[Shinobi Killfist]

Just picked it up on my break. The first section is a description of neo-anarchy. Something I’ve wanted since 2e. 2 pages most of it fluff saying nothing. End of the day no rulers, small communities where you get unanimous agreement. Not a particularly deep philosophy, I had hoped they had read up on a few anarchy philosophies and distilled a few of them into one thing. Oh well.

That being said the rest of the book looks solid for what I wanted. A sum up of where SR is now setting wise. 30 years some years of which I tuned out since I thought the quality was crap and it’s easy to forget or fall behind on lots of this. Dense fluff book, may not cover every subject in perfect detail but well enough you know what is going on. Even if I stick with 5e it’s a solid book.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Reading through it some more. A couple oddities.

1 only shamans are detailed magic wise. They mention other traditions in passing but only shamans are detailed. I prefer logic traditions even though they’ve been worse 4e on. I hope they get some love in 6e. Though magic as a whole needs to be balanced.

2. Under shamans the writer is a traditionalist shaman and says they only summon spirits native to the environment and never bind.

Now they had shamans like that in the 2nd big magic book whose name I’m blanking on but I wonder if that will be the default in 6e. They did mention though I don’t know if it was core or the QSR no binding. Maybe that’s a shaman thing again.

Also unified magic theory gets some shade thrown in it. I wonder if they are moving away from
That in 6e and creating more distinctions between traditions. I hope they do.

[Moonshine Fox]

Sounds pretty cool, I could do with a good fluff book. I know the QSR doens't have summoning/spirits at all, can't imagine they'd remove binding from the game completely though. As much as I do like UMT, it'd be awesome to see more distinction between the types of traditions again beyond just spirit list/links.

[Shinobi Killfist]

As I look through the book I’d say it’s not something you really read through. It’s more like a companion book.

 You know like the book series with 500 characters, ridiculous amounts of lore that no one can keep up on. You get to page 144 of the newest book and they talk about bob and you are like who the fuck is bob. You pull Out the companion lookup bob and go oh yeah bob he mocked the protagonists boyfriend in the first book. Haven’t seen him since.

Here it’s a alphabetical list on events, companies, people, environments etc of the 6th world giving a paragraph or 3 sum up of them. It doesn’t have everything and misses imo some core things. Like it has adepts. It has shamans. But doesn’t really spend time on aspected, mistake adepts, full mages that aren’t shamans. Like instead of shamans a couple paragraphs on magically active in general would be more useful imo. But it covers a lot and if like the unseelie court is mentioned in next book y I can go here and get at least something.

[Mirikon]

I was fairly underwhelmed, actually. I was really hoping for something more like the old Loose Alliances book from 3E, where you got a solid rundown on people and factions broken down by subject matter. This was... an (extremely) abridged encyclopedia, done in alphabetical order instead of by group. Yes, that does make it easy to find Aden, but is less useful when you're looking for groups under the Antifas movement to use in an upcoming run. This was pretty disappointing, since I loved Loose Alliances, and that book desperately needs an update.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I think that’s a fair analysis. I think it works for me because I tuned out most of the fluff in these catalyst years. So it helps me catch up even if I’d like more details.

[Beta]

To me it was a very badly needed book.  I think ot could have been quite a bit better, but I'm glad to have it at all.  Like, it may not be a great spoon, but it beats trying to eat soup with a fork (which was about how it felt to try and piece together where we were, lore wise)

[Bull]

We were very confined by space, but we'd love to do more books like this in the future to cover the vast swathes of game material and the game world that weren't covered.  Unfortunately, that depends heavily on sales.  ANd more unfortunately, pure fluff books never sell well, since most players don't give a shit and just want another 50 pages of new Heavy Pistols.

"oh look. this one has 10 round capacity instead of 9. and this one costs 50 nuyen less. and this one comes with a built in silencer. oh joy."

*sigh*

[Wakshaani]

If sales are good enough to get more of them, I'd like to do an annual release of updates, like the old SOTA books. Toss in a little crunch for new guns/cars/whatever debuted that year. It's a lot of work, but, it's also nice to have.

But sales gotta show that there's an interest.

[The Tekwych]

I would buy SOTA books but would probably prefer digital over dead tree. I love the fluff and would enjoy a travelblog type book of cities but it would need actual maps of the city not the crap we got in 5ed. There have been several good digital books in recent years but each has missed the mark in some way. I have no issue with the money I have spent but each book had some little thing that seamed missing or wrong.

Getting similar fluff in separate books but from a new source or new point of view could be fun as well. How is Amazonian news covered by the Denver data nexus different from coverage in The Smoke or from the German states?

[AJCarrington]

"oh look. this one has 10 round capacity instead of 9. and this one costs 50 nuyen less. and this one comes with a built in silencer. oh joy."

I must admit I kinda like this stuff...I would absolutely love an equivalent to Janes Defense Weekly for the Sixth World.

That being said, I also love the “fluff” books and really hope the interest/demand with the new edition is strong enough to warrant more releases. The SOTA books were some of my favorites and a great blend of crunch/fluff (IMHO).

[Hephaestus]

Having only been playing for a little over a year, this book was invaluable to me. And while it did, at times, feel like reading an actual encyclopedia, the vast amount of lore has really helped give me a better grasp of things. I would recommend it to newer players who want a more complete picture of the world they are playing in.

[BeCareful]

I've always liked the setting, especially how it can wobble along a line between "depressingly grim" and "rollicking hilarity". I did like some of those gazetteers in other books, and now I'm finally going to learn about more of the accumulated inside jokes.
Also, just reading through the manifesto in the beginning, it makes me yearn for opportunities for my hooding-oriented runners to help out communities of grizzled homesteaders.

[Wakshaani]

I've always liked the setting, especially how it can wobble along a line between "depressingly grim" and "rollicking hilarity". I did like some of those gazetteers in other books, and now I'm finally going to learn about more of the accumulated inside jokes.
Also, just reading through the manifesto in the beginning, it makes me yearn for opportunities for my hooding-oriented runners to help out communities of grizzled homesteaders.

There's a story in Better than Bad that you should read...

[BeCareful]

Yep, I liked what I read there, and not just the rules for Instinctive Hack & Blight!