Hi guys. I've been working on my Shadowrun page (4th Ed) for a few weeks now, and I think I've got it presentable and ready to open to the viewing public (namely, you). I've put a good bit of work into it, both content and format/presentation, and feedback would be appreciated. I don't expect you guys to read all of it and then write me a thesis or anything. I realize there's a lot there. But read over at what seems interesting to you, and if you wanna comment on it that would be great. And this includes negative feedback; especially negative feedback. While I tried really hard to balance things, there might be wonky or straight-up broken rules. That's what the feedback is for. I want to present stuff that's useful and fun, not things that will break your game.

What does my page have on it? Why should you take valuable time out of your day to come look at it? Well, Upgrades has a brief list of house rules. The Menagerie presents new metahuman variants and sapients. My Mysticism page has new magic rules, traditions, spells and adept powers. And finally, Dark Ops Tech gives SR4 rules for Perfect Dark weapons (yes, that old N64 game).

While I edited my page meticulously, I'm sure I've missed stuff: typos, grammar errors, subject number disagreements, etc. Feel free to point those out too. i liks cumin acros az liturit. Even if it's difficult to read, or you have a suggestion how to make it look better, I'm open.

I plan to expand on the page, and I have a significant expansion in the works right now. But I figured this is enough to shovel at you guys for the time being.

Thanks for your time.

I only browsed it, but I did read about your freecasting. That looks pretty interesting and I think balanced.

That's one of my personal favorites. I'm glad you like the idea.

Like the site, it's easy to read and doesn't have a ton of annoying graphics. The metavariants were interesting and the Perfect Dark weapons brought back memories.

Thanks. The site has a rather spartan feel to it, but I figured that's better than the alternative. I may add more artwork later, I have some yumbo drawings I'd like to put up. And yeah, I'm still playing Perfect Dark. I love that game. Dark FistSim forever!

Someone messaged me, said the Psionics Tradition writeup seemed generic and didn't have much "feel" to it. I just updated that, for anyone interested.

I think the cylone should be an hyper velocity SMG. Bar that looks good. I'd have maybe converted a few weapons differently (looks that the none Terran weapons) bar that looks cool.

It's a little hard to read for my aging eyes, but the content seems promising so far. (And I have to say, I'm actually jealous of some of the joke names you used in the shadowtalk. I may just have to steal Moxie Cotton for a future character.)

Nice site. Looks good. I definitely like the Freecasting option, as well as the Shifters you made. The friction spells were enjoyable, but I didn't think they'd fall under the ''metaphysical'' category as something that was impossible for magic to do. Nor the kinetic acceleration.

Brings back great memories man.

You are one of the few, you know that. Congrats and I'll be stopping by!

Can you give me some specifics on what you may have done differently? Life, for instance, your version of the Cyclone? If I can use your ideas I've give you credit.
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Feel free to snag any of the names you like. But is the page hard to read? I used the <tt> text format because I thought it fit well. But if it makes it hard to read, that defeats the purpose. Anyone else having issues reading the page?
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It's not that the effects are that powerful, but the spells alter the fundamental laws of reality and so they seemed to fit with the Metaphysics theme. Kinda like using magic to fly is one thing, but I think altering gravity itself in relation to yourself would be a harder even though it would accomplish pretty much the same thing. But do you feel certain spells would fit better into the Manipulation category?
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Thanks! Feel free.

Well, your spells involving spatial and temporal modification I knew were beyond the norm for Magic. I just don't recall the manipulation of kinetic energy and friction being something that would be one of the ''impossibles'' of magic. I mean, spells (like Ignite) can speed up the molecules of an object and make it combust. Why can't magic use a little mana to give that car a little more ''oomph'' with kinetic acceleration, right before you ram it into someone? Or use mana as a medium (''substance'') to increase friction, or in the other direction, use mana to ''lubricate'' the object to reduce friction? When I saw those, I did indeed think more ''Manipulation'' spell, than something magic can't yet do.

I Hate All Life,

With respect to the Yeti, did you intend these to coexist with the sasquatches native to the Himalayas? or to replace them?

I ask because according to Runner's Companion the first sasquatches to make themselves public knowledge were led by the sasquatch Meh-Teh Lama. They were all "silver-furred" and it took place at Pangboche on 27 December 2011.

@ Nyost: That makes a lot of sense. When I hop on the PC later tonight I'll leave the time/space magics Metaphysics, and reclassify the others as Manipulation (and reduce their punitive Drain and such). Thanks.

Edit: Done. Spells reclassified.

@ MJ: The yeti are meant to replace the sasquatches in the Himalayan area; the yeti are a high-altitude, cold-loving variant of that species. Sort of like Bengals and Siberians are both tigers, but slightly different. A lot of people probably wouldn't make the distinction.

I find the site very easy on the eyes, the text stands out without making my eyes bleed (red on black or something like that) and the formating/font isn't difficult to read. The only thing I can think of that needs improvement is in the gear section, I think if you put a blank line between the different weapons in each category it'll make them easier to pick out.

Haven't had much time to read through everything thoroughly, but my thoughts so far:

-Don't like the layout. The navigation should be clear and consistent throughout the site. The frontpage text could use a bit of a cleanup. On the other hand I like what you did with the other pages, especially the shadowtalk. But that's just the web designer in me talking, take it all with a grain of salt Need any help with that stuff feel free to hit me up.

-You've got knasser's site linking to dumpshock. The correct link should be http://www.knasser.me.uk

-Aaron Pavao's also got a neat sr page you may want to link to http://pavao.org/shadowrun/index.html

-Some neat ideas on the PerfectDark page. I agree with the previous post that the cyclone should be an HVAR at the very least. To make the Callsito more consistent with the one in game I'd suggest you change the high impact mode to single shot or semi auto(theres really no bursts possible in that mode) and to give it some extra AP.

More to come

Thanks for the heads-up on the links, fixed now.

I thought the navigation was fairly well laid-out; rather than load every page down with a bunch of links, I just gave each page a link back to the index and (if applicable) its parent page -- for instance, the Traditions page links back to Mysticism and to the SR index. The only solution to this outside of frames (which I don't know how to code) is to provide a lot of links at the bottom to everything else on the site. If I can figure out a way to make that look worthwhile, I may do it, but otherwise just having the Shadowrun index link on every page seems to facilitate navigation just fine.

And what do you mean, cleaning up the front page text? Editing, or formatting? Can you give me some ideas what you mean?

I'll go in and edit the Cyclone and Callisto here soon, thanks.

BTW, your feedback is appreciated, salt or no salt; I listen to all the advice I get, that's why I ask for it.

Humm I'll dig around I recall doing some perfect dark gun a while back the dragons as well. Also your costs seam a little low. In fact the minigun rules might fit the Cyclone well if make the beast a tad OP.

Great site, great content but the text/theme hurts the eyes for extended viewing

Hmmm. Another person has said something similar. Lemme see what I can do.

After skimming the site, I have to say there are some interesting ideas there.

I liked the idea of the Yeti as a Sasquatch variant.

Freecasting caught my eye, and I'm going to read that more later.

The Adept Ability, Imprint, really had me smirking. Had me thinking of groups of Adept gangs using Imprint to "tag" their turf.

I didn't look at weapons & such converted from Perfect Dark, because I've never played the game.

Okay. I've changed up the font, it should be easier to read. Please tell me if this is the case. I've incorporated some of the suggestions for the Perfect Dark weapons; the Cyclone has been reclassified. I'll do more work later, I'm about to go eat. I appreciate the feedback you guys are giving me, it's really helpful.

And thanks, BookWyrm. Glad you like.

That helped a bit. You might want to consider a block format (instead of indented), too, and instead rely on an extra space between paragraphs/sections. There's a reason that's the dominant format on the web; it's just a lot easier to read on a screen. And while I realize you're trying to stick to the color scheme of the logo, white-on-black tends to be really hard on the eyes, too. Even this site can be painful after a while.

Just some things to consider. Your site definitely has an old school vibe to it, which fits Shadowrun nicely.

Personally I prefer bright text on a dark background for reading a monitor. Having said that, the tt font does get hard to read in long blocks. I would keep it for hacker comments but use something more like Calibri for the main font.

Your HTML is pretty bad, no offense. I'm sure you're still learning, but you break a lot of rules. Which can cause your site to look VERY different on different browsers.

I assume you have some basic knowledge of HTML, at the very least how to use tags and such and what they do. So what I'd highly recommend you do is learn the next step up, which is CSS. You have no idea how much easier CSS makes making websites. You should probably be able to learn CSS pretty quickly if you buy a tutorial book, but there are also a lot of free online resources if you have the time to hunt them down.

However, the best way to learn CSS is to steal it from other people. If you use FireFox, I highly recommend downloading the addon Firebug. With Firebug you can right click on any site and tell it to Inspect Element. This will pop up a window with the HTML and the CSS so you can see how people styled their HTML. With the simple process of copy/pasta you can steal and rework people's codes in to your own site. A site that really helped me out was CSSZenGarden for really great ways to use CSS.

Now, aside from all that technical mambo jumbo, I'd also highly recommend not using a serif font for the web. Serif fonts are traditionally designed for print. Use a sanserif font, something like helvetica, arial, or lucida grande. They're a lot easier on the eyes for reading off of monitors.

Also the navigation of your site is a bit of an annoyance as well. If you get around to learning CSS, there are a lot of easy little ways to add in some navigation on headers, footers, and sidebars. But I am assuming you don't know that much yet, so its pretty impressive, unless you're using a program to write your HTML, and if that is the case, stop using the program because its REALLY bad at writing HTML.

Also, don't be discouraged by my comments if you just started to learn HTML. The more you play with it and the more you learn the better it gets. Always keep experimenting. And if you're not sure what to do, google it or try and look it up at the W3C, they set the standards (literally) on the web and have a lot of very useful information on coding.

@ Dr. Funkenstein: I understand what you're saying, and you're probably right. But I want my web page to read as much like a book as possible; as far as I know, no publishing companies are moving away from indented paragraphs and toward blocks of text. And while I understand blocks of text are the standard on the web, so is punctuating every sentence with "lol". So I go through the extra trouble of putting the indents in so it fits a book-like format. Some people like it, and some don't.

@ MJBurrage: Yeah, I went ahead and changed the text so it uses whatever font is standard for your browser. I kept the <tt> for headers, tables and hacker commentary.

@ DeathStrobe: No offense taken. I admit, my HTML isn't the best; it's mostly self-taught, along with tips from web design websites out there. I only have so much time to devote to web design, and learning CSS is a bit daunting... as is the thought of converting the enormous amount of material on my web page to that format. If I made money off web design or spent more time on the web, it might be worth the trouble, but for now I rely on my modest HTML skills. I noticed some issues with the nested tables in Internet Explorer, thank you for bringing my attention to that; I fixed it, I believe. Since I'm on a borrowed computer and can't install browsers or anything else without permission, I can't attest to how the page will be views in other browsers.

I do want my web page to be legible, and to that end I did away with the hard-to-read format. I'll be adding a full set of links to each page to assist navigation either tonight or tomorrow. And I appreciate the feedback on formatting, and applied a good bit of it. But honestly, my page isn't going to look much better than it does now anytime soon, due to my limited web design skills... and I daresay as long as it's readable, I've done my job. Because I'm actually more interested in feedback on the content. Which I've gotten, and I thank those that gave it. I'm glad people seem to like freecasting, it's something I put a good bit of thought into. If you guys wanna read over the traditions I made, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on those as well; I kinda took liberties with the rules I think, hopefully the trads aren't broken.

I'll also be making a browser-friendly version of my SR site soon too: black text on a white background, with bare-bones formatting and no graphics. This might be useful for those of you (like me) that likes browsing on your BlackBerry or other mobile device.

Thanks for your patience.

Oops. Double-post.

dont most technical books, which includes gaming manuals, use a blocked format to?? i dont care either way, it just seems an odd thing to say when you consider that. i think your websight looks ok though.

I love it, and it makes sense from a fluff point of view, if you consider someone's first Awakening, casting spells and creating magical effects without learning any spells beforehand.

Bit easier to read now, but it may just be me. I know if I read on Dumpshock for 3-4 hours straight that hurts too, and I never have any trouble anywhere else... My job is 95% at a computer screen and no issues.

Not the gaming books I have. Looked at a couple Shadowrun books just to make sure. They still follow the established paragraph structure of most books in print. They sometimes don't indent the first paragraph, but often they do, and they don't put spaces between paragraphs except when a new header begins. Again, it's not internet standard, but it's proper formatting, so it's something I like to do.
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Good point. Otherwise, you either have to assume people awaken with spells, or that they somehow know they can use magic without actually being able to. The latter isn't that unlikely, actually, but freecasting is a good litmus for colleges and shamans to separate to the genuine articles from the wannabes that just think they're magical.
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I'm glad to hear that you can read it better now.

Hi all. Updates:

1) I've put a full set of links at the bottom of each page to assist in navigation. I'm going to be experimenting with frames here soon, but until I get the hang of that the page is what it is.

2) I've fixed some formatting errors and a few typos. I've also spaced the entries out a little more. Hopefully this will make the material easier to read.

3) I've fixed the Callisto weapon stats. Secondary function is semi-automatic fire and has an AP of 1.

4) Fixes for the Vampire-Gibbon Launcher: I've clarified that the launcher infects the gibbons with an instant-acting hyper-virulent strain of HMHVV before firing them at enemies; the wielder doesn't have to find infected gibbons to launch them, that would be dumb. So yes, the weapon can be loaded with standard-issue gibbons either manually or through a belt-feeding device. Also fixed the ranges.

Aren't ghost gibbons (think they are hmvv posetive) discussed in Cyberpirates madagascar section? I think so . I also think launching some at your opponents is totally awesome. I don't find Dumpshock or oany light text dark backgroung hard to read. I actually find dark text light backgroung harder to read fir extended periods of time. Guess I'm just a freak like that.

I have no clue. I just came up with some bizarre-assed shit for the heck of it. What's more inane than vampire ape gun? It's even funnier that there's something like that in SR.


Me too, actually. My site used to be black text on a light background. Got a lot of complaints, so I switched it back to white-on-dark.

I see what others are saying about the design. It is very similar to the design methods used in the 1990's which have gone out of vogue quite some time ago. But that is perhaps one of the strengths of the design and why it seems so appropriate for Shadowrun since the 1990's was when it was in its glory days on the web. How I long for those old sites. Blackjacks Corner. The Shadowrun Archive. The Big Knobi Klub. Those were all fantastic sites. And they all shared a similar aesthetic to yours.

There is however a reason why that aesthetic had been abandoned. Which is likely the same reasons you are receiving criticism in that regard.

Yup.

But like I've said previously, I'm more worried about the content of my page: the rules, concepts, etc. I'm on a Shadowrun forum, not a one for web design, y'know? While the formatting suggestions and the like have been helpful, the fact that my web design skills are lacking is evident and has been well documented in this thread. So no need to kick that dead horse anymore. If the site layout is so bad that you or someone else refuses to read it, that's too bad, but there's not much I can do about that at this time. Some people are apparently willing to read it, however, and have offered feedback on it. And that's what's most useful to me at this point.