I picked up Awakenings and The Grimoire yesterday. Suddenly, I know WTF you freaks are talking about when you refer to things like centering and initiatory grades.

ee-yow. so, 1st or 2nd ed?

I believe they are 2nd & 3rd edition.

neither are 3rd. 3rd ed magic book was Magic in the Shadows.

The Grimoire was published for 1st edition and again for 2nd edition. Awakenings was published for 2nd edition.

My copy of The Grimoire is for SR2. The deal is, there's a huge used-book store near me, and since I'm basically flat broke ATM, I've been trading in books that I don't read or use anymore for credit. I may not be getting the latest and greatest, but overall it's not a bad arrangement.

Absolutely nothing wrong with either of those books. Thers is some great flavor contained amongst those pages.

What does Awakenings have? Is it basically a SOTA book?

Sort of. Since the Grimoire was the main magic book, it was a combination of SOTA (new metamagics, adept powers, stuff like that) and a bunch of in-character flavor text about growing up magical, life as a magicians, fighting magical threats (to runners, so cops and corpsec), and so forth. There was also a large middle section which introduced Voudoun, first IC and then followed by a pretty lengthy rules section.

It had new adept powers, new spells, and new archetypes, so it had more "meat" to it than a typical SOTA book - it was more like a second sourcebook. Lots of shadowtalk (which is something I miss), and the section on Voudoun was much more detailed and interesting than the more cursory treatment that it would receive in later editions.

Yeah, our primary design goal with Street Magic was to basically condense the rules section of Awakenings into a manageable package. Ultimately, I think Peter and I succeeded.

That being said, there wasn't nearly enough space in Street Magic to do justice to the in-character section of that book. As such, I still think Awakenings is a great resource for Shadowrun. It's not just hubris that makes me say that I think the 4th edition rules handle Voodoun in a better way, I honestly think that in eleven years of hindsight we managed to pare down the rules a bit to cover the requisite effects with less rules - but this remains the source material for that tradition in the Shadowrun world. Everything we write about it now goes back and looks at Awakenings for versimilitude.

And hey, the story of Azroth the God is wicked sweet.

-Frank

My Grimoire is 2nd edition, my second SR rulebook. Good times, alltough Awakenings was much better.

@Frank:Kudos for street magic! Good book. Seeing as the core mechanic of SR is off-limits, I look forward to your next work!

The grimoire must be the most boring RPG book I ever owned. I much prefered reading Rolemaster's damage tables (stuff like 'your bones turn into lead and your blood begins to boil, you are dead in 3 rounds. Until then your are writhing in pain, -50 on all actions' or 'your brain explodes out of your ears. You die instantly').

I was so traumatized by my (german) grimoire, I couldn't even look at the 3rd edition magic rules book. However, I like Streetmagic.

I have 1st ed Grimoire, 2nd ed Grimoire, and 3rd ed MitS. Love 'em.

@Tanegar

I have the best luck getting OOP stuff using a combo of Ebay, Amazon, and Stiggybaby. Occasionally I'll see stuff for cheap at some other sites, but those are the holy trinity. 1st rule of OOP shopping is no matter how good the deal or low the price, check everywhere else anyway before you buy. I've scored several great SR books for 99 cents + three buck media mail. Mmmm.

@eidolon

Dude, you rock so hard. I didn't even know about Stiggybaby.

One is glad to be of service.