OK, the complete port of Shadowrun Horror is now complete.

The year is 2072...

Los Angeles is a glittering and decaying ruin. Rising sea levels and changing rain patterns have left the Los Angeles valley partially submerged. The rich have rebuilt and moved to higher ground, leaving hundreds of square kilometers to moulder. The inhabitants of these barrens and sacrifice zones do not officially exist, and their problems do not reach the trid sets of those in the suburbs and arcologies.
But there's something coming. A problem that no one will be able to ignore. You can feel the tension in the air, see the nervousness of the reporters. This town is going to burn. And you're involved.
Someone is trying to cash in. Someone is going to pay you a million nuyen for your involvement. And you don't even know what it is that you're supposed to do...

thepiratebay.org/torrent/4917611

It is 116 full color plates. You'll need 5 standard sheets of heavy cardboard for tokens. You'll need 3 large pieces of sticker paper for the board. You'll need 18 standard sheets of card stock for the Runners, Threats, and Johnsons. And you'll need 44 Legal Sheets of cardstock for the many, many cards.

-Frank

Looks interesting. Have you thought of posting it on www.boardgamegeek.com?

My plan is to print it out when I get back to the US in a few weeks and post it on Boardgame Geek complete with the live action pictures that they like and want over there.

-Frank

Question: why png's in your torrent instead of eon's? Eon's would be smaller, yes? 4 gigs of png's is killing me - I'll get it eventually, but this could take awhile...

Hadanelith said:

Several reasons. The first is that most of the intended audience has never heard of strang eons. But by far the most important reason is that I heaily hacked the program to provide these cards, and the .eon files alone would not generate them on other peoples' computers. For example, here's a Runner:

As you can see, the .eon file alone wouldn't actually make this card, because the game uses different stats. So you'd need to have my custom content loaded into my version of SE to make that work - and I didn't even mod the latest version of SE. And it gets more brutal than that. Technically both the Talismans and the Contraband are "Unique Items." They are different cards because I swapped the picture files of the card backs out for something I made in photoshop. Then after I made .pngs of one, I quit the program, swapped the graphics files out for another set of pictures I made in photoshop, and then I made the second set of graphics files:

In some cases, it's even more exreme. Since the problem tokens have different information on them than a gate token, they aren't produced in SE at all. Problem Tokens were actually made as high resolution .pngs in photoshop to begin with:

Short answer: procedurally generating this material actually took a lot of work and several days even with all the .eons complete. While it will probably take several days to torrent download the completed printable files, you don't actually have to do anything while that's happening. So it actually saves effort for people to be sent the ridiculously large graphics files rather than the slightly more compact .eon files and graphics files needed to generate them.

-Frank

Gotcha. That makes sense. Looking forward to finishing download, and playing - but, no offense, Innsmouth definitely comes first.

Hi there.

I've been looking through all the cards and tokens, it looks amazing. However, I don't seem to see any rules in the download. Could you please let me know where I could find them? Thanks so much for the massive amount of hard work this must have taken. Can't wait to try it out.

placeboeffect said:

Yeah... I'm running into a bit of a problem with that. See, it was my intention to put the rulebook up as a dynamic document elsewhere and link back to it here. And doing that because honestly the edit functions on this board are horrible and I want to keep an updated FAQ as people ask me questions. But for reasons that I don't understand, Fantasy Flight games sent a nasty gram about hosting their copywrited material, so it's locked up until I can get that sorted. Weird, because it's actually for their own fan creations material and they gave me th go ahead for this here. So I don't know what that's about. Like, at all. I think one part of the legal department is not talking to another part of the legal department.

Until I can get the actual rules unfrozen, I'll just post up the rule changes as from the standard Arkham Horror rules here. Because that's still totally OK.

Here's the streamlines on the basic game that should make things run faster:

• The Karma Phase is at the beginning of each turn, not the end, so you don't need a weird quasi turn at the start of the game.

• You Encounter any Enemy at your location during the Encounters phase that you have not already encountered. You do this before continuing with other events in the Encounters phase.

• You may pick up Clues at your location during the Encounters phase at any time, and not during the Movement phase. These two remove the need for the "End of Movement Phase Phase."

• If you fail to Evade an Enemy, you go to the first round of combat normally, there is no special you-get-kicked-in-the-nuts-phase.

So the turn order goes:

1. Karma Phase (draw a Karma Card, this is like a Mythos card)
2. Upkeep (pretty much just like Upkeep).
3. Movement (there are no movement "actions" because there's no outworld movement, so you just get the movement points unless you're delayed in which case you don't)
4. Encounters.

So let's start with the Riots. They work a lot like Rifts, and indeed you pretty much use the Rift rules. Here are the differences (which makes them a bit scarier):

• First, when a Tension marker is drawn and the track it would go on is already full: it is returned to the cup as normal, but an Enemy is drawn and placed on the location indicated.

• Secondly, all Riots have the same color. If they move Black, they move and dump an Enemy. If they move White, they move, dump an Enemy, and raise the Terror level by 1.

• Thirdly, when a Riot Begins, it opens up in the Street Location next to the location of the last Tension Marker that was placed to open it.

• Lastly, it takes 2 movement points to enter an ongoing Riot.

Next, the Terror Track. Again, the Terror Track is more dangerous than it is in the basic game:

• First of all, you'll notice that there are more colored sections on the track. That is because at every even Terror level, something closes. The closed locations are the stable locations with special text in that colored neighborhood. So at 8, you close the stable location with special text in El Infierno, which is Bill's Body Shop. Note: 10 is the hospital. When that closes, Runners who go unconscious are missing in action (LiTaS).

• Secondly, as the Terror track goes on, the Enemy limit in town goes up. Add half the Terror Track (rounded up) to the Los Angeles Enemy Limit.

• Thirdly, when the Terror Track is higher, more Enemies appear in Los Angeles. When a Vendetta (monster surge) occurs, place an extra Enemy for each point the Enemy Limit has been raised. So if the Terror level is 5, the Enemy Limit is three higher and three more Enemies come down every Vendetta. If the Terror Level gets above 5, place an extra Enemy whenever a Problem appears.

Here are the Problems. They are a lot like Gates, but they have some distinct differences:

• There is no Outworld movement and no Outworld Encounter Phase. There's just an Encounter Phase. If you're on a Problem token, you have a Problem Encounter instead of a Location Encounter.

• There are no explored tokens and Problem Tokens do not have closing modifiers on them.

• When you have a Problem Encounter, it may give you a "Problem Solving" option. If you succeed at that, it is equivalent to closing a gate.

Here are the Enemy changes:

• The Enemy abilities "Spirit," "Drone," and "Critter" have no effect. There are other cards that have positive and negative effects on Enemies with those markers.

• Ambush works completely differently. Like Elusive, you must make an Evade check. If you fail the evade check, the Enemy inflicts combat damage and then you go to the first round of combat. If you succeed at the Evade check, you may choose to Evade the Enemy or enter the first round of combat normally.

• At the end of any round of Combat you may attempt an Escape Test. This is your choice of an Evade test or a Speed test, modified by the Enemy's Awareness. If you succeed, Combat is over. If you fail, the next round of combat begins normally.

• The ID damage is listed after the combat damage. This is because the Investigation happens after combat. Furthermore, it only happens if you defeat the Enemy or you are knocked unconscious. If you escape, no investigation.

• If an Aquatic Enemy is placed on a non-aquatic space, it goes to The Sea instead. If it would move and there is no Runner to move onto, it moves to The Sea. The Sea counts as being in Los Angeles.

-Frank

I just finished the download too, and I was also going to ask about the rules. Wow, FFG is being silly on this one, aren't they?

So by request, I'm putting out a PG patch to make less graphic versions of certain cards that some people find disturbing. That'll be released tomorrow.

Currently, alternate art versions of three cards are being made:

• Cranial Bomb
• Muscle Replacement
• Valkyr

If anyone is bothered by any other cards, please tell me now so that alternate art versions of them can be included in the pack.

-Frank

The ickiness patch is out. Since some people find Cranial Bomb to be too much but not Muscle Replacement, I have two versions: one where just Cranial Bomb is replaced and one where both are.

thepiratebay.org/torrent/4946235

While we're at it, I threw in four additional Johnsons. Now you can work for a sports team or a public relations firm. Happy Halloween!

-Frank

Hi Frank,

I tried both torrent link, but none of them worked, do you have any ETA on it?

Once I d/l I would be able to leave it on for some time.

Thanks.

The torrent works actually, the link does not because Fantasy Flight had it taken down. I'm actually super pissed about this, because after checking the legality carefully, it's not a copyright violation, making their nuissance complaints themselves illegal. I rather like Fantasy Flight's products, so I'm going to take the high road and not even demand a Venomfangx apology from them. But I'm also not going to put up any more of my works here.

Bottom line: if you want a copy of the torrent you have to email me and I'll send you one.

ftrollman (at) gmail.com

-Frank

Frank:

I am truly very sorry to hear that. It is really a shame that they are acting that way, it's an stellar piece of fan work. I downloaded it while it was still available and it looks amazing. I haven't had a chance yet to play it because I'm waiting until I can get a quality printing of all the materials. I do have a few questions about some of the rules specifically some of the skill checks and some of the costs (of a hacking program, for example). Would it be alright if I emailed you directly with these questions?

Thanks again for all the hard work, I can't wait to play it. Sorry again for the douchery on FFGs part.

The skill tests of Sneak/Speed/Fight/Caution/Logic/Will are all self explanatory.

• Escape: An Escape test is either a Speed or a Sneak test (you choose). You make it if you want to leave combat after a round of combat. The base modifier is the Enemy's Awareness. If you succeed, combat ends and there is no Investigation. If you fail, the next round of Combat begins.
• Evade: An Evade test is a secondary Sneak test. You make it if you want to not fight an Enemy that is in your location during the Encounters phase or whose location you are leaving during the Movement phase. If you fail, combat begins. If you succeed, you don't fight them and your movement does not end. Elusive Enemies won't fight you unless you make the Evade check (so if you don't want to fight them you can just walk by), and enemies with Ambush will inflict Combat damage before combat begins if you don't succeed (or attempt) the Evade check (if you successfully Evade you may choose to enter normal combat or not).
• Combat: As per normal Arkham Horror. Weapons are Ranged or Melee by and large. A number of Spells and Programs count as neither, but often have additional restrictions about what types of enemies they can and cannot be used on.
• Investigation / Discretion: If you Defeat an Enemy or it knocks you Unconscious, you go to the Investigation. That's a Discretion (secondary to Caution) check. If you fail, you lose the number of ID in the Investigation area on the Enemy token. The modifier is the Blue number to the right of the Enemy's Toughness. If you are Unconscious and the investigation makes you lose enough ID to be Discovered as well, you are Devoured . If the Enemy has Tagged you lose that number of ID even if you pass the Investigation. If an Enemy has Tagged from multiple sources, they stack.
• Hacking: A Hacking test may only be attempted by a Runner who is a Hacker. It is a secondary Logic test. Programs will list the modifier on them. Hacking Programs often have a Signature, which is the number of ID you spend to attempt to activate them (similar to Arkham Sanity Costs). Programs can be used over and over again if you have the ID to spend on it, unless they are exhausted.
• Spellcasting: A Spellcasting test may only be attempted by a Runner who is a Mage. It is a secondary Will test. Magical Spells will list the normal modifier on them, but that modifier gets worse by 1 for every Augmentation your Runner has (lousy Essence loss!). Magical Spells often have a Drain, which is the number of Stamina you spend to activate them (similar to Arkham Sanity Costs). Spells can be used over and over again if you have the Stamina to spend on it, unless they are exhausted.

But yeah, I can answer questions by email as well.

-Frank

Looks absolutely amazing. Mega-kudos to you! How long did the project take from start to finish? And can I ask where the images come from? They all seem so perfect for the game!

I started this project in November and finished it in May. Obviously I could have finished it in less time if I wasn't been going to medical school at the same time, but that's how it goes. Don't think I'm going to be giving up medicine to make board games. But there are probably going to be some additional board games done by me in the future.

The pictures are mostly stuff I found on Google. When you do an image search it gives a bunch of suggestions, and most of them are useless. But you'll see a thing here or there that's perfect for something or other. Oftentimes it won't be something you're currently working on. So 'd just save those that looked like they might come in handy and possibly use them later. There are about six hundred and fifty saved images in my picture folder, and a lot of them didn't end up being used for anything. Another thing that I did was simply bust out photoshop and collage or even draw a bunch of these pictures. Especially the card backs, those are pretty much just me and photoshop. The Contraband cardback symbol is actually just something I drew with a mouse. Some of the Threat cards got modified as well: noone has pictures floating around of Los Angeles on fire with a Wotanic rune stamped on it - so I just photoshopped that stuff onto a photogaph of LA.

-Frank

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

ICANTBELIEVEIT!

I'm a big Shadowrun fan!!!

I must get to play this expansion!!!

...So, how do torrents work?
How can I download it????

I'm not very skilled in P2P, torrents etc...

Torrents work by having a number of people uploading (called "seeds") while other people download and also upload (called "peers"). Because veryone is uploading while downloading, the bandwidth burder isn't super unbearable. You get it working by downloading a torent manager program. I use the one from here:

www.bittorrent.com/

Then there is a Torrent file that is basically a list of what files are supposed to be downloaded and a link to the trackers that organize the peer to peer file transfers. And right now you get THAT by emailing me for a copy:

ftrollman (at) gmail.com

-Frank

So this weekend we playd a couple of games of Shadowrun Horror. So far we're still in the place where we read all the flavor text, so games take quite a while.

First game went against Winternight. The Doom Track got up to 12, the Terror Track hit 6, and the Open Problem limit got hit thre times. And then the sixth Exposé hit the table and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Second game went against the Ghost Cartels. Despite getting a literal turn one Exposé off as the result of sending our Ghoul into a good series of encounters, we ended up going to final battle with only 4 Exposés on the board. In the final battle, only Freddy West the combat mage managed to walk out alive (with a suitcase nuke and a laser).

So it really seems like difficulty is almost exactly where I want it to be.

-Frank