The exclamation mark really should have been the first clue.

Until earlier today, I hadn't bought a Shadowrun book since I bought War! two years ago and was appalled by the fact that it was literally the lowest quality printed book I had every spent money on. I was so angry at Catalyst I wrote off Shadowrun for two years-ish. However, I've been in love with the Shadowrun universe since I bought Paranormal Animals of North America with my allowance when I was 8 years old. I was stoked about the upcoming release of Shadowrun Returns, and figured if Jordan Weisman was working with Catalyst in the manner that Shadowrun.com indicates, the quality of Catalysts products must have gone back up to the level it was before they decided they didn't want to pay writers for a while. So earlier today I paid a visit to my local game store and, because I've always loved the dragons in Shadowrun, I bought The Clutch of Dragons.

Fuck was I wrong about the quality!

RPG books are never, you know, the best written documents in the world. But they're usually decent. The sort of person who is good enough at roleplaying to manage to get hired to write a supplement, and/or is the sort of person to launch their own system, is usually a pretty readable writer just because the same thinking patterns that make a good roleplayer also make for a competent writer. But Catalyst, apparently, is really prizing paying their writers a pittance over finding anyone capable of stringing a goddamn sentence together.

"While these two corporations continue to tussle, four other corporations in which Hestaby has invested have already collapsed due to the pressure Saeder-Krupp put on them. These companies include BioLogic Technologies, BCMU, Johns Hopkins Institute of Health, Inc., and Olgitechnolies." Really? The four corps really include that list of four corps? Well I'll be damned! Do they include any others? Because claiming that a group "includes" some specific examples implicitly means that there are other fucking items in that group that haven't been mentioned. "Are" is a great fucking verb if you want to talk about all the individual items in a group. Where the fuck did you learn to write and/or edit, person who let that fucking sentence into this book?

I will admit, this is one awkward passage in a book that I have barely gotten in to. But it is merely the example that broke my patience's back, and a damn shitty start, considering that it's on page 15 of a 150ish page book. Bottom line, what I've read so far is pretty badly written. I've got a lot of fucking RPG supplements, both mainstream and indie, and it's pretty rare that I stop and say to myself "Boy this is poorly written." In fact, it's so rare that it's only happened with products put out by Catalyst. Since I paid 30 goddamn dollars for this book, I'm going to do my best to plow through the rest of it. I plowed through all of War!, getting angrier all the time, and this is, I will admit, much better than War! so far. Maybe this is an isolated bad bit in a competent book. It might even be good enough that if some other company had put it out, one that I wasn't still mad at over War!, I would have overlooked the low quality. But it's fucking not, and I'm pissed that I gave more money to Catalyst, only to find out that two years later they have gotten their shit together enough to hire some half-way decent writers, or gotten a half-way decent editor. And quite frankly, I'm willing to bet its the latter over the former. My guess is this shit wasn't edited by someone who had the first clue what they were doing, and I'm pretty sure that's been the case for a couple of years now.

This is a pretty incoherent rant, for which I apologize. I'm tired and kind of drunk. But I have a lot of experience reading both amateur writing and RPG supplements, and Catalyst really wins a prize. I am bummed that they still have the license for Shadowrun, because it is my favorite RPG setting. So I guess I'm asking if there are any other books that were put out between War! and now that are worth reading. I'd like to get caught up on the meta-plot for 5th Edition, but after reading 15 pages of The Clutch of Dragons I don't have high hopes for 5th Edition.

Wait til you get to hordes.

Or was that Storm Front?



But I tend to think SR needs stronger editing more than writing. The writing IMO, has been better, granted - I haven't bought much SR4, but the 2-3 things are better than War! (which I read a borrowed copy).

Writers need to have good ideas, a knowledge of SR lore, etc. Editors need to make them come across as ..not horrible at communication.

I think at this point having an "SR Continuity Bible" might be a good thing to have for the folks at Catalyst. Just to, you know, avoid the issues of having to dig through multiple books and then forgetting to look at one book that they didn't think to look because the metaplot point they were looking for wasn't in the obvious sources.

EDIT: Revisions for better sentence structure

this, this I like. lol

I think at this point said bible would be an encyclopedia.

world record for most stuff stuffed in one book. lol

I don't even want to think about the Continuity Bible for Star Wars...

Still, to me anyways, it's starting to look like the writers are starting to get lost in SR's +20 years worth of history and continuity, and having some kind of guiding post to point to where things are would help A LOT.

It's a bit hard to catch everything, every time.

(especially since, as the EWA thread is starting to show)

That's actually hardly unusual for such a document - especially when you consider that they often contain greater detail or entire elements that have not reached the public eye.

If Dumpshockers maintained the Shadowrun wiki with a vengeance, wouldn't that amount to roughly the same thing?

Yeah probably. But then that would mean we would have to actually do something rather than just complain. Kidding, kidding, don't throw things.

Star Wars Change Control Board (SWCCB) meets biweekly and is composed of Imperial, Rebel, New Republic, Smuggler, Bounty Hunter, and Ewok Stakeholders. All Universe Change Requests (UCR) must be submitted to the SWCCB by the Friday prior. All Theme Architects must present their UCR in person.

A super majority of SWCCB stakeholders must approve each stage of UCR development through implementation.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Last I heard, the line developer wasn't expecting his writers to understand the rules to SR, much less have played SR. You might think that is a recipe for disaster, but you are clearly not the kind of superior manager who lets all their competent writers walk away over piddly amounts of money.

Please do not tell me they boned Stackpole again. >_<;

I have personally seen a large roomful of people give Elven Blood and its author a standing O. I think that was written after WAR!

This is literally what the Wiki software was written to do.

If they're not using it, or something like it, then I really have to stare at them and shake my head. It couldn't be terribly expensive to get an intern in to transcribe all that info. Hell, there are probably people around here who'd be willing to do it on the cheap just to get better-referenced books.

So, my work is garbage. Thanks.

How important is continuity? Personally, I would like to see a reboot where the really great stuff can be kept, and more great ideas that happen to break current continuity too badly can be added. Barring that, I would have no problem at all with some fairly massive retconning. To me, gameworld flavor is far more important than history.

The wiki that was hosted here on Dumpshock was sooo much better than that one.

The problem with wikis is that they're loaded up with a bunch of non-canon crap that isn't marked as such, because anybody with a browser, a connection, and a couple of gray cells to rub together can post on the damn things.

That said, while we don't have the Big Book of What's Coming Down the Pike, we do have a behind-the-scenes wiki where we, as freelancers, try to keep things up-to-date. My own contributions to this have been sadly lax of late, but I'm working on correcting that.

I'm glad to hear you have that. That was my biggest moment of headdesking. If the folks behind the scenes weren't taking advantage of how dog-easy a wiki format makes keeping tack of linked info to allow quick background research, it'd be shameful.

Retcons and changes worked better for earlier books, which were written without omniscient shadowtalkers privy to great dragon politics and secret meetings.

So that's your excuse for swearing in nearly each sentence?

Boy am I happy I don't have to proofread any of your material

Then Lucas walks in, says "I think this should happen", and the board has to scrap years of development.

I do, in fact, have a Star Wars continuity and licensing guide, having worked for a licencee at one point. It is a 3-ring binder three inches thick and dates from 2001, and only covered the movies. Expanded Universe was a different binder. I have no idea what the current one looks like.


-k

Not anymore!

Apparently garbage sells.

Lucas was very careful to retain creative direction rights, to some degree, when he sold the property. If he calls Disney up and says "I think this should happen," they have to at least pay him lip service.

He's said he only intends to involve himself in a minor advisory role, but who knows how much he'll restrain himself.

Now back to your scheduled rant on the books.


-k

Just a moment of snark:

An anticipated new edition sold out its very limited printing at a major gaming convention, when there is no actual release date for open sales?

Shocking.

"Much better than War! but in desperate need of good editing" seems to be the general state of CGL splats right now.
However, that is not to say there is nothing worth reading among them. For instance, the pdf releases like SOTA2073 and This Old Drone bring some fun new toys to the table, The Way of the * books have decent crunch of adepts and samurai, Safehouses is mad fun to read, etc (can't say anything on Elven Blood because I'm not keeping track of politics in that part of the continent). I wouldn't say all of those are worth blindly buying, but at least they're worth borrowing from a friend or player to flip through and decide whether you want them.


Not to rain on your parade, but the core book of the new edition is always going to sell well initially. This is indicative of nothing, until you have a chance to compare the sales with the core books of the previous editions in the first half year or so.

So, back to my stuff is garbage.

Thanks.

If that's the way you want to read it, far be it from me to stop you. You do good work, from what I've read of it. The overall quality control on the books your stuff's been published in, on the other hand, has been seriously hit or miss for several releases.

Not laying this on the freelancers by a long shot, you guys aren't responsible for overall editorial and final proofing, but sadly it reflects on everyone involved when the final product's got a lot of obvious errors.

D&D 4E sold pretty well, at the start. It's also generally conceded that D&D4 is a total disaster.

Yeah, exactly as I said.
Not a disaster, but not a success by a wide margin, yes.

I would not go so far to call SR5 a disaster. There is one particular area of the rules which are ... problematic, and which can (fortunately) be houseruled pretty easily. In DnD4 the foundation of the entire power system was quite problematic

So you've read SR5 core then?

What a great thread.

Heart-warming and cheerful, isn't it? And marked from the very outset with such a calm and even tone.

I have.



-k

Mind sharing what set of rules you're boggling at then, please?

Since the rest of us proles aren't going to get our hands on the rules until some future, undisclosed date. (Or next week after someone gets home and scans their Origins copy.)

Dumpshock Where you can have a semi-civilised discussion about everything on Shadowrun... ...and sometimes not.



Braggart.

envy,
Sunshine

Not for nothin', dude, and I'm sure Ray appreciates your attempt to (personally) clarify and explain? But just read the OP, or half the other posts, here. When folks say "Everything since War! is garbage," and talk about how CGL hasn't got halfway-talented writers who can string together a complete sentence, etc, etc, how the fuck do you think Ray's gonna take it? It's not like he's making some wild, huge, logical leaps and bounds to come to his conclusion, y'know?

...and yet here we are, on our free time, trying to be sociable.

I like most of the rules.

I dislike Limits and Wireless Everything.

It is still very clearly easy to get silly large dice pools at Chargen, with the Limits to use them, given the characters I've seen at Origins so far. So it seems Limits have largely failed in curbing powergaming, and mostly seems to hurt those that DON'T powergame. The powergamers are simply identifying everything that gives a Limit boost so they aren't really affected, while those who aren't into hyperoptimization get slapped by the system regularly.

Wireless Everything I have an issue with because it is clearly a metagame change to make Hackers more useful, but in the majority of cases they give no real in-universe justification for a given wireless bonus. Some stuff I can see justifiably benefitting from Matrix access, but they stuck bonuses on nearly all gear, some which makes me just facepalm.



-k

I understand completely why he'd take it badly, it's a rough thing to hear about a product you worked on and I'm sure have pride in!

Unfortunately, that doesn't make it entirely false, either. While it's a bit overblown around here, the stuff that's been put out lately has issues, that's a demonstrable fact. I, for one, am hoping SR5 got more polish, but given that people involved in making it have already mentioned that it's going to need errata out of the gate, I'm not holding out that much hope.

There's never been a game that hasn't needed some errata right out of the gate. SR4 and SR4A, both products that I had a small degree to do with (I was a playtester for SR4), both had some whoppers. SR5 does, too; they'll get fixed (we're working on that now). Some of them are my fault, and I'm sorry they got through.

But the phrasing you used made it sound like there had never been a game released without a lot of typos, and that's just not the case.

Also, you're painting with a very, very broad brush.

If you're going off of what I'm saying, that's a heck of a logical leap to make. I haven't said word one about other systems, just noted that CGL's products in the last while (since WAR! given that was the scope of the thread) have had significant production errors. Also a bit of content that a lot of the playerbase around here has objected strenuously to.

Sure. And can you remind me when was the errata for Bogota! was released compared to the the product ship date?

For what its worth, Critias, Patrick Goodman, and Canray are three of my favorite content producers for SR right now. Safehouses, Way of the Adept, and patrick goodman's willingness to stand up and correct things in detail(infected heights and weights sticking out in my mind) when nobody else dares to approach the shores of errata goes a long way towards making me think the product line is in good hands.

Then again, there's more people than just you three working on any given book. I'd LIKE to see Critias write a full expansion rulebook, since way of the adept showed he knows the ins and outs of the Pre-War System enough to expand upon the theme set by the Old Writers From it in a generally-useful-to-every-game way. But I know its probably not going to happen, because, well, three solid writers can't save an entire product from management decisions, coworkers, printing errors, or other-things-i-don't-know-enough-about-to-list by themselves.

Then again, I've been deliberately avoiding SR5. Once the core book and the first few splatbooks and corrections are out, I plan on getting an impression all at once and seeing how good it is. I'm hoping it will be a clean slate.

You have my sympathies for the 'The Everything Since War' problem.The fact is, all the writers and creative minds(jennifer harding, bobby derie, adam jury, synner, and more) for making "The Good Books of SR4" all left, and left YOU guys in charge of picking up the pieces.
Half the reason 'The War Problem' is even a thing is because those people set the standards for releases so high, then took away the talent that made it possible. I realize its a hell of a bar for future products to measure up to.
The other half is the feeling of getting cheated out of possibilities - High Magic Sourcebook, Shadows of Latin America, the un-rewritten Sixth World Almananc, Full Size Rulebooks - due to the coleman scandal.

The impression I get was that you three were kind of put in charge of keeping the boat that was handed to you afloat, and I can't blame you for that.
The other impression I got was that Jason Hardy has a giant hate boner for the Old Guard of shadowrun writers as well as the things they made, and wanted to distance the new products from the old stuff as much as possible. (A root cause for not wanting to deal with errata, bogota not being its own setting splatbook like runner havens, the direction of plot with stormfront, etc.)

Am I close at all? I'm just kind of talking out of my ass here.

You do not really expect that your beloved writers will say something openly against JH?

SYL

*shrug*

They've all been open in the past, occasionally given insight into what happens behind scenes in at cgl, and go the extra mile to field questions about their rules. Even hardy himself has come on the board in the past. Hell, I even have some PM's from him in my inbox regarding various things and rules, particularly errata.

I don't know what to expect, which is why I am asking.

That's a new one on me. I don't know if I count as one of the "Old Guard" (SR freelancer since 2001, with a break from '07 to last year) but I have never gotten that impression at all. In fact, when I decided last year to pull my head up out of WoW and get back to SR, I sent a note to Jason asking if I could start freelancing again and he welcomed me enthusiastically back into the fold. So if there's any such attitude as you mentioned in the air, I've seen no sign of it.