Hey folks, I'm running an SR4 game starting in the 2050 onward timeframe and trying to stay fairly true to said timeline, and was wondering if I could get just a very brief word on what 2XS actually is. Never read the novel, not really looking to get a free synopsis of the book, but just a quick overview on what 2XS is, why it's so bad, and who the major players were. It would help my campaign greatly. Anyone?

Also please use spoiler tags. At least one member of his group didn't knwo we were in 2XS

In a nutshell, it's a superbad, off-the-hook version of BTL, also sort of a precursor to personafix-chips.

and...


ninja'd: Dammit, AH, yo' too fast!

Thanks much folks, that's a great help indeed!

And BlueMax - don't worry I'm not bringing it into the mix...yet

I was pretty much reading the timeline in the sixth world wiki and saw that 2xs was a prominent thing in 2052. Seeing that our little group is coming up on January, 2052 in our timeline, I thought it might be a good thing to know just what it was.

hmm, what do we know thats big, tentacled and has a interest in cars?

...Honest Shoggoth of Honest Shoggoth's Almost Brandnew Cars down in Puyallup?
...a surged japanese racing-car driver?
...A squid-shapeshifter mechanic?

Aw, man, this is hard!

Oh man, a SURGEd octopus race car driver?

Set it in Japan and you've got the next Fast and the Furious movie.

(I wanna make this character. Makes me think of the awesome Lunar rules for Exalted)

A troll surgeling with "Cephalopoidal Skull" that makes ends meet by stealing cars?

My books are away for the moment, but weren't there tentacle arms? And couldn't you use the shiva arms thing too?

The idea just sounds so awesome in my head.

Cthulhu gone to Japan?

If you get he chance, pick up and read the book. It is my all time favorite SR novel. It's the first one I read, jsut when I was beginning to learn the rules to run SR. Nigel Findley had a knack for the SR universe. His work on the game material is really good as well. He wrote, among other things, the NAN supplements and my favorite Paradise Lost, a combination scenario and the Hawai'i sourcebook. He is sorely missed.

Vlad

Thanks for the suggestion Vladski! I don't normally pick up and read game fiction, but given your review I just might have to do so

I don't normally either. I did in this case all those years ago, because I was learning a gaming system completely cold and wanted to learn the flavor of the universe. They had most of hte SR novels at my library and since I saw the first three were linked and they were missing hte first one, I picked up and started with #4. I think in some ways it has colored my own shadowwrun universe(s) ever since. I read maybe a total of 10-12 of those original novels over the course of a year. A few were pretty good and some stank to high hell. But the three that Findley wrote were all gems, with 2XS being his finest, IMO.

Good luck to you and your game, omae.

Vlad