So I just got my copy of The Coming of Shadows. Unfortunately I have to say that the title is a little too accurate. The pictures are so dark I have a hard time making out what most of them are supposed to be. Whoever is in charge of this needs to increase the brightness and the contrast next time. They look like they would have been effective pictures had they been easy to see. The picture of G'kar was taken from the pilot. Something from 2nd season may have been somewhat more appropriate since his makeup undergoes signifficant changes from season to season.
In addition to this, I'm not really crazy about the way the book is organized. Well, lets face it, this is more fact book than it is RPG. We get 1 short chapter in the front updating the major characters from the show to the 2nd season, and introducing a few new ones (like Sheridan, who IMO, belonged in the core book). Then we get a chapter in the back of the book with some new rules. The information on Delenn really doesn't update her beyond the end of the 1st season. Why? We learn all sorts of information about her in 2nd season.
What I would have rather seen is a much shorter chapter full of plot synopses with more setting information on the various places that they visit in the second season. Also, why are the whitestars reserved for the Minbari sourcebook and not here? Weren't they first introduced in season 2? Also in season 2 we get to see what a vorlon looks like for the first time, so why aren't they detailed? The answer seems to be that they're being reserved for the appropriate race book in order to make it so that you have to buy it. While I can understand the business sense behind this, I have to disagree with the functionality of this approach.
In my opinion a core RPG book should give you the basic information needed to play in any era of a setting. The Forgotten Realms gives you drow in the FRCS, and then the drow are further developed in Races of Faerun. Does this make it so that you have to buy RoF? No, not really, but RoF does add a good amount of useful information. The Star Wars RPG gives you the information you need to play in 3 eras (Rise of the Empire, Rebellion, and New Jedi Order - in fact the only major one it misses is Zahn's New Republic Era). Anyway, the problem with this type of approach is in-game usefulness. If I want to play a game that features a couple shadows that you need to kill, a white star for the characters to fly around in, and Marcus Cole as a major NPC, I should have to lug around 4 separate books since all of those elements were major ones in the series. All except for possibly Marcus should have been in the core book.
While this may look a bit like a rant, I'm actually trying to offer some suggestions for improvement for the next one: 1- Make sure the pictures are clear and bright enought before sending it to the printer. 2- keep the episode guide to no more than a quarter of the book. Chances are that if we're investing in the game, we not only remember the series pretty well, but we also own the DVDs. 3- Include all the useful information from the season. The third season should have some information on the Centauri Homeworld, updated characters, stats for shadows and vorlons, and more in-depth information for the places they visit off the station. Season 4 should give us some good information on Mars, shadow tech, First Ones, Lorien, Z'Ha'Dum (or however you spell that), etc. 4- I personally won't be mad if some of the same information is repeated in more than one book where appropriate. I would rather have all of the relevant information in more than one source than have to carry around a master index so that I know where to find things. For instance, the book on the Vorlons and Shadows should have their stats as should season 3 (actually season 2, but its too late for that already).