Shadowrun Anniversary Edition

My first and all-time favorite Shadowrun character was a 1st/2nd edition decker/street samurai that I ran for years. I took some heat over his (yes, I played a male character, and it was fun!) favoring stealthy approaches over the guns-blazing mentality, but with some bioware and a Predator 2 he turned into a very capable and well-rounded character. The old Tech Pool from the Encephalon and Math CPU made good Electronics and assorted B/R skills even better, and all of a sudden you have a character who contributes in pretty much anything short of magic or vehicle combat.

I'm re-reading 4th edition now, and I'm trying to get over my initial apprehension with them making it such a departure from 3rd edition. I personally felt that the 3rd core rulebook was the first true single book you could buy and run a real SR game from, and I loved the very appropriate changes from 1st to 2nd and the tweaks from 2nd to 3rd. I guess I'm weird in that I enjoyed the feel of rolling this big handful of 6-siders and listening to them clatter onto the table, so I think I'd miss that feel if I convert to 4th. What makes the most sense to me is to finish out my tabletop group's current 3rd edition campaign, then reroll an all-new group and try out 4th ed. rules and see how it feels to everyone. I promise I'll give you my feedback when we actually take the plunge.

Man, I love that there are this many Shadowrun players and GMs in CoX, both players and dev alike. It just makes the best MMORPG that much better. =)

Jo

I wouldn't say the rule is especially unclear. But, if a re-write is needed to satisfy the argument, then they should do it.

So, instead of:

"You may re-roll all of the dice on a single test that did not score a hit."

it should say this:

"You may re-roll any dice that did not score a hit during a single test."

OR, just give an example (like I did above) clarifying how the rule works.

This dates back to the FIRST edition, ye whippersnappers, sometime in the early '90's. There were several books in this series, but most just shared the Shadowrun banner and font styling. The first three, however, were a trilogy, and consist of Never Deal with a Dragon, Choose Your Enemies Carefully, and Find Your Own Truth. I recall being fairly unimpressed with them as a high school student, but they weren't the worst things ever, either. Your Mileage May Vary.

***

The thing I find amusing/interesting about Shadowrun is that, since its setting advances in time more or less in step with the real world (the first edition was set in 2050), it's constantly scrambling to keep up with contemporary perceptions of what futuristic technology and global politics might be like.

For instance, the Matrix of the first edition, which relied on the concept of "infinite information being piped into your brain" for its "day after tomorrow" feel, is now passe by 2010 standards. With changing perceptions about what'll be "day after tomorrow" ("everything wireless, electronics everywhere" supplanting "downloading all information"), the setting's future technology has had to advance to keep up.

More amusingly, I clearly remember that in the first edition, East and West Germany reunite in the 2040's or so. When the actual countries reunited the year after the first edition was published, Shadowverse Germany was retconned to be completely different. There was also a great deal about the Soviet Union in the original history, all of which was wiped from existence.

This is hardly the first example of a story set in the future getting its predictions either wrong or wiped out by subsequent history, but Shadowrun is an interesting example of the phenomenon because (1) it's set relatively close to the present (always 60 years in the future) and (2) it's been updated continuously over its lifetime.

It makes me wonder what the Shadowrun setting published in 2050 will look like.

In September 2007 Microsoft closed FASA Studios (and the FPS official forum), and licensed the Shadowrun electronic entertainment rights to Smith & Tinker, a company owned by Jordan Weisman, one of the original creators of Shadowrun. Details at Smith & Tinker's website hint at the development of an MMO.

Ooooh, now that is interesting. Here's me hoping that it will work out. Maybe I shouldn't do that though.
I said to an friend just yesterday, the likelihood of me turning into an Elf is bigger then an Shadowrun MMO. I really don't want to be an Elf. Could be worse I guess. At least I didn't say Troll.

Smith & Tinker, they work on Mechwarrior 5, don't they (they are the publishers at least I think)? Let's hope they will bring life back to both of these universes.
Think they own Crimson Skies too.

No. Crimson Skies is a wholly Microsoft-owned property. More's the pity.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Are you sure?
I was checking on the Shadowrun MMO and I'm actually not so sure if it's really in development.
It really looks like as if Smith and Tinker is just owning the license and is outsourcing any game developments.
Piranha Games is working on MW5. They said that the last Shadowrun game wasn't that great (they are right, yet I still bought it and had some fun with it), so they want to wait a bit before they do anything with that IP.
But they did say that a Crimson Skies game would really interest them. Looks like they own that IP too then.

Overall I think I still have chances to turn into an Elf then!

VERY.

Unfortunately, I'm not actually involved with Smith & Tinker, so I can't really comment authoratatively on their plans.

Actually, Smith and Tinker are licensees. Microsoft still owns the licenses. If S&T is actually contracting the work out to an outside firm for production, I don't know about it.

Looking around it seems you're right.

We'll see.

Again no. The IP for BattleTech and Shadowrun is with Topps. The rights to all electronic games in either of these universes is owned by Microsoft. Crimson Skies is wholly owned by Microsoft.

Currently, AFAIK, the BattleTech rights have been licensed to Smith and Tinker (who are partnering with Piranha Games).

The IP for BattleTech and Shadowrun are currently licensed to Catalyst Game Labs. So game books, novels, t-shirts, patches and paraphenalia are carried through them.

HOWEVER, at the same time, due to a license for "location based entertainment", the rights to the BattleTech Simulator Pods resides with Virtual World Entertainment/Mechjock.com and it's sole owner Nick Smith. They're currently still developing the BattleTech Sim software (which shares common history with the MW4 engine).

Essentially MW4 was supposed to be a PC port of the original Tesla system pod software. And it was supposed to be MW3. Due to timetables and production schedules, Activision (the publisher) jerked MW3 from FASA Interactive and gave it to Zipper Interactive. The code continued to be worked on, and was also back-ported to the pods as the "Firestorm" refresh. It's currently in development by MekTek, the guys who got MechWarrior 4 released for free by Microsoft.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

That comment is ringing bells in my mind, it sounds so familiar. By chance were you at the Shadowrun game room either around 1pm on Friday or 6pm Saturday? God, memory is a bit on the wonky side.

Hi!

Been more than a year.

Any news?




-k