After reading through the entire SotA 64 thread...well I did start skimming when I got back to the first couple of pages...OK I SKIPPED THE WHOLE FIRST PAGE BUT GEEZ! TAKE IT EASY! Anyway, I have to say kudos and cheers to the complainers.

As for those complaining about the complainers (heretofore referred to as complainers^2 ) and even the stalwart defenders, weren't yall a bit rough on those that were merely giving their (negative) opinions?

For example, I can see why it would be frustrating for someone who poured his or her heart and soul into writing good adept material--and for the legions of fans who have been raving for years to get some of the afore mentioned adept material--to have his or her hard work spurned, but I also understand the frustration of those who see the concept of Shadowrun being tech vs magic--a dichotomy of two separate, non-overlapping philosophies. It's a world of loud, gun toting sams vs quiet unarmed adepts; the mystical, obscure magic user vs the understandable, plain grunt detective; amorphous, ethereal spirits vs heavy, coarse drones. When adepts can use their magic to become proficient in almost any role, this particular worldview loses some flavor. You don't have to agree with it, and by all means suggest other ways of seeing it, but I believe the most appropriate response is acknowledgement and sympathy. I do realize that there was much overlap from the very beginning. Sams could be quiet and specialized in hand-to-hand just like an adept, but there were always some things that magic could do that mundane couldn't and vice versa.

The Shadowrun world seems to be trending in a direction of merger and overlap between technology and magic. This was somewhat hinted at in Dunkie's will and is happening elsewhere. That too is an interesting and flavorful development, but I for one understand the resistance.

This is just the observation of a complainer^3. Feel free to lodge your complaints^4 here.

P.S. The rest of the book sounds pretty good. I'll have to check it out.

I see it as being real. There are still things that only tech can do. That adepts being able to do things previously thought solely in the province of the samurais are simply the way things go to the drekker. SOTA 2063 had Riggers take over the decker as the person controlling the security systems. I see tech as suffering from saturation (alright there is still the SOTA curve and all), but Magic is a brave new world not unlike Africa in the early 1910-1930s. It is there, there are parts that everyone knows about but there are still many places that no modern man has gone before.

Actually, riggers taking over building security from deckers goes back to Rigger 2.

Actually Rigging CCSS in buildings only came out in 2063, but rigging CCSS in vehicles came with R3.

i'm 99% sure that Corpsec Security introduced CCSS in 2nd edition. could be wrong.

Add 1%, you're right.

I have absolutely no problem with magic and technology working together. The seperation between the two has always been an artificial one to begin with. In a world where magic revolves around the independant beliefs of those who weild it -- and with those individuals more often than not coming from a background where technology is found at every turn -- I can't even begin to imagine why it's a problem. The real problem comes from that seperation... by doing so, you keep a lot of really interesting and fascinating concepts from being possible within the game.

Hell, one of my favorite pictures from an older edition (I can't remember which sourcebook it was in) was a Bradstreet portrait of a street mage creating a summoning circle with a can of mass-produced Acme Magic Paint. That's was just cool.

We have to keep the separation between tech and magic. Otherwise Magicians can be Fighters and Fighters can be Clerics. Confusion would reign.

I should be able to play a 5th-level Dwarven Fighter who can prepare 3rd-level Wizard spells every day if I wanna, dammit!

I would note just one thing. In canon at least I don't think its an issue of overlap or merger at all, it isn't really becoming any easier for magic to interface with tech, and personally I don't see that changing anytime soon. What is happening is people are learning to use one to complement the other. Working together but as separate elements.

Exactly. That's what confuses me about the people who seem so up in arms about the whole thing. As far as I know, it's never actually been an issue in the game itself... just people's perceptions of it. I'm entirely for seeing more of it. I love my technomancers.

It works for me and my group. We came up with a mage-rigger (nod to Otaku) type for our games, which at its very core is a melding of the two, tech and magic.

Yeah, well, until recently I was one of the objectors myself. It wasn't so much the blending of magic and technology that I minded; in fact, the number of ways magic and technology mesh in SR is one of its strong suits, unmatched by most any other system I've seen except maybe Deadlands. What bothered me most was the difference in power curves between mundane and Awakened. On the surfact it seemed that with every sourcebook the Awakened were gainning more and more power, and the mundanes were staying the same. The number of ways Awakened have to increase their power--initiation and foci in particular--are almost completely inaccesible to mundanes, while every method mundanes have to increase their power is easily accessible, often at little to no extra cost. I was concerned that eventually SR would end up like Ars Magica, with the mages taking center stage and the mundanes sitting on the sidelines with little more than bit parts.

mfb and others have convinced me that, so far, this isn't the case yet. Mostly it's an artifact of the exponentially increasing amount of cash given for the Resources priority, but on the whole mundanes start with several hundred thousand nuyen more than Awakened. Even with the better power curve it seems that it takes Awakened so long to make up this difference that mundanes never fall too far behind until the Karma level becomes ridiculously high. I suppose I still have some misgivings about the whole thing, but I guess things work just fine as they are, which is why I am no longer whinning so much.