Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: tyusmax on <12-31-13/2218:45>
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It site says the 5E GM screen is already supposed to be out. But my FLGS says they have not heard anything about it.
This is actually a printed GM screen correct? Not one of those pdf print out jobbies?
So has anyone else already gotten it/seen it being sold?
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CGL site said it was supposed to be out Dec 18th, but my FLGS hasn't seen it either. I stopped in there last week to pick it up, and they had no idea about it. Amazon doesn't seem to have it available either, last time I checked.
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I haven't bought one but have seen two copies of it in Houston stores.
William
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I haven't bought one but have seen two copies of it in Houston stores.
William
I would pick them up, personally. But before I did I'd make sure they weren't the 4th edition GM screens.
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They were the 5th edition ones. I may end up picking one up but i'm holding off for now due to the issues with the core book. I can't spend that kind of money on a book that is going to fall apart.
William
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They were the 5th edition ones. I may end up picking one up but i'm holding off for now due to the issues with the core book. I can't spend that kind of money on a book that is going to fall apart.
William
The GM Screen isn't the same as the core book. Are you sure you're not thinking of the core book?
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I picked up mine from my flgs in the Detroit area. It is indeed 5th edition, and seems much sturdier than my copy of the core book.
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They were the 5th edition ones. I may end up picking one up but i'm holding off for now due to the issues with the core book. I can't spend that kind of money on a book that is going to fall apart.
William
The GM Screen isn't the same as the core book. Are you sure you're not thinking of the core book?
No,
I fully understand the difference. What I picked up and held in 2 different stores was the 5th edition GM screen. I'm not buying it yet because I won't be running the game until I get a core book . I'm not getting a core book yet because I'm not about to spend $60+ on a book that is going to fall apart and the company can't even be bothered to comment about it. When I get assurance that the issue with the core book has been resolved, I'll probably buy it and then pick up a GM screen. Right now, the GM screen is useless to me seeing as I don't plan to GM at this time but I have held 2 different copies. If you would like I can give you contact information for the 2 stores and you can call and verify for yourself they have them.
William
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I wasn't trying to offend. It's just confusing wording to bring up the durability of the core book in the same sentence. Not trying to get off-topic but I have the core book and I haven't had any issues with its durability - do you have any specific concerns?
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I wasn't trying to offend. It's just confusing wording to bring up the durability of the core book in the same sentence. Not trying to get off-topic but I have the core book and I haven't had any issues with its durability - do you have any specific concerns?
The reason the durability was brought up was because I just don't want to pay that much for a book that has had multiple reports of pages falling out after merely light reading. I'm not even going to think about running a game until I've bought a core book so that's the reason I didn't buy the screen when I saw it. I'm certain that the issue with the rulebook doesn't apply to all of the books and I'm glad for you that your's has held up. I just don't want to take the gamble. $60 is a bit much on my budget and I'd like to know that I'm getting a quality product for said money. Catalyst, to my knowledge, has not even addressed the issue of the pages falling out and that concerns me. I understand that they are a small company and the issue is what it is, but a statement at least saying they are looking to prevent future printings from having the same issue would go a long way. Little things can make big differences and cost little to no money. How much would it really take for an official Catalyst or even Topps representative to log onto the forum and make a posting in the thread about the books falling apart and then have said posting stickied? As it stands until I get some kind of reassurance, I can't justify buying the book.
William
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That sounds like a terrible experience. I've never heard of anything like it. Do you know if this isn't just some isolated incident?
Note: I apologize to the OP if you feel that I'm derailing the thread. I'll happily stop here and delete this post if it seems too far out of the main discussion.
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That sounds like a terrible experience. I've never heard of anything like it. Do you know if this isn't just some isolated incident?
Note: I apologize to the OP if you feel that I'm derailing the thread. I'll happily stop here and delete this post if it seems too far out of the main discussion.
Here's a link to what I'm talking about
http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=12724.0
It may be isolated, I don't know. However, not knowing the extent of the issue, I'm not going to risk buying the book without some kind of reassurance. Also, I do think we have reached a bit of a stopping point in our derailment of the OP's thread. I too will cease discussing it here and let the thread progress normally. If it's something you wish to discuss further Namikaze, feel free to either PM me, post in the thread I linked, or start a new thread and I'll be glad to continue the discussion. I've not been offended at all and hope I haven't offended you. If I have, I apologize, it was not my intent to do so.
William
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I actually have the GM screen. My game shop just got it in yesterday and was lucky enought to be there when they pulled it out of the box. If anyone is still interested I can post pictures of it.
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The issue with the defective core books seems to be a highly limited occurrence, with perhaps a few score books out of the full first printing being affected. There are four copies of the SR5 core book in my household, all from different segments of the print run, bought at a combination of GenCon, online, and flgs purchase. Also, the copies present at all 14 game stores in my area are free of this defect (I suggested that the owners/managers check their stock for this defect upon arrival because of the posts here), to the tune of roughly 50 books. Replacement stock obtained recently (and most likely from the second printing) have also been in excellent shape when checked.
I would suggest, Gardensnake, if you have a local store you buy books from, that you ask if it would be alright for you to inspect the book before purchase so you can check the spine and binding yourself. If this isn't something it's possible for you to do, I would still suggest that there is a far less than 1% chance of your getting a faulty copy, especially now that stocks are well into the second printing in most places (particularly online sources).
As for the lack of a forum response from a CGL or Topps representative, it has been suggested that this could very well be due to legal concerns or restrictions. Such things often require that all involved parties agree to only communicate directly with one another regarding the issue in question.
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The issue with the defective core books seems to be a highly limited occurrence, with perhaps a few score books out of the full first printing being affected. There are four copies of the SR5 core book in my household, all from different segments of the print run, bought at a combination of GenCon, online, and flgs purchase. Also, the copies present at all 14 game stores in my area are free of this defect (I suggested that the owners/managers check their stock for this defect upon arrival because of the posts here), to the tune of roughly 50 books. Replacement stock obtained recently (and most likely from the second printing) have also been in excellent shape when checked.
I would suggest, Gardensnake, if you have a local store you buy books from, that you ask if it would be alright for you to inspect the book before purchase so you can check the spine and binding yourself. If this isn't something it's possible for you to do, I would still suggest that there is a far less than 1% chance of your getting a faulty copy, especially now that stocks are well into the second printing in most places (particularly online sources).
As for the lack of a forum response from a CGL or Topps representative, it has been suggested that this could very well be due to legal concerns or restrictions. Such things often require that all involved parties agree to only communicate directly with one another regarding the issue in question.
Not to mention that there are varying degrees of defect. Mine hasn't lost pages, but did start pulling away from the spine slightly. Squirted some super glue in there and that's worked so far.
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to qoute a old 80s movie " id buy THAT for a doller. hope more stores get them soon.
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We have had 2 copies of the core book in our gaming group. One has lost a few pages, the other completely disintegrated in less than a week.
As for the GM screen, I haven't seen one, but did pre-order one as a Christmas present for a friend, and haven't seen it. I sent Catalyst 2 emails asking for updates and never got a reply.
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I put in an order for one at my FLGS. They say they should be able to get it by this coming Thursday - I'll let you guys know.
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One store here in Calgary has the GM Screen. The other store, their distributor claimed it wasn't out yet. It is not uncommon, at least up here, for distributors to misrepresent what is available or when it is available. Drives me a bit nuts. I was given the screen as a Christmas present.
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I'm curious about whether it looks nice. I can score one in digital format as Demo Team Agent, using one of my Reward tokens, and was wondering whether it'd be a good idea to get and manually print on normal paper. Probably not, though.
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Michael; you could always get the PDF and have a printing company put it on plastiboard or something like that for you. I know for a fact that the shipping premium to Europe is horrendous, and that printing companies usually doesn't charge all that much for a page or three on A4 sized cardboard/plastiboard...
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That begs the question: can we reproduce the PDFs that we purchase? I don't see anywhere in my PDFs a release saying that they can be copied, but they're clearly labeled with a watermark and my name too. If we can, then that might just be the solution for something like a GM screen. I doubt anyone would want to pay for getting a whole rulebook printed specially, but for something with only three or four pages it might be worthwhile.
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Fair Use would be my guess. As long as you're not reproducing to sell, basically you'll be fine. I am not a lawyer, though, and at least here in the US that is important ;)
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The art on the player side does look nice. I could do without the central character permanently flipping my players off but some may like that.
The GM side looks mostly like the assortment of tables in the back of the core with some alterations. I question why certain things are/aren't there but overall I'm happy.
The quality is great. It's a light cardstock sleeve around a 4 panel sceen made of boards thicker than most hardcover books sport. I'd recommend it for this and the art alone, no matter the tables.
I also recommend keeping the sleeve on opening. I use the sleeve as a wrap when transporting and it keeps the screen free of scratches, etc...
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Is there anything besides the screen? A mini adventure, sprawl site, contact book or the like? I have a screen I use across all games, it has my kill stickers on it. ;D Most screens fit inside of it though, so I might pick this up.
That begs the question: can we reproduce the PDFs that we purchase? I don't see anywhere in my PDFs a release saying that they can be copied, but they're clearly labeled with a watermark and my name too. If we can, then that might just be the solution for something like a GM screen. I doubt anyone would want to pay for getting a whole rulebook printed specially, but for something with only three or four pages it might be worthwhile.
There was permission in the FAQ at RPGNow at one point, but I just checked and they have a new knowledge-base type FAQ page with all the answers buried in a search engine. Yuck.
POD isn't very expensive though - I got my rulebook PDF printed for less than $20.
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Just the Screen and the sleeve. GM side has tables that you will use a lot. Players side artwork looks great. Worth the AU$32 it costs.
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Is this anything like what it looks like?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151925258564591&set=pb.13520584590.-2207520000.1389967043.&type=3&theater
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I picked up the screen yesterday and it seems pretty decent... Very sturdy. But mine seems like it was mis-folded or the lamenent was mis-applied, because there is some minor creasing where there ought not to be. I really enjoy the player side art. The GM side isn't the most impressive I've ever seen, but it is more than adequate. No adventure or booklet.
It has a range tables, targets and thresholds for extended tests. Social modifiers, action lists for combat, combat modifiers. All the stuff you might expect. I was a bit surprised that the nuyen reward calculator was included. Didn't seem like something I'd be likely to need on the fly.
For $20 I'm not disappointed at all.
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Hellow chummers,
I am new to 5th ed and am reading through the rule book right now. Seeing as I am a married father of 2 teens and only one income I am a cheap butt so wanted to ask anyone who has the screen are the charts that are on this one the same as the charts in the back of the rule book? if so what if any of the charts are missing I want to be able to make my own screen to use with my group. Any help ahead of time would be helpful and please don't flame as I am poor so have to make do with what I can to have fun with my group.
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I have not heard of any table being in the GM screen and not in the book myself, and I imagine I would have seen someone post about it if there was. It should be possible to put something together yourself, and there's people who already made overview booklets themselves.
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First off, I got my GM screen last week and I love it. It's really durable, easily the thickness of a hardcover book, maybe thicker. However, I noticed something that may be an errata issue. In the core book, the Data Spike matrix action is listed as a Simple Action. On the GM screen's table, the action is listed as Complex. The table is presumably taken from the book (a page is listed in the upper right corner of the table) so it's possible this is an issue in the core book and not with the screen. Since the complexity of the action didn't actually matter I didn't bother with checking to see which is correct and which is not.
I'm going to assume the tables with the GM screen are more accurate to what will be in the errata, so I'm sticking with what the GM screen says in the future.