The list of books on the shadowrun4.com site that are compatible with SR4 is great, but... it tells me nothing about whether those books were "awesome", how relevant they are to the 2070's setting, etc.

Which SR3 fluff books would you call MUST-HAVE's for SR4?

IMO, the settings are utterly different. I can give you a list of awesome SR[321] books if you want, but it's my opinion that you won't be able to apply them without dramatic modification.

~J

Um, I think a lot of the geographical/informative books like Shadows of North America, Corporate Download, Target: Matrix, Runner Havens, and The Sprawl Survival Guide are all somewhat applicable to SR4. Anything that focuses on flavor rather then hard rules works. And almost all the old adventure supplements can be updated pretty easily and make for good adventure inspirations.

I would hope that Runner Havens is still compatable, being that it's an SR4 release.

Dragons of the Sixth world, more or less fully compatible, because about 95% Fluff and only 5% crunch . . if the Fluff did not change all that drastically about them damned lizards over some 10 years x.x . .

I wouldn't jsut limit myself to SR3. I would go back to SR1 & SR2 as well. Shadowrun has been one of the most consistently "quality" roleplaying games I have ever seen. The 95% of the fluff is completely applicable to SR4, IMO. I am trying to think of an old book that is an utter dog off the top of my head and nothing is jumping to mind.

I would say any of the location source books are important to have. It's hard to say what you will find relevant, tho', without knowing more about your game. Assuming you are running a traditional game set in Seattle or the UCAS or Denver, I'll list what I think you should have. I will try to rate them on a 5 star scale and make a quick note. they are in no particular order, either quality or chronological, other than being subdivided into Location, Organization or Miscellaneous. I also included Ebay listings (not mine!) of everything I could find that was one my list.

Here ya go:

LOCATION BOOKS

Seatle Source Book (SR1) 4.5/5 Ebay Listing
Excellent book to own. Damn near indispensable if you are running Seattle.

New Seattle (SR3) 4/5
Excellent book to own. Indispensable to a Seattle setting. And the cool thing? It's full of info, but has little redundancy with the original Seattle Source Book. The writers did a great job. All setting books should be so good.

Denver-City of Shadows (Boxed Set) (SR2) 4.5/5
Are you running SR4? Are you set in the new default setting? You HAVE to own this. People's feelings vary about this setting: Some find it unreal, others think it's awesome. I happen to be in the latter group. No one that wants to run anything in Denver will probably tell you it's anything but indispensable, even tho' Ghosty comes in and changes a ton of stuff after it's writing. (Written by Nigel Findley, for those who care about that sorta thing.)


Native American Nations: Vol. 1 & 2 (SR1) 3.5/5
In the first two editions the injuns were a LOT more important to the game setting. SR3 got away from that a bit and SR4 seems to damn near ignore them. Too bad, cause they were fun and interesting. Also, they are a HUGE influence on the Denver setting. Each book includes a scenario to run as well. (Written by Nigel Findley)

Target UCAS (SR2) 3/5
Important and useful, but I always found it a hard read for some reason. Covers Chicago (post Bug City), Boston and Detroit

Bug City (SR2) 4/5
Run a whole campaign here! Very good book on the bug takeover of Chicago.

Target: Smuggler Havens (SR2) 3/5
Covers New Orleans and Vladivostock and other smuggling places and things.

Atzlan (SR2) 4/5
Find out jsut why everyone hates those damn Atzlaners. Have yourself a Cinco de Mayo run! Drink Corona. (Written by Nigel Findley)

California Free State (SR2) 2.5/5
It's important if you are playing on the UCAS continent (tho' it's not actually UCAS), I never really liked the book.

Tir Taingire (SR2) 3.5/5
You have to own this. I mean, come on, those wacky elves are about a fifth of Shadowrun and this is the closest enclave to Seattle or Denver. It's pretty well done, as well, even if the culture doesn't make complete sense.

Tir Na Nog (SR2) 3/5
Important elf book, but I found it... clumsy and not as well put together.

Year of the Comet (SR3) 3.5/5
Huge update for all over the place of the SR world including California, Atzlan, Japan, Denver, Introduces SURGE and Ghostwalker and so much more.

Shadows of North America (SR3) 3.5/5
Covers and updates the Algonkians, Denver, California, the CAS, Quebec, Salish Shidhe, the Sioux Nation, Tir Tairngire, UCAS and the Utes.

Target: Awakened Lands (SR3) 3.5/5
Covers Australia and a lot of magical locations like the Bermuda Triangle, Crater Lake and Mount Kilamanjaro. Like most of the later SR3 stuff, it's solid but seems to lack a little something somewhere.



ORGANIZATION BOOKS

Underworld Source Book (SR2) 4.5/5 Ebay Listing
Great for almost any GM. No matter where you go, there's gonna be organized crime. The book goes into good detail. Really, full of great fluff.

Lone Star (SR2) 3.5/5
Who doesn't wanna know about the natural enemy to Runners? Even if Lonestar isn't the local police, you'd better believe they are security somewhere in your setting. Also a good template to model other security companies on. (Written by Nigel Findley)

Corporate Download (SR2) 4/5
Indispensable if you wanna use corps in your game. Period.

Portfolio of a Dragon: Dunklezahn's Secrets (SR2) 3.5/5
The dragon has been dead for 13 years and he STILL makes ripples in the Shadows. If you want to know about ol Dunky, this is the book.

Dragons of the Sixth World (SR3) 4/5
I's about the DRAGONS!!! What do you think? *L*


MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS (Un-categorical)

Paradise Lost (adventure/location source book) (SR2) 4.5/5
If only there had been more books like this. Technically labled an adventure, the back half of the book is actually the source book for Hawai'i. It manages both things marvelously. I highly recommend it. Besides, think how happy your Runners will be when they win that vacation to Hawai'i (Written by Nigel Findley)

Cyberpirates (SR2) 3/5
Part organization book, part setting book (The Caribbean League) it's worth having in your collection if you want to know about that part of the world. Personally, I felt the whole "pirates" thing was a little over the top, tho. Still good info and an enjoyable read.

Renraku Arcology Shutdown (adventure) (SR2) 4/5
Far more than your typical adventure, RAS is darn near a setting/campaign all of it's own. You want to do something with those huge honking too powerful PCs? Challenge them, get them out of your hair? Throw them in this nightmare world. Or, create characters especially for it and run it for a change of pace. It's the closest thing to a "Ravenloft" that Shadowrun has. Truly enjoyable.

Universal Brotherhood (adventure/sourcebook) (SR1) 4/5
More bugs! If you liked Bug City, then this is where it all began. (Written by Nigel Findley)

Critters (included with the SR3 GM screen) (SR3) 4/5 Ebay Listing
Until SR4 comes out with a Paranormal animals version, this is the best thing to get. Sure, you have to buy it with the now useless SR3 GM screen, but seriously, it's worth it. It's not overly expensive at 10-12 bucks (or less used), and it descibes a LOT of different types of critters. Come on, PC's need more than gangers to whoop on.



Finally, I will try to list the above books really important to different settings. There will be duplications:

Denver:
Denver: City of Shadows
Native American Nations-Vol 1
Atzlan
Shadows of North America
Year of the Comet
Corporate Download
Underworld Source Book
Critters


Seattle:
Seattle Source book
New Seattle
Shadows of North America
California Free State
Native American Nations-Vol 1&2
Tir Taingire
Renraku Arcology Shutdown
Corporate Download
Underworld Source Book
Critters
Year of the Comet


So, I hope that helps you out!

Vlad

I did like SONA, though it glossed over a lot of areas (I mean like 3 paragraphs for Detroit COMEON!!!) but it had a nice general overview of North America. I don't have Shadows of Asia or Europe, so no idea there. Corporate Download is great and I still read and reread it frequently. One I am kind of disappointed no one mentioned is Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book which is a great flavor book, but half of the book really is contacts and possible adventure ideas (though it does have a table for generating a random adventure framework which is cool) and the final chapter is pretty much useless what with the changes to Matrix and Rigging rules, I still get a warm tingly sensation flipping through the pages:D

The only one that really can't would be the Universal Brotherhood.

Since everybody knows who/what they were.. anything that even resembles them that pops up in a city will likely get a visit from an Ares Sub-tac Nuke.

Not if the bugs are smart. And unfortunately, the bugs are *very* smart.

I'd still reccomend getting this as it's a good history lesson on how the bugs got out in the first place. I'm thinking of using the private investigator in it, updated to the 2070s, as an NPC in Boston. Which, thank you, I've been looking everywhere for some knowledge on my hometown of Boston.

You might find it under the title Missing Blood. That was one of those SR1/2 adventures that contained in-depth background. On a similar note, Native American Nations volumes one and two are also heavy in source material with an adventure thrown in. In fact, I think NAN 1 was the first appearance of a toxic shaman, IIRC. But that was so danged long ago

http://www.shadowrun4.com/products/sr4_compatible.shtml is the official answer

In terms of my personal opinion, pretty much what people said. The Target: and Shadows of books are all great. Little outdated, but at least they give great ideas of the...feel of the places sometimes.

I also love a lot of the oldies like Bug City, the Tir books, or Underworld Sourcebook.

Nice list Vlad! I personally find myself digging through old books ALL THE TIME! Seattle Sourcebook is the ULTIMATE book for Seattle. No Seattle book since has been able to sufficiently replace it. I would personally get any and all books you can afford. I had the luck of getting ~20 old SR1-2 books for $30 from a guy on craigslist in my area. Just keep your ear to the ground and pick out all that you can. Im not sure if anyone has mentioned Shadowbeat yet, but that is one of the best sourcebooks for media/music/entertainment fluff ever produced. I also own two copies of Tir Tairngire (thank you Powells City of Books), which took so long to find, but are necessary for all elf lovers. Tir na Nog was very disappointing in comparison. All the Target books from 3rd are pretty nice. Hell, I could go on forever with all the great books from SR past. Get what you can, you wont be disappointed.

Yeah, what he said! *L*

And thanks. It actually took a bit of time to go over my books to select what I did for the OP. More than anything else here, I really like being helpful to new GMs. I am newer to Dumpshock, but I have 10 years experience running Shadowrun. I have learned a lot on my own and I really like passing on that experience. GMing is hard and little tips and hints and suggestions can dramatically improve a game. I, too, find myself going back to well over half the books I listed on a fairly regualr basis and have found all of them to be really helpful at least sometimes.

I got almost all of my SR1 and SR2 items from a little local gameshop in Indianapolis used over the years. The guy typically sells his materials for 1/3-1/2 face value... even the "rare" stuff that would cost you an arm and a leg online. (He once said "Oh, sure, I could make more if I wanted to work at it, but meh." And he's been in business since 1974. He jsut loves games.) Which was somewhat made up for by the fact I had to buy Tir Tairngire online (cause it never came in his front door) for the ungodly sum of 35 dollars. And it wasn't in "perfect" condition, either. I have nearly every book that FASA put out for Shadowrun. I have always tried to buy most of my gaming books and such there. He charges exactly one dollar over face value for new items. The neat thing is that he keeps a darn large inventory on hand, instead of "Oh, we can order that for you." And his used selection is pretty awesome. I have a lot of books from games I don't play jsut because it was "available" and damn, it's only 8 bucks. I pick up the rest of my stuff at Gencon each year.

I am glad I am not the only person that was disappointed with Tir Na Nog. How did you feel about Cal Free State?


Vlad

I would really recomend Shadowtech and Cybertechnology for their awesome fluff about cyber- and bioware.

Are you talking about The Boardroom in Broad Ripple? Awesome shop, if you are. I picked up a few used Shadowrun modules there.

I wish used books were $8 here, Powells usually has them for 10-20. As for CalFree, I dont own the book and yet to get the PDF. I never went out of my way to get location books aside from the big three (Seattle and the Tir's).

WOW Vladski, that list was excellent.

As far as location, I haven't chosen one yet, though I've created a fictional city for my upcoming game.
The Corporate Download looks excellent, as I like to have lots of info on the corps my PC's are running against... my favorite part of the new Corporate Enclaves book was the detail about Horizon,

(I'm specifically looking for info on NeoNET and it's previous incarnations... FUCHI, Novatech, Erika, TransysNeuronet etc)

Also is there any really good info somewhere about the Orc Underground and what happened between the Dwarves and the Orcs?

I don't know if I can find all those books you listed, but I sure can try. If you had to name your top 5 city-non-specific, which would they be?

[EDIT: For some reason the majority of SR3 players seem to dislike SR4, and many SR players in general think SR3 and SR4 have totally different settings. I don't recall ever having seen anything to suggest that, other than the 10 years that passed.

The wireless matrix was just an upgrade from the original Matrix... the "new" slang/curse system is just a difference between Old runners who grew up in the 40's/50's and Young runners who grew up in the 60's. As far as I'm concerned, it's still the same setting, just a different era. We play SR4, but we kept the SR3 mindset. Sometimes I forget where they differ, except the Crunchy mechanical bits.

It wasn't a "retroactive setting rewrite" like the New World of Darkness fiasco. So any and all SR1/2/3 Fluff (without crunch) books are extremely useful to me and my gaming group.]

posted when the servers were messing up last night

I msot certainly am! How did you hear about he place.. and more importantly, what were you doing in Broad Ripple. *L* That's a bit off the track, even if you were in INdy for Gencon.

Vlad

ignore this

nevermind this post

Thanks for the compliment!

5 Favorite non-location books:

Underworld Sourcebook - No matter where you play, organized crime is gonna be there. It's really good about detailing the organizations world-wide and not jsut in Seattle.

Year of the Comet- It covers most of the known 6th World and clues you in on SURGE and the Arrival of Ghostwalker and a lot of other stuff

Dragon's of the Sixth World- Dragons, dude! 'Nuff said.

Renraku Arcology Shutdown- While it's a specific location within Seattle, really it details life within an arcology well, and what it is like to be a wageslave. And, there's jsut so much more to it. Also, it will teach you the most about AI's IMO. Worth having even if you don't run Seattle. You could lift a lot from it and relocate to anywhere. And if you choose to do a run in it, truly, it can become an entire campaign setting, or at least a major part of one that you could run for a YEAR.

Corporate Download- From what you said, you are probably already going for this one. It's well worth your nuyen, as it gave me the best understanding of the Corps out of any of hte books to this date.


I am trying to remember which book detailed the most about the Ork Underground. Seems to me that's a thing you sorta piece together from a multitude of books. New Seattle has about 2 major pages on it. Seattle SourceBook has about a half page. It's referenced in a lot of books, certain locations are mentioned here and htere that are "in" it, etc. Really, the Underground is a place I think is best left up to the GM's imagination anyway. Just go at it and have a ball. Make it tough and seedy and rough and scary. Make it one of hte worst ghettos you've ever seen, but at the same time try to show that real people and whole families do call it home. Theres a lot of great fluff right here on DS (or DS folks' websites) if you want to go that direction.


I don't think the "majority" of SR3 players hate SR4. I think some folks jsut didn't want to transition to the new rules and buy new books. I know I refused to go to AD&D 3rd Ed. from AD&D 2nd. I had all the books (and ran a intense Forgotten Realms campaign that was so homebrewed it was msotly my own), my players all had the books. There was way too much play left in the old girl.

And sure, there are some that really don't like it. But there's a lot of converts. I am one of them. Neither system is perfect, but I think SR4 is easier to play and more likely to capture a player new to SR. And, if you were a previous player, the setting really didn't change (and that setting was ALWAYS the best thing about SR.) They jsut updated it, for the most part. As far as the arguments about "grittyness" Meh... the game is what you make it. I don't run a 100 percent canon game. I'd say I am in the 80 percent range. I use wireless, but I don't make it as omnipresent as many of the folks here do. My timeline has most of hte events in it, but a lot of things happened maybe a decade later than "officially" because I used a lot of old SR1 and SR2 modules and source books while running SR3. *shrugs* I reiterate: it's YOUR game. There's really no such thing as a "canon" world anyway.

Vlad

Last time I was researching the Ork Underground, Lisa Smedman's _Lucifer Deck_ had some details that were never included in any sourcebooks. I seem to remember that they didn't jive exactly with the sourcebook presentation, but they didn't outright contradict it.

I just got Shadows of Asia last week and it's currently one of my favorite fluff books, it's only 6 years off SR4 so it's actually a very relevant read.

I also got Target: UCAS, which... man it's just not a fluffy as I'd like. Maybe it's just me, all the stuff for bug hunting and FAB is nice but... I don't know, I'm not finding it all that useful right now.

I'll back the point that all of the Shadows of... books are simply fantastic. I just picked up all three from my local bookshop and haven't regretted it. Basically they make up an atlas of the Shadowrun world (or would do if Shadows of Latin America had ever manifested). All the odd spots they miss otherwise are covered by the various Target: books (although I'd agree that Target: UCAS really isn't worth your time. Get Bug City instead).

To give the other Target books a run through;
Target: Matrix is cool if you like actually using the matrix for more than just mini-dungeons. It details the geography and denizens of the matrix very nicely.
Target: Smuggler Havens is so-so, but has nice write ups on Vladivostok and New Orleans, as well as useful information about smuggling and border hopping.
Target: Wastelands is simply awesome. A chapter each for space, toxic zones, deserts, and arctic regions. All the fluff to match the rules in Arsenal.
Target: Awakened Lands has a fun write up on Australia, as well as some odd magical hotspots. Pretty cool book, but not top of the list.

A useful thing to note about all the 3rd Ed books is that they had a policy of keeping all the rules and stats at the back of each book, in a section marked Game Information, which was never more than about 10% of the book. Very useful, as it means you can just ignore the final chapter, and everything else is relevant and useful.

Other books I love to pieces:
Loose Alliances. This book is fantastic. Lots of useful groups to hire or work against your runners, ranging from religious orders to anarchist groups or well known runner teams. It's basically useful no matter where in the world your campaign is set, and all the information is still relevant in 2070. A must have.
Sprawl Survival Guide. If you want to understand how the world of Shadowrun works, this book is where it's at. A complete run down of life and culture in the sixties (and extending easily into the seventies).
Mr Johnson's Little Black Book is basically the Shadowrun GM's guide. Again, very worthwhile for any game. Also, second coolest sourcebook title ever (the first obviously being The Neo-Anarchist's Guide to Real Life).
Dragons of the Sixth World has been mentioned already, but it really is brilliant, as is Corporate Download (bit out of date, but useful all the same).

Finally, my personal favourite book from the Shadowrun line is Threats. It's up on the Battlecorps site as a PDF download, and it's a brilliant read. The write up on Winternight honestly gave me the creeps (those who've read it may agree with me here if I mention "fish hooks"). If you want to understand how those guys were able to mess up the world so bad in Crash 2.0, this is what you need. It also has a bunch of other unpleasant stuff like Alamos 20K, Mr Darke, The Blood Mage Gestalt, and Lofwyr. Worth the $8 download for how good a read it is, if nothing else.

Second that Threats is awesome. It's a big book of boogie men and a great one at that.

What about "corporate shadowfiles" - is that along the lines of corporate download or no?

They are a bunch of drek filled maggots! Can't stand them myself.

Oh...

I thought you said "Corporate Shadowflies." I really need to see about getting those adjustments to the ol' cyber peepers. Or, sleep, more sleep would be a good thing.

Vlad

OFF TOPIC POST:

I'm an Indianapolis native and I live relatively close to Broad Ripple. I was told by a friend who works at The Game Preserve that if I was looking for used SR books, I should check out The Boardroom. Badda-bing, here I am.

Wes

Oh it figures! I am moving to Wichita (which looks woefully non-gamer-ish) this week and an Indy gamer appears on teh boards. *L* I am from Kokomo, so it would have been easily possible to game together for only a 45 min drive. Why couldn't you live in Wichita?

Vlad