What shadowrun sourcebooks are your favs. and why

For pure usefulness: New Seattle for me (since my group is in Seattle for now)
when things get more broad, the Shadows over NA works great.

For pure evilness: Renraku Arcology: Shutdown

Year of the Comet is good too - lots of material to use for runs.

Rigger 3. You never know what that drone you see is carrying, how much armor it has, or even if it is smarter than you are.

what's in the "shutdown" book

As a player, my favorites are Cannon Companion, Magic in the Shadows, and Man and Machine. As a GM, you gotta love Corporate Download, Mob War, and New Seattle. Soooooo many evil ideas just waiting to be inflicted.

Shutdown is about the beginnings of the Deus plotline - is continued in "Brainscan" which is a campaign. Basically Deus is an AI that becomes aware in the Renraku arcology - and seals the arcology to experiment on mankind.

Okay, so that is massively dumbed down explanation...but you get the gist.

I know I was avoiding the M&M, CC, and MitS books because I consider them to be core books rather than source books. I know, that's what they are, but still.

My favorite books to read through were RAS and DOTSW.
As for my favorite book for the game, I'm going to have to go with Rigger 3. I that book.

the most useful source books are Man and Machine Magic in the Shadows.

I have never made a character without using either of those books. I have never used the rigger book at all. But that is just me,I am not one who really cares about cars, they tend to way to costly and expendable to really get all happy go luck about.

Use obviously being in the eye of the beholder here.

My favorites? Universal Brotherhood and Bug city, with the novel Burning Bright as a tie in.

The first book I bought six copies of? Street Samurai's catalouge. I now have eight copies of it. Second book to make six copies? Fields of Fire.

Most useful as a gamemaster for me? I have to say it's a tie between the Sprawl Survival Guide, in my opinion the best book written since Bug City, and Corporate Shadowfiles.

Books I use frequently? What I call my core books: 3rd edition Main Book, SR Companion, R3R, CC, MM, MiTS, and SSG. I sometimes add SOTA2063 to that list, as well as a location book or two fo whatever setting I am using currently. (California for anyone interested.)

Least favorite? New Seattle. It's a pale shade of the Seattle Sourcebook. I just don't like it. I also am not too pleased with having bought Brainscan or Cyberpirates. (How I have two of that book is beyond me.)

Hope that satisfies your curiousity.

[Edit]Forgot M&M.

Corporate Download and Shadowbeat.

~J

Bug City.

It is the best book. It is the most well-written, most coherently voiced, most appropriately connecting art and text, and just the most intense slap across the face of anyone who reads it, especially if you read it when it first came out and it really was, as the Game Information chapter begins, the biggest event to happen to SR since it began. It deserves all the awards and praise heaped upon it.

[edit]

Oops. Forgot...

NO ESCAPE

Best pictures and explanatory text: Shadowtech; there never has been a sourcebook to match the quality and value of this book, save for the BBB.
Most useful: Fields of Fire (the comprehensive list of EVERYTHING). On some occasions, FoF would be the only sourcebook we would bring.

Magic in the Shadows and Man in the Machine are great books to have.

Also with my group I found Underwold Sourcebook very helpful for the PC so they had a better understanding of what Organization does what.

Cannon Companion, Fields of Fire, Street Samurai's Catalog (except for that horrible cover-art), and Target: Matrix.

Corporate Shadowfiles (the one before corp download) and Shadows of North America

SOTA:64. i like the adeptery. behind that, probably Matrix, despite all the madness it contains.

grifter, you've gotta use a better quote than the crap they put in the CCG.

I like the SOTA books for current tech/magic flavor in my game. I've been using SoE a lot lately as my group is holed up in that area now. Of course the 4 I always use:

Cannon Companion
Magic in the Shadows
Man & Machine
Rigger 3

Least used is probably Matrix and Target: Matrix.

Oh man, I was in love with the Renraku Arcology Shutdown as soon as I started reading it.

Still haven't actually done a campaign in there. Man, what a trip...

Bug City and Universal Brotherhood are classics. Fields of Fire was good too, as was YOTC and Target: Wastelands.
Also a big fan of Target: Matrix and Target: Awakened Lands.

Cyberpirates because I'm biased.
RA: Shutdown because you can't beat a good horror/survival story.

Sprawl Sites. It has maps.

After that, UB and Bug City. IMO, some of the best SR wirting there is can be found in the UB book. I like 2XS as the tie in novel better.

I must admit to being very fond of DotSW. Havent untilised it yet in anything but i find the book somewhat entertaining.

I have to amend my position. UB was a great book which gave me a real feeling of dread reading it even though I knew about the Bugs, but as this book was unfolding it was just... amazing. As fiction, it is by far the best.

But I still think Bug City is the best SB. UB is practically on top of it for the spot, though.

UB was really cool, i really enjoyed it. I think Atzlan was cool too, but all the immoral elves and dragons chatting in it are really boring.

My favourite book after all is still Cyberpirates - i love the Africa-chapter

Now see for me, because I can't speak for you, Aztlan was like wow! At the time nobody knew who these people were, sure we speculated-but there was a mystery to it. And that was what kept me hooked buying SR.

I remember when the Seattle SOurcebook came out, and I was just like WOW! What game did this? Same for the Street Sam's catalouge. Now a days we get a little cynical I think. We've seen so much, so it's harder to shock us.

You know, i bought Aztlan some months back, so i knew actually a lot about Aztlan. It was hard to get the book here in germany as it was out of print for years. So maybe if i had bought the book back in 96 i would have other, better memories of reading it. But today it's nice, but nothing too great.
But still much better than Deutschland in den Schatten 2. I hate those anarchist talking in the book. Even worse in Brennpunkt: ADL. Sounds so childish.

In terms of usefullness, i have to go with BBB and Man and Machine.

Entertainment wise, its UB, Lone Star and Year of the Comet all the way.

In usefullnes, nothing beats BBB, M&M and MITS, that's sure.

Rigger 3 and Matrix easily beat MitS in usefulness for me, so I guess it's all a matter of what you generally play.

Actually, I'd go so far as to say that they edge out Man and Machine.

~J

Most useful for 3rd: M&M and R3R
Most useful for 2nd: Shadowtech and FoF
Best overall: Bug City and UB (which I have both!) are by far the best written SR books ever. Period.

Most useful:
Shadowtech for stuff ™ and Bug City and Denver (I don't know why. I spend ours at home giving out about it. But it's still useful...it's not Seattle to start with...).

Stuff I enjoyed most:
Shadowtech and Bug City.

Anyone notice a pattern here?

What, that Bug City is the best written SR book ever?

Overall Best, but Long out of print: Shadowbeat
Worthy Heir of the above: Sprawl Survival Guide
Essential for anyone first starting: Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book.

Like someone else in this thread said, I'm staying away from the rules-expansions, as they're by default, must haves.

Shadowbeat was another book that I liked, it certainly broke the mold for what role playing books were at the time-we didn't use a few big chunks (The rockers and media snoops every one remembers the book for, even though it was much more.) but I loved alot of it.

The TV guide was just a neat way of doing business.

I need to buy MrJ's BB and SOTA 2064.

Shadow Beat was da Bomb(Except for the Rocker archetype, I even had some one play a character based off of the the Crow because of that garbage. If I hadn't have killed him another player surely would have). I used to really dig the old Corporate Shadowfiles as well. Now, I'm all about the Johnson's Black Book and Sprawl survival guide. I've been running the game for years and those books still add a lot in terms of the setting.

I also feel much love for Bug City.

Indeed. I want to have sex with it.

Must....not.....mention.....Dikote.....

Shadowbeat is also cool, but I don't have it. A friend of mine does, but has managed to bury it at the bottom of a box since he moved houses...

In general, I like the atmosphere of a good many of the second edition booksr. Fields of Fire, Awakenings, and many of the others brought the world alive for me. The early third edition books were quite bland, and I probably would never have tried the game if I only saw them and hadn;'t been pl;aying second edition first. .

The newer third edition books that added more flavor text are a step in the right direction.

On the other hand I like the third edition rules much better, so I have almost all of them for both editions, plus the first edition rulebook too. I've spent too much money on this hobby.