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Full Version: So, I made an introductory .PDF for my newbie runners. 74 pages later, I think I went overboard...
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Xasten
Some of you may have seen me throwing a few parts of this thing around for polish in the last few weeks. I just finished, so here it is.

I've got my D&D group ready for some old school 2nd edition Shadowrun, and as part of the prep, I made them a supplementary packet with a drekload of house rules and other modifications. I'm running the published adventures and slowly introducing new tech past 2050 like the Samurai Catalog and Bioware, so I've asked them all not to read anything but the core rules to avoid spoilers. This means that they're missing a lot of fluff, so I decided to do something about it.

The first third is just stories from the core book that I transcribed and modified slightly to have the backstory make a tad more sense. The middle part is my attempt at making the game more realistic vis a vis decking versus real life encryption and a few other things, and the final third is house rules. I've also sprinkled art and advertisements throughout. Yes, they suspect nothing about the Universal Brotherhood's ad inside....bwahahaha

I'm pretty proud of it, so I thought I'd share it. If you'd like to use it, please drop me a PM and I can send you the Word version. The only problem you might have is that on page 43 (47 of the PDF) is that I redacted an email in the shadowtalk. I set up a gmail with a simple to guess password for my players and sent them on a run to see who actually read the thing. The font is Friz Quadrata TT which is available online for free. I've got it hosted here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-GV0IfKz...S093UTZiaGJ0YVU
Edit: Just noticed the page numbers aren't justified on the table of contents and are crooked. I already took these to the printer to have bound. /wrists

Edit #2: Alright, finally put in the permanent fix. Ripped out all of the full page ads and opening stories.
nezumi
That is a beautiful piece of work. It looks really, really sharp. But I am worried about the copyright. You are taking images from the books, and clearly a good deal of content (I suspect you're lifting some of it wholesale, but even if you're just rewriting it, it'll be close enough for anyone to tell it's a copy).

For legal reasons, I really recommend you provide page numbers from published books and say 'read these'. And as much as I'm loathe to say it, I think you need to pull this offline. It's beautiful, but I'm pretty sure you're breaking the law with it. (Posting the house rules and the cheat sheets is fine).
Xasten
As mentioned, the opening stories were lifted verbatim from the 2E core book. And So It Came to pass.. is posted publicly on official sites, so I ASSume I'd find little objection from the Copyright holder. Plus Ca Change, as far as I can tell, only appeared in the 1991 rule book, so that is, admittedly, dicier along with the images.

I pulled some of the Seattle stuff from online, and the corp descriptions were written wholesale by me using information from various sources including Corporate Shadowfiles. The What Would Samurai do is Knasser's but I left that complete with his attribution, and he posted it for free, so I imagine I'll face no objection there.

If any of the owners ask, obviously, I'll immediately rip them out of the shared packet. The images were from the London Sourcebook and the Neo Anarchist Guide to Real Life (IIRC). Like I said, this was meant for my seven player group, but I just wanted to share it with the community. Obviously, I will comply immediately if anyone asserts copyright. I have added an attribution watermark for what it's worth.
Draco18s
Providing references for the "things that are not yours" which includes web links would be mucho bueno. It'll help keep you out of legal trouble, but I am not a lawyer.
("Freely available online" does not mean "open source," however if you are including some, but not all of a work and then providing a link back to the original source you are much more likely to pull off a Fair Use argument, as you are creating interest in the original work and directing views towards the original, rather than being a substitute).
Xasten
I initially posted it and allowed it to stand as it was for a few reasons. Interestingly, or perhaps shockingly, enough, I am a lawyer. Albeit a poor one, apparently, with little to no real experience in IP.

I have redacted all copyrighted material for the online version.

Fair Use isn't so much about attribution as it is using art for a legally recognized purpose such as parody. Even putting in links wouldn't solve any real issues if someone wanted to assert ownership. If there was any problem, it'd be up to the copyright holders to assert that against the posted file. Fair Use is generally a balancing test, and given that no profit was had here, the work was ~25 years old, the works used are all out of print, and that the file was generating interest in the game, it's a fairly safe bet the owners of the rights would take no issue. Several SR2 books have been purchased by my group simply because of the interest my prep work generated.

That said, ultimately, I was assuming that no issue would be taken, and that's just not something that's safe or ethical to do. Consider me admonished and the file corrected.
Draco18s
QUOTE (Xasten @ May 5 2016, 08:41 AM) *
Even putting in links wouldn't solve any real issues if someone wanted to assert ownership.


Oh I know. Its more that it's part of that balancing act that it shows intent to generate interest and says, "Look, you want more of this? Go here."
nezumi
Ahh you're a big fat cheater nyahnyah.gif As an online reader, I far prefer the 'not available for online reading' to be totally removed, or replaced with a link. It's not much use for me to have 50 giant, black pages I can't use nyahnyah.gif But it's not for me, and I'm not starting a new game any time soon.

Other than that, I really like it. I don't have time to do a deep dive, but it's quite comprehensive and very nice. Some of that is the quality of stuff I'd expect to find in a professionally run convention game.
Xasten
Thanks for the kind words. I spent a lot of time on it these last few weeks, and I drove my wife off a cliff getting her to edit it. So, while I wasn't thrilled to receive a finger-waggling here and on Reddit, I did somewhat deserve it over the copyright issues.

And yeah, I was going to blank the pages/remove them in a better way, but I've been busy at work, so I took the quick and dirty route. MS Paint + CTRL+C then CTRL +V 50 times

Regarding the character questionnaire the packet references, I just uploaded that too. Basically, it's just a way for me to extract blackmail material out of people forcibly for use in game.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-GV0IfKz...bGg4U1B5aW9pakU
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