Short Shadowrun Reviews – Guns and Montreal

A short look at two Shadowrun products, one a crossover product with stats for both 4th and 5th edition, the other an area sourcebook that is easily adaptable to 5th edition though written for 4th:

Gun H(e)aven 3 provides (surprise surprise) more guns for Shadowrun, statted out for both 4th and 5th editions which is useful and also -at times- perplexing.  The weapons are primarily small arms, with one each assault cannon, light machine gun and flame-thrower, many of which are the sorts of weapon that would be found in households, not usually the sort of heat runners would pack but that they might be shot by or be forced to use in bad circumstances.  All of this is useful in the right circumstances.  But what perplexes me about the product is that while it is the same weapon from edition to edition, the availability, cost and legality (!) of many of the guns changes from edition to edition which are part of the same continuity, some explanation would be welcome.

Montreal 2074 as the Republic of Quebec opens for business, Montreal sees a renaissance as corporate money pours in revitalizing the city and providing Shadowrunners with opportunities.  This resource gives some background as to what has happened in Quebec as a whole since the matrix crash 2.0 and what specifically has been going down in Montreal.  It gives a good overview of the city, sketches of the major players in the shadowy underworld and ends with nine contacts appropriate to Montreal (while written for the previous edition, the mechanic of the contacts are the only things that would need to be converted for a 5th edition game).  While there are a variety of implied adventures in the text, some adventure seeds would have been a nice addition.  Overall, a needed resource if you want to run the shadows up Quebec-way even though it could have provided some deeper information beyond the overview for plot hooks and really getting a feel for the shadows of Montreal.

Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.