I'm not certain where the confusion about Elven Blood came from. It's been a Missions project from day one.

It has a little information, but most of the stats and stuff are also in Land of Promise.

YEAAAHHHHSH!!! I bought it last night, but a review will hav to wait till I either read it, or played it. Currently looking to get someone to run it for me.


They won't have these glasses unless they are Special Forces or Tir cops, again going by the templates. And even then; while blacklight lamps are readily avilable, real-life gang criminals use UV tattoos frequently enough that Canada's Border Guards feel the need to adress this in this catalogue of gang tattoos. Sure, cops will try and adapt, in both scenarios, but they face ever constraining budgetary limits, usually good for little more than keeping things running along. I can't see how this is not going to worsen if you run the police on shareholder vaue principles.

Ugh, horribly taken pics, re-sized badly, and I'm willing to bed that they screwed up at least half the meanings.

On the flipside, I got to enjoy some Tattoos that wasn't Flash #48 out of Book #2.

It's like you people know when I get paid. Wellsir, let's play the wait-till-I-get-home-and-run-to-my-computer-and-chew-through-the-latest-pdf game.

I don't suppose you guys upped the release for EuroWar Antiques as well?...

That one, I've got nothin' to do with, sorry.

Rating 1 Glasses 25¥, Thermographic vision enhancement +100¥, 125¥ total. Hardly unaffordable. A cop could very well buy those on his own dime. RL police officers aren't the best-paid profession either, yet often buy additional equipment out of their own pocket that helps them get through the night a bit safer.

And you can only reduce expenses up to a certain point until it starts to seriously affect your ability to perform the mission. Because then you'll lose more in profits than what you save in expenses.

I'm assuming that you're referring to the sample "grunts" in the main book, when you talk about templates? IMHO you're misunderstanding the purpose of those. I'd contend they are there to simply provide the GM with basic game stats for when he needs some opposition quickly but doesn't have any NPCs prepared, not to give an exhaustive writeup of those NPC types. There's a lot of stuff that gangers, cops, etc might plausibly have that's simply omitted from the templates to save space. Notice that none of the templates mention any ammo in the gear section? So by your line of reasoning corpsec squads, Lone Star patrols and Red Samurai troops get sent out to do their job with empty guns because the template doesn't say otherwise. Must be those budgetary constraints...

Would, Could, Should. Point is, the templates don't show them to. Most people could also easily finance an all-5 commlink, but apparently they don't.


1. Yes, I am thinking of these, and similar writeups in more recent books. Because those stats are meant to illustrate what people of different persuasions - enemies of different power levels - have access to. Cutting-edge smartglasses seem out of reach for most cops. There's got to be an in-world reason for this, as much as there has to be one for everybody having crapsack comlinks.
2. Ammo is the least important gear for NPC. Really. In a shootout they'll barely get off one to two round, if that. Unless we're talking about special ammo, it's best just not written in and wasted word count on.

But I guess we better agree to disagree.

I guess by "people", you mean shadowrunner with assets value between 50,000 and 250,000¥ ? Because otherwise, I don't see that many people walking around with a smartphone that would cost the price of a small car, or two-month of the national average income.

Pretty sure that is what Hermit Meant...

-- Well, cost-effective gear packages for military/paramilitary NPCs was mulled over a long time ago. The problem being that this doesn't necessarily make the NPC as good as he should be "on paper" since it adds an additional layer of complexity for the GM with regards to tracking down rules references and effects (and Shadowrun has material spread over a lot of books even in 4e). Maybe this could be solved with a better short-form summary or going purely 'effect based' like the D&D 4e monsters? Also, you have to remember that some of the 3e material was written as a reaction to the "so badass we don't even give them stats, you just DIE" stuff from 1st and 2nd edition when it came to anything with the barest whiff of "military" on it and that toned-down assumption appears to have carried over. Maybe next edition will see every UCAS trooper running around with exoskeletons and drone packs?

One of my biggest complaints with the Corebook is that the provided NPC statblocks are worth bunk. They aren't useful, they require looking up rules, and, let's be honest, don't stand up well against optimized players (which I'm thankfully not "blessed" with).

I realize that it's quick mental math to figure out dicepools, but they should already be in there. I shouldn't have to look up armor and damage for weapons. There should be more than one adept, one mage, and one decker (at Professional Rating 2, I think it was?) archetype. All of this adds up to me either having to bog down a game by checking page after page, or write down the statblocks the way I need them to be when I play (which I've done).

Personally? There should be more NPC stats in there in general, and that includes contacts. Contacts and NPCs are the lifeblood of Shadowrun, as much as figuring out how much to pay players and how to set up runs is. Shadowrun is an amazing game, but it needs to be more useful to GMs in general.

ETA:


I realize most of the folks around here would burn me for heresy for saying this, but this would actually be really useful. But I realize that the Shadowrun community is built more towards the 3.5 crowd than the storygaming crowd, and such effect based (instead of mechanic based) statblocks would probably really bother folks.

Hey, that would work for me, but it would likely drive up the prices of the physical books a bit (more word count results in more page count). Should not have too much of an impact on PDF's, though. *shrug*

Can you discuss the pro and cons of different statblock desings in a new thread?

I was talking possible, not feasible.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not every piece of gear is owned by and carried by cops at all time. An average beat cop isn't going to need thermographic vision... But if they're being sent into the barrens, they might be issued goggles by their precinct.

That said, I know I never use "straight" NPC blocks from SR4A for Missions. I rarely even reference them anymore, because much like the Sample Archetypes from the book, they were designed for a game style and power level that no one actually plays at. So I write NPCs with real characters in mind (Especially some of the min-maxed monsters that show up regularly in Missions games at Conventions).

Bull

Buying 125¥ glasses is both possible and feasible, buying an all-around R5 commlink is not.

We've discussed this at length, so please return to the original topic of this thread.

BURN THE DAMNED PAPERCLIP BOOK!!! (There, on topic. )

[insert a Grimmy the Grimoire "Haters Gonna Hate" image here]

Woohoo, Elven Blood just got a pretty glowing, five-star, review from a kind of big-name geek critic. He's got it posted over at drivethrurpg among other places, and any review that ends with "It’s one of the best adventure collections I’ve read this year, and arguably the best Shadowrun release of 2012 to boot" just has me on cloud nine after a long day. It was a nice surprise when a buddy (who helped playtest them) emailed me about it.

So, hey! Tir Tairngire fans! Make sure you've got Elven Blood, sister product to Land of Promise!

Sorry to steal your thunder, but diehardgamefan are the guys (well, actually it seems to be a single reviewer all the time) who gave Shadowrun the "Best RPG" award in its very real Year of Chaos because every single product that year was great. So as flattering as a review by them might be, I'd suggest against being too vocal about it

Just to be clear, I'm not saying the 5/5 is not warranted...they might have had their stopped clock moment, after all (no time to find out yet). But reviews from this source have repeatedly been so far off the general consensus that I consider them far beyond unreliable.

Go read their review of Romero & Juliette and tell me they're always glowing and full of praise. Yeah, this guy liked most of Shadowrun's 2011 releases (which were hardly the apocalyptic year you may like to pretend, thanks), but he's also given out his fair share of three-star or worse. Considering how thoroughly they gutted a product released literally the same day as Elven Blood, I think it's fair to say they're not just handing out cookies and pony rides to every SR product that crosses their e-desk. So I'm still gonna feel good about the review I got, thanks, and maybe even brag about it to my online friends a little bit.

In all seriousness, though, I largely like their review because they're able to give out more details and that sort of thing. As written, the review gives potential GMs an idea of what to expect from each of the individual adventures, and whenever I can let would-be buyers read that sort of thing, I like to give 'em that chance. Hearing the general themes of each adventure (from someone besides me) is something I like to encourage. I don't get royalties for this sort of thing, I'm not sharing this link for any reason other than because I'm glad people seem to like the book. I just want the adventures to run wild and free and onto game tables all over the place, because folks have fun playing them, and because "helping people have fun" is the whole reason I took this gig.

In verbatim:
With 2011 coming to an end though, there was one franchise that stood head and shoulders above everything else. It released a slew of products in 2011 and all of them ranged from “not very newcomer friendly, but still well done” to “Holy crap, I can’t believe I’m getting this level of quality for this little Nuyen!” That game…was Shadowrun.

After such a colossal amount of sheer facepalm it doesn't matter whether Mr Lucard gives something 1/5 or 5/5, his judgment can't be trusted either way.

I very personally know staff at Diehard GameFAN. I'll vouch for their validity (and lucidity) all day and night.

I have no general opinion on them, but the quoted bit does sound horrendously nonobjective (and very far from what I think to be true, too).

PoTAYto, PoTAHto

I say congratulations Critias...

FWIW, he gave Another Rainy Night a nice review that still, IMO, called into question some of the shortcomings, real and perceived, of the product, so I don't have a problem with his objectivity. Mine might be questionable, in this case, but I don't think Alex's is.

Gotta love it.

That'll teach me to think I can just wander the internet, being excited about getting a good review.

Pah. Minding how every flaw real or perceived is met with massive bitching around here, and the general lack of it when it comes to The Land of Promise, I'd say it's obvious already it's a good book :ь

FWIW, the review got me to poke a GM to run this for me and my guys. A lot. Because it sounds great, and because I actually liked the way Land of Promise dealt with the Tir mess. Since this is by the same author, written in the same vein, I guess it'll be rather good, too. *shrugs* ymmv.

It's appreciated.

I almost said "It's appreciated, herm," as like a shorthand "I'll use just the first syllable of your name to be casual and friendly" thing, but then it occurred to me I was calling you a hermaphrodite. That seemed likely to bleed away any lingering goodwill about the quality of the product(s) in question.

*laughs* Well, it's appreciated anyway. ^^ Can you lobby for a more detailed writeup of Portland though? The Tir Taingire book one is a bit old.

Portland 2074?

Well, I'd be happy if it's a 20 pager in an upcoming themed book.

Here's my review:

I didn't feel like punching kittens when I finished reading the book. That's actually high praise considering my reactions to Clutch of Dragons and Shadowrun 2050. This is the first Shadowrun book I've read in a while that doesn't feel like it was rushed or under-researched. What was stated in the books makes logical sense based on the progression of the timeline with only a couple of exceptions (namely the members of the Council of Princes who managed to stay on board post-coup). It felt too short though, and I really would've liked more information on what the hell actually happened during the coup, how the government's changed in functionality, and why they kept all the former Tir Tairngire trappings in a representative republic. I'd also really would've liked to have known what the former Princes are doing now that they've been deposed since there's absolutely no way they could be happy about that. And considering we're talking about a handful of IEs that survived the Horrors and ruled kingdoms in the Fourth World, those are some people you want to keep happy.

Now granted, that would be horribly out of the scope of what this book is trying to do - update Tir Tairngire to the mid 2070s and bring back some of the fun of the country from previous editions without going all the way back to the borderline Mary Sue levels it was presented at in 2054 (and frankly, I find Manhattan more imposing in 4A than I did Tir Tairngire in 1st-3rd). Going into that much detail would've doubled or tripled the page count and probably pushed this product into the levels of "quality" from the books I mentioned before that got me foaming-at-the-mouth angry. There's no way CGL would've scheduled enough time or assigned enough writers to do it properly.

So for what it is - just an update showing the country as it currently is - it's actually a good product. It's not what I wanted and it's not that useful to me as a player (since I'm running a 3rd Ed game set in 2055), but it's definitely far better than any of the products I've seen recently from CGL.

Thanks! Considering the source, I'm counting that whole thing as high praise.

And if it helps any on the size front, the book wasn't a big product that was cut down, it was "we need some Tir intro info for Elven Blood" that kept growing until it turned into a separate product. I wanted to cram as much information in as I could, make the setting as playable as I could, and I still kind of wanted it to fly under the radar so that I could -- selfishly, I guess? -- maintain major control over it, so that it could stay very similar in feel to Elven Blood, and so I had to justify and argue and negotiate as little as possible (with a co-author or something). I was very carefully shooting for As Big A Product As They'll Let Me Still Keeping It A Solo Product ™, not because I hate working with other people, but because I felt like keeping it a one-man gig would be the best way to keep it focused and get it kicked out the door and into players' hands as soon as possible.

FWIW, those were outta my hands. They'd been posted as still being around in previous publications, so I didn't quite have free reign to completely stock up a new Council -- I had to build one around Zincan and Rex.

You should. I haven't liked a single product coming out of CGL in quite a while (Sixth World Almanac is the most recent product I've had positive thoughts about). Considering my main complaint is that it's not long enough, that should be considered incredibly high praise indeed.

Haven't read Land of Promise yet, But I love Elven Blood and lost the thread for it. I figure I'll say that here instead.

Thread for Elven Blood is over in Missions discussion.

Yeah, but it never really took off, and this puppy's got 100+ replies, so...meh. Either way, really. And the comment's much appreciated, ggodo! I'm glad EB was a good buy for ya!

Have you read Clutch yet, Abstruse? I was in the same boat as you until I read that.

Friend has the PDF, I started reading it, got maybe four or five pages in and I had to stop or I would've gone into full rant mode. The one that ruined it for me was a random Jackpointer talking about Lofwyr being Loremaster as though that's common knowledge. As far as I know, that's not something that was talked about in Dragons of the Sixth World very much and what it specifically is was only mentioned in Survival of the Fittest. So there's NO reason for anyone to know.

The books has some lows (the mentioned Loremaster-problem; the entry about Harlequin), but most of it is well-written, good stuff.

Definitely. Read Perianwyr's chapter, and Damon's. Those are really the chapters that got me excited to read further into the book.

I didn't say they were crooked or stoned, just far off the general perception of quality. And reading the review of Romero and Juliette (without heaving read the book) did little to change that, the reviewer seems to lump Infected, Shedim, and the average Romero zombie together...

I would probably avoid those two's chapters like the plague. I've actually got a storyline involving both of them I've been fiddling with for about 7 years now, sort of a Harlequin-style super-adventure. Anything I read won't be nearly as awesome as the story I've got going in my head.

Won't know until you try.