well the french version of shadows of europe had improvement over the original and now the German and the french are doing it again:

http://www.black-book-editions.fr/index.php?site_id=104

for those who cant read french:

SOX: a radioactive hell two hour from Paris. Tens of thousands people irradiated living for 60 years in the middle of ruins of a forgotten region, behind wall were the only law is : Survival

A region between France and Germany were the corporation use the isolation and the complacency of the governement to get rid of their waste , industrial and human, conduct bacteriological, chemical and nuclear tests, do military operations under the eyes of media who spins it all into record ratings. Welcome in hell, welcome in Sarre-Lorraine-Luxambourg.

The first part of SOX covers local history, the effect of radiation on the environment, magic and its inhabitants, the various groups of survivors along their culture and rites, machination of the corporations and their security forces, all from the point of view of a shadowrunners.

Second part, Bad Omen, is a great Campaign which leads the runners through SOX to find a secret buried a long time ago, who once uncovered may touch the whole country of France...

SOX is both a supplement and a campaign for Shadowrun 4th edition, made in collaboration with the German shadowrun team.

Shadowrunning in Europe looks fun!

you gotta give those french credit for top notch writing ... hopefully they didn'nt make the gaming mechanic

French story and background writers ares awsomes!

It was an reading orgasm for me when I read "Les ombres d'europes" (shadows of europe)

well ... and other 60 nuyens on my budget when it will be available here.

This book actually is a French-German cooperation. The German version came out in 2007.
Each version includes its own campaign, but AFAIR, the background part is the same.

The German campaign is about an "accident" (the meltdown of a nuclear reactor) in an ESUS-owned arcologie which strengthens radioactivity in the southern SOX. "strengthens" because the whole zone is the result of a nuclear power plant meltdown in 2008 anyway...

This is my punishment for dropping out of French class in high school.

Right. I have the same problem but don´t forget the immortal words of Al Bundy "It´s wrong being french" And btw: the german core-books are awesome^^

Heck, I don't *get* the fluff written in English some of the time now. I need my younger players to translate for me.

Have to say... the german Version of SOX is awesome and a really good read. And i am one of those "German is probably bad, no recommend"-gamers. But SOX is well written. Best part is, that those who always lived in the zone have not much clue about metas and magic ^^

Yet to read some of the Pegasus translations, tough. Can somebody spare me a dime so i can work around my prejudices?

Are there no translations of the German or French books? The SOX sounds like it would be a lot of fun.

Maybe I could bribe my wife to translate the french version, lol.

Well I suppose I am allone with this, but I detest the self-made German fluff and crunch and couldn't care less about the shinenigans in the alliance. Only Hamburg is halfway decent.

And above of that, I have no clue what could be interesting about a lethal place. Are you going to roleplay with the toxic waste, engineered viruses, sealed corporate military forces, or bathe in the radioactive fallout? Sounds like one hell of depressing GM descriptions, lacking dialogues, and fights.

Okay, now I'm being a little biased: So please explain to me, what is so cool about the SOX and what could you do there that would not be more interesting in a halfway safe and populated area including infrastructure?

To put it simply: it's Mad Max/Fallout/S.T.A.L.K.E.R in Shadowrun. It's a different setting.

Yeah Baby!!! Fireballs and full-auto bursts without attracting cops....no cops at all....a alot of paracritters, mutants etc. to frag and everything without a bad conscience....you´ll love it.^^

Actually I've never played Fallout or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I have only seen the move, but as I've heard these two are quite different from each other. And the problem I see there is the following...

[threadnap]
Games visualize their action and plot for the player through direct input. In RPGs this input is indirect and dependent on the interactive storytelling telling, reception, and visualization ability of the whole group. Therefore, I think most extreme environments (e.g. the SOX, Antarctica, deserts) are hardly portrayable. In populated areas you can rely heavily on dialogues to illustrate whatever you need ("Yuk, that Roadmaster splatted a devil rat..."). Dialogue is the only medium in RPGs that provides a direct interaction and is thus prefered by me and other quality GMs.
[/threadnap]

Fireballs and machineguns are not exactly my SR style. So thank you, but no thank you.

Coming from an ignorant American I ask, where does this attitude come from? Do German RPG-tie in products have a tradition of lower quality?

Uli, the game STALKER Is based much more on Roadside Picnic (Пикник на обочине), which inspire Tarkovsky's Stalker, but wasn't directly the story itself.

Wesley: Several things the german community likes to argue about. Some don't like that the ADL started as nothing more than a bunch of bad fanfics gone to printing (or so some people said, you probably know how that is). Then there is that nice thing with the Zeiss Cybereyes in the german Man and Machine. Similar stuff happened, but the german Devs had the notion of "Must make better gear from germany" and those Zeiss eyes were Cybereye sets which were cheaper in essence and nuyen just cause. And thats only one example of this übergear.
There is a friggin elvenland in the ADL, why? Was Tir na n0g not enough? To top that there is a troll kingdom in the Schwarzwald. At least trolls are awesome and i would've liked to see more from that instead of another friggin elven "holy land" (and i'm not even biased against elves like some others).

On a personal level, i - as an austrian - look at the german media landscape (including roleplaying, movies, games and stuff) and could facepalm all day, it annoys my best friend, a german. Sucky translations, not needed "additions" and censorship, it's just not cool anymore.

well there is always a corp somewere that wants something inside and need to get it quietly.

now why in the blazing hell would your shadowrunner want to go in, get exposed to bio-chemical and rad hazard?

well the seven figure paycheck of course!

I would not do a entire campaing in a setting like that but I did a string of free flotting runs in bug city and my players had a blast!

this is the kind of Hi-Risk Hi-pay jobs that intelligent shadowruner can pull off with good planing and a bit of luck and daring.

And it make them apreciate the rotten slums they live in.

When you said Austrian, it brought back memories. I say this because some folks are treating this all likes its new. In 1995 when I was in Austria and Germany, there were two Austrain gentlemen (maybe 17-18) reading Battletech novels and I talked to them. It amazed me how much had been translated and how different some plot elements came out.
nineteen ninety five people.

Then they proceeded to act shocked that I had read Marx, Lenin and Mao. Proceeding to give me a lecture on how they thought those books were banned in the U.S. and we must all be neanderthals. I honestly wasn't angry but I did tell them
"I think your Kangaroos are wonderful"

I should have put sarcasm tags up as I said it though.

BlueMax

Bastards deserved it, BlueMax

More fodder for the "Germany does it different"-crowd:

• The upcoming Pegasus reprint of Straßenmagie (Street Magic) will include Digital Grimoire as extra content.
• The upcoming Pegasus translation of Corporate Enclaves (Konzernenklaven) will include not only Rotten Apple: Manhattan as extra content but also an all-new chapter on Frankfurt.

It looks pretty interesting, but all I can think when I read "SOX" is "CHAUSSETTES!"

(for the non Francophones among you, it was very funny. Honest.)

Heck, even we german Players more or less think the German Only stuff is bad . . At least, i do . .
Any of you know about the URBAN Series from H&K? Yeah, those guns were so Uber, even the Tasers could kill big Critters.
As for the Zeiss-Eyes. I can SEE that . . Zeiss is the Number One Optics Corporation in Germany and has been for a LONG time.
Specializing in Miniaturization and other such stuff, as far ar i know. Basically, Zeiss-Eyes can be considered Beta-Ware.
But, and here comes the big Problem with them: They are frigging INCOMPATIBLE with EVERYTHING NOT ZEISS.
Straight Reading that, take for example your Smartlink or Smartlink 2 . . you love that one, don't you?
Yeah, no, won't work with the Zeiss-Eyes. And this Incompatibility extends, as far as i know, to all other German ware.
So in Essence, the German Ware is WORSE than the American, because even if you save some Essence/Nuyen,
you are fucked as soon as you need anything else that is not from there and has to work together with the german stuff.
As an aside:"It's wrong being french" < = this is more or less the mindset of most germans too ^^
and i guess i am a bit biased about the Hamburg Writeups, because i live there, but i think they are freaking awesome o.O

[derail]As someone who actually made rules and statted out weapons, armour, anomalies, artifacts, 15 non-unique NPCs and 14 unique NPCs, 11 different mutants/critters, made local maps(along with satellite shots) of areas for STALKER: Shadowrun, I'd like to say that it's not STALKER: Shadowrun.[/derail]

[derail]As some one who "works" on a mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R to add shadowrun elements I all so have to agree. The Zone and SOX are different bests.[\derail]

I join the other Germans in this thread by saying: It really bugs me that German publishers just cannot be satisfied by mere translations. But the new addition (and there are [again] additional weapons and stuff in the German Arsenal for example) are at least not broken.

Must be nice...

I have nothing against them putting the digital grimoire stuff into the german street magic. That's cool. In fact, the situation changed for the better, recently. The zeiss-eyes and all the other uber bloat of days gone past was horrible, though, and killed a lot of goodwill. Quite some people don't even look at the translated books anymore.
Of course, thats "quite some internet people", as I'd wager the silent majority of actual customers not frequenting forums didn't care much either way.

outside of them containing the odd rules change vs the english ones, with confusion being the end result when german players post on this forum...

[off topic]
Well, it's true that they don't have the First Amendment in Germany, but can you blame them? It's easy for us to be cavalier about free speech in America when we've never had a demagogue lead the nation into totalitarianism, mass murder, and general collapse. Of course, by easy, I mean actually kind of difficult -- the right wingers still want to ban unamerican speech, and the left wingers want to ban politically incorrect speech, and the "think of the children" people want to ban everything that couldn't be shown on Nickelodeon on Saturday morning. They just don't succeed very often thanks to some heroic Supreme Court justices who served a few decades ago.[/off topic]

Since I'm a (very nearly graduated) law student, the censorship thing actually really interests me, though. What kinds of things get censored in German Shadowrun? Is it depictions of violence? Sex? Is it stuff that could be taken to be related to Nazism or Stalinism (though I'm not sure what that might be)?

Printing the Digital Grimoire is actually something i like about Pegasus. A rep they consequently try to damage with changing (often for the worse) of the coverart
It's one reason i actually want to see those new stuff and how they translated it. The titles they have translated:
Unwired into "Vernetzt" and a "germanisation" of Emergence... while Emergenz is a word in the german language but it just sounds "wrong" in my ears.

Larme: I know of nothing that has been censored in shadowrun, i'm sorry if i made it sound that way. Maybe there is, but then i don't know of it. I meant it in a general sense with censoring Games in the name of Jugendschutz (youth protection).
But you may want to read a little bit about the BPJS and the "indexing" of computer games. Most german translations of video games come in two versions, a german one and an austrian. The former censored (taking out the swastikas is common, deleting gibs and so on) and the latter uncut and just translated.

There is one thing I know of: The bleeding headwound was removed from cover of the Underworld sourcebook.

I have to disassociate myself from that absolute statement.
I like the German setting and its additions. In principle and in its new incarnation, which is a lot less silly.

The Main Problem with the german setting(ADL/AGS) is, that they felt the need to pack everything that was in america into it too.
And now Compare size of Germany and the US of A . . Thus, it became HORRIBLY cluttered. Especially, once you start factoring in
the old german/nordic folklore too . .
Main Problem for me as a german player right now is:
I wanna new stuff. But germany is, in terms of releases, usually about half a year behind. So i go to Atlantis and get the english stuff.
And i know, of course, that there's probably going to be an errata out when the german stuff comes out. and that is probably inlcuded.
And of course, stuff like the Hamburg-Write-Up. Or the digital Grimoire being included in the german street magic.
So i have to pay twice more or less. Once to be up to date(even if i abhor SR4 and don't play) and once to get the german books.
which in most cases clear up some stuff fot me, which i maybe did not understand due to english not being my native language.
And i get more new stuff and i am more up to date again . . Basically, it's like buying windumb XP, then the same with SP1 and then SP2.

As for that demagoge who lead Germany into Genocide?
HE WAS FROM AUSTRIA FOR FUCKS SAKE!
And don't make me point at Bush and others like him.
and the Fact that the US of A could not keep themselves out of a war to save the lives of their troops . . .
sheesh . . every single fucking time something like this comes up, someone tries to bring up the third reich.
seriously . .

Pegasus Games the new German Publisher has the problem of allways being compared to FanPro, the former Publisher. FanPro did a lot of Mistakes (German Uber-Stuff,etc)
Pegasus proclaimed a couple of Times that they don't want to repeat the Mistakes of FanPro,but some of the People don't want to believe them(oh by the way I'm a little bit biased cause I'm one of Pegasus Supporters 'cause I love the 4th.Edition) that everything they do is being in accordance (Is this the right Word?) with Catalyst Games and that all the Additional Fluff-Stuff has an OK from Catalyst Games

A rep they consequently try to damage with changing (often for the worse) of the coverart
Yeah the Coverart ...
Actually I'm happy that the arguing is only about the Coverart and not the Contents
'cause Taste is so....(how do you say in English?)

The Main Problem with the german setting(ADL/AGS) is, that they felt the need to pack everything that was in america into it too.
And now Compare size of Germany and the US of A . . Thus, it became HORRIBLY cluttered. Especially, once you start factoring in
the old german/nordic folklore too
I Totally Agree with Stahlseele

JahtaHey
Medicineman

Suck it up, Man. O_o No one even mentioned hitler or who he was from... Frickin Goodwins Law...


I believe you look for "There's no accounting for taste." since there is no literal translation of "Geschmäcker sind verschieden" that i know of. (But hey, you can teach an old dog new tricks)

I'm just patiently waiting for the English translation of additional German material. Tried to find link (but as normal I can't find anything with DS search function. It hates me.) to a list that had been posted. IIRC Synner said we would eventually get an English conversion.

I believe you look for "There's no accounting for taste."
Thats what I was looking for
@Prime Mover
I've been told that every German additionals will be translated in English and that you can get it here with Catalyst Games

with a tasteful Dance
Medicineman

Ditto. I sure hope the SOX book will be translated so that the english speaking crowd can enjoy it too.

i recall reading about german releases where the people where replaced by robots or zombies, and that all blood and gotten a different (often green) color...

but then i turn around and read about the noise and litigation in USA over things like nipplegate or hot coffee...

Well, first of all, demagogue implies good public speaking, and Bush is one of the worst public speakers of all times.

Second of all, the US hasn't been involved in any genocide, even if there have been casualties among particular racial groups.

But my point was not to talk politics, my point was to point to differences between the US and Germany that might account for how hostile Germany is to free speech. Is it your contention that Nazism has nothing to do with Germany's anti free-speech stance? Even when Germany makes it illegal to claim that the Holocaust never happened, and fly a Nazi flag? Compare that to America, where the holocaust deniers can flee with impunity, and some of our own states fly a rebel flag as their official state flag. Here, Nazism is completely legal -- I've actually seen American flags with swastikas on them, which as far as I'm concerned is half an inch from treason (and would have been punished as such during WWII), but we still allow it. The fact that you guys had the Third Reich take over your country, which demonstrated free speech going horribly wrong, must have something to do with it. We've had our bumps and bruises with free speech too, but even after Bush II stole an election and dragged us into a pointless unwinnable war, we're still a democracy, as demonstrated by the Republicans, who intended to create a permanent majority and govern an eternal US Empire, giving up power peacefully.

Well the US have been on a roll ever since WW2, tho the current economic drop may but a wrench in the works.

However, its still not on the level of economic desperation that Germany post-WW1 was facing. And that again fueled groupings, with the nazi party being just one that was playing hardball.

Hitler was basically the head of a political party fielding its own private police/para-military force.

So while the public may have been taken by his promises of rebuilding the honor and economy of the nation, the politicians where scared silly about having some brownshirts drop by their place in the middle of the night with sticks and fire bombs.

Then there is the way the military was seen across europe up to WW1 and maybe even for some time into WW2.

To be in uniform was seen as a high honor, and something every proper man should strive for. the WW1 peace treaty more or less stomped on the Germany military honor.

So we have groups, all shopping for their self-interests, a man leading a party promising them all that those interests would be honored, and a public that was mostly concerned with getting food on their tables and the end to random violence then big national politics.

And they had shown that it could be done, running a part of Germany for a while like a example (mind you, none of the heavy handed stuff one would see later, out in the open. tho there was the odd thing under the table).

In the end, it was the perfect storm. a weak national government, a inwards focused public, stacks upon stacks of narrow minded special interest groups and a man backed by a group that firmly grasped the idea of ends justifying means...

There is no general anti-free speech stance in Germany and it saddens me that that's the international assumption. There are only a select few things you can't do, one is denying the holocaust and telling people that the time of the third reich was a jolly good time and all those liberals need to suck it up, two is hate speech in general delegated at specific racial, religious, gender or other groups.
You can have all the blood and sex you want in films and computer games.
You can say fuck on national TV.
You can tell people the moon is made of cheese and foreigners are the source of all of their problems.

Now, there are other laws in place which make some of those things improbable (the laws protecting children from violent media are quite drastic, which means a film or game containing too much violence gets "indexed" and can't be sold in an environment accessible to children, which is a commercial death sentence for the product, which is the reason stuff gets selfscensored far and above any legal need to make damn sure that doesn't happen, as you can't resubmit a rated product).

The time of the Third Reich and its paraphernalia is the only really hot topic, which has quite some laws surrounding it that technically break free speech (like forbidding you to lie about the horrors of the KZs, which should still be allowed under "full" free speech).

This whole discussion start to get awfully offtopic though.

Call me reactionary but I think we should just lock down and destroy this thread.

you may very well be on to something...

You can say it here on cable after a certain time -- could I say fuck on German network TV in the middle of the day?



Oh, that's interesting. I thought the video game censorship was more draconian than what we have here. Though my quick wikipedia research did indicate that, while the German Constitution (or the equivalent law, whatever it's called) guarantees free speech without censorship, there are actually very big caveats. Things that could cause disorder, inspire racial hatred, or could harm children can all be forbidden, from what I read. Here, hate speech is 100% legal unless it creates a "clear and present danger of harm," like there's a good chance that the speech in question will very soon lead to actual violence. Advocating violence is perfectly legal, as long as you're not telling people directly to go commit a certain violent act at a certain time at a certain place, or something close to that.



I think it's kind of on topic as to the English vs. German Shadowrun. It's important to properly understand why German products are different than English, as least as far as this topic is concerned. Part of that is understanding the differences in German and American free speech law. Though I guess we've established that there really isn't a lot of censorship. Which makes sense, considering the extreme kinds of porn that come out of Germany. As far as a discussion of Hilter and Nazis, yeah it's off topic. I was just trying to point to one reason why there is less free speech, that the Germans have experienced something so terrible that it really makes them want to censor certain types of expression, something the likes of which we have never experienced in the US. I didn't mean to say that there's no powerful anti-speech lobby in America either. It comes from the left, right, and center, and truth be told, the cencors are winning certain battles, at least when it comes to running strip clubs out of town using zoning laws and laws that forbid touching dancers, and requiring clubs to close ridiculously early. They're also prosecuting obscenity and getting away with it in certain podunk jurisdictions with sanctimonious prosecutors and nothing better to do (though you can only be prosecuted for selling obscene materials, not for receiving them or possessing them)

For the most part, this thread has done a very good job of towing the line and keeping on topic. There is at least one incendiary post that we will follow up on in a more official manner. Keep your personal opinions about politics out of the posts. Example: Partisan comments are highly inflammatory.

I don't see how it's that treasonous. American ideals of freedom are compatible with with Buddhist and Jainist ideals, and it is foolish to forget the Hopi and Navajo contributions to America's history.

Come on now, the Swastika is an ancient symbol that arose independently in almost every basket-weaving culture and has universally positive connotations.

Actually, Shadowrun art needs more swastikas. Given the symbol's connection to many ancient mystical traditions, including kabbalah, it should show up on a great deal of magical equipment, tools, and formulas.


American video gamers tend to find this fairly annoying, as it makes the grand ole' pastime of killing Nazis that much less satisfying. Most video game publishers self-censor because they know that Swastikas will get the game banned in Germany, and its easier just to not include any at all than it is to make two different versions, especially with multiplayer online games.

don't kill the thread!

I for one want to hear a bit more about the German specific stuff (well the troll nation actually) I find this a splendid idea and I would like to hear more about it. Anyone got a translated text somewhere? English or french is all good to me.

also yes its important to understand the difference between English German and French version to know about history. But lets not get personal here I believe that one day German will have to get over it. I have no wish to diminish or amplify what happened but I understand that some German fought with and some fought and sacrificed their life against. It is still a very sensitive subject but a some point you need to move forward while keeping lessons of the past close at end, you cant punish yourself forever but also you cant take the blame forever.

With all due respect, some Canadian and American should learn that freedom of speech is a responsibility and not just a right. in other word some people should learn to shut up lol! (and I am not aiming this at anyone on this thread but in general ok?) words can harm and kill just as easily than a loaded gun these days and we are responsible for everything we say.

we should never waste freedom of speech.

anyway that said, my goal with this thread was to bring to people attention that some nice stuff is available in other language and I hope we will get some of it in English eventually.

the people from France added some stuff for shadows of Europe and made the jump for 4th edition : Brilliant move! besides if anyone can add stuff for the European book its them, its their country! they should know thing we don't!

as a matter of fact, the best mix for a supplement about foreign place is a good mix of native and people who don't know jack about the place. If by the end of the project both group can actually visualize the place and make great game in the setting, the job was well done. as Adam Jury said in the latest blog about map, the info need not to be 100% accurate, it needs to be 100% useful and make sense to both native and people who never went there.

Well, back to the topic of Shadowrun... It actually is a good question whether there are neo nazi groups in the 6th World. There are nazi-like groups all over the place, but they're nearly all racist against imaginary races. Not even the German censors could object to a book that portrays anti-elf or anti-troll racism And defeating an upstart Fourth Reich could actually be a fun plot to run in Shadowrun, if probably a little cliched. I gotta think though, even if they did put a neo nazi group into Shadowrun, they wouldn't give it a whole multipage spread with swastika art and such. Shadowrun has shown more taste than that throughout its long history. I find it hard to imagine that it would be more than a short blurb, which probably wouldn't get banned by the German government.

You were warned once already. Drop the real world politics and get back to Shadowrun or this thread will be locked. Not "get one more shot in" and get back to Shadowrun, either.

Sorry about that, I was trying to keep it on the level but if you say I crossed the line, then I'll fix it