Last Sunday I finished running a year long game of Ars Magica. (Ars 5 kicks ass you owe it to yourself to go out and purchase everything published for it right now!) After the game people hung out and started talking about what they wanted to play next. (I didn't realize that there was going to be a "next" as I had only gathered the group in an vain effort to to ease my Ars Magica jonesing.)

After many good games were suggested and their relative merits were discussed people settled on Shadowrun 4. I'm pretty happy with this choice as I've always liked shadowrun, and I hear that the "new" system has a fixed TN mechanic (which appeals to me) and that it better integrates "deckers" although they're now called Hackers. Also I get to play rather than GM which is always nice.

I've run a great deal of first edition and I picked up and studied a fair number of third edition books (the core book, magic book, man and machine, cannon companion, rigger book, whatever the matrix book was called and SOTA 2063) with the intention of running a game (something that I never got around to).

Coming back to the game after several year absence, I'd like to know what's been published for fourth edition (and what are the most useful books of the line), what good materials are up on line (and where), and anything else that I'd be happy to learn to make my transition easier.

I did a few searches on this forum but didn't find a whole lot. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Upcoming Releases and Currently Available Books

And in general, going to the official Shadowrun Website and looking under Game Resources is always a good start.

There are a few character generator programs kicking around these forums, try the Community Projects section for some of those.

I don't play SR4, so I'm a poor source of reviews and personal advice. Try running searches for the titles of the books to get an idea of what the community thinks. Remember that to include older threads in the search you'll want to set the search date to go back farther than the default 30 days.

Thanks that helps. (especially the 30 day tip, no wonder I wasn't getting any hits)

The selection is a bit less than I expected for a game that has been out for a year and a half. Have there been problems, or is the pool of writers just too thin and stretched to produce books more quickly while still maintaining quality?

well all except for two people working on Shadowrun are freelance writers. And on top of that, all the books that are coming out are rules books that the rest of the game has to be based on. So they have to take the time to be sure everything is correct and works properly.