If you can do it in Dungeons and Dragons 5e, you should be able to do it in Shadowrun 5e. Let’s make that happen!
Go for Broke!
Cost: 10 karma
You like to pull success from the jaws of failure. Maybe you succeed in the clutch, maybe you’re just lucky. When you lose 1/2 of your attack dice pool from negative modifiers to your dice pool and you gain 1 net success over the opponents dodge roll, add your edge score to the success total.
Thoughts?
Know what we haven’t done in a while? Some movie reviews. let’s correct that.
Silver Screen Smackdown- Movie Review of Jurassic World–
TL; DR-A good sequel to the original. 93%
Basics-It’s Jurassic Park but it works now! Until it doesn’t! Now a new dinosaur is loose and it’s up to Chris Pratt to stop it!
Story–Jurassic Park is an awesome cinematic experience, but as a story, it’s not top notch. Sure it’s not bad, but this movie has tons of plot holes. No spoilers, but you will scratch your head watching! But is a summer blockbuster with dinosaurs! I shut up the stupid adult Dr. Kabara with candy and let 8 year old Alan watch as T-Rex battled new iRex! 4/5
Acting–You know who’s awesome-Chris Pratt. Take a comedian, make him buff, then give him the best lines in the movie. He does great in his role. The others are fine as well. There are two kids I want to smack, but they end up becoming likeable. Even the female lead Bryce Dallas Howard becomes likeable. 4.5/5
Cinematography–There is just enough CGI and just enough real world stuff to keep me second guessing everything. I was never put off by some uncanny valley. Nor, did I ever think things were not real. It all looks beautiful. 5/5
Summary–This is a great addition to the franchise. It might not be Jurassic Park level, but if it’s not, its the second best in the series. Chris Pratt does well. The dinosaurs are fun. And the plot….well there plot is there. The movie could be defeated by man gates. Those are gates we use on dairy farms to keep cattle in a place where allow farmers to quickly get out of a place. About two of those could easily stop all the problems of this movie. But setting aside some obvious plot holes, the movie is a great summer movie that is fun for the little boy in us all. 93%
Silver Screen Smackdown- Movie Review of Inside Out–
TL; DR-Herman’s Head for children written by Pixar. 100%
Basics-Riley is moving to a new town, dealing with new emotions, and discovering that life isn’t the simple. Insider her head, her emotions all work together to drive her. Each of the five emotions drive her via a console like the Starship Enterprise. But, when Happiness and Sadness break the console and are lost in the bowels of her memory, Riley is now adrift without her emotions to guide her. Will she be able to cope with all the changes in her world, or will she do something drastic.
Story–This is Pixar. Even their junk sequel are decent. This one is a story about growing up, dealing with your emotions and feelings, and learning that the world isn’t just one dimensional. It well told, thought provoking, and honestly an amazing experience. 5/5
Acting–I am a screamy guy. Lewis Black is my spirit animal. He plays the role is was designed to play-RAGE. He’s my favorite, but he only gets second string screen time. The main emotions are Sadness and Happiness. Those two and all the other characters of Riley’s head are all extremely believable. No one feels out of place. 5/5
Cinematography–It’s Pixar. They do this movie thing well. 5/5
Summary–This movie is Herman’s Head for children. It’s got fewer adult themes, better writing, and computer animation, but it’s Herman’s Head. I love the movie. The story is top notch. The actors make the CGI come to life. And the thing is beautiful. This is a movie to watch with your tween to help him or her understand life a bit more. Life is sad and happy at the same time. New emotions and key part of our soul are being forged every day. And this movie finally explains why you get that stupid jingle stuck in in your head as well! 100%
Silver Screen Smackdown- Movie Review of Terminator: Genisys
TL; DR-Explosions, Dr. Who, and a new timey whimey time line. 83%
Basics-John Conor is about to win the war against the Machines. But, in his moment of sending the man to save his mother back, he’s attacked. Now the past is changed, new terminators are on the loose, and nothing is as it seems
Story–Let’s be honest here, you don’t go to Terminator movies to see Shakespeare. You go to see robots explode. This one does have robots explode. It’s got enough future stuff to keep you thinking. It’s got some ham fisted commentary on people looking at their cell phones too much. It’s got Arnold beating up younger Arnold. It’s got enough to keep you entertained for one and a half hours and in a coherent way. Some reviewers tend to get lost in all the time line mumbo jumbo, but honestly I followed it easily. Going into, this is a soft reboot of the franchise. All the movies NO LONGER COUNT! 4/5
Acting–Again, let’s be honest here, you didn’t come for some Oscar performances. The characters are OK. Honestly the best character in the whole film is Arnold as the terminator. He does a good job being a pretend robot trying to fit into human society. The other three main characters are…ok. Matt Smith is in there as well, but he’s got almost a glorified cameo. He does well, but he doesn’t get enough time to really even build out his character. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s also not distracting from the story. ⅘
Cinematography–BOOM! EXPLOSION! That’s what you’re here for! And you get your money’s worth for explosions. Everything looks believable even though it’s all green screened to hell. A fun ride with stuff exploding. 4.5/5
Summary–This is a quintessential summer brainless action movie. The movies set up for a sequel now, which since this made lots of money it will get. It’s got lots of action, an ok plot, and decent acting. We won’t get our children to watch this one like we will the original Terminator, so this won’t stand the test of time. But, for a summer movie, this is a better than average offering. This is also a soft reboot to the franchise, so take all the other movies you know and love, and throw those away, because now they NEVER HAPPENED! 83%
Feats in DnD are pretty powerful. Let’s look at splashing a bit of each class around!
Rogue Training
You’ve trained a bit in the ways of the street. Gain the following benefits:
Thoughts? Is this too powerful?
Ran a game of DnD 5e last night, and had a human rogue attacking into the dark. That takes some brass. Let’s start to reward that!
Against the Odds
prerequisite: rogue
You not one to be told the odds. Sometimes, just sometimes, you just have to go for it. Gain the following benefits:
Thoughts?
Product– Shadowrun: Run Faster
System– Shadowrun
Producer– Catalyst Game Labs
Price– $25 here http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/141788/Shadowrun-Run-Faster?term=Shadowrun%3A+Run+Faster
TL; DR– The Shadowrun edition catch-up book. 87%
Basics-Time to dust off that chrome plated centaur! Run Faster is an edition catch-up book. While the main Shadowrun book had a comprehensive book of characters, Run Faster fills in the smaller gaps by adding all the subtypes for each metahuman race. This book also has a chapter discussing how to make your vampire and all the subtypes for that as well. In addition, Run Faster adds new archetypes, qualities, quick start packages for traits and gear, and rules for how to build up your house.
Mechanics or Crunch-This is the edition catch-up race book with a ton of extra character options as well. When a new edition arises, some people want their old, less represented races back. Here’s the book for that. Want to play a naga? Here you go! Want to play a vampire? We got rules for that! Want to play a centaur? SURE! Don’t like the new priority-based character generation plan for SR5? We’ve got several new ways to make characters from scratch now. It’s got enough chapters to bring some serious new crunch to your SR5 game. Some parts are not a useful. I’m a Shadowrun Missions game master, the entire section on vampires, while interesting, is completely useless to me. It’s well done, but something that might be better served as its own smaller PDF. There are also chapters that I absolutely love like the section on how to kit out your house. It’s amazing mechanics, but most of the Missions players will never be able to use them. What does impress me is the PACK sections. The preset packages will help you make characters quicker by giving you small, preset groups of skills, abilities, or items that you can plug into your forming character instead of slaving over the book for an hour. That, as someone who teaches the game often, will be the most useful thing out of this book. Overall, the book is amazing, but not the most versatile book for all players. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff- The core book tells some great stories on how the 6th world works. This book fills in gaps describing how individual creatures fit in it. It doesn’t just give how the freaks of the world survive, but it also gives how a basic dwarf is seen and judged. It’s got chapters on how the vampiric-ly gifted survive and try to thrive. It’s full of stories that will give you ideas for your next run. It’s a beautiful book full of great art to give you a picture of the world. This book will help you better understand the world of Shadowrun as a (meta)person who lives there. 5/5
Execution-Oh, Shadowrun, Shadowrun, Shadowrun. You honestly know how to tell a great story, but making that book useful, searchable, and easy to use is not your strong suite. Like all Catalyst properties, don’t expect an index. That right there hurts the book. Also, organization isn’t their strong suit either. Here is the textbook example of this boks problems. In the chapter on vampires and other infected, the book gives a table on the different types of infected on their stats. Thats a good start. However, not listed on that chart are the base creature that changes when infected, the type of HMVV that infects them, or their powers. Now that’s a large chart, so I can excuse the powers not being a part of it. But, I have to look up the specific infected for each type of virus and the creature it mutated from. As someone who hasn’t played a ton of the previous editions where that was a larger part of the game, I’m stuck reading text descriptions of each infected. Those get the point across well, but they don’t get the point across easily. And that’s the problem wit this book. Give me more to your tables and more tables. Give me a table with short descriptions of the qualities and the cost with them. That was done for 3.5 DnD, and it quickly got the ideas across. This book gets its ideas across, but not in a user friendly manner. 3.5/5
Summary-I am not an old gamer. I can not call myself a proud and ancient grognard-one who’s seen the rise and fall of uncounted editions. I’m actually a recent convert to Shadowrun. I joined up late 4e, and I have fallen in love with 5e. That said, I’m way behind my knowledge about the smaller details of the setting. This is a great book to fill in those gaps. I like learning how the individual races are treated. I like learning about the nitty gritty of vampiric life. I do think some mechanics are a bit useless to most of the player base, but that doesn’t hurt the book too much by providing extra information. What does hurt the book is Catalyst’s organization of the information. In the chapters where the book wants to tell a story, it tells amazing stories. In the chapters where it has a ton of crunch information to bring to bare, it does its job but doesn’t get much help from the layout. If you love Shadowrun, this is a fantastic book to learn about the world. If you want to get new players options for your SR5 game, this is a fantastic book. If you want to learn how to produce a book and need a guide as a refer to, this is not the book to look at. 87%
Most undead are not weak to radiant in DnD 5e. I want to fix this!
Undead Destroyer
The light you bring makes all who serve unlife shrink to the shadows. Gain the following benefits:
Thoughts?
Product– Elder Sign: Gates of Arkham
Producer-Fantasy Flight Games
Set-up/Play/Clean-up– 45 minutes per scenario (1-8 players)
Type-American
Depth-medium
TL; DR-Arkham Horror in Elder Sign! 97%
Basics- Time to leave the museum. Games of Arkham is the second expansion to Elder Sign, and now players will explore Arkham trying to stop the spread of the Old Ones. For the most part, the general mechanics are the same. Basically, each round a player draws a mythos card. This mythos card adds new challenges and opportunities for the players. Then, players take their individual turns. First, they move to open locations. These locations have a number of dice symbols in rows on them. A Player rolls the dice and try to match their symbols to all the symbols on a row. If they can complete a row, they place those dice on the card, reducing the number rerolled, but succeeding on part of the task, and rerolls the dice. If not, they remove a die, and rerolls the dice. That player either solves all the rows of dice symbols, or they fail. Each location has a success results and failure results. Then the player advances the clock, and play continues. When the clock advances four times, either from players taking turns or location effects, a new mythos card is drawn. The game continues until either the ancient evil coming to destroy us all arrives… and destroys us all or the players amass a number of elder signs to hold the eternal evil off for a bit longer.
Gates of Arkham adds a few new things. One, a new deck of locations that are all locations in town and not rooms in the museum. Two, new locations enter play upside down with effects on their back! Unlike in the base game, cards now will affect the players before they enter play thus forcing players to go to hard locations because these locations have effects that are worse if they are not dealt with. Three, a new mythos deck dedicated to the town of Arkham instead of the museum. And four, new gate mechanics. Gates are now tied to locations as each gate has little standyies that tie a location and an other world location. You have to enter a gate to to to another world locations cards. Gates are just as hard, but if you can’t place a gate because all the standyies are out, then bad things are about to happen!
Mechanics– This is the ultimate step in the right direction for an expansion. I LOVE Arkham Horror, but it’s 45+ minutes to just set up the game without touching a single die! This game is 15 minutes of set up the first time you use it and less than five after that. The core mechanics of Cthulhu yahtzee haven’t changed, and that’s great as they are still simple and fun. The new ideas of location effects, enter locations semi-blind, and tying Arkham and other world locations together are all amazing and reflect the Arkham Horror mechaincs. My only real problem are the expansion characters. Most you will look over, then decide to not use. This new round seems a bit too topical to be that useful. They are not broken, but not as great as many of the others. The game is still as American style as it can be. You WILL lose because you will roll poorly. You WILL not have enough time. But, it WILL be fun! 4.5/5
Theme-Take Arkham Horror, remove ¾ of its game time, and you have this. If you read the cards, locations, and fluff text, you have an amazing Lovecraftian experience in under an hour. It’s a game the builds its own story organically, and something you will enjoy as it does. 5/5
Instructions– I’m honestly impressed. The game has great instructions. It’s not hard to understand, the rules flow well, and they read fast. 5/5
Execution-First, the complaint-there is too much in this box. The box itself is offset in shipping as there is just too much here. I know that’s a horrible complaint. WIth that soft complaint out of the way, the game is amazing. I like the art. The card iconography is well done. The cards themselves are great quality. I even love the standyies! They don’t destroy the components when they are assembled! This is honestly a well done expansion. You can see all the pieces during our unboxing video here: http://youtu.be/R–M3ZSPZfQ ! 4.95/5
Summary-This is as close to a one hour Arkham Horror game as you’re going to get. Sure it’s got the American Game problem of chance. But, if you and your friends can enjoy a bit of mutual misery as you all die from creatures outside space time, you will absolutely love this game. It’s not perfect. I’d like a slightly larger box and some changes to the new characters in this set. However, those complaints pale in comparison to how much I absolutely love what’s in this game. If you want a quick, fun, and easier version of Arkham Horror or an expanded version of Elder Sign with just the right amount of depth added, this is the game for you. 97 %
What if you just want to splash a little fighter into your wizard? Let’s see if we can make that happen!
Fighting Training
All those nights around the fire pit have paid off as you’ve learned how to truly handle yourself in a fight. Gain the following benefits:
Thoughts?
Let’s keep building on what out there for fighters, paladins, and rangers.
Sword and Shield
Once per turn you are wielding both a shield and a one-handed weapon, choose one of the following: Get a +1 bonus to AC, +1 bonus to attack rolls, or reroll once this turn any weapon damage dice that are a 1 keeping the second result.
Thoughts?
Looking over some negative qualities, and I’d like to add another!
STANK!
Bonus: 4 karma per level (1 to 3 levels)
Maybe you just don’t shower after binges on the matrix. Maybe the dumpster you call home just doesn’t have indoor plumbing. Or maybe that hippy, dippy mage commune doesn’t have hot water. Whatever your reason, you just STANK! It’s in the area, it’s all around you, and it so physically palpable, it hurts! For each rank you have in this quality, reduce the dice pool of any social tests anyone on your team makes by 1. People who can’t smell are unaffected.
Thoughts?
Throat Punch Games 