April 26, 2012: Shadowrun Update (And Apology To Catalyst!)

The Shadowrun Returns project on Kickstarter is coming down to the last few days. It's doing brilliantly: more than 30,000 supporters, more than $1.5 million raised! But if you have not supported yet, go over there and support, because they sure make it worth your while.

The phrasing of my last Shadowrun report could have been taken to mean that the paper RPG had completely vanished from the shelves and/or that the current publisher had issues. No! I did not mean that, but for my bad choice of words, I still owe an apology to Catalyst Game Labs, who picked up the Shadowrun torch and kept it lit. We like Catalyst around here (I have a Leviathans ship over my monitor).

And I have another Shadowrun story to tell. Many years ago, at a convention, we were talking about our favorite cyberpunk books. I said that I'd read very few c-punk novels that could stand with Gibson's Neuromancer, and never, ever anything better. Someone responded "I didn't even finish that one. It's just Shadowrun without the orcs." The rest of us rose up as one, and . . . well, the body will never be found.

-- Steve Jackson