Pity. Other stuff, like Smyth's Nagano Combine, seems to thrive and prosper.

Sorry, but keeping up with threads is always difficult when it's covering a new book. There' s a lot of frustration here, and for the most part, it's pretty civil. So posts like this...

... are not helpful. Haven't read War yet so I've got no stance on it. Please just keep things polie, cut back on the snide comments here and there, and keep your time/energy directed in a useful direction instead of at other posters (former and current both).

Thanks

I know commenting on admin posts might be bad manners, but you did notice that comment was about a succestion of getting Ancient History and Frank Trollman to write a hypothetical book and not about WAR?

Yes I did. And about whining and poo flinging. AH isn't around a lot, and Frank is banned, but it's still a post that adds nothing. I could care less if people bad mouth the book. Like I said, I haven't read it , so I have no opinion. It's the shots at people, present or not, I'd like to keep down.

And no worries on replying to posts. Like I said, for the most part, this has been a pretty good thread, especially with the amount of frustration everyone's got. There were just some things that came up a few pages back (one of which was resolved, thanks guys ) that needed commenting on. Not trying to stomp on anybody.

Ok, there are some things that reach even further back—Shiawase is founded in "the post-World War Two reconstruction of Japan", so probably the 1950s or 60s. That said, I feel (possibly without firm ground, haven't figured that out yet) that that's getting into the fiddly details and that we aren't talking "world stage" diverges until Burger.

~J

I'll accept that. I agree, the court is the best date to use for the split.

The author of the Auschwitz section has popped up on the official boards, if anyone has questions for him.






-k

We have the "Community Projects" board for this. Open up a thread for the discussion about a Community-created War 2.0 and we'll see how it works out.

None that wouldn't get me banned, I'm afraid. Then again, what the hell, I'll try and see how much censorship happens.

Anyone else amused that the official boards' user numbers are mainkly propped up by Spambots?


On it.

Which thread is it? Not in the War!-thread in the Catalyst's Shadowrun Products-section, or am I wrong?

Gotta love a little self-fulfilling prophecy, huh?


"Let's Talk WAR!" in the Shadowrun General->General Discussion board.

D'oh! I mean: thanks for the info.

Actually, that post was made assuming sensible and neutral moderating, not heavy-handed Hardy dictatorship.

Cool! Here it is.

Oswiecim, from Shadows of Europe:

So, really, all War! did was knock down the barrier and introduce some guy to spread rumors about necromantic artifacts (which a GM may or may not want to stat up), in order to get people to pay him money and equip themselves to try and go kill ghosts.

Ghosts that have been there since SR3, six years ago.

Or am I misreading something from the posts folks have made here, describing their issues with this section of War!? Because it seems to me like lots of the complaints are that the guy "invented" ghosts, "invented" a barrier around the place, etc, etc...when, in reality, lots of what he wrote already existed in canon, whether most of us read or remembered it or not. I know it was certainly new to me (because I can't remember ever reading this section before, but then I've never done anything in Poland for Shadowrun)...but maybe folks are being a little hypercritical of the guy.

ETA: p. 229 of SoE, for those that were curious.

I find the whole adventure hook to be rather generic (it's basically a dungeon-crawl to find/ retrieve/ loot artifacts) and the necromantic artifacts, whatever that shall be. Aside from that, the section is written poorly and feels like a quick conversion of a (also generic) D&D-adventure hook.

And criticism like that strikes me as just fine, because you're basically just saying you don't like it, and don't think it was well done, or it doesn't suit your tastes, fit with the setting in your opinion, etc, etc.

But for the folks claiming this whole thing was his idea, that he doesn't know Shadowrun if he's talking about ghosts, that he's personally responsible for somehow disrespecting the people that died at Auschwitz, and that sort of thing...I think that particular excerpt from Shadows of Europe might be a bit of an eye opener.

Well, there is evidence for sloppy research, i.e. the mentioning of dollars instead of nuyen. But yeah, overall I don't like the setup, the setting and the writing style.

See, the dollars/nuyen thing doesn't bug me -- even as nitpicky as I can be about fluff -- because "top dollar" is just a phrase. People still say "it's your dime, pal" in real life when they get a phone call (even though pay phones are, what, like 50 cents or something crazy by now?). I'm sure well into the future some slang terms like "I'll bet you dollars to donuts," and stuff will survive, too, at least for a whle.

So I don't have a big issue with the term "top dollar" still being used in a Shadowrun book, myself. It's not like we got "Item X costs 5 dollars" in an equipment list or something.

Yes, you are misreading something here, but I' not certain what:

No, he invented "the living dead"Ok, just the "angry and hungry dead" – there's no rumor label in the GM section, even if that was the intent.

No, he turned a spirit barrier into:

Which it was not.

And finally, even those are not labeled as rumors to the GM…

…while telling said GM to even stat up some "rumor" just add insult to injury.

Bottom Line: Did Not Do The Research

PS:

Again, this is not in-character.

When you consider that a book put out six years ago used terms like specters, ghosts, apparitions, hauntings, etc, I think maybe his usage of the "the angry and hungry dead" might not be as big a deal as some of you guys are saying, that's all. He didn't describe them as corporeal or use the word "zombies" or anything, so I think maybe some of you might just be splitting hairs.

What's more, it seems like you're trying to have this both ways. In the actual text of the book (at least according to the quote of it earlier in the thread), he calls it a "spiritual barrier," which sounds like a fair representation of a "spirit barrier" to me. However, now you want to judge him according to the posts he made to try and clarify, so you're complaining about the barrier-around-Ireland comparison.

In the same post, though, you aren't going to go by that clarifying post of his where he calls the necromantic artifacts rumors...you'll hold him strictly to the written text, there. You don't think you're coming off as kind of holding a double standard, there? Going by a forum post when it makes something worse, going by the book when it makes something worse, etc, etc?

Again, if you just don't like it, you don't like it. Like I told Grinder, I'm totally fine with that. It's just that it seems a little unfair to not like what the guy wrote if it jives, canon-wise, with what was in SoE. To claim he doesn't know Shadowrun, didn't do any research, etc, etc, after reading that very section from SoE, seems like y'all are being a little hard on him. He took a story about haunted battle sites and mass graves, and told a story about haunted battle sites and mass graves. I'm not crazy about the dungeon crawl aspect either, but let's not blame him for the dead people scaring and killing the live people, 'cause that bit has been canon for six years, y'know?

But the thing that has me scratching my head here, is when the writers go out of their way to interact with fans and try to clarify things (like this guy did, in his first and so far only post over on the SR4 forums)...you're gonna nitpick your way through his post, pick out the worst of whatever he's said (sometimes a forum post, sometimes the text), and basically do everything possible to shoot down his work.

Do any of you wonder why, given that sort of attitude and response to clarification, most of the writers don't hang out here any more? Really? 'Cause I'm just a guy that's sharing his opinions on what he's reading, offering up some possible explanations for why the book reads like it does, and trying to answer a few questions and let y'all know that we're reading the criticisms -- and even I'm feeling a little roasted, here, as someone that didn't have anything to do with War!.

And I apologize for not knowing what sections are IC versus OOC in a book I've repeatedly said I don't own yet. All I'm doing is going by what people have quoted, and sharing my own opinions (as a reader, not a writer) based on what I'm coming across. I'm not a big fan of there being no clear delineation between IC/OOC sections, myself, just for the record, and I've said so in official freelancing groups (for what it's worth).

Anyways, it's about four in the morning here and I don't work third shift any more, so I'm gonna go crash.

What RvD says.


Since when are shadowrun spirits hungry? And no, demanding a book tie in well with previous publications is not hair splitting in my opinion, it's a base assumption that it should do this. Granted, that's where the line dev comes in (actually, assuring that is a good deal of what he is for), so it's not fair to level this entirely ion the writer, but it still is a major flaw of the book.


Yes, since he made it actually worse there, displaying he has little to no idea of the setting.

And actually, the TNN veil is not a barrier. It is perfectly possible to sail a ship through the veil without bouncing off of it. The veil is a combination of sensor grids and chaotic world spells and patroling spirits, drones and paracritters. It'S like the Berlin wall on sea with magic. It is NOT a magical dome around the island.


Well, in game info, there should be no room for rumors. Is the stats of a rifle also rumors? I agree that his clarification is slightly better (though, given there is no classic necromancy in shadowrun, it'S still well off), but that doesn't make the writing any better.


That's spectacularily hard to tell, even if you own the book and have read it. That's one of the major criticisms of the book, actually.

I know that, Hermit. I'm not the guy that said otherwise (just like I'm not the guy that wrote this section of the book). I wasn't defending his TNN veil comparison.

Okay. Just saying that actually made it worse, as you have noted too.

The issue is with the overall impression of the piece, so all those "minor details" add up to really rub you the wrong way when reading it.

The main premise of the whole seed is that the barrier was needed to be torn down to go looting. The clarification only points out why the author thought that necessary: He did not understand at all what a spirit barrier is.

So the point is that this whole thing really feels wrong, and that putting a "rumor" label on the necro-stuff would really have helped.

Really? It's not hard to put "spirit barrier shadowrun" into Google. It will tell you what this is. It's not hard to look up how ghosts work in SR4, nevermind SR3.

Again, "overall impression" and "feels wrong" and stuff, I'm cool with. I'm not crazy about it either, myself. I've studied and written enough about the SS, and seen what responses the topic can get even at formal academic conferences, that I'm aware of just what thin ice the subject innately is, and how delicately it should be handled.

I just hate to see a book criticism (or even a sub-chapter of a sub-chapter of a book criticism) turn into personal insults, implications of Nazi sympathizing (which, yes, this thread has had!), and that sort of thing, especially when what he wrote isn't that far off from what's been canon since SoE. It already had angry ghosts, specters, yadda yadda yadda, terrorizing the countryside, so when some of the initial posts were implying that this writer (not whoever handled the section in SoE) was being disrespectful to Holocaust victims, I guess it rubbed me the wrong way.

Anyways, really tired. Sleepy time.

iirc, ghosts have been in SR nearly forever. Grimoire talked about ghosts of various kinds. And that academia could not make up their mind about them being the actual astral remains of someone dead, or just a spirit that is pulling a impressive con job.

In previous editions, the "it's really the dead" theory for ghosts and ancestor spirits was favored/hinted.

If you write Auschwitz as a pop a dead jew, steal his treasure kind of adventure place, it's bound to happen. Can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen, and all that. Also, droning on over fútbol and brown people being weird for loving it sure didn't help.


To explain: Angry dead jews who mourn and/or hate the livings' guts are okay. It's plausible they're angry and it doesn't degrade the real victims to say they probably are very angry (who wouldn't be). Making an adventure park where you loot treasure of said dead jews and pop them with rifles and labeling it a FUN ADVENTURE in a light hearted way, on the other hand, gives off a different vibe.

Maybe it was unintentional. But it happened.


True, but even then they're still neither hungry nor turning Auschwitz into some sort of Indiana Jones meets Plants vs. Zombies. And solving that in lieu of actual souls breaks a core convention of Shadowrun, on the side.

Really? Cybermancy is all about that.

It's more about holistic patterns and keeping things together despite everything, at least it can easily be interpreted that way. Cybermancy never said tanything about souls. Not in a definite section, at least.

No, it just calls it "spirit" in game information: "Combining dangerous metamagical techniques and all the resources of modern medicine, cybermancy creates a cyberzombie, an individual whose departing spirit has been magically forced to inhabit its own body. Though the spirit and the body know they should be dead, the magic and technology used to bind them together sustain both in indefinite unlife."

Good thing it's not called "soul".

So much would have been different, if a mage could have simply gone and said:"i summon his soul and tell him to tell me his secrets and who killed him"

Hey, Psychometry is cooler anyway.

There was a example in some book, where a PI got contacted by a ghost that was able to point out evidence that got the killer convicted.

Spirit still is no immortal soul (as the dying's spirit by conventional belief and suggested outgame handling dissolve).


Still nothing like dumb&dumber's call the dead to ask them shit magic. Ah, SRD20, it finally sees the light.

Next in line: Teleportation. Because the nWoD fallout and the guy Hardy found on the street are incapable of research. Probably a teleporting island full of zombie ninja jews.

Ghost may not be hungry, but they still are extremely malevolent spirits that hate metahumans and like nothing more then killing them(according to Running Wild), so i don't really see the use of phrase "hungry death" as inapproriate.

Just it's misleading, obviously.

meh.

And even if you gloss over all the canonic inconsistencies in that paragraph (or the entire book for that matter), it STILL does not redeem the fact that it is written shabbily and incoherently, makes no sense and misses the entire point it wants to make by a large margin because it has neither direction nor consistency.

I had a player that would have loved the Zombie Jews thing. We kicked him out of the group after 1 session. Weird thing is that he was Korean so we weren't sure where the hell the Nazi fetish was coming from.

First of all, it turned an Astral Barrier into an impenetrable magic dome straight from your favourity fantasy cliche. Even if the backstory got changed to incorporate the Silvestrines pimping their barrier, the question would be how they did it. The knowledge to turn a place into a proto-Caer is not exactly commonplace, and I doubt the Tir Elves are trading.


So this sounds like an in-character rumor section to you?
As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and suffers a –4 dice pool modifierer to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only suffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥
(The weapon in question is the favourite scalpel of Eduard Wirths, the runner's Arbeit which Macht Frei is to recover it)


Spirits which are called "ghosts" have been around since some time. However, in tune with the "belief makes reality" approach towards magical traditions, the exact nature of these entities has always been left open to the beliefs of the player/character. They may be the actual spirits of the dead, or they may be malicious impositors, or even just believe that they are the "rebirth" of a certain person (just like some IRL people do). Establishing ghosts, and pre-awakeing one to boot, throws all of these conventions overboard. And it brings a jackload of unfortunate consequences - just imagine what would happen if the ghost of a dead corpsec could get back to point the finger at you.

Additional stuff which does not fit
- The idea of Auschwitz as a "treasure trove" with its "necromatic artifacts". Shadowrun is not your "magic items everywhere" universe. Foci do not pop into existence jsut from being exposed to magic, complete with attunement to the place's background count. They do not take a life of their own. They DO become dual-natured, which the blade in question is not - rules-wise the mysterious magic blade is an ordinary knife with upped stats, not a weapon focus
- - Now let us suppose such an item, which violates everything known about enchanting so far, did indeed exist in the universe. Every corp and research group even remotely involved with magic would pay millions to get a look at it, not a puny 10k.
- Weapons which take down ghosts. Again, this sounds like the magic Sword of Doom +5, not like Shadowrun.
- The "cabal of wizards" thing. Sure, there are magic groups, but it just sounds...I guess I'm repeating myself

... like bad writing, no matter how you try to look at it, or try to sell and reinterpret it?

Using Auschwitz is really, really bad taste.

Sure, it makes sense when discussing the concept of Background Count to reference obvious atrocity sites as an example. Of course Auschwitz would have nasty background count.

Well, that is supposing you can imprint on the astral plane while the mana levels are down. That's a big if.

But an adventure centered around grave-robbing magical items in Auschwitz? That's very very bad. Auschwitz likely wouldn't have powerful magical treasures anyway; no magic was used there. You'd be better off looking through the remains of a magic-related atrocity. Maybe something in Yucatan or in the Chinese successor states.

That would also fit better with the Shadowrun style of disguising these ethnic conflicts. Shadowrunfeatures almost no latino-negro-whitey racism at all. Instead there are orks, trolls, conspiratorial elf-states and so forth. An adventure like this should have been set in one of the concentration camps intended to kill the Native Americans during the SAIM period.

So i guess you havent read the rules for creating unigue enchaments(Digital crimoire page 8 )

That actually makes a lot of sense then. The Nazi thing isn't as strong a taboo in the East, I think.

Any word on errata for HeeVeeBar yet?

So... How are those Edits for "War! V1.1" going, CGL Reps?

Have you read that section? It can make an item similar to what is described, but in function only. You need to specifically make a formula for it and basically perform a quest to get the chance to make one. This is an artifact that was just a common medical implement from a down cycle that became magical purely from it's own history. That's Earthdawn shit right there. And the lack of understanding goes back to show the writers lack of research; and developments lack of care, understanding or support of their own staff.

The worst bit? The last few pages have just been putting the microscope on one turd in the sewer.

Uhm, unique enchantments are exactly the opposite direction of foci coming into existence spontanueously. A unique enchantment basically is a storytelling opportunity, requiring mystic shenanigans with an epic feel to them and the aquisition of ingredient in obscure locations. Oh, and they still are dual-natured, not simply knives with upped stats

Sure, you could go the "Nazi mysticism" angle and proclaim that all the experimentation in fact were sophisticated magic rituals. Because let's face it, there's something inherently cool about Wolfenstein-ish Nazi occultism. That would solve some of the mechanic problems, but only aggrevate the other ones:
1.) Massive Nazi magic has never been part of the setting. And given the effects of magic involving killing people (hello Ghost Dance) you'd think somebody should have noticed.
2.) A pre-awakening artifact, from a tradition which is probably beyond toxic on the threat scale. That's some epic item you'd expect to see at the end of the DotA series, complete with an impossible choice who should get it. Not some trivia picked up in a one-shot and then pawned for 10.000.