Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Wakshaani on <02-11-16/0114:19>
-
Over the course of 5th ed, you get small story nuggets in the lead-in of many chapters. A page here, two pages there, scattered through the core books, the splat books, and so on.
Are there any that people have found particularly enjoyable or interesting? Any that people went, "Man, this story really tells me about blank", or, "Dude, have you read this story yet, about blank? It's awful!"
Good or bad, I'm curious what y'all have thought.
-
I feel that we have seen an overall increase in quality from the fiction in 4E. It felt like an "internet tough-guy" attitude permeated everything in SR4, and I don't get that impression in SR5. There are a few stories that really stand out for me, though.
In the core rulebook, "All the Angles" was a cool look at the fact of shadowrunning through the eyes of others.
I also really enjoyed "Butcher's Bill" from Street Grimoire. Basically an asshole getting what's coming to him.
Finally, there was just something immensely satisfying about the piece of short fiction at the beginning of Killer Apps and Razor Forms chapter of the Data Trails book.
-
All I know is that Fancy Derek needs his own book.
-
I have been quite pleased with all of 5th Edition's fiction so far. I really loved the one story, I can't remember which book it was in, where a new runner was being shown the ropes and it turned out that the 'mentor' was a Docwagon autonomous program designed to get new runners to buy Docwagon contracts. It not only showed the kinds of things a brand new runner would be doing, but also showed the lengths a corporation would go to to get your nuyen!
-
All I know is that Fancy Derek needs his own book.
Just FYI, while he's not getting his own book, Fancy Derek is showing up in a few of my upcoming products. There was some brainstorming about him on various forums, and I ran with some photographic inspiration, in order to make him a supporting character.
-
All I know is that Fancy Derek needs his own book.
Just FYI, while he's not getting his own book, Fancy Derek is showing up in a few of my upcoming products. There was some brainstorming about him on various forums, and I ran with some photographic inspiration, in order to make him a supporting character.
2 thumbs up.
-
All I know is that Fancy Derek needs his own book.
Just FYI, while he's not getting his own book, Fancy Derek is showing up in a few of my upcoming products. There was some brainstorming about him on various forums, and I ran with some photographic inspiration, in order to make him a supporting character.
5/7
-
Since I got the go-ahead to say it, Fancy Derek shows up in the upcoming Seattle boxed set (the actual title of which eludes me, sorry), and my follow-up novel to Shaken in Kincaid's No Job Too Small trilogy.
-
Crit, have I told you lately that I love you?
Just checking.
-
To be honest I barely read them. I’ve had the CRB in hardback for most of two years and I think I’ve read all the stories in there by now, but they were amongst the later of the parts I’ve read (I probably still haven’t read all the way through all the campaign variants and some other material in that portion of the book). They were kind of there, neither exciting nor awful – I did think that some illustrated facets of life in 2075 fairly well (the use of AROs, the entire rigger one), so they were useful in that way.
Boston: Lockdown is the one other book I have in hard-back—and a lot of the book was fiction. I did read through all of that in the main portion (eventually, I gave it a break for a week before getting to the final bit – it started jumping around weirdly like they were running out of page count so just cut stuff, or something), but I think I only read one of the chapter header stories (at the beginning, burglarizing the yacht). I thought that was a bit of a case of ‘oh yah, we are bad-ass shadowrunners, and we are so good that we are never under threat and never roll badly.’ I did steal part of that scenario for my own game for getting them out on the harbour when the crazy dragon flight/fight happens so that they had a cool view without being rained on, so I guess it was inspiring in that way? Oh, and it made me look at gel ammo more carefully (coming from first edition I hadn’t initially give much thought to anything that increased armor, because the impact back then was huge).
Everything else I have in pdf (because cost), and I find reading at any length in pdf to be extremely aggravating on a laptop screen (which I’m using), and the formatting of those stories makes them even more aggravating to read on screen than the regular material. I randomly tried to give one a try in Hard Targets, and it ended with the protagonist (dev/grrl maybe? One of the jackpointers) getting kidnapped, which was not a very satisfying ending, and didn’t really encourage me to bother with any of the others.
In general I read rule books for reference. I want them clear, easy to read, and to make it quick and easy to find the information that I need to make up my own stories . I do want color/flavor/fluff, but I want it to be concise teasers that fire up my imagination. Right back in first edition the opening story was dull, but the character quotes on the archetypes were what sold me on the game. (the NPC quotes were pretty darn good, too). I’m not saying to get rid of the chapter header stories because presumably some people like them. I’m just saying please don’t rely on people reading them.
-
5/7
ONE OF US!
-
One of us indeed. But since this is Shadowrun and not Imgur I'll return to the original topic.
I'll echo some of what Beta said, which is that it's harder for me to read the fluff in PDF than it is in hardback. I've had some success using a tablet instead of a laptop, but - like Beta - I only read the fluff after I've combed through the crunch of the book.
The short stories are in a precarious position. Either they're boring and I wish I hadn't bothered to read them, or they're good and I want them to keep going. Either way, I'm usually frustrated.
It's not 5E, but my favorite story that I can think off off the top of my head was the Life on the Run section at the back of 4E's Runner's Companion. I loved the different perspectives on the same story, seeing it from all angles. It was great to track a shadowrun from its genesis (the business need), through to the hiring and the execution. It was a long enough to feel satisfied (14 pages), and varied enough to remain constantly engaging, with good art to depict the various personalities.
-
Kincaid's No Job Too Small trilogy.
;D
-
Honestly, the stories put into the rules sources are too involved for those sources and really should be just fleshed out more and made into either their own novel or have several placed into anthology novels. Two or three that are half a page to a full page in length is plenty for a rules book and then only if they're strictly relevant to the base subject matter of the book (someone buying a weapon in the weapons book, someone hacking a system in the matrix book, part of a car/aircraft/boat chase for the rigger book or someone getting a piece of chrome installed in the implant book). Beyond that, focus on those sources needs to be the vast majority on the rules material with just enough 'fluffy' to explain setting ramifications. To be honest, too much 'fluffy' really puts more light on the characters in those stories or in the Jackpoint blurbs than on the PCs.
-
I enjoy the fiction. The grenade adept dwarf was a favorite.
-
I'd wish they'd package it like Kings of War: a hardcover that includes fluff along with a smaller softcover that is just the rule, no fluff.
But mostly I stay away from the stories because like the rules they're often inconsistent... a character n the story doing something that mechanically can't be done in the rules.
-
I enjoy the fiction. The grenade adept dwarf was a favorite.
I would if the sourcebooks weren't so oversaturated with it.
-
Eh, I'm not going to diss the presence of the fiction because they aren't doing the mechanics right. They've got plenty of word-count to avoid travesties like Street Grimoire.
-
Eh, I'm not going to diss the presence of the fiction because they aren't doing the mechanics right. They've got plenty of word-count to avoid travesties like Street Grimoire.
It's just less enjoyable when there's an overload of it. It's to the point where when I go through a new book it's like "Oh, more stories. Meh."
Fewer people may buy the dedicated "fluffy" books, but that's because they're only that useful either for GMs or people who REALLY want to see what the 'official' storyline is. That's still plenty of people, especially when you add in the fact that having most of those bits in their own books makes those sources useful across many editions.
-
For the most part, I enjoy the stories in the nooks. Some more then others....
I think they add a nice little backdrop for the world and give you an insight into how some see the SR setting. Just wish they were a little better organized. A matrix story before the matrix section, etc.
-
The fluff/stories is why I keep buying books even though I don't get to play nearly as much as I would like to. A recent favorite of mine is "Decade" from Run Faster . A good story that gives a nic example of how someone can go from corp suit to shadowruner
-
My abosulte favorite, and I wish I knew he wrote this, was the Occult Investigator writeup in SR5 Core. Something about the writing really grabbed me. I'm also very fond of the story about the shadowrunner turned body guard for one of the famous singers, the name escapes me unfortunately. But it made me laugh out loud multiple times, genius stuff.
-
I really like the stories at the beginning of the chapters.
I do not own any of the hard-cover books. I'm 100% PDF from RPGdrivethru, and reading the books on my tablet I don't have any problems with the formatting.
-
Don't forget about "My Brother's Keeper" at the beginning of Chrome Flesh. Probably my favorite piece of fiction from any book in any edition.
-
The black page chapter stories are nice. Some of the extra shoved elsewhere, not so much.
-
The black page chapter stories are nice. Some of the extra shoved elsewhere, not so much.
100% agreed. The mixing of fiction and rules in dedicated rules chapters aggravates me somewhat, especially when the fiction is somewhat facetious. Some examples (emphasis mine).
Bad example:
Concealed quick-draw holster (accessory): What more do you want a holster to do? You get to reduce the Concealability modifier of your weapon by 1 while the threshold to quick-draw a holstered weapon drops by 1. It won’t fire the thing for you, though, so buckle down and do it yourself. The holster does not take any slots in your weapon. Please excuse our compulsion to point out fairly obvious stuff like that.
Good example: Run & Gun pages 84 through 86 has fiction for armor accessories in plain text, and all of the rules without any fiction in the red boxes.
Bad example: Pretty much every piece of gear in Stolen Souls. Vague or non-existent rules, but lots of fluff that doesn't really hint at function.
Good example: The new weapon mount modifications in Rigger 5.0, page 163; no fuss, no muss, just rules.