SwiftOne Speaks
By SwiftOne (swiftone@bigfoot.com)
FASA has been laying low with actual releases lately, and their Shadowrun line has had only four releases since the last issue, the novel Ragnarock, the adventure packs Corporate Punishment and Brainscan, and rule book Cannon Companion.
This does not mean that FASA has been silent. Quite the contrary. In addition to the items that we have been waiting for (The campaign Year of the Comet, currently set for sometime at Gencon, and Target: Awakened Lands) FASA has been talking about a great number of products. The full list is availablein the Secrets of Shadowrun section on the TSS Productions web page, but here are theitems that actually show up on the release schedule (and thus have better odds of existing soon):
The Matrix : Virtual Realities 2, edited and updated to be fully SR3compliant. They might place information on their website for those whohave VR2 and don’t wish to purchase a minor upgrade. [Due August 2000]
Rigger Redux (working title): Ditto for Rigger 2. This might be a dangerous release, as the release of a Rigger book for any edition hasthus far heralded the release of the following edition. [Due October 2000]
Target: Awakened Lands : Players have been champing at the bit to get infoon Awakened Australia, but FASA has closed a few attempts when the workdone didn’t meet their standards. Now we get to find out if we wish theyhad waited longer, or if we can let our Munchkins roam the Land of Oz.(Other, unspecified, vastly awakened areas are to be covered as well).[Due September 2000]
Threats 2 : Have your players encountered all of Threats? Do you need something to scare them with? FASA plans to release a whole new set of powerful villainous threats for you to terrify them with. [Due December 2000].
FASA has is once again talking as if they intend to make use of their Internet presence. They have posted a new ShadowTalk update to their webpage (although they still haven't noticed that their XML comes through pretty ugly, and those of us using non-Microsoft systems tire of the doseof question marks that dot their pages). They have also solicited email replies to their recent release Corporate Punishment (see review this issue). [Note that the subject for the email listed in the adventure itself is different that the one listed on the Web Page. Giving FASA the benefit of the doubt, this is probably because the subject listed in the adventure gives something away, which they didn’t want to do in their ShadowTalk. So the GM can feel free to use either subject for their email, FASA can handle it.]
It’s good to see big a bold plans coming out. The recent push for new players is good for the company, but experienced players have been waiting for any good non-rule products to come out.
Ragnarock
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Ragnarock was going to be a surprise. I knew this. Normally, when a product comes out from an established author, I have a reasonable idea of what to expect. Carl Sargent would reacquaint me with my definition of ‘munchkin’. Jak Koke will tell a good story, but use characters I have trouble believing in. Lisa Smedman would create great characters and work to have a plot worthy of them. Mel Odom would show great shadowrunners in action, as long as he ignored the Shadowrun rule system.
Stephen Kenson, however, doesn’t have an established track record for novels. I’ve already gotten used to high-quality sourcebooks from him (such as Portfolio of a Dragon and Magic In The Shadows ), but hisnovels to date have gotten mixed reviews from me. His first Shadowrun novel, Technobabel left me recommending that he focus on sourcebooks. His second SR novel, Crossroads , forced me to eat my words and thank him for a good read. Ragnarock split the difference, and leaves me indifferent.
The novel focuses on Talon and his crew, who were introduced in Crossroads. This is a plus in my book, because the characters are believable. Rather than focusing on their strengths and great abilities as so many other writers do, Mr. Kenson brings out their vulnerabilites, their failings and frailties. It isn’t overdone, and makes the characters more human. (I also recommend it as reading for any character playing a magician.)
Ragnarock , however, turns away from many of the strengths that Crossroads had. The setting changes to Germany. Crossroads was notable in that it alone of all the SR novels to date made the locale come alive. The flavor of the Boston Sprawl was throughout Crossroads . Germany, with the fragmented and confrontational city-states, with the anarchy of Berlin, with the different cultures and languages, should feel alien and different to runners from Boston.
But Talon slotted a German language chip, so we don't have to worry about that.
Perhaps I am being unfair here, perhaps Mr. Kenson tried to communicate the feeling of the industrial sprawl in the shadow of Saeder-Krupp. But regardless of whether the attempt was made, it failed to move me the way Crossroads had, and that disappointed me.
Another strength that was left behind was the power-level. Now longtimereaders of my reviews will be aware that I am a great fan of low-powercharacters, the Joe Average runner who is skilled, but still nothingspecial in terms of stats, equipment, and skills. This biases (and I openly admit it), my reviews, so if you do not share my preference, this part may not bother you, but here it is. In Crossroads , Talon and crew were a highly skilled, well-equiped but believable team of runners. In Ragnarock , they have all moved up a few notches in skill level. As thebook progresses, this becomes more gross in application.
Two remaining nits remain for me to pick. First, I would've expected the author of Magic In The Shadows to have been more precise in theportrayal of magic in the Shadowrun universe. Instead, rules are ignored (I was unaware that you could "lift" a sleep spell from anyone). This is minor, of course, as a good story is everything, but I don't feel the benefit to the story was worth the blow to the credibility. (Suspension of disbelief has rules too.)
The final, and perhaps most damaging blow, was the weakness of certain encounters. Ragnarock overall has a much more James Bond feel to it. The villain doesn't kill his greatest opponents when has them at his mercy, but instead inexplicably knocks them out and takes them along. Every threat encountered is escaped through the use of more magic, leaving no feeling of near-disaster. The snide paladin of Tir Tairngire falls in line and obeys the hero dispite everything. The story was surprising, particularly in the middle, and then became predictable. This style of writing can be fun and successful (see my review of The Wolf and the Raven ), but Mr. Kenson lacks the true knack to make it exciting and gripping. Not that he is untalented as a writer, because the easy flow of the story is what saved it. I enjoyed reading this novel, but I doubt I will reread it anytime soon.
Ragnarock is a solid mediocre SR novel. While it was not stellar, it nonetheless outperform many other SR novels. Mr. Kenson has still not created a pattern for his works, and so we'll have to wait for his next novel to see what results. For fans of the Doc Savage style of writing, Ragnarock may be worth a look, but for more gritty readers, you might want to pass this one by.
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Rating: | 3 |
Pros: | Good characters. Some surprises. | |
Cons: | Poor setting, over the top action. |
Corporate Punishment
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Corporate Punishment is a collection of three unrelated adventures (Double Take, Second Effort, and Legacy. Readers familiar with my tastes are aware that I am not a big fan of premade adventures, and so this review should be read with that in mind. While I do my best to restrict my bias, I do not doubt that I cannot remove it entirely. As with all of my adventure reviews, this is a non-spoiler review. Players and GM’s alike can read it without learning any important content of the adventures.
As a collection, Corporate Punishment is a little odd because of the unrelated natures of the adventures (they are grouped together in theis product because "the runners serve as pawns in a brutal corporate power struggle". The struggle, however, is different for each adventure. A GM with a taste for conspiracy can attempt to weave them together, but it will be quite a task, as different corporations are involved in each.
The adventures are not "tracked", and are pretty brief, consisting of two to four "scenes", in a straightforward linear arrangement. The power level is a little higher than I would like, but tolerable (You might have Tir Ghost teams or MCT Unit 13 running about), GMs will want to adjust the payoff to their normal levels. The simple format of the adventures means that the players will either stick to the script or move away from it immediately. The adventures themselves are fairly inventive. I particularly liked the complications involved in Second Effort.
One difficulty, however, is that all three adventures have N groups after the runners, where N is a lot bigger than the players would want. This gives the players opportunities to learn how to play opponents off of one another, but also creates a very real potential for characters to be seriously interfered with or killed. A wise GM will decide how they want to handle these situations in advance, and be sure that their players will deal with the ensuing consequences. As evidence, on the survey (see below), one of the questions is "The characters [did something] (and actually survived) Explain how this is possible"
One final comment: FASA has included a quick survey of the results of the final adventure (Legacy), which they want you to photocopy and return to them (or email). [Why they did not use a reader response card is anybody’s guess] This is a return to the player feedback system that led to the Election of Dunkelzahn. I think this is a very good idea, as gamers love to feel they that have influence on the world.
Corporate Punishment is strictly average fare in the world of FASA adventures. A bit more lethal than is perhaps standard, but a skilled GM will know how to use that with his or her players. The adventures are brief, but prepackaged adventures (as opposed to campaigns or event collections such as Blood in the Boardroom) really should be, if the players are to have any chance of staying close enough to the plot to make the purchase worth the GM’s investment.
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Rating: | 4 |
Pros: | Solid, brief adventures | |
Cons: | Very real risk of player unhappiness. |
Cannon Companion
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The Cannon Companion is the third Rules Expansion for SR3, and was slated to be the last of the "catch-up" books that brings all second edition rules to third edition (The recent announcement that FASA will release a 3rd edition version of Rigger 2 and Virtual Realities 2 changes this).
Because CC is a catch-up book, there is a lot of material that has been printed in previous books. There is also, however, a fair amount of new material. I list the diverse contents as a Con of the book because it makes it less targeted. Normally, an non-combat intensive group would avoid a sourcebook entitled the Cannon Companion. If they want detailed BTL or Skillsoft rules, however, they’ll have to pick it up.
The Cannon Companion is only 128 pages (although currently "standard" in the industry, many companies, FASA included, have been pushing that standard in recent releases, accompanied by a push from $18(US) to $20(US)), which makes it a bit steep at $20 (US). The complete absence of any index makes this even more curious. Perhaps the explanation lies in printing conventions: Print books come in sets of 16 pages. As an index would only use a few pages, FASA would have had to fill many more pages. Since the content is already streched beyond the scope of a "gun book", this would have been difficult. Also, As the CC continues the new trend of not including Shadowtalk in rules expansions, and doesn’t offer picture-a-page listings, much more is included per page than before 3rd edition.
While the index is missing, there is a complete table of gear prices and stats, as well as an expanded weapon ranges table and weapon record sheet (a character sheet for weapons), all of which is very nice.
The first sections of the CC introduce weapons. Melee, Projectiles, Thrown, Heavy, Special, Accessories, Ammo, and Explosives are covered. Many of these items appeared in The Street Samurai Catalog (SSC), Fields of Fire (FOF), Neo-Anarchist’s Guide to Real Life (NAGRL), Corporate Security (CS), and Cyberpirates (CP), but others (Flame throwers, caltrops, etc) are new and overdue. Also included are very nice charts listing damage from improvised weapons (Bowling Ball, Hairspray and Lighter, Molotov Cocktail). Those items that had abused flaws in previous versions have been corrected (The Yamaha Pulsar Taser, for example, is now a very effective stun weapon, but doesn’t cause automatic convulsions as it did originally). All the new weapons and gear seem fairly balanced, and offer more flexibility and style to characters rather than grossly increased power. The descriptions for the weapons also focus much more on game effects and rules, removing a lot of questions about accessories and recoil.
The Armor section reintroduces the subtle, social armors from NAGRL, and greatly expands the options available. Need armored coveralls? No problem. It also brings back the Hardened Military Armor (or "Bug Suits", as my group calls them) from FOF. Armor options are covered, such as chem seal, gel packs, non-conductive layers, thermal dampening, and others. The Battletac tactical communication system is covered, and quick but sufficient coverage is given to parachutes and underwater gear.
The next section expands the rules about skillsoft systems, long one of the
more under-used SR options. The inclusion of the rules here is a bit unusual,
as one of the reason it is under-used is that it best when applied to
non-combat skills. (Reportedly, this section was material that couldn’t fit
into Man and Machine). The rules presented offer more flexibility to a
skillchip buyer, and if a GM reads these rules, he will find many adventure
seeds and plot twists. Also in this section are rules concerning Better Than
Life (BTL) chips. The material goes a long way in explaining how simsense (Be
it normal, Cal-hots, or BTL) works in the culture, and offers the GM even more
material with which to craft adventures, but offers little to characters except
interesting character concepts.
The next section is the long awaited Firearm Construction and Customization rules (as one person commented on rec.games.frp.cyber "This will render hundreds of Shadowrun fan websites obsolete"). The construction rules are nice. Easy enough to work out with a little time, rules for your character’s skills and equipment (and/or contacts) included, and the options available allow you to create a wide range of weapons, but all within existing weapon power ranges. The Customization rules are also more than adequate, but don’t just skim the rules or you’ll miss the part that makes cost at character creation time easy.
The Advanced Melee Rules are even longer-awaited than the Firearm Construction rules. This is a difficult subject...the melee rules in SR are, frankly, unrealistic. Any attempt to change them will anger/annoy/frustrate someone. However, I’m fairly impressed with what FASA has settled on. I’ve seen many replacements for the SR combat system (some even in TSS, see Melee Style! issue 11), but this system maintains the simplicity of the basic melee system while adding options and flavor to it. The Melee Rules section is in two parts: Combat Options, which expands the concepts of Full Defense, Subduing, etc, and Martial Arts, which replaces the standard martial arts rules.
The Combat Options are fairly straight-forward. The only interesting part is that a sufficiently skilled opponent can use subduing combat to take down a much stronger (but less skilled) opponent. The Martial Arts rules treat martial arts as replacements to the Unarmed Combat skill, not specializations. Each Martial Arts Style (11 besides Brawling, the new form of Unarmed combat, are listed) acts similarly to a totem, giving advantages and disadvantages to the users combat. Each Style also has a list of Maneuvers that can be learned (at 2 Karma each) that have an effect in combat. The Styles are fairly sweeping (each Style represents several different Martial Arts), and the Maneuvers represent your approach to the outcome of the action (remembering that each action represents a series of moves). Thus, you don’t learn Uppercut or Roundhouse Kick, you learn Full Offense or Kick Attacks. These rules avoid the classic trap of making Martial Arts intrinsicaly better than Brawling, but instead offer each style a set of options and advantages, so that fighters who can arrange to be in situations that maximize their benefits will succeed more often. Thus the Aikido expert will get fragged if he insists on charging his opponents, but can throw charging opponents with less difficulty. The rules are in line with the standard SR approach to melee combat, so if you loathe the basic rules, these changes will not appeal to you, whereas if you find the basic rules simple but adequate, you may well find this expansion to be of value in adding flavor to your game.
The final section of the book (before the charts and tables) is the Advanced Combat Rules. This section is a series of short rules and references, much like those in the back of Fields of Fire, but expanded, and inclusive of the underwater combat rules included in Cyberpirates. The Suppressive Fire rules (from Fields of Fire), previously used as the only way to fire full-auto (why have recoil and target penalties when you can just fire at a TN 4?), have been re-written to better accomplish their goal. Now Suppresive Fire will have them stay down to avoid being shot, but any hit from such an action will not inflict great pain. Heavily armored targets will not feel threated by such fire (by the numbers, the GM can decide that being shot, even without effective damage, is threat enough.) A new rule, Searching Fire, is used to attempt to guarantee a hit by generating a hail of lead. That rule is pretty lightweight, however, and it quickly becomes easy to fire fewer shots to avoid the recoil penalties. The Strength to soak recoil rule from Fields of Fire has also made a revised return: Now the compensation doesn’t begin until Strength 5. Many more niche rules are in this section.
On the whole the Cannon Companion does an excellent job of expanding combat options without creating overpowered monsters. The new gear and options promise more exciting and varied combats and characters. Even with a large amount of reprinted material, the lack of shadowtalk and the removal of the one item a page format has allowed an impressive amount of information to be squeezed into its pages. I recommend the book even to non-combat focused groups (perhaps especially to them), because the rules are less about bigger guns than they are about bigger choices. Only the inclusion of the off-topic simsense rules and lack of an index keep Cannon Companion from being a 5.
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Rating: | 4 |
Pros: | Many well-balanced rules, the last major changes from 2nd edition. | |
Cons: | Diverse content, No index, Limited appeal next to M&M and MITS |
Brainscan
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A note about this review: I do my best to make all my adventure reviews non-spoiler, so that they can be read by both player and GM alike. I must, however, give away some generalities about the adventure, and with this particular adventure, I must give away some details about a previous product, namely Renraku Arcology: Shutdown. If you do not want any spoilers regarding that adventure, do not read this review any further.
When I picked up my copy of Brainscan, it began with many strikes against it. First, I tend to dislike prepackaged adventures. Second, Brainscan's cover and title implied that the Matrix would be involved, and I doubted the wisdom of releasing a Matrix-related adventure shortly before the release of Matrix-related sourcebooks (Target: Matrix and The Matrix). Finally, Brainscan is expensive for an adventure: $22.00 (US) for 148 pages of content. I did my best to give it an honest and open review, however, and it managed to redeem itself in many ways, if not completely.
Brainscan is more than an adventure, it is actually a series of five short adventures, with some interlinking discussion. The adventures consist of 2-3 tasks each, so Brainscan can keep a group occupied for many, many sessions. The adventures are not truly Matrix-based as I originally suspected (note that the description on the back cover is absolutely useless and has almost no resemblance to the content), although a decker will find plenty to do (the adventures do an adequate job of presenting system information.) Brainscan is actually about the machinations of Deus and his servants outside the arcology.
Before I can discuss the quality of the Brainscan adventures, I must first touch upon the nature of the beast. Amongst role-playing game designers, there are two primary forms of development: Static worlds, and metaplots. Static world designers prefer to develop a game world in detail, and then move on. (Note that detailing a game world can take many years of releases). Dynamic world designers (aka metaplot designers) prefer to have an evolving world where large-scale events happen and the the world changes. FASA is one of the latter, and has been with all of their most recent lines (BattleTech, Shadowrun, and Earthdawn). The advantages and disadvantages of each are hotly debated: Many gamers enjoy having a company develop new challenges and twists, while others hate having a company interfere with their plots and outdating their sourcebooks. Personally, (if you care) I find benefits in both. The metaplot nature of the Shadowrun universe does not interfere with my games because the metaplots happen on a scale that my runners do not interact with. The times it does trouble me is when it forces a player who wishes to stay abreast with the universe to purchase products they would not normally purchase. I had that complaint about Renraku Arcology: Shutdown, and I have that concern about Brainscan. It may be that my concern is unwarranted: The Matrix sourcebooks that I was also concerned about may reveal the changes that Brainscan has enacted in the Shadowrun Universe. Until those books are released, however, I can only wait. For the moment, Brainscan changes the Shadowrun universe, and does an inadequate job of describing the fallout of the adventures, leaving any GM running it in a lurch until a new sourcebook is released.
The adventures in Brainscan are actually quite good. They are simple enough to avoid most player complications, and the authors have done a good job of providing good debugging tips. (Although I still wonder why FASA continues to release adventures that don't account for the fact that any shadowrunners turning over an unwilling hostage are going to keep that hostage incapacitated). In most respects, Brainscan is superior to Harlequin, the previous linked adventure set (Which is the same size, produced in 1990, and cost $12.00 (US)). The difficulty in the adventures comes from two points: First, and of least importance, the adventures continue to bring the players in without adequate explanation of why the players themselves continue to get the jobs. Harlequin had an explanation for this, Brainscan does not. A clever GM can come up with many, but the authors could have provided at least one. The second difficulty is that while the adventures themselves are fairly fault tolerant, the linking between the adventures is weaker and more linear. It would be quite simple for the characters to get "off-course" on any of the adventures, leaving the GM with more (pricey) adventures that can no longer be fit in without stretching credibility. This fault is inherent in the design, and the authors have done as much as they could be expected to to provide advice to try and stave this off, but players being players, this is still a definite risk.
As I have mentioned, another difficulty with Brainscan comes not from the adventures, but from the lack of final resolution. Imagine if Renraku Arcology: Shutdown had been an adventure that ended with the actual seizure of the Arcology, or if Bug City had described the attack by the insect spirits, but not any response. The GM would be left with a significant event in the Shadowrun universe, and no hint of how it would be handled. Brainscan's climax leaves just that sort of problem, and many GM's may wish to await information about the fallout of the adventure, even though doing so might result in players that know how Brainscan ends before actually experiencing the adventure.
As prepackaged adventures go, Brainscan is among the best I have seen FASA produce. The weaknesses built-in to the concept of linked adventures, along with the lack of final resolution and the hefty price tag are a serious blow to its appeal, however, and I remain skeptical of recommending it to everyone.
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Rating: | 3 |
Pros: | Complete adventure set, easily molded to different groups. | |
Cons: | Highly linear, expensive. |