http://www.teilzeithelden.de/2015/06/15/rezension-shadowrun-5-bullets-bandages-es-wird-blutig/

Die kleinen, als eBooks veröffentlichten Werke von CGL zu Shadowrun sollen spielbare Optionen zu den Kernregeln bieten. Und mit Bullets & Bandages geht es um Möglichkeiten, die Charaktere mehr leiden zu lassen, oder sie besser zu heilen. Es stellt sich die Frage, ob das am Ende jeder Spielrunde gefallen wird.

Rezension: Shadowrun 5 - Bullets & Bandages - Es wird blutig

Bereits seit einer ganzen Reihe von Jahren veröffentlicht Catalyst Game Labs für Shadowrun regelmäßig kompakte Publikationen als PDF. So eine ist Bullets & Bandages, das bereits Mitte 2014 erschien und unlängst auch von Pegasus als deutsche Version unter dem Titel Kugeln & Bandagen erhältlich ist – als PDF und auch als Teil des Schattenhandbuch 2. Für diese Rezension liegt mir aktuell nur die englische Version vor.

In den 23 Seiten geht es im weitesten Sinne um Medizin und Mediziner in der Sechsten Welt. Dabei werde eine Reihe von Erklärungen und Ergänzungen zum Grundregelwerk vorgestellt, die es Spieler wie Spielleiter ermöglichen sollen, Charaktere mit einem entsprechenden Schwerpunkt einzubringen. CGL nennt diese Regeln allerdings „nicht offiziell“ und will diese eigenen Angaben nach nicht in zukünftigen Publikationen verwenden.

Alle regelrelevanten Angaben in dem Dokument beziehen sich immer auf die 5. wie auch die 4. (20th Anniversary) Edition von Shadowrun.

Inhalt Wie gewohnt beginnt das Heft mit einer thematisch passenden Kurzgeschichte. Das anschließende Kapitel über die Grundlagen der Feldmedizin ist Teil der Ansprache eines Offiziers von DocWagon, der damit Neuzugänge zu einem HTR Training begrüßt. HTR steht dabei für High Threat Response, was soviel wie „Einsatz unter hoher Gefahr“. Dementsprechend wird hier die Zusammensetzung eines HTR-Teams behandelt, wie auch die Anforderungen an das medizinische und taktische Können der Mitglieder. Wie bei Shadowrun gewohnt, wird der Text immer mal wieder durch sogenannten Shadowtalk – also Kommentaren von Lesern aus der Schattenszene – aufgelockert und erweitert.

Das nächste Kapitel befasst sich mit den Besonderheiten bei der Erschaffung eines Charakters, der ein Team von Shadowrunnern als Rettungssanitäter oder Notarzt begleiten soll. Dabei werden nicht nur Hinweise zur Nutzung der Regeln aus dem Grundregelwerk gegeben, sondern diese auch mit neuen Vor- und Nachteilen erweitert. Besonders die Nachteile können allerdings jede Kampagne bereichern, findet man dort zum Beispiel „Aged“ (dt. Betagt) oder auch „Pregnant“ (dt. Schwanger).

Anschließend werden im Kapitel „Advanced Biotech Rules“ erweiterte Regeln für die Nutzung der Fertigkeit Biotech vorgestellt, wie auch alternative Schadens- und Heilungsregeln, wie z. B. unbehandelten Schaden wachsen zu lassen. Das ganze macht Kämpfe deutlich tödlicher, ist aber sicherlich eine gern genommene Option für die „RealismusPlausibilitäts-Fraktion“. Interessant sind auch erweiterte Regeln zur Verwundung von intelligenten Heilungssystemen, wie z.B. dem Medkit und technisch noch aufwendigeren Geräten. Diese können optional als Drohnen verwendet werden.

Der letzte Teil erweitert das Repertoire von Drogen (6), Toxinen (4) und Pathogenen (3), sowie Zaubern (2), Adeptenkräften (3) und Ausrüstung (Biotech, Panzerungsoptionen und Drohnen). Tatsächlich sind einige dieser Dinge erst in Kombination mit den optionalen Regeln aus Bullets & Bandages nützlich oder sinnvoll, andere wiederum sind auch völlig unabhängig von den restlichen Regeln eine spannende Erweiterung für Spielrunden.

Preis-/Leistungsverhältnis Das Dokument ist bei DriveThruRPG für 4,95 USD und damit am untersten Ende des üblichen Preisbereiches für dünne SR5 PDFs. Dazu bekommt man ein wenig Fluff und eine Menge Crunch für seine Runden. Will man sich allerdings nicht auf die optionalen Regeln einlassen, fällt der verwertbare Inhalt allerdings schon etwas dünner aus. Dennoch hat man am Ende ein angemessenes Preis-/Leistungsverhältnis.

Erscheinungsbild Die Optik ist durchweg hochwertig und im für die 5. Edition üblichen Design gehalten. Das PDF verfügt über eine Kapitelnavigation, allerdings keine Textlinks. Letzteres ist bei dem überschaubaren Umfang nun aber auch nicht zwingend erforderlich. Von dem Titelbild einmal abgesehen gibt es genau drei Zeichnungen in dem Dokument – zwei Szenen und ein Ausrüstungsgegenstand. Alle drei sind solide und anschaulich, mehr aber auch nicht. Der Text ist in übersichtliche Abschnitte gegliedert und immer mal wieder durch Tabellen oder Infoboxen unterbrochen und lässt sich deshalb leicht lesen. Einzig die Angaben in Querverweisen zu Quellenbüchern stören etwas. Diese sind in der Regel doppelt (für beide Editionen) und manchmal auch nicht, was verwirrend sein kann, wenn man nicht alle Publikationen der beiden Editionen kennt und den Verweis dementsprechend nicht ohne weiteres zuordnen kann.

Bonus/Downloadcontent Keiner.

Fazit Bullets & Bandages ist eine ordentliche und saubere Arbeit, die eine Menge Möglichkeiten für eine Spielrunde bietet.

Die gelieferten Zusatzregeln allerdings beschweren ein ohnehin schon schwergewichtiges Rollenspiel und nicht jede Spielrunde wird weitere Proben und Würfe wollen. Auch wenn vieles plausibel erscheint wird eine Rollenspielrunde mit dem Fokus auf das Erzählspiel vermutlich nichts davon verwenden. Damit fallen auch ein paar der davon abhängigen weiteren Neuerungen weg, was den Gesamtwert des Werkes in etwa um 30% reduziert.

Der Hintergrund zu DocWagon oder der Charaktererschaffung sind dagegen auch für Runden hilfreich, die ansonsten bereits mit dem Grundregelwerk glücklich sind. Die Nachteile Aged und Pregnant haben es mir besonders angetan und ich kann es nicht erwarten, gealterte oder schwangere Figuren an meinem Tisch zu haben – aber besser nicht beides in einer Person. Auch die neuen Zauber oder Kräfte – einige kennt man schon aus früheren Editionen – sind unabhängig von dem Schwerpunkt des PDFs bereichernd.

The content is great and for a homebrew campaign (I.e., NOT MISSIONS) it's great. Lots of cool toys for someone playing the Medic role. But there is a serious, serious downside. I understand that this book and its contents will not be Missions legal. That means not for use in any of the living campaign settings at various conventions. Why you would make such a book, fill it with great new content and then now allow it in the convention missions is beyond me and beyond frustrating. Considering I go to several conventions specifically to play Missions setting games this is a sad, sad development. Should this book be allowed, the rating will go up as a result.

I may reconsider my future purchases of Shadowrun books as a result of this development.

‘Bullets & Bandages’ could be the title of most of my Shadowrun campaigns, but it is nice to have a book specifically dedicated to healing and healers for the Sixth World. Even with SR2 books like ‘Missions’ the role of DocWagon, their tactics, and composition have always been a little hazy which is a shame considering how much potential this organisation has to impact any campaign. Likewise, there is a lot material in this book for those with a medical bent, as well as for the GM, so it’s equally useful on both sides of the screen (and at this price, it’s affordable for every interested player/GM to have a copy). The writing is solid, from the opening fiction to introductory corporate training piece from a DocWagon instructor, to the rules mechanics which make up the lion’s share of the book.
You’ll find new equipment, spells, Adept powers, toxins, medicines and drones – all useful kit for runners interested in staying alive long enough to collect their nuyen at the end of the run. The Qualities are extremely average, and even unnecessary (Did we need the Negative Quality ‘Pregnant’ with accompanying rules? Could we have left this story element to house-ruling? I’d argue that there are better ways to treat the issue) but there is nothing completely unusable about them.
Overall, the book represents good value for good content, and this is a welcome addition to my Shadowrun books. The value is also increased by the addition of dual-statted SR4 and SR5 rules references, so fans of both editions have a reason to pick it up.

Compared to the previous underachievers released from Catalyst Game Labs i.e." Stolen Souls"..what we have here is a good basic and solid book that covers a somewhat forgotten area of shadowrun..getting shot. It usually you take damage and bring out the nebulous medkit or stimpatch and voila your back in the game. I like having information that covers this part of the game and speaking as a real life medical lab technician, I kinda like to have this sort of information at hand not to mention it complements well doing the whole extraction deal so now we can actually do something this aspect of the game. I am usually hard and rightfully so for catalyst game labs for there fluff fill and maybe a little useful information at the end of the book, but on this one catalyst finally got it right and I would recommend this e-book even thou be warned the information in this book is considered unofficial where the game conventions are concerned,,none the less I would recommend this e-book for the price as a buy for any player or gm alike for 4th or 5th edition shadowrun

Originally posted at: http://diehardgamefan.com/2014/06/06/tabletop-review-shadowrun-bullets-bandages/

It’s about time DocWagon had the spotlight thrust on it, don’t you think. I’ve played a DocWagon character back in the FASA days of Shadowrun. He was a purely defensive character and the other players grew to love having the equivalent of a D&D cleric on the team. Heck, when my rabbit was sick for over a year with a mystery disease, someone over at Harebrained Schemes (creators of Shadowrun Returns), made him his own DocWagon Platinum card which is still really sweet. Now, we have a supplement for both Fourth and Fifth Edition entitled Bullets & Bandages which gives a modern take on a pure medic character. Everything old is new again!

I’m glad that Bullets & Bandages is designed for the two most recent versions of Shadowrun as it allows more of an audience to make use of this little supplement. Speaking of supplements, this is the first I can remember referred to as “Shadowrun Options.” Now what this means, is that everything in Bullets & Bandages, from the mechanics to the new abilities are NOT not considered official rules. This is a bit odd. Usually it’s third party releases for games that’s aren’t considered canon rules and the like for a system. This is the first I can think of where a first party publisher released something that it’s canon or official and I’m trying to figure out how and why this was released. After all the supplement clearly states, “They will not be used in official products, Missions, or allowed in tournament play.” This of course means you will never see or hear from this piece again making this a truly odd piece indeed since Shadowrun releases LOVE to cross-reference each other. Like I said, I can’t fathom why this was released if CGL is essentially saying, “Well, WE will never use it, but you can.” That really reduces the potential target market for B&B, but makes it no less interesting as a curiosity piece.

Bullets & Bandages starts off in the usual manner – with a piece of JackPoint fiction. You get a nice look at a “Welcome to DocWagon” speech by one David Hill. I found this amusing because of course, David Hill is a writer for multiple RPGs (best known for World of Darkness I would think) and has even contributed to Shadowrun in the past. I’m not sure if this was an intentional in-joke or just a happy coincidence, but there you go. Anyway, the speech takes a look at what a DocWagon employee must go through, and is interspersed with commentary from the runner community at JackPoint. The fiction piece is really well done and it’s a fantastic look at the AA Corp. It’s also been a long time coming.

The rest of the piece (from page 9 through Page 23) are all new mechanics. Fourteen pages of new mechanics just for medics does seem a bit odd and perhaps overdone, which may be why CGL made B&B completely optional. After all, Shadowrun does take the occasional flak for being too mechanics heavy as is. There’s no real reason to add a metric ton of new mechanics when the much lighter version of medicine and healing works just fine. I have to admit I personally wouldn’t some of the rules in this piece, as they are very pedantic, reeks of overkill and will definitely stymie newcomers who are probably overwhelmed by the amount of mechanics the Sixth World is filled with but there are some that might want to use these, so let’s take a look at them.

The mechanics half of B&B starts off with some fantastic advice on “Building a Medic Character.” You’ve given all sorts of suggestions, depending on what type of medic you want to make, what metahuman races work best and how to build a decent Awakened medic. Skills, Qualities and gear are also discussed with some detail. There is some great stuff to be had here and it’s certainly worth a read. The Qualities are sure to raise an eye – especially Pregnancy. I really liked the Skill Rating charts for Biotech and it was fun and interesting to see how different 4e and 5e are in this regard. It’s a great example of how different, and yet similar, the two editions are. This is followed up by a page of “Advanced Biotech Rules.” This page highlights the simple and complex actions your character can take via the Biotech skill. Short and sweet.

“Care Under Fire” makes up a huge part of the mechanics and it is here where the piece falls apart for me. It’s just too much rules and roll-playing over Role-Playing for me personally. The new (thankfully not canon) damage progression rules not only changes the game into constant dice rolling, but also kind of forces your team to have a Medic character on the squad or watch everyone die slowly and horribly. It really feels like trying to shove the idea of a medic character down the game’s throat to the point where people will view the idea with disdain. Generally when you try too hard to put something over, it causes the opposite effect that you were hoping for. It’s just too much dice rolling for every little medical nuance. For the most part these rules replace good old common sense and actually role-playing your characters. Instances where any other game would be, “Well, my character does this” and in turn act out or describe the actions being taken, are boiled down to a dice roll. In essence, it turns the game into D&D/Pathfinder skill checks and I’m not down with that. You shouldn’t have to roll a Cybertech + Logic extended test to freakin’ upgrade your medkit. That’s something that should be acted out and it’s certainly not something you need to roll for. I have to admit, by the time I was done with Bullets & Bandages I was very, VERY thankful these rules will never been seen again outside of this piece and some homebrew games I am not a part of.

After “Care Under Fire,” the piece goes back to being a pretty good. You have a whole host of new “Drugs, Toxins and Pathogens,” (Six, four and three respectively) which I’m sure you and your team will be able to find very creative uses for. There are also two new spells and three adept powers worth mentioning. Death Replay will be very helpful for any investigative type missions, although it might be a tad too powerful in that regard. Incision is obviously for medical uses, but there can be a sadistic side to it too, such as constantly opening and reopening cuts for abuse or torture. The new Adept Powers are Feign Illness, Feign Death and Transmit Damage. The latter two will find the most use in play. This is followed up by some new gear, armor and drones. That’s your supplement chummers.

Overall Bullets & Bandages is an interesting piece. Aside from “Care Under Fire”, the piece is really well done and thought out. A lot of the new mechanics won’t be of interest save to gamers whose sessions are more die-rolling than role-playing, but even then as nothing in this piece is canon or will be used in further supplements or any official products, it’s hard to recommend this piece, even at five dollars simply because it’s more a curiosity than anything else. That said, B&B does have some well written pieces outside of the mechanics part and it’s great to see medics and DocWagon getting some spotlight time. Aside from the one section I couldn’t stand, B&B is fine for those us who shy away from a 100% canon and metaplot oriented game. Just remember not to get too comfy with these ideas, rules or abilities outside your own game though, as if you play with someone else or go to a convention or a Shadowrun Missions, you won’t be able to use these and perhaps even your character. Overall, the good outweighs the bad here and it’s always nice to have more options.

Sometimes (always?) a shadowrun doesn't go quite as smoothly as you might like. Sometimes, you'll get hurt. What then?

This is an optional extra to the core rules that takes a closer look at the whole area of combat medicine, Shadowrun style. It will suit groups who are interested in bringing the after-effects of being injured into centre stage within their game, rather than leaving treatment and healing as downtime activities that are handled 'off screen' between gaming sessions.

Opening with a piece of fiction describing an injured 'runner seeking help, the work is filled with atmospheric in-character snippets including a run-down of the DocWagon organisation... and even a portion of DocWagon's introductory training module for armed medical response operators. This gives a good run-down of what they do, the personnel that make up their 'High Threat Response' teams and a genral overview of the entire operation. Armed with this information, the next encounter with one should be interesting for the party (and, of course, potentially life-saving if it is a party member who is in need of aid).

Next is an article on creating a 'combat medic' character for Shadowrun. Naturally a group interested enough to start using this supplement might feel the need of one for their team, there is even potential given the previous article for a whole campaign to be developed around a DocWagon team. In the past I ran a campaign which was based on a turf war between DocWagon and CrashCart, and have played a combat medic character attached to a team akin to an FBI Hostage Rescue Team under Shadowrun rules... both concepts worked well, and are worth considering if you want a slightly different slant on your game from regular shadowrunning.

The suggestions made give some good indications as to how to build a 'combat medic' character and the notes cover both Shadowrun Anniversary Edition and Fifth Edition, making this supplement useable with both rulesets. A medic can rely on technical training in emergeny medicine or on magical healing by a variety of routes, or an extremely potent healer could br built by combining both scientific and magical medical techniques and training. There are also notes on the specialist equipment such a character might need and even a range of Qualties that are not just for the potential medic but for any character in a game where ongoing health is intended to be a feature in play rather than a background thing dealt with in downtime between missions. There are even options for female characters to be pregnant or for anyone to have a chronic illness or be suffering the effects of advancing years.

Next come some advanced biotech rules to cover the actions of a skilled medic in diagnosing and treating whatever injuries or illnesses might present themselves. There are also rules to cover the delivery of medical care under fire. There is a lot of detailed information here but it all flows in a surprisingly clear manner once you get your head around it. Both GMs and players with medic characters ought to study this before the game begins, so that gameplay does not stall whilst rules are consulted.

Finally there are rules relating to medkits and a selection of new drugs... also toxins and pathogens, complete with their effects. There are also some new medical-related spells, adept powers and equipment.

If you want to make medicine - particularly emergency field medicine - to feature in your games, this will equip you with all you need to make it happen.