My Review"It seems communication between Cliffhanger and CGL works just as badly as communication between CGL and Pegasus does"
- Shadowrun Workshop, Roleplay Convention 2015
Lockdown is not a bad book. It's actually very slid. You get mileage out of that book. It has pre-event location info, info on the Lockdown event, post-event location info, and a companion campaign to utilize the setting. It even has some gear and rules thrown in. There are also a number of issues which I'll get to in a bit, but overall, this is among the more solid releases for the line.
The writing is okay - Schletz has an odd tendency towards long-wound sentences with lots of adjectives, which make it seem like it's a translation from German or Russian, but that's neither good nor bad, just curious. It's mostly conclusive, doesn't contradict itself in any major way I noticed (unlike some other CGL books) and, usually, is the right mix between precise and vague to help a roleplay setting come alive without crushing all creativity with hard facts on every last person and place.
Each major section of the book is introduced by short stories, usually wel written ones, like has been the rule with SR5. This is nice and gives good ideas for encounters and games, and creates a nice sense of immersion.
content[ Spoiler ]
The book starts off detailing Boston before Locdown, presented in Shadowrun's standard virtual travel guide format, detailing major players in the city - corporations (including several non-3A corps), dragons, security forces, syndicates, terrorists, gangs and assorted scoundrels, and even the urban tribes Shadowrun insists are a Boston specialty. Excursions into Boston magic and what Damon was actually doing there is followed by a look into R&D in Boston, starting with medical technology (including many things we'll later meet with gear stats - and issues) and going over nanotech, augmentations, and agritech, where major local players are detailed (this might have better been put into the corporate affairs section, but SR5 books always seem eclectically put together and to rely on the searchability of PDFs).
Then there's the Lockdown event, narrated through a number of in-game blogs that tell the story from incomplete and biased perspectives, clearly gunning for something like Bug City. It doesn't really hit the mark - Bug city had more flair and elegance, Lockdown would have needed a good polish to play in that league, but it makes for compelling enough reading.
This is followed by descriptions of the Lockdown's possible background - including a data dump by Miles Lanier, former right-hand man and closest associate of Richard Villiers on all the corporate secret projects that combined into the CFS nanite plague (and the roles of Pax and Deus in the mess). Also, there is information on the pretty insane containment measures around the NEMA QZ, which read more than a bit like "magic did it" and are among the weakest parts of this book.
This is followed by more scenery, based on a diary written by a college kid trapped in the 'Zone, and later continued b a runner. Again, this feels oddly placed and would probably have made for a better structure if it had changed places with the preceding chapters, but other than that it's again solidly written.
Then there's the campaign, which is framed b short stories following a runner group trapped in the QZ. The adventures start off moderately and designed to get the characters to Boston in the first place, and then offer a number of runs of increasing challenge revolving mostly around breaking into the especially cordoned off MIT Cordon (a QZ within the QZ, so to speak). The campaign culminates in the runners getting hold of massive paydirt that might get a number of megas into serious trouble, and options to unload it, ranging from 750K for the team and a ticket out to 5 Million per character and 1% of Monobe's voting stock (and a way out, haha, probably with concrete shoes into the Mid-Atlantic) - huge sums, but then again, taking SR5's hideous prices, 5 Million for the team (assuming 5 characters) is 1 Million per character, so it's a nice deck, piece of betaware or focus for everybody, and the remains, pooled together, buy a TacNet of moderate quality for the team, so it's really not THAT outrageous). Or, of course, a character retirement package, but since when do players ever actually act in character there.
The last part is game info, detailing the NEMA QZ special CFS nanite effects (now in moderatly survivable if ou burn a lot of Edge and have a high starting Willpower that you don't mind seeing reduced to 1 or 2). It also has rules for UniOmni's new designer drugs (Buffout straight from Fallout and a couple other moderate goodies), and Cyber suites. This is the worst issue I have with the book, because as written, the cyber suites are absolutely useless.
The IssuesSome canon glitches, some minor spelling errors (by which I mean, for CGL, this is very well done), and a layout that definitly feels rushed. Art is sub-par by SR5's high standards, pretty much all of it is a variation of SRC:BL concept art, usually edited weirdly and sometimes using bad quality images.
Bigger issues are the rules (especially cyberware suite rules) and a segment in the campaign.
The campaign has a segment that comes with a yadda yadda mature themes can be offensive for chicken yadda header - in my experience with games, a red flag if there was any. And indeed, we're treated to a random rape van encounter. Now, if this had an actual consequence for the adventure - if it was embedded into the larger narrative or presented as one of several small hooks of QZ mad shit, I'd be okay with it - but as it is, it's just sitting there, being awkward and looking like some awkward nerdy power fantasy. This space - half a page - could have been better untilized to explore the headcase phenomenon, not a random rape van.
Even worse, though, is the treatment of cyberware suites. In short, they're useless. Implanting them will make
all implants stop working - including passive ones like dermal plating, orthoskin and bone lacing, and all other bioware,
because reasons. Also, they can't be resold because explanting them makes them dsfunctional and will result in severely decreased quality. Because cash flow is bad for you, or something. Another brick in the growing feeling that SR5's writers really have it out for augmented characters for some bizarre reason.
Finally, the book's supposed tie-in with SRC:BL is tangential at best. Despite being sold as companion products, this book and SRC:BL have next to nothing in common. Some characters of the same name appear, but in totally differnet roles - Buster, Jellyfish Kelly et all are an Urban Brawl team locked up in Boston in Lockdown, and a local gang/militia in SRC:BL. No mention whatsoever is made of many more or less important NPCs in SRC:BL, like Jane, LadyLuck, Immorel or Sarah. Some get a passing mention, but other than Pancake, none come remotely close to what they are like in the game. Also, see introductionary quote.
All in all, it's an 8 - a solid book with some issues.
-0,5 for the unnecessary rape van
-0,5 for the crappy rules
-1 for lack of coordination with Cliffhanger
), AIs "deliberately built to be electronic sentiences" simply don't exist in SR. Even the single candidate which (who?) got close was more of a Texas Sharpshooter affair.
They should have edged that roll!