While I am not at Gencon, I have employed certain attendees of skill and discretion to procure me copies of both of the aforementioned. The former was released yesterday, and they should have acquired the latter by now. I think it's about time for a pair of new forums, isn't it?

Before this thread gets flooded with responses regarding SOTA I'd like to clarify that we do not, in fact, have it here at Gencon. There was a slight delay at the printer and SOTA will not be done until next week. So it is not available at Gencon. Sorry for any disappointment or confusion this may have caused. MJLBB is here though and looks great!

BRC

When can I start bugging my friendly local gaming shop about these books? Are they expected to be shipping early Sept. or later in the month?

Any reviews of MJLBB yet?

They should be shipping within a couple weeks, at least for MJLBB. SOTA might be a a week or two behind that.

Bull

On MJLBB, I think it is an excellent resource for any GM, and a critical resource for a starting GM. The chapters on contacts and locations are great, although I could have wished for maps of some of the locations. The first chapter (anatomy of a shadowrun maybe? my book is in the car and I don't feel like going out and grabbing it) is a wonderful resource for a beginning GM, less important for an experienced GM, as reading it I find myself thinking "wow, this is a great compilation of all the things I've learned about running this game over the last 10 years."

The quick decking and quick vehicle combat rules are in there, and are possibly the most useful page or two of SR text I've come across since the BBB ;-}

Overall if you're a GM, this book is a good buy, if you're a new GM this book is the first one I'd buy after the BBB.

yeah, much of the material in MJLBB is more useful to new players and GMs than those of us who've been playing for a while. there is some pretty cool stuff in it. the Reputation rules are the most disappointing, to me--i see them as being a good start, certainly, but there's a lot more that could've been done with them (boosting your rep by stealing credit from others, keeping your reputation intentionally low-key, etcetera). the quick rigger/decker rules... eh, i'll probably never use 'em, but there's nothing inherently wrong with them, i guess.

The quick decking rules were great at the tournament, as things were already taking too much time and taking the time for doing a few full decking scenes would have made it crazy (I doubt many other people did as much decking as I did, but I jacked in at least twice per session).

Well, okay, only MJBB is out. Let's see a seperate forum for the discussion of that, at least.

Only a handful of people have it so far. Wait till it hits stores.

I got MJLBB and I have to say its excellent(to me).