Many people have suggested putting OOP sourcebooks on the SR website. While this is an idea I support, I'd like to suggest a slight variant which is more likely to be of financial benefit to FanPro.

I recently got into Exalted. The single biggest selling point of Exalted, to me, was the Tomb Of Five Corners - a free (!) set of quick-start rules and a mini-adventure, with pre-generated characters. I grabbed a copy from the game store, played it within two weeks, and the following day bought the core rulebook - my first ever White Wolf product.

Considering that the rest of my RPG collection consists of a lot of SR and a single, solitary, D&D 3.0 PHB, that's a noticeable expenditure on my part. Now I am looking at buying more Exalted stuff.

I recognise that FanPro probably doesn't have the resources to print and distribute a free set of quickstart rules. I remember seeing a quick-start SR module, and I'm pretty sure it was 3rd edition, on the shelves a few years back, but for the expense I didn't think it was really worthwhile compared to actually buying a core rulebook. Since it hasn't been reprinted, my guess would be that not many other people thought it was worthwhile either.

However, the Tomb of Five Corners is available in PDF format from White Wolf. SO SHOULD THE SR QUICKSTART GAME BE!

Unlike the older sourcebooks, I expect that the quickstart module is still likely to be available in an electronic format. IIRC, it's fairly short too.

There is no better method to convince people a game is good then getting them to play it, and there is no easier way to do that than to let them try before they buy. OOP sourcebook PDFs are only useful to people who already play the game. A PDF of the quickstart rules would help people get *into* the game.

not a bad idea. better than clicky games, anyway. *snarl*

I was going to email this post to Brian Cross (what with being website content guy 'n all) but the anti-spam Javascript email thingies on the website don't work for me.

I'm using a computer in a lab at Uni, and it doesn't have a mail client installed - I use Yahoo! mail.

A lot of people who use Yahoo or Hotmail (or other webmail system), such as myself, will find it very difficult to get into contact with Brian Cross or Adam Jury. Is there anything that can be done to fix that? I'd tell Adam or Brian directly, but of course, I can't get in contact with them.

And in the short term, can anyone PM me Brian Cross' (or Adam's) email address? Thanks.

Brian posts here as kylleran. While his email address is not listed, he does have "private messages" enabled. I'm sure you can reach him in that manner, and ask for his address at that point.

I checked out the website to see what you were talking about in regard to the "anti-spam Javascript" deal. It works for me; I'm using NS 7.1 and IE 6. See if the university computers have either installed. (If not, maybe the admins of the lab could use a nudge in getting the browsers upgraded. ) Regardless, the email address that comes up is: screamsheet at ameritech dot net. (Written in this manner to also help out in regard to spam. Spam = evil.)

From what I recall, I *think* plans were already in the works to offer the Quick Start rules online. Like all the other plans for the website, however, it will take time, and both guys have full- to part-time jobs that affect how much time they can devote.

In addition: the Quick Start rules are not OOP.
http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/products/index.php
They may be temporarily out of stock, which is an entirely different matter. (Taking a quick look at the Fast Forward store shows that they, at least, suffer no dearth of Quick Start rules.) Fan Pro was selling them at Gen Con for $1 each, which is certainly an attention-getter.

Sapphire: Interesting point about web mail and the anti-spam protection I just brought in. I may have to do some thinking about alternate ways to display our email addresses for non-spammers. In th meantime, both of us read Dumpshock regularly; PMs will work just fine here.

The Quick Start Rules are still in-print and available; they are not temporarily out of stock and I don't believe there are any plans to reprint them. I'm pretty sure they'll be hitting the SR website in PDF format at some point.

Inereestingly, the German fanpro site has a bunch of dowloadable adventures.

At least some of the adventures in FanPro D are reused from German publications such as the Mephisto mag. The arrangement is similar to what FanPro has with Games Unplugged which allows FanPro to put the articles up on the website after a few months. Of course FanPro D's deal has been going on for several years now and at least a couple of the older German freelancers are staff writers for Mephisto which helps.

Unfortunately translating many of them is an iffy proposition because they are based on material that has never seen print in US material (from DidS, DidS2, C&D, WP&Se and of course the long-running Proteus story) and are setting specific, admittedly a couple are not (at least according to friends).

I stand corrected, my apologies Eismann (you've done a great job with the webpage and forum btw), I merely meant to point out the reason for there being so many adventures up - previously published rather than done specifically for the website.

I had heard of "Wunderwelten" but for some arcane reason I keep mixing it up with "Mephisto" (done this a couple of times recently), which I believe is an independent RPG magazine that does include FanPro D-approved SR material.

Hm... most of the newer adventures were written only for the website. They were not published anywhere else.

Bah, they should just make the books downloadable like wizards does for their old D&D product. Free is good. They haven't been making money on them for so long that they should do all their loyal fans the favor and just make 'em free. Either that, or reprint some of the older, more highly sought after books. What's the point in keeping them entombed?

Good idea to get some of the older stuff circulating around again. Can't say that I'm a fan of too many of the older adventures, but I'd like to see some of the source books rereleased.

if i had to guess, i'd say the problem is less with fanpro/wizkids being greedy, and more with a lack of resources. finding a good copy of each book, making a good scan of each book, PDF'ing it--it takes time. not to mention strain on the server--do they have the bandwidth to support everybody and their brother downloading all that data?

that said, i wholly agree; OOP books oughtta be posted on the website for free download.

This came up at least twice on the old forums with detailed explanations from Adam as to why they aren't going to/can't do that. Basically, if they're going to do something like that, it's not going to be just someone scanning the book. They want it to be high-quality professional files rather than something slapped together. However, many of the original files and proofs for the older books are lost now, and finding a mint-condition copy of say Universal Brotherhood or Harlequin is going to be pretty tough. Especially finding a copy someone's willing to part with so that it can be stripped down and ripped from the binding in order to scan it properly.

Also, even if they did post some of the older adventures, don't expect any of the old equipment books. If Shadowtech, Street Samurai Catalog, Virtual Realities 2.0, Rigger 1&2, Cybertechnology, etc. were all on the webpage, people would feel they didn't need to buy Man and Machine, Matrix, Canon Companion, Rigger 3, etc. because they already had the gear and they could convert it to 3rd Ed on their own. That's also probably the reason why the new gearbooks lacked pictures and whatnot -- so they could clear up space to throw in the new rules as well (nanotech in M&M, advanced combat and gun creation in CC, etc) to tempt 2nd Ed owners into buying the books that they may think otherwise that they didn't need.

Personally, with almost all the old adventures being sold on eBay for a couple of bucks each (I got HB for $10 with shipping), I'd rather see more original or harder to find material on the FanPro page. Stuff from the old Kage magazine/newsletter, the stuff they have that was published in Dragon, the newer stuff they're putting in whatever magazine it is that I can't find in my local gaming stores (damn this small town!). Give me stuff I can't find on eBay or the used bin at the Book Stan.

Or better yet, give me stuff I can't find anywhere else, like original adventures or mini-adventures.

The Abstruse One

Ummmm....... Unlike most people of the human race, I am perfectly willing to sacrafice nearly everything for the greater good.

In this case, I have a Near Mint copy of UB, and would glad part with it so that it my run free......

But if you insist, original adventures are good too......

<Whew.... hopefully, they won't come calling on THAT marker anytime soon....>

If they are reluctant to post the books like Shadowtech, Cybertechnology, etc on the website, I hope they at least take the parts of the books that were "fluff" and put them up there. Off the top of my head, I can think of several books that had some excellent "fluff' text that also had a lot of rules and gear:

Awakenings (maybe the best magic sourcebook for Shadowrun)
Fields of Fire (Matador's invaluable advice)
Cybertechnology (with Hatchetman's story)
Shadowbeat (although when I say "rules", most of those were pretty....limited-use)
Neo-Anarchist's Guide to Real Life

All of those are really good primers for new players. I am running a game now, with two people with a bit of experience with Shadowrun, and two who are total newbies, and it's been hard to explain how some things "feel," like cyberware, or magic -- in addition to the novels, Awakenings was one of the best books for that that I gave them (and they appreciated). Shadowrun can be hard for people to grasp without a lot of fluff text, so the more the better, really -- and offering it for free is a good way to get people into the game. I can understand not replicating the gear and rules sections (which are all repeated or superceded in more recent books anyway), but the "fluff" text is a must.

And I keep using "fluff" in quotes because personally, that's about 95% of what I buy gaming books for, really.

Have you tried Sprawl Survival Guide? (yeah I know, blatant plug)

Although it's not a complete overlap it does feature a lot of "fluff" material along the same lines as Shadowbeat and Neo-Anarchists Guide to RL (which for all its size I've always found the missmatched contents disappointing) plus updates on the 10 years gone by since and a lot more on the basics of life in the Sixties.

The same goes for SOTA63 and the Merc chapter covering a lot of the essential material from Fields of Fire and adding quite a bit more. Picador pretty much covered the important stuff in Matador's post and slipped in some more useful "fluff" information to boot.

Although MitS and Man & Machine are more rule supplements than their predecessors (Awakenings and Cybertechnology) they also include a lot more rules than either of those. The format was a design choice of the SR developing team at the time and it was always meant to be complemented by "fluff" material in later products such as the New Magic and Genetech in SOTA63 (not to mention the Culture Shock section) and whatever appears in SOTA64, as well as the odds and ends that make appearances in books like Target: Wastelands and Target:Awakened Lands.

In fact if I'm not mistaken as of SOTA63, FanPro has revisited and updated almost all the previously published core supplements (okay there are a few minor exceptions like Druidism, etc). Personally I'd much rather see an all-new "Magic in the Sixties" chapter in the next SOTA than seeing bits of "Awakenings" up on the site.

[Edit] I just wanted to note that having had occasion recently to go through several of those books I can't help but feel that some are getting quite dated.

I ended up picking up a used copy of Shadowbeat at the local used book store sometime last week. I have to say it's worth having a copy just for the detailed rules of Urban Brawl (I have a PC who's a big fan, so I need it for that) and the like. I haven't even gotten into the section on rockers and media yet.

By that same token... I can't figure out if regular UB is fought with non-lethal weaponry like Arena Brawl is...

I don't have the books handy, but IIRC Urban Brawl is fought with lethal weaponry.

They use live metal rounds, but everyone wears armor and there's medics everywhere so that fatalities are rare, esp. since everyone in the pros are, well, professionals. If they were such amateurs, they'd have died long before they made it pro or else they wouldn't have made it to the pros. Arena Brawl is played with gel rounds because there are spectators there and lawsuits from families of spectators in the crowd capped by a stray round would be expensive.

The Abstruse One

In UB I believe they have rules for if you do kill someone on purpose. I know the point of shooting a gun at someone is to kill them, but if the person yeilds or is already wounded trying yeild you can't just walk up and put another round in him to finish the job. I forget thepenalties but I think they were strict.

Hefty fines, banning from the league, and a quick arrest for murder.

There are lights on the team's uniforms that light up when someone is wounded. If those lights are on and you fire at them, you're at the very least out of the game. Same deal if you fire on the medics.

But yes, they do use live rounds (regular ammo) but wear enough armor that fatalities are rare, along with the on-the-field medics that have something like Biotech: 8 on the NPC sheets (at least the ones in A Killing Glare...I think...been ages since I picked that book up to read it). So even if someone does take a shot they can't stage down to lower than D, there's a medic within the couple of blocks that can be there very quickly to stabilize. And if you're hit for anything less than D, you're almost guaranteed that you're not going to get hit again.

Thus how live ammo is used in UB but how they don't have to cart half a team home in a bodybag every match.

The Abstruse One

It's not that hard to use...just it doesn't have anything interesting on it I don't think...

The Abstruse One