http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2014/12/r...rint-pre-order/

Sum to 10, but no Karma buy. Hrm. Also, what the hell happened on page 5 of the ToC. Is this in the PDF too or only in the preview?

Table of contents is up at Drive Through RPG:
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/pdf_preview_...1788-sample.pdf

Going purely on the table of contents there is a lot there I expected, with a few surprises.

Mostly, however, I'm very curious about Black Market Pipeline. Can my T-Bird character use it to reduce the price of his ride at character creation? In other words, did they make any major changes to it from the 4th edition version of it?

http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2014/12/r...rint-pre-order/

Fire up the e-reader and zip up your fire resistant armor Jacket!

Edit: Oops missed sticky above.

Quick flash through.
1. First half of book is about third reused art.
2. New art is good to great.
3. No art representations of meta type variants, which weren't so hot in last edition.
4. Eye catchers archetypes, contacts and gear packs.
5. Pile of new qualities....gonna go make my infected dwarf flagellant now.

BMP Adjusts buy/sell price on one class of item. Vehicle, weapon, etc...

Actually, Sum to 10, and Karma buy system, AND this cool new modular karma buy based on your character history.

This is chock full of some very fun stuff, both in terns of fluff and crunch.

Obviously have only had time to skim, but one disappointment is the "packs." About half are just single items! Many more are just two items. Since there is no discount for such combination purchases, what is the point?

But seems that most of the old qualities from previous editions are back, along with some cool new ones.

And lifestyle customization looks good.

Oh, by "point buy" they mean Karma? Or did I just miss it entirely? And how does the system based on character history work, like in CP2020?

Yeah, Point Buy is karma-based.
The old point buy where everything has a separate chargen cost is gone.

Don't know Cyberpunk…the modular thing is also karma buy, but after you buy race you buy things like Nationality, childhood background, education, professional experience, all at different costs and with different additions to atts, skills and qualities. Then you use what's left at the end to round your character out.

Ah, so it's an expanded PACKS system basically. With stuffbook options for more and different nations and professions. Nice idea at least, have to see it for myself though.

Calling Karma Generation Point buy is ... kinda misleading. Not that I really miss point buy ... but it's kinda odd.

So basically modules are character properties like attributes, and PACKs are gear?

And since a lot of the proposed backgrounds are ex corp types, is there any mention of them being ostracized as in the description of the Corp SIN quality?

SINnerRun™

Where thanks to a sick bet between the AAA's, EVERYONE in the party is CorpSINners kicked to the curb in the middle of the Barrens by their respective corps with a built in transponder constantly broadcasting their SIN status & POV(Scrambled signal streaming Full Sight and Sound back to their masters to watch, no silent mode and attached to a cranial bomb to ensure nobody shuts it down or they go boom) and are forced to band together out of sheer self-preservation just to survive the harsh streets.

Watch their wacky antics as The Suits Meet the Mean Streets on Pay Per View Channel 243 now.

I'd watch that. I might steal it.

The Burned Company Man only has a fake SIN 4, no Corp SIN of any kind.

Of the others that have a SIN these are National level.

So they pulled a TJ Fallacy and avoided the issue.

But do not let that stop you from looking at this product. Lots of good stuff here, really liked the Infected writeup.

And the Netcat/Toaster shipping fiction makes it's long awaited debut, if only in small snippets.




Please do.... it makes good background noise, like the old 'I'd buy that for a Dollar' ads in Robocop.

Goofy but sort of gave a feel for just how messed up the setting was.

I absolutely love those and use similar background noise anyway. SINnerRun™ will definitly make an appeareance.

to fill up Pages ?
When I've seen them I was wondering myself and started a Thread in the German Forums
but no Answer to why there's 24 Pages of Equipment and Ammo Lists and Cyberware combinations.
But its still too early for a satisfying analysis so far
I just hope CGL doesn't continue this kind of business conduct or the Last 124 Pages of a future Seattle Sourcebook might be a List from the Telephonebook Seattle 2075

JahtaHey
Medicineman

I thought the explanation in the book was fairly clear


It's not about offering a discount, thought might have been nice, but rather they were just giving easy to grab bits to fill out a equipment list.

I see it more useful for a beginner player who just wants to grab and go whereas a more experienced player will probably have their own tastes and would customize their gear list much more than what they offer.

Also a GM could use this for stocking NPCs fairly easily.

Maybe this would have been better in the Starter Box Set, but I do not see a problem with it being here.

As for the telephone book, yeah that would be a bit inane, but I would not mind them doing 1-2 pages of AR style ads from the Seattle Bell Virtual CommBook as image filler.

But - assuming other posters are correct, as I haven't purchased the PDF yet - is the point of having "packs" with only one or two items in it?

Edit: fixed small spelling errors as seem to have Ork thumbs this morning

Streamlining numbers I imagine, for example one single item Ammo pack is the 160 rounds of Gel ammo for 2,000 yen or 1 Karma.

Remember it said they did everything for the packs in increments of 2K cash.

So picture a player who bought his weapon and wants to grab some gel ammo. He could just buy as normal but the Pack gives him a set amount of ammo for the preset 2k so if he was using packs along the character process it slots in nicely where if he went and bought 100 or 150 round (two common choices as humans like round numbers) he may end up with bits of loose change at the end and just not as efficient use of assets.

Again I see this more for newer players, though even experienced players might use this for one off runs or such when they just need a fast chargen.

1 Page would be Great especially with AR Advertising !
It would give Players a tangible Feel for Shadowrun (like the Chromebooks for Cyberpunk 2020 did)
but It would be bad if it would be just a filler to bloat up a book


I'd get me a calculator and punch in the Numbers
(but I'm used to do a lot of things myself)


OK, jup it may be a Help for Newbs playing Shadowrun for the first few Times, but after that.... Its a waste of precious space which could be used for better things like f.E. Depictions of the Metaraces (ImO)
these Packs Lists would be much better suited in the Beginners Box ( and not only 24 but 48 or even more Pages)

with an independant AR Dance
Medicineman

I'll definitely read it, since I decided this will be the product which sinks the edition or makes it swim for me, especially the chargen section.


Also, no televised death sport is complete without K-10...

Not a fallacy to completely ditch the thing that ties you to the Corporation, in whatever manner that is appropriate. Obviously, the Ex-Company man managed to purge his files before he left, thus eliminating that link. I applaud his foresight.

I loved Cyberpunk 2020 for the ads and such. Really added to the atmosphere.

same for myself, but you know what these kids are like nowadays. *shakes his kids at the script kiddies* Get off my LAN!


I do agree it may have been better used in the Beginners box as that would be the first step for many new players where as I see Run Faster more geared toward players with more than a few runs under the belt and looking more for new options and probably already have an idea of what gear they want in any case.





But this is where it gets weird as the description for the Burned Company Man is as follows:
So he had a back up SIN to use, but by the description above he probably DIDN'T have time to wipe out his Corp Files himself as he was already on the run.

This implies that the Corp for whatever reason lost/destroyed his Corp SIN because he was blacklisted and thus taken off their books.

Which raises the question, when the Corp screws you over and tosses you to the curb, do they just delete your Corp SIN automatically(instead of putting a black mark on it to show he is on their files but not in their good graces) so nobody can see your past and if so, that seems to be a bit different than the description of the Corp SIN in core.

I see what you mean. Don't have the book as of yet, so I cannot actually form any other comment. Hmmmmm.....

Also, it would have made more sense to release this after all the gear books are out...or maybe as a PDF product with regular updates included. But whatever, we know there are far worse ways to fill page count


On a slightly related note two new novels seem to be out, too. Anyone picked up those, yet?

Just got them yesterday and will try reading them this weekend.

Plus there are at least 3 new novels slated for early 2015, though that may be a placeholder date but we can hope.

What are the Contacts rules like? Anything interesting that hasn't been in previous editions?

Bought it although I don't really have time to read it right now, so I just took a quick peek at the Karmagen section. Turns out I could read that and even comment on it without running into scheduling difficulties

You start with 800 Karma, metatype costs are provided in a table (Elf 40, Dwarf & Ork 50, Troll 90), and then you do what is the whole point of Karmagen, character generation works just the same as character advancement. Easy concept, and the book brings it across short and to the point. Yet the problem is that character generation generally has some restrictions and differences to character advancement, and in those regards the rules are not short and to the point, but simply lacking.
One of the first questions people had when karmagen came out was "can I Initiate?", the same question was asked with SR5's "priority with Karma for rounding out" system, and here it can be asked without an answer again. Then there are the quality costs, for reasons known only to them, CGL decided that the listed Karma cost of qualities only applies during chargen. So since "From this point [choosing metatype] on, the Point Buy system generally works similar to Character Advancement (p 103, SR5)", does this mean I pay the generation or the advancement price? And speaking of prices, do the restrictions on gear purchases during chargen apply?


Overall, this section gets a rating of "Runner's Companion", for having all the right ideas but too many rough edges when it comes to the crunch. Next stop will be probably be the Infected, but I need to get drunk now.


PS: For those who want to run some numbers
- Mage is 30 Karma, aspected 30, adept 20, MA 35, TM 15
- Contacts are bought as during the "rounding out" phase of Prio gen
- Cash is 1 Karma for 2000 NY, max 200 Karma
- One attribute at natural max, though seemingly no word on skills.

I see no problem with the Initiating business.
It is allowed RAW, or am I mistaken?

I let my players initiate if they were so inclined.

One more problem with the PACKs as-is that I see is that the description doesn't always match the content - the Jack PACKs have an Agent program included in the description, but not in stats. Now, I don't mind such flavor at all, on the countrary, but the stats should reflect this.

Good question. And that is the problem, after both both RC and the 5th BBB had people wondering what they could do with their Karma during character generation, you'd think they could have spared a single sentence to make things clear this time.

Good news is that the Infected section is much better...though the IC portraits had me scratch my head, didn't Patrick want to make them more bestial? Red came across as seriously emo to me


Another cool thing, the discussion of how centaur heads look has been resolved salomonically: There are now "lesser centaurs" with human heads, and common ones with the old horse head.

Plus it explains why the more human headed ones end up in the shadows as they are looked down on by their 'True Centaur' brethren.

Am I missing the mentioning of regeneration, dual-natured and silver-allergy, for shapeshifters or is the book?

there is no mention of regen for shifters that I can see and this is going in an errata thread so hopefully we will hear back on this.

Did some text searching, and nothing "dual natured" came up for shifters, and the closest reference to "silver" for shifters was right at the end of the general description about "... silver bullets lodged in their skulls."

Am going to have to peruse this book more after a good night's sleep.

Well again, if no restrictions are mentioned, I assume there are no restrictions.

It takes away a little on the roleplaying if you do not have to do an astral quest to initiate,
but it takes away on the roleplaying not to play out how you got your first augmentation either.

No mention that I can see in my brief search on AI PCs (in the Unwired equivalent perhaps?), free spirits or drakes. I know they are all potentially controversial choices anyway but it would be nice to have the options. Maybe in a pdf mini release?

Otherwise, I like the art and more character options is always a good thing in my book!

AIs before the Matrix book don't sound like a good idea, so I hope we will get AIs in Data Trails. Drakes were AFAIK put off until both balance and the fallout from the dragon war are resolved.

Anyway, Infected. The section starts with a short (half a page) of two vampires having a drink and discussing how to ethically drain Essence, followed by the protagonist giving us a first-hand account of how he copes with his life. Next up is Hannibelle, who tells us how she got infected as a teen and coped with it. Well written and all that, but both texts sound a lot more like Chucks and badly dyed hair than monsters. I thought Infected were supposed to become more bestial?

On to the actual crunch. The unstoppable zombie virus is officially off the books, relations between Magic and Essence Loss have been worked out, plus several other much-needed rule fixes and clarifications. And you can use the newly polished rules to play all the Infected types presented in RW (well, minus Drop Bears), meaning Gnawers, Grendels, Harvesters and Mutaqua (Mutaquae?) are now possible PCs. But before getting ready to connect to your inner Mutaqua, there is a big change how the infection works: Instead of getting all powers upon becoming infected (or character generation), characters only get a few powers -- and all weaknesses -- from the start, and then can progressively buy more optional powers with Karma. For example, vampires have to buy both Regeneration and Mist Form after infection, but in return the basic vampire only costs 27 Karma. Definitely a great change, it brings across the gradual transformation through the virus and also circumvents the problem of getting all the powers frontloaded when becoming infected in play.


I like the section, given all the fuzz about Fear the Dark and killing people for food being wrong it's even surprisingly tame...although vamps definitely want to stay out of the sun now
Couple of remarks, just in case PG drops in:

• "Improved Attribute: All" would better be "Any", since you're not improving all of them
• "The normal limit saying characters cannot have more than 25 Karma worth of Positive Qualities at character creation does not apply to Infected qualities, though the limit on 25 Karma worth of Negative Qualities remains in place. This means that the mutaqua quality cannot be selected unless the character is Awakened." Huh? Mutaqua is a positive one
  
  • Also, IMO it would make more sense to have the Infected qualities not count towards the limit instead of ignoring the limitaltogether.
• "Of course, for each point of Essence they drain beyond their normal maximum Essence, they have to make an Addiction Test (see Essence Drain Addiction, p. 134)". Of course? That is the only place where this is mentioned

I think that's the plan for AIs, but I'm not pitching for Data Trails, so I don't know what they've got in mind.

Drakes...couldn't tell ya.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that I got talked down from the utter doom and gloom for Infected that I'd started out with. My writing partner may have had something to do with that, but I find I'm mellowing a bit as I age. Besides, it's a player's companion; had to make it playable. Not doing that would have been a real dick move on my part, and in the end that's bad mojo.

That said, though, Kevin and I have some mean ideas we're working on for future works.

Holding my breath....

To be fair, you can't play chupacabras either.

I think "mutaqua" is both singular and plural.

*sighs with relief*

I am so pleased to read that. The crunch on this one was a pain in the butt, and while I liked what we came up with, I was really worried about the possible reception, especially among those I knew to be big on Infected PCs. So the positive response so far has been enormously satisfying.

It was a balancing act, and I might have erred on the side of caution in the things I did fluff-wise.

Thanks for your kind words; I'm glad it worked for you. I'll address your list a little later; I've got to get going right now. But I appreciate you taking the time to look things over.

just from what i can read that you've quoted:

for the karma limit on qualities, works fine as written; the *qualities* ignore the limit, but the limit is not removed afaict.

as to why that would only allow mutaqua if they're awakened, i'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that mutaqua have a negative quality that is not worth as much if you're awakened... but i can't for the life of me recall what a mutaqua is, let alone what negative qualities they might have. still, i'm gonna go out on a limb and speculate that they're blind, which is not worth as many karma when you are able to astrally perceive, purely on the basis that it's the only negative quality i can remember being worth less for the awakened.

Oh, PC Infected are back?

That's one way to guarantee I'm not buying the book. Thanks for the heads up guys.

Sorry, Patrick, nothing personal, but long experience has shown me that PC Infected are nothing but a problem at the table, and I'm really disappointed with whoever sets the release priorities at CGL for deciding that a half dozen different bad ideas were what needed page space.

It's a simple matter if you're the GM. Just say 'No.' Did that at mine regarding infected, metavariants, and shifters, while changelings had to be cleared by me (had none), and honestly got no complaints about it.

If info from Running Wild is still valid at the table, page 64 lists the general bounties on many of the infected in the UCAS & CAS.

The infected got off quite well, with their section and all. It was an enjoyable read and ends up being a valid option for play. It makes me wish the shifter section would have been written as good, but also makes me think (more than just hope) that the missing abilities, really are one of the usual oversights, CGL has "blessed" us with, since SR5.

Really makes you want to know who wrote what.

As for the haters: Really, I can understand, that some people love and others hate particular options (or even the concept of the irregular or any options at all). As a GM you can decide what will be allowed and what not or if you even want to host a Shadowrun campaign. Let's hope no one is forcing you.

While we are at publishing decisions, I see most of them as wrong when it comes to SR5. It always starts with publishing unfinished and or unpolished products and does not end at makeing a fool of your customer.

In my opnion, Run Faster should have been the first supplement after a polished core book (it being about Charakter creation an all). Run and Gun was not that pressing, Magic and Matrix should have been next, then maybe Augmentation and Rigging. And while there maybe a lot of different opinions on that, it is something, that can not really be changed anymore.

Also I wish the publishing plan would have been the worst mistake in SR5.

And again, you have missed the point. It's not about whether Initiation during generation should be allowed or not (if the concept requires/supports it I'm all for it), but about whether it is allowed by RAW...and about Karma costs, gear Rating restrictions and other details which are different during generation.

It's more an overall thing. The karmagen doesn't really sell the book to me as it is a can of worms (if not written very clearly) for the reasons noted above under Initation, and I was hoping that there'd be other stuff in there I'd want, but Infected/metavariants/shifters aren't really it for me either.

I'm dead sure that gear books sell much better than companions. It makes sense for CGL to release the money-grabbers early on in the edition cycle.

The good thing is, you apparently don't "need" that book, so yeah, totally fine not to buy it.
I would not say, that it is really worth it either, even though I do like some of the stuff in there. Much of it has not been given enough thought (as so often lately) .

In that case, where's my Cybertech book?

Come on, you know that I'm right.