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Penta
OK...Italy gets its own section. Because its hot, and I'm tired.

I'm reading in small bursts.

Now...

OK, my general opinion of this section increasingly is that of what I've seen thusfar in this book.

It was written by locals (or at least Europeans) for locals/Europeans. Not for what I would have thought would be its intended audience, everybody else beyond Europe. At least, that's how the book is feeling.

IMHO.

Now, focusing on the section itself:

The Vatican/the RCC was a nice try, but fell far short. Some of this, Synner, is just the arguments we've always had, made worse because you tried to put the ENTIRE RCC into a European SB. (Looking at "trying to prevent schism" and then "female priests"...The two can't mix. There'd be such a schism (Latin America would go *insane*) it's indescribable.) It did no justice to the topic, and the decisions made seem utterly mad when viewed not from a European perspective, but globally.

Other bits are just what time since has showed us (for instance, the recent succession).

The whole RCC section pretty obviously was a one-man job, Synner...And it feels like it. Some input from Americans, Latin Americans, and others would have been so very welcome. If it were me, I would have left the RCC for a section in Loose Alliances, sized as the entire Italy chapter was here. As it is, if I didn't know you, I'd think you had an ax to grind, because the whole section feels like "Yeah, yeah, the Church is as crazy as it always is for a bunch of old men. Who cares?" If this is going to be the foundation for the Church in SR, I'd prefer SR didn't touch it, period, because it just...Ugh.

Not the intention, I figure, but it just doesn't feel like it was anything more than a brush off.

Then, too, there was so much time spent on the Church in General that Rome/the Papal States got the shaft. There's not enough to work with.

The rest of Italy suffers from this same problem. It feels very, very, very rushed, and...Well, it's bad.

It's really, really bad.

This section? Two thumbs down, way down.

Book as a whole? Not sure yet.
Ancient History
Are you trying to provoke Synner, Penta? 'cause this is worse than when you were moaning and bitching about SR4 to no end.

There are thousands of books on Italy. There is one chapter in SoE dedicated to Italy. Some things are going to be covered, some aren't. You have to deal with it, and drop any unreal expectations here.

Let's look at what we have:
1. A Short History - A necessary evil, brining us up to speed on the peninsula as a whole.

2. A Go-to on the RCC, the most powerful force in Italy, and the organization with the single greatest reach to the outside world. Sure, you might be pulled in by the Mafia or a corporation, but at some point running the shadows you're gonna run into the RCC...if only in flavor text. I don't think this space was wasted.

3. Short entries for the various other states of note. Just enough for a flavor and to cover the important ones. Me, I like a little ambiguity. That way I have no problem slipping my own locales in as needed.

And that's it. Short, sweet and to the point. Now, I won't say it's the best chapter. But it's a good one. No need to deserve two thumbs and an insulting post down.
Penta
::shrug::

I'm calling it as I see it.
Ancient History
I don't quite buy that.
Penta
Having read your unedited post, AH...

Actually, no.

I've been less than pleased with how locals have done Shadowrun SBs generally (see the original English-language Germany SB for a shining example), but there's no chip on my shoulder, bar the anxiety that comes whenever locals try to describe their home (town/country/whatever). Because locals generally figure you know stuff that, rather, outsiders are clueless about.

What that comment meant was that I was approaching this as if it was aimed at people who didn't live in Europe. It's written, instead, seemingly for Europeans, with nothing to help a GM from outside Europe, whom one figures has none of those frames of reference, figure out what was intended. To me, that's not helpful; The book should figure that, at least in terms of regional stuff, the reader has no real common knowledge in people terms. Certainly, that's the case for most real-life readers. If it "breaks the 4th wall", so be it. It's necessary so the reader doesn't stop and go "where'd that come from?"

Like I noted, I'm not sure about the entire book. (The NEEC seems great. France just needed more exposition. The Czechs, well...OK, I'm a bit obtuse some days. Austria just didn't have much meat, and the AGS is a story all its own, where I will grant that my impressions from the original English-language Germany SB enter into things.) All I am sure about is that this chapter just seemed...bad. Probably because it also felt rushed.

(Part of the rushed feeling comes from formatting, spelling, and similar issues. The typeface and spacing between lines and paragraphs seemingly randomly change at various points on a few pages (large font on one side, normal font on the other is one example), for example, and there are a few points where the narrative seems to bounce around a bit with no warning, which is fairly jarring for something you figure will be a smooth narrative. It just doesn't seem indicative of a job anybody took their time on, and it's also something I didn't notice in earlier chapters. When my eyes have to go searching for where the text went, that's not a good thing.)
hermit
For what it's worth, I found it quite likeable. Well, except maybe for GeMiTo, but I have my aversions against the idea that Europe all of a sudden descends into anarchism in general. Overall, I liked the italy chapter. It doesn't have the shadows of every smallsih city in it, San Marino isn't covered a lot, and Venice is a bit weird - but hell, it's better than Germany, for Odin's sake. And personally, I like haing some free space to developm my own setting in smaller locations, to adapt them to my adventures, rather than be bound by a 344-page book that details every city above 50.000 people in half a page each (Germany II does just that. Yes, I hate that book, though not nearly as much as the original Germany SB).

QUOTE
What that comment meant was that I was approaching this as if it was aimed at people who didn't live in Europe. It's written, instead, seemingly for Europeans, with nothing to help a GM from outside Europe, whom one figures has none of those frames of reference, figure out what was intended.

Perhaps. However, I guess the mistake is more that Europeans can reasonably expect others to know at least the basics about any other European country, even if they haven't personally been there. It's a cliche, but I guess that actually isn't true for Americans, from waht you're saying (or at least some).

Then again, explaining the basics of what Italy (or whatever other Euro nation covered in SoE) is would seriously annoy European readers, because we'd feel like we were treated like some little kid who hasn't seen anything of the world, let alone been at school. It's a thin line to walk, and they chose a more European leaning with SoE. Maybe because they figured that Americans, being not too interested in anything outside their own contient, would not be too keen to buy the book, or use the setting, anyway.

Anyway, I didn't see that as a problem at all.
Ancient History
Penta, I'm calling the chip on your shoulder because you've a posting history of not liking what the locals wrote up. That and you've done nothing but bitch about SoE so far (except for the NEEC).
hermit
Well, I CAN see his point with Germany SB. I HATE that book, too. But it's unfair to blame this on locals writing it. I dread to think what would have happened if some American writer who knew Germany only from WW2 documentaries, Grimm's fairy tales and a road map of Berlin had written Germany SB. Anyone still remember the old Vampire city books? Read the one on Berlin. Couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry.
Penta
Actually, I'm going to retract my comments re the level of detail for the various bits of Italy. (I'm not inflexible.)

It's not bad, upon rereading.

I still think the RCC stuff didn't need to be in *quite* so much detail, but that's a matter of style. To me, the RCC stuff would have fit better in Loose Alliances.

Now attacking Poland. (Synner, a brief, brief comment...With all the mentions of Opus Dei up to the section on Providence Corporation (which is just a cool concept), I hope that's in LA.)
Synner
I have no problem with criticism and indeed some of the sections in Italy come off as pretty bried and sketchy - that's just how things are when you have a wordcount to meet. To some GMs that will be a boon, but to others it'll feel incomplete.

On the other hand, I firmly believe the Church with its influence in Europe and the world - and particularly because it demanded to be revisited in a less biased light than previously in SR - required the coverage it got. Whether you agree with the reforms or not, I submit the Awakening poses much more controversial and profund religious and dogmatic implications to the RCC than the clerical status of women (and by the way you may be right regarding Mexico but you are dead wrong about how this would be seen in other parts of Latin America - there's a reason the Pope was made Brazilian).

Finally Opus Dei wasn't picked up for Loose Alliances, although the Vigilia Evangelica (the keepers of the Libraries of the Vatican mentioned briefly in SoE) were - and while they are more or less dogooders they are painted in shades of gray. I do have a rough writeup of Opus Dei somewhere, I might post it later on.
Penta
<reads>

The Church: We've had this argument before. smile.gif As far as the Pope being Brazilian, I'll point to the UNSC fights currently underway IRL, and how Brazilian representation of the region is apparently seen, but that's a side point. (Besides saying that maybe Brazil isn't really very representative of the region, or at least does not appear to be seen as such, particularly given the language and cultural differences.)

Re Opus Dei: Dammit. Ah well. I'd appreciate it if you posted it, at least. It'll give me something to chew on. Given that it's almost hot enough to fry things on asphalt (newspeople have tried) around here, I could use the excuse to float around on something in the pool aimlessly. smile.gif
Luca
I commented this thing some moths ago, I'm Italian and Catholic and I did not completely appreciated the stereotyped Italy in SoE.
All the Mafia-dominated South/Tyrant Church ruling Rome, etcc are ridiculous stereotypes, just like saying that we all have moustaches, eat pizzas and play guitar.
Italy is much more than that and Catholic Church is much more than that.
In any case, I think that the SoE Chapter on Italy remain a good try, especially if one thinks that Synner, who wrote it, is not Italian. Even if he has Italian friends who reviewed the chapter, he cannot fully transmit any real italian feeling ...
We Italians are too much "disillusi" to seriously think about civil war and balkanization.... (if you do not consider Bossi's guys of Lega which are barely definable as Italians due to their central-european kind of mindset and dialects....they are more damned French and German than Mediterranean like us...).
In many cases I felt that the whole chapter was written with a "Polentone" (Northern Italian) mindset than with a Terrone (Southern Italian) mindset...at the end of the day this is ok, it's just a partial view of the peninsula....
...but it's a pity that a city like Napoli (Naples) (which has nothing less than Prague in terms of mystery and exotic nature) did not received any decent description.......The suq-like atmosphere of San Gregorio Armeno, the niches, ossuaries and vaults of the burying clubs, the legends of the Munaciello, the dirty barrens of Forcella, the splendors of the Certosa, the Spanish quarters, the subterranean city which holds secrets dating back to the beginning of the town the Archaic Greek town where the Sybilla Cumana walked the earth....a tradition of multi-ethnicity, mysteries and flavours which started long before Prague!!
In any case the whole Italian Chapter suffered from the unbelievable history of the re-formation of the Papal States and the Balkanization of the nation.
There are tons of illogic shit in the SR history (like a Pope who labelled metahumans as demons....even if Middle Age finished long ago and we had Vatican Council II!!!), but one has to remember that much of that history was not decided by the authors of SoE, they simply inherited it from other authors...which often seem to be ignorant Americans living in the '80s with the heads full of unrealistic stereotypes and historical informations casually looted from some low-level schoolbook...
At the end, the chapter can be appreciated for some ideas (like GeMiTo which I like) but for an Italian like me is certainly unbelievable...However I was pretty happy with the non-Italian chapter and, therefore, possibly the goal of the book was reached. I can spot faults in the Italian chapter but appreciate the others...possibly people from elsewhere can appreciate Italy and hate their countries in SoE.
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