As long as it's real fiction and not enhanced fiction...


Hmm, that's quite a bit of fiction

Well, there's another bit of enhanced fiction in the pipeline. This one is looking like around 9,000 words of fiction (longer than the fiction part of "The Infected" in Running Wild) with some NPCs and miscellaneous gear.

Provided I finish it on time, it should see the light of day in January.

EDIT: Sorry, since I've got a story coming out in the enhanced fiction line, I was kinda honor-bound to jump in and defend said line.

To clarify, "enhanced fiction" which is not just a standard adventure with two pages of intro fiction is also fine with me

Dragons on Venus! (I know it's in there. Jason promised me it was. ... Though, now that I think about it, he was crossing an awful lot of his fingers at the time.... hmmm)

So do I, but then I'm biased. @=)

I still want novels again. *Pouts* I misses them. They brought me into this world...

"And they can take you out of it!"

Been wanting to play since 1991, have over ten thousand posts on this forum alone, working on various pieces of fanfic...

It would take some serious screwing up to get me out of Shadowrun at this point.

I know the feeling. When it first came out, I wrote about twenty pages of additional stuff for the game. Now, I'm taking the High Magic outline and filling it out. I've been tempted to post some of it here, to see what people think of it, but I don't know if that would be appropriate.

A Game Information section/ chapter would have been extremely helpful.

It's my understanding that 99 Bottles was basically a freak accident. It started as something entirely different, but grew into something that was -- while a solid product, by most accounts -- not exactly what the enhanced fiction line was intended to be. From all that I've heard, future enhanced fiction products will be...well...more fiction-y.

Certainly hope so. I still have the Dime Novels from the Deadlands series in mind when I hear "Enhanced Fiction" for some reason...

For what it's worth, Jason has dropped hints a few places that there's other fiction in the works. I won't say more than that, but it's been mentioned in a couple posts of his lately.

Does anyone know when this comes out in Dead Tree Format?

I don't have a street date yet. I'd anticipate it in January, possibly February if things go a little slower.

Jason H.

Awww. . . I wanted it for Christmas. Oh well, I guess I'll wait.

'Tis a hard season to publish for. Too many people screaming for production of everything.

True, true. But a gamer can dream

Gamers, Dreamers, and Redneck Ninjas should never combine together... I found that out the hard way back home.

This is my next campaign theme.

Prirate Ninja Drop Bears!! FTW!!

Mid-Jan is what my pre-order was updated to :/

No surprise, y'know?

The "Powers that be" chapter has many interesting ideas, but the change in the narrator's voice is irritating. It's posted by Snopes, but reads more like a collection of different people (who remain nameless).

Reading the "position statement" part of the book I don't get the feeling that the characters speaking live in the 6th world at all. Sure there's politics and whatnot, but the writer was aware that technology and magic exists to literally create memories or overwrite a person's entire personality, right? That seems like a pretty big thing when you're talking about conspiracies. Compliance is no longer an issue with the right access.

Also corporate citizenship. That's a pretty important thing to the setting. Corporations are states. Totalitarian socialist states with GNPs larger than pretty much every nation in existence.

I don't mean to sounds like another curmudgeon complaining about "good old days" and such, it's just... I don't know. I feel like the setting I know is conspicuously absent. Where's the twisted science? I just can't be bothered to care about war and politics any longer.

James Meiers loves to write about spies, spy gadgets, and politics. The rest.... not so much.

You might be surprised. He and I don't see eye to eye on political stuff by and large, and our temperments are different, but, we struck up a good conversation and are on friendly terms. If I ever get to meet him in person, I'll probably bump him up to Official Friend of Wak status. He has more areas of interest than you think. Keep in mind, he can't post to Dumpshock, so it's a tad unfair to tweak him when he can't defend himself. The official forums, he has posting access at, or you coul dtoss him a private message, or even an email. He's a big boy, he can take criticism. (Me? I'll blubber like a baby when the first hate mail hits, and I know it will.)

Me?

All that spy stuff leaves me cold, and gadgets are *neat*, but they have a different use in my head than in most. That is to say, in a story, I need a person to go from here to there, where 'there' is something secure that no one should enter. The gadgets exist as a narrative tool to do so, in many ways no different than a magic key, a note that can only be sung by perfect pitch, or knowing that a penitent man should kneel. If I have a groovy passcode thing, it's only there so I can have a character use a groovy passcode BREAKER to get past it. Real spy stuff these days approaches friggin magic as it is ... I don't even try to predict sixty years of technology down the road, but I know that the human side of things will still be the weakness.

(Seriously, for decades now, we can take paper that's been burned in a fire, reconstitute it, then read the writing that was on it. That's just INSANE.)

Politics, I'll talk your ear off, but not here, obviously. Dumpshock is an apolitical place, and much like the Dixie Chicks or Ted Nuget are more interested in your liking their music than their political beliefs, so to would i prefer someone judge my writing based of, you know, my *writing*, not on the letter that follows my name.

But, at this point, we're way off topic. Conpiracy Theories! Not too far off from going to a print copy, which is when I'll be picking it up. I've gotten to look through a PDF version, and it's pretty keen. Not the book I would expect in some places, but in other places it *is* what I'd expect, and that's a good thing. I wouldn't be surprised to see a follow-up down the line, should there be a good feedback on it from the playerbase.

I definitely feel you on the gadgets. Pre-emptively buying hyper-specialized gear is basically a waste of money.

As to some followup stuff, plot hooks plot hooks plot hooks. Pay data about potential black ops projects. Rumors about rogue opeations and missing scientists. Hints at some sort of web of developments that will later on blow up into the next major crisis.

I suppose the stuff about Great Dragons trying to corner the market on gene research is a good start for that. Dragons making a new servant race to replace (meta)humanity? Pretty cool stuff.

I guess I'm on the other side of the fence. I like seeing gadgets and other things which could be used for specific missions. I have a black ops character, so this kind of thing's very important. If he's given a mission, he tends to case the place, get a profile on what he needs to do, and then picks up the gadgets he's going to need for the mission. Since he prefers ghost missions (in and out with nobody the wiser), anything which would aid him in finessing his operation is considered a bonus. He considers a mission blown if anyone even thinks something's happened until long after he's gone.

And unfortunately, those politics absolutely have to mirror current hot issues in RL politics...sure, Shadowrun always touched upon political topics (just read the history of the Nexus in the old Denver book), but somehow I get the impression that it's being overdone in CT...

Well to be fair it is a role playing game about elves, dragons and cybernetically enhanced people. I have my copy of CI, but I haven't read it-it seems impossible for me to read PDF's. I try, I really do.

Yeah, he's taking too much modern-day stuff and politics and simply adds them into the SR setting, ignoring new possibilities offered by very advanced technology and magic (of course). Added to that is his preference of acronyms, what made parts of Spy Games read like a handbook for today's spies and tech-nerds, but didn't bring across enough SR flair. If Spy Games would have been released as part of the Bourne books, it would blend in seamlessly. Same for his DC-write-up and some of the conspiracy theories. To make matters worse, no editor seemed to notice that he mixed up different narrators in one chapter. It's a mess.

Having the time is nice, but there need to be situations where that isn't an option. Sometimes someone puts a bomb in your head and tells you "hook this widget into their macguffin or it's curtains. CURTAINS!"

Wasn't the hard copy supposed to be out this week?

I hope so.

Out on the 25th.

Thanks, I'll look for it.

Ive got my pre-order in at Amazon.

Ive got the PDF though. It's a good one.

Our copy came last night via Amazon.

I haven't had a ton of time to devote to it yet, but I will note the art is rather nice for the most part. I wasn't able to get through a good portion of what I did try to read because of some really serious grammatical errors... :/ I'm going to give it another shot, but I really had difficulty with the parts I flipped to. Here's hoping a second read will prove more fruitful!

There were a number of whole paragraphs which seemed redundant. I found that more problematic than the grammar. Wasted words are all the worse when something is left out.

I hope I don't give too much the impression that I disliked the book. It was what I expected, give or take, and that's not bad. It's just not exceeding expectation.

Well I got an email from Amazon today. They are NOT fullfilling my order. When I called up the girl (( Kinda pissy)) Was all like 'Hey man. Catalyst didn't send us enough, go bitch at them" I tried pointing out the fact that I'd pre-ordered the book weeks ago and they should have ordered more and the girl kept saying "Well there's nothing I can do about it now. We didn't get enough and we're not getting more"

This went on for about 10 minutes, with me pointing out the POINT of pre-orders and her going "Well there's nothing I can do about it now", and her refusing to fullfill the order through a third party. Finally I asked her "So what now? Are you just going to keep going 'Sorry sir, there's nothing I can do about it now" till I get the hint and meander off?" Her exact reply was "I'm sorry sir, there's nothing I can do aboout it now".

Not even kidding.

Still haven't gotten to crack into it yet, but I'm kinda not surprised.

The print quality isn't great. I'm kinda a paper snob, I worked in a print shop and being an artist am kind of particular, but it really feels more like a convention catalog than an RPG supplement. Our copy came with a huge crease through a good portion of it too Kind of a bummer after it was pre-ordered for months.

I did find that Troll and Toad has some copies, but not at the same price that Amazon did...

Thanks for the heads up. I'd preordered for $20 at Amazon and as a prime member had free shipping.

I can get it on Ebay if I wanna pay $35 or Amazon secondary selllers if i wanna go $40+Shipping.

Thing is I've got the PDF. I wanted the book for my collection. I'd rather not pay $40 for it.

Yep. Same. Hold out a bit, I'm sure you can snag a copy soon enough! The prices fluctuate like crazy. I saw Unwired last week for $22 when they were going for $80 at the end of December!

Did they at least give you your money back?

Yeah. She was pretty smarmy about it too. "Well SIR.... we didn't TECHNICALLY take your money.. we just put through to see that you had it and held it.... so technically you're not 'out' anything'

"I'm out the frakin' book"

"Well you can buy it elsewhere. Good luck"

You can buy a lot of things elsewhere.

Call again, demand supervisor, don't talk to Tier One. See if something else can be arranged.

If not, well, "You just encouraged me and all my family to support local businesses." They're probably a call centre not connected to Amazon.com anyhow, and that'll hit their percentages. 'Bout all you can hit with folks like that. Wish there was more.

Of course, you could keep calling whenever you have some spare time. Or feel frustrated and need to vent. That takes up their time (Which is money), gives them negative phone call results (Which is money), and stresses out employees (Which is money.).

I often tell people I'm the last person they ever want to screw around with. Most listen. The few companies that have people that don't, regret it.

You've got the paydata and a chip on your shoulder, eh?

Far more than a chip, but yes, the paydata.

The trick is to cost them more than they ever would have made off of you. Either the company themselves, or the outsourced hellhole that they use. Also, use payphones, they can't call-block those. Typically they're 800 numbers, and the malls are nicely warm/air conditioned. For those in Canada with unlimited call plans, use your cell phone until the battery runs out, dropped calls like that also look bad as there's no resolution, good or bad (Which costs call centres money.).

Not quite sure what makes them "socialist"...