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Snow_Fox
I was just wondering, when you look at your SR books/compendium/files which ones do you enjoy the most
This can be you like the presentation or rules or something writen there really gave you a new outlook on the SR world Or maybe the real world?

And which ones do you think were so bad that you consider going back in time just to cosh the writer over the head to stop him/her from putting it in the post to the editor?


Snow_Fox
For the best,I'd say I like the original Seatle SB, because it didn't just give the rules or corps but really makes the city seem like a real living place, not just a rule book.
That and the 1st Ed Rigger Black Book. Which had few choices than other RBB's but with a picture of each car and color advertisements added in, it expanded the vehical pool for the game.

Ironically the one I find most useless was the 2nd Ed RBB. The rules seemed to be so poorly slapped together that I honestly don't know of anyone who fonud them completely workable.
Chance359
Book I'm saving, Sprawl Sites, Shadow Tech, or Fields of Fire.

Books I'm gonna let roast: Shadows of Europe (just never felt the material had a place in any of my games)
knasser
Coporate Shadowfiles, I would save. Without question.

I'd say Emergence for the one I'd leave behind, but I only have the PDF version. Mind you, if I saw Chance259's house on fire, I would personally dash in and rescue his copy of SoE. I'm still waiting for the promised PDF of that to become available.
The Exiled V.2.0
QUOTE (knasser @ Oct 19 2008, 05:58 AM) *
I'm still waiting for the promised PDF of that to become available.


*uncomfortable* A PDF version of SoE is available.
However, I don't believe you'd be able to purchase it.

Prime Mover
One day few years ago I had to move quickly and had to choose which of 20 years worth of gaming stuff to take and what to leave behind on short notice and limited moving space. Not a fire but close enough. I had to leave alot behind and in my rush when I got to my SR pile I saved all none rules filled books except the current edition at the time which was 3rd. I'll tell ya one thing if had it to do over I would have made more room in cab of the truck and brought it all. What I miss the most is my very first copy of 1st edition that was held together with duck tape and dreams and my hard cover 2nd edition that bore the stains of gaming in strange places on short notice.
Chrysalis
I guess if I had to save one gaming book it would be my mint condition signed Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader book signed by Rick Priestley himself.

I don't advocate book burning because of shades of Nazi-ism. But nearly all of my other books I am donating to the local gaming organization do as they wish. I possess a keen intellect, a good eye and a steady hand. All else is ephemeral.

-Chrysalis
KCKitsune
I would love to have all my rule books as a PDF file and then give away the hard copy to my local gaming store. A 16 GB thumb drive would be more than enough space to store ALL of my gaming books (back that sucker up on multiple Blu-Ray disks.)
Chance359
Knasser: If I saw you run into a burning house to get my copy of SoE, I'd atleast tell you what shelf it was on. Wanna buy it before it goes poof?
DocTaotsu
Blue Planet Players Guide

The system sucks but the source material is pure money. For Shadowrun books I think I'd save Arsenal. That one seems to bring my players the most joy so it'd be a pity to lose it.

I too would never burn a book (I have a hard time writing in them, even textbooks). However if I was running from said fire and could grab all my books save one it'd probably be Target: UCAS. That book had a great deal of nothing to offer.
knasser
QUOTE (The Exiled V.2.0 @ Oct 19 2008, 02:11 PM) *
*uncomfortable* A PDF version of SoE is available.


Ah, right. I'd kind of like to buy it actually. Though speaking of which...

QUOTE (Chance359)
Knasser: If I saw you run into a burning house to get my copy of SoE, I'd atleast tell you what shelf it was on. Wanna buy it before it goes poof?


Sure. How much? Don't forget postage to the UK. smile.gif I saw one used on Amazon.co.uk for £105.57, I kid you not - go check. Am not going to pay that much!

K.
TKDNinjaInBlack
QUOTE (DocTaotsu @ Oct 19 2008, 10:52 AM) *
I too would never burn a book (I have a hard time writing in them, even textbooks).


I was going to burn a bible once just to prove I had no qualms about burning religious material. But when it came to actually doing it, I didn't want to set it on fire in the dorm because I didn't want the place to burn down and it was really cold outside and starting fires on campus was kind of a big punishable offense.

Inherently though, I feel burning a book is rather barbaric and would not do it in any real kind of practice. The whole act was more or less a who could push taboos pissing contest.

However, I'd save all of them. Damn OCD collector's mentality. I'd carry the whole damn bookcase right out of the building. I'd leave that horrid copy of Cyber Hero I picked up in an auction lot though. Absolutely atrocious.
Snow_Fox
I agree with not burning books. I have burned one in my life and it was a college text that I found so damn frustrating I wanted to purge myself of the anger it caused. The class was 'the philosophy of time' and yeah it was as bad as it sounds. Damn class should have had a blue police box in the corner.
Wesley Street
I'd also save my Seattle Sourcebook. I think it's the ideal model for location set books, a Rick Steves-style tour guide with runner commentary.

I'd re-enact Farenheit 451 with my copy of Rigger 3 though that has more to do with my own disappointment in buying a SR3 rules supplement and hoping for something I could use with SR4. Should have looked at the compatibility list first.

I have a fairly complete set of SR Sourcebooks (I'm only missing Native American Nations vols. 1 and 2) and I don't think there's a one that I truly dislike.
Pendaric
I have lost my RP book collection once before. It was harsh.
From my SR collection I save everything but if pressed to one it would be my rebound hardback BBB 3rd Ed. Other than that my Whfrp core BBB and realms of sorcery (that I waited a decaded for them to print).
darthmord
Heh, I lost nearly all of my gaming collection to a house fire. Unfortunately, it was *MY* house. We got out okay but the only parts of my collection that survived were the few items that were protected from water/fire/heat damage and the parts that were downstairs (since the fire was upstairs).

Most of my AD&D 2nd edition collection survived. My Vampire / Mage / Werewolf collection bought the farm. While sad (they were books after all), it wasn't much of a loss.

I lost nearly all of my SR collection. I know my SR1 and SR2 main books made it. They are now safely esconced away. But the rest of my books, like the Street Samurai Catalog (1st printing / un-edited one), Rigger, Matrix, etc... those are all gone.

My collection is worse off for it.
tete
for SR...

I would pick the old 1e Seattle book to save and Prime Runners to burn (though it does go for $$$$$ on ebay)

General RPGs

I think I would either save my Dark Ages Vampire Limited Ed or GURPS 3e hardback (heh we can play it all with gurps)
burn... combat and tactics for AD&D 2e
DocTaotsu
Uggh... I have vague and not very forgiving memories of Combat and Tactics.

I do miss the faux leather bound supplments though. The arms and gear book was one of my favorite for years (grenade staff! chainmail rules!)
Fortune
I had to leave behind my entire RPG collection when I was forced to rapidly vacate the country back in '97. That included the entire Shadowrun line up until then (including the stuff I won in the election and other cool Con things frown.gif), as well as the whole Rolemaster catalog and pretty much everything released up until then by TSR, and many other assorted things. Not to mention tens of thousands of dollars worth of Magic Cards that went missing in the shuffle.

Not a happy camper was I.
Fortune
On topic, I'd have kept my copy of Dunklestein's Will (with all the bonus trappings), or the Greenwood-autographed Forgotten Realms box set if I could have done so.

As for burning, F. A. T. A. L. comes to mind, although TOON and Dark Sun are close contenders. biggrin.gif
DocTaotsu
Wait... You have... a copy of a FATAL? Wh... why? Isn't it like the one ring?
Platinum Dragon
QUOTE (DocTaotsu @ Oct 21 2008, 10:41 AM) *
Wait... You have... a copy of a FATAL? Wh... why? Isn't it like the one ring?


For the lulz? I'd love a copy of FATAL, just so I could boggle at the ridiculousness of it. =P
DocTaotsu
There are no lulz in FATAL... there is only darkness.

Of course I've never personally read it but the RPG.net reviews were pretty damning smile.gif

Orifice size charts? Depth and breadth? No thank you.
Cain
My Opinion of FATAL (Warning: Not Exactly Work Safe.)

Of my Shadowrun books, Harlequin would be the one I'd save. Of my general gaming books, it'd be a tossup between that and Everway's Spherewalker Sourcebook. My autographed SR1 BBB would be in close contention.

Of my Shadowrun books to keep my kid warm on a winter night, R2 and Emergence would top the pile.
TKDNinjaInBlack
QUOTE (Cain @ Oct 20 2008, 07:40 PM) *
Of my Shadowrun books to keep my kid warm on a winter night, R2 and Emergence would top the pile.


Really, not a fan of Emergence?
Cain
QUOTE (TKDNinjaInBlack @ Oct 21 2008, 08:19 PM) *
Really, not a fan of Emergence?

Not really. It's basically a railroad book. The players might get to be nearby when cool stuff happens, but they can't do a damn thing to change it.
TKDNinjaInBlack
Eh, I guess I don't have a problem with just being "nearby." The devs are telling their story about what's important and world changing. I'll add my .02 Nuyen about how my characters react to that.
Cain
The best "world changing" events is where the players have a chance to affect things. For example, in Brainscan, the players are involved in the battle with Deus, even if they're not deckers and can't directly affect the cybercombat. In Harlequin, failure has repercussions, but doesn't cause total plot destruction. In Dunkelzahn's Will, you can't change the precursor event, but you sure as hell can affect the many, many plot threads that the Will leaves behind. Even System Failure has the opportunity for the players to feel like they're making a difference, if they choose to rise and lead the people. Almost makes up for the fact that they can't actually affect anything.

Emergence? Nope, not a chance. You ride the railroad, or else.
TKDNinjaInBlack
See, with all of the ones that you just mentioned I feel they are just like emergence. They will happen more or less regardless of what the runners do. I more or less rate things in the canon that the players can get involved in by grades;

Low grade involvement is street level or middle run level where their actions affect nothing at all. This is where the runners will do gang missions and not wipe any gang off the map, so their actions absolutely affect the plot in no regard. These are the mid level runs where the outcome isn't world changing (i.e. there is no epic device or super evil plot to upturn things on the world's face), and when things go down as planned or even if they fail, everything stays the same. These are also the high level epic runs where if the runners succeed and steal the epic device that can change the fate of the world, in the outcome, whoever owns said device will most likely buy it back or reacquire it through shadow ops of their own. (the ending of "On the Run" was like this. The runners got the disc, but through all their work and effort, JB's estate still ends up with the disc after they get paid because the johnson extorts the estate for hella cred and we never hear a release of the "lost" JB sessions).

Mid grade involvement is canonical involvement that is super implied but their actions are still by no means world changing. These are the runs that have the characters moving and shaking along with the key players, but regardless of what the players actually end up doing, the story goes down as planned because of the major parties involved and the runners most likely get shafted or left with some ridiculous parting gift. Even though system failure has the runners moving and shaking with Winternight, backing up Art Dankwalther pre IPO, or finding goons for Deus to recompile, those things will happen regardless of what they do.

High grade involvement is direct runner involvement in something that shakes the world. The characters are part of the team that was in the the MCT complex with the reporter to get the word out to the rest of the world about technomancer experimentation. The runners specifically helped unplug a said "saved" data haven from the Matrix during crash 2.0. They specifically found and disarmed one of winternight's nukes and prevented it from going off. Hell, even Harlequin's campaign, while his childish revenge, was world changing and the runners directly participated. These are the runs that if the players fail (or likewise succeed when doomed otherwise), the results will directly contradict the canon. This is thin ice to be treading because of the ability to ruin campaigns and the overall story the devs are telling.

When I run games, I keep them low and mid level. The high grade involvement is saved specifically for a last ditch end of campaign cure-all-end-all. After all, how many times can your one team get involved in all of the world's super awesome events? Even Assets inc. doesn't get that honor.
TKDNinjaInBlack
Where I was going with that though, is that with Emergence, you can fit your players in where-ever you see fit. They can be involved in that HK hospital run, chasing down escaped technos in chaotic HK, recovering Tlaloc's sample payload, or a secret part of the MCT secret footage run. It just takes a little creative interpretation to get there. It's not as cut and dry as System Failure is.
streetangelj
If I could recover any SR book I've lost, It would be my copy of Universal Brotherhood.

It's one of the few I've actually lost (I have nearly every non- adventure from the first three editions and 1/2 the 4th ed stuff) and I miss it, especially "Missing Blood" (the fiction half that was presented as a reporter's account that lucky players could actually get ahold of). That was some of the best horror fiction I've ever read and it scared my players so much that in my game they organized a massive campaign to destroy the UB after discovering it, blowing every nuyen and cashing in every favor to make the UB cease to exist --- and they were pushing prime runner status at the time.

I can see the point about some of the adventures being railroads and the various levels of effect on the game world; but as my example proved, a basic adventure can lead to a massive event that interferes with canon. It just requires work on the GM's part to find a way to work around such incongruities.

I'd only say one book i got for SR that was a complete waste was the 2nd ed reprint of the Street Samurai's Catalog since all it was was the original book with some blacked-out pages.
Snow_Fox
It's available on Amazon starting at $26 US. of ocurse the search that comes us when you just type "Universal Brotherhood" leads to some interesting titles.
Cthulhudreams
Out of the sr4 books, the core or street magic are the best, and unwired and runners companion are both fightlighters material.

And really out of those two... unwired is so bad, but so is runners companion. Urgh.
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