Yes, I know there was a thread or three about this before, and in it all the usual suspects occurred (rules! stuff! info on area <x>! adventures!). Judging by the other kinds of threads on these boards, though, I had a thought (feel free to critique).

What about a "Dummy's Guide to being a Shadowrunner?" What I mean by this isn't a "how to min/max your character" or a "daily life" or "meet basics"; that kind of stuff is covered well here or in places like "Sprawl Survival Guide." What I imagine is a book that's about tips/tricks/nuts-n-bolts stuff: what kinds of security you might find and how to avoid it, tips and tricks about how get in and out of a place cleanly, methods of surveillance, that sort of stuff. A book geared toward players (sell more books!) but that also provides lots of options for GMs. A book that takes a lot of the stuff that is left unsaid in the books, and contextualizes it/makes it practical.

Maybe there are already books out there that do this kind of thing. Any comments?

Yeah something like this would be really neat. And nasty in the hands of a GM.

I started a thing like this. Look for SGP in my sig.

That would be the most boring book ever.

Moreover, people have managed to RP this stuff for years without such a book, and frankly I don't see the point of Fanpro publishing some SR-ized version of the Ranger Handbook or a primer on electrical engineering for those times when you need to know how to disable some device. There are plenty of RL resources which are more than sufficient to cover tradecraft.

I disagree. I think Mr. Johnson's LBB is great. Actually, I'd almost consider the "run on the fly" chart worth buying the book for. It's great for those nights when everyone wants to play, you've had no prep time during the week, and your brain just isn't kicking.

It also has a bunch of stuff that the OP is looking for.

Edit: Oops, I misread SL James' post. Strike my need for disagreement, as he isn't talking about MJLBB. (Although I disagree that such a book would be boring. Hell, I was in the boring ol' intelligence field, and I still like reading about it. )

I'd encourage you to check out The Ultimate Skill, a HERO System book. It details the skills used in the universal HERO system, but also has a fair amount of real world description/history relating to the skills -- 25 pages on security devices and breaking them, for example.

I haven't had time to read the book in-depth yet, but the bits I've nosed through look pretty good.

If it includes matrix use, I'm all for it.

For those of you that don't like the idea, imagine this:

It is 40% Shadowtalk.

Like a DM guide but with a SOTA format i pressume? I would dig it