By Brett Sanger [ swiftone@dumpshock.com ]

Gencon 1998 brought the world of Shadowrun players Third Edition. It promised cleaner, more consistent rules and a revitalization of the game with a focus on new players. The three years since have indeed brought us cleaner, more consistent rules. The revitalization is debatable: There was a focus on new players in the material, but precious little driving force in the game line. Metagame slowed to a crawl, and releasing the third editions of the core books took three years. FASA dropped out of the production business and sold Shadowrun to WizKids. WizKids in turn licensed out Shadowrun to FanPro, who had been publishing the German language version of Shadowrun. FanPro then hired Rob Boyle to head up FanPro LLC, based in Chicago.

This Gencon brought us Year of the Comet, which was written in the FASA days, but was processed by FanPro LLC before release. Similarly, the next few products expected to come out (Target: Awakened Lands, Threats 2, Shadows of North America) all had some to all of their writing done under FASA leadership. It will be 2002 before we see material that is FanPro LLC from start to finish.

In the meantime, we can judge the new leadership by their other efforts. I was always a vocal advocate of a stronger Internet presence for FASA. FanPro has already rolled out a new Shadowrun website ( http://www.shadowrunrpg.com ) and has made at least basic efforts to put out errata and product schedule information. (Disclaimer: TSS editor and founder Adam Jury has been tapped as the Shadowrun webmaster.) It remains to be seen if FanPro can better FASA's 6-8 month email response time, or if they can keep their updates timely.

Advice for FanPro LLC

In the spirit of optimism, I am including a list of the top ten improvements that could be made based
on my experiences with FASA. If you have suggestions or comments, send them to me at swiftone@dumpshock.com, and I may include them in a future article.

Of all my reviews for The Shadowrun Supplemental, my review of Rigger 2 received the most criticism. I proclaimed that Rigger 2 had brought the rigger into the realm of the playable character.

In retrospect, I have to admit I was wrong. Rigger 2 did provide rules for the rigger, but those rules didn't mesh with the non-rigging rules well. The basics of Rigger 2 were incorporated into the Third Edition rules, though toned down to cause less interference.

Reflecting on all of this, I was concerned that Rigger 3 would again mire the vehicle rules in multiple tests for every action. I am pleased to announce that, by and large, this is not the case. Rigger 3 does have a lot of gearhead information, but it also does a good job of providing basic setting information for the average campaign.

The classics from Rigger 2 are included: Robots, security riggers, MIJI. The book begins, however, with a good look at the average streets of Seattle. Everything from the Grid to license plates is covered. This information, though simple, is incredibly valuable to GMs and players alike for getting a feel of how things work and what is possible.

Sections also exist mostly the rigger characters: Electronic Warfare, Drones, Security Riggers, Ships and Subs, Special Rules, Advanced Rules (read: Optional rules), Toys, and Customization. Most of this information is very similar to that given in Rigger 2 or Cyberpirates, with some of the vague areas better defined. It is refreshing to have a sequel written (at least in part) by the same author, particularly one who has been as available to the community as Mr. Szeto. This allows actual common questions and confusion to be addressed.

As a fan of submarine movies and books, I was disappointed in the Ships and Subs section. While the rules for sonar and torpedoes are covered, one would be hard pressed to run Red October 2062 using the material in here alone. The long-sought (by some) ship and submarine construction rules are included.

Two additions I did find particularly pleasing were the optional "vehicles in standard initiative rules" and the "Similar Models" listings. The former allows for better meshing of riggers and the rest of the party, although it does toss aside most of the rigging rules.

The latter is included in the vehicle lists (which, pleasingly, are listed by vehicle type and not by manufacturer, unlike Rigger 2.) For example, the familiar BMW Blitzen is now functionally the same as the Yamaha Sprint, the Honda Banshee, and the Harley-Davidson Diablo. This one small addition allows for increased diversity and color to the setting without adding rules complexity.

The book includes no index, and is woefully short of vehicle illustrations, but even this is somewhat forgivable for the amount of material packed into the book.

Rigger 3 is a worthy successor to Rigger 2. The gearheads of the group should spend happy hours designing new vehicles or customizing existing ones, and everyone else will appreciate knowing how the Grid works and what to do when traffic cameras catch them fleeing the scene of a run. Even a group without a rigger should find Rigger 3 a worthwhile investment.

This review contains no "spoiler" information about Year of the Comet that is not included on the back cover, but it does contain information about previous Shadowrun products. If you are playing in a campaign that might use previous products as "new" events, or if you are trying to minimize your knowledge of this product, you should not read this review.

Originally slated to make an appearance at Origins 2000, Year of the Comet (YOTC) has had a long path to travel before finally appearing in the hands of eager players. With the Shadowrun timeline now set at roughly realtime+60 years (it was 61 years during FASA's time) YOTC can now appear to be on time. Was it worth the wait?

Shadowrun has always been a game with a strong emphasis on metagame. Your characters may be trying to scrape by in their corner of the sprawl, but the world is a big and active place; events happen outside of the characters' control, and they have a very real chance of affecting the character. First Edition had the Universal Brotherhood. Second Edition had the concept of Horrors (from Earthdawn, but hinted at since First Edition), Bug City, the UCAS presidential election, the
Mob war, Dunklezahn's will, the shake up amongst the megacorporations, the Voodoo War. Third Edition had the Arcology, but little else in the way of metaplot.

Year of the Comet is a return to the Second Edition style of metagame information. In the vein of Blood in the Boardroom, it is a timeline of events covering slightly more than a year (16 months). Unlike Blood in the Boardroom, it is not a series of "tracks" that include several adventures. It more resembles Portfolio of a Dragon as a description of the fallout of several events.

YOTC covers nine events that are all somewhat related to one central theme: Halley's comet is making the regular fly-by that it does every 76 years or so, but this time it's flying by an Earth that is Awakened, and it's doing so in the fiftieth anniversary of the Awakening. The global emotional response to these events can mean just about anything where magic is concerned.

The nine events covered include genetic changelings, the rise in power of some peculiar cults, the arrival of a new Great Dragon, the fallout of trouble in Japan, (continued, but eventful) rebellion in the Yucatan, and some new magical threats. The events are spaced out in time such that they can be integrated with a normal campaign, but their global scope means that in all but the most unusual campaigns many of the items will merely be blips on the news screamsheets.

Nothing in these events should unduly alter game balance. This is not a collection of rules, but a collection of events. The rules section consists of 23 pages, including a useful one-page timeline, a few pages of new critters, a page of short adventure ideas, and GM advice for using and running the events described in the rest of the book.

The book itself is all done as Shadowtalk-style in character discussion (aside from the rules section). Because the nine sections cover overlapping time periods, and some sections cover events that evolve over the 16 months, the first time through can be somewhat disorienting. In particular there is some evidence that the sections were rearranged in editing, because several of the earlier sections refer to the events of a later section. GMs would be well-advised to read the entirety before use, and to take notes. Without revealing the events, GMs of games in the following areas should pay particular interest to this book: Denver, Phillipines, Cal Free State, Japan, Aztlan. Some
events cover the globe, so this is not an exhaustive list.

As a metagame book, players will find little to interest them (or perhaps, much that interests them but little for their characters to use). Reading any of the book will reveal major plot elements, and there are no spells or gear introduced. This book has less for the player than Portfolio of the Dragon did. Dunklezahn's will was public information that the characters could access; there is nothing for characters in YOTC.

Year of the Comet is a revival of the Shadowrun metagame, and a fairly interesting one. It is hurt not by the GM-only value (which is better than mix that hurts both groups), but by the number of events that won't beused in most campaigns. However, this harm is minor. Any Shadowrun GM reading this should walk away bubbling with ideas of elements to drop into their game.

Stephen Kenson returns to the Shadowrun novels, giving us another account of the life and times of Talon and his team. They're in their home town of Boston, and they've got their own problems to deal with, while some of the Year of the Comet events complicate their lives further.

That summarizes the best and the worst of this novel. Unlike Ragnarock (the second Talon novel), The Burning Time is very much a sequel to Crossroads (the first Talon novel). With two previous books behind them, the characters are well-developed, and in familiar turf there is little that is new and interesting. Further character development does happen, but is more limited. So where Crossroads was a great introduction to the Boston Sprawl, with interesting characters, The Burning Time is just a revisit with none of the freshness that made the original so captivating.

Perhaps most disappointing was the back cover blurb and the first two chapters. There we deal with non-shadowrunners intersecting the shadows. In those chapters, though short, I was hooked to the writing and the characters. Thus, when they were relegated to minor parts and the focus turned to Talon and company, I was disappointed.

That disappointment aside, The Burning Time is an excellent view into how the public of the Sixth World will react to some of the events of Year of the Comet - far better than Tails you Lose, which also refers to Year of the Comet. (Tails You Lose refers to events that aren't fully covered in Year of the Comet, perhaps a side effect to being written long before Year of the Comet was finalized.) Players are advised to delay reading this novel until the GM takes them through the events that Year of the Comet lists up to New Year's Day, 2062.

The Burning Time is far better than many Shadowrun novels. The writing is average and the characters detailed, but the plot is weak and feels like Crossroads warmed over. If Mr. Kenson ever feels like taking the first two chapters and going in a totally different direction, I'd be the first to pay to see the results.