April 15th, 2008
“Runner’s Companion Preview”
Wow. This has been so much more fun than I ever thought it would be when the idea originally hit me. Yes, people, the “Runner’s Companion Preview” (and the Dragon and Obsidimen PCs in it) was our annual April Fools’ offering. Sorry to disappoint those of you who liked the idea.
As my first go at an April Fool’s joke as developer, I thought I’d be a little subtler and less blatantly tongue in cheek than usual. I wanted this year’s offering to be both convincing and to kill several birds with this particular stone. I think we were successful on both counts.
Just to show we don’t take ourselves too seriously, when it became obvious we weren’t going to get this out on time (yeah, Adam’s not the only one whose been swamped, what with Unwired, Ghost Cartels, and Feral Cities all on final approach), we chose to take a self-indulgent poke at all the whining about SR books never coming out on time by releasing the “preview” a day late. Putting it up unedited, is not only a nod at recent reviews, but given some people’s expectations actually lent the piece more credibility!
More than just taking the opportunity to pimp Runners’ Companion, I wanted to do this in such a way that it showcased how robust the basic SR4 system is, and presage not only some of the options that will be in the book but also the core rules framework fans can expect. The joke being not the rules themselves, but the context and the presentation, I wanted the rules to be as solid as possible, both to be convincing (gotcha) and to provide a baseline for those of you who did like them to expand on them in your own game (who knows I might get round to doing that myself some time).
Runners’ Companion will indeed feature a number of basic character race/species options unavailable in previous editions, including several surprises. However, our focus in this book is very much on providing variety and options for runners, and introducing dragons would skew the game away from the feel and style of what we’re aiming for.
It’s been fun, particularly since the whole thing (rules included!) was put together in less than 12 hours (many thanks to Adam for the last minute layout work). Nice to see the rules themselves so well received, bodes very well for Runners’ Companion.
For those who haven’t caught the obvious clues here are just a few (there are more, I particularly liked the “obsessive-compulsive hoarding” and wish I’d managed to squeeze in the Young Dragons in Estrus section though that would have been a dead giveaway):
Runners Companion “preview”: When was the last time Catalyst Game Labs released a preview this far in advance of a book’s release? Runners’ Companion is four books down the line (after Unwired, Ghost Cartels, and Feral Cities). That said Runners’ Companion is being written and I’m looking at the first drafts as I speak… er… type and they look nice…
Obsidimen: We have repeatedly told people — iirc the latest SR Dev Chat being the most recent instance — it’s too early in the manacycle for them to be popping up if they did survive the downcycle.
The asterisks in the Dragon Attribute Table are all over the place.
Dragons and Technology offers two completely different prices for dragon-compatible nanotrodes.
The Transcendence Metamagic box: A little too big, don’t you think?
The Dragons and Ranged Combat Modifiers: “they may apply a modifier between +2 and +4 (gamemaster’s discretion; standard of -3)”
Posted in General by PeterTaylor