So here it is. Part 1 of ... several.


I'm having that problem, too.

Review: Part 1

The Untethered Life
It's a good story, writing about a plausible background for a runner, giving insight into him. Not exactly novel, but it sets the mood well. Somehow, I get the feeling the author is craving Deus Ex 3's release. I don't know why ... not that it's bad (and not that I wouldn't long for that release), but it's somehow jumping your face a bit.

The Intern's Tale
That guy's annoying, but it seems he is supposed to be, so that's fine. What he says isn't really new, the crash-wank is a little overdone, but it's readable, structured and hasn't got any glaring carniverous rebel sells like War had. No war over potted plants either. Decent, fairly solid, though not extremly outstanding. It wastes half a page again, though. What the hell.

Street Life
This Intro fic is a little weird, but tied in with the chapter's shadowtalk by Fastjack, so it's well enough, even though I couldn't help but hear it in the voice of that seasme street dealer muppet in my head first time I read through it. Anyway, nice intro fic, even if a bit unusual. Useful info (very useful actually, in parts, a bit cheesy in others, but the Halo system is rather unfavorly commented by shadowtalk, making it pick and choose), even if that's the second in-world writer that ticks me off a bit, but hey, the Shadows is no place for nice people, so what the hell. Also, Jean-Paul! For everyone, not for anyone (I am not sure if this works in English as it should ...). So this was written by Lars Blumenstein, I guess? Or is this coincidental? And terrific ending. I was hoping for this, but not actually expecting it. Well played, whoever wrote that piece.

My two-second review:

The Good: It's the successor to Sprawl Survival Guide and Shadowbeat. Lots and lots of detail provided to fill out the culture and feel of the SR universe. Plenty of call-backs to entertainment personalities, clothing, music and trends touched on in 1st. - 3rd. edition... as well as new up-and-comers. The art was solid throughout and ghoul skateboarders give me a chuckle. Also, fan-service for the boys in the form of 'Svetting' (the Urban Brawl equivalent of the Mardi Gras Special).
The Bad: Plenty of fluff on the music life but no crunch rules for performing as a band, a la Shadowbeat. Boooooo! Would also have liked to have seen some expanded Lifestyle rules that were only glossed over in Runner's Companion.

Gut reaction conclusion: Missed opportunities but Attitude delivers what it promised.

From what I went through last night (Busy day yesterday!), I have to say about the same thing as everyone else.

Other than to add the fact that it was nice to see Bull starting to be a poster. Hopefully we'll see more of him.

Oh, and I think we got a backhanded insult on Page 20. I know it certainly seems to resemble me.

Well, as long as he does not start to most more there than here *snickers*

The Iron Will exoskeleton seems ripe for min-maxing. It more or less gives you a Strength 8 and lets you wear Vehicle mods and accessories.

It's troll-sized, though, so not exactly subtle. Possibly a good base to build Power Armor around.

[edit] Noticing a number of spelling mistakes in the Bookmarks

[edit edit] Lady Gaga? Seriously?




-k

Well, we'll just have to see if he continues to post in the Dumpshock Datahaven.

I wasn't fond of that, either. If Gaga doesn't seem tame (or just lame) in 60 years, there will at least be someone in pop culture who is at least as "outrageous", who would make a better bit of jargon (although we, the readers, would never have heard of this person before). Nobody talks about Madonna's "shocking" fashion choices, anymore. I don't think people a half-century from now will share our media fascination with Lady Gaga.

Actually For Anyone is proper American English

Damn Americans.

What Body does it have?

I'll have to buy it and give it a read through. Why does this always happen when I have papers due?

And then AH jumped ship, and someone else had to cook up an Untethered Life chapter and fiction piece. This one does actually does date to October-November of 2010, just for transparency's sake.

That said, Saber's not a Deus Ex knock-off, he's actually a Macon (an old borged-up combat Rigger of mine, from my Shadowland days, about '99-'00) knock-off. I described his old one-way reflective Protective Covers back in SR3 as "Oakley-inspired" shade lenses that snapped into place, and it always stuck with me as something that looked cool (in my brain), especially with his matte black cyberarms, too. Jason needed some intro fic on the quick, my buddy Reid had a birthday coming up, so a new character was born.

It certainly is, but also, that's why everyone was thinking Deus Ex 3. Not that I personally mind a lot.

Would you mind saying who wrote the Street Life section?

Haven't the foggiest. I got Untethered Life and an inset text-box in another chapter. I haven't waded through BaseCamp to see who wrote what else, 'cause I was mostly worried about my stuff, then moving on to my stuff in other products. Even though I read over other chapters, I didn't memorize who wrote 'em. I'm on my way out the door right now, but if I've got time later I'll take a peek and toss you a PM (if they haven't posted here themselves by then, or anything).

ETA: Or I guess Jason, whose job it is is to know who wrote what, can use a held action to post right as I do and answer the question.

David Hill did the honors there.

Jason H.

Nice work, then.

Heh. That'll be up to the folks who work on the Datahaven now. I'm fine with it if they want to keep using him, or they can have him hand off "ownership" to a new sysop.

I kinda co-opted the Datahaven concept for Virtual Underworld 93, a very loose, completely IC play by post subforum on the SR4 forums. It harkens back to the days of the ShadowTK mailing list, for those old enough to remember such things. Basically, an old school, old style BBS. In theory, it's something to use for Missions, a local BBS for players of Season 4 to chat on. I haven't really had the time recently to play with it much though.

And finally, yeah, the author of the music section kinda slipped me in there. We'd been talking about expanding the Jackpoint ranks a little, and Bull ended up being one of the first ones chosen to get added in. Guess he finally took FJ up on his offer. Of course, in the year and a half since the original DDH was written, Bull's daughter has been killed and he's jumped back into the shadows full time as a fixer and gotten heavily involved in the politics of the Ork Underground. So made sense for him to finally get involved again. Against his better judgment.

Bull

Yay, Bull's back! I'd be glad to see him in published material.

So could someone let me in on the Lady Gaga bit? How was she used, bla bla bla?

Gagaistic has become an adjective in the late 21st century. "An outrageous fashion statement designed to attract an audience."

Gagaists... the new Dadaists. I would have gone with "Bjorky".

I don't know. I wrote part of Bogota. There were about four of us, I want to say. I know I write in MS Word, so spelling shouldn't be a problem in my work. But, it's not completely reliable.



Might be. I pepper most of my SR writing with Gibson references. It keeps me amused while I'm working.

Uh, kay. Yeah, I'm sorry guys, that's kind of dumb. And I say that as a fan of Gaga.

Bjorky does sound better.

Nope. Street Life was mine. Glad you liked the ending.

especially since "Gaga" already has 2 seperate cultural references.
1) someone who is slightly crazy
2) babytalk.

That person went Gaga over the new ice cream flavor.

Yes, Jason already said. Asking because Jean-Paul is one of Andreas Schrooth's homebrew fashion labels that has been used in the German-only Berlin book. Did you make Jean-Paul up, making this a case of convergence, or did you hear of it ... somewhere?


Actually it's also been used for a fashion label (derived from slightly crazy, like the singer) in the Berlin book. Generally, I'd keep the modern pop culture references down. Shadowrun books are not webcomics.

Ok what am I missing here? Are you guys saying the cover girl is supposed to be lady Gaga or something?

Six!

You can technically mount a heavy turret on it.




Nah, just apparently Lady Gaga has become the pop culture reference for shocking fashion, sixty years from now.

Despite the more Pink Mohawk elements of Shadowrun always having been even more extreme than she has ever been.



-k

Ahh. I was about to say, if people are relating the cover girl to lady Gaga that says more about THEM than it does Shadowrun.

If we're going for 'shocking fashion/style' statements. It'll always be Madona for me. Gaga is a pale.. PALE imitation/copy.

It's really hard to be original any more. Even most of my smart ass comments are cribbed from another source...

Review, Part 2

It's Who You Know
The rundown on being a runner continues, and it seems more and more that Attitude is as much Sprawl Survival Guide as Shadowbeat. This section isn't as fun to read as the last, but it's still good. It starts off explains in-game how to build a viable shadowrunner group. Nitpick: Clockwork saying 'technomancer' and not cursing them? Isn't ZOMG TECHNOMANCER HATE his hat?

Then it moves on to various installments of stuff runners need to do, focusing on the social side of the job - getting a team to agree with things like uneven payment, chain of command, and how to deal with contacts. Useful, even though I actually liked the Street Life section before better. What did they put the guy on with War? It then goes on to what can get you hired back, and hat is unlikely to, all in the voice of a fixer, and juxtaposed by shadowtalk. The section wraps up with Riser, assassin for hire, giving a blurb about when a run stinks and when you can and can'T skim a little something on the side. All written in a relatively consistent voice and all in one that'S recognisable. Pretty solid work and full of useful tips, even though this isn'T really supposed to be the runner'S 101 on running, but hey, it'S nice tzo have anyway.

Next seems top be hooding, but that has got to wait till tomorroe. so long, kids.

I've been scanning some of the German-only releases for ideas and stuff. I recently read chunks of the Berlin book, when I was doing some work on War!.

Hey, maybe Clockwork is mellowing.

...

...

Yeah, I can't say that with a straight face, either.

Hermit is you drunk, sick or tired?
Usually, you do not have that many typos in your posts o.O

Yeah Stahl, he's posting like he's you

Characters are allowed to be nuanced, multidimensional, complex, realistic and can even experience character development. I swear. Even just a bit.

Yeah, but bigotry is usually not something that just goes away.

Wonder what happened to Clockwork.

You know, aside from getting punched in the junk by everyone on the JackPoint.

You need 14 for that...

Besides the chrome eyecovers have been a shadowrun staple since the illustration of the Street Sam in 1st ed. I think they were even a mod you could put on your cybereyes back then.

Yeah, I rally ought to stop posting when I can hardly keep my eyes open. Damn, that looks horrible.


Ever since the Johnny Mnemonic short by Gibson (published 1980ish).


That's good to know. Though in War ... it kinda didn't show.


That.

I might actually buy this PDF, as it seems like something you would reference a lot (so far I only have the core rulebooks as PDF in addition to the books, mostly because they are more reasonably priced, and found them quite useful).

Unfortunately the bundle is pointless because of the high shipping costs.

Bye
Thanee

I'm confused, wasn't there already something about how to build a Shadowrunner teams and what Shadowrunners do in the Companion?

oi! i resemble that remark! ._.

Yep. The RC entry covering that topic was from the player and gamemaster point-of-view. With Attitude, it's from the in-game fictional point-of-view. Specifically, Haze's.



1981. In Omni magazine. I miss Omni. It was the one of the few publications that crossed science with speculative fiction without reading like a fan publication. Great short fiction too. Man, I'm old.

Since Lady Gaga was only mentioned in Aetherpedia Keyword Search: Gagaistic, I got the impression that the term Gagaistic was meant to be common, but that its origin vis-a-vis Lady Gaga is not as well known to the average person in the 2070s. This does not bother me since language is full of terms for which most people do not know the origin.

If Lady Gaga was mentioned in passing during normal conversation in a Shadowrun story, and no one asked "who was that" then I would agree that it was an example of present bias in future fiction. As for the term Gagaistic, perhaps she takes it to a whole new level when magic returns this year.

Only if you actually read it in 1981.

What about someone who remembers watching Star Wars before it was "A New Hope" ?

I was 9 is 1981, I totally read OMNI.

Not...really? It's good at giving a psychological backing to shadowrunners and what they do, while adding in the reason for having a street etiquette skill, what certain types of contacts are really good for and what to expect, and how to live in Seattle for less than 40 a day. I don't see it being a big desk reference though.

Almost done with the initial readthrough. I'm very, very, very happy to see that the layout and editing issues have been resolved. Attitude is quite clean and easy to read. I do find that it's not a book I can read in one sitting; about the time the music scene shows up I start suffering from MEGO. I'm glad to see the sports section in, but I haven't gotten to it just yet. I'll be continuing on with it tonight.

And yes, seeing Clockwork call technomancers rare/valuable without hemhorraging was...strange.

He at least could have been..

Dreking &*&#@@*( Technomancers are useful. *goes to wash mouth out with soap*

Haven't read that part yet, but maybe he's saying they're literally rare and valuble, selling them to the corps and other interested parties.

Examples of this include the term "Hookers", which is apparently a term that dates back to the US Civil War/War Of Northern Aggression/Look, the Separatists Are Having A Spat, where a General Hooker kept a bunch of "Soiled Doves" around him. When asked who they were around the camp, the soldiers would typically reply, "They're Hooker's.".

Another possibility is "Boo", who was a famously mean Naval Captain, and Sailors used his name as a battlecry.

I used to know a lot more, but I just woke up.

Something like that, yes.