Also got back the return receipt to my letter to CGL the other day. Can't tell who its signed by.

Hey RM!

Third edition ended on a more tech heavy note with the metaplot events of System Failure. Fourth edition picked it up again in Emergence with the introduction of technomancers and common-place AI, but the big reveals of that story, which should have fueled quite a bit of metaplot, were then quickly shoved to the side to replaced by a magic drug war, a search for magical MacGuffins with Immortal Elves (which was supposed to be capped with a third major Harlequin event [which the rumor mill says has been cancelled]), and a conventional war sparked by the placement of magical trees (along with other fantasy tropes, like haunted Auschwitz). Post-Emergence, the metaplot has been, for the most part, ignoring the cyber side of the SR triangle. I need to see how magic and tech mix, not one concept perpetually dominating the other in terms of story importance.

In terms of crunch, there have been new weapons, vehicles and spells introduced but little, if anything, to do with the Matrix... which always seems to get the short end of the stick in this game.

I tend not to whine about concepts I don't like in SR. Not everything is going to be to my tastes. And I'd like to think I'm pretty laid back and one of the last people who would bitch and moan about an RPG. I even like Harlequin, Dragons, Immortal Elves and other mystical plot points. But a lot of this stuff is really beginning to stick in my craw as a GM because it's limiting the story scope of the game.

I can definitely agree with you on that! I think what happened though is that there probably were plots to follow up on System Failure and Emergence (which, I'm not going to lie, I have plans for myself; yes, Digimon are involved, no, I'm not going any further than that).

But you gotta remember that the 20th Anniversary happened. That was only supposed to be a year's celebration, and then we were going to get back on track with events and such. But then, y'know, The Great Catalyst Falling Out happened, and things went awry. And since, books have been rushed to production and, well, I think everything else speaks for itself.

Still, we're trying to get the Data Haven project back up and running. You should submit some stuff for it, stuff you want to see in SR, y'know? It's what I'm doing.

Hey, why not? I've got a lot of GM aids I've been working on including random encounter tables (everyone thinks those are stupid until you're in the GM chair and you have no idea where to go with the story or the adventure needs to be padded a bit) and an Ultimate Mook List.

Do it. I think it's the best thing that any one of us with beef with CGL could do.

And now I sound like one of them grognards. Oi...

Back when I was doing Tech Support, there was a major breakdown in communications during an huge outage (An area without service.). Literally, every call I took for my whole shift was people with no service, as was the person beside me, the one beside her, and so on. I took my first break, and found it that it had been like that for two hours before I started my shift, the Liaison person was trying to get through to the Client Corporation (And this was in the days before India became the beacon of outsourcing, so I was spat on for being Canadian! Rather than praised for not having too weird an accent.) to get it declared. "I have techs calling in their own outage just to keep from being screamed at!" was the only part of the conversation that I could make out completely.

Never was declared for my entire shift. 8-hours of trying to work my way around the fact that there's a problem without actually outright saying it, because it was my job if I did. Last fifteen minutes of my shift, and almost 10-hours into a major problem, a Supervisor came around and said, "Just damn well say it. We know there's a ****in' issue and if they can't get off their ***es to fix it, it ain't our fault!"

They called us on it, tried to invoke fines, and the company I worked for buried them in paperwork proving what happened and a refusal to acknowledge the issue, and the cost in manpower that had been cost to them due to overstress.

During my bad nightmares, I go back to that shift...

The point is, if the "Big People" aren't going to do things right, it's up to the little people to do so, otherwise why the hell do we even bother?

All I can say is, yup.

Or to quote the book I was reading this afternoon:

"The most cowardly thing you can do is sneer, because to sneer is to look down on something without providing anything of merit yourself. So the best thing to do is to create something that is just as good - if not better - than the inferior thing you're looking at."

I'm just afraid as becoming as bitter and nasty as some of those folks in the D&D realm

Shadowrun is now 22 years old.

You can't satisfy the fanbase's expectations because everyone has a different opinion on what shadowrun is and should be. Furthermore SR is stuck since the beginning. There have been some touch-ups but no serious changes and there never will be since SR simply became too popular.

And yes, the most recent publications aren't good, but seriously, what else did you expect? The staff and publisher has been changed so often, it's a given. But that aside SR has always been meant to become a cash-cow, the decision to mix cyberpunk and fantasy was totally marketing-oriented. So all the whining about how SR isn't about the fans but making money is complete nonsense.

It always was about money.

I'm sure at least some of the authors and illustrators are more interested about the artistry...

And also getting paid.

By the way:

THREAD NECROMANCY DETECTED.
INITIATING CONTAINMENT PROTOCOLS.

*Calls the Ghostbusters* Damn, they say they can't get here until after their movie showing this Halloween.

Ghostbusters? Just put the resident mage on the case. Pesky shedim can't keep a old thread alone...

Call the Knight Errants anyway.

Solid product. Like Pegasus Games (the German sub-license holder) produces. Like most of the writing in Dark Heresy and it's derivates. Product that doesn't make me feel cheated. That's not that hard to do. Warhammer fans already are used to a lot ("oh, my spiritual liege!").


I LOL'd.

Seriously, you say that like there was any money in the RPG market and had ever been any. Whatever was there in the 80s migrated to consoles and PC games in the 90s and stayed there. It's a niche market's niche market, paper and pen RPGs. It's far better to appease the fans a bit and up the prices. It works well for FFG. It works well for Pegasus Games. And CGL's finances seem rather unwell last time we saw them. Hm ...

Especially considering how difficult it can be to get kids today to read...

Hell, hard enough in my day. "My book report is on Rolling Stone Magazine..." He got a B. *Shakes Head*