Hey hey,

Loose Alliances is currently in the printing/shipping process, and should be in stores late this month.

A pre-release version is currently available at the two ebook venues that offer our products:

* Loose Alliances at BattleCorps
* Loose Alliances at DriveThruRPG

If you haven't checked it out yet, you can read a 16 page preview of the book here.

Loose Alliances

Product ID: 25006 | Print Price: 24.99 | Pages: 164
Authors: Elissa Carey, Dan Grendel, Robyn King-Nitschke, Christian Lonsing, and others
Cover Artist: Marc Sasso

Corps don't give a drek about the runners they hire. That's why they call us expendable assets. And forget working for the Mob or the Yakuza -- once you're in, you're part of their family for the rest of your life. Lucky for us, there are swarms of other factions looking to claim their piece of sprawl -- and who are willing to bypass the law to do it. Policlubs, magic groups, religious factions, black marketeers -- and those are just the ones on my block. Hooking up with an organization has its advantages -- resources, steady employment, backup -- but pick the wrong group to run with and you'll regret it when they kick you to the curb. So what's it going to be chummer? You can't roll solo forever."

Loose Alliances is a sourcebook for organizations and third party groups that operate by their own set of rules in the Shadowrun world. From political factions and religious groups to relic hunters and Tamanous organleggers, it provides a wealth of information on the more obscure parties in the shadows and the benefits and drawbacks that comes with them.

The UN has a military now. That's hilarious. So is, "The UN prefers efficiency..." (63). Made my day. So did the reference to UNATCO, and JC Denton, and how familiar it will probably seem to many readers.

The tone of the Neo-Communism subchapter is infuriatingly annoying though.

What the...UNATCO and JC Denton is in there?

Yes.

UNATCO is a component of the UN. There is a shadowposter with the nick "JC Denton" talking about taking shadowrunning jobs for the UN using diplomatic cover as part of a megacorporate observer team.

BTW, Dunk was the President, not the President-Elect. Kind of annoying.

I'm also curious as to, oh, I don't know, what's going down in North America.

A very cool book, at first look. A very intelligent book, too, handling its complicated political and social material with elegance and without treating the reader like a semiliterate - hooray for SR, aiming at something higher than the lowest common denominator!

This raises my hopes for 4th edition.

I've got mixed feelings about PDF. I get the book two weeks sooner and eight bucks cheaper, no trees had to die...but what about my local retailer? (I know...I'll go and buy eight bucks worth of comics tomorrow.

My annoyance is beyond the capacity for sarcasm.

Heh, ok.

Will you post a review later on?

ed's not capable of maintaining interest in a single subject for that long. ein would have had to compose it from ed's scrambled notes.

This, you have to see. These are the first two sentences of the Neo-Communism subchapter after Cap's intro.

Yeah, well studying the UN for six months back in HS for Academic Decathlon didn't exactly leave me with a great deal of admiration in the first place.

1. Just because it prefers efficiency doesn't mean it is efficient. GM or DaimlerChrysler would prefer to build quality cars, too, for instance; doesn't make their cars any more high quality.

2. Just because it is inefficient today, doesn't mean it, as an organisation, wouldn't prefer more efficiency. All it'd really need is a good kick in the arse, and for all I know from SR lore, the corps made sure it got it's kicking. And the greenie states donating troops to the UN isn't so far off. If more would do it, the scandinavians and Germany (under a leftie government) would propably do that.

3. US High school is hardly the place to look for accurate information on anything remotely related to politics or the world outside US borders.

Great. I'm not about to debate the UN or American HS education (nice trolling, though) here, and so as far as I'm concerned this conversation is over.

Aegis (and Infolio and CIS and Argus previously featured in SoTA64) doesn't work for everyone they were for the select few who don't have their own intelligence resources but have the money to afford to outsource them. Whether you "buy it" or not it is in fact based on a a couple of existing companies that do much the same business today (one American and one French).

Crimsondude:

It's the 6th World, not the 6th North America. And you may have heard that FanPro has their headquarters in Germany. You may also have noticed that a lot of Dumpshockers, representing SR players as a whole, are from places like France and the UK.

The information on the factions in 6th World Islam applies also, one might suppose, to the millions of Muslims in North America.

Likewise for the information on global Catholicism.

Likewise for the politics of metahuman rights.

There are also women in North America, so we can suppose that women's rights groups probably have a toehold there.

The information on fascism and antifascism specifically mentions Tir Tairngire, Aztlan, CAS right-wingers, and the Illuminates of the New Dawn.

And it's a little ridiculous to rant so venomously about just one section in the book, just because you don't like the tone.

Thanks for giving me your opinion on the Neo-Communist section Crimsondude.
That was the part of the book I was looking forward to the most. Any ties mentioned to the People's University in San Franisco?

What do you expect? He's Eurotrash.

(I've had it with "American" being synonymous for target.)

I agree that some of the more recent books have had a leftist leaning slant to them. Also, excluding SoE, they have seemed to have a Eurocentric slant as well. This can be somewhat annoying at least to Americans I guess. I will reserve any judgement of LA until I pick up a hard copy of it and read it.

Boy I am sure looking forward to the Neo-Communist chapter now. I hope there is a Hard-Right wing conservative bigot chapter too.

Veracusse

Yeah, the Fascist subchapter and the Anti-Meta subchapter, which of course are painted with broad strokes of righteous indignation shared for the likes of Tanamous.

And yet Assets, Inc. gets a pass. *shakes his head*

BTW, hermit. You keep forgetting: I don't assume anything about the SR world, especially like Raskolnikov described in a SR4 thread because gaming on SL doesn't afford me that luxury.

Oh, I just don't know what to say when you leave a typo in that was pointed out when the preview was released. I also see now that the Rinelle has, "non-eleven metahuman supporters" (54).

Anyway, I would like to recharacterize my above post and comments as not so much a "review" as a "first impression." However, that doesn't mean that I don't still feel cheated or jerked around.

My concern is that unlike SOTA64 where I went from giddy to simmering about some things in the book, it's already working at a disadvantage.

I'd also like to mention that as it was pointed out, there are NA political agitators (e.g., the Rinelle and some Yucatan groups) my point was that it carries a European flavor which is, in my mind, distinct from what someone like myself would expect. I don't even know many West Coasters like dear Captain Chaos who refer to the Atlantic as "the pond." It doesn't sound right.

I'd also like to know where this huge mansion is in Foggy Bottom where the IOND is headquartered because in the 3.5 years I lived there I never saw anything like that. Lots of apartment buildings, condos, and townhouses which are on historic preservation lists, but no mansions. There was a time when I was impressed with the fact that when Jak Koke described the assassination in Stranger Souls he included a reference to the small trees lining Virginia Ave. in front of the Watergate, which is now apparently in downtown.

Oh, that's funny. I thought this game was Shadowrun, you know the game focusing on professional criminals who live in a world that isn't black and white, but shades of grey.

But, come on. Who writes this

Overwhelming firepower controlled by a common enemy makes for strange bedfellows. I mean, hell, look at some of the countries who made up the Allied forces during WWII. Or the Axis, for that matter (Germany and Japan, two countries who at the time openly embraced racism and proclaimed themselves, individually, the only race worth existing)...

Weirder things have happened, IRL, than any fictional game-based groups banding together, however sporadically, against a common enemy. Saying "it would break the reality of the game world" is a little silly.

I must admit I can't claim responsibility for the quote you included--I didn't write the "Unholy Alliances" section.

I can certainly see your point about there being situations where the two groups might find common ground.

Yes, but with regard to what you wrote it fits in together. I think it's interesting that people who edged towards agreeing or even acknowledging those groups' views were just... nonexistent. Like I said, I can't imagine a world without right-wing runners or runners who align themselves with even the most fringe element. They don't have any company men equivalents, any mercenary runners on retainer who don't care who they work for or who they hurt, and those runners never post anything logical and sensible-sounding in the books. It's strange because people out there clearly think these guys make sense. And it was weird because the preview page of the Humanis section read like something that you hear on talk radio only with metas instead of minorities.

There's a whole world out there that accepts some sort of facile, weak, maybe even self-delusional racism or fascist tendencies, and yet magically not one runner works for them or even thinks like them, not one runner was a member of White Resistance while in prison, not one person has anything to say other than to spit the most vile of venom. Maybe it's because they fear reprisal from judgmental extremists on the other side to say anything (like the posters, "Antifa" or "Brick"). In that case, my .sig speaks for itself.

The only ones who get a voice are the eco-fascists, and they act like madmen.

But speaking of the Game Information, let me express my utter contempt for whoever wrote this:

I do see some merit in the book however. I will admit that a lot of it was derivative and that the more...obvious rips (tributes?) were somewhat painful. However much of what I dislike about it can be handled with simply a shift in tone, a shift that does not require me to change any of the items presented as fact in the book.

So, this means there is still a lot of fairly useful information, even if much of it is simply a collection of names to use in order to fit fringe groups into cannon.

I haven't read the UN chapter yet Crimson. As most of my study in political science was in internation conflict, I am keen to. The first questions I am interested in relate to the standing army.

I wonder as to its mandate, missions, projection ability, etc. Unless they have a lot more money (relatively) to throw around than the UN of today, it would be difficult to make a force that can do much more than march in parades.

To be continued with post-reading thoughts.

CD, maybe the fact that either Synner himself (if he is in his mid-to-late thirties) or at the very least his parents actually lived under a fascist regime have made him slightly less careless (and, to be honest, much more hateful) towards these people?

Respecting peoples beliefs and such is all fine, but I guess that changes once you have been at the receiving end of certain 'beliefs'.

Crimsondude 2.0 you are single handedly killing my interest in this book, which is sad cause it'll be my second to last SR book.

Sure there are, just like IRL. Who doesn't want to be a part of a rigidly structured organization (very efficient, with everyone sporting a rank to be proud of) that's led by a charismatic leader (I'd rather follow a JFK than a GW, if only because one feels more like a leader IMO), that's okay with using military force and violence (especially if they have snazzy uniforms) against their less-than-perfect enemies (degrading other groups while at the same time raising your own group up on a pedestal feels good, and makes it easier to kill the other guy), all the while singing the praises of your race/nation/both (everyone wants to feel special)?

I mean, that's why Facism did what it did IRL. You get to rail against people who are less than you, you get to do something about it, you get to do so in a sexy uniform, and you get to follow someone who's really cool and smart and has great things to say about you and what you're worth (especially what you're worth compared to Enemy Of The State A).

Shit. For examples of mini-Facist states, just look at any social clique, anywhere. From an elitist gaming group (ever heard anyone brag about how tough their GM is but what great things their SR gang accomplishes anyway?) to any high school clique ("my peers and I are cooler than you and your peers, and my boyfriend will beat you up if you disagree, nerd")...

Facism is easy to fall into. It is attractive, particularly to those who don't care to think about it too much, and/or those with self esteem problems already. Being attractive is why it's dangerous.

Skarn, that's a scary list.

Wow, okay guys. I wasn't involved in writing Loose Alliances, I don't have the final book yet, and I've only read sections of the drafts...but yeah. Reading over this thread is a little bit of a window into insanity. Some criticisms may be warranted, of course, but on this thread I see this book being analyzed as if it's a research paper. It is not. It's a gaming book.

Some people have strongly stated that expressing a certain political viewpoint is inappropriate in a gaming book. Perhaps you can see it this way: It is their view on the matter and the GM is always welcome to House Rule. So even if the players are fascists and enjoy facism, the GM can always House Rule that it is okay for fascists to enjoy Shadowrun. But the authors and editors and other people who wrote the book is saying,"Facists(or whoever), f**k off my game/book!"