Previously I posted a couple of custom pistols made using Shadowrun 3rd Edition rules. This time around I’ve updated them for Shadowrun 4th Edition (using the weapon modification rules in Arsenal).
After a bit of mail from a Shadowrun 3rd edition fan, I dug these bad boys out of my archives. Here’s two pieces of heavy artillery (all right, heavy pistols) for the firearm enthusiast on your team!
Shadowrun’s futuristic technology includes skillwares, chips with software which grant users access to knowledge and skills they do not innately possess.
Convenient for shadowrunners, yes. For the general populace? Downright dramatic; think about areas like manufacturing, and it becomes apparent that skillwares pose new pressures on the global workforce.
Here’s how I think new levels of civil unrest and social upheaval can create an excellent backdrop for a meaningful Shadowrun campaign.
I tend to prefer being a gamemaster versus a player in a role playing game. Thus I read a lot of role playing books. This weekend I finally started a new activity while reading that I’ve been thinking about for a while: I’m taking notes.
There are several more games I need to review and I also would like to write a bit more about reviewing and perhaps change the way I write reviews but it occurred to me that there are a number of game related things I am quite excited about at the moment and this being the last day of the year a post about these items might be a good idea.
I was checking out some Shadowrun stuff recently when I noticed a mention of Catalyst’s new upcoming SF/Horror game Eclipse Phase.
A few weeks ago my Shadowrun group had a short discussion about the usefulness of Logic for a Hacker. For those unfamilier with the system, Hackers (once called Deckers) are basically what they sound like: computer geeks who break the law for a profit. It came up that most hacking-related rolls in the game involve adding your skill plus program rather than using your Logic stat and after a closer look it generally appeared that Logic was almost useless for a Hacker to have at all since most everything was based on a composite of skill + program with your actual brain power hardly fitting in at all.
I mentioned in my last post that I had not yet received my pulped tree format of the Shadowrun Companion.
Heading over to the Shadowrun site to try and figure out why my pulped tree version of the Runner’s Companion wasn’t in yet I discovered Catalyst’s newest product with an apparent street date of October 14th: Cthulhutech.
We had our first actual Shadowrun game yesterday and boy was it a bumpy ride…
Most days I glance over the top news stories on Yahoo and today was no different. I try to keep myself informed on a variety of topics but I admit that I only read the articles that look as though they will be interesting or humorous.
I’ve mentioned before that I have trouble with locations in my role playing games. I’ve never been good at picturing things three dimensionally and when it comes to buildings I have trouble picturing room layouts (both where the rooms should be within the structure and what should be where in the rooms).
As I have mentioned several times I am a huge fan of Shadowrun. I love almost everything about the game from its living world with new and interesting events happening all the time to its concise and well thought out rules. Shadowrun, for me, offers the perfect mix of action and role playing and really opens itself up to all kinds of gamers.
Recently I purchased the Runner’s Companion combo pack which gets you the pdf version of the book and the hard bound version when they release it. Most likely I would have waited for the hard bound version if my next game were not starting soon but as it is starting soon I wanted the new options available for my players. I also figured that it gave me the opportunity to write a brief review of the book in a somewhat timely fashion.
I’m really not a fan of RPG.net these days. They seem to always come down very harshly on the games that I like best and often their “reviews” are little more than sarcastic rants. Still, I do pop over their from time to time and check out what is being said.
I finally got my hands on Unwired for Shadowrun 4.0. It looks pretty good even if it seems to contain a bit more fluff and a little less crunch than Arsenal, Augmentation and Street Magic.
Wizards started showing previews of their up coming book Adventurer’s Vault today. The book is described as having “Hundreds of new weapons, tools, and magic items for your D&D character” which sounds pretty nice from a DM’s perspective.
The most interesting thing for me was the preview of the wondrous item, Bag of Tricks.
I’ve mentioned this project of mine in a couple other posts, and thanks to Scott assisting me with the posting and Sara, Pat, and Scott assisting me with the editing, the first portion of the serialized story is available here.
Shadowrun short fiction
“You sure this is the place?” Highlight asks, left lip curling up to reveal her prominent teeth. She sits in the back of the van but leans forward and peers at the small suburban house through the passenger’s window.
I’ve been working on a number of different projects lately and they have taken up the time I would normally be using for ranting about some random D&D thing… er… I mean “writing for the blog”.
My gaming group made their final decision about our Saturday morning RPG last night. We had already come to a unanimous decision that Scion had major issues, and while there was some divergence as to what to do about it most fell closer to the “abandon it and don’t look back” side than the “muscle on, the idea is so cool!” side.
The release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is right around the corner and if you have been paying attention at all you’ll know I am pretty excited about it. When I first heard about it I shrugged it off but then curiosity got the better of me and I did some research and posted the results of that research. Since that time I have been reading the Wizards posts and poking around for opinions from people with advanced copies while I eagerly await the arrival of my copies of the books.
The opinions about the new edition seem to be fairly split, with an edge given to positive impressions. While there are many different complaints (no gnomes, no half-orcs, no sorcerers, multi-class changes, alignment changes, etc.) the most amusing complaint I have seen is “3.5 is fine, don’t let Wizards trick you into spending more money!”
I love Shadowrun. Even when I don’t get to role play very frequently (which is another story), Shadowrun is one of those games I enjoy reading, and hope to play again when the chance arises.
Yet for months now it seems to have disappeared from major online stores. Were Shadowrun books selling out as fast as they came in? Or was the game making the transition to Catalyst Game Labs poorly? Perhaps a more sinister force was at work, maybe Lofwyr suppressing any media which made mention of his name?
I began my role playing career by running games. To this day I find running games more enjoyable than playing in them (partly because I am very easily distracted and find that I am not the best player in the world because of this) and thus have run far more games than games in which I’ve played.
My game mastering style has changed a lot over the years and recently has gone through another major change. I’ve discovered TV is at the heart of the change.
Pen and paper RPGs have always had a strong relationship with movies. Play in some games (and with some gamemasters) tends to embody a heightened cinematic style. Most role playing games are influenced by at least a few cult movies, and some even state their influences openly. Then of course players often draw heavily on characters in books and movies for their own in-game persona, or when visualizing specific scenes.
One of the best uses of these rpg-to-movie tie-ins is to quickly communicate the style of a game to a new, or prospective, player. Relating a game to movies that share its themes can give the player an instant feel for what the world can be like, and immediately conjure images of cool characters and scenes that they will enjoy reenacting or using for inspiration.
