The Shadowrun Situation

[Kot]

Did you really post that Mormon comment on the official board not knowing that almost everyone at IMR is a Mormon?

Yeah. I'm Polish, and i don't really take any interest in things like that - i love the Game, anything else is just static... Until it affects the game, i think.

[hermit]

The word that keeps popping up in my head is 'corruption'. Okay, that and another term: 'Cleaning of the Temple'.

I know, they're technically not Christians because they wanted to marry indefinite numbers of their underage female cousins at once when Young founded the CotLDS, but this sure also applies to them.

[Stahlseele]

Corruption metaplot sucketh.
And cleanig of the temple was done with the teocalli on the locus ^^

[hermit]

Ja, auf dem Lokus sind so einige Ideen von CGL zuhause.

[Kot]

Oookay. Count that as a Power 6 Chaotic World spell affecting me now. Anyone would care to explain?

P.S. I know German well enough to get it, but with no context? Not possible.

[hermit]

Sorry. It's a pun that doesn't work in english and basically plays off 'Lokus' meaning toilet. "Many ideas of CGL's are at home on the locus/loo", if you will.

[TheFlatline]

As an aside from the CGL/IMR/Mormon soap opera I haven't seen any comment on the direct fire grenades rules in War!

I was highly amused when it was pointed out that a 10 round burst from anti-personnel grenades did more damage than a cruise missile.

[hermit]

... and a nuke!

Grenades are awesome.

[Kot]

Yeah, that was a bit too much for me. I get using a THOR shot as a GM's fiat for something really really bad (like a hive that the players manage to find, infiltrate, and then get out before the blast). But as something you can just buy? C'mon. Less rulemongering, more logic.

[TheFlatline]

Good point. Why would any AAA megacorp actually sell you an orbital bombardment platform when they could keep it for themselves?

[Kot]

They could sell THOR shots, a in a single strike in a place, for a price. But i see how the Corporate Court wouldn't like that...

[hermit]

Why would WMD that need to be transpored into orbit to make sense be available to anyone? It's not like there's unlimited room in orbit ...

[crizh]

Amusingly both Aesir guidance systems are available at char-gen for next to nothing.

Might never come up but a brilliant piece of 'break glass in event of emergency' kit.

[Username17]

OK, time for drinking. And also: time for discussing the five "Hot Spots" in greater detail. They are awful. This chapter is by far the worst in the book. Each section has a piece of introductory fiction that is in-character but unlabeled, so you have no idea who the hell is talking. Then there is an "overview" that is ambiguous as to whether it is in-character or not. And finally, there are three adventure ideas, that talk directly to the gamemaster, so presumably those are out of character. But David A. Hill says that some of the stuff in those adventure seeds were intended as in-character rumors (despite having like stat lines and shit), so who knows? The basic format of the chapter is so awful and incomprehensible that even if there were solid descriptions and ideas in here it would still be basically unreadable. I was unable to get my girlfriend to complete reading the Czech Republic section and it is two pages long. She put it down in disgust and would not continue reading before completing that marathon.

However, the ideas presented in this chapter are actually beyond awful themselves. Each and every HotSpot in the chapter is an affront to god and man. A so-called "balanced" review of the subsections here is completely impossible because it turns out that I have a limited amount of mead. There really aren't any high notes or good things to say about anything in this chapter. So instead of trying to come up with a list of pros and cons, I'm just going to list the top five reasons that each piece is shitty and should not have been published. The totally incoherent authorial voice stands for all of the subsections, so you can assume that the first reason is actually number 2 and so on in all cases.

Marienbad Council

• Antiziganism.
  The opening unsigned fiction piece is a how-to guide for exacerbating racial tensions and provoking hate crimes against Gypsies. I am not even making that up. It's very nearly the first thing in the chapter, and already you're suspecting that the author has Neonazi sympathies.
• What the fuck is Marienbad?
  History lesson: Marienbad is the German name. The place stopped being called that when Beneš had all the Germans marched out at gun point in 1945 and moved Slavs back into the reconquered Sudetenland. As long as this place is under Czech control, it will never be called Marienbad. It's called Mariánské Lázně. Deal with it.
• Mariánské Lázně is in Bohemia
  These people seem to think that the three regions of Czech Republic are Bohemia, Moravia, and Marienbad. This is not true. The three regions are Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. Mariánské Lázně is actually part of Bohemia. Also, it is a very small part. It's a couple spas and a golf course. It's not even a regional capital or anything.
• I'm Pretty Sure You're Talking About Silesia
  The section goes on and on about the great mineral wealth that is being fought over. It's almost like... the actual third region of Czech Republic that actually has great mineral wealth. Problem is: that's on the other side of the country from Mariánské Lázně. Literally, Silesia is the Easternmost section, and Mariánské Lázně is right on the Western border.
• Where Are the Czech Names?
  There are a number of people named in this section during the adventure ideas. One of them is Vaclav. Fair enough, like half the men in this region are named Vaclav. But everyone else has Russian names. What the fuck? Yuri? Dmitri? Sori? These are not Czech names. Yeah, a lot of Russians are here, but would it kill you to name some dude Petr, Mikuloš or Jakob?

Poland

• Arbeit Macht Frei
  One of the adventure seeds involves running around murdering the ghosts of Jews who were murdered in the holocaust so that you can get to the bottom of the dungeon and get your hands on magic Nazi items that the Jews won't let you have. This is way beyond the boundaries of good taste, and considering that the previous section was registering at least four hundred micro Eichmanns on the "is this books Pro Nazi" detector, it's way past my comfort zone. Seriously, just the Jewish Ghostbusting idea could be put up five times and it would be more than adequate to make me not want this section to see print.
• This Region Is Not At War
  The setup is that the civil war is over and corporations are maneuvering against each other with various Shadowruns and it could break out into a war later. That is not a mercenary hotspot. That is the other thing, where you have normal shadowrunners doing shadowruns on various corporations ad policlubs that have high stakes. It has no place in the book as conceived.
• This Area Is the Same As the Last Area
  The previous section was mislabeled, but it was apparently supposed to be Silesia. Well, part of Silesia is in Czech Republic, but the rest is in Poland. So this area really includes big parts of the last area. And not to put too fine a point on it, but Oświęcim (Auschwitz) is in fucking Silesia.
• Czestochowa Is Also Silesian
  Oświęcim is not the only city mentioned in this chapter. They also have Czestochowa, which is also a Silesian city. It's like the author only read a book of "places to go in Silesia" while doing both of the first two sections. No other parts of Poland are mentioned. I think this needs to be spelled out in small words: out of the entirety of Poland, the only section they mention at all is the part that is partially in the Czech Republic. And they don't mention any of the border tensions with the Czech Republic in either section. Arrgh!
• David Hill Does Not Know What a Spirit Barrier Is
  Really, people have made long rants just on how stupid the Arbeit Macht Frei section is. It's really bad. But a big part of it is the whole thing where humans felt that they had to break a spirit barrier to get in to the death camp. Huh? Spirit barriers only affect Spirits. It's in the name. There was no reason at all to break the barrier. Human beings could walk right through it.

Somalia

• You Should Probably Put The Plot In The Location
  It's really hard to say much about the Somalia section, because the overview is that the main action is over and the protagonists left town. I am not even kidding. The min discussion is about Ifrit Services, which is a corporation that used to do a lot of work in Somalia and now is doing work elsewhere. This is inexcusable. In the entire section of Somalia, there is zero mention of anyone who is currently active in Somalia.
• So You Want To Do... Stuff?
  On of the adventure seeds is that Bosaso corporation wants to do... stuff... in Somalia. So they want the PCs to do... stuff... on their behalf. That's not an adventure seed. That's a campaign premise perhaps. Or maybe part of the backstory for an adventure seed. But there's nothing to act upon. What kind of stuff?
• Somalians Do Not Know What A Gallon Is
  This is the future, we use Metric. This is also Somalia, where they use Metric. The Ethiomalian government would not have any bounties listed in gallons. Ever. Liters, bitches.
• Who Steals Water?
  Apparently Ifrit Services are the villains from Captain Planet. How the hell did they steal Somalia's water? That's... pretty nonsensical actually. The section talks about how difficult it is to transport large amounts of water. So seriously, who stole it? How? Why?
• You Should Describe Motivations of People Players Negotiate With
  It is not enough to say that such and such a group has religious fervor. Religious fervor to do what? Several of the scenarios involve the PCs being asked to negotiate with the locals, but nothing is provided to indicate what the locals care about.

Nepal

• Monarchy?
  OK, Nepal was listed as a monarchy in SoA. Just like it was in classic times. Problem: all of the heirs of the Nepalese Monarchy are dead. Now, Nepal's writeup in SoA was incredibly short on history and detail, so they have some wiggle room on that. But if you're going to write up adventure seeds for working with the monarchy, it is incredibly relevant where the hell Nepal got a king from.
• Let The Wookie Win
  Relatively little is said on Nepal in Shadows of Asia. However, the Yeti are fighting against the corps. In War! the Yeti are apparently fighting for the corps. Why? How did that happen? What the fuck? Honestly, it looks like the authors just skimmed the Nepal writeup and got the sides mixed up and ran with it.
• Gold Is Just a Yellow Metal
  The war here is over the Orichalcum deposits, but the government is financed with mining gold. Why are they financing themselves with gold when they are mining fucking orichalcum!?
• Wait, Orichalcum?
  Why are there deposits of Orichalcum to be mined anyway? The upwelling of Orichalcum happened and ended. There aren't any places left to find Orichalcum in the ground. Or at least, there weren't.
• Gurkhas. This Is Where They Come From.
  A whole section in a book about War! about Nepal and no one thought to mention that the most famous and feared military tradition on the entire planet comes from the place you are talking about? How did that slip by without notice?

Albuquerque

• This Area Is Not At War
  These are Mercenary Hot Spots, right? So there needs to be a war on or something for that to make any sense. This is just a bunch of Shadowruns to be run in a place that is 100% at peace right now.
• This Area Was Not At War Recently
  It's not even like there was a war on in the recent past and now there are a bunch of former soldiers being demobilized and forced to find work in other fields with their dubious skill set or something. Albuquerque hasn't been at war for a long time. Even when the PCC has been in conflicts, this city has been a long way from the border.
• This Area Is Not Going TO War
  There isn't even mounting tension where war could break out at any time or anything. Albuquerque is a core province for the PCC and everyone else has relinquished claims on it. There are no rebel factions, no mobilizing armies, no inflammatory rhetoric, no increasingly frequent border skirmishes. It's just a city that is at peace and has some crime in it.
• This Area Is Not Near A War
  The closest thing they get to even hinting at a connection to any war anywhere is that apparently some of the stuff (which stuff?) that is produced in some of the factories (whose factories?) is used in the Amazonia-Aztlan war that is on a different continent. This place is not a staging area for mercenaries in any way.
• Those Mechanics Make Me Sad
  There's an experimental combat bike to be stolen in one of the adventures. All of the rules on it, and I mean all of them, make no sense.

But at least the mead is delicious.

-Username17

[name_here]

Wait, the section on Nepal says nothing about Gurkhas?.

I would say unkind words but none of them are quite strong enough.

[hermit]

[quote="Frank]What the fuck is Marienbad?
History lesson: Marienbad is the German name. The place stopped being called that when Beneš had all the Germans marched out at gun point in 1945 and moved Slavs back into the reconquered Sudetenland. As long as this place is under Czech control, it will never be called Marienbad. It's called Mariánské Lázně. Deal with it. [/quote]
Okay, this is the one thing you cannot blame David A. Hill for. Instead, blame Joerg Raddatz, an author of the original Germany book. Because that's where the CoM is from.

Thing is, it is supposedly called Marienbad because half of it actually seceded from Bavaria in disgust when the Bavarians turned all Nazi again and started gassing Metahumans. For unexplained reasons that SoE rationalised as Roma and meta refugees from the Euro Wars setting up camp in masses there, IIRC, a bit of Czech Republic joined them and they were all jolly in being itty bitty fiefdoms keeping each other down.

Still no reason to include it there though, as Schwartzkopf fixed it. Also, SoE mentions Mariánské Lázně and Marienbad to be alternate names and everyone in there keeping essentially to themselves.

The Council of Marienbad once belonged to Germany (revisionism ftw!) and in SoE decided that Czech is actually a cooler place, and seceded from Germany to join the Czech Republic (Schwartzkopf dragon conspiracy ect ect yadda). So now the Czech Rep has a fourth province, half of which once was Bavarian not too long ago. However, neither book has ever mentioned significant mineral wealth (unless you count the toxic waste German corps used to dump there because nobody gave a damn and clan leaders are bribable). THAT is probably because David A. Hill believes that mountains contain mineral wealth. All of them. It's like in Civilisation, where building a mine on ANY mountain will net you a lot of ressources. It's the same in Nepal.

Wait, the section on Nepal says nothing about Gurkhas?

Nope. David A. Hill doesn't seem to have heared of them. Or maybe he didn't want [EDITED] ruining his idea, I don't know.

It also omits the cross over into Magical Monk Mystery Tibet. But probably David A. Hill is uninformed about the biggest damn magical mystery being right across the border from Nepal.

[Stahlseele]

Shouldn't reading the actual book be more fun than reading these articles ripping the book to shreds?
*applauds frank*
you did it! ^^

[hermit]

This is the part where my feelings this book might actually be written by Nazis came from, btw. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way.

[Stahlseele]

Mormon Nazi Conspiracies!

[hermit]

Dun Dun Dun!

[TheFlatline]

This is the part where my feelings this book might actually be written by Nazis came from, btw. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way.

I do kind of wonder as I'm reading discussion. The Ghost/Jew dungeon crawl thing on it's own is simply in bad taste, but all the other little things added together create an interestingly disturbing thread.

At best, someone thought that having a bunch of nazi/anti-Semitic shit in it was going to be "adult" and "edgy". At worst, it's actual anti-Semitic shit. Most likely it's the former.

This resurgence of Nazis shit in fiction strikes me as a cop out and lazy writing. Nazis came to power based on two things: The absolute shit economy Germany had post WW1, and the incredibly strangely charismatic leader in Hitler. Like, people who didn't even understand German could listen to Hitler's speeches and feel moved by the crowd and the intonations in his voice. Without one or the other, the Nazis would never have risen to power, and never will again.

Anyway, the more that I read about this book the more I'm glad I've eased off of RPGs and have gotten addicted to collecting board games. This shit is shaping up to be terribad.

[hermit]

Nazis today are complete losers. Back then they were angry losers and scared people, and came to power because everybody underestimated Hitler. Nevermind he was a great speaker (he without doubt was), but there were others who were just as good as Hitler.

At best, someone thought that having a bunch of nazi/anti-Semitic shit in it was going to be "adult" and "edgy". At worst, it's actual anti-Semitic shit. Most likely it's the former.

I dunno. It's never in your face save for the nudge-nudge-wink-wink dungeon crawl in Auschwitz. It's little things. You don't put little things subtly into anything if you are not even able to keep narrative levels in order. I have a hard time remembering any netbook that was so badly written. I'm afraid it might actually be more than just a fad because Nazis are a bit in vogue right now.

Rereading Marienbad, there also seems to be orichalcum in the ground. It's like David A. Hill never got the POINT of the whole Halley's comet storyline.

And he cannot even maintain the tense in a section. abruptly, in the midst of game info, he switches from present to past for narrative. What the fuck. Sure this guy is a professional writer?

[TheFlatline]

Nazis today are complete losers. Back then they were angry losers and scared people, and came to power because everybody underestimated Hitler. Nevermind he was a great speaker (he without doubt was), but there were others who were just as good as Hitler.

Well, they've done studies that have shown that when we are told something, we instantly, automatically believe it for a split second before we apply the reality filter to it to see if it's true or not. So if I tell you "the sky is neon purple", part of your subconscious accepts this as true before debunking it.

When having a deeply religious experience or something similar, scientists have found that our brains turn that veracity function off, so we accept things that we know can't be true as completely true.

Hitler wasn't necessarily a good speaker (watching movies of him now he just seems to scream and be passionate a lot), he could incite those moments of "rapture" where the brain turns off it's rationality. It's kind of weird and scary at the same time.

[hermit]

Well, they've done studies that have shown that when we are told something, we instantly, automatically believe it for a split second before we apply the reality filter to it to see if it's true or not. So if I tell you "the sky is neon purple", part of your subconscious accepts this as true before debunking it.

I'm personally pretty careful with anything relating to "manipulating the subconscious". Subliminals, for instance, are a fad. They do not work. The study that supposedly proved they did was a fabrication, just like the Korean clone babies. It just fit the zeitgeist and became a popular urban myth. I don't know this study, and until I have a look at it, I'm sceptical.

When having a deeply religious experience or something similar, scientists have found that our brains turn that veracity function off, so we accept things that we know can't be true as completely true.

Well yes, but that applies only to very religious people. That's why religion is a valid substitute for substance abuse. The effects are pretty similar. No offense to anyone intended.

Hitler wasn't necessarily a good speaker (watching movies of him now he just seems to scream and be passionate a lot), he could incite those moments of "rapture" where the brain turns off it's rationality. It's kind of weird and scary at the same time.

I don't know. He couldn't with me, but then again I wasn't there with the crowd. Crowd mechanics are pretty powerful. Much more powerful than any lone speaker. If you know how to raise crowds (which is learnable, all good stage acts can pull it), you have the crowd. Hitler was really good at this. That's what, IMO, makes a good speaker (Brutus delivers the better speech, but Anthony knows how to deal with the audience).

[Otakusensei]

Oh God, who told Dave to bring his rape-face to the interview?

Dave is a talented creator and a great person. I know there's been teh dramaz with him and TGD users in the past -- but he doesn't deserve to be treated like that, dude.

Ok, it was kinda rude. In the interest of fairness, I present my own rape face. It was taken fresh this evening in a darkened public restroom*

*No actual rape was preformed