It could have been an extremely interesting single adventure or mini campaign, but it was badly thought out, lacks critical detail and is full of missed opportunities.

Straight up you need to understand that the whole blackout concept potentially cripples any existing character with cyberware, which immediately makes it unsuitable for most preexisting groups to be present at ground zero. As for the 30 nights worth of adventures following the grand event.... I'm sorry but nothing stands out here, it feels like 30 random adventure seeds presented with the barest of detail while only surface level thought has been given to the social, political, or even logistical effects of a protracted blackout as described. You could do this yourself with a handful of d6 and some rolls on a 'random shadowrun generator' table.

Where are the refugee columns and the stories about guiding or protecting them? where is the UCAS equivalent of FEMA? where are the aid camps? You've chosen to set it in winter and turned the heat off - where are the considerations about winter temperatures, what about exposure? The reasons why either A) power has not been restored in at least key areas in 5 or 10 days or B) why the bulk of the population hasn't simply up and left are duvious and unsatisfying.

If you want to see what this could have been like, you could play the computer game 'the division' for ideas and do a lot better yourself - but should you be having to put this effort in? Wasn't this meant to be a precooked campaign? Don't we buy these to save us all that time?

Badly thought out, lacks critical detail and full of missed opportunities - the quintessential 6e campaign!

Wie üblich bei neueren Shadowrun Abenteuern ist kaum material über die Ideen hinaus vorhanden. Teilweise geht es sogar so weit das in den einzelnen ideen noch nicht mal die Basics erwähnt werden. Bezahlung? Wer muss schon erwähnen was den Runnern für ARBEIT bezahlt wird? Mr. Johnson der die Runner versucht zu bescheißen? Kein problem. Quasi part of the Course. Aber einfach nicht mal im ansatzt darüber zu sprechen lässt den GM ziemlich in der luft hängen.

Auch an die Technologischen Konsequenzen wurde quasi kaum ein gedanke verschwendet. Die Magischen muss man sich zusammensuchen und auch hier werden keinerlei handreichungen oder Tipps geboten wie man sie vielleicht im laufe der Nächte einbauen könnte. Die wiederkehrenden Chars werden gerade mal am rande erwähnt und nicht wirklich über die nächte hinweg forgeführt.

Praktische Features wie man sie sich vielleicht als Hilfe erwarten würde sind alle Fehlanzeige: Timeline? Übersicht über die Stadt? Welcher NPC tut was wann warum? Nö. Das braucht der GM sicher nicht!

Alles in allem könntet ihr das Buch also auch der Prämisse nach selbst meistern und einfach jeden abend auf einen 'Random Run Idea Generator' klicken. Das gefühlt währe wahrscheinlich ziemlich das gleiche. Wer lust hat mit einer gegebenen Prämisse ein nettes kleinen langfristiges Abenteuer mit selbst erschlossenen Weltbewegenden Konsequenzen zu leiten der findet hier zumindest einen guten einstieg. Aber seid gewarnt: Es erfordert wie immer vom GM reichlich arbeit. Unter 20-30h Vorbereitung werdet ihr hier keine Kampange finden die es sich lohn zu Spielen.

Shadowrun: 30 Nights is a Campaign Book for Shadowrun detailing Ottawa and setting 30 “Nights” worth of adventurers there. There is some good information and some interesting adventures, some of which can be adapted to other situations, but not a required book unless you want to play in Ottawa or need ideas for adventures set during the Blackout part of the metaplot.

Shadowrun: 30 Nights, is a Campaign Book for Shadowrun, Sixth World Edition, letting players experience the UCAS blackouts (as discussed in Shadowrun: Cutting Black) directly.

It begins with an introduction with describes the terrible things that happened in the 1977 New York Blackout and leads into a brief discussion of the layout of the nights/ adventures. Then there is one of the required fiction pieces. Next we get a description of Ottawa, UCAS, it is short (twelve pages) but useful including such things as talismongers and weird mana zones within the city but it is lacking a map of the city, which would be exceedingly helpful as places are continually referenced in the city description and the adventures that follow.

The meat of the book is the 30 Nights, each one a situation that must be coped with, overcome or avoided. The nights are divided into several chains of linked sequences if the GM wants to focus on particular themes.

The adventures are varied, starting with building up a safe haven followed by traditional shadowrunner missions, some mysteries, some magical threats, a mixed bag. Most are more adventure frameworks than full adventures requiring considerable work from the GM to make playable. Many of them look fun but a few have real issues. One of these is a mystery where you are trying to learn about a sinister group performing rituals, there are three points where to move to the next stage one particular clue need to be found and that right leap must be made to move forward, and two of those require getting information from people who are likely to be uncooperative if not hostile. This is poor design. Another in a jail break from a Lone Star containment facility that is covered in less than three pages and has no map (in fact, nothing has a map).

Also, there is some issue with the framing of the whole Blackout/30 Nights, it is predicated on something all mysterious knocking out all the functioning tech in multiple cities across the UCAS. So, for the entire adventure period, there is no way to reliably access the Matrix, no power, no vehicles, the GM is reminded not to screw over decker and rigger characters with this by directly trashing their stuff but they are still crippled as characters. There is a little discussion of this in the first few nights but not much about practical things such as how do you network with your contacts without the Matrix (no phone, no text) and no working vehicles?

There are a great number of NPCs, both named and generic, given stats in the back of the book along with a new creature and many new creature powers. Weirdly, there is an index to the NPCs right after the NPC section which is alphabetical, exactly as they are organized just a few pages before. Now, if this also noted which Nights the NPCs showed up in, this might actually be useful however, it does not and just seems like repetition (and, no, there is no other index).

There is fun to be had here but the GM should not be expecting to be able to pick the book up and use adventures, additional work will be needed. The GM should also make sure this kind of semi-apocalypse setting is what the players are interested in, as it is Shadowrun but maybe not the play experience everyone is looking for.

Note: Read more reviews and other gaming articles at my journal https://seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com/