De Fenestra

Prompted by Friday's birding walk in McFarland Park, in which we spotted and identified our first grasshopper sparrow:

The sparrow grasshopper's name derives from its mottled brown-tan coloration and prodigious size - typically 14-18cm long at full growth. Genetic analysis reveals it to be an Awakened subspecies of the differential grasshopper (Melanoplus differentialis). It is believed to reach this size through consumption of Awakened plant life, which is its preferred (but not exclusive) diet. Its size makes it a target for predators that do not normally eat grasshoppers, including domestic cats and dogs, several species of raptor, and hoop snakes.

The sparrow grasshopper is generally harmless to humans. However, when startled, it takes flight briefly, and swarms along highways have been responsible for several major traffic accidents as they have obscured drivers' vision and confused vehicular sensors. As a dual-natured creature, the sparrow grasshopper has an astral presence, and swarms are vivid on the astral plane.

(Previous: ghost plum, spider peacock, floating ghost carrot.)

Paladin recently reminded me that I purchased the PDF of Shadowrun 5th Edition a while ago and asked me for my opinion.

( Scathing opinion follows. )

No, the other 4e.

I think I've finally put my finger on my problem with Shadowrun 4th Edition. The first three editions, although evolving in both style and flavor as their eras of publication progressed, all shared a common vision of a cyberpunk setting fused with magic. The fourth edition has moved away from cyberpunk in favor of transhumanism, and has replaced much of the cyberpunk look and feel of the tech with a modernized vision. To a certain extent, the seeds of this were present in late 3e (the otaku, the AI metaplots, cybermancy, bioware), but my limited reading of 4e gives me the impression that the difference is much more pronounced after the transition events of System Failure.

Despite the gaming appeal of Eclipse Phase, I'm too much of a bioconservative to truly enjoy or even feel comfortable with an excess of transhumanism. I just can't reconcile that change with the world of Shadowrun. And if I'm playing a cyberpunk game, I want my tech to follow at least some of the genre conventions in looking like the late 1980s' vision of the 21st century.

I also have a separate issue with the FanPro books. It's a tiny flavor thing but one that I find horribly intrusive. The FanPro writers or developers have a habit of using twee handles for the shadow comments in the setting material. All too often, I'll encounter a comment from a Shadowland user whose handle is a perfect conceptual match for his comment. In previous editions, most or all of the commenters had handles that looked like, y'know... handles. Chosen self-identification for a persona rather than a tag for a contextual one-liner.