Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[bull30548]

I noticed that there is no actual book review on here for the books from Shadowrun 4th.  I thought I start one so people on the forum could be informed about all the books. I don't know what is going on with catalyst as of late but they are pumping out PDFs and books rapidly the last few weeks. So now is as good of time as any to start talking about this long list.

[Ruski]

Well: i typically buy their published works if i see them at the store, so I should have something to say about most of them.

[bull30548]

So first book should be the one that started us all Shadowrun 20th Anniversary 4th edition.  I am starting with this one as opposed to the original 4th edition as this edition sort of phased it out.  Now I am not going to go chapter by chapter review of this book just my opinion of it that way I keep  my comments short.

This book was very well designed in my opinion.  Unlike previous editions it had examples in it for the way the game mechanics actually worked.  For new gamers this was probably a life saver and for more experienced ones (like myself) it helped wrap my head around the new rule system.  This book was well designed also for just the starting gamer to the SR system and timeline.  It did not overload you with rules and story from previous editions.  It just gave you what you needed to run a game from scratch from the beginning.  Now the biggest plus for this book in my opinion was the index.  The index was not limited to simply this book but all supplements that someone might want to look at.  Which includes Unwired, Arsenal, Augmentation, and Street Magic.  I cannot tell you how many times in other systems where I wished I could just look at a universal index so I could find something. 

As I said simple reviews from me plus something else I think will be important a scaling system.  On a number from 1 to 10 whether or not someone would absolutely need this for their game.

This book gets a 9 because while you could simply make up your own rules or run a simple game with no rules whatsoever just story most folks want a general idea of how the system works and timeline.

[Ruski]

You need a little patience me thinks...

I bought this book, (two copies actually, one for me and one for KV) in it's limited edition collectors run.
It's very nice, numbered (I kept the lower number for myself, is that rude?) and like you said, quite functional.

I LOVE the index. I had the previous release of the book, that was missing the index that pointed to the other published works. and the index makes all the difference in the world. Kinda remember a rule but not sure which of your 7,000 pages of print contain the actual answer? Think your PC's will revolt if you say: "Uh... I dunno. I'm going to roll 1D6, if I roll a 1, 2, 3 it won't work, if it's 4, 5, 6 it does." one more time to a rule question? No more feigning a bathroom break to 'drop a deuce' while you bring your whole library with you! look through 5 pages of index, color coordinated by supplemental, and then open up the right book to the right page and argue about the answer with your group!

My complaints: on the limited edition, the cover print, leather bound; had sparkly writing of 'shadowrun' on it. Not bad, I don't mind a little bit of sparkle. BUT: if you actually use the book, that drek comes right off and gets all over your hand. now all mine says is: "Shadu uuu u .."
luckily it comes with an olde' paper box cover, so if you just left it on a shelf it would be fine... but I use mine all the time so the cover print looks like crap.