To help break up Demonseed's post chain, I'll put in my 2

One way to start getting more writers to add to the pool could be following up with people who submit proposals. I understand that this is not always viable, but a simple form letter that says "We have received your proposal and will take it under consideration" may help new writers feel comfortable enough to send in second or third proposals if their first one doesn't fly.

This is somewhat a personal matter for me, as I have submitted two different proposals for sections in unrelated books. Now, over a year later I still have not heard from anyone in the office about either proposal or a follow up to the e-mail I sent 6 weeks afterwards to see if the proposals had been received.

I'm also glad to see that they will be at PAX, which means there will be two West coast stops for me to hit.

Synner had answered a few questions how to become a freelancer for FanPro in a thread at the end of last year. Very interesting, but to me it seems that FanPro (or better: Synner and Rob Boyle, I guess) have very high expetations for submissions. Anyone willing to work as a freelancer has so submit a proposal, what I found hard to do work books like Feral Cities - when you don't know what will be in the book, it's hard to submit a promising proposal.

It would be cool if FanPro points out more what they want - in case of Feral Cities saying like "these cities will be in the book. If you want to submit something to it, work on these cities."

It may be less freedom for potential freelancers, but I could live with it.

WotC had some successopenning themselves up to outside input. The Eberron Campaign Setting book won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game Supplement in `04. I'm not saying that FanPro should run a full on UCAS Idol-type search, but maybe a bit more openness to outside submissions.

I think PDF publishing, and (sacrilege alert!) the Open Gaming License, show an interesting model for this. What if outside writers (fans, freelancers, whoever) could write their books using the full SR4 system and self-publish them under a sort of M&M Superlink system through FanPro?

The best and brightest could get tapped for "real" freelancing jobs by the company.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that most industry pro's these days were just "reallly good gamemasters" five to ten years ago. Heck, the "old guard" in industry (Monte, Gygax, Hickman, Seimbedia) were just "reallly good gamemasters" twenty to thirty years ago.

In fact, a certain Adam Jury went from "chummer with a website" to "published author" by getting good ideas, and getting his ideas into print.

Maybe its a pipedream. I dunno.

RedBrick had great success with their open call for the name-givers compendium - they said what they wanted (descriptions of 15 disciplines), chose from the submissions and worked with the authors.

Not tae mention one or two from SoLA.

SLJames, as in "James at ShadowLand", is refering to the people at Shadowland. The core of the highly verbal [minority] that made an ongoing shitdump on SR4 on this board back during development and for a while after release was about, what maybe 1/2 the active people on Shadowland. Whiteknight, Elsie(or something like that), mfb (AKA Motorboxfire on Shadowland), SLJames, and Critias.

EDIT: Or was that Wireknight instead of Whiteknight, yeah I think that was it? Anyway, he wasn't that much ongoing here. He was on the playtesting team though, and publicly threw up his hands and quit. He didn't post on this forum much after that as far as I remember reading, likely hasn't posted here in a long time. Then there was Crimsondude 2.0, but that was just a different account name here not a different person.

Yeah, I wasn't clear about. Thanks. I also didn't mention that mfb was also a playtester that threw up his hands and quit because he didn't personally like the changes being made. Only unlike Wireknight he dragged it out long after not only the direction of SR4 was clearly set, but after the book came out. Yup, at least 3 out of a fairly small group of people were there if you include DE. Given the keys to the magic kingdom and 2 of them decided to use the opportunity to loudly and publicly piss all over the front gate. *shrug*

Yeah, that particular crew of SR4-haters was why my Dumpshock link went down to the bottom of my bookmarks for the last year or so...that, and I was currently involved in running a game of That Other System™...

Still, now that I've finished my campaign, I'm setting my sights on SR4, and I've been loving the new books (as unpopular an opinion as that might be). They're clean, hardbound, hold together under a stiff breeze (unlike SR3), and the rules are simple enough that I don't scare off any newbie players, which describes 90% of my current crew.

My only complaint about the releases, aside from wanting everything NOW dammit, is that they didn't print Unwired first, before Arsenal. Gear is okay, but typically it's just gun porn for the rabid killspree types, and I usually like to impress upon my players that, unlike in The Other Game, the more bodies you leave behind, the more CATFU'd the run has become. Whereas Unwired would allow me to impress upon players both old and new just how changed from 2060 the setting has become (not to mention how far from 2007 it is), and further explain both flavor and crunch regarding augmented reality. I may be prejudiced of course, seeing as how I'm a programmer IRL, and tend to play decker/hacker types when on the other side of the screen...

Not to mention -- if Arsenal includes vehicles, then technically it could qualify as a rigger book, and we all know that the rigger book is the Sign of the End Times for a Shadowrun edition...

Well, I think/hope we'll get some background information in Emergence.

My first print of the 4th ed core book is starting to seriously take a beating. I'm way anal about my books and how they're treated, and and constantly yelling at my players to treat them better (ask SinN or OneTrikPony). In the end, it was my two year old the got the binding to start tearing lose.

Didn't some of mfb's ideas and outcome from discussions with him make it into some of your SR4 work DE? Or am I thinking of someone else's work? In some ways it is kinda too bad mfb couldn't tolerate/grok/whatever SR4's shift to the unified game mechanics because he's definately got a lot of good insight into the setting.

I am unware of any hostility. Lack of response, though, isn't uncommon, even to freelancers. It's driven me nuts more times than I want to recall.

Okay, pretend you haven't been playing Shadowrun for the past fifteen years. You find a book at your local shop and think to yourself: "Cool. Cyborgs and Elves! Submachineguns and spellcasting! Woot!"

Because, let's face it, if you are going to buy and play Shadowrun, that is the exact thought that dances through your head the first time. Then you read it. Samurai are pretty streight forward (guns + cyber = shoot people in the face), Faces and Sneaks are pretty straight forward (skills, skills, more skills). There are two areas of true complexity in the game: magic and hacking.

Of those two, magic is probably the more complex with its myraid subsystem (spellcasting, summoning, astral plane, magical threats, initiation). Yes, they're pretty easy to follow if you have experince with the game and its philosophy, but to a complete new player, hacking is much simpler to grasp, they've only got one subsystem, three if you count rigging and technomancers.

Plus, magic has a "gee wow" factor that "hacking" doesn't.

It's all about what will sell the best, what they get finished writting/testing first, and player demand. Remember, just because you want Hoboken in the Shadowsto see print before The Neo-Anarchist's Guide to Peoria doesn't mean that FanPro's other customers do.

Plus, in SR1 (7106) The Grimoire saw print before (7107) Virtual Realities; In SR2, (7903) Grimoire Second Edition was published before (7904) Virtual Realities 2.0; and last but not least, SR3's (7907) Magic in the Shadows beat (7909) Matrix to print too.

In fact, the trend seems to have been: Core Book > Chrome Book > Magic Book > Matrix Book > Rigger Book > New Edition.

SR4 breaks that pattern by putting (26009) Augmentation out after (26008) Unwired, but then agian there is more chrome in the SR4 BBB than any edition I can recall, and the Samurai will get somefun out of (26007) Arsenal, I'm sure.

As a wise man, okay a wise ass, once said:

FP freelancers need: Coke/coffee(caffeine!!!) & lots of freelancer crack...

And my happiness meter just dropped 2 points...

Guess FanPro can be making new plans since SoCal is dead though....

http://www.gencon.com/2007/socal/press/pre...ss-release.aspx

GenCon So Cal was one of the conventions that FanPro attended, as was talked about it in the Year End Report.