Battletech! Aaaaaah, GREAT, now there is the single one product where I become this crazy nerd that gripes about how much the game/story line sucks since XXXX happened. Behold:

"Succession Wars: Good. Clans: What a pile of CRAP!"

I enjoy playing Mechwarrior RPG every once in a while (= decade), but when I do I always play Succession Wars. The Clans just didn't happen im my universe.

And speaking of game lines: I absolutely, positively HATE any notion of merging SR and ED. If you do have to merge game lines that really don't have anything to do with each other, merge game lines that at least carry the same flavor: Give us

BattleRun! Where Man meets Magic and fucking huge robots!

Yes.
Battlerun should have been cleaned up a bit more, maybe have a bit more added to it.
They could have sold it. I would have bought it.
Also: Yes, the clans suck. I don't have Problems with technological advances, but that seemed like too arbitrary of a power creep to me <.<

Well, it should make you happier about CGL's product as well, since they've managed to provide product that expands on the Succession War era.

the only way to keep shadowrun alive is to write and run awesome stuff for it and not dilute it to the lowest common denominator. New blood is needed and awesome story lines as well. The biggest problem I see is getting reclusive about shadowrun. We need to set the standard for creativity and public awareness of the game or it will go the way of cyberpunk. We need to make the games (runs) so cool that went people talk about it, the people hearing the stories will want to play it.

Just some thoughts.

Triggvi

I am so totally with you, especially on that last sentence.

Jason H.

Just a thought...

(Side note: "Ahm not ded yet!")

My own thoughts run something like this:

To this point, I have been extremely happy with the general quality and caliber of the products CGL has brought out to support this, our cherished 6^th World. The financial thing has me worried... is Shadowrun the financial curse of every company which touches it, starting with the original F.A.S.A.? I mean, not that Shadowrun CAUSES problems, but is it the gaming world's "Hope Diamond"?

As to the future, assuming CGL can stay afloat through their current stormy waters, I would like to see the whole IP/License/Publishing nonsense go back to being a single entity. I think it would remove a lot of uncertainty which keeps some potential players, who watched 3^rd Edition's grand adventure and the inglorious launch of 4^th Ed, from seriously considering the system.

Finally, I think that what would best serve the universe is more fiction. I know that my own greatest joys have been delving ever deeper into the mysteries of the 6^th World first as a reader, but then as an author. I challenge anybody to find me a world tappestry so rich and vibrant and close to our own that anybody with the least creativity and imagination can believe themselves right into the universe seamlessly. The politics and corporate shenanigans are just like our own world, only more so. Technology has continued the breakneck slolom down the winding road to the future, whether our minds or morals are ready or not. The world has been shaken to its very foundations by ethnic and political strife, to say nothing of global catastrophies of Biblical proportions, but is it so unbelievable? Nations self-destruct in the news daily. "Ethnic Cleansing" while the world stands by, mute and impotent, because the powers with the ability to stop it have more important things on their minds. Oneof the largest cities in the modern world is lost beneath the waters while a government tried to decide if this was real, or a made-for-TV movie. One of the world's largest and most dominant religions is wracked by scandal of the most foul nature from within, and turns an arrogant face to the world. An earthquake in a tiny island nation wipes out hundreds of thousands of lives in moments while plague rampages endimic in the heart of the "Dark Continent". The Australian continent bakes to a dry, cracked wasteland while greedy industrialists pay deperate and impoverished people to rape the land that is both their birthright and their sustenance. How could the return of magic really be that much more fantasitcal or destructive when viewed through the lens of the time of our parents?

The fiction that I think will breathe continuing and energetic life into Shadowrun needs to come from all levels. First, we must see more formal publications, novels we may first devour ourselves then pass off to our friends to introduce them to the world we so value. Then, we need something semi-formal, a way to put together good writing from a broad spectrum of voices in the wilderness of the digital world, drawn into a collection of wisdom and shared hallucination. The (stalled? stillborn?) Dumpshock magazine might have been a good way to begin encouraging that shared experience. Finally, the dreaded FanFic. Yes, I can already hear the groans of those hardy souls who have determinedly donned their intelectual wading boots and slogged into the slush pile in search of the one, transcendant and joyful piece of work which will make the entire painful endeavor seem ever so worthwhile. Because, let's face the truth: real life, viewed from above, is little different from that derided and reviled slush pile. People whose lives, put to paper, would be rejected as trite, meaningless and lacking in creativity or focus or even grammar. We remember the individuals whose stories shape the world and inspire us to improve our own life story, but it is upon the shoulders of those drudges slushing their way through life that truly define the world in which we live, and act as the backdrop for the dramatic and memorable stories we all aspire to that the great epics are trully crafted.

In politics, it's called a "grass roots" movement. We all "contribute" to our "party" every time a new product hits the shelves, our latest dose of intelectual Soma. But that can't be the extent of our devotion to the cause, for without action we can hardly call ourselves patriots! Share your joy, spread your message, introduce the uninitiated to the thing that brings us all together... even if it IS just to flame each other for hours on end. Because in the end, the 6^th World is actually about us, OUR stories, and without us it's just a bunch of arcane symbols drawn on leaves of paper, waiting to be discovered... in other words: magic.

(Having successfully delivered one of my trademark Walls O' Text in what I had originally intended to be a short commentary, I look back upon that which I have created, and I find it good... please indulge me my little rant with good cheer.)

What can be done?
As a consumer if you like the product that is being produced, buy it.

As a fan you can:
Create a fan web site with content and contribute to the community.
Contribute content to fan sites that you like.
Pleasantly talk about SR on other forums, i.e. RPGnet.

What I see though is this.
If Topps pulls the SR license from CGL, somebody else will come along and pick it up. This IP has plenty of life left in it (despite the Microsoft attempt to violate it in such an unholy manner).

Nothing in a free market drives business like an untapped revenue stream.

Should the worse happen and CGL have the license pulled, I would bet that the next company might have to jump through some hoops to get it but at the end of the day somebody would get it. In terms of sales SR is one of the bigger IPs out there right now (granted we are a niche market but still).

Just my two

Tunnels and Trolls??? Man I haven't thought about that game in YEARS!

Edit:
I did a quick search and found this:
http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/tandt.htm

The most notable section of the page states: "Plan to come to the Third Annual T&T Convention in Arizona July 22-25, 2010" So, yes, the game lives on!

Actually, Tunnels and Trolls still has something of an active fanbase, and active support through Flying Buffalo and some 3rd party licenses.

There was a big deal made a few months back over it, actually, as it turns out one of the folks that had licensed to release T&T stuff was being more than a bit shady. Turns out he was "stealing" artwork he found online to use for covers and the like, among a few other things.

Sadly, this sort of thing happens far too foten in the gaming industry.

Bull