Bought my girlfriend and myself a tablet. So finally going to get some PDFs. Quite honestly, it's the major use I envision for myself.

I love roleplaying. My group tends to tell me I probably actually *roleplay* the most out of the group, and I take that as a very nice compliment. Which product out there will help me enrich my knowledge of Shadowrun and give me ideas and help add color to the game? Outside of the last couple of years batch of Non-Runner books (Spygames wargames corporate spywargames spacegames, etc) I own all the rulebooks, as well as vice, the Seattle book, and running wild.

So yeah. Looking for the best fluff book. Barring that, a batch of smaller supplements with a total price of around 30 smackers.

For what it's worth, I'm roughly fifty pages into the Shadowrun 2050 PDF and I've really been enjoying it. I'm definitely picking it up next week when it releases in dead-tree format. If you're thinking about maybe some older background stuff the SR3 Shadows Of (North America, Europe, Asia) books are great. Hell, most of the older sourcebooks from every edition are worth their weight in fluff. Really depends on what you're looking for, I guess.

I think the Sixth World Almanac is pretty good for a 20,000 ft view of things personally. The Corporate Guide seems pretty decent as well. Spy games has a lot of cool toys, but I haven't got around to much of the fluff yet so no comment there. I really like Vice but it sounds like you've already got it.

Best fluff books IMO came out of the FASA years. Cybertechnology, Renraku Arcology Shutdown, Tir Tairngire, Aztlan, Bug City, Universal Brotherhood, Prime Runners, Threats 1 & 2, Awakenings...that's just what I can read from my bookshelf right now and in the order I noticed the books. I know at least some of them are available as PDFs and if one you're interested in is not, you can get them on Amazon Marketplace used fairly cheaply.


If you're a decker, I cannot recommend Target: Matrix highly enough. If you're a street sam, Cybertechnology will give you ideas to add a lot of depth to your character. Awakenings is a great read for the magically active. And Sprawl Survival Guide is good no matter what kind of character you play. Sure, the rules are going to be useless if you're playing 4th Ed (or even 3rd Ed for some of the books), but the fluff is flat out worth it.

The Corporate Guide is great for high-level reading to get inspiration for something, as a GM, but it's not really a reference book for at-the-table use. More like a book for in-the-bathtub reading.

Attitude isn't worth it then?

I love Attitude and it's constantly mentioned as a "must purchase" on the "other" forum. If you want info directly useful to a general denizen of the 6th World, I'd recommend it, or maybe the old Sprawl Survival Guide, which covers similar ground.

I actually just wanted to recommend Attitude.

It is really quite nice and adds a lot of flavor to the world outside of the typical bigger guns and stuff. It's about music and fashion and sports and such.

Bye
Thanee

Each of the books mentioned go different directions and have a different focus. As it sounds like you are building up your library, are you looking for books themed around your character(s) & their locals or more of an eclectic 'best reads' collection?

I would Highly Recommend Attitude myself. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Has a wealth of information, in my opinion.

I hope you were smarter than I ws, and got an actual Tablet, and not an e-Reader. Minimum screen size to enjoyable view a PDF, IMO, is 11" n the diagonal. Which means even Amazon's newest Kindle HD, the larger one with an 8.9" screen, doesn't quite cut it.


Attitude.

It's the Shadowbeat of SR4.

After that, Spy Games is pretty good for adding some good "do-it-with-STYLE" flair to a black-trenchcoat game.

I also hope you were smarter than myself and didn't get the Coby tablet I got on sale at Fry's for $80. For its price it was good, and my wife and son enjoy it, but it can't load PDFs very well so my original intent for using it to replace my hardcopies for games didn't quite pan out.

Not to add to the derailment, but I've been right on the edge of pulling the trigger on an Asus 700tf w/ the keyboard dock/battery for ~2 months for much the same reasons (it's a lot less to lug around than a collection of hardcover books/binders and/or my big ass Elitebook).

One of the major things holding me back is the impending release of Windows 8 Surface Pro models (probably be more into an Asus branded equivalent than the initial Microsoft models). Being able to run apps using Silverlight/.Net/etc would be a huge plus. Unfortunately the current pricing estimate are putting these around $1K.

What to do, what to do...

I got a second-hand iPad (1st Gen) about a year ago and it works really well as a virtual library for me. The Goodreader app works well and makes browsing and annotating pdfs very easy. I also use a great note-taking app called Note Taker HD for all of my character sheets these days - really good.

I wouldn't have paid full price for a new iPad though - too pricey.

Try other viewers.

My NookCOLOR couldn't open Catalyst PDFs for sh!t, but the free "ezPDF" app on the (limited) B&N app store handles them fine - and with better UI.

I've had Attitude for awhile, but haven't gotten around reading it until recently, thanks in part to the recommendations in this thread. While I haven't finished it yet, I'm loving it. It really does feel like a combination of Shadowbeat and Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book. I think the book gives you a lot of interesting info to call upon for a character's background knowledge skills. I absolutely loved the entire Street Life chapter. Getting to read that brilliant piece of prose was worth the price of admission alone! My only complaints are that the sports section is completely American-centric and that nowhere in the book does Toronto, Ontario appear, even though both Shadows Of North America and Sixth-World Almanac describe it as the entertainment heart of the UCAS. Definitely worth picking up for somebody who enjoys Shadowrun fluff and wants to have more interesting things to call upon to flesh out a character.