Is it a 4e source? I ran most of mine through a text search and got nothing. Maybe you're remembering the 3e Seattle book?

And no, not posting from work this time. I gotta earn my tax money back sometimes.

SR does have at least one Dwarf-syndicate, as I recall.

In a 4e source? Could you give a bit of a hint on who they are and where to find them?

Not sure how much they've been talked about in 4e. This is going back aways - the Stonecutter's Guild.

Any chance you'd be willing to throw some love out for the Red Hot Nukes updated to 2072?

Don't ask me mate, I don't write for the game any more.

I wouldn't really qualify the Stonecutters Guild (as depicted in Loose Alliances) as a syndicate since they're not really criminals... more of a shady special interest group with connections in a number of institutions and power players.

That's like 9/10s of the thing, as far as I'm concerned. They might not pimp out the beardlettes, but that doesn't mean their hands aren't dirty.

Ok this is reaching back abit but the DTG or Dwarven Technologists Guild from Kage. IIRC A sort of secretive hign tech think tank that contracted out to the highest bidder. (Been awhile since I read them over, have to dig out the issue later.)

Pretty sad how hard you have to look to find anything that's dwarf-specific. Elves, orks, and even trolls all get their due, and we have plenty of human-based organizations (although very few - perhaps none - where that's presented as a positive thing). So why are the dwarfs the bastards of the SR setting?

That's OK with me. I don't make a distinction between official and unofficial for my fluff - whether i like it or not, I don't pay for any of it.

Are you including the Dwarf-led Grand Duchy in the AGS, or that Julian Strouthers (the first Dwarf born in Seattle) managed to be Governor of Seattle for quite a bit? The rumors of the Immortal Dwarf? Bisexual dwarf pornsimstar Agyar Trollkiller? Okay, I made that one up, but if I ever do write for SR again, he's in there.

That's still pretty small stuff. The trolls easily can boast as much coverage (also a nation in the AGS), and orks and elves get far more. Hell, even ghouls get more facetime than dwarfs.

That is the fundamental problem with race specific nations/gangs/groups whatever. YOu cna't write them without them being cocks and the elven groups being amazing and the orc groups being the barbarians and the dwarven groups building shit and speaking with vague Scottish accents.

It might be stereotyping, but dwarves have always had trouble fitting into high society.

Even for this place, that was dreadful.

I'm sorry, it was pretty low.

*pulls his beard and stamps his foot* I'm down here.

The entry into the GC-chapter is shit - I mean, a 16-year-old girl posts her homework for school and adult, professional criminals who shoot people in the face for money are really discussing it? Dude... I never liked the whole Pistons/dev/grrl/Netcat-gang from the start on and this part of Vice strengthens that.

It's not total shit. It's jarring, it's disconcerting...But if you accept the conceit that people at all grow up in the shadows, it makes some sense. Barely.

More than once as a high schooler and during my undergrad years in college, I'd stumble upon places where those who actually had connections to international affairs were commenting. Eventually, after months and sometimes a year+ of establishing my credibility as an interested and clueful amateur, I'd indulge my curiosity and ask for research help...Or just start asking hard questions. (I will never forget when I essentially asked 'WTF is wrong with African militaries that they keep using rape as a tool of warfare?' The responses began with a lot of, well, squirming from those who'd been in the region, but then got very interesting.)

Would I ever post my homework? No...Because I'd get pummeled in the politest of ways and told to do my own goddamn work. Even rough drafts I'd get told to edit myself. (Research? Everybody sometimes needs a pointer separating wheat from chaff, and critically, I gave as much as I got, or tried to.)

In this case, dev/grrl has, however jarringly, been established as a member of the community that underpins (sort of) Jackpoint. I could see her asking questions related to schoolwork. I could see her trading hacking help for research help.

But yes, teenage schoolwork being taken seriously for commentary is a bit of a stretch.

Don't push it. Patrick has a short temper.

Thanks! I'll make sure not to underestimate him.

Gangs
Gangs are hard to write, but so much fun.

The problem is that there are no clear-cut lines dividing a gang and a syndicate. Level of organization maybe, size and strength maybe...but those are just indicators. When a "second-tier gang" can have 6,000 members, or a Matrix gang can operate all over the planet, its hard to say that they're not on the same playing field as the Mafia.

Riser of all the JackPointers is a solid choice to voice this chapter since he was in a gang (10 Jackpointers for all the speculation).

The YMCA sidebar is a nice touch. When you're reading page after page of text, it's nice to break up the flow a little, throw a few different formats at your hungry, tired eyeballs. It also allows the writer to bring in a fresh perspective, to state something outright or to hint at it for anyone willing to read between the lines. Some chapters and writers do this more than others, and those that do have their own styles and preferences. The YMCA bit is classy.

I disagree with the Patina of Legitimacy. That doesn't mean it's wrong, I just don't see the Mafia as having extensive corporate or political influence. Maybe the thing that sets it apart from most gangs is that it has any corporate or political influence, I dunno, but when I think of the Mafia I think street. That's where they make their money, that's where they make themselves known. The difference is in size and scope, the ability to plan longer-term than your gang on the street and the means to see that plan to fruition. Not many gangs in LA are going to have the resources or vision to fly down to Colombia and try to set up a steady line of BADs, for example.

Green Lucifer y'all might remember from the classic SR adventure Elven Fire. He's a prick and I wish a dragon would flame him and piss on the ashes.

That reminds me, one thing not stressed a lot here is that gangsters go to prison, and prisons tend to be very gang-heavy.

That exchange about Rosa Azul at the end is a reference to Ghost Cartels. "We make sweet hate to each other."

Y'know, I tried with the Merlyns. I really fucking did. I wanted to raise them up to stop being a teenage wiz-kid gang after twenty-some years. But the Order of Merlyn, it did not take in the collective Shadowrun imagination. (And the Merlyns in New Yawk, from 10 Gangs? No relation. Which is just bizarre.)

The problem with gangs is that there are so many, and we never let them die. Because real-life gangs do that, they collapse. Cops bust 'em, rival gang kills 'em, the gang members grow up and move on, the leader gets stabbed by the nineteen year-old screwing his baby mama and *poof* no more gang! Not in SR. This is like The Warriors except when the last gang member dies, some kid comes along and puts on their blood-stained vest then bloodies his knuckles again.

Please sir, can we have some more?

Totally agree with that. That's one thing that separates gangs and syndicates; syndicates tend to have more permanence. There would be absolutely nothing wrong with there being a whole slate of new gangs in Seattle that no one recognizes from the SR2 days, but it never seems to happen.

But you do see gangs disappear - like the Red Hot Nukes!

Given the lack of reference the Nukes probably imploded (or some other bad demolition pun).

It's the "back in my day" syndrome. Same thing exists in most game lines, but it is entirely too prevalent in the FASA birthed creations. Pirate crews in Battletech never die (I'm looking at you, 80 year old Lady Death, breaking out of prison and reforming your crew), factions never die, not really anyway, and certainly not major ones (no, the "death" of the Free Worlds League is anything but), shadowrunners never go away (we still have Fastjack, we've only just managed to get rid of the Captain), and so on. Eventually they all become fan factions. And once that happens, there seems to become this giant "DO NOT CHANGE THE STATUS QUO!" sign with fans, writers, and just about everybody. Once they're characters/pieces in the setting, you basically need to have a minor apocalypse (the Jihad, Clan Invasion, System Failure, etc) to get rid of them. It's a huge issue with both of the games that I really think needs to change. It's an outdated and unnecessary practice, for my tastes. You don't need to off characters left and right, but change is not automatically bad (or good). But it does need to be allowed for, more than it has been. There's been some exceptions to this over the years, but they're few and far between. Unfortunately, the fan base has tied up the game setting with those names, regardless of how inconsequential they are to the greater health and wholeness of the game setting.

Hey, they killed Lord Torgo!

I know. How could they do that? He was such a major player in the criminal scene!

When it comes to gangs and them being around for seemingly ever, it really depends on the gangs. In real life, the Hells angels (a rl Go-Gang in a way) have been around since roughly 48 and are a near syndicate level gang. The Crips have been around since 69, the bloods are from the 70s, Latin Kings from the 40s. Of course there are hundreds of gangs that have over time disolved, but not all do.

The only major SR gang that haven't been downsized that I can think of off the top of my head are the Ancients (They have gotten even bigger now under GL incharge of seattle sadly and in many ways are the HA of SR)

The spikes seem to have gotten weaker (especially with Torgo gone and from RH to Vice), the Cutters are now a major gang again after having a cut down (mentioned in RH and I think have been around since chicago went bug). Reality Hackers have a quick shout out. Halloweeners were slaughtered and are led by a radical new leader (Huh, wait didnt that happen after Charles kicked the can or was it Funky? And why the short mention in Vice? I know they were mentioned in other books, but so were the ancients. And why the cut down from a middle tier to a tiny theme gang?).

Part of me wants to mention the gangs in RH, but this is about Vice and all. The one real surprise to me is the First Nations. I honestly expected them to last a very short time, and was more than a little shocked with how much they have been in sr4.

Other than that a damn crap load of SR gangs are all gone, many of them mentioned here and there
Some of which are: Meat Dogs, Red Hot nukes, Spiders and alot others I cant remember

Edit: and your right, dwarfs always get the short straw

Well, dwarves just aren't on the same level as other PC races. In order to elevate their attractiveness to players you would need to raise up certain key characteristics, heightening their player desirability.

Of course, if they stay as they are dwarves have a key racial advantage in that they never hit the glass ceiling.

Give it to another vancouverite to actually make enough puns in a single sentence to make my brain hurt. Kudos

This is just getting stupid now. I'm sure each person jumping in on this is thinking that the line they make is comic gold, but it's really not - it's pointless derailment.

It's wrong of me, but I re-read that post three times looking for a pun.

Part of me actually thinks it was a serious post. A serious post complaining about the derailment of a topic on dumpshock........

I may just go disappear for another couple of years in confusion cause of this.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled program:

I also really liked how they broke up the gang life section, giving a quick blurb of insight into how they work and what makes them what they are. It gives GMs (atleast in my experience) a basis for making up their own gangs and fluffing them out more realistically (sort of like 20 questions for Chargen but for a gang). Also, the initiation part was damn cool and one of the more exciting things to work with from a GM point.

I did wish they concentrated more on the street gangs a bit more though. While it is more likely that games will be involving the second and first tier gangs more in a business (for and agaisnt) way, the third tier gangs are going to be the ones that I see players using as distractions, having hassle them as they walk downtown and causing the most problems, headaches and bloodloss for players.

I agree. Unfortunately, Peter had this issue with sticking to word count. That was one reason for the 10 Gangs supplement, although it ended up being... slightly different than first discussed.

Yeah, y'all should see the unedited version of the rape gang.

...I'm not sure why I thought that was funny at the time.

ummmm..... what do you really say to that?

Also, is there any word from back when you were at catalyst about halloweeners having any sort of a comeback (probably my favourite SR faction since I can remember, really hoping they go into Nightmare and what it is.)

Other Outfits
I wish I could remember who wrote this intro fiction. I think it was John Dunn, but my brain is rusting.

This is kind of a catch-all section, which doesn't properly do it justice. I like the idea that as the Sixth World continues to advance, you're not only going to get new kinds of crime (organlegging, various arcane aspects of Matrix crime, literal arcane magical crimes, etc.) but new kinds of criminals and criminal organizations - ones that don't fill in the traditional mode (organleggers, crackers) of criminal orgs, and ones that are quasi-legitimate or fairly independent (fences). Together, a lot of these different groups represent some of the functional "black infrastructure" of not just the underworld, but the world itself. Imagine the internet today without filesharing sites and p2p networks, or the world today without ironmongers a la Lord of War (Nick Cage, we love you, even if you have gone and lost your way. We'll be here when you claw your way back out of the brambles of life.)

Tamanous is a really weird animal, ever since it was first introduced - I'm pretty sure by Steve Kenson in the Underworld Sourcebook - because for a long time it was the sort of default organlegger of choice in SR. No matter what the continent, or the situation. It was very bizarre in that respect, and there were a lot of behind-the-scene conversations about the role and importance of organlegging in general during and following the publication of Augmentation. Frank Trollman of course was very vocal about it, citing the economic reality of clonal organs and transplant costs, which he had a point on. I think you can definitely see a lot of thought along these lines were going through the author's head in this section.

The Dead Deckers Society (DDS, if you don't get the joke, you're making me feel old) is a remnant of an earlier, purer time when Shadowrun was being produced in the tail end of the era of phone phreaks and the rising awareness of the culture of computer intrusion with the publication of books like The Hacker Crackdown.

Fences - I have one complaint about this section, and it's Am-mut's generally informal tone and conversational English. Even at his most revealing, I like it when Am-mut feels like he's holding back, or picking at the edges of a matter, or lying on some minor point while mostly telling the truth; I like his English to be the semi-formal kind you get from educated non-native speakers that take the time and effort to be correct and slightly eloquent in their speech. I feel some of the shadowtalkers at least should develop a characteristic speech pattern - it hasn't happened yet, but it's something I'd like.

p.152 is nice. I would have liked more cascading-windows in SR books. It feels more natural to me.

Butch remains one of my favorite Shadowtalkers.

Chimera should really disappear at this point, the whole "League of Assassins" feel is weird to me. When the cover of your organization is blown, it's time to reorganize. (Personally, I always enjoyed the notion that Chimera was just a code-name for the original operation, and that the various "members" never refer to it as that...or as anything else. They don't have a word for it, most of them aren't even really aware of the structure of the organization. There are agents, and there are handlers, and sometimes there are people brought in to help the agents do their job - very La Femme Nikita, I know. Bob.)

Ah, c'mon, this thread can't be dead yet. We're so near the end!

What exactly were FT's point on clonal organs and transplant costs?

Basically, the demand and the return isn't there. I don't remember his long and extensive rants on the subject, but that's the gist of it. Clonal organs are freely available and an entire body goes for 25k - 40k nuyen. A used organ, with all its attendant risks and the necessity of surgically removing it, would only be marketed to those people that either couldn't afford a clonal organ or couldn't wait for one. If you're in an area where clonal organs aren't available, the demand is higher but probably so to are the transportation and operation costs. You'd be lucky to chop up a perfect body for 15k in used parts, and with your overheard you might be only looking at a few thousand in actual profit from that series of operations - provided you can sell it. It's a lot more likely that you'll have six guys come in needing hearts and livers than four guys coming in who each need a different limb. You can try to pass used organs off as Type O to a hospital, but they're gonna know something's weird when your body starts rejecting the organ.

Never mind, I'll let Frank talk for himself.

I think that's true, until the gang gets to a certain number of members. The 38th Street gang was founded in the late 1920's. The Hell's Angels were founded in 1948. The 18th Street gang was 1949. The Vice Lords, the Crips, and the Bloods are fairly recent -- 1958, 1969, and 1972.

I think the term "gang" is like the term "childhood". Undoubtedly, there are children, we all agree on that, but when does childhood end? When does a person stop being a child and become an adult? Does it end earlier for different people? How many members are required before a gang becomes a syndicate? How long must it have been around before it's no longer a gang but a syndicate?

Sorry, I was on holiday. Back to regular broadcast..

I like the "downsizing" of Tamanous. Frank's arguments are pretty good, but he passes over the story value of organlegging, as something so nasty that even normal criminals think it's pretty grizzly. The section in Vice is well-constructed to deal with that; it lokos like Tamanous' expansion has been checked by the increased availability of synthetic alternatives. On the other hand, it expands the notion that Tamanous could be a secret Asamundo government project to feed the population, which is nice. Finally, the idea that Tamanous has also begun their own organ farms because the megacorps keep supply lower than demand is a good one. Potential for stories when you uncover such a facility.

The Matrix Syndicates were way too short in my opinion. A NeoNET Clean Matrix program? Interesting, tell us more? I'm rather annoyed that the Matrix continues to be treated as a kind of niche thing, the way it looked like in 1990. We've seen how deeply the Internet has influenced society, and the Matrix should be an even bigger influence. That said, what was actually there was intriguing. The Schattengesellschaft particularly; it deals with the issue of how people in the shadows are coping with the increased possibilities governments and corporations have for supersurveillance.

The Fences section was.. necessary, because fences are people that runners deal with a lot. But it felt a bit dull somehow, a bit too long.

Other Outfits I didn't like. It seemed messy, and not very interesting.

Yeah, for good or ill, that was me.

I bought "Vice" from my FLGS a few weeks ago, finishing it pretty fast.

The Underworld Sourcebook was one of my favorites of the old-school Shadowrun (which is why I'm reeeeally hoping to find a used copy online or in a used book section), so I was looking forward to this one.

For the book as a whole, though, I have to say that I really miss the old SR sourcebooks' writing styles. Something about the writing in "Vice" just didn't quite measure up to the standards of previous sourcebooks.

Section by section, here's what I thought:

-The "Crime 101" section (talking about various illegal operations engaged in by the syndicates) was a disappointment, and this is where the biggest disparity in quality between old and new sourcebooks was, in my opinion. The Underworld Sourcebook's section on that was well-written, while the one in Vice just felt sorta wooden. Plus, it was really annoying having sidebars on every goddamn page!

-The various sections on the big players (Mafia, Yakuza, etc) were alright. I was disappointed that they didn't put in sections discussing things like some of the big nationwide players in the Mafia like they did in Underworld Sourcebook, but they made up for it by producing a rundown of the big players in one mafia family/yakuza gumi/etc., and some of those profiles were pretty interesting. Given how much attention they've been given in recent SR 3 and 4 source material, I was glad the Vory v Zakone got an expanded section in this book, compared to the footnote section in Underworld Sourcebook.

-I found the section on the ethnic syndicates in some ways more fascinating than the one about the major players. There's some cool stuff in this area, especially the update about the Fanti pirates (Cyberpirates was another favorite old-school SR book of mine).

-The gangs section - simply awesome. Great profiles on the big players, as well as the small fry and some new groups. The Chaos Engine matrix gang and The Yardies were my two favorites of the groups covered.

-The specialist organization section was alright - nothing spectacular, but sort of interesting. The biggest disappointment for me was that Chimera didn't get much page space (they were one of my favorites from Underworld Sourcebook), and that they've been changed into a cell-format assassination group, which they weren't before (I just don't think it works well for these guys).

-The Dangerous Minds section (20 of the most wanted criminals) was pretty good, seeming to follow up the information in "State of the Art: 2064" (a Top 10 Most Wanted List) pretty well. The section had an interesting, "Criminal Minds" feel to it (to the point that the term "unsub" was used once in the writing).

-The Law section: Decent, and I really liked the details about how England has basically turned into the movie version of "V for Vendetta" (well, moreso than usual in SR, anyway). I hope they provide more details on England in future supplements; could be a fun opportunity for adventures.

Overall, it was an alright book, and I don't regret the purchase, but it's not quite up there with Underworld Sourcebook (which is admittedly a tough act to follow).

I agree with FT points, but I offer a solution that keeps organ leggers active and working.

Going along with the whole pollution thing, we can postulate that people in shadowrun get seriously ill. A lot. In the order of magnitude that by the time you are 80 you go through at least 3-4 replacement organs. While high and up lifestyles have good medical care and can afford routine cloned organs (or type 0 organs), the poorer folk have to settle for what they can get. By any means necessary.

This keeps corporations happy (selling immunosupressents and then more drugs when those make you sick, also your wageslaves have to work for you or they lose their clone / medical insurrance), organleggers happy (high demand) and you have a suitably grim future. Besides when you have the major players (syndicates and corporations) profiting from a thing, its difficult to get rid of.