In the Too Much Tech thread, a notation was raised that scads of the big tomes of information are dated from 2nd, or even 1st, edition and that there's not been as much in the younger days.

The newer books have been more crunchy, true, but things like the SOTA series and the super-current Emergence show that fluff still stands.

However.

I will confess that, as a whole, there's a bit of a dip to be filled, in terms of fluffiness. What that would entail, tho, varies from person to person.

SO!

Here's the deal... what would you like to see more information on or updated from the Days of Yore? Cast off old plotlines in need of finishing up or retouching? Information set in-game 15-20 years ago that *demands* being refreshed?

What?

Drop some data my way, folks. My curiosity's done gone up.

A combination country/event sourcebook, focusing on developments within a single, previously non- specifically treated area of the world.

Come to think of it, any of the nations of the NAN could use much more detail.

...what is going on in Europe since the crash? Particularly, interested in the UK, The New Soviet, (even though they were covered in SoA), Liberated Poland, and, the Balkans.

Then there's the TT after the council bigwigs jumped ship and the wall came tumbling down.

if we're talking about locations, here are two that have never received any decent coverage: Africa and Greece. Greece, especially, is kinda surprising because its mythology has had such a huge impact on SR. i mean, no less than two metavariants are Grecain.

Ditto to more info on other regions. There are lots of players/GMs in various cities and areas other than Seattle, Denver and Hong Kong who would love to play in their own area, or who have interest in playing other aspects of the 6th world.

NAN regions... yes. One of the characteristics of SR that makes it unique among modern/near future games is the rebirth of indigenous peoples' power. How is life after a half-century of 'emancipation'? What are the shadows like where hopeful rebirth and disappointed reality meet?

Metaplanes... give those who feel magic is being watered down (Too Much Tech thread) some cool background material. There is NO tech that will get you there, and 'there' is infinitely variant.

[Shameless Plug]

Toronto!

Already bigger than SR4's Seattle. When NAN becomes a reality and Quebec cecedes, Canada will go there. Centre of industry, transport (air,land and sea), finance and entertainment in the most robust economy of the First World. Guaranteed not to be inundated by global warming like half of every city on the east coast of North America. Most multicultural city in the world. === Shadows of Opportunity!

*whisper* And my home town.

[/Shameless Plug]

Something they occasionally juggle from that past that I would like to see brought to the front would be a Movers and Shakers type book.

It would provide some real depth to current goings on in the book. Flesh out some of the machinations of the elves from the Tir, the great dragons of the world, and the moves of the megacorps and the people who run them. Ideally it would be dripping with miniadventures and ideas for how players can get caught up in the more epic things of the world.

I play in my home town. Sydney. It really helps players to connect with where they are since they know what suburbs are like now they can really see how things have changed. I guess I'm lucky that there was a good but of material in Target: Awakened Lands. I also have a street map of Sydney (shamelessly stolen from Google Maps) which I add player information to. Real locations of safe houses, fixers, gang territory and the like. Helps lots.

-Strobe

Whatever happened to the Shadows of South America project?

I hate development hell! It kind of mirrors Latin America's state of development though.

Cheers,

Max

Thanks, AH. How much if any of the holdup is purely SR3/SR4 rules translation, do you know?

Yeah, none of the freelancers who worked on it are aware of a SR4 update to SOLA. A rules translation wouldn't be very useful, since there's only a tiny bit of new rules in it. Updates to the material for a 2070+ timeline have been shot down in the past. It would be a lot more work and some of the freelancers who wrote the various chapters have vanished.

Summary of the hold-up:

- Release of SR4 makes a print release of 3rd edition SOLA undesirable (keep in mind that some writers didn't know SR4 was going to exist well into its development; I learned halfway through writing System Failure). You can sum this up as a product development scheduling snafu.

- Release of SOLA as an online PDF product is handed over to the proposed Holostreets site, partially because the license agreement between Wizkids and FanPro didn't allow FanPro to publish its own web-only products.

- Holostreets never materializes and the aforementioned license restriction prevents FanPro from just selling a web-only version of SOLA on their website.

- Today: the license restriction has been renegotiated with the IMR/Catalyst switchover and there is apparently some real progress on Holostreets.

For fluff books, I would love to see an update to the Neo-Anarchist's Guide to Real Life and the Sprawl Survival Guide. It was a great insight in to how the legit side of life worked, the Neo-A more about the upper classes and the Sprawl Survival guide more about the lower classes. I'd love to see a book that detailed what the 2070's average guy considered normal. Living arrangements, transportation, shopping, eating, working, entertainment, etc.

SoLA!
SoLA!
SoLA!


/want

Agree, stevebugge. I love what SSG brought to the game. Stuff like that really helps flesh out the world while leaving the GM more time for the important stuff, like killing PCs.

Anybody remember SR2's big book? I'm a little fuzzy on it, but as I remember it in the back there was a whole section that was updates to the previous editions sourcebooks so you could still use them.

I think that's what I wish they'd publish, hopefully free and online. In theory it would drive pdf sales of the old books. And you'd think it would be pretty low hanging fruit to update the rules of sourcebooks. Just stat out a dropbear and there you are.

They wouldn't have to worry about them messing with the current timeline because they are old information, but we could still use them. And a lot of stuff would be unchanged, like the rules for urban brawl.

For a book from new cloth what I would really like is a book that gives a lot of the feel of everyday life and the way things really operate. Part of the point of paying for a game system instead of using a home brew is so that everyone is on the same page and the players know how to interact with the world. Also so people can shift between games.

However if I joined someone elses game Lonestar, the Matrix, the Barrens, the Orc underground etc. All that stuff will be totally totally different when it comes down to actually interacting with it. Check some of the other threads around here to get a feeling of what I'm talking about.

So the book would have stories as the main text, and then in a sidebar would be scores of rules citations and rolls to make what's going on work.

It would make life a whole heck of a lot easier on new GMs especially since instead of having to figure out what the heck the matrix or astral is supposed to be like you could read about people interacting with them, and hopefully using all the most convoluted rules via clear examples.

I'd love to either see more from the NEO-A's or I'd like to see an entirely fluff corporate security guide (possibly written in the form of an employee manual).

A Corporate Employee Handbook would be great, maybe a series as downloadable e-books, one for each mega. It could include things like Corporate History & Philosophy, policies & procedures for all sorts of things, benefit schedules, etc.

For me sunnyside hsa the right idea. I've only played SR4 and don't feel like buying out dated book. I'm also painfully aware just how much I'm missing out on. I would like out of a fluff book is a sort of setting recap. Specifically I'd like 4-5 pages on the big 10 with a few sections focused on the types of details you can actually bring into a game. The game talks about how the megacorps plaster there look and feel everywhere you go, and I'd love to really bring that into my games, but I just don't know what kind of cooperate image Saeder-Krupp wants. I think the implementable details would be something like a little bit about the corporate culture, public image, "core proficiencies", securities tactics and principals, Metroplex and Global ambitions, and common non-monetary compensation for Runners. I'd like to see similarly focused treatments of Seattle Neighborhoods: Security ratings, zoning ratios, cultural feel/reputation, racial mix, couple hot spots, popular AR skins. Again that could be a page or two per neighborhood. Do that for 2 or 3 cities near Seattle, and talk about the land in between and now you can actually run a smuggling game, or lay low somewhere else. I'd also like a section on the monoculture. what media is unavoidably popular, a couple lines about the largest fast food, retailers, cabs/buses,

Basically I'd like to see more topical flavor. I want the details that help the world to come alive and feel different from other parts. I know that I want to have a game where the players find a mega corp storming an indoor squat with flame throwers, but what I'd like to get from the book, is who would do that? what part of town could that go down in. etc

There are release dates, but no products.
There are products, but no release dates.
Only after accepting this will you find inner peace.


And it's true.

I like the Runners Havens Book. I would like to see another couple of books follow the same set-up: an in-depth writeup of 2-3 cities and a handful of short write-ups of other cities with a similiar theme. It would be a great way to update events outside of Seattle and provide great locals for games. Some ideas:
-Corporate Power Centers: Neo-Tokyo, Zurich, Paris, and New York.
-Dragon Lairs: Denver (Ghostwalker), Rhine-Ruhr Megaplex (Lofwyr), Prague (Schwartzkopf)
-Elven Homelands: Portland and Dublin

I'm sure there are more options like warzones, rebel hideouts, anarchist hotspots, etc.

A re-do of corporate downloads would be great too. The megacorps have changed a lot since the last book.

Cool - I didn't know that was their plan anyway. I loved the Shadows of ... books. The only problem was they weren't detailed enough at the city level to run a game. The cities books make for a nice complement.