I ran "Body Snatchers" last night.

Keep it comin' Fuchs. Good reading.

- J.

If possible, it would be great to re-check every stat for errata - concealed vehicle/drone armor is only rated up to 10. (p. 160), Nanosymbiontes only to 3 (p. 85, 155) and max augmented skill ratings are rounded down (p. 152, 158).

Last Night I ran "Dirty Pretty Money"

I've just bought Ghost Cartels and I'm reading it now.

So far I'm impressed but I'm finding reading it a very tough slog. I find the structure/layout very confusing and the material is very densely packed (not the writing itself, but the depth of written material).

- J.

I finished reading it on christmas (nothing better to do). I'm gonna run it in a few weeks, once the players get more used to Shadowrun, and their characters have a better chance of surviving what I intend to do to them.

Fuchs.... Thanks for the write-ups. They'll probably help me adjust when my players screw the plan all to hell. Which seems to be their developing MO. (At least they're consistent and keep me on my toes.)
Keep 'em coming.

The big project for today was to read Ghost Cartels, a Shadowrun campaign sourcebook. I have to admit that my initial thought was to actually finish reading it much earlier, such as yesterday. However, due to it being my birthday that day, I advocated instead to finish the book today.
First of all, I have to say that Ghost Cartels is a well written, well thought-out campaign sourcebook. While I have tried to shun reading other reviews on the book, nonetheless I must add my own dialogue on the matter of certain mistakes. Out of the 160 page I discovered 1 terrible mistake (which I suspect was a layout or editorial kerfuffle, 5 mistypes , and several minor vocabulary, stylistic or grammatical mistakes. In my own professional opinion as a proofreader it’s perfectly acceptable from a group that only uses editorial services.

The only negative comment about the writing is that of the opening story for chapter “the Source�. First of all I found it to be… poorly written by some man from South Hampton whose world somehow involves Japanese swords and Mexican rap. In truth, I found most of the forced Mexical drug pusher dialogue – well to be rubbish. I would have preferred that they actually spoke either real Spanish, or a smattering of Colombian Spanish vernacular equivalent to their station. The image on the right, a noticeable shift down from the rest of the high quality in the book does not assist in this assessment.

During the course of the reading of the preamble of Ghost Cartels, the impression received was that this is campaign sourcebook could have happily been published in the 1990s, during the great cocaine push. In truth, I suspect that at least one of the source material used was either the movie Traffic (a quasi-documentary on shipping of drugs into the United States during the 1990s) or the memoir of a DEA or FBI agent, which focused on the drug traffic during the 1970s to the 1980s, which I partially remember reading a few years ago. Nonetheless, it would be interesting for the contributors to respond in what were their primary inspirations and source material for this campaign book – outside of Shadowrun material and Howlin’ Mercy of course.

One aspect which I thought would have been described is BTLs. Unfortunately, the basic book of Shadowrun 4th edition does not go into much detail. In actuality Ghost Cartels is one of the only books to actually talk about “beetles� in any detail. My wish is that the upcoming Vice book, which I have to admit I have great expectations for, would give much more detail as well as game effects for BTL usage. Perhaps even an entire chapter on drug use and drug construction.

The Olaya Cartel, the cartel which Ghost Cartels primarily focuses and its linkages with Tempo give numerous ideas for development of adventures for Shadowrunners as they become further involved in the great upheavals in the underworld. During the course of the reading of the campaign I was constantly thinking of how as a player I would approach the adventures.

At this point I would wish to place an aside and say that everything forthcoming will be quite revealing about some of the metaplot of Ghost Cartels and if you do not wish to ruin your appetite then may I recommend that you stop reading here.

It is quite obvious that the team should demand a face, a mage, a hacker, and a street samurai. To be honest, what I was impressed with is how much of the campaign involves negotiation with different parties without having to devolve into actually shooting things. In addition, parts of the Seattle runs really do demand strong law enforcement connections and actually makes some of the adventures quite easy, especially if they do end up in Caracas. There are also many points that the PCs can decide to stop and get out while ahead.

The way in which the players become involved seems very plausible and not forced, as they become more involved with Kaz Yakamura and the Komun’go there is a reasonable expectation for them to accept the parting gift of Kaz Yakamura and be hired into Henry Uribe’s retinue. As the subsequent adventures unfold, I would expect a deepening emotional attachment with their handler Sacristán and her very charismatic boss Henry Uribe. The reason why I wished to bring this up is that when Sacristán is shot and killed by Aztechnology forces in the Baltimore Towers, their allegiance is more likely to shift from Riveros, someone is quite obviously possessed by a spirit to that of Henry Uribe. Even if they were to continue with Riveros, her consolidation of power (highly similar to the increasingly paranoid behavior of Kaz Yakamura) would be a clear indicator of a building up of a situation which will involve conflict with Henry Uribe and the Olaya Cartel.

It is far more likely, that the Shadowrunners will long before the events of Caracas will actually try to assassinate Riveros or try to discover a way to eradicate Yáje. This also clearly indicates that the last adventure in the group of delivering a sapling to Yáje/Riveros is not in anyones interests, especially as they will be switching over to the Davis Cartel/Aztechnology. At this point the Shadowrunners have ceased to be valuable and will probably involve either being killed by Aztechnology, Primeiro Vaga, the Spirit Cabal, Sirrurg, Ghost Cartels, IDEA, ARM, DISA or perhaps if they are lucky only have their beating hearts ripped out with an obsidian knife by the slightly over-zealous, but single-minded Aztechnology warrior Tachi. In short the GM really has to resist the urge of finishing off the campaign with "your all dead."

I believe this is what in modern parlance is called a plot “cock-up�.

Something which was not clear was that were the Shadowrunners informed about being the foreigners used in the creation of the PR scandal in Neo-Tokyo. If they are it turns into a very straight and quite frankly boring run, while if they are not, I could see the run ending with the team being killed or worse in prison, which would then involve also being killed.

As to the answer to the Tempus “mystery�: I think the developers, at least during the writing of Ghost Cartels, have yet decide how to continue this metaplot in future campaign books. However, they would love to keep their readers guessing in the hopes of future book sales, novels, or movie deals. I distinctly remember something from Street Magic that free spirits prey upon karma and seem to be draining Tempus users as part of the possession. Anyways, it all has something to do with a Spirit Cabal of Shadow Spirits bent on avenging mother-nature and a draconic version of Bill Oddie called Sirrurg. The mystery is somehow hidden in the rules of Free Spirits in Street Magic – and at that I shall leave that mystery for others to conjecture.

Overall, I have to say that Ghost Cartels does in part live up to its reputation as a solid book. However, the end of the campaign will demand much more work from the GM as their guardian angel in making sure the players characters do survive.

Ok, I'll add my $0.02 worth in the form of a review.

The first thing that grabbed me about this book was the depth of detail. However, like anything, this can be a double edged sword. As I do with all modules I try to flick to the GM Behind the Scenes bit so I can get a plot overview. It actually took me awhile to find it amoungst the shadowtalk. I realised afterwards it is spelled out clearly in the index and I'm probably just a retard but coming from previous SR products the format did throw me a lot.

The book is effectively split into four sections - the first section was the beloved shadowtalk overview of the events of the campaign, the next was three sections for each story arc. I liked the structure used. My only criticism was that in an effort to link each story arc I felt there was an unnecessary degree of duplication as it read that the PCs get embroiled in a scenario at the end of the arc, which then reads almost exactly the same as the first story in the next arc. I think the end of the story arcs could have been summarised more succinctly and it would not have detracted from the book in anyway.

The first section I felt was quite clever as it showed the human element of the effects of tempo and the effects on the shadow community. The story of Haze and Fatima I thought really punctuated the point nicely.

In terms of the plot, it is definitely a street level campaign. No question there. You start off working for local street gangs and one of the Seoulpa Rings and from there, to the Ghost Cartels all the way to the private meet between Riveiros and Ramos. The PCs are not forced or railroaded at any point to continue the story arc and they can get off the train at anytime. This, to me, was probably one of the key attractions of the plot. It is easy weave into an existing campaign and the PCs can stop at any time. In each story arc I felt there is minimal railroading (some modules are horrificly guilty of this).

However, I do have two beefs with the plot:

Beef #1: Ghost Cartels assumes your players are utter callous bastards.

Now anyone reading the 'wetwork' thread here lately will probably know what I'm talking about, but my PCs - while they have killed - are somewhat squemish and do not like doing it (apart from one spy who doesn't really care and one trigger happy troll street samurai). This entire module relies on PCs basically kidnapping people, murdering them or otherwise supporting their death and torture. For PCs to make to the very last story arc, you have to be willing to continue working for the Ghost Cartels, knowing full well they are the ones pushing tempo and knowing that some of your friends and contacts are probably tempo junkies (and thus no longer your friends and contacts) but more importantly not caring. Infact, I'll go on one step further to say the plot actively rewards PCs for becoming more and more ruthless.

E.g. 1:
There are several scenes where if the PCs don't kill someone that it looks badly upon them. Such as with Uribe and Vilamoura and Riveiros and Calvo-Jurada. Off the top of my head.

E.g. 2:
When Sacristan is kidnapped the PCs do not have to rescue her (although by this point I do admit most PCs with even half a conscience would probably choose to). The module also makes a point of saying that a PC (presumably a Face) has the opportunity to tell Uribe he'll take her place and really step up in the Ghost Cartel world. In a way, I like the plot twist there however it does show that the game is rewarding evil actions over good I found.

E.g. 3:
This is punctuated again when at the end Yaje tells Ramos that the PCs have been useful. If the PCs really push the envelope here - proven their worth to Uribe, Salazar and Riveiros, I see no reason they couldn't be involved in Yaje/Riveiros/Ramos future plans and make mega nuyen getting in on the ground floor. After all, their loyalty has already been proven. All they have to do is sell their souls working for AZT. This isn't touched on much in the book but with Yaje telling Ramos to leave the PCs alone and that they are useful, I felt this is pretty much implicit, if not all but directly stated their intentions to include the PCs into their future plans.

If your players are the scrupuluous sort you'll probably find they want to jump ship half way through. If they don't take the bait to jump into the story however, the enterprising GMs solutions is to start using the Spin-Offs And Side-Jobs: Adventure Seeds to try and create a more humane series of adventures involving tempo and GC. To be fair to the authors, they did anticipate this and hence included these sections for that purpose. So the GM does have multiple methods of the PCs getting involved - the overarching message is that nobody is immune to the effects of the tempo craze.

I'm digressing but I'm trying to say that while the PCs can run through the story arc with as much scruples as possible, GC actively rewards evil PCs and evil behaviour. This is not necessarily a bad point but something a GM needs to be aware of.

Beef #2: Aztechnology become the bad guys... again...
This is a trivial point but an annoyance for me personally. Others may not feel the same way.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the Dragonheart Trilogy but given the Azzies involvement in the Yucatan struggle and then the blood mages gestalt and Mr. Darke before that, I thought that the Azzies have had more than a fair chunk of the limelight as "the bad guy". Once again they've risen to the surface. Granted you cannot have a struggle in South America that DOESN'T involve AZT but I would have liked to have seen another corporation or group involved that we haven't had exposure too.

Overall Ghost Cartels had just the right level of depth for a module. I felt that GC was the spiritual successor to Emergence and hit all the right notes they were trying to hit with Emergence but just fell short. There is more than enough material here useful to any GM, even if his PCs never run through the main story arc. In that respect, I think it is a worthy addition to any campaign in any city. I REALLY liked the fact that the authors actually statted the NPCs and provided maps. While many people here lauded the authors for statting out the NPCs and providing maps I must state that for the record, this is something I expect in a module rather than something to be pleasantly suprised at by its inclusion. This is what saves me prep time as a GM. I have not liked the lack of maps/stats at all with books like Emergence and felt it really forced additional work on me as a GM to flesh out the game. I did not get that feeling with Ghost Cartels and overall believe I will have an easy time running it.

I'd like to say that I know there's a lot of gripes about editing mistakes and oversights but overall I think I only picked up on one really obvious spelling mistake and kept on going. It wasn't a huge issue for me. I was trying to hammer through this book so quick I just missed it. That and I was probably willing to overlook a lot of faults due to the content.

I give this book a solid 4.5 stars out of 5 and two thumbs up to all the authors involved.

I do, however have several questions:
1) Is Rivieros Applied Mimetics still around or is it assumed destroyed after the events in the third arc? This is just a personal question.
2) When can we expect to see more information on Yaje/Ramos and their future plans? GMs need this information because anyone that reaches the end of GC and doesn't have the answers will have to make up their own answers which may force him/her to come up with non-canonical solutions.
3) What is the fall out on worldwide tempo supply/production after the events of GC? This isn't really touched on enough in my view.
4) WTF is royal jelly?

- J.

I did the math on the loads of Tempo and they are shockingly small. As in I did the math and came out with one dose being between 1-3grams at street value of 50-150 nuyen. 200 keys gives you 106,666.67 doses, which as a street value of 8 million nuyen. To be honest I would expect it being shipped by the ton to meet demand. The amount of product feels a bit too small to have the effect Ghost Cartels should have.

I too, felt the same way.

At the end of the day its an arbitrary figure anyway that the GM can modify to his/her whim, so I don't really care.

- J.

Cocaine Smuggling in 2006

For the record, I do have a very clear vision of where I want to take Primeira Vaga and how this mystery seeds a major ongoing plotline. The fact that César da Silva is a twisted avenger shaman and not a Toxic shaman is one of several clues... More will be revealed soon.


RAM has been gutted and unlike KondOrchid cannot invoke extraterritorial privilege. I think you will find that it's assets will be picked up by a major megacorp in the not so distant future.


We will definitely be revisiting them in the future, though they'll be out of the spotlight for a while. I'd expect them to make cameos in upcoming books.


What happens when the flipsiders go into withdrawl and the tempo bubble pops will be addressed in Vice and future books.


Feral Cities has a little more on this odd little entry into the Awakened compound market.

@ Jake - While you are very much correct in that Ghost Cartels is particularly violent and immoral in tone, and that it rewards such behavior in characters, it was very much conceived as a mature story, a dark and gritty underworld plot that would leave the players, as much as their characters, thinking about the dark side of the criminal underworld and the violence they so often casually wield. It was also intended to allow gamemasters to address a number of issues that are rarely touched upon in RPGs, like the human ramifications of drug use and the casual collateral damage that the drug trade generates. One thing you might want to try if the default approach to the campaign feels too dark, is running the campaign using the suggested alternative approach where the PCs are working as undercover operatives for law enforcement. I did, and it was pretty fascinating to see how they tried to circumvent the bloodshed and deaths, and how they faced the inevitable moral junctures.

Still unclear on the royal jelly info. Been foreshadowed in two books now and seems to counteract the effects of background count? Seem to have seen a recent mention of the fact there wouldn't be any mechanics in anything but core books from now on. So that begs the question then, when would we be seeing a solid stat block on the variations of Royal Jelly?

Yeah, the writers and devs had the future of the Ghost Cartels storyline roughly sketched out before we even started the GC first drafts. Which is part of what made it so fun to brainstorm and write; we were filling in characters and stories that we knew would be coming back later on. For example, we looked at the Universal Brotherhood/Bug City storyline and how it took years to really develop and realized that was part of what made it so awesome.

On the format of Ghost Cartels, I'm really pleased with the design decisions made with it and I really hope Catalyst continues to run with that format for campaign books. The maps and stats, the signature characters, and the flexible, enduring storyline really raised the bar, I think.

As for inspirations, I did watch Traffic twice before I sent in my proposal notes for Ghost Cartels. I also watched Clear and Present Danger again. And another major inspiration for me was Ian MacDonald's book Brasyl, which is excellent and I totally recommend. And there were some late, late nights listening to Deep Forest and reading about Afro-Caribbean religion and hallucinogens.

I have to say - to me it sounded like Primeira Vaga did have a clear vision but someone was very careful not to leave any clue as to their true purpose (apart from being twisted, not toxic).



Bugger. I liked the sound of RAM and visiting Caracas. I could see my character getting work done there.




Awesome. Hurry already .


Its on my buy list. I'm after Runner Havens next and I'm umming and ahhing on Emergence since I'd like to run a few scenarios from it before launching into Ghost Cartels.



Oh I get that Synner . And for that I appreciate that.

However, so have the numerous other modules that have been done in nearly 20 years now of Shadowrun history - and while violence is a part of the game and in some cases, PCs murdering NPCs is implicit or inferred it has almost never been directly stated. GC however not only specified it directly, it encouraged that behaviour. That kind of shocked me as a veteran GM reading it.

We've gone from modules such as Harlequin's Back where PCs tried to save the world (and saving kids from being sacrificed) to murdering helpless human beings for drug syndicates in Ghost Cartels.

I do however appreciate the obvious human elements that have ben worked in and I ALWAYS love the dark elements and don't plan on changing it. My PCs are in for some interesting times. Of all the drug syndicates they are most likely to align with the Vory. They also have one Lone Star contact. So as it stands I'd love to run the module as is and watch them squirm (and see where their real loyalties lie).

To be honest, I don't think it will take much for my players to start wasting people. This is the first game system without alignments they've played in for years and its not like any of the characters being murdered/tortured are saints anyway. Since we started this campaign, I've just encouraged my PCs to think about what sort of jobs they're willing/wanting to do and think about morally, where they draw the line. Early in their preludes they were asked to murder a project manager just because they're employer told them to (I gave them a variety of jobs to see how they'd fare). It didn't sit well with any of them but they did it anyway.

- J.

Ok, hasn't -anybody- translated the name of the secret group, Primeira Vaga, to see if it meant anything? Five minutes on the internet:

Literally: "the first vacancy" ... Eh? Eh?

Colloquially: "the first wave"

Pop Culture connection: 1998 movie, The First Wave, in which aliens as genetic clones are among us, studying for future invasion a la Nostradamus' prediction of three waves that will destroy the planet, unless a "twice blessed" man saves us.

Peter

You think they're using tempo to create an army to allow spirits to possess them? That descriptions sounds a LOT like the insect spirits.

Which reminds me, based on the ending of GC, I had much more insidious thoughts with re: to Aztechnology and their use of tempo.

I was wondering if Aztechnology would use tempo to allow blood spirits to possess people? Or worse yet, the Horrors...

- J.

They could be working the Horrors line, and Aztechnology's involvement now would seem to support that idea.

But then, creative minds could find things even worse, no? Maybe there are things that want to be here waiting for the Horrors when next they come. Waiting to feed....

Peter

PS. You wanna see some cool conspiracy theories, check out Nostradamus-related websites. Whoa.

Just happen to be rereading posts here and noticed the mention above about runners blowing away the ghouls when they deliver the body. My players were paranoid as well even though one of them realized what was really going on right away.

It didn't help we'd already had an encounter with a group in the same area in an another recent game. In a past encounter they uncovered the leader of that group of ghouls had been a Banshee who escaped there assault on the ghoul stronghold. I decided at the last minute to use him in this encounter as well and when he asked for more money they assumed he was just pushing for a fight due to there past meeting. A hasty retreat and a round of messy combat later and the banshee was gone and the body looking for another means of disposal.

We ran the first part of "The Trouble with Tempo" last night.

Am I the only one, doesn't "Flipside" (the Vilamoura job) seem out of place in the order of things. I realize the employers behind the scenes might be different but in the setup it mentions the job should be taking place earlier in the track as it were. Just feels like all the other jobs could certainly travel in the order written and Flipside should have been placed earlier.

There's a note to that effect in the book; they were divvied up to separate the plots into distinct arcs for the convenience of GMs.

Fuchs, given GC is meant to be a street level campaign I'd say that this was intentional to highlight the difference between ganger security and the level that professional shadowrunners are used to. I think it went off perfectly well from my reading.

If I were to up the difficulty, I'd throw in more gangers and perhaps, heavy weapons (there are references to the gangs dealing tempo having access to milspec gear).

Just my $0.02 worth.

- J.

Yes. As I said - it was a nice opportunity to show off the differences.

We finally got back to the table last night and the team went after Goldman.

My review is up on RPG.net: Here.

Maybe I misread this scenario but if the PCs have half a clue they get to avoid the garage firefight entirely (i.e. hack the car, attack the hacker controlling the car, redirect it to whereever).

Is that intentional?

- J.

Wow, that would make quite a cover blurb: "Ghost Cartels: It gave Cain a case of 'the vapors'."

I read the praise in the review but I have to say I found it rather negative. That said, I agree I found the first chapter very confusing too.

It was a very bad way to lay it out. If the shadowtalk was intended for player handhouts, it would take a fair bit of modification (cutting/copying and pasting) on the GMs behalf to make it feasible. While the index is present in every SR book, I've almost never had to use them on a first reading. This time I did. I was halfway through the first chapter (struggling, flipping back and forth for the 'Game Information' section) before I got irritated, flipped back to the index, looked up the Game Information section and went from there (and went back to finish the shadowtalk AFTER that).

I'm going back for my second reading so I can prepare it for my group and I'm finding that the overlap between First Taste and the Source rather poorly managed. Several times it refers to two frameworks in The Source before they go to HK but I can only find the one framework in The Source prior to HK (maybe I'm just retarded but if someone can throw me a page reference that'd be great). I realise that there are several places the discontinuity was pointed out and explained. All the same, I think this could have been better managed to not confuse the GM.

I felt Cain's review was a tad harsh but we're all our own worst critics I guess. I cut them a lot of slack because it was a very ambitious project. You can see what they were attempting to do and I think they did very well, all things considered.

- J.

Seriously, though, I can't see how anyone could slog through that without taking something good. If the introduction came first, that might make things easier to swallow; but without knowing that you'll be rewarded for choking it down, it's going to get skipped over an awful lot.

The "overlap" between the two chapters is a direct result of an important aspect of Ghost Cartels (one of several that Cain's review overlooked), which is that while the three tracks can indeed be played as one long campaign, they can also be played either as three independent and seperate campaigns or as individual and closed story arcs (depending on the group's preference). Not all groups will feel comfortable with the international scope of the three arcs, some will prefer to stick out the underworld war in Seattle, and even those that do sign on with the Olaya for the Pacific tour may not be interested in going to South America after the events in LA. Veteran running teams may not be interested in playing through the gangland wars of First Taste but may find the latter two tracks more to their liking. Since the campaign is designed so that gamemasters can add their own adventures, sidejobs, and twists to the arc (whether partial or full), there should be little difficulty in integrating "Flipside" into the overall arc of the campaign since the gamemaster recieves plenty of warning about the overlap (in both tracks) and can integrate (or not) the Flipside framework wherever he sees fit.

The possibility of playing through the component tracks of "Ghost Cartels" individually is also why each track is lead by game information that contextualizes events, updates the general metaplot, introduces the major players involved and provides a simple plot guide/timeline for that particular plot arc - notably significant portions of the book that I notice Cain barely touched upon in his review. What Cain did get right is that Ghost Cartels is a gamemaster's tool box as well as a story. Its scope is large, maybe even overwhelming, but it combines the track information needed to contextualize events with the freeform frameworks and detailed stats for both major NPC and grunts, that allow both a great deal more control than a typical adventure and easy customization.

As for the Chapter 1 fiction, I make no apologies, all I can say is that it is very close to what I envisioned it to be: a diverse mosaic of little slice-of-life vignettes that ground the tempo crisis in everyday aspects of life in 2070 and spotlight many of the obvious and less obvious human and setting ramifications of events. Unlike similar sections in Emergence and System Failure, this time round portions were also concieved so that gamemasters might use or adapt them as player handouts either for plot purposes or simply for atmosphere - this is facilitated if you possess the PDF of course.

Did anyone else run Mob War or Blood in the Boardroom? This whole idea of a "track campaign" is not a new thing, it was the format for two of the central plot campaigns in SR3 (those previously mentioned). In comparison to Blood in the Boardroom, especially, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the various tracks could be played sequentially. When I ran BitB I had to work quite hard to incorporate the events from as many of the other tracks as I could.

I got that. That much was very clear - and part of what I liked about GC.

However, there are some sections where it is not clear.

E.g. There are two sidebars (I don't have the book with me so forgive me for not providing a page reference) where it draws reference specifically to two adventure frameworks in The Source that occur prior to the PCs travelling to Hong Kong. I could not find two adventure frameworks in The Source, only one (re: John Villaneurva or whatever his name is). Maybe this is just my retardation kicking in, but this annoyed me immensely.

I'm sure I could give other examples but without the book handy this is the only one that springs to mind.



Absolutely - and for me, that's what I liked about it. The PCs can get off the ride at any time.

Please ignore Cain (sorry mate!). The handling of NPC stat blocks was VERY well handled and makes my life VERY easy as a GM. Please stick with this format. It's gold. Much better than the approach in Emergence.



I liked Chapter 1 Fiction, I just think it should have followed the Game Information section. I don't think anyone really disputes the content, only its positioning within the book. By opening the book with the shadowtalk, it is confusing the GMs who are the most likely people to purchase GC - except for the completionists who will just buy everything. That's just my honest feedback as a GM and completionist however, so take the criticism for what its worth.

On a sidenote, are the pages marked that they can be duplicated or photocopied? That is the typical method SR have handled player handouts IIRC (although its been awhile, I could be mistaken). I think it is stated in the book that this is information intended for the players but at a glance I didn't find it presented in a manner that's easily accessible for my players (or for me to divulge). I read it and treated it like the standard shadowtalk that opened every chapter in Emergence, which I used by reading a random news article here, a news article there, etc. I would not burden my players with that much stuff all at once as it bogs down the game - even though I'm sure most of them, if not all of them, would all appreciate it.

Overall though, I do like the format and I can see the evolution between Emergence and Ghost Cartels and look forward to the next campaign.

- J.

That doesn't change the fact that the overlap was poorly handled. You could have handled it by putting an introduction before the transition runs, but instead it was thrust upon us like some sacrificial burden. Explanations *before* the text, not after it!


It's not "led by" anything. Or, at least by anything intelligible. If the PC's have already been through the opening material, there's no need for a repeat. If they haven't, the GM should have already read the first chapter, and there's no need for the PC's to get the info in the recap.

As for the "portions of the book I barely touched upon", I'll repeat what I said to the first guy who challenged me on it. I was aiming for a spoiler-free review. If I had gone into more detailed information, the review would be ten times as long. If you want to challenge me on that decision, I welcome it: I always like to examine ways of improving my writing and editing style.

That is true, and I made several mentions of that. I think it was a bold move, and a potentially exciting one. What I don't think is that Ghost Cartels, or at least the last two game info chapters, managed to fully deliver on that promise. I'll cut some slack in that this was the first time anything like this has been done on this scale; the first prototypes are always a bit messy. Ghost Cartels is no exception, and we shouldn't expect it to be.

I do possess the PDF, and the chapter is almost useless as player handouts. It's just not laid out sectionally: every section just runs smack dab into the next one. Breaking things down into one-page vignettes would have been useful as player handouts, like they do in SRM. You could have easily done much fewer examples, set for one or two pages apiece, and not worry about wasted space. That would have been useful as player handouts, both with and without the PDF: if you had hardcopy, you could just xerox the pages with ease, and not worry about getting spillover into the next bit of fiction.

Page 94 and 95, respectively. Page 100, after the entire Seattle repeat section, is the first place where it explains that it's an optional transition run.

I'll be blunt: this is a fault of editing and layout, not of writers. And when I say "layout", I mean editing: everything is perfectly placed on the page. But the arrangement of pieces leaves a lot to be desired. I also wonder how on earth you could have over 20 errors on a single page!

Hey, no prob. But I will say that I did mention that the NPC stat blocks were well handled. In fact, I think almost everything about the Seattle chapter was excellent. I think "The Source" was decent as a set of stand-alones, and as for "The Final Cut", well... just read the review and judge for yourself.

My sentiments exactly. Thanks for summing that up rather succinctly.



Ahh. Thankyou kindly sir. I'll check that again later.

- J.

As I've mentioned several times the "track campaign" style is not new, but then again Ghost Cartels is not a track campaign but a new hybrid format which includes features of the track campaigns (like MobWar it has a timeline, contextualizing setting info, major player profiles and freeform adventure frameworks), the episodic canned campaigns (like Brainscan it has narrative continuity, recurring characters, and an overall plot with a twist), canned standalone adventures (like On the Run it contains several Casts of Shadows, the new Grunts and Moving Target sections, and the detailed locations with maps), and our recent freeform campaign format (like Emergence it has a strong fiction element that grounds the metaplot in setting references and also provides numerous plothooks directly or indirectly fueled by the main storyline).

Making the adventure frameworks in the each individual track/story arc sequential and the tracks/story arcs themselves sequential was one of the new elements I wanted to introduce into the mix to chain events in a common narrative thread while leaving room for gamemasters to adapt, add, or remove to their hearts desire. The customizable nature of the tracks was reinforced by the addition of the Spin-offs and Side Jobs sections. This is particularly obvious in The Source where only 2 frameworks are presented for each location though characters spend several weeks in each numerous opportunities are presented for rounding out events in each sprawl and gamemasters are actively encouraged to develop their own events and twists (Cain's review chalks this up to narrative flimsiness. But I guess "missing the point" could sum it up)

For those of you left wondering and for the record: no Poser shots were used in Ghost Cartels, the NPC portraits were digitally painted by Trevor Claxton.

Ahh... Googling now.

Thanks for that - I really liked those portraits btw. Really.

EDIT:
Had to share this thread showcasing some of his art. It is brilliant. I think he did the cover or at least a LOT of the art for CthuluTech but I can't be sure...

He has his own website but its still under construction. His current homepage is here.

- J.

Granted, I happen to think the approach is a pretty cool idea. This is exactly how I personally like to design adventures, orbiting one or two key scenes, with a big climax if things happen to go that way. However, I'm still paying for an adventure book. I fully accept and enjoy the fact that we're not getting full adventures; what I don't like is the fact that you seemed to have erred on the side of minimalism. We're not just not getting full adventures, we're getting frameworks and a few sentences. Even I need a bit more than that to run a full-fledged adventure.


Could've fooled me, but I'm no expert on digital art. Doesn't change the fact that I personally found them to be cheesy, flat, and reminicient of pics of Shadowrun Duels figures. I'm not an art critic, but take it as you will.

I vehemently disagree. I found Emergence to be very minimalist. Some nice story ideas but bordering on almost useless as a book. I used it more for background in my campaign and not much else. Emergence provided the framework formula (as did Blood In The Boardroom). I too found BitB useless. Again, some great ideas - but not much else.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. I can churn out a million ideas and never turn to a module for an entire SR campaign. If I turn to a campaign or adventure module, then I expect detail. I pay for detail. I expect the authors to save me the time of creating that detail, by statting out NPCs at the very minimum. Player Handouts are always welcome and appreciated ("nice to have"), but at the end of the day, entirely optional.

Now, comparing Ghost Cartels to Emergence - it is minimalist in the sense they present the minimum amount of information required to run a story (sticking with the framework model) but at the same time providing full NPC stat blocks, pooled together at the end of each chapter making it very easy for a GM to prepare for each session along each track. This saves on space and also allows for the inclusion of additional frameworks, giving players and GMs alike a LOT more to adventures to choose from. In that respect, I felt I had far MORE value for money.

I believe the framework format works and GC really highlights the evolution from Emergence but I will admit, I haven't started GC yet.

I'd like to hear from Primer Runner and Fuchs their thoughts on how they're finding the frameworks since they're well into GC.

- J.

Flipside's potential interest as an adventure framework lays in the seeding the "secret" backstory that unfolds through-out The Source and The Final Cut (but is almost entirely absent from First Taste except for the intro fiction) and it's interest lies in its crossover potential. Ghost Cartels simply expects the gamemaster to familiarize himself with the whole campaign before embarking on playing it. Hence the reference on p.94 to the Seattle adventures taking place before Tokyo Fireworks (the final framework in The First Cut)


I'm pretty sure you misread what I posted since I made no mention of the first chapter in the quote you provided. Let me repeat what I said emphasizing the bits you obviously misunderstood:



The portions of the book I was referring to above, the ones that lead each track are the game information sections that begin each track providing a detailed timeline for that particular story arc, indicating the junctures where the adventure frameworks take place, provinding "wider picture" setting information, describing the major groups involved and their agendas, and offering numerous suggestions to gamemasters. Those sections, the ones you "barely touched upon," represent fully half the page count of each chapter, require no spoilers, and are a key component of the book as they are conceived to allow gamemasters to expand the frameworks presented and introduce their own stories, nuances and twists to the basic story (stories, nuances and twists as have been seen in this very thread). Those sections carry the burden of bringing the frameworks together but also of providing gamemasters with more tools to add flesh to the basic skeleton they've been given, that is why they are given the space they are and IMHO ignoring them in a review of the book is at least partially "missing the point."


I acknowledge that Ghost Cartels could have done with more polish. In fact I was deeply disappointed that several obvious things got by us, though considering the obstacles this project faced to see the light of day, I can't help but be pleased at what we did produce.


Several pages and parts thereof could be used as player handouts as is (the Lone Star gangland report, the Exchange chat transcript, several Jackpoint JobBank sidebars, several private messages, the Knight Errant sitrep, Operation Anti-Venom mission spec document, and various news items, for instance), others can be cut and pasted out to customize and/or add your own content.


Actually no. On page 94 you are told that the Seattle adventures (yes there is an incorrect mention of 2 see below) which follow, that would include Flipside, take place before Tokyo Fireworks in the previous track/plot arc. This fact is then reiterated on p. 100 for anyone who might have missed it earlier on.


This time you're only half right. It was indeed an editorial and proofreading mistake. But the reference to 2 Seattle adventure frameworks is an unfortunate remnant of an draft before an additional Seattle framework was cut from "The Source" (and not a reference to "Tokyo Fireworks")

Ok cool. So its' not just me.

Synner, either way - while there are some errors, overall I have to say I really did feel I got more than my money's worth out of Ghost Cartels. Please stick with this format and continue to refine it.

- J.

I think we actually agree on this one. I like the minimalist "Adventure frameworks", but I don't think the few sentences under "Sequels" counts as adventure material. I think that Synner and co. should have given us more adventure frameworks, and not handed us a few ideas instead.


Flipside's potential interest as an adventure framework should lie in the fact that it's a well-written, tense adventure scene, with strong links to the plotline. Hell, that should be true for all of them-- and for a good number of them, it is. You still should explain what you're doing before you spring it on someone. A good magician can tell you exactly what he's going to do, and you still won't catch it. And the trick may be all the more exciting for it. I know you're going for a new trick here, and you want things to be surprising and exciting, but explaining things before the fact would not have hurt anything.

I have to agree with that. You do deserve to take pride in your work. Consider the review as "constructive criticism" (Hehe) and take pride in your errors as well as your strengths.


Only the ones that manage to take up almost exactly a full page, in other words. Or the ones that you can literally xerox and cut out. If you're suggesting that we can cut and paste from a pdf without losing the format and requiring a lot of work to make presentable, I know you're joking.

Again Shadowrun Missions manages to produce full-page handouts that do everything you say you want to do, except in one page. There's no reason to not stick to a winning format.


That *still* doesn't explain Flipside's place as a transition run, and an optional one at that. Hell, the sidebar on p 100 doesn't even really say it clearly; it suggests it as a entry point for those who have campaigns in Hong Kong. Nowhere that I can find says: "Flipside is for those of you who want to start in Seattle, but don't want to run the events of 'First Taste'".

We're not allowed to discuss file-sharing. Filesharing is bad, it steals money from Catalyst, mm-kay? That being said, you do realize that the pdf can be found via several different file-sharing protocols?

If that was in jest, a smiley would have gone a long way (since a great deal of intent is often lost in translation to text).

I own the hard copy and at no point did I even say I pirated it let alone had it on PDF. I have bought nearly every single SR book printed since 2nd ed and a good portion of the SR1 books and take offence at that statement.

Given you mentioned you had the PDF and now bought P2P into the discussion, I'd say that's two "oh-so-subtle" hints as to how you obtained your copy.

- J.

I'll edit a smiley in. Thank you for the suggestion. I apologize for offending you.

However, I'm not saying anything about how I obtained my copy, only that pirated copies are indeed out there.

First time I read through this section I thought the same thing, one of the reasons I added to the scenario kept the party busy and confused and set the time frame to a single weekend. By the time they got a handle on what was going on the car was headed into the garage and even taking out the hacker that had control of the car was too little too late. (placed the parking garage very close to Goldmans route.) This allowed the invading hacker to stealth into the cars node and make changes only at the last minute.

I slipped in the "Flipside" mission after Goldmans return under the premise that the Cartels delegation is either in or will soon be in Seattle.

No, I believe he is saying print out the page(s) then physically cut out what you don't want... like with "scissors." Think: kindergarten. This is exactly what I'm planning to do with select Chapter 1 sections to make them into player handouts.

That's crazy talk, Malachi! You're out of control!

That being said, things still would have been significantly easier (and neater) if they came in one page or one column chunks, instead of the essentially random mess we're handed.

True. I wonder how badly that would have inflated the page count. That's really something that needs to be a target right from editing/layout, to target the fiction pieces to fit into easily bordered pieces.

I agree that chapter 1 did feel a little chaotic on the first read-through, and probably could be laid out a little better to facilitate printing (or copying) for player hand-outs (I did note that in my review). Those views can be expressed very differently based on tone:
"I see where this is going, but it could have be done better."
"This is a random unusable mess that falls far short. It gives me a headache just to look at it."

(WARNING, I'm getting a little philosophical for a moment here)
At my day-job I have to do quite a bit of "project management" type work where I attempt to improve the processes that are used in doing work. Often times, I run into processes that people are using that are flawed and/or inefficient, but the person has been "doing it that way" for a long time. When attempting to affect change, I have found that it is much more effective to adopt a passive to neutral tone, rather than an aggressive one. By adopting an offensive tone, the person is immediately put on the defensive and will often times resist the change, even when it is clearly pointed out that there is a better way, simply because of the way in which the suggestion is delivered:
"I see what you're doing here, but wouldn't it work better if you did it this way?"
"Your way is broken and dumb. This way, my way, is much better. Do it like that."

I noticed in your review that you and I pointed out many of the same things, but you chose to do it with a much more aggressive, negative tone. Now, if you are posting a review simply to have the opportunity to blast away, and have a platform for you opinions, fine. However, if you are really wanted to attempt to affect change in the way the Shadowrun products are done, this might be better achieved by using a more "constructive" tone.