You can read all about them here!

This another one of yours Canray?

I have to admit I'm more interested in this than in Storm Front.

After an Attitude! where the writers didn't seem to know that there is such thing as legal simsense and where the movies and series of 2070 had little to no difference with today's, there certainly is room for improvement.

How could you guess

Yep, this one is mine.

Expect me to pimp it at every opportunity, just like Safehouses.

YES. So yes. And it doesn't download.

I've passed it along. Hopefully they'll get this fixed up quick.

Hope so too. Thanks and congrats to the promotion. Though I'm wondering, what'll become of your data haven now?

Edit: Works now. That was fast. Thanks.

This'll get a review soon.

Review.

Okay, so let's start with the title image. The image not only looks sweet, it also hammers home the topic of the file. It shows off, but not with seminude babes (which bore me by now, more than anything else) but with hilarious simsense Johnny Spinrad-esque orc versus RL ork bum. The interior art also is quite impressive. AAS is fast becoming THE artist for Shadowrun in this era, much like Mike Jackson and Geier were in early SR. Not that the others are shabby, but he gets the feel I want Shadowrun to have best, I think. And all the detail that's speaking to dedicated fanboys like me.

The opening story is fantastic and pretty much ... well, it deals with the one thing that defined SimSense craziness for me, early on, back when 2E was new and I had just spent two weeks' worth of pocket money on 2XS. It's just a throwaway sentence in that book, and yet it has stayed with me through all these years. This story is the story of that sentence. And it's written in a way, with tone and flavor, that is worthy of Nigel Findley.

Generally, this details the SimSense and BTL usage as I have done for myself, which I of course like. I'm probably biased here, but I think that's a logical expansion on what has been written, and especially the therapeutic SimSense used to 'resocialise' criminals and addicts I have already used, as a private expansion on what SimSense can do. Also, CGL, you totally owe me brain bleach for Hannibelle's comment on snuff beetles.

As aways with Croteau's writing, it's the little details that get me. Victor Vigilante, the intro-fic referencing that one half-sentence from 2XS, the sheep. Hell, I'd pay if he wrote a "runs gone bad" PDF! I feel that, among the current writers, he is among those who most "get" Shadowrun as I love it (and kudos for the Molly Millions shout-out). Also, he's so far the only author whose /dev/grrl writeups make me actually kinda like her. AAS' fantastic art full of inside jokes (Neill!) is the icing on this delicious epub cake. Old Art has seen re-use too, but thoughtfully; the Bunraku pic is among the best Chernik did for SR, and the down-and-out junkie is the weakest art but at least fits in thematically.

The addiction qualities are varied, reasonably balanced, and flavorful. I know a character who has two of them out of hand, and I certainly will use them as soon as I can. That's what the system has been missing, far more than yet another combat rifle, stats for great dragons or Charm of Nurgle, the spell. As with the additional lifestyle qualities of Safehouses, this adds flavor instead of more items of +2. The new addiction list and the simsense-based drugs price list also add to the game, I think.

Some small dark spots cannot be ignored, though they're a wide trend with CGL products. There are typos, more than one, and sometimes glaring. Proofing apparently wasn't effective enough. Neither was editing, some sentences look positively mangled. If editing even happened, this looks a bit like handed in close or slightly over deadline and just handed down to layout for production without any editing happening because a bad product still sells, while editing takes time that could be put to use making more sub-standard product instead.

9/10, with one point below perfect for the nonexistent editing and bad post-writing treatment CGL seems to consider business standard by now.

Thanks for the review, I'll probably get the file.

Reply to your review.

Yeah, I really like the cover, and wish I could claim credit for it. But that decision was someone else, and the artwork another person who knocked it out of the park.

Want to know something? Same sentence stayed with me, that's why I used it, despite there being 20-game years between when it was used and when I wrote this story. I had a copy of 2XS in my hands as I wrote it one-handed to make sure I got the feel and story right.

I wanted to push home how dark Shadowrun really is, dystopia only goes so far as a word before people stop getting it. Hell, even Snuff Flicks wouldn't have covered it (an actress or two in Sam Raimi's original Evil Dead movie was worried he was making a snuff movie!) So, I went to the deepest, darkest places of Rule 34 of the Internet. The brain bleach is my own personal reaction to what I learned. I figured it was a nice humorous touch after hitting so dark a note.

Spare my blushes. I did ask for the Neil artwork I will admit (again, AAS knocked it out of the park!), and am glad someone caught the Molly Millions shout-out. As her story created the idea of Bunraku Parlors in Cyberpunk (Not sure if they existed in Sci-Fi before hand), I felt I had to include it.

My Mother is a cook. I learned to season to taste.

That said, I do loves me my gear porn books, so... Yeah, I'm their target audience for that.

Um, actually, some of those (in the fluff) was intentional. Turbo Bunny is drying out while she's writing that, so it not exactly at her best. Also, because her addiction is being a chiphead, she can't slot "Writer 6.0" knowsoft as she's cleaning out.



No comment about the second piece of fiction? The one that gives Bull another reason to want to beat me with my own cane?

That sounds ... vaguely dirty

What i especially like about this pdf is that CanRay expanded the topic abit and worked out a real nice crunchy part which covers addictions.
The Author has shown profound knowledge about how why,when and how people get addicted to different stimuli and how people can control such things (actually starting with why people even want to start controlling it. The rules are a good balance between playability and simulationism.

It requires quite a bit more effort and an open mind to work yourself through such a taboo and sterotype ridden topic than just looking on the world map to find out that certain warzones which get attacked by naval forces are actually hundreds of kilometers away from the ocean ...

Some characters at our table have their share of drug problems with too. In search for better rules coverage i went to sr3 and created something which comes really close to that what CanRay wrote. It worked really well at our table and the only part which was really different is that i totally handwaived the intervalls and held track about the permanent damage (just until the next appropriate theraphy of course) already inflicted by the addiction which was already at burnout level. Its satisfying that approved authors get similar results now if i just had this rules just half a year earlier, it would have saved me alot of effort

Its a real nice thing to read, totally worth the money and it fits the Cyberpunk definition of grey where only the way how a technology is used defines if the grey is darker or brighter. In this pdf Simsense gets clarified of what it is and what it can do how it should have been covered in Attitude which porovided some bouncy giggle jokes instead.
There are some sentences which strike me a bit as odd but for as im not a native english speaker this prolly doesnt mean too much.
All in all a real good book which made me think about the drug habits of my characters once more.

Actually when i come to think about it - the longer i play shadowrun the more compfortable i get with giving my character addictions or gaining them in play, funny.

When authors do it, it's called research.

Authors do it from behind ... a keyboard

Apparently "One handed" behind the keyboard...

aaanndddd, we are back to sounding dirty again...

Less about the dirty hack of an author, and more about what he just got released, SVP.

Hm, well you're certainly crazy enough to give simsense justice.
That's a compliment btw

Enjoyed it thoroughly. Thank you very much.

Caveat: The usual level of QA

And: I've seen footage of what happened to the sheep. It was awful.

You've seen footage of the wrong 'run then.

Thank you.

You mean the thing with the troll and the banyan tree and Marjory's nephews wearing those terrible hats wasn't what happened to the sheep?

What was the sentence from 2XS? What the hell, people, some of us couldn't really read 20 years ago :\

Also, as I've come to expect from CanRay, the book is very nice, if indeed in need of some proofreading.
In addition, while I liked the crunch provided, I wish there was more of it, maybe something like the rules for slotting moodchips in Augmentation (was it?). Like, what to do when you've been slotted with a correctional chip, what are the benefits of more complex runner-related personachips, that sort of thing.

Here's the relevant part. Emphasis mine, but it makes a lot more sense in context.

Thanks Hermit.

Blaming violence on the media, how typical!

Typical, maybe, but appropriate in this case.

Part of Cyberpunk is Future Shock, and what Simsense/BTLs can do is a prime example of that. As is the damaging effect of Personasofts.

Did Slade the Sniper take the sheep?

No, Slade is a fictional character, and the sheep was a very real sheep on the 'run.

And the guy that thought he was Slade the Sniper died in '52. The "Sheep Incident" happened in late '74.

Was the sheep the getaway driver?

No, Turbo Bunny was, that's how she screwed up the 'run.

My vote is Weresheep.

I'd have included stats for Sheep Shapechangers if that was the case.

Did she think the sheep was the getaway driver?

I described what happened to Turbo Bunny specifically, in her own words no less.

Yes you did, but I don't care about what happened to her.

Edit- That was harsher than I meant it to be.

And it's attitudes like that which will make her slip back into chip addiction.

If Ecotope doesn't get to her first.

He's not that slotted off to want to kill her. He's already had the opportunity to have all the revenge he'd want.

Now it's just a matter of getting his bill paid, then remind her of her screw-up at every opportunity (off of JackPoint.).

What did the sheep want?

The sheep wanted the redneck to stop poking it in the ass!

On a sunny day, two scottish scientists decided that one sheep wasn't enough. So they cloned Dolly.
And thus starts the story of that other sheep.

... All rather disturbing things about sheep aside.

.... Far aside....

I want this supplement. I just have a hard time pulling the trigger on $5 for 17 pages. I can acknowledge that they're likely good pages, but that price point is steep for me. I grew up and full length novels were $5. I hate paying $8 or $10 for them today, but paying $5 for 17 pages.. even good pages. That just hurts. That they're digital pages makes it even more painful.

It's worth it, Pepsi Jedi.

The preview on Drive Thru looks good. People speak well about it here. I want it. It's just the price. I've bought others and I like them. I just have a hard time 'supporting' paying that much for a small E-product. Even good stuff. It's condoning the price point that I have the objection to. lol.

But you're missing out on so much!!!

I know! lol and it's driving me crazy. I hate being out of the loop.

You'll probably win. I'll probably end up buying it on Friday. I'm weak when it comes to books.

Search your feelings, you know getting it is what you want to be true!

I bought it myself today, although I can't really sit down to read since I have work to do.

(as I continue to puzzle over how a BTL-addicted A.I. works...)

If you buy it, the capitalists have already won.