Review: The Neo-Anarchists Guide to Everything Else

The Neo-Anarchists Guide to Everything Else
Edited by: Jerry Stratton, Tony Moller, and Lester Ward
Published: 6 issues, later made into The Compiled NAGEE

The Neo-Anarchists Guide to Everything Else was published sporadically from early 1992 to late 1994, in six seperate issues, the first four edited by Jerry Stratton, the latter two by Tony Moller. It was later compiled into The Compiled NAGEE, by Lester Ward, and this is the distribution that I will be reviewing.

It’s a hefty tome, 215 pages total, but nicely seperated into 9 files, so it isn’t a large download. (Unless you try downloading all 9 at once, not recommended.) Adobe Acrobat format, by the way. Another plus of having 9 seperate files means you can download only the ones that interest you most, for example, the magic section, or the matrix section.

There is a LOT of text in this book, and the font is pretty damn small too, but it looks nice. Colour and black and white graphics are interspersed throughout the text, easing strain on the eyes. Most of the colour graphics print out well with a B&W Ink Jet printer. If you print out books to put into binders, this one barely fits into a one-inch binder. It’s a nice weighty feeling, it feels more like a “Real” book than most netbooks do.

Since there are alot of authors, the writing varies. Most of it is well done, and there are no glaring mistakes or typo’s. All the Shadowrun First Edition stats have been updated to Shadowrun Second Edition. Some material was left out from the original six issues, but I didn’t notice anything too major. I’m sure with digging through all the old files you could find and list what was missing fairly easily.

Highlights

Las Vegas I had never thought how interesting gambling and casino’s could be in Shadowrun until I read this</li>
Decker Personalities People should spend more time thinking about the matrix.. these are excellent examples of creative personalities that could and should be met on-line.</li>
Credsticks More expansive than FASA’s description of Credsticks, while not changing the way they work.</li>
Awakened Catnip! I think the name says it all.. :)</li>
Master Spell List Handy to have around the table instead of SR2, Grimmy, and Awakenings.</li>
Apparitions More fun with things FASA largely ignored.</li>
The Word on the Streets A one page list of street slang – great for new players to refer too, instead of saying “What’s a Sarariman?”</li>
Seattle Sourcebook Index FASA, please put an index in Seattle Sourcebook Two!</li>

I should note that there are bad points to The Compiled NAGEE, but I choose not to harp on them simply because there is so much good stuff. And some of the very useful stuff is simple, like the Seattle index, and the Slang Glossary.

The Neo-Anarchists Guide to Everything Else can be downloaded here

And a final note: All opinions are my own. They do not represent Paolo Marcucci’s opinion, The Shadowrun Archive’s opinion, or anyone elses, only mine. I hope to hear some of your opinions about this in the near future.