Sorry to start a small flame- and ranting thread, but i am a little bit pissed at the moment. You all know, that the problems with "astral hazing" has been discussed several times, but it never had been solved. We only talked about "what group A does" or "what player X thinks how it works".

So i asked some freelancers here on DS and on the official forum via PM, what they would rule (privately, non-official) in their own playing-group, if this question would come up. But strangely nobody is going to answer me. From one, i at least got a reply, that he wanted to work on this problem, but since then - several weeks ago - no further reply. Also he ignores further PM´s where i asked for a status or if i should probably sum up the rules to make it easier for him. And yes, they had been online, posting to other topics.

So - going a bit conspirative - do you think that there are some internal prohibitions for freelancers to talk about their personal opinion or give "errata" to rules that haven´t been discussed with the whole team?

I've been at Origins for the last week, so... Umm. Yeah. I didn't even notice I had a message over on the Shadowrun forums (THey don't give me a fun "you have new messages" popup like I get on here and on RPGnet, and I end not to check for new messages).

My personal opinion is that any magic that passes through the Astral Haze or Background count is effected, and stays effected even if it leaves the BGC. So a spell that manifests and travels, such as an elemental direct spell like firebolt, would be effected even if targeted at someone standing on the far side of the Haze. Not quite what you're asking, but covers not only our question but also an extreme version of your question.

(I know there are two books, Street Grimoire and Run Faster, that are being feverishly worked on, plus a handful of other products, plus convention season is upon us, so that could effect replies from the Freelancer Peanut Gallery).

More like they aren't actually Catalyst employees, are pay per contract freelancers, and have full time other jobs, families, and lives to deal with on top of their freelance work for Catalyst.

Plus most are likely not wanting to be "that guy" when customer complains about an official ruling because freelancer xyz said he would rule differently. They all want future work from Catalyst, and causing rules headaches for the developer isn't the best way to endear oneself.

If you want to complain about Catalyst and their glacially slow progress on updating official FAQs and rules errata, well, sure. Been on ongoing problem for years. Some earlier edition books have NEVER gotten an errata document.

Even the last round of official errata for 5th Edition was only pushed through because a freelancer on his own time gathered together bug reports and sorted them, then bugged Catalyst for weeks til they finally put it out as an official document.

So, yeah. Complaints against Catalyst, probably justified. Complaints against the freelancers? Not.


-k

FWIW, I can assure you there isn't (and my google docs folder is proof of that).

The problem is you're asking people to take time out of their job(s) to answer a question about something they may or may not have been involved in writing (unless you specifically ask whoever wrote the appropriate chunk of the text, and I doubt that), during basically the busiest part of the year for the game industry, and while in their attempt to answer they have to remain personally aware of the fact you've singled them out for questioning, their answer may be brought up in conversations they're not even in as an appeal to authority (which means they have to answer very carefully), and when they answer they have to remember what the NDAs do cover (specifically, in this instance, that we're not at all allowed to discuss backstage discussions or the game design process, so no saying "so-and-so wanted it to do this, I wanted it to do this, and I think the end result is that it does this")...which means that, in giving you their answer, it's not like they can actually do anything you can't do, all they can use for research before answering is what's in the book (which you clearly already have access to, and which is clearly confusing in some way).

You're asking folks to tap dance through a minefield for you, when they're already really busy, then throwing a fit when they don't answer you fast enough while trying to get an answer the exact same way you could try to get an answer? Then topping it all off by making it sound like the entirety of your complaint was so you could start a rumor that flies in the face of established patterns of behavior and tries to blame freelancers' actions (or inactions) on forums, on their own time, on some conspiracy?

Really?

Yeah, so speaking of a errata is there a official(not player made) PDF document somewhere or do I have to go though the forums both here as well as catalysts?

In other words, you wrote fan mail to the author of a book, and he didn't answer. Oh noes!

Also, what do you expect the authors to do? Dig into the secret stash of information that was intentionally left out of the books? Assuming it exists, such internal material would obviously be covered by even the most basic NDA. Or make up a rule? The people you wrote to are not "the author" in the sense of Arthur Conan Doyle being the author of Sherlock Holmes, they're basically random dudes hired to perform a job. What they make up is no more official than what you make up -- unless they happen to be working for CGL at that moment (or work on some knowledge they gained while doing so), in which case they're subject to an NDA.


@Fabe: http://cdn.shadowruntabletop.com/wp-conten..._SR5-Errata.pdf

I honestly can't comprehend why people argue against my interpretation in the first place...

Thanks Sengir.

You also might want to check out the SR5 missions "hot patch errata". It may not be official, but at least it has some rules for background count to tide you over until it gets addressed officially.

mind you, the official errata doesn't have a lot of stuff that i remember being pointed out in the errata thread.

Hey, turn down the heat on some of the responses please.

You can always ask me. I'm not as active here as I'd like (Working my day job, plus doing some political foo for other people, running a weekly game, and freelancing for two companies), but when I can, I'll answer, and until then, one of the others might pop in and drop some knowledge. Some of us know areas better than others, so, like, if it's a Tir question, and Crit's answer differs from mine, I'd go with his. Magic's not my strongest area (My personal game tends to have spirits more aligned with World of Darkness stuff, but then teh WoD spirit world isn't exactly what I do either, so) ... but I'll answer what I can.

So... Astral Hazing. You had a question about it?

(Edit)

Also, a general question on the board shere could be phrased something like, "Could a Freelancer answer this?" and then put a question inside. Once one of us swings by, we might be happy to take a swing at it. Some things we can't, due to NDA and whatnot, but where we're able, we can give it a spin.

There's an offical errata doc for SR5 Core. It covers less than half of what has been compiled, and is mostly covering typos and botched references, but it does exist.

What else does a errata need to cover other then typos and incorrect references ? Maybe some clarifications but that about it that I can think of.

how about "rules that contradict themselves"?

I know I found at least a few cases where there were 2 different rules for how to resolve the exact same situation. it would be nice if I didn't have to guess which one was the real one.

In this case, rules contradictions between sections, playtests that weren't supposed to be published, and things omitted from tables that weren't supposed to be. Oh, and none of the sample characters being actually built by the rules.

It was a large, and still growing list.

Inconsistent rules, incorrect rules, unclear rules, insane rules...

If you want an example, a character with STR 2 carries a ballistic shield (armor +6) and a helmet (+2). How much armor does he get, and what is the modifier for encumbrance?
According to current RAW, the answer is either +2/-3 or +4/-2, depending on whether you total the bonuses first or check them individually against the character's Strength
According to the example right below said RAW, it's +8/-3
According to the German errata (the original DE printing equals the US one in this regard) it's +2/-3

Hmm sounds like I maybe should have still held off on buying a copy of the book until every thing gets straightened out. Still I wounder how much of the fan compiled errata is real errata and not just "I don't like this rule, therefor, its wrong" armchair game developing

Errata compiled is actual errata, to my knowledge. Why CGL chose to only use 4 [miniscule] pages of the large compiled document is beyond many people.

I've been wondering that as well. could it be that things are so bad that they're just going to skip a errata and release Shadowrun 5.5 ?

well, consider how long it took to get what we got.

now, ask yourself: how long am i willing to wait for everything to get straightened out?

if that answer isn't a long time (like possibly years), then no, you shouldn't have waited.

my advice to you is to be prepared to fix stuff yourself, make use of what errata has been released, and treat the missions FAQ like errata if it provides a ruling on how something should work.

@ Fabe

or You start to learn German and get yourself the German BBB

with a Dschermahn Danz
Medicineman

I just took a look at the missions FAQ ,how did they forget to put the cost of autosofts in the core rule book?

yeah, now you're starting to understand why we're not super-happy with the state of the errata

there's a lot of problems that should have been fixed before they sold it to anyone.

(on a side note, if you get the digital copy of the book, you are entitled to any (mostly theoretical) later versions that include errata).

In the example I used above, the 2nd round of DE errata may have finally made the rules text and example consistent, but that does not make the idea of lower strength making a helmet less effective any better...

Same way they managed not to run a basic spelling and grammar check. Someone done fragged up.

actually, i'm pretty sure they did do a basic spelling and grammar check. seeing as how several freelancers have commented on the proofreading work they did that didn't get included in the initial release, i'm gonna go out on a limb and speculate that it was checked... just the person in charge of actually incorporating the changes didn't actually do their job.

not that this is particularly encouraging mind you... i'm just saying, don't blame the proofreaders (who most likely were not paid in any way for their work) for not proofreading when we know that stuff that was specifically called out during the free preview as being something that was submitted for correction didn't get corrected. someone still fragged up. but it most likely wasn't the proofreaders.

Guys, please don’t get me wrong. This is not about “I don’t like the officials, lets blame them”. It´s (at least) a bit different. I am self-employed and my standard working day exceeds 12 hours easily. Additionally I am in a long-distance-relationship, so you can believe me that I know about the collision of professional and private stress - probably better than most other people. But back to the problem.

What happened? I had a problem and I asked - politely – if there is the possibility to help me out. I wouldn’t have had a problem if somebody had answered “sorry, I don’t have time for this, because of….”, but if the answer is “yes, I will look for it, give me a bit time” I can demand that one is doing what he is telling me. So after several weeks without a reaction, a small reminder shouldn’t be impolite. But if this reminder is ignored, it is getting annoying.

@Critias & Sengir: Freelancers, Devs, officials…they all have work and private life, of course, but they are no heroes that save the world, while we mere mortals bow in the glance of their existence. I did not do a private mail to president Obama, blaming the US government because I didn’t get a reply. I asked a shadowrun freelancer to check a question about the game he is working on. So probably, we should stay on the ground. We are talking about professional workers like us, that have the benefit of making their beloved hobby into a profession. They are acting privately on private forums and like everybody else, this makes them available for questioning. I wouldn’t have picked them if it wasn’t absolutely needed. But it was.

Bull was one of them and he explained what went wrong, and I am absolutely fine with it. Sh**t happens to everybody and I thank him for his reply.
In the meantime I know, that there are restrictions on what officials can talk about officially, but I particularly asked for a private statement during a private mail, not in an open topic, so this is also no argument.

We all love SR. Some of us are brand new and switched from other RPG´s, most of us play since years or even decades and IMHO we should all be like a small family. Of course, even in your own family there are people you like more, and people you like less (in germany we call them “bucklige Verwandtschaft” maybe somebody else can translate this properly?), but there are not so many of us around, that we should argue with each other more than absolutely needed. We should act honestly and with respect to each other.

I gratefully accept the offer from Wakshaani to help me out, so at least for me the problem is solved. So…never mind and a nice day to all of you.

Hey man, my pleasure. My schedule's a bit odd, thanks to Wal-Mart not alowingf or set schedules anymore (long rant), so I get on here and there where I can. Lots of online sites I frequent, and then there are long downperiods where I do research, but when I'm up for air, I'm always happy to help.

Most of the others are as well, but some don't visit official forums, either for fear of leaking something (Just working on the Book of Galloping Gazooks, thought I'd swing in for a bit.// OMG, they're making the Galloping Gadzooks book! /// Aw crap.) or just being uncomfortable with forum-type activities. Some of us are more gregarious.

Most important is this - The Shadowrun team doesn't hate the fanbase. We *are* the fanbase. Every single one of us loves this game. Yay, Shadowrun!

I think the issue comes down to a) the official people do not have the time to get involved in each person's questions-which are outside their work time but b) the organizations official response isso slow they are forcing their customers to look for other sources.