So anyway yeah, since -I- never got a chance to discuss books like these with anyone before. You, dear readers, shall instead bear the burden! (even if it's just telling me to shut up and locking the thread)

I recently got my hands on a lot of 53 SR books. All of which are SR1 or SR2. Of the lot, I was happy to find only about 4 which are duplicates of ones I previously managed to aquire. (So I'll be keeping the copies in better shape. Back to E-bay with the rest of you!)

Anyway, off the bat. I'd definately highly recommend to anyone, that they pick up the Lone Star book. (Especially if, like me you never saw it before).

Prime Runners, I can definately see why people have a beef with that book. Out of the lot, I only recognized 3 names. None of em as anyone 'really big' that wasnt a dragon.

Corporate Security (Which I allready had) is another one I found really nifty and useful. Even though information in it is presented in other books. Corp Sec puts it all in one nice book and it doesnt take much to just update it to what ever version of SR your playing in.

Fields of Fire (Yet another duplicated) was also relatively decent.

Sprawl (Not Sprawl survival) is handy, as it gives various nifty little maps of various locations you can use. And ideas for others.

RAS, another nifty book that one as just about everyone knows.

SR Germany (Yet another dupe) I like it, some dont. Oh well.

There is still this massive slew of other books for me to go through yet, as well as the box sets of DMZ and some other one that I fail to currently recall). There are alot of others too that I allready have, and are mostly well known. Bug City, Threats, Paranormal Critters etc.

I am going to have fun poking at ones I didnt even know existed such as London (I had absolutely no clue this one was ever around). And just ones I havent had a chance to look at yet, such as the Tir books, the old street samurai catalogues and magic grimoire etc. Even the old SR2 book was nifty to poke at. It's interesting to me at least to see how the system changed. Like how between SR2 and SR3 the adept version of wired reflexes went from being two seperate powers (one to boost reflexes, the other to boost init) to just the one that ultimately cost you alot less. (And here I though 5 MP for Reflexes 3 was heafty.. )

I was wondering however, if there are any folk highly recommend overall while I'm still sorting through my new horde? Ones that ultimately are on the 'high recommendations' list for anyone to get ahold of?

I suppose in the end this is abit of a mirror to my earlier thread about recommended SR novels. Overall I -think- now the only book I'm missing is the old SR1 main book. Hell I've even got the old SR GM screens now too but certainly looking at gems like the Lone Star book, I cant help but wonder if perhaps I havent actually missed one or two others I dont yet have even now.

Aztlan comes to mind.

Oh, and congrats and good readin'.

If you don't have these already.......

Corporate Shadowfiles (The latest one is Coporate Download).
Underworld Source Book.
Threats (Didn't care too much for Threats 2 though).

Shadowbeat was excellent i thought. Definately look for that one. Dealt a whole lot with the media and had great flavor and rules for an offbeat kind of game. Or you could use it in your existing game. And it had some neat equipment.

Rigger Black Book was a well done book of toys that made riggers happy back in the day. Its great when you compare that to SR3...youll see some interesting differences.

SSC was a little thin for my tastes. Some of the shadowtalk was nice, nice additions, but i thought the RBB was put together better.

You saw Fields of Fire already, that was probably my favorite of the pure toy books. More in depth than the SSC, tho the SSC was indeed aimed on average at the more street level fellow rather than the 'military' type.

The grimoires were very useful for magical characters, but took a bit of reading, because i swear they were damn near like actual grimoires at times.

damn, id love to get ahold of more of these again.

Edit: And Shadowtech. How could i forget that one. We were happy to get ahold of that, and we were even luckier to have a GM who handed it to us and said that if we needed help, to ask him.

Shadowbeat did have some good rules in it for how good a piece of video or a story was. I used those rules, slightly varied, if the runners were doing survelliance or collecting blackmail material. The results would determine if they got a bonus for their efforts, or if they were using the material to further a run of their own, how effective it was as blackmail or whatever. That and it didn't hurt to be able to publish a story now and then to bring in some extra cash.

I've got most of the others mentioned here. I've got a couple of plastic storage crates in the basement: one for SR and, another for D&D. Keeps the material together pretty well, though sometimes they migrate around the house as I pull bit out to read.

Another vote for Shadowbeat. I'd add the Neo-Anarchist's books, you already like Lone Star, Universal Brotherhood just to be "in the know", oh man, how could I forget!!!! Your new assignment is to read Cybertechnology, front to back, five times. Only then will you have a proper grasp on what cyber does to a person. (Seriously, it changed the way I played and ran games.)

And congrats on the buy. Mind saying what you paid? I buy in lots when I can to minimize cost, but I'm so close to having everything (in English) that I'm better served by scoping out singles, sadly.

I´ll second the suggestion of "corporate shadowfiles". Very interesting read, and still good on the business SOP even if most factual information is outdated by now.

One thing I felt that Shadowrun was lacking until the introduction of some of the new books (SOTA, SSG, etc) was the punk aspect of the cyberpunk genre Shadowrun was generally classified under. As such, I loved the Shadowbeat book as it gave a lot of behind the scenes gritty feel to it, much like the Chromebooks did for CP2020, though to this day, I feel CP2020 has more punk than SR in its canon, though each gaming session may be to different levels.

Anyway, other books I liked and feel might be a good read. It's in the SR1 core book, and has also been recreated in the First Run module, Food Fight. Part of me enjoys that because of the fact it actually lists various stuff one might find in a stuffer shack and has rules about breakage. Where else can you have have a Orange and Purple Chunky Powder coat your character because the guy with the shotgun missed you.

Also Portfolio of a Dragon: Dunkelzahn's Secrets and Cybertechnology are good reads. Cybertechnology has the Hatchetman writeup about his experiences with cybertech so you can get an idea about how some people might react to having their body replaced, and Portfolio is a great source for run ideas and various other sorts of topics.

Other than that, I would have to agree with the other comments on books.

I miss having PUNK in my cyberpunk. I try and add it as much as I can.

I should really try and pick up cybertechnology at some point, I keep being told its such a good read.

Check HERE for any of the above-mentioned reccomendations.

...and yet a third vote for Shadowbeat. For much of the same reasons as already mentioned. We used the performance rules for my character Leela when she was still a PC as well as the pix & punch rules for my reporter Lana Lane. SR3 unfortunately grouped artistic skills under Knowledge, but we went with the old active skills from the 'Beat for both Leela and Lana.

One nice thing in SR4, they made Artisan an active skill again.

My second choice would be the Rigger Black Book. Mine has since fallen apart into three pieces due to the heavy use it received when I was both playing and GMing.

Still happily digging my way through the vast library granted me by a friend a year or so ago. Lots of stuff from all edits... Though Cybertech is one i`m also looking for still..

Oh, man, Cybertechnology. What a book! Read it, love it. It's awesome.

Another vote for Universal Brotherhood. If that doesn't make you double take on a few shadows, then you ain't human, brother.

Bug City and Tir Tairngire are also damn fine reads, if you can get your hands on them.

Oh, and Seattle is far, far superior to New Seattle. And another vote for the Neo-Anarchist... books. You get to meet Cap before he became SysOp of Shadowland!

Ah, the memories... Maybe I should read it all over again.

Hmm not sure if I have bug City in my collection but I do have Tir Tairngire in PDF.... (which i`ve yet to read properly)

Tir Tairngire is an ok book, it's not so exciting as TERRIFYING. Immigration and tourism laws to give a runner nightmares.

Was there ever a book on the NAN? You'd think that would be pretty important because the island that is seattle is floating in the NAN.

Lone Star has some good info, for sure. I haven't read in a while. My GM didn't want me reading it because he presumably wanted to throw something or other at me.

Sprawl Guides is good for ideas, but it still can't beat a decent imagination.

Tir Nan Og? Tir Na Nog? I never read it the full way through because I thought "when are any of our games going to go there?" and lost interest.

Corp Shadowfiles was pretty boring. It was good that they went into the workings of corporations, seeing as they are such a large part of the game. But did anyone actually use the rules for determing run effects on fiscal quarters? *yawn*

Native American Nations Volumes 1 and 2 are both 2nd edit, but actually very info worthy as to the Nations and I think Shadows of North America also covers them with a neater overview if less info in depth.

One of my campaigns was meant to go to Tir Na Nog and I have had a few chars who originare from there. Perhaps the best was Knight who ran briefly in the Living in The Shadows threads here on Dumpshock (before I was a year without connection without warning, which sucked.)

Never used to Fiscal rules from Corp Shadowfiles, but the other info presented, as commented upon by the Chromed Accountant and others, has proved very useful for back stories behind runs and the reasons Johnsons do things.

Renraku Arcology: Shutdown.

~J

Ah of course my brain appears have fallen out. Which is a shame as i need to make change...

I used to play heavily cybered characters until Cybertechnology and the Hatchetman write up. Now I mostly play mages or adepts.

Bug City is good too. I've played a couple of campaigns within the walls

The Native Armerican Nations books were hard to track down even shortly after printing, but they had good material. One of them had an adventure where you hunted a toxic shaman. Great transition for bounty hunter type characters into running.

The Elven nations are strict, but so is England. The rules and regulations are just staggering. But they make it so tempting with sky high bounties on things like ghouls and other creatures. They're high for a reason: you pretty much can't have any weapons or magic.

So is there a trading space here somewhere that I'm not seeing? I have a few extras from a couple of e-bay purchases and while I'm running 3rd ed, I wouldn't be adverse to getting the last couple of books to fill out my 1st and 2nd ed shelves (specifically Renraku).

I have a listing of all the books over here: http://shadowrun.schelin.org/php/listing.php

The extras are:

7105 - Paranormal Animals of NA
7109 - Shadowbeat
7204 - Germany
7208 - Guide to Real Life
7211 - Tir na nOg
7219 - Target Matrix (x2)
7325 - Missions
7330 - Corp Punish
7903 - Grimoire
7904 - VR 2.0
7909 - Matrix
10664 - SotA 2063

Carl

They were. Published in 1991.

I wads fortunate enough to be gifted both NAN books, they are very lovely.

Bradstreet artwork will make anything lovely.

Anyway, I'm -still- wading through everything. I've pretty much shunted every mission book ever made for SR to the side for now (if i'm missing one or two I might actually be supprised)

Also when you really take into account -all- the books. Its alot more than the stated 53+2 box sets. Course I didnt expect the second box which was for Denver, to actually have so much information on Dever, I thought it was more like the DMZ box.

Its really abit of an information overload. And I'll definately make sure to read the books folk mentioned. Since I figgured i'd leave the stuff like shadowbeat and the old cyber/magic books for much much later. I'd sortof assumed they were abi tmore like the SR2 core book I got with the lot, where it was really mostly just rules (Though I still loved the fluff that was in the SR2 core book)

I think now I"m just missing SR1 core and a small handful of others. If anyone's interested though I can do up a list of all the doubles i've got now. Had a few more than I thought I would but off the top of my head they include:

Ivy and Chrome
Germany
Underworld

and I THINK I wound up with two copies of Dunkies secrets. I coulda sworn I did though Icant seem to find the other atm. So I'm either immagining it or the drop bears have stolen it.

Don't yell and shake your fists when Drop Bears are around, as a friendly advice.

Iirc, Running Wild will become the new critter book for SR4. Don't know when it will be released, possibly some time in the future. But it shouldn't be a big problem to convert some critters from the Paranormal books (which have different ones, look out for the windlings in Europe, btw) and use them in SR4.

Might not be a big problem. What with the SR3 to SR4 conversion guide. But it is a fair bit of work. And I'm too lazy to do it all myself

Critters PDF from DriveThruRPG

But how do I get a rigger 3 revised PDF?! That's what I wanna know!