Logs for ShadowRN and Associated Mailing Lists

From:	pgrosse@********.com (Paul Grosse)
Subject:	Books to get
Date:	Mon, 4 Nov 2002 10:20:04 -0500

Message no. 1 Okay, I finally picked up some Shadowrun books at a Con this weekend.
I bought three of them. Now I need to know what other books I should
get, and what order would they make sense.

I bought : Shadowrun Source book (duh, kinda would need that)
Year of the Comet
State of the Art 2063.

Is there a need to get the 2nd edition books by Fasa? As I understand
it most of the rules were all clarified and etc. into the 3rd edition
book(s)?

Paul Grosse
MSN Messenger: Nylanfs@***.com
ICQ: 14397299
AO: Nylan
Various forums: Nylan (or Nylanfs)

"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race
to keep all it's eggs in." - Robert Heinlein

From:	loneeagle@********.co.uk (Lone Eagle)
Subject:	Books to get
Date:	Mon, 04 Nov 2002 18:55:57 +0000

Message no. 2 At 10:20 AM 4/11/2002 -0500, Paul wrote:
>Okay, I finally picked up some Shadowrun books at a Con this weekend.
>I bought three of them. Now I need to know what other books I should
>get, and what order would they make sense.
>
>I bought : Shadowrun Source book (duh, kinda would need that)
>Year of the Comet
>State of the Art 2063.

The basic 4 sourcebooks, Rigger 3, Man and Machine, Cannon Companion and
Magic in the Shadows are almost essentials...

>Is there a need to get the 2nd edition books by Fasa? As I understand
>it most of the rules were all clarified and etc. into the 3rd edition
>book(s)?

I picked up 2nd Ed books (and 1st Ed) for a number of reasons, the pictures
for a start, backstory and rules (to clarify 3rd Ed rules and bring back
old ones which worked better).

(It also gives me a translation tool for talking to Korishinzo ;-) )

--
Lone Eagle
"Hold up lads, I got an idea."

www.wyrmtalk.co.uk - Please be patient, this site is under construction

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"I shall go to London, disguise myself as a boy, and seek my fortune!"
Blackadder II (Bells)

From:	520074903613-0001@********.de (Thorger_SÃŒnert)
Subject:	Books to get
Date:	Mon, 4 Nov 2002 22:02:18 +0100

Message no. 3 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Lone Eagle" <loneeagle@********.co.uk>
> At 10:20 AM 4/11/2002 -0500, Paul wrote:
> >Okay, I finally picked up some Shadowrun books at a Con this weekend.
> >I bought three of them. Now I need to know what other books I should
> >get, and what order would they make sense.
> >
> >I bought : Shadowrun Source book (duh, kinda would need that)
> >Year of the Comet
> >State of the Art 2063.
>
> The basic 4 sourcebooks, Rigger 3, Man and Machine, Cannon Companion and
> Magic in the Shadows are almost essentials...

So far has it come *sob*
/me hugs his Matrix to quell it`s of the evil man Lone Eagle

Greetings
Thorger Sünert

From:	jzealey@***.edu.au (James Zealey)
Subject:	Books to get
Date:	Tue, 05 Nov 2002 09:33:10 +1100

Message no. 4 > From:
> "Paul Grosse" <pgrosse@********.com>
>
> Okay, I finally picked up some Shadowrun books at a Con this weekend.
> I bought three of them. Now I need to know what other books I should
> get, and what order would they make sense.
>
> I bought : Shadowrun Source book (duh, kinda would need that)
> Year of the Comet
> State of the Art 2063.
>
> Is there a need to get the 2nd edition books by Fasa? As I understand
> it most of the rules were all clarified and etc. into the 3rd edition
> book(s)?
>

Technically, the 3rd edition SR Source book is the only book needed to
play the game, and I for one would advise you to start playing using it
alone (possibly plus some of the adventures which have been released).
Once you and your players feel confident with it, you can move onto some
of the extra rules, which you should probably do gradually.
Once you move onto extra rules, the following are the best choices:

Magic in The Shadows - interesting and extremely useful stuff for anyone
magically active. Quite a lot of useful stuff for GM's too. Covers
metamagics, ritual magic, various spirits, new magical traditions,
enchanting and going to the metaplanes. Note that SoTA has some things
in it that you can't use unless you own MiTS (ritual magic, metamagics etc).

Cannon Companion - basically a weapons (guns and melee) book, but it
includes other things like the small unit tactics skill, (questionable)
rules for parachuting, rules for various chemical weapons, rules for
simsense and skill chips, simsense reprogramming (I think - this might
be in M&M below...), rules for fighting with two weapons and rules for
martial arts maneuvers. Quite worth getting for a lot of different
characters.

Man and Machine - The cyberware book. Lots of cyberware, rules for new
stuff called bioware, expanded rules for healing, rules for implanting
cyberware (how much it costs, how long it takes etc), rules for drugs
and drug addiction, and expanded rules for damage (sort of like critical
hit tables, but not nearly as random). Good for the game in general.

The other two rule books are Matrix and Rigger 3. Neither are really
worth getting unless you have the appropriate characters (decker and
rigger respectively) to go with them - they're both very focused books.
Rigger 3 also needs quite a bit of work before it's useable.

Thats it for rule books. I really think that MiTS is nearly 100%
essential, while the others are much less so.

You don't need to get any of the 2nd edition books - most of the stuff
was updated and brought across to 3rd, barring some of the location
books, and the adventures. It is often worth getting some of the 2nd
edition books though - the mechanics still tend to work properly, and
newer books are a bit lighter on descriptive text (for instance, the old
street samurai book had a picture for each piece of equipment, and the
critters books had pictures of each critter).

Oh, yeah - if you want to use any of SR's wildlife, then you'll possibly
need the critters booklet which comes with the GM screen - although it's
widely regarded as just not worth it. The old critter books are much
better if you can get them.

From:	dam01@***.edu.au (Damion Milliken)
Subject:	Books to get
Date:	Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:02:52 +1100

Message no. 5 Paul Grosse writes:

> Is there a need to get the 2nd edition books by Fasa? As I understand
> it most of the rules were all clarified and etc. into the 3rd edition
> book(s)?

I'll only answer this, as others have covered which SR3 books you might want
to get and why.

Many of the SRII, and even SR1, books are still quite useful because they
cover the SR world in more detail than the SR3 books. I find that most SR3
books tend to be rules heavy, and those that aren't (such as YotC for
instance) tend to assume a good prior knowledge of the SR universe. This
good prior knowledge of the SR universe is built up primarily from the
descriptions, shadowtalk, and fluff text from the older books. Items such as
Shadowbeat, Fields of Fire, Paranormal Animals of Europe, Portfolio of a
Dragon, and a whole bunch of other SR1/SRII books contain a lot of SR world
info that hasn't ever been republished.

Obviously enough, you can play and quite enjoy SR without this old
knowledge, especially if you stick primarily to the current plotlines, so I
wouldn't go investing "new book cover price" in SR1/SRII books by the dozen.
But you'll probably find that many topics, ideas, or other points of
interest in the SR world have been covered, or at least touched upon, in a
previous SR1/SRII book. Just ask on here, and people will more than likely
tell you which book might be useful for you.

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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From:	Gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject:	Books to get
Date:	Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:00:25 +0100

Message no. 6 According to Lone Eagle, on Mon, 04 Nov 2002 the word on the street was...

> The basic 4 sourcebooks, Rigger 3, Man and Machine, Cannon Companion and
> Magic in the Shadows are almost essentials...

...if you have characters (PC or NPC) who want to do more in the fields
these books are about than the main rules cover. For example, if you don't
have characters who use vehicles a lot (nothing beyond "I drive to the
night club in my Americar" or so) then you won't need Rigger 3; if your
players don't like combat (??? :) you could do without Cannon Companion;
and so on.

[2nd edition books]
> (It also gives me a translation tool for talking to Korishinzo ;-) )

Be glad Spike isn't around anymore, in that case :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
I know all this and more
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

From:	pgrosse@********.com (Paul Grosse)
Subject:	Books to get
Date:	Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:24:31 -0500

Message no. 7 >
> Okay, I finally picked up some Shadowrun books at a Con this
> weekend. I bought three of them. Now I need to know what
> other books I should get, and what order would they make sense.
>
> I bought : Shadowrun Source book (duh, kinda would need that)
> Year of the Comet
> State of the Art 2063.
>
> Is there a need to get the 2nd edition books by Fasa? As I
> understand it most of the rules were all clarified and etc.
> into the 3rd edition book(s)?
>
> Paul Grosse
>

Kewl, thanks for all the good responses. Well unless I find a game
that is close to me (with in 30-50 miles) It looks like I'm going to
be the GM. So I'll need all the background I can get. Planning on
going to some used bookstores around here and look for some of the
novels, I'll hit the used section of my game store and see what other
copies of the older suppliments they have. :)

From:	loneeagle@********.co.uk (Lone Eagle)
Subject:	Books to get
Date:	Wed, 06 Nov 2002 20:09:11 +0000

Message no. 8 At 10:02 PM 4/11/2002 +0100, Thorger wrote:
> > The basic 4 sourcebooks, Rigger 3, Man and Machine, Cannon Companion and
> > Magic in the Shadows are almost essentials...
>
>So far has it come *sob*
>/me hugs his Matrix to quell it`s of the evil man Lone Eagle

Oh damn, I totally forgot Matrix, (comforts his own copy and promises never
to forget it like that again... Is subsequently buried under his entire
collection...)

My apologies to copies of Matrix everywhere :-)

--
Lone Eagle
"Hold up lads, I got an idea."

www.wyrmtalk.co.uk - Please be patient, this site is under construction

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GCC0.2: y75>?.uk[NN] G87 S@:@@[SR] B+++ f+ RM(RR) rm++ rr++ l++(--) m- w
s+(+++) GM+++(-) A GS+(-) h++ LA+++ CG--- F c+

"This is the head of a traitor."
"No it isn't, it's a huge pumpkin with a pathetic moustache drawn on it!"
Blackadder (the civil war one)

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