[deville]

I think the the technomancer book is slated as a PDF, though quite happy to be proven wrong. I will ask the question to see if we can get some clarity.

Everything I've seen and heard is that the technomancer book will be PDF only. Mostly because it can be bigger and more in depth if they need it to be and, of course, cheaper. There is a limit due to cost on how big print books can be, according to the folks who are doing this stuff.

[Shadowjack]

I think the the technomancer book is slated as a PDF, though quite happy to be proven wrong. I will ask the question to see if we can get some clarity.

Thanks, my friend! I really hope they will change their minds on this.

[Dinendae]

I think the the technomancer book is slated as a PDF, though quite happy to be proven wrong. I will ask the question to see if we can get some clarity.

Thanks, my friend! I really hope they will change their minds on this.

It's possible that down the road they may do what they did in 4th Edition: Collect groups of these pdf only supplements into hardback sourcebooks. I very much hope they go that route.

[Wakshaani]

This is probably asking for too much but is there any chance the Technomancer book could be on par with Data Trails and available in hard copy? I am very excited about the slew of upcoming products but I have to admit that I am disappointed to see Technomancers being treated as second class matrix citizens. They deserve equal attention, especially if Riggers are getting a hard copy.

I'm also really eager to get my hands on a hard copy vehicle book. Will the Rigger book have a large variety of vehicles?

The Technomancer book will be PDF-only, and of a comparable size to most other PDFs. This means you aren't getting, say, 128 pages on Technomancers. Just a heads-up before you ramp expectations too high.

The Rigger book will have both vehicles and drones in it, and in a variety, but "large" is a word that would need some unpacking. A dozen? Two dozen? A hundred? A thousand? Different people have different ideas on what "large" implies! The biggest limitation on numbers is art... art for a book is much, much more expensive than wordcount, so, you have to make a few calls. Upstairs has already decided on how it'll be done, but, if you want to play "I'm a developer" at home, here are a few choices that you could make:

A total of 24 vehicles (including  drones), each given nice, full-page color art.

A total of 36 vehicles (including drone), twelve which get full-page art, while the rest get half-pages. (This is akin to the Rigger Black Book)

A total of 60 vehciles (including drones) with small B&W art. (This was the Rigger 3 option)

Around 120 vehicles (including drones) without any art, save a couple of small chapter intro and sprinkles in-chapter art.

(These are numbers pulled out of my tush, mind you! Don't think of them as an official preview, just a mental excercise based on the older books. (I'm a rigger fan, and have all of the printed Rigger books, and worked on Rigger 4. Trust me when I tell you I want Rigger 5 to be awesome!) It's just important to set everyone's expectations. A list of vehicles like the SR5 corebook give syou the raw detail that you have to have, but some people *reallly* want art, while other people don't care about art and want more Stuff. You'll never please everybody, so, you get to make a call on the issue. Me? I'm a keyboard for hire; they don't ask me to make hard choices. Thank Gawr.)

[AJCarrington]

Nice

Thanks Wakshaani!

[Wakshaani]

My pleasure! Given my druthers, there'd be a series like Gun Heaven (Garage Hell?) that rolled out new vehicles and drones every so often, so we could continue to expand the options. The problem is that while firefights are supercommon, most games use vehicles only as a "You arrive at the mission..." sort of shorthand. Chases are rare, and interacting with your vehicles beyond going from A to B is almost never seen.

Which is weird considering how much cars are all up in our culture, but, some things don't translate into games well. (This is coming from someone who's A) a rigger fan and B) can identify, like, six cars, ever. Life is weird sometimes.)

[Beta]

Which is weird considering how much cars are all up in our culture, but, some things don't translate into games well. (This is coming from someone who's A) a rigger fan and B) can identify, like, six cars, ever. Life is weird sometimes.)

I recall people making something close to role playing campaigns out of Car Wars back in the day, and it had about three sentences of character definition, and the rest was about vehicles.  Which I think says people can get pretty excited by vehicles, if you give them enough ability to make them a character or part of their character or expression of their character (however you want to view it).

I think the current rules that say “here is a vehicle of this type, enjoy.  Oh, yah, you can add a few weapons if you want” are not apt to engage most people.  Sure, it is good to have things like that for when you just need a van, any van.  But really, there is no reason that a mage can’t have a motorbike packed with a  top notch sensor suite, a face can’t have a slick sports car that can put out smokescreens and has an electroshock security system, and that the decker can’t have a pick-up customized with substantial armor, smuggling compartments, and some sort of booster that helps deal with noise. 

Basically, it is kind of fun to see what interesting vehicles and drones other people came up with, it is more fun to build your own!  (IMO)  Granted that creating and balancing such rules is very real work, but having a chance to have vehicle that is very much an expression of your character would be a must buy book to me.

[Kincaid]

As a fan of Car Wars/Auto Duel, I totally see where you're coming from.  The tricky thing is keeping Shadowrun a game that involves vehicles but not making it a game about vehicles.  But hell yeah, the car from Spy Hunter should be feasible.

[deville]

It would be great if the rigger book had more detailed options for modifying and customizing drones and vehicles. I don't know about anyone else but if one of my characters could drive Jimmy Kincaid's souped up Americar, I wouldn't be mad at all.

Seriously, I do think that more ways to make these things more "personal" might persuade more players to have them, use them and then the GM would feel like having more car chases, drone fights, etc. You can make all the lists of stock items you want but at the end of the day, we all love to tinker, whether it's a car, a bike or a PC, depending on the person's preference.

[adzling]

If the chase and speed rules made sense there might be more chases that aren't hand-waved.
Just saying.

My pleasure! Given my druthers, there'd be a series like Gun Heaven (Garage Hell?) that rolled out new vehicles and drones every so often, so we could continue to expand the options. The problem is that while firefights are supercommon, most games use vehicles only as a "You arrive at the mission..." sort of shorthand. Chases are rare, and interacting with your vehicles beyond going from A to B is almost never seen.

Which is weird considering how much cars are all up in our culture, but, some things don't translate into games well. (This is coming from someone who's A) a rigger fan and B) can identify, like, six cars, ever. Life is weird sometimes.)

[Shadowjack]

This is probably asking for too much but is there any chance the Technomancer book could be on par with Data Trails and available in hard copy? I am very excited about the slew of upcoming products but I have to admit that I am disappointed to see Technomancers being treated as second class matrix citizens. They deserve equal attention, especially if Riggers are getting a hard copy.

I'm also really eager to get my hands on a hard copy vehicle book. Will the Rigger book have a large variety of vehicles?

The Technomancer book will be PDF-only, and of a comparable size to most other PDFs. This means you aren't getting, say, 128 pages on Technomancers. Just a heads-up before you ramp expectations too high.

The Rigger book will have both vehicles and drones in it, and in a variety, but "large" is a word that would need some unpacking. A dozen? Two dozen? A hundred? A thousand? Different people have different ideas on what "large" implies! The biggest limitation on numbers is art... art for a book is much, much more expensive than wordcount, so, you have to make a few calls. Upstairs has already decided on how it'll be done, but, if you want to play "I'm a developer" at home, here are a few choices that you could make:

A total of 24 vehicles (including  drones), each given nice, full-page color art.

A total of 36 vehicles (including drone), twelve which get full-page art, while the rest get half-pages. (This is akin to the Rigger Black Book)

A total of 60 vehciles (including drones) with small B&W art. (This was the Rigger 3 option)

Around 120 vehicles (including drones) without any art, save a couple of small chapter intro and sprinkles in-chapter art.

(These are numbers pulled out of my tush, mind you! Don't think of them as an official preview, just a mental excercise based on the older books. (I'm a rigger fan, and have all of the printed Rigger books, and worked on Rigger 4. Trust me when I tell you I want Rigger 5 to be awesome!) It's just important to set everyone's expectations. A list of vehicles like the SR5 corebook give syou the raw detail that you have to have, but some people *reallly* want art, while other people don't care about art and want more Stuff. You'll never please everybody, so, you get to make a call on the issue. Me? I'm a keyboard for hire; they don't ask me to make hard choices. Thank Gawr.)

Thank you very much! I'm hoping for dozens of actual vehicles, personally. Pictures are very nice to have for vehicles in particular but I don't need them to be huge pictures

[PiXeL01]

I love pictures but the Rigger 3 solution was good enough. And yes, Garage Hell should definitely be realized!

[carmachu]

Will chrome flesh and boundless mercy be available for general sale and if so when?

[AJCarrington]

Street dates haven't been announced yet, but think that Chrome Flesh should be hitting shelves in September (not sure re Boundless Mercy).

[The Dweller]

Rigger book good

Rigger book with lots of toys better

Rigger book with lots of toys and classic customization chapter best!