Customer Reviews

Cybertechnology: A Shadowrun Sourcebook

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book provides a much-needed update to Shadowrun technology- like "Shadowtech," "Cybertechology" advances the state of the art by a few years. This book also has an excellent backstory attached, giving you a glimpse through the cybereyes of one of the highly chromed denizens of the Shadowrun world. If you and your players love tech (and who doesn't?), you'll want to buy this book. A word to the wise, though: I STRONGLY recommend that the Cybermancy rules be reserved exclusively for the occasional NPC. Don't let your PCs get their hands on that drek, unless you have a thing for masochism.

WARNING-if you own fields of fire,shadowtech,and the street sam catalog, buy this book. if you don't own them, wait a bit,as the bulk of this book deals mainly with revising the explanations of gear found there....and since FASA is reprinting all of them into one 3rd edition book anyways....... While most players drool and their GM's cringe over the implications of delatagrade cyberware and cybermancy, I found the most useful section of the book to be the various updates on compatibility of implants from previous books('say, CAN I get Muscle augmentation if I have 3 vyberlimbs, and how will that affect my new adrenal pump'?). Dowd's framing technique was very effective and entertaining.

This book is great, with some good gear, but a whole lot of this stuff depends on one's knowledge of the stuff in the Street Sam catalog, Fields of Fire, and Shadowtech

The entire section on Cybermancy, and everything to do with it, is complete and total nonsense. Without any apologies, borgs and cyberware pretty much work out like Appleseed in my campaign (try getting any Bri-type character in Shadowrun's crippled Essence-Loss/Cyberware mechanic; HAH!). Borgs and cyberpunk go together, and that's the final say on the matter.

The coverage of the various pieces of equipment by a single "shadowrunner", giving his opinions, lends a sort of unified flavor the beginning of the book, which I did like.

Be prepared to spend money for sections you'll never use, though (specfically, Cybermancy).

If you are reading this, I must warn you not to by this book. Alone it's pretty good but... Fasa will be releasing a book called Man & Machine: Cyberware to outdate this book. It will be combinging Shadowtech and Cybertech. Something for you street sams to cream your jeans about. Cybermany is pretty cool, but thier are so many drawbacks that becombing a "cyberzombie" would mean what your charicter will die excedingly fast [wasting all the time and efoort you put into it]and HE WILL be under the control of whater orginization did this for him.

I love this book. All the info is well sorted and easy to find. It even has a plot to what is happening, and supprisingly, it was great. Everything was explained in great detail, and even has the personal quotes, which i thourgly enjoy. Great buy, but i only wish it had a little more info about deltaware.

the stuff in this book changes alot of everything. making samurai stronger than ever before. the stories inside are great and the rules extremely well thought out. as should be expected my Tom Dowd. the cybermancy rules breed munchkinism though so stay away from those. but after seeing them you just have to use em. all the new things help out when trying for stronger characters. excelent again. i tip my hat to the men and wimon of shadowrun

This was a nice book, but the cybermancy rules i recommend you use for NPCs only. kudos to the author.

The author Tom Dowd, pulls out all the stops in this sourcebook. Forever pushing the bounds of a known world, Tom and his co-authors create a brand new danger in an already increasingly deadly game universe. The basic premise of the book is this: negative essence. Ever since Shadowrun began oh so many years ago, we as gamers, thought that negative essence was unachievable. Now we find this is not the case. The conditions for Cybermancy are laid out for players and gamemasters alike with enough lee-way for this element to be easily incorporated into an existing campaign, should anyone want too. Plus with the addition of interesting new cybernetic enhancements, this book is a must have for any runner. Know thy enemies, chummers, else you risk certain doom.

As always we find that we have access to yet another Sourcebook that is going to stir up a lot of trouble between Runners and Game Masters. So that is why I give Cybermancy a rating of "R" (Game Master discretion is advised.) Sure there are some wiz gadgets and some excellent reading in here but come on, CYBERMANCY?!? If any GM were to incorporate this in a mission as anything other than here-say or armagedon, then I think we all have to sit down and re-evaluate why we began playing this game. Not to take away from another of Tom Dowd's well written and emmensely entertaining books but if this book is not used properly it could contribute to the breakdown of the very game play we struggle to preserve.
H.A.V.O.C.