Well executed but massively misconceived. Can't really be used as a game aid and does not read well as fiction. Could actually undermine a game if stuck to, due to total focus on one \"class.\"
A negative review, but a pretty fair one IMO. Like you, I've bought pretty much everything for Shadowrun 4th (just as I did for the previous editions). And like you, I was quite disappointed in Emergence. I had thought, before I bought it, that it would be part adventure, part sourcebook. Sort of "Street Magic for Technomancers" with some adventure ideas thrown in. When the book came, I flipped through it, thinking "Where are the rules? Where are all the cool Technomancer character options? Heck, where is the adventure even?"
I read some of the book's shadowtalk, but it quickly bored me. I put it on the shelf and haven't touched it since, disappointed that I wasted my money, and much more wary about buying any more Shadowrun 4th ed books sight unseen.
Thanks for the comments. This is my first review so feedback is especially welcome. But seconding my own feelings is even more welcome because I feel bad about how negative the review came out. The product is well-edited and well-written in every technical sense. It's just a bad idea, imo.
I'm a big fan of Shadowrun 4th Edition in general.
The thing that Emergence is definitely not, is an adventure.
Emergence was never billed as an adventure.
Quote:
No other archetype has such in-built social roles and pre-defining the social role that a player will take in the game based on what is essentially a character class is not not not a good thing. If a player is running a technomancer they are fugitives and hated and feared by society. This is non-negotiable. Emergence cannot support a different take on this.
Obviously you missed the boat on magicians...and metahumans...and hackers...and shadowrunners in general (hey, there are criminals). Everybody faces prejudice and fear for what they are at some point or another. Yes, it's going to be a challenge to established player character technomancers-but that's not a bad thing. Life throws you curveballs.
Probably my biggest complaint is your lack of review, you spend more time bitching about how this will affect your home game than actually addressing the material in the book. Hell, you skipped AIs entirely.
I think he did a pretty fair job. It seems from his review there wasn't a lot TO review. He did mention AIs, stating that not a lot of rules are given, sounds like a bit of fluff and that's it.
It seems from his review there wasn't a lot TO review.
Which is a good indication of why his review leaves a lot to be desired. There's a lot in Emergence, even if you're just going to bitch about it. Not even giving a decent description of the book or its organization, for example, is neglectful.
Which is a good indication of why his review leaves a lot to be desired. There's a lot in Emergence, even if you're just going to bitch about it. Not even giving a decent description of the book or its organization, for example, is neglectful.
Thank you for the feedback. I have submitted a review for Augmented that isn't up yet, that does take a more detailed approach to what is inside. But that is more of a content book. In Emergence, a quick count up of the pages marked as game information in the table of contents, gives me roughly 26 pages marked as Game Information out of 120 page book. Barring one page micro-fiction chapter openings and some artwork (mostly sparse), the remaining 90-odd pages are either Shadowspeak (online forum dialogue) or information provided by the Shadowspeak characters such as information they boosted and are sharing, or news reports, et al.
Having around 80% of the book be in character material, dialogue, etc, makes it difficult to give a chapter by chapter break-down of the content given to the reader, which is perhaps why you felt my review lacked information on its organisation. It is difficult to provide this without producing a very spoiler-heavy review because you essentially end up saying "In Section One, the forum posters talk about rumours they've heard about X, in Section Three they talk about the blowing up of Y," etcetera.
I very much didn't want to impair the enjoyment of anyone who buys this product by essentially paraphrasing the storyline, which is for the most part what Emergence consists of.
And I feel I should address your points from earlier as well:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Droogydroog
I take issue with some aspects of your review.
Quote:
Originally Posted by knasser
The thing that Emergence is definitely not, is an adventure.
Emergence was never billed as an adventure.
Emergence was never billed as an adventure.
Indeed not. Nonetheless, a lot of people expect it to be one which is why I began my review with a clear clarification of that. From what Jedira Dakhan posted, he was even more disappointed than I was and that may well be because I had a better idea what this book was going to contain whilst he had greater expectations of it being something that could be played. I think it's important that people don't approach Emergence with the wrong idea. It's not even close to a runnable adventure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by droogydroog
Quote:
Originally Posted by knasser
No other archetype has such in-built social roles and pre-defining the social role that a player will take in the game based on what is essentially a character class is not not not a good thing. If a player is running a technomancer they are fugitives and hated and feared by society. This is non-negotiable. Emergence cannot support a different take on this.
Obviously you missed the boat on magicians...and metahumans...and hackers...and shadowrunners in general (hey, there are criminals). Everybody faces prejudice and fear for what they are at some point or another.
No. I'm sticking very strongly to this point. I am not unaware of magicians, metahumans, hackers or Shadowrunners. Any of these roles can play any social role. I can have socialite mages, elves who like to hang out at the Colloseum and Orks that like to be seen in the Inferno. Rich, corp-paid hackers and a poverty-stricken anarchist-type fighting The Man. In all of your examples, the social niche of the character is independent of their "class." Your pick of "Shadowrunners" was a particularly bad example because there are many, many different styles of Shadowrunning. Any character who picks a Technomancer to play however, is in the role of hunted fugitive. Emergence really doesn't allow you to play it any other way. This murderous purge of anyone suspected of being a technomancer is the big plot hook of the first part of the book. I pity any player that just picked a Technomancer because they thought the class looked cool.
Quote:
Originally Posted by droogydroog
Yes, it's going to be a challenge to established player character technomancers-but that's not a bad thing. Life throws you curveballs.
For established characters its going to be even more complicated. There is no hint in the core book that Technomancers are "undiscovered." I would expect most TM characters to have been openly advertising their abilities and most NPCs have been interacting with those characters quite normally. Only when Emergence is released two years after the core book do GM's suddenly realise that the correct response for an NPC to a PC Technomancer is "IMUSTKILLYOUNOW!". That's a problem.
As to "sometimes life throws you a curveball," another point I made in the review is that life is throwing one particular member of the party a curveball. Actually an entire campaign arc of curveballs. That sort of one-sidedness is a big problem for a group of friends playing together.
Quote:
Originally Posted by droogydroog
Probably my biggest complaint is your lack of review, you spend more time bitching about how this will affect your home game than actually addressing the material in the book. Hell, you skipped AIs entirely.
I did talk about AIs. I even recommended that GMs bring them in early as a possible explanation for the otherwise hard to understand Technomancer hysteria. What I did say is that there are no rules for AIs in Emergence. I think that's important because AIs are very interesting to some and people may buy the book thinking that it will help run AIs.
As to spending more time bitching about how it will affect my game than talking about the material in the book, I felt it was relevant to discuss what I saw the impact of this book being and there isn't really much content to discuss in terms of actual solid information. I have over ninety-pages of fictional forum posts and news feeds. I don't like to just narrate from a book. I even more particularly don't want my players to be stuck in the role of lurkers on a chat-room. They wouldn't be happy anyway - they'd start posting replies forcing me to branch the conversations rendering the remainder of Emergence useless and leaving me to role-play twenty different NPCs I didn't create and have almost no personality indications for.
Last edited by knasser; 12-13-2007 at 04:34 PM..
Reason: (spelt Jedira's name wrong).
Indeed not. Nonetheless, a lot of people expect it to be one which is why I began my review with a clear clarification of that. From what Jedira Dakhan posted, he was even more disappointed than I was and that may well be because I had a better idea what this book was going to contain whilst he had greater expectations of it being something that could be played. I think it's important that people don't approach Emergence with the wrong idea. It's not even close to a runnable adventure.
You're right, I didn't have any real idea of what the book was about. My FLGS doesn't order Shadowrun books for the shelf, so I bought a copy off Ebay. All it had was the back cover blurb, which billed this as, quote
"An Evolutionary Upgrade! The Emergence campaign setting involves the runners in a series of pivotal events that may change the way they view the world and the Matrix - and each other."
That suggested to me a series of connected adventures forming a mini-campaign, and possibly some cool new Technomancer tricks (suggested by the "Evolutionary Upgrade!" blurb, and perhaps a fair bit of wishful thinking). IMO, a better backcover blurb would have been:
"A series of conversations and short fiction pieces on the topics of Technomancers and bigotry, which may give readers some insight into how the Shadowrun world deals with the emergence of Technomancers."
At least that would have been a more honest description. And like knasser, I'm suprised this book was even written in this way. Street Magic was (as far as I know) a big hit. So was Augmentation. Those are useful books, full of goodies and crunch as well as setting info. And what is the one MAJOR new character type in SR4, that could really use a sourcebook since they've never had one before? Technomancers! And lo and behold, here comes a book specifically focused on and all about Technomancers... and it has nothing of any real use. No game stats on AIs, no cool new abilities, no hardware or gadgets that can either enhance Technomancers or be used to guard against them, no stats of important Technomancers that can serve as either foes or mentors and show the different ways they are using their abilities, NONE of that! What a wasted opportunity this was!
It is about as disappointing as it would have been for Augmentations to have no new items, merely page after page of shadowspeak on "Did your Systronic Smartgun link short out the first time it got rained on, cause mine did, and what a pain it was to return it!"
Linear Mode
