So no comments? I was sure this one was going to get some flak by now (pun intended).

I kinda figured that Kosher, take your time, your review has been informative and detailed and I for one am grateful. I was just wondering about everybody else being unusually quiet on the UK... especially with the twists we added.

Like Kosher, I'm moving slowly, actually this will probably be the last one I read. I love the old London SB and felt the UK was well represented there, and I lived there for 6 months so I like to think I have more of a view how it goes.

Oh don't worry. I'll get round to dissecting and slagging the whole thing off real soon now.

I can't wait . But seriously Simon, I know what your expectations were and I know you're also aware of the limitations so I'm particularly interested in hearing what you think about how it came out (good or bad). I know we went off on a completely different direction and I know you're going to be disappointed with the underworld and the tons of other cool details we didn't fit in (but never fear the Helix will fix that)... but I'm very keen to get impressions on what is there.

I'd love to do a review but since im still waiting for my local to get the fraggin book in.... Poxxy Esdevian...

No no no, a Royal Commission's job is to take so long that everyone forgets what they were reporting about.

Ah sounds just like home.....

I liked Lyonesse, and some of the druid info was okay, though I'd have liked more on Snowdonia.

My main problem with it is as I mentioned in the other thread. The chapter doesn't give a solid framework on the place while building on London Sourcebook, but instead devotes a lot of time trying to tear down what came before. Pendragon was so-so for interest, mainly because at this point it just seems too "done".

Ley Lines were decently done, government stuff was fairly bland, but was important enough on some levels.

Pleased to see the English crowd liked it in general. I got a similar reaction from a couple of SR fans I met through Leisure Games. Even though the UK got one of the bigger chapters, Alistair and myself had a lot of stuff that never made the cut and other stuff which was never even used.

VoceNoctum - I'd like to hear more on what you believe is "tearing down what came before". In this chapter particularly we tried to preserve and cross-reference as much as possible of the material in London and show how it would naturally develop a decade on given the way the setting was done - stuff like the fascist inclination of the LPO, the subversive influence of the NDM, the corruption of the Greens, the weak Crown, even the Oversight Board are all from London and S&G's later material Streets of Blood and Nosferatu.

We also didn't want to go with a revolution white-washing the past but rather play up the Movement in a particularly British-style of counterestablishment group and give the players a chance to get involved (on either side). Bagpuss nailed it on the head with his references so we must have done something right.

Being someone who doesn't own the London Sourcebook, I'm actually glad about this chapter. I can use it, plus I can extrapolate from the timelines about running games that are less than current, such as 2050s games or so.

It depends on how you want to use stuff. You can play out the rumblings or acts by the NDM which finally pull the wool from the Celtic's eyes. There's a whole buildup in the Transys-Neuronet takeover and its failure. You can help open markets, bring up new evidence against native corps to help the megas or vice versa. There's quite a bit 1) Working against the LPO, 2) Working for the LPO, 3) Working for the corps, 3) Working against the Pendragon, 4) Working for the Pendragon...etc. There's a lot that can be run as one-offs or form campaign seeds. Sort of against SoE, you will have to think out more...there's not as much handed to you as in DidS or Tir Nan Og.

@Voce Noctum: How did you feel about the original London, Tir Nan Og, or Germany sourcebooks? In the case of the first and the third, they were written by natives. I like that fact that most chapters in SoE were written by natives. Of course, I also like the DidSII book for Germany based on the same reason.

Don

That's another reason the history sections were so important. A lot of us First Edition old-timers take for granted the information we've already absorbed from previous releases and that most of the 3rd Edition players (probably the majority today) lack all that background to give them context.

I first noticed this in SONA in fact, when I realized how much the stuff there was complemented by the background in NAGNA, NAN1 & 2, Target:UCAS, Tir Tairngire, CalFree, Target: Smuggler Havens and even Aztlan and how much SR history was now OOP and unavailable. With SoE we knew going in that the historical context was very needed but that we were going to have to squeeze to put in the essentials.

VoceNostrum - While it's true that the tendency to self-promote has been an issue in the past namely with the original Germany/DidS. The "my-country-is-bestest" syndrome is something we made effort to avoid in SoE and personally I think we suceeded. There's nothing especially uber about any of the Eurocountries although they all have their unique idiosyncracies.

In fact the Pendragon is only one individual and his actual involvement with the Movement has yet to be proven. Indeed his entire agenda is unclear.

As to the LPO's regime I'd just argue that 30 years living under the oppressive and fascist regime presented in London in today's world is just cause for change in today's world let alone in the Sixth World - it was also one of the elements the fans most disliked about S&G portrayal of Britain (for those who lived the Thatcher years in particular it was dated even before it came out). We thought England needed a kick in the ass and this was the time to do it. Apparently other people liked so I'm inclined to think it was a good call.

Just out of curiosity - what details of the original London sb do you think we missed and should have left in instead of the Movement? Or is it just the fine details of London boroughs?

One thing that I think really needed to be put in, and this is from the brief read of it I've done so far so apologies if I missed it, was the Lamberth Containment Zone and the Lambeth Martyrs. Having a section of your capital city rebel against government authority so badly that you have to declare marshal law and move the army in to occupy the area is fairly serious. Now I personally didn't really like this section since it just seemed to smack of "Hhmm, we've lost Norther Ireland as a hotspot. I know! Lets transplant it to the middle of London!" for me. Although it was a good hook in and of itself.

For an update I'd probably have the Maryrs settle down some. The government got tired of the whole thing and hired teams of shadowrunners to frame the corp and get them in the clear. Corp responds by declaring the liable subsidiary bankrupt, dissolves it and asset strips the thing on the way out the door. Most of the Martyrs decide to decalre a cease-fire and negotiate with the government for an end to hostilities and aid package. Breakaway groups decide it's not enough and carry on attacking government and general corp targets.

This leads to loads of Government vs. Maryr spying and manouvering and vice versa over the talks, the peace talks faction and the carry on fighting faction not getting along and clashing, government forces still targeting the militant faction etc. And even then, the peace talks faction are fairly anti-government/corp anyway. Which could lead them to hooking up with the Pendragon Underground since these guys are highly skilled and armed urban soldiers with years of practical operational experience. But that's just off the top of my head. :/

The Martyrs and their history get mentioned in passing in the London section. They are portrayed as still being more extremist than the Movement (which is still largely peaceful).

Hmmm, so the UK seems to be generally accepted so far (or people haven't yet got that far in this whopping soucebook - don't blame you, its a bit of a beast ain't it?).

OK, paws in the air time. Yup, I'm the dude who ended up writing a good chunk of the chapter. And I am a native Brit too. I'm glad that the feel of the chapter has come across as British, that it imparts that atmosphere was one of my main intentions whilst writing it. Just to clear up a few points though...

Updating the OOP London Sourcebook: Many aspects of the UK were already set as canon by this publication, and thus most of the information contained within SoE's UK chapter had to follow this precedent for the sake of continuity. In fact, one of my other main aims was to intergrate and logically explain some of these earlier events to make the timeline/atmosphere more coherent and believable. Examples include:

> The Crown: OK, tricky subject overall. Not only having to explain how it fits into the UK society/culture, but also having to fill in significant gaps left by Carl Sargent and Marc Gascoine's (apologies for poor spelling) previous attempt. Namely the whole thing about what happened to Harry and William and where did George VII come from? Personally, I believe this was originally left a major grey area on purpose because no one knew back then what would happen with the sucession of the throne, let alone consider the loss of HRH Princess Diana. As for the technical details revolving around legitimate claims to the throne, well, the canon stated that a third heir named George would be appointed and then die in the throes of goblinisation. However, although this had to be the son of Charles the mother isn't mentioned and so a bit of a blag to let the GM decide whilst not actually contradicting what in all plasible possibility could happen. Especially considering the loss of both heirs in such an event.

> The Druids: The significance of the schism between the two types has been a constant backdrop. If you have the original sb you may note that tensions were high back in the 2050's and that there were several comments on the Celtic factions doing weird things and suchlike - especially trying to walk new leys. To me, this bit was the most fascinating and just begged for inclusion along with the magic of the leys themselves. Fortunately, the YotC manasurges and basic aspect of a magical land fitted so well together. It also gave me the opportunity to correct the inaccuracies of the London sb's ley line map. A pity there was no room for all the other stuff I wanted to include here: like the list of 50+ powersites and a little more details on certain other groups and special areas.

> The Geography: This was intended to be "my bit" originally, but once the ideas started flowing so did the text. (Synner had his hands full with a lot of other chapters and so I got to write more of the whole chapter. ) Foremost of all I wanted to cover more than just London. The UK is bigger and has many more important places than just that single city. This is where the Shadows of... format worked to my advantage - with such limited wordcount I didn't think about trying to do what the original sourcebook covered to a far more in-depth way. That left me with trying to impart the overall flavour of the city and then to do the same with the other bits of the country. Here is where I also wanted to clarify the concepts behind the Zones (another big oversight in the ommissions by Carl and Marc). There is such a significant change to the land in which I currently reside as to demand an explanation, as hopefully many GM's out there will be grateful of too. This was my mission - to describe the environment so those GM's out there could visualise and interpret it to their players (and also answer how it had become that way). Yet again limited wordcount prevented me from fully describing all the Toxic, Wild, and Habitable Zones and Sprawls (Yup, I'm sorry Tynesprawl didn't make the final edit). I also wanted a better map that the London sb too - a cleaner, more accurate and updated one. (IMHO my original submission did include quite a nice one, although limitations on size and shading aside, Mike has conveyed the necessary details very well.)

OK, this is already quite a bit bigger than I intended (remind you of my drafts eh Synner?), so I'll wrap up with this final explanation:

I wanted the whole chapter to read as an introduction to UK culture for an outsider. To get across the feel of the place and the people, it's background, culture and their perspectives. The layout was done as a progression of what you would encounter first to last: how people acted, who was in authority/wielded the power, what the surroundings were like and where you could go and eventually how the Sixth World impacted upon the previous. Somehow Synner and I stuck in some plot hooks, extended the existing threads and even managed to leave an open-ended decision as to how you wnat to play it.

So, guys and gals - where do you want the UK to go?

Oh, and Lyonesse was my idea too, but it was originally called something else...

I liked the UK section overall with a few exceptions. My big problem with the section (to get the bad stuff out of the way) is that it needed to include a lot of stuff from, and is bound by, the old London Sourcebook. I disliked that book - I disliked it quite a lot in fact. As far as I'm concerned, Sargent and Gascoine are to Shadowrun what Joel Schumacher is to Batman films. As a result I was a little disappointed, although not surprised, that anything from it survived (it had to be in continuity after all). (It also served to make the section seem smaller than the others as it recapped things I already knew but that can't be helped.)

I'm still annoyed with the depiction of the aristocracy. Even with the resurgent nobility theme in SoE I find it silly. The nobility description is just wrong unless I missed a change somewhere in SR history and the implication of their amount of power, influence, involvement and actually meaning anything to society, is strange. (It's a little better if I mentally edit some to be Life Peers but they don't seem to exist in 2060's Britain.) This is probably just a prejudice based on the London Sourcebook though. I had hoped Lady Glendower would be brutally murdered (along with her thankfully-not-mentioned Cyberknights) but alas no. There isn't even a County of Harlech - its's a Barony - and it's not as if Burke's Peerage is secret knowledge. Incidently, Francis Ormsby-Gore, AKA The Rt Hon The Lord Harlech, appears to be the 6th Baron of Harlech at the moment. That's bordering on ranting though, and I'm mostly nitpicking at S&G's expense, so I'll move on.

(Incidently, is Lord Protector Marchment a Life Peer or Hereditary, I can't seem to find anything on that. I think Life Peer makes more sense for the character but I would like to know if I'm wrong.)

The Early-90s/Poll Tax-y feel is actually something I didn't like (and I'm pretty sure that's another bit of S&G taint). It does feel British but in a cartoon anti-Thatcherism way that I don't feel is quite right. It's a bit dated.

That said, the new material is mostly pretty damn good. Plus, it actually managed to make some of the old stuff almost tolerable, which is pretty impressive given my feelings in the above paragraphs. I would have liked a little more on the Pendragon and Lyonesse (was it Avalon originally? Ry'leh?) but I'll be content for the moment with what I've got here. Both the Police State and Proto-Revolution were well described. Having the seemingly arbitrary zones explained in a reasonable(ish) way was good. Marchment becoming head of the civil service brought Yes, Minister to mind, which was nice and gave me some fresh insight into how to use him in a plot line.

As pseudo-fascist police state's go it all seems playable and there's plenty to work with, which I guess is the whole point of the book, so well done.

I apologise about the negative aspect of a lot of this, I did like it but I'm a lot better at describing the bits I don't like than the bits I did. Also, as may be apparent, I'm not that lucid at the moment as I've been awake for about 22 hours - I'll try to come back and edit this later.

Some brief comments. Consistency and continuity were essential to us since we started out on the EuroSB. So since we had to live with London, we decided to give players the chance for their characters to play a part in bringing down a lot of what they disliked instead of writing it out completely off-camera (or if they liked London, to play a part in keeping the status quo).

Regarding the peerage and nobility. We discussed this in depth and did a little research. Turns out S&G were on to something, even if they did go a little overboard. If you look at the board of directors of the top 20 British firms you'll find about 50% of the names are old money peers of one type or another (this is true in France and other Euronations to some extent or another). Then there's the trend for Life peers to marry hereditary peers to reinforce their social standing and get an extra edge in the old boys club.

That being said, yes, it is still a bit over the top, but we did our best to bring a little realism in and creatively revisit the stuff in London. Alistair gave the Zones a realistic spin and we blended his ley material with my ideas for the blooming Druidic conflict and the Pendragon fit right in.

All said and done if the stuff you don't like is mostly what carried on from London then I'd say this was a job well done . Pity you don't like the feel of the Movement though, I'm quite fond of it.

BTW - ... though Humphrey is a great reference, the LP is far more powerful and dangerous - I think Francis Urquhart (from Michael Dobbs' House of Cards and that nice BBC trilogy) is probably closer to what I had in mind when updating him.

On the Peers and corps thing though, are they executive or non-executive members? IIRC, it's often a bit like the US where they'll put an ex-Congressman/Cabinet member on the payroll to look nice but they don't actually have any influence.

These are not corporate officers (there are those too), they're on the boards which means they either own a chunk of the corporation or they represent people who do. Either way they wield some power and if they somehow come to act concertedly that power is multiplied many times.

One other thing that I forgot to mention earlier:

A lot of comments compared the original London sb to the Thatcher administration or the poll-Tax riots. Personally, I wanted to see a bit more of a 60's reSURGEnce, especially with Merseysprawl. Although I'm not quite sure that aspect comes across too clearly.

So, how does the Revolution concept come across to you readers out there? I know Synner would appreciate some feedback on his baby...

OK let me finally enter in on this chapter.

The problem was that between the London SB, the Saergent & Gascon books and Imago the UK was pretty well documented. For someone who hadn't read these, especially the SB which is one of my all time fav's it gives a lot of good info.

For me it's like the SoNA update on the TT situation, pretty much the old stuff but things are unravelling. So it's an update of the situation more than exposure to a new culture, at least for me, which the other chapters are.

I really did like the better explanation of the London Dome. Made into domes. I don't know if it was in the others but I didn't see itas such and the suggestion of a single dome over a region the size of Greater London-inconceivable.

The one thing that stuck me about the Great Britian chapter was the map. The country is a mish-mash of Toxic Zones, Habitable Zones, Wild Zones and Sprawls. One could litterally drive a few miles and be in a totally new area, for a totally different kind of run.

I liked that alot. It also made me start to feel REAL sorry for the country, being so boxed in like that. Not like they had alot of room to work with in the first place.

one hting I do have trouble with, and this isn't you're fault it goes back to the old SB is the succession. Ok Charles III walks off. Harry and William die and the next heir just sort of passes away (cough cough) but the succession is pretty well set. I've met and know the 13th in line to the throne- a retired General named Anthony Vivian. Betfore him you've got Andrew, his two daughters, Edward, and issue he might have, Anne etc. there shouldn't be an issue over succession.

like I said i know that's not you, but i do want to say it's a stupidly planned out mess form the original SB

Please note that the issue of succession was not cut-and-dried. Serious corporate and political interests were involved in getting the "right" bloodline on the throne. Finding new documentation to support such-and-such's claim could conceivably make a shambles of any already-existing list.

Plus, throw in UGE, VITAS I, II, III and Goblinization. It could conceivably happen.

The person in line could also have been one of the people previously omitted because of connection to the roman catholic church (see the last link so kindly provided by Nath) who was 'reinstated' on the list due to a more liberal interpretation...

...and with rising tensions between Ireland and the UK in the Shadowrun (and real) world, those would probably be excluded from the line of succession. Then there's always the fun of having an orc King or having half of the line die from VITAS or a prince getting infected with HMHVV...

The Abstruse One

I might have vivian's place al ittle off, or he might have slipped down the list with other nobles having kids. He's a retired general who looks like you called central casting for a "British General" jowly, stoop shouldered big rhuemy eyes but with a very sharp, dry wit. He married Jellicoe's daughter.

I'm not saying it might not be way down the line, but that the line is well documented and the succession well set. By the 2030's Andrew's girls will probably have children of their own, adding to the line.

Woohoo! Finally sourced a copy of SoE! Look at me!!!

Alright, enough... calm down... sorry...

Skipping ahead to the London chapter (as would be expected, no doubt), the first thing I noticed is the absence of those beautifully taken photographs as per the original London SB. Why none of them? Huh?

Sorry again...

Anyway, the whole section is well laid out, well written and contains useful information to refresh and supplement the LSB (for those that have it). I'm sure it would be equally useful to those who've never read it.

On the downside I thought the whole Pendragon thing was a bit OTT, but the Lyonesse idea rocks.

I would have liked to see a little more on the Templars and the LPO as I like the idea of running my players through a Police State!

I haven't really got any criticisms, though! Well done guys!

I await the next set of books with baited breath: MrJ's LBB, SOTA 2064 - am I missing anything off my wish list?



<EDIT: does anyone know when SOTA'64 will be released in the UK, roughly?>

well, the fact that they're being put on the payroll simply to add prestige indicates that they do have influence. not, of course, any official executive power, but their opinion certainly carries weight--and so does the fact that if the corporation snubs their celebrity shareholder too often, the shareholder will simply sell off his shares, depriving the corporation of that prestige.

Here's a guy who answered a post without realizing there was a full page of other posts who went on something completely different since

bah! i blame the shrinking attention span of today's youth.

I'm a she, not a he, and since I have friends who had dinner with Viv' in quebec at the begining of the month, I don't think he died in the '90's.

damn printers. i want my SOTA:64. my precioussss adept update.

Well, you know you have no one to blame but yourself for dropping out .

No, Anthony Vivian, "Viv" to friends, retired Brigadier General, former Colonel commanding the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Currently attached to the Metropolitan police force dealing with complaints of police brutality. He and his wife are childless. He might be a second son of the line you found though, since he does not have a title. The english noble houses only pass titles to the eldest child, unless the younger ones are given their own titles, how the Queen made Andrew Duke of York, and Edward Earl of Wessex when they were married.