FASA's Rigger 2
by Jonathan Szeto is a solid 176 page soft cover book that includes
an expanded character sheet with vehicle construction sheet, several
pages of tables, a complete list of all SRII vehicles with
Rigger 2 attributes, and the standard FASA index and table
of contents.
First impressions:
Rigger 2 uses the same reliable soft cover
printing style that FASA's been using for years. The art is a functional
mix of FASA's many artists. Several color plates adorn the center of
the book complete with captions and the subject's names. I'm honestly
surprised at how well the many different artistic styles work in this
book. I'm most startled at how much differently Peter Bergting's art
looks now, as compared to his earlier work in
Bug City.
His art still has a very heavy stroke, but it's much cleaner and has
a much greater degree of detail. Until I read the caption, I did not
realize that he had done one of the better color plates. I now have
to retract my statements on Bergting's abilities and say that I will
look forward to his future works, assuming he keeps up the level of
detail he demonstrated in
Rigger 2.
The writing is crisp and easily comprehended, with no detected spelling
or grammatical errors. The editing suffers from some classic FASA
problems. There's a mention in one section that hovercraft take less
damage in crashes and references the appropriate section in the rules;
unfortunately there's no more information on the subject anywhere I've
found. The examples have chronic math errors that make some of the
rules harder to understand than necessary. Worse, several seem to
be ignorant of the rules they are supposed to explain. All I can say
is that I
hope the Shadowrun writers and editors have accountants because there's
no way these people could fill out a 1040 form without a visit from the
IRS.
Content:
Rigger 2, according to the introduction,
originally was intended to be a short fix for the vehicle combat rules
and rapidly expanded until it included a rewrite of electronic warfare,
running drones, and building vehicles from the ground up. Somehow
the focus seemed to shift away from the original goal of clean
vehicle rules and moved to a better way to run drones, but I get ahead
of myself.
Rigger 2 starts with a fairly good intro story and dives
into rigger character creation, both for classic SRII and for the
Companion's point based system. It includes skillweb modifiers,
adjustments to the Gunnery skill, and new concentrations for the Computer,
Electronics, Stealth, and Military Theory skills. It contains
several Edges and Flaws appropriate for riggers and deckers, as well as
a discourse on the difference between the ways riggers and deckers work.
It also provides a rules for all existing cyberware, bioware, and magic
that might have an impact on rigging. Something I appreciate are
vehicle upkeep and maintenance rules that have nothing to do with the
SOTA rules.
The most wide reaching changes are to the basic vehicle attributes.
Functional rules on acceleration, braking, and cargo are the best things
that could have happened to Shadowrun vehicles. I can't count the
number of times a GM has thrown up his hands in exasperation when someone
wanted to accelerate hard or slam on the brakes. They even added rules
on vehicle stress induced by the vicious things that a desperate
shadowrunner will do to his wheels.
A host of new modifiers cover virtually any situation
for vehicles on land, in the air, on water, or even hovering in between.
And yet, despite what appears to be a robust and simple to use base
set of rules, there's this thing called a Maneuver Score. The Maneuver
Score is based on the vehicle, speed, environment, and the driver's
open-ended skill roll. The battling drivers' Maneuver Scores are
compared to create a modifier for the actual skill test. My quick
evaluations resulted in good drivers outperforming bad drivers faster
than they would otherwise. Unfortunately it took several additional
die rolls to do so, probably slowing down gameplay to a greater degree
than the additional pursuit rolls would take. All in all,
I recommend ignoring anything involving the Maneuver Score and just
going straight to the actual driving tests which I found to be fully
functional by themselves, as they include modifiers for environment,
speed, and the vehicle.
Vehicle combat takes a new turn, as
Rigger 2 redefines
the effectiveness of vehicle armor. No longer is the Banshee light
scout vehicle immune to the heaviest munitions on the market. Riggers
on both sides of the fence have just become targets for heavily armed
runners. Dumpshock for riggers is now well defined and means
destroying a single drone can effectively take a rigger out of a fight.
No more hiding behind the walls of a van waiting for the security guards
to run out of ammunition.
The rest of the book is focused intently on the electronic front.
The section on Electronic Warfare include new rules on ECM, ECCM,
Electronic Deception (ED), Electronic Counter Deception (ECD), and
even how to take over or screw up another rigger's drone network.
The rules on Flux (electronic signal strength) are much simpler than
I would have expected and are well threaded into the rest of the
system. They should clear up any questions on how far away a drone
can get before it goes uncontrolled, or what happens if ECM is turned
against a rigger's control deck.
For the lost Battletech or Car Wars fan there is a section of advanced
rules that can be used by rigger-heavy games or by rules-addicted GM's.
I think they sit on the line between an RPG and a vehicle combat game,
but I'm sure many game groups will appreciate their inclusion.
New gear abounds in this book, some of which has been long awaited. The
cranial control deck is an incredibly handy toy, especially when combined
with a signal booster or even an external remote control deck used as
an amplifier. Some new vehicle-only BattleTac subsystems have been
introduced, as well as antivehicle munitions. Even a rigger-free
team can take advantage of the anti-radiation missles and the signal
jamming Jabberwocky warheads to keep irritating drones out of their hair.
Speaking of drones, this book is chock full of them. I've always been
of the mindset that a rigger is a technoshaman that whistles up mechanical
spirits of plastic and steel to do their bidding and
Rigger 2
was obviously written by someone who agrees. Time and time again the
rigger is compared to a conjurer or mage, and it's an image that's been
a long time coming.
The new drones are amazing things that make riggers terrifying agents
of espionage and destruction. Four inch long insect drones can sneak
into secured areas to steal industry secrets, while huge armored
remote piloted tanks equipped with autocannons level buildings. There
are more than enough subsystems and optional add-ons to keep creative
riggers busy for months.
The system has a streamlined set of design rules that make it easy
to build a vehicle from the ground up without worrying about component
costs. Modifying vehicles after creation is thoroughly covered and
allows for rather extensive retrofits. My only real beef with the
construction system is that there are no rules on how to build a
new chassis or powerplant. I always prefer to have a stronger frame
than to load armor onto my vehicles, but there's no longer a way to
reinforce a frame or design a better one.
Evaluation: The book has solid writing and art. It loses points for
poor editing in the examples, something I consider the most important
part of a book. I was also less than pleased by the way the adjusted
vehicle stats were listed in alphabetical order with no regard for
vehicle type. The vehicle creation rules would have been improved
by actually placing the chassis and engine information with the rest
of the components rather than at the back of the book by themselves.
Had they actually got the examples correct I could have overlooked
the arrangement problems, but altogether it was enough to keep this
book from receiving an "Excellent" rating.
The rules are functional but I don't think they were given a
lot of playtesting. Some GM's might be put off by all the extra dice
rolling that has to be done that doesn't seem to make sense or be
necessary. The rules are fairly good otherwise, but as this was
intended to be the focus of the book you'd think this would have
received the most thought and testing. Again, it was enough to
prevent an "Excellent" rating.
I recommend that every GM get a copy of this book, as it will
dramatically improve any vehicle combat situations you have. The
new espionage drones could really add new levels of paranoia to
games and give that "BladeRunner" feel that so many Cyberpunk
players feel that Shadowrun is lacking. Naturally I think
that rigger players will be sweating blood until they get this
supplement in their greasy little hands, but that kind of goes
without saying. All in all, this is a keeper.
Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)
