Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Lloyd Vance ljvance@*******.edu
Subject: [minutely OT] New Products
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 16:47:20
>
>>Virtual Realities - Virtual Realites 2
>>
>This kinda follows the idea above for R2, except that the writing for VR2
>sucks :( It's an unfinished book, IMO, but the core mechanics are good.
>

I agree whole-heartedly. I spent about three months reorganizing VR2 (all
handwritten, so don't ask for a copy) to make it understandable to me, and
to keep things together that needed to be together, and to put things in an
order that made sense. But aside from that, the info is good. Much better
than VR, because there was just a boatload more of information in it
(mostly because half the book wasn't taken up by Renny. Not that I didn't
like the story, but I would have liked it if that time and space had been
used on rules)

The Hamm
aka Lloyd Vance
Message no. 2
From: Twist0059@***.com Twist0059@***.com
Subject: [minutely OT] New Products
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 23:52:01 EDT
In a message dated 7/8/99 7:48:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
ljvance@*******.edu writes:

> >>
> >This kinda follows the idea above for R2, except that the writing for VR2
> >sucks :( It's an unfinished book, IMO, but the core mechanics are good.
> >
>
> I agree whole-heartedly. I spent about three months reorganizing VR2 (all
> handwritten, so don't ask for a copy) to make it understandable to me, and
> to keep things together that needed to be together, and to put things in an
> order that made sense. But aside from that, the info is good. Much better
> than VR, because there was just a boatload more of information in it
> (mostly because half the book wasn't taken up by Renny. Not that I didn't
> like the story, but I would have liked it if that time and space had been
> used on rules)


Odd, I find VR2.0 to be the best Shadowrun book to date, and the rules are
far beyond the ultra-pain of the system maps and nodes. Maybe I'm just weird
this way, but it seems to me Hume did an excellent job with the book, taking
deckers from the NPCs and making them truly interesting without driving the
GM crazy. Or maybe the GM just needs to love decking in order to get into
it. It took two solid readings for me to get the book down, but that's the
same as for MitS or Rigger 2, both excellent books in their own rights.
Again, personally (ignore the AI speaking through me), the Shadowrun rules
expansions are better than they've ever been, and we're in the hay-day of
Shadowrun as far as the rule system goes (I don't think M&M or CC will let me
down, but who knows?).

Now I do miss the Neo-As which Target replaced, but other than that Mulvihill
(despite my complaints towards the feel of SR turning cartoonish and hollow)
has brought together and made better every element of Shadowrun as far as the
rules go, taking a jumble of disjointed sourcebooks (expertly overseen by
Dowd nonetheless who knew how to pump the Neo-A feel) and making them into a
streamlined system stronger and possessing more clarity than I've ever seen
before. And even his storylines have added momentum to the SR universe,
which was growing stagnant before.

Now if he would just bring back the Neo-Anarchists......





-Twist
Message no. 3
From: kawaii kawaii@********.org
Subject: [minutely OT] New Products
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 00:14:43 -0400 (EDT)
On Thu, 8 Jul 1999, Lloyd Vance wrote:

> >
> >>Virtual Realities - Virtual Realites 2
> >>
> >This kinda follows the idea above for R2, except that the writing for VR2
> >sucks :( It's an unfinished book, IMO, but the core mechanics are good.
> >
>
> I agree whole-heartedly. I spent about three months reorganizing VR2 (all
> handwritten, so don't ask for a copy) to make it understandable to me, and
> to keep things together that needed to be together, and to put things in an
> order that made sense. But aside from that, the info is good. Much better
> than VR, because there was just a boatload more of information in it
> (mostly because half the book wasn't taken up by Renny. Not that I didn't
> like the story, but I would have liked it if that time and space had been
> used on rules)
>
> The Hamm
> aka Lloyd Vance
>
>
>

I appear to be in the minority here, but VR2 made things so much simpler
for me. Of course, I was GMing the Matrix in a seperate and
self-sufficient environment in which the only characters I had to worry
about was deckers. Such is the fun of MUXing. ;)

With code to take care of a lot of the matrix calculations and automated
dice rolling, the matrix becomes a place similar to the astral plane. It
is a place where a GM can do anything they want, be it breaking laws of
physics or just making the Golden Gate Bridge into a different color
(azure for those of you who are Slider-fans).

I'll look for some VB programs I wrote a while back to help me with the
matrix for TT (table top) RP, but I make no promises if I will find them.
(This was stuff I had 2 HD, a new processor and two OS's ago. =P)

Ever lovable and always scrappy,
kawaii
Message no. 4
From: Mark Fender markf@******.com
Subject: [minutely OT] New Products
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 09:36:09 -0500
> Odd, I find VR2.0 to be the best Shadowrun book to date, and the rules are
>
> far beyond the ultra-pain of the system maps and nodes. Maybe I'm just
> weird
> this way, but it seems to me Hume did an excellent job with the book,
> taking
> deckers from the NPCs and making them truly interesting without driving
> the
> GM crazy. Or maybe the GM just needs to love decking in order to get into
>
> it. It took two solid readings for me to get the book down, but that's
> the
> same as for MitS or Rigger 2, both excellent books in their own rights.
> Again, personally (ignore the AI speaking through me), the Shadowrun rules
>
> expansions are better than they've ever been, and we're in the hay-day of
> Shadowrun as far as the rule system goes (I don't think M&M or CC will let
> me
> down, but who knows?).
>
Damn skippy. VR2 is the best SR book ever published. In fact, if I didn't
need the main book to use it, I would rate it above the main rulebook.

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about [minutely OT] New Products, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.