# Shadowrun Cutting Black Sourcebook Review



## Abstruse (Jan 11, 2020)

Side note: I'll be around editing the podcast for the week so if anyone has any specific questions about the book, feel free to ask!


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## Shawn Dritz (Jan 11, 2020)

Pulling out of the Corporate Accords is a HUGE change in setting, do they say at all about how they make it stick?  
Because can't see the CC just take it laying down.


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## Abstruse (Jan 11, 2020)

Shawn Dritz said:


> Pulling out of the Corporate Accords is a HUGE change in setting, do they say at all about how they make it stick?
> Because can't see the CC just take it laying down.



That's part of the big speculation (did the Big Ten cause the blackouts as punishment and, if so, how did they do it?) and is the main focus of the political chapters. They're all about President Colloton and Ares butting heads, the repealing of the BRA, and the repercussions and PR wars that follow. It's even more of a focus than the invasions by Quebec and the Sioux. What happens with the BRA is kind of the close of that chapter so I didn't want to say whether it stays repealed, gets re-enacted, or if it gets replaced by something else entirely.


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## Ulfgeir (Jan 11, 2020)

Shawn Dritz said:


> Pulling out of the Corporate Accords is a HUGE change in setting, do they say at all about how they make it stick?
> Because can't see the CC just take it laying down.




Another Omega order in the making?  Haven't followed the timeline in quite some time now.


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## Abstruse (Jan 11, 2020)

Ulfgeir said:


> Another Omega order in the making?  Haven't followed the timeline in quite some time now.



Quite possibly. In this case I'm not being coy about spoilers, we don't actually know the details of how the Corporate Court responded outside the PR p***ing match between President Colloton and Ares Macrotechnology. The only thing that's pretty much confirmed is they pressured the United Nations into slow-walking international aid to the UCAS during the blackout crisis.

However, the biggest theory about the _cause _of the blackouts is that the Corporate Court did something. No one's sure what because we don't know what caused the blackouts, but it happened not long after the UCAS repealed the BRA so the timing fits. Or it could've been the NAN doing it since the current working theory is that the blackouts were magical in nature (since there's nothing that indicates a standard EMP even though it had similar effects).

But all of this is conjecture (some of it mine, most of it from Jackpoint) because it's one of those open-ended mysteries for you and your players to explore. How _would _the Corporate Court react? And would they hire your team to do something about it?


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## Umbran (Jan 11, 2020)

Hr.

As you present it, it sounds a step away from dystopia and towards apocalyptic, which is not really what I want out of Shadowrun...


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## Abstruse (Jan 11, 2020)

Umbran said:


> Hr.
> 
> As you present it, it sounds a step away from dystopia and towards apocalyptic, which is not really what I want out of Shadowrun...



Not anymore apocalyptic than any of the previous big events in Shadowrun. Chicago/Bug City, Renraku Archology Shutdown, Year of the Comet, Crash 2.0, or the stuff from before the game even started like the VITAS plagues, Night of Rage, the Great Ghost Dance, the first Crash, the great New York earthquake...not to mention just the Awakening itself. 

The only thing really different about this compared to the others is that it didn't happen the week of Christmas.

But more seriously, the disasters are limited to the UCAS and only the indirect implications affect the rest of the world so this isn't affecting Tokyo, London, Berlin, Beijing, etc. etc. or even neighbors in CAS, NAN, California Free State, Tir Tairngire, or Aztlan all that much.


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## Abstruse (Jan 11, 2020)

Also, there _are _conclusions to all these plotlines. The blackouts don't last forever and infrastructure comes back up in the cities after a while. I just didn't want to spoil too many of the stories explaining when, how, and who gets the power back.

Though the title of the adventure book tied into this event, 30 Nights, kind of gives away how long the blackouts last


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## Stacie GmrGrl (Jan 11, 2020)

Wow, this all sounds like somebody woke up and threw a dart at a "whodowewanttofrag" dart board and the dart landed on UCAS. 

All of this would be better if we actually understood the state of North America as a whole and what the status quo of the many various nations of NA were at before the events of this book. 

I don't think I can remember there being a book in the last ten years that even talks about the Confederated States, or the NAN for that matter.


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## Derren (Jan 11, 2020)

Does the book offer any information about how the repeal of the accords affect running? After all hopping juristictions should now be a thing of the past with KE (and Docwagon) having access to everything in theory etc. Or is this just an announcement and has not happened yet?

But I have to agree with Umbran. Much too apocalyptic for my taste. Even if only temporary I do not like "world shattering events" all that much in Shadowrun. Yes, System Failure was imo nice, but I rather just have normal chaos like a stock market crash than such superdisaster.


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## Abstruse (Jan 11, 2020)

Derren said:


> Does the book offer any information about how the repeal of the accords affect running? After all hopping juristictions should now be a thing of the past with KE (and Docwagon) having access to everything in theory etc. Or is this just an announcement and has not happened yet?



No, it happens. They make a point of saying how fast it happens too, by Washington DC standards anyway.

They do talk about how it affects Knight Errant and, to a lesser extent, DocWagon and Lone Star. The short version is that KE has a kill clause in their contracts and executed it, meaning they pulled out in very short order from every UCAS city they had a contract with. Lone Star stepped in to pick up the slack and get back quite a few contracts they'd lost to KE over the recent years and there was some last-minute negotiating between some cities and Ares directly to keep their contracts active. DocWagon said they'd still honor their contracts but with caveats. I mean why wouldn't they? Every extraction from a city affected by the blackouts was considered an HRT so they raked in millions from that alone.


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## Abstruse (Jan 11, 2020)

Stacie GmrGrl said:


> Wow, this all sounds like somebody woke up and threw a dart at a "whodowewanttofrag" dart board and the dart landed on UCAS.
> 
> All of this would be better if we actually understood the state of North America as a whole and what the status quo of the many various nations of NA were at before the events of this book.
> 
> I don't think I can remember there being a book in the last ten years that even talks about the Confederated States, or the NAN for that matter.



Neo-Anarchist Streetpedia is basically the "Do you need to catch up on Shadowrun lore?" sourcebook. A lot of short entries on various locations (and NPCs and corporations and organized crime groups and big events and etc. etc.) that act to bring people who are brand new to the setting up to speed or to just give updates on what happened to people who may have skipped an edition or two. As far as I remember, there's nothing actually new in the book, it just brings all the little changes here and there over the last couple decades into one place so you don't have to go hunting down an obscure 4e sourcebook or 5e Missions adventure to learn what happened to a location. That said, the entries are limited to a couple paragraphs each, so if you do want more detailed information, you have to go digging.


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## Mercador (Jan 11, 2020)

There's a section on my city? Color me curious


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## Derren (Jan 12, 2020)

Abstruse said:


> No, it happens. They make a point of saying how fast it happens too, by Washington DC standards anyway.
> 
> They do talk about how it affects Knight Errant and, to a lesser extent, DocWagon and Lone Star. The short version is that KE has a kill clause in their contracts and executed it, meaning they pulled out in very short order from every UCAS city they had a contract with. Lone Star stepped in to pick up the slack and get back quite a few contracts they'd lost to KE over the recent years and there was some last-minute negotiating between some cities and Ares directly to keep their contracts active. DocWagon said they'd still honor their contracts but with caveats. I mean why wouldn't they? Every extraction from a city affected by the blackouts was considered an HRT so they raked in millions from that alone.




What I meant is that now DocWagon would technically be allowed to extract Runners from everywhere, even from inside corporation compounds, and using force if necessary. And Lone Star/KE would have jurisdiction everywhere, even in the local Aztechnology HQ.

That changes the dynamics of the setting a lot and I don't get the feeling that this decision was well thought out.

And imo there have been too many disaster recently anyway. The UCAS is basically half destroyed by now.
Chicago: Still recovering from the second bug business
Boston: Quarantined because of CFD
Didn't the closing of the rift not also do a number on Washington?
And now St Louis, Seattle and Detroit are lost.

Its a bit much, especially for the limited timeframe in which this is happening.


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## Abstruse (Jan 12, 2020)

Derren said:


> What I meant is that now DocWagon would technically be allowed to extract Runners from everywhere, even from inside corporation compounds, and using force if necessary. And Lone Star/KE would have jurisdiction everywhere, even in the local Aztechnology HQ.
> 
> That changes the dynamics of the setting a lot and I don't get the feeling that this decision was well thought out.



Yeah, those concerns are addressed. Here and there KE takes advantage of it to take a peek around other corps' facilities while "in pursuit of a suspect", but they do their best not to step on anyone's toes too much lest they piss off the other AAAs more than UCAS has.

But trust me, I've been playing the game since 1991. I own somewhere around 2/3 of all the books ever printed in physical copies and the rest digitally. In my opinion, they did a good job balancing between breaking UCAS and making it unplayable by the end of the book. The blackouts only last about a month and the book takes place over the course of almost an entire year so there's plenty of time to rebuild, and enough of the status quo is returned overall that, while everything has changed, it's not unrecognizable. The UCAS still exists and is still the UCAS, there's just less of it and a lot of their hubris has been stripped from them.


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## Umbran (Jan 12, 2020)

Abstruse said:


> Not anymore apocalyptic than any of the previous big events in Shadowrun. Chicago/Bug City, Renraku Archology Shutdown, Year of the Comet, Crash 2.0, or the stuff from before the game even started like the VITAS plagues, Night of Rage, the Great Ghost Dance, the first Crash, the great New York earthquake...not to mention just the Awakening itself.




VITAS, the Night of Rage, the Great Ghost Dance, the Awakening, those are all pre-game for everyone.  Yes, lots of folks are hurt.  They bring about the dystopia.  For our heroes, the world is dystopian, not post-apocalyptic.

Renraku arclogy shutdown was local to it.  Chicago/Bug city, also effectively local to one city.  Crash 2.0 gave rise to... a world in most ways the same as before - largely because it was an excuse to bet Shadowrun technologically up to date.  

This sounds like it basically throws an entire nation into the dumpster, into conditions that are post-apocalyptic.



> But more seriously, the disasters are limited to the UCAS and only the indirect implications affect the rest of the world so this isn't affecting Tokyo, London, Berlin, Beijing, etc. etc. or even neighbors in CAS, NAN, California Free State, Tir Tairngire, or Aztlan all that much.




Yeah, well, everyone I know (which, admittedly, isn't a representative sample) is used to playing... in the UCAS.  Those other places were where we went for visits to show a bit of something exotic, or a comparison to the PCs normal lives, or as a source of invading antagonists.  The thing we are used to just got tanked. 

This is always a potential issue with game metaplot - while you want to keep things fresh, if you change the world too much, or in the wrong way, there's folks who are going to decide you went too far.  They did a major rewrite of the world sociopolitics, and that was a thing I was not looking for them to do. Unfortunately, it basically means that all the setting materials published from this point on... I am apt to avoid.  Given that published modules often grounded in the world plots, I am apt to avoid them too... and thus possibly avoid the 6th edition overall.

You posted a review.  I'm giving some feedback based on it.  I'm not looking for you to defend the work, or convince me.  Your review of the work has pretty much done that.


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## Stacie GmrGrl (Jan 12, 2020)

What does this mean for Seattle, now that the UCAS has been fragged into a near apocalyptic hole and Seattle was part of the UCAS?


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## zhivik (Jan 12, 2020)

Stacie GmrGrl said:


> What does this mean for Seattle, now that the UCAS has been fragged into a near apocalyptic hole and Seattle was part of the UCAS?




I guess Seattle will have to do on its own, though this particular development was heavily hinted in various 5e books, and it was a matter of time before Seattle seceded. I suppose they will rely on heavy corporate presence as counter balance to the surrounding NAN states, something similar to Hong Kong. Who knows, they might even get a megacorp move its HQ to Seattle, as I expect Seattle still honours the BRA.

I guess a major shakeup was necessary, but I do long for a proper wiki for the Shadowrun universe, especially after so many events take place in adventure books, rather than setting ones. I guess the Neo-Anarchist Streetpedia will have to do until something better comes up.


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## Abstruse (Jan 12, 2020)

Stacie GmrGrl said:


> What does this mean for Seattle, now that the UCAS has been fragged into a near apocalyptic hole and Seattle was part of the UCAS?





zhivik said:


> I guess Seattle will have to do on its own, though this particular development was heavily hinted in various 5e books, and it was a matter of time before Seattle seceded. I suppose they will rely on heavy corporate presence as counter balance to the surrounding NAN states, something similar to Hong Kong.



Pretty much exactly this. Seattle ends up a Free City, but the method it does so is pretty interesting and a clever little plot. There's a digital-only adventure called Free Seattle that came out a couple months ago about that as well, but I don't have a copy of that so I'm not sure exactly how it ties into the overall events aside from the obvious. But Seattle pretty much wraps itself in allies nearby (including a few very surprising ones) before making its move for independence as the entire mess of late 2080/early 2081 was the...I don't want to say "straw the broke the camel's back" but more like a massive 2x4 thrown onto the pile of other reasons that made it a pretty unanimous decision.


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## Derren (Jan 20, 2020)

By the way, while I do not have the book I read several summaries and the point which sounded the most un-cyberpunk like, the repeal of the accords, is not as setting disruptive as it sounds at first.


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## zhivik (Jan 21, 2020)

Derren said:


> By the way, while I do not have the book I read several summaries and the point which sounded the most un-cyberpunk like, the repeal of the accords, is not as setting disruptive as it sounds at first.




The Shadowrun universe has always had countries that never recognised the BRAs - the NAN come to mind, as well as Manchuria and Amazonia, among others. As far as the UCAS and the BRAs are concerned, the story is not disruptive to lore at all and is a (relatively) logical reaction to events in the book.

Speaking of the book, it is pretty decent for a plot book, just don't expect any crunch. There are a couple of stats at the end, but it's nothing in comparison to the remaining content. I agree that splitting some of the events into completely separate sections outside the many storyline was not a good decision, as it brings only confusion at first reading.

There are plenty of story hooks, though it does feel a little bit repetitive at some point, particularly with events in Detroit, which resemble a lot the Chicago storyline in previous editions. There is also potentially a new metatype emerging (if you can even call it a metatype), which is not bad on its own, but I get the feeling that a lot of new species have appeared lately and the setting is becoming bloated. I liked how events around Seattle (and by extension, St Louis) were handled, as the emergence of a potentially big player is intriguing. Redrawing some North American borders is also intriguing, though it is not that considerable as it may seem at first (the UCAS is still there at the end, just not quite a super power anymore).

Overall, consider this book as a setup to more storylines in the Shadowrun universe to come. There are plenty of plot hooks that remain unresolved, but I guess it was the intent from the very beginning. I'd compare it to _Storm Front_ and I agree that this book would have made more sense as wrapping up Shadowrun 5h edition, rather than opening 6th edition.


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## Derren (Jan 21, 2020)

zhivik said:


> The Shadowrun universe has always had countries that never recognised the BRAs - the NAN come to mind, as well as Manchuria and Amazonia, among others. As far as the UCAS and the BRAs are concerned, the story is not disruptive to lore at all and is a (relatively) logical reaction to events in the book.
> 
> Speaking of the book, it is pretty decent for a plot book, just don't expect any crunch. There are a couple of stats at the end, but it's nothing in comparison to the remaining content. I agree that splitting some of the events into completely separate sections outside the many storyline was not a good decision, as it brings only confusion at first reading.
> 
> ...



As far as I am aware it was supposed to be another Stormfront but got delayed because of reasons.

What other metatype?


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## zhivik (Jan 21, 2020)

Derren said:


> As far as I am aware it was supposed to be another Stormfront but got delayed because of reasons.
> 
> What other metatype?




It is not technically a metatype, and it is a relatively big spoiler, so you've been warned.



Spoiler



Ares has been experimenting with insect spirits, trying to make them receive orders and create super soldiers to fight the rest. As expected, the experiment doesn't go exactly as planned. One of the insect spirit modifications seems to have developed empathy, which is why one of the senior researchers decides voluntarily to merge with it, creating a new type of being, a human/insect spirit hybrid. These are called Betas, as a monicker for being an offshoot from the main project goal.

Unsuccessful experiments who are still capable to fight are called Alphas, but they are too unruly and attack anything in sight, which is why Ares's plan to eradicate insect spirits in Detroit fails spectacularly. At some point, Betas join the local resistance, led by a rogue Ares faction - the original Firewatch, who fought insect spirits in Chicago, and help them eventually defeat both the insect spirit hive and Ares's remaining forces. One of the Betas even appears on Jackpoint, becoming another shadowrunner of sorts.

So to wrap up, not technically a new metatype, but a new critter option regardless, much like CFD.


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## Derren (Jan 21, 2020)

zhivik said:


> It is not technically a metatype, and it is a relatively big spoiler, so you've been warned.



I suspected that you meant them but wasn't sure.

But I doubt that they will become a player option (which is what I understand as new metatype), at least not before they bring out playable HMHVV victims and metavariants. Most likely they come even after surged, metasapient and possibly drakes.


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