| From: | Damion Milliken <adm82@***.EDU.AU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Books |
| Date: | Tue, 25 Apr 1995 18:47:33 +1000 |
> _ShadowTech_
This is a 1st edition book, but there are only very few codes and stats
which would need changing. Most of them have a staging of 2 anyhow, so you
can pretty much drop the staging numeral (the last number on a damage code),
and use what's left in 2nd edition. The book itself is pretty good, with
lots of new toys for cyber freaks. Some GMs find it unbalancing (but I think
they just have a karma/nuyen imbalance in their games), as the equipment
from it actually allows samurais some kind of advancement other than stats
and skills. If you have a bunch of powergamers or munchkins in your group
however, it can be fairly useful for their schemes. Reccomended
none-the-less.
> _Street_Sam_Catalog_
One of the earlists toy suppliments. It is 1st edition, but there has been a
second edition reprint. The stats for all the gear in it appear in an
appendix in SRII for those who had the book from their SRI days and did not
wish to purchase the new version. Note that the stats are not enough to play
with (they miss much of the attachments, notes, special rules etc) as they
only gives the SRII damage conversions etc for the weapons. In its day it
was a much needed sourcebook (as FASA has very few weapons and pieces of
cyberware in their main rule book). It has been somewhat eclipsed by S-Tech
though. However, many of the pieces of equipment in it are useful, and the
book itself is a SR classic.
> _Neo_Anarchists_Guide_to_Real_Life_
This is both 1st and second edition. It gives a fair overview of life in the
SR universe, but I wouldn't think this entirely neccessary. It contains a few
rules enhancements, and a few articles of equipment as well. The best part
by far is the section on security, which is very useful for the GM to devise
security for corp compounds and the like. Reccommended mainly due to the
security section.
> Am I making a mistake here? I know I need a Grimoire also, and maybe
> that new Virtual Realities..as well as the Rigger Black Book. Any
> other suggestions?
The Grimything would be the first sourcebook I'd purchase. It expands magic
so much, and contains lots of new spells, abilities, rules, and other fun
stuff like insect shamens and toxic shamens. It can be considered, in some
ways, as the magical companion to S-Tech, and must be used carefully. Note
that there are both 1st and second eitions floating around (my lcal games
store still has a copy of Grimything 1 on its shelves), so make sure you get
the 2nd edition.
VR is next to useless unless you plan on doing an inordinate amount of
decking. Though the story is cool :-). I'd probably wait until the 2nd
edition one comes out to by it.
The RBB is a 1st edition book, and is viewed as pretty much trash by many
people (quite a few on here think it is by far the worst FASA product they
have seen). It's useful because it has lots of new vehicles and such, but
any GM with a bit of imagination and a few hours could do just as good. The
vehicle modifiaction rules are pretty poor, although they do give you many
good suggestions on what kind of things can be done to a vehcile. The rules
section has been superceded by SRII. The weapon section only contains
vehicle weapons, which are not usually common in SR games as a general rule
anyhow. I'd only buy it if one of your players was going to be playing a
rigger.
Actually, a better idea is if you can con your players into buying the
sourcebook appropriate to their character - get the magician to buy the
Grimything, the decker VR, sammies SSC & S-Tech, riggers RBB and so on.
As for other useful books, I recommend you purchase Harlequin (the module),
but don't run it straight away. It is a legendary SR adventure.
FoF, the new toys book, is pretty good. Especially if you have a merc who
wants to be a _merc_, not "a sammie with an LMG". The gear in it is a bit
more powerful than other equpment in the main book and sourcebooks though in
my view, particularily the armour (munchkinous is about the right
description), but the rules section in the back is quite good.
I personally am planning on buying Bug City soon myself (but only because I
have plans to do with my players and bugs), so I can't say how good that is.
Likewise the Corporate Security Sourcebook (or whatever it's called).
Most of the location sourcebooks (London, Germany, Tir etc) are pretty
useless unless you want to take your players there for some reason or
another.
The two beasties books (Paranormal Animals of North America and Europe) are
interesting, but not all that handy unless you plan on having lost of
critters as guard creatures. Though PNAE his good clarifications and
explanations of the awakened powers and abilites, and a few cool creatures
which can be used for good plot devices.
Corporate Shadowfiles is not all that useful, except that it gives a good
overview of corportae intrigue, which can be handy for designing adventure.
DMZ is crap.
Shadowbeat is quite interesting, but not neccessary to have.
I'd recommend Divided Assets (the module) because of the matrix rules in the
back. If you plan on running a decker, then this is probably more useful
than VR. The module itself is pretty poor in my view (the designers just
assumed too much/too little).
There, that covers most of it I think. A word on the adventures, they all
follow a predicatble plotline: * Runners offered simple sounding job
* Job either turns out to be more than
expected, or
* Job leads onto much bigger things
One could almost bet on it. Although a couple of them are quite alright in
my view, you have to watch overusing them. I'd reccomend Mercurial and
Universal Brotherhood as two pretty OK ones (the adventure in UB isn't all
that crash hot, but the UB bit that comes with it is cool). If your players
are converting over from $$&$, then DNA/DOA is a good intermediate adventure
to get them into the feel of SR while not throwing them off too much. It is
also quite likely that you'll have to tailor the stats of the NPCs in the
adventures to suit your own team, as the power levels of the modules vary
fairly widely.
--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong E-mail: adm82@***.edu.au
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