pulp/fantasy ideas of the given traditions. It's rare that a tradition's description, implementation, or specific capabilities are based off of more background information about the actual tradition than would be available through browsing a random Wikipedia entry. Some people, with more personal stake in given traditions, have gone the extra mile. That leads me back to the ever-popular Kenson-bashing.

When Steven Kenson started to develop magical rules, deciding magical events, and the like, for the Shadowrun universe, he injected his own beliefs into canon, both rules and setting, as correct. If a born-again Christian had done so, they'd have had to endure far more slings and arrows, but for some reason it's more acceptable for someone of a less widely followed religion to evangelize in their supposedly neutral works. What I never understood was why he focused on Hermeticism for this.

Pagan religious practices, in general, prior to Kenson's work, when they were more than symbolic (i.e. Gaelic versus British druids), was represented via shamanism. All of a sudden, it was done via hermeticism, and academic-hermetics (i.e. hermetics that I had come to recognize as the majority of the tradition) were suddenly wrong, and were often derided by more "open-minded" Pagan-trappings/belief structure leaning hermetics, or shamans, because "magic doesn't work like that (anymore)". What? Huh?

So I am not terribly impressed with Steve Kenson. Yes, he's gay, yes, he's a Pagan, and I could care less about either. Some people are vegans, some people are Republicans, and I have a shockingly vast capacity to neither care about nor judge them on their beliefs as they may or may not conflict with mine... except when they shove them in my face. I distinctly felt face-shoving-into when I read Kenson's novels and his Shadowrun sourcebook materials, and I don't like it. I think it's bad form.

I understand what he did to Shadowrun was kind of a testing ground for the cautionary tale in heavy-handed injection of personal philosophy into gaming systems that is Blue Rose. Being that I had no long-lasting association with Blue Rose, I'm not inclined to go on about it with the unending detail and length with which I'll discuss why I don't like what Steven Kenson's works did to Shadowrun, a system and world I've been pretty fond of for quite awhile. People can look that up on their own if they're interested.

And that's all I have to say about that.