Hey folks:

After plenty of waiting, we have finally made it to the first stage of the Runner's Toolkit release! That stage is a little complicated, but here's the basics: Pre-orders available now, including the pre-order with the smooth-looking, limited-edition GM screen. PDF download available now, either alone or in combo with print pre-orders. And to kick things off right, there's a free PDF of the GM screen for all of you to enjoy.

The full details of the release, and what's available in each package (along with handy links to where you can buy what) is at the Shadowrun 4 website. Enjoy!

Jason H.

Hmm, the description isn't all that great. This is just a collection of random odds-and-ends for new players?

I'm not entirely new (still wet behind the ears though), but I think the package looks pretty darned good. GM's screen with up to date rules, gear book (half my time building a character is finding all the gear and mods for them, unless it's an awakened character anyway), and quick reference sheets. All seems useful to me. To be fair, our group's experience ranges from 20+ years to 3 sessions. The rest, we're kinda past On the Run, and we play in LA, not Seattle, so contacts, adventures and sprawl sites isn't particularly useful except for how it can be transferred over. Anatomy of a shadowrun will probably be a useful read for our newest member at least, if not so much to the rest of us. PACKs... well I already have AH's fan edited version, but it'll be interesting to see where the final release took it.

Overall, tied for top of my physical purchases list for SR material, only because I still haven't gotten around to picking up Arsenal (and truthfully with this, I may not have to).

but 65 Bucks
Thats pretty much ImO
Could someone "in the Know" tell me/us if the Price is OK or if its too expensive ?
(Please not someone from CGL, but a neutral Oppinion )

HokaHey
Medicienman

$65 Is for the pdf + the limited edition version of the hard copy.

Standard version hard copy alone is only $40, doesn't seem that bad to me.

Wait, I didn't even see the pricetag. Holy smokes.

I sincerely hope it includes more than what's listed on this page. I mean, even if that is all it comes with, that price is kind of ridiculous if its intended to be a starter package.

Jeez, man, we just played well into the night! Are you still up?

Oh... wait... so am I.

Well, my FLGS will be happy with me when I print this out to order it from them. I needs me a new GM Screen, and the rest seems pretty decent. Well, save for "On The Run" which I already have.

But, then again, after everything I've heard about War!...

The maps looked pretty cool back in Sept 2009 and the poster is a nice idea.
The "Anatomy of a Shadowrun" could be quite useful for new players.
I wish they replaced On The Run with a better introduction adventure, or at least fixed the big problem it has.

I don't really understand why they decided to have a LE for this: most people who'd buy LE Shadowrun products are people who probably already own previous Shadowrun products, including "On the Run" and the "Contacts, Adventures" booklet and don't need the "Anatomy of a Shadowrun".

I'd love to have the option to buy each PDF item separately for a lower price. I'm interested in the "Anatomy of a Shadowrun", "Contacts", and "PACKS" books, but I already have "On the Run", and the quick-reference sheets aren't that useful to me.

Does anyone know how similar is this "PACKS" book to the unofficial one someone published a while back?

I'm scared to see how close they are considering that the unofficial one put out was AH's and this might be effectivly a rewrite.


I really dont want to see that amount of arguring again but AH is held up very high in my regards and I wouldnt want to see him being walked on.

The "unofficial" one was the "official" one until the "CGL Crisis" last year outed Bobbie Deire. It was essentially his project then.

Like Lansdren said, just making sure people understood that.

But is this new "official" one different enough that it's worth getting? I don't really care about all the drama, I just wonder if it has gear loadouts that I can convert to GURPS relatively easily. If it's not different enough to bother with, then that just makes my wish for the ability to get the other two books individually a little stronger.

No idea if its worth it yet,

Odds are I proberbly wont get a copy for a while if at all. Due to various issues with recent releases I'm holding back until a full review is up from a load of people before I consider shelling out for it. Also being in the UK means dead tree copies are abit later for me then for my fellow runners over the pond

Is there any place I can download the PDF version without having to register in a third-party webshop first? You know, like the official site for the game?


Wow, I always thought CGL completely ignored what foreign licensees did...when in fact they do consider those additions usefull filler material which can be sold at a premium. Or is there anything more truly special about that screen, like new art, better material etc.?

Battleshop is operated by CGL, so technically it's no third-party webshop.

Technically yes. Practically Joe Average wants to download a free PDF given away by the makers of the game, but to do that he has to go to a completely different site, create an account for their online shop which he is never going to use again, and get asked about payment methods (remember, he still only wants to download a freebie) before he gets a link to download the PDF. And if his friends want to get a copy Joe can't simply give them a link, they have to jump through the same hoops or he has to send them the full file.

That is just the kind of design which makes less tech-savy people turn away from a page. Yes, those do exist among SR's target audience

Cardstock quick reference sheets. (I can finally toss out my manila folder of loose print outs?) Curious how the PACKS turned out. Are the contacts and adventure ideas new or a repeat of the old one from GM's Screen. Sprawl maps....only 4 ;(. I'll be waiting on the hard copy. While not a perfect veteran product I certainly see it having it's uses and for a GM that has had plenty of new players come and go a future purchase.

It is very different from the one AH posted.

I haven't seen the final product, but I got a few peeks at the early development of PACKS 2.0 (Malachi was the prime mover on that one), and it looked to me then that they were going a different way than I did with my version. I trust Mal to do his own original, quality work, and have no doubt that's what you'll get here.

I still have no idea why they decided to continue to call it PACKS.

Lack of imagination?

Wow, a full day and noone's bought it and read over it yet? I'm surprised and a bit dissapointed!

Name recognition?

Once the name of a product has been decided companies tend to stick with it...

If you want a better idea of what goes into the PACKS part of Runner's Toolkit, there are a couple of previews on the blog now. Enjoy!

Jason H.

Probably because word had already gotten out -- in an official announcement or otherwise -- that the Runner's Toolkit was going to have something called PACKS in it. Names build momentum.

I know, and I don't want to be a prick about it. But it was my name!

Bought the PDF. Read it. It's what was advertised so there's no surprises.

PACKS is nice. It's a different direction than what AH put together. It's the most useful piece in the package.

Anatomy of a Shadowrun is obviously geared for new GMs. If you already know the game (or even just the basics of RPGs) you won't be touching this.

The Compiled Tables are literally the tables from Arsenal, Augmentation, Street Magic, and Unwired in one package. I guess that's useful if you haven't made your own in MS Excel. Is it worth paying for? Ehh... not really.

Contacts, Adventures, Sprawl Sites is the Contacts & Adventures booklet from the old Fanpro screen plus seven pre-generated locations which include stats for security measures: a luxury hotel, a nightclub, a lorestore, a pawn shop, a street clinic, a research complex, and a warehouse. The maps are Sean Macdonald's usual quality but there needs to be more. Off the top of my head: a fast food restaurant, a Stuffer Shack/convenience store, a police station, a bank, a townhouse, a coffin hotel... all would have been very handy to have pre-generated and are a missed opportunity.

On the Run. Copy pasta of the Fanpro version. Another missed opportunity. It's not that hard to write an intro adventure. FASA did a book of them.

Cheat Sheets. Basic stuff that players get stuck on. Aaron Pavao mocked up something similar years ago when 4E was released.

The screen itself is a free download. I'd suggest printing it off and sticking the pieces in a gamescreen from hammerdog.com. That way you're not paying $40 for something that could very well be errata-ed and useless later.

My overall assessment... I miss the days of when game screens came with the game. The rest of this would have been better as individual PDF-only downloads for $5-8 each.

I think it has been updated from the original print, but not significantly.

Meaning...?


Sure, but for less experienced players/GMs...I remember quite a few threads and discussions were this link was the answer, in fact it's one of the most useful posts I've seen on DS. So there's definitely a target audience for this, although I'm wondering how many of that audience will be willing to flunk out the $40 for the full set instead of just getting the book they need. Then again, I don't know jack about selling games.


And I miss the days when PC games and handbooks the size of today's packages...

And here I was told the size of your package didn't matter.

...

OK, even then I knew she was obviously lying but still...

My system was broken down into Profiles (collections of skills, augmentations, spells, complex forms, lifestyles and gear), Kits (collections of lifestyles and gear), and Sets (collections of adept powers). Every Profile and Kit had a listed cost in BPs and , and ever Set by a given number of Power Points. Each individual entry and item in my profiles and kits was broken down by BP/ cost, so you could quickly swap out any individual item - like if you didn't care for a specific skill or piece of gear, you could subtract it out of the total. I made sure to list the limitations of the equipment and the minimum attribute and skill values and qualities you need to make it work within the character generation rules.

NuPACKS (sorry, I couldn't resist) breaks everything down into Sets: Attributes, Skills, Adept Powers, Spells, Complex Forms, and Gear. Costs are given in BP (or Power Points for the Adept Sets). Individual costs are not generally broken out, but builds have a little descriptor that describes why certain aspects were emphasized over others.

So the two are basically similar but have significantly different approaches. NuPACKS does some things PACKS Original ™ does not, like the Attribute Sets and the descriptors, which reveal the different design philosophy. I think my Profiles and Kits are much more detailed, but also much more idiosyncratic; NuPACKS is probably more appealing to new players that aren't very familiar with the ruleset. Both are equally plug-and-play, at least as far as I can judge, and I haven't stopped in to see if they made specific reference to rules, gear, and options beyond the main rulebook, or if they were called out like in mine. All told I believe - haven't counted - that NuPACKS offers more Kits overall than I do Profiles, Kits, and Sets. NuPACKS definitely appears to be a much more modular system, since they didn't tie equipment, attribute, spells, complex forms, lifestyles, etc. together like I did.

As an example of the NuPACKS design philosophy (taken from the first preview), the Attribute Sets in NuPACKS are all around 200 BP - the normal maximum number of BP characters can spend in a 400 BP chargen game - but with little to no softmaxing apparent. Options for different Awakened/Technomancer qualities aren't explicitly given, but the BP cost is noted so characters that know about such options should have no difficulty swapping them out if they choose to do so.

Yes, but does it work with NERPS™?

Does it come as one continuring PDF or a group of like 5 separate PDFs?

It comes in 6 separate PDFs.

I'd like to have the maps from "Contacts Adventures Sprawl Sites" in full color, full size PDF, like in Ghost Cartels or the first Dawn Of The Artifacts books.

Yeah, it's six separate PDFs but for some reason the actual screen wasn't included in the $20 download. The screen is a free download at a separate link. But should I have to click two links and go through two download processes just to get what I paid for? That's bad form from a site usability stand-point. I expect a little better from a publisher.



The previews I saw way back when on the old freelancer board were in black and white. So I don't think they were ever created in color but I could be wrong. I don't know if SMC is still freelancing for CGL or not.

So basically, smaller "building blocks" but the subcomponents of these blocks are less easy to swap out?


Speaking of components, a (haptically) solid big book of tables instead of the usual binder of printouts is certainly something I'd buy if it got better proofreading than CGL's recent products, too bad one can only buy the full pack...I know, selling small books in small quantities results in disproportionate costs...

Yes, there are only rules for changing attribute values. In the gear section, the prices for the items are given. So it takes more work if you want to adjust the Kits than in AHs version.

Just a quickie: what's the screen like? I already have the original 4th ed, the one with the misprint in the Social section where they let "Con" autocomplete/ spellcheck itself to Constitution. Is it good? Well laid out? Filled with commonly useful information?

That summary is very accurate AH. Indeed your Kits were more detailed, and "idiosyncratic" is a great word for them. The focus of the "NuPACKS" system was indeed to speed up character creation with a focus on people new to Shadowrun - the assumption being that veteran SR players will want to do the "full" character build and customize their characters anyway.

Also could be good for when you have a character made "Unavailable" during a game and need a new one quickly made to get back in rather than watch everyone else...

*Headdesk* The sheer number of times...

Oh, I also forgot to add: Yes, some of the Kits do use things (Spells, Adept Powers, Equipment, Qualities) that are outside of the basic SR4A rulebook. Whenever a kit includes such rules, it is marked with an asterisk and a brief summary of the new "thing" is included in the text of the Kit.

It's a bit of a mess. You can download it for free from DriveThroughRPG and judge for yourself. The art is great, really like the blue, but the layout inside is painful.

Wesley has the right idea about building your own alternative, and CGL has given you some really great art to start with.

Well, I got Cardstock, and the colour inkjet just got out of the basement... If I could get some PDFs of a decent GM screen for the other side, I'd have the best of both worlds...

I bought the landscape TWGS and I'm planning on combing the books for useful tables. Between the software at work and that color laser we're getting soon I should have the screen I always wanted soon. Does suck that this will be the first Shadowrun GM screen I won't own though.

Ok.. for those that have bought it.. the real question...

If I have AH's PACKS

Do I need the Runner's toolkit?

Any version of PACKS is by definition non-essential. Both work. Take yer pick.

I dunno. Was PACKS the only thing in the toolkit you were interested in?

I like the new GM screen, and don't have the chance to get the other options given...

Also, there's "On The Run" if you don't have it (Good adventure).

If you lack the 4E GM screen, the contacts book that went with it (And I hope is in the box) is very useful.

The maps might come as useful, as Sprawl Sites is so hard to find now. (Hey, any word on if that'll get a PDF?). Sprawl Sites may be out of date for the Matrix stuff, but buildings don't change THAT much.

I'll have to wait and see on the rest. Got it on Pre-Order at my FLGS.

Yeah the GM screen was released as a free Down load so I have that

On the Run I already had.

Sprawl Sites I have.

And I've got AH's PACKS.

The contacts books is interesting but I"m just not sure if I wanna shell out $25 for it. It sounds interesting, but sort of like a collection of stuff that I might mostly have.