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Posted by: Tashiro Dec 21 2012, 04:58 PM

Thinking about SR5, I decided I'd figure out a few things I'd like to see in it.

1) I'd like to see Technomancers following rules more closely to those of Mages, just for ease of play. Follow the same basic ruleset, but tailored to the Matrix, and we're good to go.

2) I'd like to see a more fleshed out section on Astral Space, and what we can do there.

3) I'd like for 'cosmetic' cyberware / bioware, to not have an Essence Cost. Seriously, save Essence Costs for things which are more invasive, and involve 'removing' or 'replacing' parts of the body. If I get cybertattoos, they should have zero impact on my Essence. Also, if you're born with genetic engineering, it shouldn't impact your Essence at all... after all, this IS your astral template. Why the hell would it impact your Magic or Resonance? (After all, you can make a full-blown clone Mage with 6 Essence out of the box in 4E).

4) I would like to see a little more detail on commlinks, what you can put in them and such. A focus on consumer society (apps and the like), and how these work together with the character.

5) I'd like to see the magical paths a bit more divergent, so they stand out a little more.

Posted by: Iduno Dec 21 2012, 05:19 PM

I think the major thing I'm looking for is someone to go through and find places where the old rules no longer fit (fireball vs stunball?), and rewrite them. The second biggest would be making sure crunch and fluff match.

Posted by: Lionhearted Dec 21 2012, 05:19 PM

If anything TMs need to differentiate more from magi, not move closer to them.

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 21 2012, 05:19 PM

I'd like to see technomancers retconned out, honestly.

I would also like this. I understand why they put all magicians in the same boat in 4E, but I still don't like it. I'd like to add a second axis, in addition to Materialization-Possession: Binding-Calling. Binding traditions, like Hermeticism, summon up the spirits they want and bind them to serve. Calling traditions (might need a new term to differentiate from the Calling rules in Running Wild) summon whatever spirit happens to be in the area and negotiate for favors. Basically, a return to the old Hermetic/shaman divide, only with room for more traditions.

Posted by: Murrdox Dec 21 2012, 05:30 PM

I'd like to see hacking re-vamped to make the hacker shine more.

- Hackers with a datajack, commlink implant and hot-sim should be able to hack on a totally different level than a hacker who just has a commlink and trodes. Maybe to the point of making VR only accessible to hackers with a commlink implant. Also, bring back cyberdecks. Hackers should have their own personalized rigs that aren't just better PDAs than everyone else has. There should be a world of difference between a cyberdeck and a commlink. Not just more Response and System scores.

- I'd like less opposed checks for tasks. My group spends a lot of time looking up basic rules because the players forget what opposed check they need to make. For example, Summoning.

- Full color book, good binding, and a Limited Collector's Edition I can pre-order yesterday!!

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 21 2012, 05:34 PM

I'm not sure I agree. A commlink is effectively a PC - what would a cyberdeck have that a commlink doesn't? I mean, a cyberdeck is effectively a computer which stores your programs and hooks to the matrix - which is everything a commlink does. The only difference is whether you're wanting to go AR or VR. Hmm, I don't know about the datajack vs trodes, technology may have gotten to the point where the difference is minimal.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 21 2012, 05:37 PM

The problem then is you're having to remember more rules. If they have the same basics: Sprites = Spirits, Programs = Spells, Fading = Drain, then at least a player who has learned to play one can quickly adapt to the other. Technomancers are effectively 'Mages in the Matrix' which is a good fit, I feel. If you make them too different, then you start to question their place.

Posted by: Murrdox Dec 21 2012, 06:28 PM

In SR4, I completely agree. Commlinks are computers. However, I think you could really split it out. Think of a Commlink as a tablet PC. Think of a Cyberdeck as a full desktop PC with bleeding-edge hardware that you just can't fit into a tablet. If you had that kind of digital divide, hackers with cyberdecks would be something to be feared on the Matrix, and anyone who hacked using a commlink would be a script-kiddie by comparison.

It's just an idea. I just think hackers were cooler back in the Cyberdeck days. Now, EVERYONE has a commlink. Hackers just have slightly better commlinks than everyone else and pay a little more for better programs.

Posted by: Miri Dec 21 2012, 06:29 PM

I would like to see a little more module capability with drones/vehicles, especially in regards to constructing one from scratch if none of the book versions meet what you are looking for.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 21 2012, 06:35 PM

SR3 Variable TN.
SR3 Armor/Damage-System.
SR3 Skill-System with Pools instead of Attribute+Skill+Bonus shitloads of dice idiocy . .
Rest can stay as it is in SR4 i guess . .

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 21 2012, 06:36 PM

Suggestion: Take this "wish list" and throw it in the garbage where it belongs.

Posted by: bannockburn Dec 21 2012, 06:37 PM

Suggestion: learn manners.

Otherwise: agreed. ^^

I wish for one thing only: an easy conversion for characters from SR4 to SR5.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 21 2012, 06:44 PM

Variable TNs: One of the most PoS mechanics ever used in an RPG. It is utterly stupid and pointless, especially since things can get to the point where you have to roll a fragging 20 on a d6 to get a 'success'. See? Stupid mechanic.

SR3 Damage System: Lethality in games needs to be REDUCED, not exacerbated.

SR3 Skill System: Going back to attributes being almost entirely pointless to put points into other than the fact you have to? No fragging thanks.


To be perfectly honest, the SR4A system needs to be left as-is except for perhaps a streamlining of the Matrix (and only the Matrix, everything else is fine).

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 21 2012, 06:47 PM

All of those changes would succeed in doing what they said they wanted to do with SR4.
GREATLY REDUCE THE NUMBER OF DICE BEING ROLLED.

Posted by: Lionhearted Dec 21 2012, 06:47 PM

My initial reaction: It buuuurn! take it away! take it away!

My reasonable response.
Variable TNs might not be the best idea, but moving a lot of modifiers from the DP to the threshold would make things smoother, for opposed tests... beats me.
Rewinding the skill system would make attributes mostly useless again, I don't like that.
Can't really make a statement on the damage system I barely remember anything about except that everything was Dikote

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 21 2012, 06:48 PM

That is not a good thing. Especially not when it makes an entire section of the character sheet (attributes) almost worthless except for a couple of 'derived' statistics and one or two 'niche' instances.

If you want SR3, then just go hunt down the books, play that and let other people play the much better version.

Posted by: Daddy's Little Ninja Dec 21 2012, 06:52 PM

What I would like to see for 5th ed is no 5th ed. I am giving up an rebuying all the core rule books.

Posted by: Murrdox Dec 21 2012, 06:55 PM

SR3 variable TNs was probably the #1 thing that gave my players headaches. I understand why some people like them, but I think SR4 did a better job with this.

I WOULD like to see dice-pools brought back in some kind of way. Not to the point where it makes Attributes useless, but I really liked the Dicepool system of SR3, and so did some of my players. I'd be interesting to see what you could come up with.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 21 2012, 06:57 PM

Unfortunately, this probably isn't an option. When a new edition is announced, the chances of it not happening are so slim as to be nonexistant.

Posted by: Lionhearted Dec 21 2012, 07:06 PM

As for my wishlist for 5E, more love for Riggers.
No rigger book and only a few pages at the end of the hacking section?
How am I supposed to build Samus Aran using that?!

Posted by: bannockburn Dec 21 2012, 07:07 PM

Oh hell yeah
I want power armour! ^^

Posted by: Daddy's Little Ninja Dec 21 2012, 07:10 PM

Except for the decking/hacking systems we kept with SR3 in our games for those various reasons. The more I hear of the 4th ed which clearly did not fix problem, going to 5th ed. I think why bother? We will keep with what we enjoy and just wait for all the grumbles around 6th ed.

Posted by: Darksong Dec 21 2012, 07:11 PM

I am not a fan of the way variable TNs were implemented in SR3, but I think there is room for them if you did something like TN can vary between 2-6 (base 4) and anything that would increase the TN above 6 removes dice from the pool, so you don't have to worry about the shitty math of the linear TN increase but exploding difficulty at 8.

Posted by: Warlordtheft Dec 21 2012, 07:30 PM

Personally, I'd like to tweak their use of sprites and limit threading.



I'd like for grounding to come back too!



+1 this, though as I recall they can't clone mages....


Yeah, but I rarely see people using the options they have now.



I disagree, it helps if the rules for all mages are similar. A few bonuses here and there are ok, even the different drain stats I am ok with. Spirits being the same water vs lake/river/ocean, not really needed.

Things I want:

Revise stick and shock to be less end all be all--seriously!!!

Armor stacking:Reduce the amount of armor stacking!!!

Cyberware limbs: Change the way armor works to the 1/6 method (Head, torso, arms, legs).

Weapon damage codes: Up the leathality!!

Matrix: Data Searches need to be harder, rules/tips that help GMs run the matrix easier. Make cyber combat quicker. Keep hackers and riggers on the same system (easier to run!!).

Vehicle rules: Sensor rules should make more sense . Vehicle combat--get rid of it and incorporate into regular combat. I think I used those rules once......

Magic: Up the drain values, mages have too easy a time avoiding drain in SR4. Spirits and edge--it should be better spelled out or offer suggestions on how GM's should handle its use.


Other general things: Compatible with 4E books (simple conversions), give examples, and keep an index!!!

Posted by: Prime Mover Dec 21 2012, 07:37 PM

1. PC streamlining a good thing.
2. Some drain code and spirit issues. Lets make fireball as scary as mana bolt.
3. Matrix, I'm glad it's not my job to "fix" this once more. I think 4th had it going in right direction though.
4. Combat, armor changes, dart Gun rules clarified, fix stick and shock.
5. Fix adrenal pump so its not suicideware. Prices need leveled for some ware.
6. Curious about grittier combat, the games I have run lately are tearing up 400 BP PC's pretty regularly.
7. Really not sure about gear options need to hear more. Sensors and explosives need redone.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 21 2012, 08:14 PM

Speaking as a designer myself, I do agree having a sliding TN is a bad decision. You can already adjust difficulty by determining # of successes, or by +/- dice pool, why add sliding TNs to the mix?



I'll have to disagree here. I have seen what's possible in SR4 for Street Sams, and when you add Adepts and Spells to the mix, it gets obnoxious. Combat should be very lethal - something you want to avoid, or put an end to as quickly as possible, rather than walking in, guns blazing, and laughing as your opponents bounce bullets off your armour and spells. I would like the knife-in-the-back or the sniper rifle shot to do their job - kill the person outright.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 21 2012, 08:16 PM

The point of the SR3 Skillset was that you had a fixed number of dice to roll for a skill.
TN changed and number of hits needed changed. Skill-Pool never changed. You may have had dice pools which you could allocate to different things, but you never had things like in SR4 where your ammount of Dice can go from -10 to +30 or more . .

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 21 2012, 08:16 PM

The thing is - what's the point of the dice pool system? This would basically relate to 'more dice per roll' if you evened out the pool between your various actions, and if you end a round with any pool left over, that's a waste. I think the 'spend 1 edge, get X dice' worked better. It basically amounted to the same thing, but you had a limit on how often you could do it.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 21 2012, 08:22 PM

Okay, so you have Dice Pool X. You could + or - what you needed for a success, and you could + or - how many successes you needed. I'd definitely have to go with 'pick one'. Because together, those are kind of redundant. What's the effect of +1 TN versus +1 success needed?

I can accept a +/- dice pool with +/- successes needed, which is what SR4 did, but I'd be more inclined to do a +/- dice pool, with 1+ successes needed. This would work better to reducing dice pools (thus reducing the number of dice rolled) by penalties, and presuming any success over the first produces a greater effect, but the 1 success is the threshold needed. Having the weird 'you got 3 successes, you failed' scenarios tend to bother me.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 21 2012, 08:24 PM

In most tests, you only needed 1 single success to succeed . . extras added bonus or reduced time needed or something. The tests where both number of needed hits and TN changed were really seldom.

Posted by: Lionhearted Dec 21 2012, 08:27 PM

It's a fine balance to strike, if you make combat to lethal, you're in danger of reducing variety and thus lessening some peoples enjoyment of the game.
While some a lot of people here is all mirror shades all of the time, there's definitely a place in SR for guns blazin' pink mohawk. Making combat overly lethal in a game completely without resurrection (Well not counting hand of god, that still leaves you in a shoddy state), would severely hamper more action heavy playstyles.
Otherwise I agree, some of the soaking possible is silly and need adjustment.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 21 2012, 08:27 PM

For the most part, that doesn't happen that much except in the case of opposed tests where the opponent gets more hits than you. The cases where it does happen, well, if the threshold is 5 hits and you get 3 hits, then you fail.*

*- If you think in the term 'hits' (used in the books) rather than 'successes' it's much less of a confusion.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 21 2012, 08:44 PM

Having a sidebar with some optional tweaks to reduce lethality is a way to go, but I generally like games which have the option of the one-hit-kill. The big armoured Troll of Doom who doesn't wear a helmet getting a bullet through the eye sort of thing. I've seen one game which does it well, though I don't think it would work as well with SR5.

Abney Park's Airship Pirates has a round of combat be a variable amount of time. The die roll is to determine the result of a series of exchanges, and one roll can actually kill someone outright. It makes for dramatic narrative, and if you survived being hit once, you're probably inclined to run like hell, but I don't think the 'flexible timeframe' sort of scenario would work with Shadowrun. It would allow for dramatic action sequences, mind... but I don't know.

Which reminds me.

Posted by: apple Dec 21 2012, 08:46 PM

And the difference to SR3 is what? There your TN could change between 2 and 20 depending on the situation - and of course you could get bonus dice depending cyberware etc.

No thank you.

SYL

Posted by: DireRadiant Dec 21 2012, 09:01 PM

A reminder to everyone to keep discussion civil, especially with highly inflammatory topics such as new editions.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 21 2012, 09:19 PM

L5R - One of the Deadliest games I have ever played.

Posted by: Misdemeanor Dec 21 2012, 09:23 PM

I have to Agree with Murrdox, but for all the wrong reasons...I am not fond of the "wireless" world. I preferred 3rd edition when the only way a Hacker or Rigger (cyber or Technomancer)had to Jack in to the target. It forced the the Matrix character to physically with the group instead of being safely far away from the flying bullets...I like to put all my players in mortal danger

Posted by: Lionhearted Dec 21 2012, 09:29 PM

You're thinking of it wrong misdemeanor!
Hacking from home means that he got no backup when you bust down the door

Posted by: Starglyte Dec 21 2012, 09:40 PM

I would like two core settings. Seattle and a rural area. One thing I thought Shadowrun could of used was a rural setting similar to the Far Cry games.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 21 2012, 09:50 PM

I'd like to see the archetypes more different and more... I dunno, fleshed out?
Technomancers shouldn't be just matrix magi, there should be a mystery to them. Shamans and hermetics should deviate more. Adepts and sammies, hackers and riggers, all should have their own unique things going, both in mechanics and fluff. Yeah, that'd mean learning new rules to play a new archetype. So... what?
In this vain, I like the idea with cyberdecks returning. They really helped hackers to stand out. I don't think they should be that different or complex to design or anything; just having anything past a certain Rating threshold require a cyberdeck might work.

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 21 2012, 10:42 PM

All I want for Christmas is my matrix back.

Fuck Technomancers. Fuck wireless. Fuck RFIDs. Fuck AR. These things are the opposite of fun, and make deckers useless.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 21 2012, 10:45 PM

"Bring back 80's speed metal"
And the Rocker Archetype.

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 21 2012, 10:52 PM

And this.

Rockers make every other face look lame and boring by comparison.

Posted by: Lionhearted Dec 21 2012, 10:56 PM

Omae, if we were in the rules it wouldn't be metal \../

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 22 2012, 02:30 AM

That's progress. Look at the world now - wireless. RFIDs everywhere. Augmented Reality exists in the now. I was just writing an essay on Science Fiction, and one of the things I praised Shadowrun with is that they're keeping up with modern technology, and thus remaining relevant as a science fiction genre. If they ignored the wireless world, AR, and everything that comes with it, Shadowrun would descend into irrelevancy -- much like Cyberpunk did. Cyberpunk tried to stick to its roots, and in doing so, became less and less realistic, and showed its age more and more.

I want Shadowrun to take modern advances in technology and culture into account, and keep updating to match the shift in what's relevant now. This means that the world is wireless, this means that everyone's going to have a full-fledged computer on hand. This means that scanners and ID tags are going to be everywhere, on everything. That's just how the world evolved, and Shadowrun should mirror this if it wants to make sense.

Otherwise, you're going to have things like 'we're able to do this NOW, why can't we do this in SR?' -- and the excuse 'because we can't' isn't going to cut it.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 22 2012, 02:36 AM

The way to do it is to have the "optional tweaks" be the higher lethality like it was done in SR4 (unneeded as they are, it's lethal enough as-is).

Posted by: mrslamm0 Dec 22 2012, 03:43 AM

I don't know if I would change enough to make a while new edition. My main gripes my group and I have had were the rocket rules and hacking being too easy. Im sure for the hacking thing im missing something when I run it. Not sure if my group will jump ship to SR5, I kinda don't want to learn another rule set when im happy with the old one really. I understand from a sale point why they have another one coming out after this time but im not really that excited for it.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 22 2012, 03:46 AM

Crap, forgot about rockets and their scatter... Then again, that's a really easy fix (ignore it on rockets or swap rocket and grenade scatter).

Posted by: Abschalten Dec 22 2012, 04:01 AM

My simple fix is to ignore SR4A's scatter table and use the old SR4 one. The new scatter table is nothing short of lunacy. With that sort of wild and random inaccuracy from even the best heavy weapons experts using the best guidance systems, there's absolutely no reason to use rockets, missiles, or grenades in the SR4 world.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 22 2012, 04:13 AM

Ah, yes. That's something else for the wish list. Explaining exactly how hacking works. What programs do what, how they are used, and a breakdown of the methods to go about breaking into a computer and getting what you need in non-vague terms.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 22 2012, 04:27 AM

That could be good, though that last part I'd personally save until the new edition's Matrix book. It'll give a good reason to pick it up.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 22 2012, 05:44 AM

Actually, bringing back smart frames might be nice too - 'sprites' for the non-Technomancer.

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 22 2012, 06:43 AM

That's the thing. Wireless had -been done- in SR, and much like we've discovered in the real world, was abandoned for serious Maxtrix use and limited to day to day applications like pocket secs and phones because it simply didn't have the bandwidth to serve the matrix and because of the massively stupid security issues it posed.

Between that and the RFID stuff, it essentially makes the off-the-grid shadowrunner lifestyle impossible because tracking down anyone is as easy as sticking a tag on them that wardrives and records what networks it wanders through.

But the real point is that the SR timeline diverged from ours somewhere in the 80's, and their 1990's and 2000's were a lot different than ours. There's no reason to mirror what happened in the real world, and trying to do so really hurts the setting. Hell, if we were on the SR timeline, there would have been two nuclear wars by now (Israel v Libya and DPRK v Japan), VITAS would have killed a quarter of the world population, and we'd have a manned mission on Mars.

Posted by: GM Lich Dec 22 2012, 08:49 AM

one thing I know this may sound dangerous similar to the other game, is reward approximation. How much money should the PCs take home from a run according to the challenge. One of the more intimidating aspects of GMing is how much reward should you actually give to them. One of the key things I like about shadowrun compared to other RPGs is the freeformness of it. The other is EDGE is really powerful in Shadowrun and imo needs to be toned down a little.I think most of the rest has already been said or has been promised. The only thing I'm slightly worried about is simplified character development. I'm hoping they just use packets like in Runner's Toolkit but who knows what they will actually end up doing. I'm nervous and excited to see what they will do.


Slightly Offtopic: Does Topps own Catalyst or are they running the show now?

Posted by: Lionhearted Dec 22 2012, 08:54 AM

I would like some more fleshed out guidelines on how to award cash and karma. Especially as you don't really have a inherent intrinsic understanding for the value of nuyen.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 22 2012, 11:47 AM

Topps owns the SR IP as a whole.
CGL has a license to use the SR IP for the Pen and Paper RPG.
Nobody owns anything.

Posted by: Sengir Dec 22 2012, 12:10 PM

Yep, that would be kinda nice to have. And a definite description of how AR and VR users interact...strictly by RAW it's not even clear whether they have personas...

Posted by: Bigity Dec 22 2012, 02:11 PM

See, I disagree here. SR never looked like the world did at any point. It was based of a crazy assed notion that Japan was going to take over the world and 80s trends would remain in place. I don't want a game that mirrors real life. I've never played a RPG and thought, gee, I can mind control people and blow up their brains with mind-waves, why can't I do that in real life? I didn't play SR back in the 80s and 90s because I thought it was realistic. I doubt anyone did, ever.

Commonplace wireless and a hyper-connected world removes alot of the charm of the setting, IMO. Mages and shamans being identical: same thing. Riggers/hackers. No 'decks. Technology that is better than cyber and doesn't require cutting out a piece of your flesh and soul. And so on.

Now, I full realize there is room enough for cyberpunk-ish SR, and more post-cyberpunk, but I'm not buying post-cyberpunk books. Maybe this edition is feeding off some of the SR2050 book sales? I dunno. Multiple realities would be great, if they can support both concepts. With board games, TCGs, etc, all planned, maybe they have the staff to do it.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 22 2012, 03:08 PM

Not quite what I meant. Good science fiction uses the setting as a framework to reflect aspects of the modern world and raise questions, and near future science fiction will usually extrapolate from where we are to where they think we may go. Shadowrun, IMHO, does this very well, which is why it is one of my favourite roleplaying games (just recently, I had to sell almost all my roleplaying games -- I owned every single nWoD book out there, and sold that off, but I kept all my Shadowrun books, because I loved SR4 more).

And for some reason, your example worked backwards. It isn't 'I can do this in a game, why can't I do this real life?' - it's 'if our world is moving towards allowing for THIS, why can't I do this in Shadowrun?' An amusing thought experiment I had was, 'if Earth ever encountered actual alien races, how many science fiction movies, books, and games would add alien races as a de-facto part of Earth's life?'. Anyway, I'm digressing.

For science fiction to remain relevant, it needs to be able to be relatable to modern times. We're living in a near wireless world now, which has caused a huge shift in our culture. SR4 reflected this, and I think it did it very well, it tapped neatly into the wireless vein and how it alters the world. I don't want a Shadowrun world which remains more or less stagnant as we move ahead. I want a setting which will evolve and shift as we evolve and shift. I'd feel much the same way about an RPG that started 'in the 80s' to give us an 80s feel, but never, ever moved into the 90s or the turn of the century. Sure, the 80s was fun, but the world moves forward for the characters, and they'll need to move forward with it.

Seriously, Shadowrun's timeline started in the 2050s, and has moved up to the 2070s. In 20 years, technology must have moved forward by serious leaps and bounds - I want to see that reflected. If someone doesn't like the wireless world, they just run the game in the 2050s and keep it there. That's an entire decade you can use.



I fear we'll need to disagree on this. To me, this makes the game seem more alive. It's one thing I hate about 'traditional' fantasy settings -- you have cultures sitting around for hundreds or thousands of years, but not shifting at all from where they started. I'm sorry, that doesn't happen. And in a high-tech setting, such as Shadowrun, evolution should be lightning fast, as new innovations and technologies are created, and Shadowrun's really good for that. If I remember correctly, the first Virtual Realities book (SR1) had wireless cyberdecks, and by SR2, 'memory' for your cyberdeck went from a limited amount to infinite (since everything was stored on the Matrix). As Shadowrun moved forward, you could see technology in the setting moving forward as well, reflecting our innovations and advancements.

Now, as for hermetics / shamans / everything else, I do agree that I was disappointed when the line got blurred, simply because I believe magic is about culture and belief. That being said, I'm fully supportive of a single ruleset to cover all the different aspects (summoning/binding, spirit mentor/totem, etc), what I want is something to cause each one to stand out individually ... something akin to what they dropped into martial arts -- you take tradition X, you get these specific perks that nobody else will get. (The Path of the Wheel is a very, very good example in fact, from Tir N'an Og).

Riggers and Hackers? The only thing I see there is 'skill set'. I'm thinking about how drones are operated in today's world, and the only thing that stands out is that you need to be damn good at flight simulators, but really, once you've got that down pat (which I believe would be your driving skills in Shadowrun), blending the line between hacker and rigger makes sense. Since you need to be able to take over any drone in sight, hacking skills become essential to the rigger for breaking into a vehicle / drone / sentry, taking it over, and piloting it. And if a hacker specializes in hostile takeover of drones and such (which I've seen done in my games), then yeah, more power to them. I'd say they're different archetypes, mostly because of where they want to focus. Most hackers do infiltration and data mining or sabotage, while riggers don't stuff their commlinks full of attack and stealth programs unless they're doing hostile rigging -- if they aren't, they save it for command routines to handle aspects of their vehicles while they command them remotely.

The commlink I think is a natural evolution of the cyberdeck. We have laptops and minicomputers which blow away anything we had 15 years ago, why can't Shadowrun have evolved their technology to be 'personal' in 20 years? In SR3, I was annoyed when I couldn't do basic hacking with a wrist computer, simply because I knew for a fact that people were hacking from laptops -- and that was back in 2001. I saw a parallel between the 'wrist computer' in Shadowrun versus the 'deck, and the laptop versus the PC. I'm actually glad that SR4 has accepted that your PC is now something worn all the time.



The thing is, the timeline in the Shadowrun universe is moving forward. It makes no sense for civilization to suddenly grind to a halt. I'm enjoying the Shadowrun universe because it is alive and evolving, and will allow me to look at things such as transhumanism, post-cyberpunk, and everything that comes from those. To me, Shadowrun is a science fiction genre - cyberpunk played a part in it, but not the only part.

Personally, I want to watch magic evolve, I want to see technology evolve, and I want to see the eventual melding of the two. Thaumatechnology is a big interest of mine, and SR4 really started to dip into that field, which drew me in a lot more. I find Technomancers to be a part of the deal -- technology is the 'new tradition' of the world, and because humanity in the setting sees a 'divide' between magic and technology, those people who 'awaken' have a different filter. That's my theory at least, so we'll see, but I found technomancy to be a refreshing shift in Shadowrun, and it is one of the best examples for me as to why Shadowrun is a great setting -- it doesn't sit on its laurels, and is constantly pushing forward with new ideas.

Heh. I talked myself from being only marginally interested in SR5 to VERY interested in SR5. I'm looking forward to seeing them push the envelope more!

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 22 2012, 03:52 PM

Agents are essentially Smart Frames.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 22 2012, 03:59 PM

Ah, cool. I missed that.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 22 2012, 04:49 PM

Really, there did start to be some disconnect when modern computer technology started to catch up (and surpass in some areas) the "future" technology of SR.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 22 2012, 05:00 PM

Exactly.

Posted by: Bigity Dec 22 2012, 08:02 PM

Don't get me wrong, adjusting the timeframe is fine. 'Jumping' in 20 years and basically replacing HUGE parts of it, just 'cause is what bothers me. Wireless was already being introduced in SR3, and should have slowly come along, especially given how insecure it is in SR4. Why the hell would anyone, much less a corp with billions to spend on security, put anything out there on a SR4 node?

Aside from that, jacking in was just cooler. Buying an off the shelf tablet and being at the highest level of hacking hardware possible is lame. Make it personal again, where you write your own code and make your own stuff. I don't care what year it is in-game. That is just better for the setting.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 22 2012, 08:32 PM

I don't think they jumped quite that far ahead. SR3 went as far as the mid 2060s, but if you compare it to modern times, our technology made the jump in a similar time frame. (I just have to look at how quickly I went to 'use a PC' to 'our entire game group uses laptops'. I went from wired routers to wireless. And now I do some of my gaming using just my smartphone. That's all been in the last five years or so.)

As for why anyone (including a corp) do this? Well, again, take a look at the real world. A lot of people use smartphones and wireless routers and don't have that much security on them. Just last week I saw a member of Anonymous hack WBC's web site casually while on a radio program - just as a matter of course. I was thinking about this actually earlier today - about corporate security in Shadowrun, and comparing it to corporate security in real life.

Any system is theoretically breachable from the outside. Considering you need to advertise (web pages and the like), your presence on the web is a vulnerability right there. If anyone needs to send information out -- and everyone needs to send information in this age -- that becomes another vulnerability. Even in a 'sealed' system, where your presence is online only when you send off or take in information (visit a web page, send an e-mail, conference call, or what-have-you), those are open for exploits. In Shadowrun, this is a bigger thing than what we have now, but it makes sense. Every employee has a commlink connecting them to the corporation, the corporation's got information going in and out nearly constantly, then there's their VR and AR presence. They're probably paying a small fortune in security IC however, which helps.



It might be cooler, but it was impractical and unrealistic after a certain point. You'd want your employees mobile and active, not zoning out each time they want to do something. Being tethered limits options. Nothing stops a programmer from making their own programs though - Unwired gave a lot for that. Personalizing programs is cool, I'll admit. But... err, why shouldn't a person be able to buy a SOTA computer and with the right programs be awesome? Not everyone builds a computer from parts in their bedroom.

Posted by: Bigity Dec 22 2012, 11:14 PM

And an idiot with a smartphone without a corresponding security policy from his company does not represent the draconian measures you'd find for a mega. Ok, Joe's Pizza Shop, you'd expect lolsecurity measures. Ares? No.

As for being tethered, corps are routinely described as building arcologies to control every aspect of an employee's life. You think they give half a shit that Joe Wageslave can't take their work to the competing mall?

Given how easy hacking is in SR4, there is no way anyone in-game would put anything worthwhile on a node that anyone else knows about. That's not cool, nor realistic, and it affects the game.

Posted by: Halinn Dec 22 2012, 11:18 PM

I wouldn't expect Sony's customer databases with passwords and stuff being accessible either, but that was hacked.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 22 2012, 11:45 PM

From what I can tell, that would have been before SR4. I saw little to convince me that things were the same in 4th edition. With the wireless world, corporations can have their employees working any time, from any place - and in fact it would give the corporation a keener insight into their employee's activities and spending habits.



Hacking is only as easy as the game master lets it be. Drop in the appropriate IC and counter-measures, and hacking can be a serious problem. Then again, I'm looking at what hackers in real life are capable of, and some of the big jobs which have been done, and I'm not seeing much difference between RL and Shadowrun. (The Sony job, as was mentioned, comes immediately to mind, but then there's also some other cases as well...)

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 22 2012, 11:58 PM

A Database has to be accessible, else the database is useless for the job it's supposed to do.
Which is aggregate dat and connect the data to specific logins. People would not be able to log in with an unaccessible database.
And not able to buy stuff either. There you have a potential security risk allready built in, and one which you can't get rid off either.


As for the Matrix and Magic-Problem:
The less people know the Magic Rules, the stronger Magic gets.
The less people know the Matrix Rules, the weaker Matrix gets.

Posted by: Sengir Dec 23 2012, 12:51 AM

Something else I just remembered: The number of defensive programs which are not just options, but the only defense against the respective attack is far too large. A user who does not want to get caught with his pants down needs to run Armor, Feedback Filter, Defuse, and Purge before even starting with the stuff required to do something. That's like requiring a mage to run a handful different Counterspelling skills, all only useful against one type of attack.

Posted by: Nath Dec 23 2012, 01:14 AM

That no longer happens. Fantasy settings usually are closer the Roman Empire or European Dark Ages, whose culture did not change much for a bunch of centuries (not to mention Ancient Egypt, who lasted for over two thousand years). History has been tremendously accelerating in the last two or three centuries.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 23 2012, 01:38 AM

Actually, I needed to develop a timeline for inventions from the middle ages forward. Things happened, and technology advanced. It wasn't as astounding in specific fields as we have now, but they did move forward. The thing is, most fantasy settings are 'middle ages', but they ignore some of the things that were developed in the middle ages. Hell, most fantasy settings seem to ignore the fact gunpowder existed in the middle ages. I'm glad Pathfinder has developed firearms rules.

http://inventors.about.com/od/timelines/a/MiddleAges.htm

Posted by: Wakshaani Dec 23 2012, 05:45 AM

I have dreams of the Matrix, personally. I've wanted to play a good Decker since '89, but the system's always been happy to get in the way. Many GM's don't want to learn it, and the few that do wind up with players who don't want to do it. "And the NPC decker says..." has become standard issue around every table I've ever been at.

A solid set of Matrix rules and a rocking Decker are, combined, my Holy Grail for Shadowrun.

4th ed got me closer than ever before. The 'hacker' (grumble) had to get out and about and in the mix to do things, which 2nd and 3rd had already started, but could go AR and do things on the fly, rather than slump like a broken doll in a corner and drool his way to full-immersion victory. The *style* was there, but the rules... mrf. From what I'm told, if you were a sysop, everything made perfect sense, but if you weren't, it was a mishmash of terms and blabber and just fell apart. The entry bar was still set too high.

Want to kick the door open? Gimmie a Strength test.
Want to pick the lock? Roll Lockpicking (Or, well, your Autopicker).
Want to use your Maglock sequencer to get past the door? Gimmie a Hardware roll.
Want to hack the door? Alright, first we gotta find the wireless signal. Now you have to log in. Now you have to hack an account. Now you have to upgrade that account. Now you have to find the right node. Now you ... arg!

AR hacking should be fast, as easy to learn how to do as shooting a gun, casting a spell, or jumping a fence. VR hacking can be more complex, like astral projecting is more complex for a mage than just blasting a spell, but AR should be short n sweet, an opposed roll and go.

That'd be my Xmas wish.

Also a pony.

Posted by: Matsci Dec 23 2012, 06:17 AM

http://"http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-sixth-age-ponies-shadowrun-influenced.243454/

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 23 2012, 06:21 AM

No, Dumpshock does not support inline images. You joined four years ago, figure it out!

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 23 2012, 07:06 AM

Surprisingly, it has worked on occasion.
In any case http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-sixth-age-ponies-shadowrun-influenced.243454/ because the original got FUBAR'd.

In any case, the matrix rules really need a good redo. Forget everything that exists in 4E and start over from the ground up: what's the goal, how long should it take, what are the relevant dice pools.

I think if nothing else changed except the matrix rules, I could be happy. Sure, some better techno rules, differentiating classes of mage, few other things would be nice. But fixing the matrix would make things sooo much better.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 24 2012, 01:36 AM

Actually, what would be really nice is if the main rulebook covered:
1) Magic in detail: Consolidate all the spells and initiate powers from SR4, cover initiation and magical groups. Spirit Mentors, etc. Differentiate between different magical styles - perhaps in a manner like martial arts is done. 'This tradition grants these tweaks, which no other tradition has' sort of thing.

2) The Matrix: What commlinks do, how they work. What programs are normally part of a commlink, and how you can customize a commlink (apps). Hacking needs to be explained. What programs are needed to find a node, hack a node, how to create backdoors and what these do. How to navigate, etc. These need to be explained carefully, and a flowchart or other way to keep things quick and moving is needed. Hacking should be as easy as combat at the bare minimum.

3) Technomancy: Make it parallel mages, just for ease of understanding. Make technomancer programs mimic spells (you pick 'force' when you use it, rather than having to 'buy up' force on a program repeatedly). Submersion, avatars, and groups should be present.

4) Cyberware, Bioware, Nanites, Genengineering: It would be nice if these were all detailed and put together. Cosmetic and 'low-invasion' should either have little or no essence loss (I'd expect techniques have been refined to minimize this as much as possible anyway). Remove or minimize essence loss for pre-natal gen-engineering (if it doesn't cost essence to be a clone, it shouldn't cost essence to have inherited genengineering).

Posted by: Tanegar Dec 24 2012, 02:46 AM

This is quite an interesting idea.


Agreed.

Posted by: Abschalten Dec 24 2012, 02:52 AM

With the Matrix rules as they CURRENTLY are, making Technomancer complex forms act like spells is a bad idea. The Matrix requires way too many repeated rolls, and eventually the Fading would catch up with them and they would just pass out. Mages do not cast spells as often as technomancers need to roll for Matrix-related tests.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 24 2012, 04:42 AM

Quite. Which is one reason the matrix needs to get simpler--in terms of rolls-per-basic-task*--first.

*Basic tasks include, but are not limited to:
1) Opening a locked door
2) Finding a file on an encrypted server
3) Intercepting/Cancelling/Causing an alarm

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 24 2012, 04:51 AM

Agreed. There really needs to be a simpler resolution to TM abilities. And I can see it done as a spell. 'I want this Attack Program at Force 5'. You do the fading test for it, and sustain it. Congrats. You have 'Attack 5' on hold for when you need it. If you wish to sustain a second program, then you suffer the penalty a mage would have for sustaining a spell.

But yes, hacking needs to be simplified, made to flow smoother. Hell, even if they made it an order-of-operations.

STEP 1: Break In. (Choose method: Sleaze, Exploit, etc) -- Takes # of Actions = Security Level of Network
STEP 2: Command Network. -- Takes # of Actions = Rating of Network
STEP 3: Run Command (Spoof, Etc) -- Takes # of Actions = Program Rating being commanded

So, for example, if there was a 'Red 5' network, it would take 4 IPs to break in, and 5 IPs to gain command. Then it might take, for example, 3 IPs to run a command (open a door or what-have-you).

It would make things flow a lot smoother.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 24 2012, 07:31 AM

I should dig up the hacking rules I whipped up and take another look at them (in terms of number of times dice are rolled).

I know that the difference in rating between the hacker's link and the target machine dictated the time interval (so a huge difference in power--e.g. hacking the pentagon with your iphone--was in hours, where as the reverse, took simple actions).

It at least leveled the playing field somewhat, so that if you had a powerful machine you could do those powerful target hacks in reasonable times, but anyone could hack a door lock given a few minutes.

It also favored a hard-link or mutual signal range, as well as poor-device-relays (every rating 1 or lower device used as a relay point modified the rating difference, making the hack slower). Additional penalty applied to hacking certain things. I forget how I classified it, by cyberware was included, as it was something that shouldn't be hackable in that manner (but left the option).

Posted by: Lionhearted Dec 24 2012, 10:25 AM

I would like for programs to be streamlined.
For one there's to damn many of them and they don't differentiate enough to make it immediately clear which one is applicable.
On the top of my head this is what I would do.
• Assume most of the common use programs are integrated to every commlink and have them run off the commlinks stats.
• Have the hacking programs as categories with clear uses. Like Attack/IC, Defense etc. Possibly with specialisations to give them some flair Like having a R4 Attack program with Black IC specialisation.
• Make attributes important for hackers to! it kinda rubs me the wrong way that being thick as mince does nothing to hamper your hacking.

That's just of the top of my head.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 24 2012, 10:47 AM

This is a great idea.

Posted by: cryptoknight Dec 24 2012, 02:46 PM

/agree

However, I'd like to see skill pools for character gen cap at 6, with post-gen characters able to go to 12.

After a while the mundanes start to wonder what Karma is good for.

Posted by: cryptoknight Dec 24 2012, 02:54 PM

If I had to wait until that happened, I wouldn't bother to pick up any part of 5e until the matrix book came out.

Heck in that case, put out the Matrix book first, then the core rules.

Posted by: cryptoknight Dec 24 2012, 03:01 PM

Ok

I have a Motorola Xoom Tablet I got 1 year ago.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone I got 1 month ago

and I have a Phenom2x4 3Ghz system with 16 GB of RAM 2 TB of HD space and a pair of Nvidia GTX-670 video cards in SLI that I got 2 years ago (and upgraded the video cards this year)

Tell me how they're even remotely equal to each other.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 24 2012, 03:55 PM

I'm of two minds about this. Yes, I agree, we need to tweak the skills and karma spending a bit, but I'm uncertain about raising skill caps. The thing is, the 1-6 scale is supposed to represent 'pitiful/perfect' to some extent. For attributes, 6 is human 'maximum', while for skills, 6 is supposed to represent 'mastery'. I could agree with augmented maximums going up to 9 (and specialties then reach 11) -- it puts a cap on just how big your dice pool can get without other weirdness. I want to see spirits and sprites have the same hard limit, actually - restricting their skills to the same level. Alternatively, I want to see spirits and sprites being able to teach others so their skills go higher than 6.

The other thing is, I would like to see how this would affect the dice pools and chances of hits. Mind, I actually liked the rule for 'buckets of dice' in War!. That, I think, was one of the better things in that rulebook.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 24 2012, 03:57 PM

They can all blow away PCs from 10 years ago, and all of them can run hacking software now. By 2070, your PC should probably be able to fit in your pocket, and serve all those functions. Your phone and tablet would be... hmm, I can't even begin to think what they'd be in 2070. A piece of clear paper you can program? (digital paper, which we're already developing now in the real world?)

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 24 2012, 04:13 PM

The problem is that it doesn't work. As soon as you start looking at "average" people doing "simple tasks" they fail about 25% of the time.
You start looking at skilled individuals and throw a moderately difficult problem at them, and they still fail a huge percentage of the time.

Any kind of race car driving, for instance. Most stock car racers aren't going to be "the best in the world" but in the real world, they don't crash that often. Oh, sure, there's a crash every race but you have to consider that there are a hundred cars on the track and it only takes 1 failure to take 10 cars out. With the skill system as it is, those 10 cars would take themselves out, taking another 6 cars (each) with them the first time they rolled dice.

It gets even worse when you start looking at the skill rules and Heavy Weapons. You have to be the #1 guy in the world at firing rockets to hit a moving target the size of a small moving truck...more than 50% of the time.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 24 2012, 05:32 PM

You do have a point there. When looking at dice pools, I'd rather see the chance of failure geared towards an 'average' task. And place 'average' as "something that training is required to do successfully". For example, if you're not used to wiring a TV to an entertainment system, a 25% failure chance should be an option for the 'average individual' - you're considered unskilled (0). When you hit 1, I could see this as still something you might have to do, and re-do, to get it done right... so 25% is 'okay'.



Hmm. You might have a point there. But the way I'd see it, is that a stock car race is an extended test, you're not going to be looking at it for 'did you fail this check this time', but as a 'who gets X hits first'. The crashes would be for when someone botches - which may call for an emergency test out of everyone else to ensure they don't crash at the same time. What would be the average race driver's skill, though? 3? (Specialty: Cars), for a total of 5? Maybe 4 (6)?



That might actually be accurate... I've seen enough combat footage to know most shots do miss their targets (bullets, rockets, etc). If they didn't, the casualty rate would be much higher than it is. Most people aren't expecting to hit a specific target, but they're hoping to get in the general vicinity. I think guided rockets would be a little different in Shadowrun, but unguided munitions aren't really known for their accuracy in combat.

Posted by: NiL_FisK_Urd Dec 24 2012, 07:57 PM

With the rocket scatter rules, you have a low chance of hitting the broad side of a barn from close range ...

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 24 2012, 08:07 PM

Then that might need to be tightened some.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 24 2012, 08:11 PM

And a high chance of vaporizing your team when the rocket comes back at you. Trust me, I've encountered that one...

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 24 2012, 08:25 PM

The current rules as written don't start offering "reasonable rates of success" until you hit 8 dice minimum. Which ends up being "highly skilled, with a college degree" on the skill end of things.



Not going to work out the exact nature of how racing would be handled by the rules. Point is, with the driving rules as they are, your average joe can't ever get on the freeway. Soon as anything happens to cause a driving test, there's a 20 car pileup (say, "traffic suddenly comes to a hault after being at an average speed of 70 mph" which I've been in, and while sudden and potentially frightening, is not so difficult to avoid a crash*).



"General vicinity" doesn't work in Shadowrun. Missiles have an effective damage radius of 4 meters, and beyond 2 any vehicle worth being on the road is going to ignore the damage. Average scatter is eleven meters. Yes, even for guided missiles using airburst.


*Best example: I was looking to change lanes to the right in order to get off on my exit. Look-ahead informed me that traffic was slowing, but not significantly. I looked right to check my mirror and blindspot--OH SHIT, THE CAR IN FRONT OF ME IS NOT MOVING; SWERVE RIGHT INTO THAT OPEN SPOT. Had I not already been interested in moving right or if my blindspot had not been properly checked and there was a car there, it'd have been pretty bad.

If that had come up in Shadowrun, and if I overestimated my skill ranks in driving at 2 (according to the skill listing in SR4, page 108, this is having actual training), with overestimating my reaction to 3, on average I would not pass the test (threshold 2; Threshold 1 is "traffic coming to a sudden stop" where as 2 is "steering through a narrow spot"). My car isn't sporty enough to have additionally handling modifiers, and the terrain was a freeway (so 0 modifiers from situation). I'm looking at 5 dice versus a threshold of 2.

If I were to follow the descriptions of the skill ratings to the letter, I'd have a 0 skill ("operator's license" and defaulting) and 3 reaction. Which would leave me with 2 dice against a threshold of 1 (at best). With 2 dice to avoid crashing a car when traffic comes to a halt, there would be multicar pileups on every major street in Shadowrun every hour of every day.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 24 2012, 09:02 PM

And yet, because of Grid Guide, you would have had absolutely no problems in Shadowrun. And since Grid Guide does exist in Shadowrun, very few people will actually have ANY training in Driving whatsoever. Why would they need it? *shrug*

Posted by: cryptoknight Dec 24 2012, 09:28 PM

I'd argue that a 10 year old pc still has more possibilities than either my tablet or my phone.

My question is... where are the desktops of 2070?

In the realm of computing it's pretty much been a trade-off of mobility vs raw performance and horsepower.

We can extrapolate that out to 2070 easy enough.

My phone will have 128 cores running at 15 Ghz and 1 terabytes of ram

My Desktop would then have 512 cores running at 100 Ghz and 16 terabytes of Ram

Again, the bigger bulkier decker like devices should still be out there running circles performance wise around the sexy slim devices.

Posted by: UmaroVI Dec 24 2012, 09:51 PM

They are called Nexuses, but all they let you do is have more personas and subscriptions, not better programs.

As for my wishlist: clear, carefully proofread rules. Especially for the matrix. I don't even care how it works, I just care that it works. Also, timely and clear errata. If 5E does nothing but clarify 4E's rules on messes like Mystic Adepts, cyberlimbs, etc. and then light the matrix rules on fire and make something that works in their place, I will be happy with it.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 24 2012, 10:02 PM

In Unwired. They're called Nexi.
The thing is, mobile devices are running compatible OS (just where Windows 8 is moving), so there's no reason to be tied to a stationary nexus for a hacker when there are isolated wireless networks that need to be hacked, etc.

Posted by: Elfenlied Dec 24 2012, 11:50 PM

My wishlist:
1) Keep the wireless matrix, and simplify the rules enough to make combat hacking viable and enjoyable for casual gamers.
2) Integrate less-used skills into exisiting skills. There is no merit in having "Industrial Mechanic" as a separate skill when there's already Hardware. And please remove the clusterfoxtrott that are exotic skills.
3) Make the cost for higher-end 'ware scale better. Price*10 for Deltaware might be justifiable from a fluff perspective, but gameplay wise, it's ridiculous.
4) Make all niches and roles viable.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 24 2012, 11:57 PM

If anything, exotics are okay. It's a rare distinct skill, it's under exotic category. Seems perfectly reasonable.

Delta seems to be scaling well for endgame, too. Yeah, you're getting that extra edge, but you're paying for that. There's no reason for it to be cheap.

Posted by: ikarinokami Dec 25 2012, 12:01 AM

The game needs to be streamlined more. there are two many different machanism, and forces many a GM to exclude parts of the setting, hacking or technomanchers, or vehicle combat, because they are just too combersome, parts of the game world that are really important IMO.

they also need to conduct a playtest, ala paizo/pathfinder.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 25 2012, 12:30 AM

And then look up the rules for dogbrains, please.

Your car only has 3 dice to drive itself.

(Hint: grid guide is magical, as it's rule says that It Just Works, apparently, as it provides precisely 0 dice of bonus)

Posted by: Fatum Dec 25 2012, 12:37 AM

Ordinary day-to-day driving does not require tests to begin with.

Posted by: Udoshi Dec 25 2012, 12:37 AM

Even WORSE than that, is Pilots NEED an autosoft to attempt a skill; they lack the programming and flail about blindly if they don't have the code for a task.

And, guess what?

No pilot comes with the Maneuver autosoft.

Your car can't even drive itself UNLESS you sink money into it.

(its fairly easy to houserule this, otherwise Drones kinda break)

Posted by: Elfenlied Dec 25 2012, 12:39 AM

Exotic weapons usually do not provide enough gameplay benefits to warrant the -2 DP disadvatange (from lack of specialization). Exotic Melee weapons as a skill to cover all exotic melee weapons, with the option to specialize in a single one for the +2 bonus would be fine. Same for Exotic Range Weapons. And Garrotes and Monofilament Garrotes requiring two separate skills is anything but reasonable.



As long as Karma and Nuyen rewards are roughly in line with each other, the current higher-grade 'ware costs mean that mundanes fall off very hard when compared to awakened characters. I've never even seen Delta grade 'ware in my games outside of cybereyes, and unless a DM decides to seriously monty haul the rewards, it's really unlikely that it will ever appear. Meanwhile, our initiates are apparoaching two digits...

Posted by: Fatum Dec 25 2012, 12:47 AM

So you think that training in bolas, flamethrower and laser cannon usage should be covered by the same skill?

If your players are swimming in Karma but can't afford new hardware I wouldn't call your reward system balanced...

Posted by: Elfenlied Dec 25 2012, 12:55 AM

No, I think Bolas should be part of throwing weapons, and the latter two part of heavy weapons. If people insist on having special snowflake skills for non-mainstream weapons, a single EW skill would be preferable to the balkanization we have right now.



We're running Missions S4 and official modules (Ghost Cartels, and now the Artefact series). The rewards are run by the book, so I assume it's the way the designer's intended it to be.

Posted by: Bull Dec 25 2012, 01:14 AM

As Missions developer, here's my viewpoint (And the general CGL viewpoint).

Deltaware is not something runners are supposed to be able to easily get after a handful of runs. The fat that there are still only a couple dozen clinics in the world that can even install Delta backs that up. It's not something your neighborhood Street Doc is capable of installing.

Deltaware comes after YEARS of running. You'll notice that even in Street Legends, where many characters are 1000+ Karma characters, few have Deltaware.

Simply put, I don't ever expect to see someone sit down at an official Missions game with any Deltaware, and if they do I expect the GM to do a character audit. Maybe, if it's a really long running character, a couple pieces of Delta. Low end stuff. Eyes and ears, stuff that's somewhat cheap. Delta Wired Reflexes or Move By Wire? Not a chance.

Deltaware is up there with things like the jets and tanks. Tey're not really stuff your average Shadowrunner ever gets to play with.

Bull

Posted by: Fatum Dec 25 2012, 01:17 AM

Oh, so the same skill that also covers cannons, gauss guns and whatnot? I am sure operating them requires completely the same set of skills.

Thanks for the clarification, Bull.

Posted by: Halinn Dec 25 2012, 01:38 AM

I'm sure that playing guitars and building sculptures is the same. Shadowrun doesn't need to have overly specialized skills for things that are very rarely used in a game.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 25 2012, 01:41 AM

Sure. That's why it has one skill for doing art and a bunch of skills for shooting stuff.

Posted by: Elfenlied Dec 25 2012, 01:45 AM

The skill already covers machine guns, cannons and grenade launchers, so it's not that hard to justify laser cannons or flamethrowers. Unless, of course, you prefer to not see those weapons in your game.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 25 2012, 04:22 PM

Does it now?

Posted by: Fatum Dec 25 2012, 04:36 PM

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 25 2012, 05:00 PM

PC != NPC

And if "merging" doesn't require a test, wouldn't that be "Threshold -"?

Also, is it something that a person can be "reasonably capable of doing" when the person only has 2 dice for the test?

Posted by: Mantis Dec 25 2012, 05:10 PM

What I'd like to see is the new version make a transition similar to 3rd ed from 2nd ed rather than the transition from 1st ed to 2nd. That way I can keep using my 4th ed splat books and just roll the new matrix rules (please, please make it actually fun and useful this time) into the game. Basically that transition made it possible for old players to learn the new rules easily and made 3rd more of a streamlined 2nd ed rather than total shakeup the change from 1st to 2nd was.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 25 2012, 05:59 PM

Please read the second sentence of the quote.

Only challenging problems or attempts made under stressful conditions should require a test. Day to day driving does not require Drive Ground Vehicle, jogging around your walled community does not require Running, playing orkrock on your commlink does not require Computer, etc.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 25 2012, 06:52 PM

Either:

a) all normal people driving do not need rolls to avoid crashing in traffic (ergo no traffic accidents occur, ever, unless there are criminals avoiding the cops)
or
b) all normal people driving DO need rolls to avoid crashing in traffic (ergo the rules stipulate that 43% of all drivers will fail that roll when merging onto the freeway)

Both cannot be true, unless:

c) the rules are complete crap and need to be fixed

Posted by: Fatum Dec 25 2012, 07:50 PM

When a situation that requires a roll not to crash arises, average people fail it 43% of the time. Which is perfectly reasonable.

Posted by: Sengir Dec 25 2012, 08:39 PM

Full ACK, at least as far as prices are concerned. Availability sadly does not scale at all, which should be fixed...along with several other items where fluff says "cutting edge and far away form mass production" but the Availability says it is easier to get than a piece of cyber with analogous function. Nanotech, I'm looking at you.


And since you are discussing vehicles: It would be nice if Sprites could actually control drones. By RAW they can neither use Command nor jump into drones, because they have no Vehicle Skills and most of those tests can't be defaulted on. Yes, they have the Autosoft CF which is probably intended to act as those Vehicle Skills, but by RAW it doesn't.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 26 2012, 12:50 AM

o..O you have real world statistics on that somewhere?

Because I'm not even sure 43% of drunks crash their cars on a yearly basis.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 26 2012, 03:54 AM

What makes you think potentially dangerous situations arise twice a year with GridGuide and all that good jazz?

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 26 2012, 04:42 AM

D) who gives a fsk if the roll in question isn't relevant to the story at hand?

Throw all the hypotheticals you want, but this is a freaking game, and I have better things to do than worry if Joe Corper will or won't crash his car - unless he's somehow on the same highway as my runners.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 26 2012, 04:54 AM

This.

Anything else is micromanagement at the expense of enjoyment of the game at hand.

Posted by: Elfenlied Dec 26 2012, 05:48 AM

If they would just fulfill one wish for 5E, it would be this:

Instead, please streamline the game and get rid of overcomplicated niche rulesets.

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 26 2012, 12:20 PM

I never did get around to writing up a 5e Wishlist, so I'll attempt to do so now.

1. Simplify, Simplify. The whole nature of the mechanic for the player. Shadowrun 4e is a really simple dice system - att + skill vs target number of sucesses. If you need to do more, you do an extended test. If you're opposing someone, you're trying to beat their number of successes. Very, very simple. However, instead of just saying, "roll an X check", you have things like the Chase rules, which come up with multiple paragraphs describing a simple opposed test. Why? Simplify, simplify.

2. Tell me ten things about this setting. Break the Sixth World down to it's component parts. I first saw this on an an Italian roleplaying board I hung out on; they did this order to describe the different fantasy settings of D&D. Dungeons and Dragons 4e used it as well to describe their Points of Light setting. It's an incredibly useful way of showcasing just how different the Sixth World is from our own real world, and allows people to make Shadowrun "their's." Which is a good thing!

3. Tell Players What They're Doing. Shadowrun is a great game that is terrible at actually describing what it expects a player to do. Sure, you can kind of muddle it out of the written work, but I've had to explain to players that they're not the army, that despite their cyber they're not the toughest folks around, and acting like it will only get them killed. Shadowrun really needs to spell out what it is, in plain text, within the first chapter.

4. Put Changelings in the corebook. Eh. Personal wish.

5. Reorganize the Skills. Blech, the skill groups suck because they have the weirdest shit in them or are missing other key elements of the skill, there's too many broad skills, and too many narrow skills (the argument about three skills for guns while one for artistry in general). This needs looking at.

6. Simplify the combat chapter. Seriously. We don't need multiple charts for modifiers.

7. Use the att+skill against Program Rating variant rule. Why is hacking the only ruleset in this book that ignores its own system?

8. Get Rid of the Gear Porn. Seriously. You can just do, "Heavy Pistol, DMG 5, AP /-1 or as modified by maker". Or the like. Why pages upon pages of stuff?

9. Get Rid of Extraneous +1 Cyber. Again, see my thoughts on gear.

10. Lots more GM guidelines. I'll be expanding on this when I'm not running for the door.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 26 2012, 01:46 PM

You forgot that bit about GridGuide only having three dice, didn't you?

Also, "twice a year?" Where'd you get "twice a year?" I was giving benefit of the doubt so that the statistics might come back as at least marginally close. I was increasing the number of trials to get a larger pool of failures to compare with.



It's called "suspension of disbelief." It boggles my mind that the rules that use a 0-6 scale of training assumes that a "0" is enough skill to grant you a basic operator's license and that a 2 qualifies as "years of specialized training." The statistics don't even start working out in your favor until you hit 4!

Posted by: nezumi Dec 26 2012, 03:29 PM

EITHER:

1) Bring back enough mechanical support for greater granularity, dynamicism, and player choice, and properly respect laws of physics in fields where physics apply (like wireless technology). (It doesn't have to be SR3, but SR3 offers things SR4 lost, and I lost interest as a consequence. A new mechanic that does this would be fine.)

OR

2) Accept the mechanics don't support tactical gaming, so make them as simple as possible and focus on character- and plot-driven games (like with Tech Noir and Eclipse Phase).

SR4 is not enough of either to make it a worthwhile expentirue of my time or money.

ALSO:

Get more style. SR1 is beautiful in part because it had so much style. SR3 began to lose it, but at least it had the ties back to the earlier editions. Maybe I just haven't gotten over the cover of the core book yet, but SR4 still strikes me as goofy, cartoony, one-dimensional, and amateurish (from a STYLE perspective). I've never seen a character or concept from the SR4 books which inspired me (well, excepting the monofilament chainsaw).

Posted by: Fatum Dec 26 2012, 03:51 PM

"Disregard the opinions of the core fanbase and cater to the people who're happier playing MMOs to get a massive failure like D&D4E was, yaaaay!"


While I agree that some mechanics (like vehicle rules in general, for example; not just the catastrophic Chase subsystem) can use a lot of work, Shadowrun has always been about going into at least some detail. Simplification is good until it's turning the game into a roll-to-win.

That's in the introductory chapter of the core book?

Do you think that different firearms should have the same range penalties? Or that the darkness and smoke should affect thermal and low-light in exactly the same way? Where do you see the room for simplification without oversimplification?

Nope. Just nope. Gear should differ in significant ways, and if you're going to have 10 different heavy pistols they should differ in more than just the default upgrades that you can get separately later on anyway, yes. However, having bunches of different cool gear is a large part of the game's allure, and frankly, the willingness of the humankind to spend dozens of hours just to see a single stat number increase has been demonstrated by Blizzard more than once.

Why not, exactly? You're exchanging money and essence for attribute and skill bonuses. What is wrong about it? Especially minding that there are all kinds of ware that do much more than just grant you a bonus to this or that?


How much dice it has is irrelevant. It prevents potentially dangerous situations on the road, and nobody has to roll those.

For a civilian to crash yearly with a 43% probability to crash at each potentially dangerous situation, how many potentially dangerous situations should arise on the road per year?

My point is, again: civilians don't do anything risky, and they're not under stress like the runners are. They don't have to roll for their day-to-day tasks at all, just like the core states it. When they do have to roll (which is very rarely), yeah, they have a significant chance to fail, and that's normal.


Minding that Eclipse Phase is basically Shadowrun: the d100, plus it uses certain additional basic mechanics like testing skill x2 or x3, I just don't see how it's "as simple as possible and focuses on character- and plot-driven games".

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 26 2012, 04:55 PM

That isn't what I said.

A single roll of 2 dice with a threshold of 1 is a 43% chance of failure.

I asked for REAL WORLD statistics that would come close to matching that. I.e. how untrained/drunk would someone need to be to have a 43% chance of crashing their car if they drove that way for a year.

(i.e. how often does a single vehicle check come up for the average citizen in ShadowRun? If the answer is "never" then the rules are poorly written.)

Posted by: Fatum Dec 26 2012, 04:59 PM

You seem to misunderstand the premise. A civilian has 43% to fail a vehicle test. A RL driver has a fair chance to crash in an actual dangerous situation - which is when a SR civilian's rolling his test. Whatever road accident rate is, you can presume that about one accident of potential two is avoided, and thus deduct how often a vehicle test is required of an average SR civilian.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 26 2012, 05:31 PM

So the average citizen sees 1 dangerous situation every 52,650,009 miles. Or about once every 3181 years.

I respectfully disagree.

(That was calculated using the http://www.statisticbrain.com/car-crash-fatality-statistics-2/ for 6 years, subtracted out the impaired driving related incidents, assumed it was the 43% failed tests, divided by 6 to get a "per year" average, then divided that into the number of miles driven by the 252 million registered vehicles in the US: http://mobikefed.org/2012/03/megatrend-us-motor-vehicle-miles-driven-has-been-flat-decade-bicycling-and-walking-strong-up to get the average distance between crashes for an average individual; dividing by the http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm to get the average distance in time between events for a single individual).

Now if we assume a 10% chance of failure, the time-between-events is reduced to approximately 123 years, which is not unreasonable (that is, on average, people will experience about 0.89 lethal crashes in their lifetime*). THAT is a starting point for an average person.

*That is, "in a crash where one or more people dies." They needn't be one of the fatalities. By car insurance industry estimates, you will file a claim for a collision (not necessarily fatal) about once every 17.9 years. There are about 10 million accidents of all kinds each year, from parking lot scrapes to multi-car pileups, according to the National Safety Council; in 2009, just three of every 1,000 of those accidents involved fatalities.

Extrapolating backwards, 0.3% of crashes are fatal, which increases our initial assumption by a fair amount: 81,671 collissions per year from fender benders to fatalities (ignoring drunk driving) over the original 24,501. Which still leaves us at 1 accident per 15,795,080 miles driven (at a 43% failure rate).

Posted by: bannockburn Dec 26 2012, 05:32 PM

To what lengths you go to be right on the internet. It boggles the mind.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 26 2012, 05:38 PM

You DO remember where you are posting, right?

Posted by: Fatum Dec 26 2012, 05:39 PM

They have GridGuide, and it makes it so.

Posted by: Iduno Dec 26 2012, 05:44 PM

I would agree with reimproving the rules, but starting over isn't going to help. A lot of the problems with the matrix rules is that we get a new set each edition, so they've never been around long enough to get the bugs worked out. Start with the matrix from the core book (Unwired added a lot of complications with every program being trackable and new programs that needed more programs to counter them). streamline the rules so a hacking attempt takes about the same number of rolls as combat, then add complications for more options, then make sure nothing broke the system. I'd like to see cyberdecks that are bulkier and heavier than commlinks, but more powerful and customizable.

Someone mentioned not having equipment that did everything cyberware does but cheaper and with no essence cost (like contacts instead of cybereyes). Make them have some drawback, maybe the bonus can only be used once per round or takes an action because wireless is slower than wired directly into your brain.

I also liked the suggestion to stretch out the skills and stats a bit, at least at the lower end. A person with average skills and stats should be able to succeed at simple tasks (just tough enough to require a roll).

Make sure to compare RAI and RAW when copy-pasting things from previous editions.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 26 2012, 05:45 PM

Wow... Lets see... 1 Accident, 35 Years of Driving, No Injuries whatsoever. *shrug*

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 26 2012, 05:46 PM

Hooray, all hail the magical gridguide!

No. I still don't believe that gridguide is that perfect.



You're beating the odds. Good for you.
(Of course, that means, that you're insurance company loves you)
Or perhaps, you're nearing in on having your second (your driving time works out to 1.95 accidents on average, so you aren't winning by a whole lot yet).

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 26 2012, 05:47 PM

You may believe it is so. That does not MAKE it so. *shrug*

Posted by: ShadowJackal Dec 26 2012, 06:45 PM

But the issue is that gear doesn't vary in a large sense. You don't get much of a significant advantage from anything and the ratio between gear, power, accuracy and difficulty to obtain isn't enough to ever warrant me wanting to bother with upgrading beyond the basics. The positives of obtaining an extra dice or two of damage isn't worth the hassle of getting the weapon and then worrying about getting caught with it and having proper licenses.

TL;DR I have more fun making a character that has unarmed skills and an Ares Predator than wasting time and money with a gun bunny that has to bother with menial weapons upgrades and the complications that come along with them. JMHO.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 26 2012, 07:03 PM

You have more fun that way and it's okay, but why derive the others of their way of having fun - upgrading their stuff, then customizing it, and then upgrading the addons on customizations?

Posted by: ShadowJackal Dec 26 2012, 07:05 PM

If the system was more cohesive to allowing weapons that made logical sense to spend time on, I'd have fun with that too

Posted by: Fatum Dec 26 2012, 07:23 PM

You're getting like two dice more on a test!

Posted by: nezumi Dec 26 2012, 08:46 PM

Eclipse Phase shares a lot of setting similarities with SR. But mechanically, it's very different. Even SR4 is fairly balanced, with some degree of nuance. The reason an SR4 player dominates the game is because he knows the rules better than the other players or GM. Statistically, tactical considerations play a significant determination in success (changing likelihood by several standard deviations), the probability curve is in fact a bell-shape, and 'gauranteed success' is uncommon.

EP has a much simpler d100 system, which is basically there to get conflict resolution out of the way of story-telling. It's trivially easy for a player to 'break' the mechanics and have a 90% chance of succeeding on their skills of choice. Once you get past chargen (which is, admitedly, very complex and messy), most things boil down to a handful of simple dice rolls. Statistically, modifiers are usually insignificant compared to the PCs skills and mods (the former rarely shifting probability by more than one std. dev., while the latter shifts it easily to the 90 percentile), the probability curve is a line, and guaranteed success is quite common.

Most EP conflicts comes down to 'okay, roll a die. That's your skill? Well this one is tough, so subtract a round number. Still succeed? Okay, I'll roll a die. You win.' Sometimes there's a second roll to determine damage or something, but statistically, it's all quite boring. It's very fast, very back-of-the-envelope. I belive it's a design decision to reflect a setting where PCs can really accomplish anything, if given enough time and the right tools.

Posted by: ElFenrir Dec 26 2012, 09:21 PM

1. I'd like to be able to play a Physad without wishing I had taken cyber.

2. Bring back Hermetic/Shamanic spirits. Yeah, it's a little more complicated but I really like that flavor.

3. PLEASE leave Cyberlimbs as they are now: finally, awesome and affordable. Don't bring them back to the old 3e and before way where a rather 'popular' item took a mint and a half to get made properly.

4. Leave in the martial arts rules. Really love these.

5. I love how the new Shapeshifters work-keep them as well. (I'd like to see Changelings/Other Metatypes still in the game. Not sure about the core book but definitely in the game. At the very least in one Big Book o' Races. I wouldn't mind them in the core book, however, if it could be done fairly simply.)

6. Try to get a more even balance between 'god-stats' and 'dump-stats.' I don't want to see any stat that's the one that rules them all, but try to slim down the dumpstats a bit. It's okay to have concepts that would not favor some stats as much as others of course, but when a fighter concept can pretty much freely dump Strength there's something a bit wrong.

7. Balance out the costs of the core metahumans a bit better. Really for the benefits they get as of now, Elves should be the cheapest and Orks one of the costlier ones. Dwarves should be costlier as well. Trolls I think are fine(or they will be if Strength becomes even a tiny bit more useful.) I also feel that with cosmetic surgery being as common as anything that Orks no longer even have their 'orkiness' as a racial disadvantage-they can get cosmetic surgery to look *exactly* like a bigger human, and unless you test their DNA or something you'd never know. (A troll, you'd know. He could have cosmetic surgery enough to make Adonis look shabby next to him, but he's still going to be 8'6'' tall and built like a truck, people will know.)

I'm sure I'll think of more, but those are the ones that hit the top of my head.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 26 2012, 09:39 PM

I definitely agree on those cybercosts. I play SR3, and my cyber costs are all still based off of SR4. Greatest change in the update

Posted by: phlapjack77 Dec 27 2012, 06:27 AM

Skill webs.

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 27 2012, 12:00 PM

Despite the poo-poo'ing of the older, established fanbase, 4e did quite well for itself. It also achieved all of its design goals: it streamlined the system for both players and GMs, it brought in new fans to the hobby (always a good thing), it made non-magical characters fun to play, it made all three tiers of play experience fun and easy to do...the real flaw was that they spent so much time on the combat system that they kind of dropped the ball on the stuff outside of combat. Which was fine if you were capable of hacking in new stuff, but very clearly annoyed some people. And Essentials was a dud, but oh well.

Your quote above? I could remove "people happier playing MMOs..." and replace it with a general "video games" and throw it back in time to any other edition change-over and have it resemble exactly what the established playerbase was saying at the time. In other words? Your shit isn't new. Get used to change.



Which is not what I'm suggesting in the least. I'm suggesting streamlining and simplifying the very many rolls that can happen in this game for no good reason.

Here's some links to Shadowrun hacks the Story Games crowd have come up with Shadowrun. While I'm not suggesting that we go as full blown as these, it's a good way for the two of us to get on the same page regarding simplification and ease-of-use, yeah?

http://mightyatom.blogspot.com/2010/04/mouse-guard-shadowrun-hack.html?m=1 (requires Mouseguard)

http://sentientgames.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/shadowhack.pdf (.pdf link)

http://sentientgames.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/world-of-shadows/ (requires Dungeon World / World of Dungeons)

Or, go read http://book.dwgazetteer.com/, which is my current new favorite game, and makes me excited to run D&D again for the first time in ages.


My problem being that it's buried in with other junk that makes it's message unclear. It also doesn't explain the game's purpose - its "focus" - which needs to be right there, clear as day. The game needs to talk about it's themes, what it sets out to do, what it expects from both players and GMs. The message isn't clear in the tiny blurb they give it in SR4a.


Yes. Short / Medium / Long / Extreme, with an escalating penalty. For an example, look at the new FFG Star Wars book, for their concept of "rings".


Who cares? It's a flat -2 to penalty that you can negate if you're wearing the right equipment.


Here's the problem: gamer's seem to equate "simplification" with "dumbing down". And gamers fear "dumbing down", because to some degree it makes it a little less arcane and a little bit easier for other folks to join their inner circle.

All I'm suggesting here - and it follows through with what I'm about to say about gear and cyber - is that this game and its' books focus way too much on little niggly stuff like, "here's a bunch of equipment / cyber / qualities that can get me one more +1!!!!" and uses up way too much bookspace for it. Seriously. It also does it for rules; I mean, the book goes into all sorts of could-have-would-have situations, where all you need to say is, "if it's a penalty, give it a flat -2 penalty to the roll or the pool." Or, "have the player roll a Dex check" instead of big titles and subdivisions that state "HERE'S ALL THE RULES!!!". It's not worth a damn, and it eats word count. It's porn. It's there to make a gamer feel like they're smart because they have ALL THE +1S!!!! Get rid of it. Simplify, simplify.


Again: all I'm suggesting is that you can cut a huge chunk of the equipment chapter - which is huge, and unwieldy - starting with, "light pistol - 4P. Heavy pistol - 5P /-1 AP. Automatic - 6P /-2, SA / BF". And not lose much! Hell, then it leaves open the door to put in the customizing rules from Arsenal, which is a net gain, right? Right?

(I would also like to point out the irony of you poo-poo'ing Blizzard above, and then using them here to support your need for gear porn. Just sayin'...)


What's wrong with it is that there's too much space given to Yet Another +1 and not enough to the weird and useful cyber and bio. You can just genericize the +1 cyber, stick them at the beginning of their section, and then leave room for other stuff.

My basic point stands - condense the +1s and the gear, and use that room for something else. Something that can improve the game for everyone involved, not just the guy who likes to sit on Chummer for hours making characters. I'm not a fan of system mastery, and loathe Monte Cook for really introducing it into the mainstream. If we took the attention away from getting one small niggling bonus to your character sheet to the stuff that's actually interesting - where did they get that gear? That cyber? Why are they running? Why do they have the skills that they have? What's their goals? What do they want? What kind of runs is this guy going to go on? Where did he meet his team? Does he like his team? - this game would be a lot more fun to play and talk about.

All we get now is, "is this build okay? Where are my screw-ups? LOOK AT THIS MONSTER BUILD I'VE MADE!!!" and that's boring.

(Your mileage - and Sixth World - may vary. And that's okay.)

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 27 2012, 02:16 PM

4e didn't exactly do 'quite well' for itself, as evidenced by WotC bringing back on many 2e and 3e designers (Monte Cook included) to work on 5e. It did successfully bring in a few new people... and generate a huge market for the guys at Paizo by alienating a lot of the previous playerbase. Honestly, I occasionally wonder if that wouldn't be helpful for SR as well, to pull a full on edition split, let Catalyst go out into the banal idiocy they keep worldbuilding in and do up a revised and clarified SR2 descendant for the folks who really prefer the old flavor and style.



This is something that's bugged me for years as well. We lost a lot of the fun and flavor by losing gear books like the old Street Samurai's Catalog. A fairly limited new set of gear, but with all the in-world shadowtalk, illustrations, and marketing text really helped to put all of it firmly in place in the setting and help players wrap their minds around what the stuff on their sheet -means- in-universe.

Posted by: ElFenrir Dec 27 2012, 02:34 PM

I always built both mechanically and story wise. It has to fit both ways.

For example, I have a concept of a strong, tough martial artist fellow who moonlights as a face as well-a combat face if you will. He's used in situations where it might be dangerous to send a face by themselves, but also not the best idea to send a bodyguard. He's also used for some dirty work that might involve getting in and performing a good ol' fashioned neck snap. So I build him like this-I give him stats that fit him, and skills that fit him, and then I go over his ware-he gets stuff that makes him stronger and faster, and stuff that helps his face side as well. I don't particularly think that's system mastery, that's 'Building to a concept.' Now, I like a little number crunching. Of course I might look over some skills or ware and think 'hmm, I could trade this for this, it wouldn't be out of character, and net a bonus.' But I don't think that's excessive. I think you'll find people who like building tighter things in ANY game, even very light rules games. Now this isn't to say I don't think 4e is without it's flaws, it definitely has some.

I mean mechanical bonus gear has existed since the dawn of time. A Smartlink, for example, always gave you a bonus to shooting. Reflex Enhancements always gave you a bonus to Initiative. Of course, now, I will freely say I *loved* the design of the 1e/2e books. Like, a lot. I loved how they talked about all the gear and compared it. It made me feel like my character would be shopping for stuff. And even those guys in the books said things like 'give yourself a damn good edge when you can get it.' They wanted powerful toys too. I do like those old books a lot no matter how I look at it.

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 27 2012, 02:50 PM

The problem comes when it starts to become effectively impossible for someone who is -not- min/maxed to the very bleeding edge to reliably do anything. Although that is, in my opinion, the result of jacking up system-wide difficulty on the expectation that the players will munchkin.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 27 2012, 02:53 PM

Ravenmuse, I agree with all the rest of your post, especially the bit about themes, which I think was a major turn off for me with SR4, compared to SR1/2.

However ...

This line is, frankly, insulting. Speaking for myself, I enjoy SR3 for the same reason I enjoy puzzles, or playing Civ4, or building machines in Minecraft, or playing chess. The rules are relatively simple, but the possible variations on play and ramifications are significant. I loved that moment of "well, if I spend five of my combat pool, I should be able to stage this damage up to a D and keep that guy out of the fight ... but if the guy over there shoots at me, I'll be hosed ..." This, for me, is tremendously fun. While I'd like to have people to enjoy this fun with, I frankly do not care if you specifically happen to be one of those people 'in the know' or not.

I do respect that SR3 was slow to run combat. SR4 did a little to speed that up, but it lost a major aspect of the game I enjoyed (the other being the themes and color you already touched on). As I've said previously, if SR5 was mechanics-light, I'd probably be interested, because then I can enjoy the color of the game. I'm not against simpler mechanics. But if you're going to do simple, do simple. Don't stop in the middle of the road, where you're not simple, but don't provide the 'puzzle fun' gamers like me enjoy.

Regarding the equipment creep ... I'd agree that having pieces of equipment whose sole purpose is to add a '+1' somewhere suck. I'm not against having lots of equipment, but it needs to either add something to the fun of gameplay, or add something to the color of the world. "+1 pistol" does neither.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 27 2012, 02:59 PM

Actually, that was something my wife hated about 3E and earlier. She doesn't want to have to do resource management when she plays. She doesn't even like looking at the gear section, because she's terrible at mechanics. She wants to be able to look at her sheet, and immediately know what she can do. She doesn't want charts, she doesn't want to go through equipment lists, looking for 'what suits her best', and she doesn't want to have to look at a slew of moving parts just to figure out what she's playing.

She'd rather go, 'I do this'. I say, 'roll x + y (with an optional -2/+2 adjustment), roll, go 'X hits', and that's it. I don't think Shadowrun will ever get that simple, but I can see where some people want an inclusive system, not an exclusive system. An RPG where people who've never played RPGs before, or who suck at math, or who can't keep rules in their heads, can come in, sit down, and enjoy themselves without needing to go over the combat rules for 5 minutes every time it's their turn.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 27 2012, 03:07 PM

How to Notgear (Nonexistent Sidebar)

If gear and resource management is too much for you, do the following:
Add +2 to your primary skill or skill group as a "gear bonus"
Arrange +5 worth of "gear bonus," no more than +2 to any one skill or skill group, to your secondary skills
Add +1 to your primary and secondary attributes as an "augmentation" bonus for 1 point of essence. You may spend essence up to three times.

---

Roughly speaking that should come out to "approximately" equivalent power in about 90 seconds. Note: I didn't balance test at all and numbers might benefit from some tweaking, I was just making an approximation.

Posted by: Bigity Dec 27 2012, 03:07 PM

I don't know if a setting as complex and nuanced as Shadowrun really invites newbie RPGers anyway.

But I also enjoyed the die pool mechanics of SR previous editions. It added some 'tactical-like' thinking to throwing buckets of D6s around.

Posted by: ElFenrir Dec 27 2012, 03:13 PM

Well, even back in the old days-I know in Shadowrun 2e, there could be a fairly decent sized difference between two of the same characters-one who was optimized, and one who wasn't. I mean take..say, Sam A and Sam B. If Sam A was made optimally for his job(let's say for the sake of the discussion it's a 'classic same'-guns, swords, stealth, some driving and street etiquette, and cyberware/bioware that helped with all of this-they did have Bioware in the old days), but Sam B went 'jack of all trades.' Sam A would certainly be more optimized in 'Samming Stuff' than Sam B, with the latter having some extra knowledge in a few more skills. In a straight up fight, or stealth situation Sam A would essentially, barring some REALLY poor rolls(and some really good ones on Sam B's side), overtake Sam B. Sam B would have, say, some extra etiquette, computer, and fixit skills to help out, though. But it was up to the GM to make situations for that. If the GM kept throwing combat, combat, combat at the team, then yeah, Sam A would just overtake him wherever.

Of course you could take this and make it equivalent to about any other class. If one mage is specialized for Summoning and one for Spellcasting, if the GM keeps putting in situations that hoses Mage A's elementals and spirits, Mage B is going to look a lot better.

As a GM, I always try to make sure I put in situations to let every character have their moment with their specialty. I also make sure to give situations for the non-optimized to have their moment as well-they may be able to do something that the optimized person can't(I found-in my own experience-the entire 'optimized vs. non-optimized' situations crops up when the non optimized ends up spreading things thinner-which I also find gives them other skills that the optimized person often doesn't end up with.)

Posted by: ShadowJackal Dec 27 2012, 03:13 PM

Without going too far off topic, 4e wasn't made for "us", 4e was an attempt to bring in new blood and basically bridge the gap between a younger group of gamers that normally played things like Magic The Gathering and World Of Warcraft, hence so many of the similarities in the game mechanics but you're right, it did alienate many old players because the game line didn't get to fully realize itself. From what I understand through the gossip trains this is due to the economy hitting the company hard. There were many layoffs and staff changes throughout and the 4e line suffered because of that. They tried to do a quick reboot with Essentials but that failed as well due to it's oversimplified design.

I'm pretty much the target audience on this because I'm a big fan of 3.5 and I *REALLY* hated the idea of 4e, but even I'll admit it wasn't too bad, it just brought back way too many memories of playing WoW.

To wrap this back around to SR, the reason (IMHO) that 4e ultimately fell is because there were no tie-in lines. There was a weak miniatures presence, but beyond that the tangible merchandise was pretty slim and the line fell before they were able to fix that. This is why I think SR is getting a 5th edition with all the additional products that have been mentioned. There really isn't money in releasing game books, the money is in the extras, but you also have to find an audience for those extras. I know I'm not one, I don't care much for miniatures games or board games beyond every once in awhile and I'm not even that excited for the MMORPG after giving a few years to WoW, but they may need it to survive.

Sorry if that went way OT.

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 27 2012, 03:26 PM

No disrespect meant! And I will admit that I painted with a very large brush there.

And reading what both you and binary have written, you agree with what my intention was - system mastery for system mastery's sake isn't fun for people who don't enjoy coming to a table min-maxed on a ton of +1s. Like when I played the Scramble this year at Gencon and ended up walking away from the tabletop portion to talk to Bull and Redjack because my team was too focused on how many bonuses they could get by throwing down tac nets and shotgun spreads and the like.

4th edition already IS a pretty simple system - it's just that there is some cruft in there solely for legacy reasons that hurts the game in the long run (which, for example, 4e D&D attempted to fix and got their hands slapped because people Re obsessively attached to that legacy cruft of +1s and system mastery).

Real, honest apologies if I offended.

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 27 2012, 03:30 PM

The worst part is that it isn't the first time WotC tried that with the D&D line. Back in early 3e, they tried to spin off Dragonlance 5th Age as a simplified game with cards for abilities(The SAGA System), and it flopped spectacularly as well.




That's probably part of it. The last SR videogame being such a pile of drek made it the opposite of a good tie-in, something that actually discouraged people from wanting to know more. I don't enjoy SR4 myself because a lot of the directions that were chosen in its development (simplification of mages/shamans, wireless matrix, etc) really hurt my immersion in the game world as a veteran GM and player. For something so rules-heavy and complex, that immersion is critical to making people want to play the game. Especially on the GM front, because this isn't a game where you can throw together a few notes and a copy of the Monster Manual to wing it and still get a satisfying challenge.

Posted by: ShadowJackal Dec 27 2012, 03:47 PM

4e did flop, but even though I didn't care for it, I still think it didn't flop because of what it was, it flopped because it didn't get to fully realize. I lived in a fairly remote area when it launched and attended two different gaming store's weekly WoTC events (For the love of me I can't remember what they were called), and they were extremely well attended. I was on the older scale of people there but there were at least a dozen if not more players there each week. Many of these were in the 16-22 range and were MtG players that wanted to try a new game. I don't think that my experience with this was unique.



I've not touched the XBox game so I don't know anything about it (my husband banned it from our home), but I've heard enough to see what it did to the fandom. I have only played 3e and 4e and I will say that I enjoy playing 4e much more. I'm a typical min/max player but I also am big into ROLE playing and I find a great deal of 4e material to be redundant and useless. It seems like new books are a lot of focused fiction that doesn't hold much bearing in the cannon or just a rehash on the same gear stats. I'd really like to see more relevant information in the form of setting and equipment that varied on a large scale rather than a small one. In that sense I really enjoy the earlier editions, it felt like there was much more information available that made relevant sense in game.

A personal peeve of mine is the minuscule clothing options and the complete lack of optimization available for such a thing. There is so much that could be done with it but alas we just toss on our armored jackets and go.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 27 2012, 04:30 PM

Well, one of the first RPGs my wife was ever introduced to was 1E Shadowrun. She loves the setting, but the mechanics are just too much for her. A complex and nuanced setting doesn't need complex mechanics (speaking from experience). The thing is, I feel Edge covered the dice pool system perfectly - it was a limited resource, but gave you the kick you needed if you felt desperate enough to need a boost. The dice pools themselves (stat+skill) covers pretty much anything you need -- or, look at it this way, in earlier editions, you just rolled skill. Now, your attribute adds to this, becoming something akin to a 'pool' that doesn't need refreshing.

Posted by: Halinn Dec 27 2012, 04:39 PM

Won't happen. Paizo could only do what they did with Pathfinder because of the d20 systems license that WotC set in place to allow other publishers to expand on their game.

Posted by: eudemonist Dec 27 2012, 04:53 PM

I wish for an SR4 book buyback system...

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 04:55 PM

That's why they had to bring the old crew, push a half-baked .5 edition, and then drop it altogether.

It's more like it made all the classes bland and uninteresting to play, and instead of focusing on original abilities that'd make them unique it chose the combat system with dozens of status effects and maneuvers that make absolutely no sense.

In doesn't take a genius to notice that there is positive change and negative one. Using the natural animosity to change as a proof that every change is positive is a very weak argument.

Again, the question is not whether the system should be streamlined - it obviously should, or at least some comprehensive rules should be written instead of the horror 4e has for quite a few subsystems. Existing simplified versions prove nothing - for all it's worth, I can create Shadowrun Diceless in a single sentence ("Let GM be the final arbiter what the characters should be able to do; if you have a conflict you need to resolve, play rock-paper-scissors until the GM wins twice or the player wins once"). The existence of simple variations says nothing when it comes to what rules subsystems should be changed in which way.

It's the very first page after the usual "what is roleplaying" bit. How can it be hard to find or to read?

With the same ranges for each category? Glorious. I'm sure it'll be fun to play a game where light pistols have the same range gaps as sniper rifles.
Let's look instead at FFG DH system family. Each individual weapon has its effective range in its stats there, and it works okay.

Because heavy rain is as difficult to see through as a thermal smoke grenade.

That line is indeed quite, well, far from being polite of fair. You take upon yourself to determine others' intentions and beliefs without any kind of solid basis for your argument.
If you want to play with newbie players, there are rules-light systems, quick-start rules and the rest of the usual tools. Dumbing down rulesets isn't bad because it somehow makes the people who're capable of reading thirty pages of the core book less elite, it's bad because it removes the simulation of detail from the game. See the example above: sure, both rain and thermal smoke grenade are visibility modifiers, but arguing that both should give the same penalty is removing a layer of detail from the game for no reason at all (except maybe for the benefit of the people too lazy to look the visibility modifiers up; but that isn't a problem for them because they can just agree to use a plain modifier for all cases).

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 04:56 PM

There is a certain difference between "I get that generic implant that gives me +1 IP" and "I get wired reflexes". Because the latter comes with fluff, and that is half the immersion.

And why exactly don't you skip the intricacies you don't like and let the others decide whether they want them in their games on their own? It's not like even SR4 is a system bloated enough for anyone with a free evening not to be able to decide which part of it he likes.

Again back to my previous point: there's "heavy pistol 5P / -1 AP" and then there's Ares Predator or Ruger Super Warhawk. Guess which one is iconic and interesting to have on your charsheet?

Maybe that's because I'm trying to take a sober view of things, pointing out both the achievements and the failures for anyone, instead of using "poo-pooing anything" as a point of an argument?

System mastery as roleplaying mastery was introduced by Gary Gygax. See his book aptly named "Roleplaying mastery".

Right. Complex mechanics totally prohibits you from considering any of that.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 05:02 PM

Well, if you look at the Core, very little there requires more than three or four successes. Which does not require min-maxing at all, just some focus on the stuff you're hoping to do.
Sure, if the players optimize, GM's gotta hand them tougher challenges, what fun is there otherwise?


Right, but how many of them joined the hobby and kept buying books instead of just returning to CCGs/videogames/what have you? And would that number have not joined had the 4e not been dumbed down for them?

Posted by: nezumi Dec 27 2012, 05:27 PM

Which is fine. Many people like D&D, but I can't stand it. So I play another game.

The problem I've hit (and some former friends exemplified it most extremely) is this sense that if you enjoy numbers, you're wrong, that if your game involves math, it is wrong.

I play SR3. I love it. I also play a game where instead of dice, we draw cards and the highest wins, or you have to guess which number the GM is thinking of, or whatever. I love that one as well. My wife (and yours too, I imagine) would enjoy one, but not the other. There is space for both types of games

That said, as a gamer, I can find several dozen games which are quick, fun games with practically no mechanics; where I can look at a line or a sheet or a concept and say "I understand my character!" However, I have found one game which offers the lovely complexity and numbers of Shadowrun (that game is Shadowrun). I recognize 'people who have fun with numbers' may be a niche market. That's fine. But we're still here. And no one seems to be marketing to us. I'd like it if SR5 was a 'drop a character sheet and go' game, because sometimes I drink beer at game nights and can't do math. But I'd really like it if SR5 was a 'here is a granular combat mechanic, and a beautiful and nuanced cyberpunk world', because that just doesn't exist on the market.




None taken. Reading your comments, I recognize you've been running into a very different crowd from me. I've yet to play with a Shadowrun player who says "this is totally out of character, but it gives me a bonus, so I'll take it". I guess I'm blessed I've run into that with D&D and it killed the campaign. I agree if we could set up a system where someone who plays a character or who just wants to jump in and go was on even footing with someone who canvases the books for every possible bonus and multiplier, that would be awesome. I love doing the numbers, but if I'm grouped with someone who doesn't, and that player is now a liability, that's not fun for either of us. I'm not sure if that's possible, though. Any mechanical system which confers bonuses for certain player decisions will reward people who read the rules, and play to those decisions. The more decisions, the greater the burden placed on the player.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 27 2012, 05:30 PM

I liked D&D4E as a game designer. It was so easy to create and balance new abilities, effects, monsters, and traps.

The downside of that was that everything was basically the same.

Posted by: Lionhearted Dec 27 2012, 05:36 PM

I have an addition to my wish list.
Clarify what Mystics are and aren't, give some spells more distinct description/more limits for certain (manipulation) spells, put extensive information about magical countermeasures and how to use it in BBB. Put thr spirits description together with summoning... Then magic is pretty much perfect I'd say

More example opposition and quick grunt making rules would be nice to.

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 27 2012, 05:46 PM

That was my experience playing it, as well. None of the classes felt different in any important way because everyone's abilities were so samey. Part of why magic in SR4 wasn't that interesting to me anymore, either.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 27 2012, 05:49 PM

Since some people apparently think that the "mind control" spells in SR can be used to make opponents kill themselves, adding one sentence to explicitly say otherwise could be called for. Personally, I don't think it should be necessary since no other game allows such shenanigans, but apparently people rules lawyer and weasel into claiming they can without it being there.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 05:59 PM

Frankly, commanding people to kill themselves is the least of the problems with mind control spells. I wish there was something that could protect you, instead of a secondary attribute roll vs a primary attribute + primary skill roll.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 27 2012, 06:22 PM

Quite.
And when I tried to break the mold and do something different, it either worked poorly or the players complained it was over-powered.*

*Notable example: a named NPC which from the original source material was a 21st level character (psion/rogue) facing off against a party of 4 to 6 14th level characters. One of the powers I gave this NPC was an attack which turned him invisible. I.e. the perfect backstab ability. A little over-powered, but in line with daily powers of high level monsters. He had other ways to become invisible as well (I mean, we're talking a rogue here) and used that power after attacking a PC while invisible, then using his move action to Not Be In That Space. Everyone at the table cried foul.

The PCs on the other hand had a "teleport the party 20 squares" ability which was used almost constantly as a "this fight will not favor us: GFTO" because most of the rooms and passages in the dungeon were only 10 or 15 squares wide. "50 foot (10 squares) bowl shaped room with the floor coated in oil? 20 square teleport."

On the other hand, one of the more fun battles we had were when a bunch of flying monkies would swoop in and steal a magic item, and then GTFO. I'd based their speed on the original source material, forgetting how far PCs could move in a turn. Miraculously, they managed to not lose any of their stuff.



Secondary? Don't you mean "tertiary"?

Secondary implies that you use it for some of your active skills, and I cannot fathom any non-mage character who needs Willpower for anything.

Posted by: fenrishero Dec 27 2012, 06:24 PM

1) Faster combat. Combat drags on and that really kills the story. Not just that, it makes our GM try to avoid it at all costs becuase he knows it can take 2-3 hours to resolve a running firefight. I know it can also be over in 15-20 minutes if everything runs smoothly, and thats what I'd prefer the norm be. D&D 4th should be the goal here. Yes, it sucked in a lot of ways, but the ability to resolve combat quickly (4 encounters with lots of RP in between in 2 hours the first time I ran it made me overlook a lot of it's flaws) would be a great addition. From the sound of it, the 'darker and grittier' combat system aims to make combat deadlier, which will keep it a dangerous proposition for runners while making it easier to kill people, which thus speeds up combat.

2) Return of the Customization: I loved the Cannon Companion and how it not only let you modify guns but build them from the ground up. I loved the old cyberdeck work sheets. I don't want the return of the complicated as hell decking and other variables, but allowing a dedicated player to customize gear on that level always makes them feel more...theirs. A system that allows that level of internal customization (i.e. optional complicated math systems for players to mess with between sessions) that still retained the level of straightforwardness of the current system (i.e. I can look at a single 'bottom line' for most gear and know what modifiers it applies) would be great.

3) Some level of backwards compatibility: I'll be blunt, I hate the 'updating' required by new editions. It always feels like I'm being sucker punched when I buy a new book to get rules for gear that was in a previous edition. It feels worse when I want to give a character something that was in a previous edition that I know will come out eventually, but isn't out yet. I understand that it's necessary to update rules and close loopholes, and SR has waited long enough between editions that I don't feel like I'm being gouged for cash, but allowing some stuff to be 'grandfathered in' would be nice. An example here were the temporary rules for first ed charms in the Exalted 2nd Ed storytellers Guide. Let us have the options provided by the old stuff till you get around to updating it.

4) Same or (increased) level of electronic publishing: I love that you can get the pdfs way before the books, and since I got a tablet, I've switched to buying all my SR books via e-publishing. Please don't stop this.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 06:28 PM

Well, people use it to try and avoid, you know, death by mages. So most people I know drop at least a couple of points in it.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 27 2012, 06:59 PM

And yet, most of my PC's have at least a 4 Wilpower, as it is the ONLY way to resist Mental for a mundane, short of the Magic Resistance PQ. If you are complaining about not being able to resist Mental Spells and your stat is a 2, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 27 2012, 07:08 PM

I don't generally, put a 4 in Willpower, but I do usually have at least a 3 (if not 3 then I go for 5). Even numbers on Body or Willpower makes me cry.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 07:10 PM

Hence my wish that there'd be some expensive talismans that'd grant bonus on Willpower to resist magic or whatever.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 27 2012, 07:20 PM

Nah, magic should be that "great unknown" for mundanes and it should scare them. If a mundane is given ability to resist magic like a heavily armored troll soaks up bullets, it loses that.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 07:27 PM

Mundanes do resist magic.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 27 2012, 07:42 PM

Just not very well...

Posted by: Samoth Dec 27 2012, 07:49 PM

One minor thing I would like is for weapon and magic ratings to be standardized. No more "special chambering +2 recoil comp" for the Ares Alpha but no other gun, for example. All weapons of a class should be built off of a template and priced accordingly with no special features unavailable normally. The same goes for magic - all spells should have drain modifiers relative to their class, just like they would if they used the in-game spell creation system.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 07:57 PM

"No more special tricks" is just killing the whole gear chapter altogether. You might as well throw it out and replace it with a table of standard stats and accessories. Which will, in turn, kill the iconics like the Alpha.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 27 2012, 08:01 PM

Bad thing is, there have been people trying to clamor for just that. Honestly, there should be more differentiation between different weapons and other equipment, rather than less.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 27 2012, 08:04 PM

Oh, one more thing for my wish list: I'd love a general price list for different types of runs, so people who have never purchased a Missions or adventure can understand roughly what any given run would pay, just with the main rulebook. If you've never played or run Shadowrun before, you should have some basic understanding that 'runners get hired for job, job involves this level of complexity, and the group will get paid roughly this much', then tailor it to their campaign needs.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 27 2012, 08:06 PM

I was pretty sure World of Darkness allowed it - you could blow Willpower to fight it, but eventually you'd run out. GURPS Japan made it fairly risky in fact - you didn't need mind control spells, but under certain circumstances, you could drive someone to suicide. Same with 7th Sea's court rules and social combat.

All that being said? I'd definitely allow it in Shadowrun.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 08:10 PM

I agree wholeheartedly. Different guns should differ in meaningful ways, not just "this and that addon by default, +-10% clip size, and maybe a couple points of RC".

Also, a lot more GM guidelines are needed. Karma rewards per run/per session and nuyen rewards for typical runs are the topics most often mentioned on the boards.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 27 2012, 08:10 PM

As for special tricks in weapons? If such exists, also explain how you can build it into other weapons - because if Gun A can have it, then Gun Z should be able to have something similar - especially if you make a custom weapon.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 27 2012, 08:13 PM

We need to see a return of the firearm creation and vehicle creation rules, as well.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 08:16 PM

Not really. There are bunches of unique guns in RL. How are you building Ares FMG collapsing ability into other SMGs without rebuilding them to be an Ares FMG? Same goes for AK-107 with its balanced automatics and so on.

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 27 2012, 08:28 PM

Armor needs the same going over. The answer should not be 'Form Fitting with an Armored Jacket over it' in all situations.

Posted by: Wakshaani Dec 27 2012, 08:32 PM

I agree on this one, but the past few times taht such numbers have been floated (Admitedly in expansions, not core books), there was uproar over what some felt was lowballing.

"How much does a Shadowurn pay?" is one of the most problematic areas of the game, due to the playerbase segments, rathe rthan teh rules.

Which is *weird*, but there ya go.

Posted by: Samoth Dec 27 2012, 08:51 PM

On the other hand, you have 99% of runners equipped with Ares Predator/Alpha or Ruger Thunderbolt, and tossing Stunbolt/ball at every corpsec goon they find. There is very little variation between stat sheets I've seen since SR2 unless someone wanted to try a gimmick build or intentionally gimp themselves.

Also, agreed on armor: either cut FFBA entirely or change the stacking rules so things don't get crazy.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 08:59 PM

That's why you have to balance things so that'd they stay different but all more or less equally effective. That's the art of game design, not "light pistol does 4P, heavy pistol does 5P, let's move on to implants".

Also, agreed on FFBA - it either have to go, get some penalties for its benefits, or get changed stacking rules. As it is, it's just the best armor in the system, hands down.
I ban it :3

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 27 2012, 09:08 PM

I houserule it to much lower effectiveness in my games. Makes no sense that something you can comfortably wear -under- clothes has better armor ratings than a more obviously armored jacket, without costing exponentially more to account for better armor materials.

Posted by: ElFenrir Dec 27 2012, 09:42 PM

I like FFBA-it makes sense that something like that would exist and have been developed. Armor has come a long way as it is, so I'd assume it would continue.

I'd increase the price, however, if I was doing a change to it. Show people that this is 'top of the line, really awesome and discreet armor' by tossing a hefty tag on it. That makes sense to me-I can easily see, for example, that ritzy combat face idea shelling out some hefty nuyen for something that's well-protective and discreet at the same time. that'll fit right under his fine suit.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 27 2012, 09:44 PM

Its not. In fact, I very rarely wear an armored Jacket even now.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 27 2012, 09:46 PM

There already form-fitting body armour suits in RL, yes. The problem with SR version is that FFBA is the only exception to armour stacking rules, which makes it strictly the best armour in the game, and thus must-have non-alternatively. Which is bad game design.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 27 2012, 09:48 PM

Never ever used an Ares Alpha, or Ruger Thunderbolt. And a very large number of my mages have never seen the formula for a Combat Spell, let alone Stunball or Stunbolt. *shrug*

Not having the above IS NOT GIMPING, and I take a large dose of offense at that statement.

And crazy stacking rules are only crazy if you allow them to get that way. I have yet to see any armor above 15 unless it was a Milspec suit (with those being pretty rare at our table - they are crazy obvious, after all). Most of the armor at our table is around the 8-12 range. *shrug*

Posted by: Samoth Dec 27 2012, 09:53 PM

For under 5000Y:

Lined Coat 6/4
Ballstic Mask +2/+1
FFBA Full 6/2
Helmet +1/+2
PPP Set (no helmet) +2/+4
Snake Mesh Socks (+0/+2 at lower legs and feet only)
17/13

All easy to get, low-cost gear that would realistically be worn together.

Posted by: bannockburn Dec 27 2012, 09:59 PM

the word is 'could', not 'would'

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 27 2012, 10:14 PM

Thank You...

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 27 2012, 10:21 PM

So you would allow the simultaneous wearing of the Full FFBA Hood, the Ballistic Mask and the Helmet at your table? See, we do not, because that is just silly. *shrug* And besides, What you have listed is an effective 14/14 for Encumbrance (your totals are wrong, it is 17/15). So, anyone without a 7+ Body is encumbered.

As for the Snake Mesh Socks... Not happening at our table. They will work great for Snakes. Not so much for anything else. *shrug*

Posted by: Samoth Dec 27 2012, 10:39 PM

FFBA, ballistic mask and helmet all stack by the rules (at least there are no rules saying they don't).

My point was to make an example of how ridiculous the armor system in SR4 can quickly become. None of that gear is above availability 12.

By the RAW, Snake Mesh Socks add +2 impact armor to legs and feet, period.

Posted by: bannockburn Dec 27 2012, 10:44 PM

Good thing that a) there is still a GM who lets the system become that ridiculous and b) there is no target zone system in place
But yeah. I'd like the armor system overhauled as well and I hope that is what 'grittier and deadlier' means.

Posted by: Bigity Dec 27 2012, 10:49 PM

Minor? That would keep me out before even seeing the books. Hands down.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 27 2012, 10:52 PM

Yes, they all stack by RAW. That is why you have a GM... to adjudicate such sillyness.
Who cares if the Availability is ABOVE 12. None of that matters with adjudication of what should go together. Besides, are you penalizing those who wear such silliness with the encumbrance of 14/14? If you are not, then you are letting them get away with it. If you are allowing 3 "Helmet-like" armors to be worn together, no wonder you are having issues.

As for the Snake Socks, Who cares what the RAW is. We do not allow them to apply to anything other than Snake Bites. See how easy that is. A little common sense gets you a long ways. *shrug*

Posted by: Samoth Dec 27 2012, 10:58 PM

Where are you getting 3 helmet-like armors? Helmet I get, Ballstic Mask is face-only, and the FFBA full suit would be more like a ski mask.

Posted by: ElFenrir Dec 27 2012, 11:11 PM

This does go to show though how such different tables can be and there isn't a right way. Our table uses FFBA, PPP, Snake Mesh Socks and all of that by RAW, we DON'T use availability at chargen even, using a 'Pick stuff that makes sense for your character rule', and our games are awesome fun and everyone gets a chance to shine, in and out of combat depending on what they do. They are a cut above average power, yes(not uber or anything). But I also think we might be different in that a lot of us have played together for years already and are best friends, which sorta puts a higher level of trust around that we all know each other so well and what we're doing. We make up stuff that 'sounds like it'll work.''

I admit I don't count my blessings enough to have such a chill gaming group that worrying about banning items and the like is something we don't need to do-but I can understand why other tables would do it.(I admit-even we might be a bit wary if a known munchkin whom we don't know well wanted to join our group and we might, in that case, want to tighten down the hatches.) I know some tables that prefer to play 300 BP street rats and others that like to play 650 BP elites. I guess in books I like when there is stuff that can be used in higher-and lower-power games.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 27 2012, 11:19 PM

Yes, all helmet like. All cover the Head/Face. And since they do not have hit locations in Shadowrun, all apply whether or not you are shot in the back of the head or the Face, and therefore all act like a Helmet. *shrug*
Regardless, their Encumbrance adds up.

Posted by: Elfenlied Dec 27 2012, 11:44 PM

Personally, I'd like to see "must-have" items increased in price, or adjusted to no longer be "must-have".

The worst offender in my book is:
-Emotionsoft/toy: Either everyone has it, or no one. Not having it while facing someone who does puts you at a major disadvantage.

Followed by:
-FFBA: I'm fine with wearing it under regular (or lightly armed) clothing, but when SWAT+FFBA becomes better than Milspec, it gets stupid.
-Smartlink: It's essentially a free +2 DP bonus that you'd be stupid not to take. I wish they would distinguish between implanted smartlink and smartlink goggles. Which brings me to...
-Visual/audio enhancements: Nowadays, Cybereyes and Ears are rarely seen in game anymore, since all the relevant upgrades are available as cheap external devices.
-"Best in category" items: Most item types, especially weapons, have one clear "best" item. I wish they would include viable sidegrades, but as it stands, the Ares Alpha is the best Assault Rifle (2pts of free RC), the Morrisey Elan is the best holdout (free plastic upgrade), the AA is the best shotgun (FA, GV and R availability. Did I mention that GV are usually not available for shotguns?)
-Betel: 5 extra BP at chargen, +1 to all perception checks, all for the measly price of 1 Nuyen per dose and 1 notoriety.

I'm fine with certain items being necessary, e.g. comlinks, lifestyles and fake sins, but the list of essential items should be kept small.

Add a machete, and the character starts to look like a comic book villain.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 28 2012, 12:04 AM

Hockey Stick.
Casey Jones.
Or CanRay.
*runs like hell*

Posted by: Wakshaani Dec 28 2012, 01:02 AM

Agreed in full, here.

Anytime that there's a best option, full stop, there are issues. Benefits that have a counterbalance? That's fine as long as the tradeoff is fair. (+3 Power but your gun has 1 less ammo capacity? Not happening. One more power, half ammo? Likely!)

Things that are too good need to be scaled back while things that are too weak need to be boosted. What thos ethings are, and how much reduction/increase there should be, well, those are matters of discussion.

Posted by: Sengir Dec 28 2012, 02:09 AM

And now for something more fundamental and controversial: Shadowrun needs hit locations with separate armor values. The idea of "one character, one armor value" is not bad at face value, but in practice you can spend more time trying to work around the insanity the system creates, than it actually saves.
This is not AoE where you purchase a "helmet" upgrade for your troops and the effect is +2 armor in their stat display. This is a roleplaying game, where you are supposed to play a character who is now wearing a helmet, a real helmet and not a piece of handwavium named "helmet" for the lack of a better name with some abstract stat bonus. So what does the GM do if you wear a helmet and besides that only standard battledress? Make opponents take Called Shots to hit anywhere but your head? Tell you to screw immersion and just accept your magic helmet?

The question is just how to make it work, but other RPGs show that it can be done without complexity bloat. My favourite example is Dark Heresy...I am not advocating a switch to D100 and can't even speak for the game in general, but their idea for hit zones is great: The attack roll is a standard roll-under D100 system, then you reverse the order of the dice and that is the hit location. Say you rolled a 50 on your attack roll, if that is enough to hit you reverse the dice and look up what hit location a 05 is (IIRC 10 and under is a headshot, congratulations).


Oh, and, bringing back SOME of the more complex interactions between cyberware would be nice. Implanting a Datajack in a Cyberlimb should make no difference to the Essence cost, since it still needs to be wired to the nervous system; Bone Lacing should cost less if half your limbs are cyber; and so on.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 28 2012, 02:16 AM

Hit Locations being added == Deal Breaker

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 28 2012, 03:20 AM

The problem with hit locations becomes creating armour values by location, health by location, and then creating a smooth system for determining where people get hit. Then you need to take cover into account on top of this, and positioning. If you're firing from a higher angle, there's more chance you'll hit the head/shoulders/arms, than the torso/legs. Then you need to start taking into account things like damage/destruction of hit location. If you shoot someone in the arm and they're dropped into the deep overflow, is the arm damaged, or destroyed? Can it be healed normally, or is it effectively 'gone'? Then you need to start considering people who will begin to routinely do 'head shots'.

That being said, I liked Top Secret S.I.'s hit location system. You rolled D%, and the 10s place was hit location (0-9), and the 1's place was damage if you were unarmed (0-9). If you rolled doubles, it was a critical hit to the location, resulting in immediate 'death' for the location. Your skill rank (1-6) indicated how far you could 'bump' the hit location to be closer to where you want. It was actually fairly fluid, but obviously can't work for Shadowrun (since SR uses a successes-based system, and doesn't use d%).



I agree, a datajack in a cyberlimb shouldn't have an essence cost -- the cyberlimb's already attached to the nervous system -- you aren't making 'more attachment'. The amount of additional implantation would be so miniscule as to be irrelevant. It's why I'm glad cybereyes and cyberears give a certain amount of freebies on essence. I can see where you're coming from in reference to bone lacing (and I think the same should apply to things like muscle augmentation, too).

Hmm. Going with this theory, it would be interesting to see 'by limb' packages and 'total body' packages, where you can pick a part of your body and decide what to do with it - much like how 'headware' exists as a category. In fact, 'build your own' cyberware could be... interesting. Pick what kind of augmentation you want, pick body location which would make sense, then determine essence cost.

For example, brain augmentations which connect with the eyes and ears to give superior balance (For balance checks and similar), or to heighten awareness and response time (+1 IP). Then you could make 'brand name' cybernetics, which are available from certain corporations, but not others.

Just a thought.

Posted by: Umidori Dec 28 2012, 03:27 AM

My Wishlist, so far...

1) Quick Combat - I'm tired of spending hours slogging through fights.

2) Quick Hacking - Focus it on simple actions that can be done piecemeal. Hacking a single device should be about as quick as picking a locked door, or busting one down with brute force. Hacking is currently too all-or-nothing, requiring a lot of time and effort and typically resulting in either total control or utter failure. Simply put (and forgive the pun), the system is too binary.

Hacking should be a utility skill. A hacker should be able to do lots of small things that on their own are useful, but not game breaking. Need to bypass a specific security camera? You should be able to temporarily disable or spoof that individual camera by itself, rather than have to take control of an entire security system. Want to force an enemy's gun to eject the ammo? You shouldn't have to conquer their entire PAN to do so.

Make it abstract. Make it a little unrealistic if you have to. But make it fast and fun.

3) Sidegrades, Not Upgrades - Be it magic, toys, weapons, or 'ware, nothing should be obviously superior compared to other objects of its kind. You shouldn't end up with "problem items" like Stick-N-Shock, Tacnets, and Form Fitting Body Armor, just to name some of the better known ones. Every benefit needs to be matched with some detriment, and vice-versa.

4) Rebalanced Metatypes / Metavariants / Et Cetera - Many people agree, when you crunch the numbers Orks have huge bonuses for their low costs, while many other character "race" options are just badly underpowered or flat-out overpriced. Certain choices are just so sub-optimal or ineffecient as to make it very hard to justify ever playing them. This imbalance often makes it feel like the system punishes those who wish to play certain exotic or unusual character types, and no one should EVER feel like they can't play the type of character they want to play without being unfairly restricted or penalized.

5) Reworked Skills - The current system works, but there are rough patches and weird overlaps. Weapons divide into different skills oddly, technical skills are often too narrow or redundant, there are too many magical skills to juggle, et cetera.

6) More Non-Lethal Options - There are just too few ways to inflict stun damage.

~Umi

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 28 2012, 04:41 AM

How about Optional Hit Locations?

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 28 2012, 04:44 AM

Optional, fine, but only optional.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Dec 28 2012, 05:01 AM

Not sure I like the idea of optional hit locations. Then, the armor rules need changing to be taken into account, then health in total vs. that of the body part, then the cover rules etc. Seems to snowball into a ton of things that need to be tacked on. Either make the rules integrate the idea of hit locations, or don't. Personally, I like the idea of hit locations.

I'd say, there should be a minimum of optional rules. Don't try to be everything to everybody, or it'll turn into D&D Next.

Posted by: Halinn Dec 28 2012, 05:10 AM

Going by the what's been mentioned by now, any change at all, as well as no change at all, are both deal breakers. This means that whatever they do, it's a deal breaker to someone.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 28 2012, 05:14 AM

Well, hit locations do nothing positive for a game. All they do is add completely unnecessary complexity.

Posted by: Halinn Dec 28 2012, 05:16 AM

It adds some level of realism, and it can mean more tactical decisions. The main concern is, of course, whether it's even possible to do relatively seamlessly.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 28 2012, 05:19 AM

Here's a diagram of what really should be, IMO.

Game<---------------------|-------------------->Realism

If I want 'realism' I'll take a step out my front door.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 28 2012, 05:32 AM

I wouldn't quite go that far. I want my games to be fairly realistic in flavour and setting, but I want my mechanics to be smooth and fluid. I like my internal consistency and setting that makes sense, and I like my cause-effect to be fairly realistic as well.

It's one reason I can't run pink-mohawk Shadowrun. I can't comprehend a way to realistically let the players kick down the door, guns blazing, and not expect to be ripped to shreds shortly afterwards. But that's my hangup.

Posted by: Patrick Goodman Dec 28 2012, 05:46 AM

I used to have a six-sider that had a head, a torso, and each arm and each leg on its faces. If I absolutely had to know where the shot hit, I rolled it. It's so worn down now it's hard to read, but I can always jot down a quick table and use a regular six-sider if I need to.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Dec 28 2012, 06:07 AM

I always liked the GURPS hit-location scheme. Seemed to produce good results, and we always felt awesome when you rolled that 3.

Posted by: ElFenrir Dec 28 2012, 09:10 AM

Now, this I can get behind. Even though we use stuff like FFBA and everything and it doesn't unbalance the game, I don't necessarily think it's the best way to go about it.

How I'd handle some of this stuff...FFBA, I'd again, leave it effective(Maybe 3/0, 4/1, 5/2 depending), but again, crank up the price actually dramatically on it. Picturing it like Hollywood Armor. This is what George Clooney II would buy to go to the Oscars which were threatened by some gang who really didn't like the movies that year. A well-off character, yes, could probably afford it at the start(maybe jack Availability up for people who play with that rule or put a note on the Level 3 like 'GM Discretion at chargen' like Adapsin has. I think Level 1 should be okay.). A combo of this might help out with that whole 'Must...Have' feel. It'll still be good, and it should be(while I'm pretty firmly pink mohawk and love things like changelings, I do have SOME 'realistic' thoughts as well in the game, and it simply makes sense to me they'd develop better and more discreet armor over time. In other words while I can easily roll with pink mohawk, and prefer it, I don't have a problem picturing things like 'technology getting better over the years'.)

(Note: I do not have a problem with armor layering to a reasonable extent. IMO, FFBA under armor just plain makes sense. Which is why I'd crank up the price on it considerably. If I were to try to cut down armor layering but still keep it making sense, I might lower the effectiveness of armor by, say, -2/-1; so take the layered armor's total and knock -2/-1 off of that. So in the above example, George Clooney 2 might wear some...Armored Tux at 5/3 and a full FFBA for 5/2, but instead of 10/5 he'd run on 8/4.)

Smartlink I'd go back to differing the goggles and the implanted one is all.

Eye mods? This is another one of those situations where it's plain sensible to have them. Maybe do the same here as with smartlinks? Have the non-implanted versions nice, but not quite as good as the implanted ones.

Now the 'Best In Slot' syndrome...I honestly don't feel that as much, since I always liked tweaking out my own weapons. Get an inexpensive assault rifle and pimp it with the works-it's always been great fun(I have a sam right now whose essentially got a high armoring skill and he loves doing this stuff.) That being said, I can maybe see some sorta thing here. What I'd do-and keep in mind I'm more of the type that's 'Don't take away from people, ADD to the fun' is make building your own stuff more appealing. This however has it's own drawback for people who prefer a more pick up and play style, though, I admit. I'd love to find a happy medium with this one.

All in all, I'd love for there to be more good choice in the game instead of 'just pick this', because I love toys and gear I admit. But at the same time I don't want to see a ton of stuff nerfed to hell and back, especially stuff that makes sense that would be in the game. I think some simple changes would help though.

Posted by: phlapjack77 Dec 28 2012, 09:37 AM

An interesting result of the way cybereyes and eye "gear" work, is that mostly mages want the cybereyes while everyone else gets the contacts/glasses. Good or bad?

Posted by: Umidori Dec 28 2012, 09:42 AM

Sorry for taking this snippet out of context of the larger post, but I dunno, man.

The AA packs some power, sure. But it's also the most expensive and least available shotty, with a base cost of 8,000 nuyen and 18R availability. So that's Restricted Gear to get one at start (the only shotgun in the game which needs it), and modding it is gonna be expensive. I also don't know why you mentioned it being only R availability, as there are no F availability shotguns. The FA firing is something of a double-edged sword, as shotguns suffer doubled uncompensated recoil, so even with further mods to help stabilize, you're losing a whole lot of dice to fire the damn thing. The unique gas-vent is nice, but only really valuable if you do plan on firing in FA, as BF can easily be compensated for with other cheap recoil mods. To be honest, the nicest thing about the weapon is the one thing you didn't mention - half ammo usage with suppressing fire. And since suppression doesn't impose recoil modifiers? Well, you don't actually need that gas-vent, now do you?

One other thing to note is the drum magazine, but that kind of depends on interpretation. Drum magazines are normally available for SMGs and assault rifles, at a cost of increased concealability. An inbuilt drum magazine on a shotgun ought to increase the concealability modifier compared to a standard shotgun with an internal magazine or removeable clip. Spare drums to reload with should also suffer a similar concealability modifier, being as they are larger than a standard clip. But that's something which isn't made clear via RAW, and will likely be argued over by GMs.

Compare to a Shiawase Arms Riot Guard (GH2, p. 24), modified for FA firing, given an additional clip, and with any of the 1 RC mods or accessories added onto its in-built 1 RC (presumably a folding stock, although the listing doesn't indicate one except via the RC stat). You end up with 2 less rounds of ammo split between two clips, identical concealability (dependant on how you rule the AA's drum magazine), identical RC, a price tag 3000 nuyen smaller, a char-gen friendly availability, free melee hardening and reduced weight, and even the in-world setting advantage of a police or security level weapon rather than an infamous military grade one. All you lose out on is 3 mod slots.

~Umi

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 28 2012, 12:21 PM

You and I are going to disagree on this, so I'm not really interested in continuing it. What shadowjackal said is true though - it did bring in tons of new blood. Which you helpfully dismissed with, "they're just going to go back to their video games and card games!" and is kind of insulting to the folks that anecdotally, I know have gone deeper into the hobby.

The current belief regarding the changeover from 4e D&D and Next is essentially what shadowjackal said, by the way; they lost folks, 4e wasn't the OMG SALES BLOCKBUSTER Hasbro wanted, and Mearls has gone far, far off the deep end.


So, you're being a little dismissive here. Which you also do...


Here.


And here.

Which is cool, but not really.

The examples I linked to are examples of how you can simplify Shadowrun without losing the stuff that's important: the themes, the archetypes, the games you can run. There's a lot more than a simple RPS system here - and frankly, this goes back to what I was saying before about a certain consensus of gamers who feel a certain way about simplified or streamlined systems: "they're dumb, and shallow, and for newbies."

My linked examples are for a sole purpose - to demonstrate what others have done, and show what could help improve Shadowrun in the long run.


It doesn't go far enough. It doesn't really delve into the why's and who's and the roleplaying aspect of the game. It goes into the most basic running skeleton - yeah, you're going to be hired by a corporation, work for a Johnson, deal with fixers - but doesn't talk about why your character would do this. Hell, it barely even covers the archetypes properly, or the themes of the game. It just feels cursory, and needs to be expanded upon and discussed further.





This is where you and I differ, and I'm afraid will never agree on.

I simply do not give two tosses about simulation in a game where fantasy elves, dwarves, orks and trolls, mix it up with regular humans while surfing the internet and drinking coffee. At that point? Realism / simulation has gone out the window.

My whole goal when it comes to utilizing a ruleset is, "does it make this game easy and fun to run?" A secondary concern is, "do I need to keep track of a million little modifiers and consult a bunch of tables to simply adjucate anything my players toss at me?"

Having to worry about multiple range tables for different guns is annoying to me, as is keeping track of the million little modifiers smoke, rain, car exhaust, or whatever scenario you care to throw at me can come up. This is not an important aspect of the game for me. It is for you though! And that's fine - just don't be surprised that we don't see eye to eye on this.

Considering that this topic is, "what do YOU want from Shadowrun 5e," I thought it was okay to share how I'd like to see the game turn. Because the above is what I would like to see.


Oh, okay, never mind then.

Posted by: ravensmuse Dec 28 2012, 12:21 PM

Tell me why the Ares Predator or the Super Warhawk are important and sacrosant, beyond name recognition and canon legacy. And then I'll agree with you on this.

All we're talking here is skin and bones. I'm not afraid to change skin ("Heavy Pistol" = "Ares Predator") without changing bones. It's a lesson learned from 4e D&D, and it was a good lesson to learn, IMHO.


This does nothing to mitigate my perception that you're being hypocritical, but that's all right, I'll drop it.


Please don't take this the wrong way, but this is the weirdest thing to think.

You want new blood in your game, because that's the only way to survive. Continue to make it arcane and have a barrier to entry, and you get D&DNext.

Posted by: AKWeaponsSpecialist Dec 28 2012, 01:58 PM

Seriously, you guys? Can't you just leave the pissing match in PM's? At least that way the rest of us don't have to watch you measure your hate boners.

On topic:
I'd love to see combat be more lethal. Hit locations (random or otherwise) would be a boon to the system, as would subsystem damage.
Make hacking as intuitive as combat. Make melee combat a risky, but rewarding endeavor. I could go either way on the mage/shaman divide, since I didn't arrive in SR until 4e, which brings me to my next point.
A fraggin' timeline. Not some shenanigans involving the corps, because without knowing the canon, that's all pointless. What IS Dunkelzahn's will? What are Immortal Elves? Drakes?
Shadowtalk is nice, but I shouldn't have to read callbacks and references and then tell my players I have half a clue what's going on in this world.
Make Legwork intuitive. Player's Resources (Contact Rating, Knowledge Skills) vs. Security Rating.
Increase the divide between AR and VR. Don't just make VR "AR, but better and slightly droolier". Remote VR hacking is silly, since it would either require hacking every node between you and your target (no way that could go wrong); a datajack could still have a place, if VR hacking were both on-site and brute force. If you have time to set up a fake account with all of the associated benefits, it's better to have an AR hacker slip in and out. If you have to brute-force it, call in a decker, and pray your gunner can keep corpsec off him long enough to retrieve your target.
If the timeline is moved on, make mages and adepts more common; also, give mundanes more magic resistance. Yes, magic is scary and special and dangerous. Doesn't mean that wizards should make runs simple.
Honestly, most weapons SHOULD be pretty similar within a category. Any unique or awesome weapons should be at the bleeding edge, and ridiculously difficult to get. Yes, that gun will be more accurate, but more prone to malfunction. This other one, though, is cheap, and almost unbreakable, but its accuracy is....lacking, to say the least.
Encumbrance rules: Wanted. Give items a Bulk rating (could wrap into Concealment) instead of a weight. Give clothing items (and armor accessories) Bulk Reduction (or a Concealment bonus) so that wearers can make better use of their gear (and carry it more efficiently).

This is my current 5e Christmas List.
By all means, let me know your opinion. If you're halfway civil and aren't waving an edition flag, I'd be glad to discuss it.

Posted by: ElFenrir Dec 28 2012, 02:50 PM

What I'd like to see is, in the combat chapter, a section on easy ways to make combat more AND less lethal that are more in depth than the tiny charts they have now. Our table goes with the middle-ground approach, for example. It'd be great if they could have some pretty clean, not too crazy rules on how to adjust your game fairly simply for this. The hit box rule could be a great optional one, for example. I mean the past few expansions they gave some very basic ways to do it, but I'd say try to get it both a BIT more in depth, but still not too convoluted. Hit boxes would I think go a decent way into potentially making combat more lethal. Including the armor degradation rules in the core could also help with that.

As for less lethal options, they could perhaps say that armor layering is easier, or somehow get being able to cut down damage with a defensive roll easier.

Posted by: NiL_FisK_Urd Dec 28 2012, 03:04 PM

Half of your sentence is missing ^^
@Hacking every node: This is not true, like today, your data packets are routed from you to the target system.

Posted by: Sengir Dec 28 2012, 03:10 PM

1. Armor by location is precisely what I want, because it solves the headaches of somebody running around with no armor but a helmet.
2. Health by location would be unnecessary for natural limbs, because getting shot in your flesh and blood leg certainly leg does affect your whole body. At most you'd need a system that renders a limb useless if it takes X damage in a single shot, if that happens to the head the victim goes unconscious.
3. Cyberarms and -legs with their own CMs, why not actually? The extra bookkeeping (compared to what cyberlimbs always bring) does not sound prohibitive, and the extra CMs would be balanced by the fact that Armor in your left arm no longer protects the whole body...

So what it boils down to is creating an easy system for determining hit locations. And it should fit the rest of the system, "roll a D20 for each attack and check the Hit Locations Table" would obviously work but break with the rest of the system too much.



I meant that putting a Datajack (or Commlink) into a limb should not change the 'jack's Essence cost. The cost comes from the necessary wiring, an that needs to be done no matter where it gets installed.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 28 2012, 03:17 PM

Going back to the idea of a 'dual-statted, high-complexity/low-complexity' game, where people can use either set of mechanics and play in the same game ...

What if you set it up so your low-complexity player has a small list of skills that she is especially good at. She gets bonuses to the point that she is basically a specialist, so her sheet says "this is what you're good at - and that's it".

Then the high-complexity character gets to run things basically as they are now, but with the system set up to make it easier to excel in a broad range of synergistic areas. However, your high-complexity character isn't likely to be quite as good as the low-complexity character in the field of her choice.

You can choose one path or the other (but not both).

This means that the high-complexity player can still play with those numbers and have a useful character. In fact, knowing these sorts of players, he can probably *still* make the system sing for him enough to compete with the low-complexity character (the system just doesn't make it easy). The low-complexity character takes a 'penalty' for doing things the easy way, but it's one that gives other people a space to shine, without making things not fun for said player.

It also means that when you're running large groups, the system supports you. Large groups need specialists, not generalists, and faster gameplay. So force everyone to play the low-complexity rules.

Thoughts?

Posted by: bannockburn Dec 28 2012, 04:00 PM

First off: I disagree with your whole posting, but it's certainly a valid wish.
I just hope it gets disregarded as a whole.
Some of the things I really like about SR (and have always liked) is the lack of hit locations. If I want that, I play BattleTech. Everything else can be done by liberal application of brain.

Also, no, essence cost for a jack and / or similar ware _should_ be 0 when installed into a cyberlimb. The limb already has DNI. You don't need any more wiring. (Yes, I realize, it's a fluff reason which stands against your fluff reason, but it also works well mechanically, IMO)

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 28 2012, 04:05 PM

Datajacks in Cyberlimbs do not have an Essence Cost (They take up Capacity of 1 instead). I am curious as to why you (or anyone, actually) think they do.

Posted by: Stahlseele Dec 28 2012, 04:28 PM

Because for a Datajack or anything else that needs to have a DNI-Connetion to work in a Cyber-Limb, you have to install a second DNI which then takes up essence, as it has to be wired into your CNS to propperly work, because these devices function differently and can't hitchhike on the DNI to the limb. Else, every time you give a command via the Datajack, your Arm moves for example.
At least, that's how it was and explained in SR3.

Posted by: bannockburn Dec 28 2012, 04:30 PM

Nah. You can just use the databus of the cyberarm DNI connection
See? Fluff reason trumps fluff reason. Both are equally valid.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Dec 28 2012, 04:50 PM

Except that that is not how it works in SR4A. *shrug*

Posted by: Sengir Dec 28 2012, 06:04 PM

I see where your scepticism is coming from when you're equating hit locations and Battletech...Torso bombs for the win



Well, my fluff reason is that the limb only has the DNI wiring required for its function, but not much more. Controlling a spur is not "much more", but Simsense via a Datajack is.

Posted by: bannockburn Dec 28 2012, 06:07 PM

Don't get me wrong, I love BattleTech

I propose that we agree to disagree on the matter of DNI. It's all in the fluff and doesn't matter a lot, after all. My line of thinking is that you've payed a lot of essence for the limb, so it should have some perks. Because I like having people run around with cyberarms. Very iconic

Posted by: Epicedion Dec 28 2012, 06:40 PM

Any update to the system has got to address at least the following issues that were introduced in SR4:

1) Cyberware is too easily replaced with non-cyberware equivalents. It's often easier and cheaper (and costs less essence) to have skinlink contact lenses with thermo and full visual display and full smartlink than it is to have cybereyes, and spatial recognizer earbuds with filters and recording capability hooked up to your inifinite-storage commlink than cyberears.

2) Smartlinks are too weak.

3) AR hacking at VR speeds with no significant shortcomings.

4) Wireless hacking in general -- it tends to be either a headache or impotent.

5) Capabilities of computer systems -- computers in SR4 appear designed specifically to be hacked and defend against hacking. Actual work seems to have barely gotten a thought. There's no way a node could handle an office environment or connect to passersby and generate AR content without breaching active user and program limits. This means that a regular office would need dozens of nodes (probably all named stuff like O1F2WGP_XL7_3415) and be fairly impenetrable in the same way hiding your spare door key in a fake rock stored in a pile of hundreds of fake rocks each with fake keys would make your house pretty secure.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 28 2012, 07:01 PM

I'm glad you see that the supposed new fan base did not not bring enough money in to keep the edition around.
Let's leave D&D discussion at this, nothing good ever comes of it.

I like how you simply drop the arguments you can't counter.
Each tool has its use. You want a system that allows you to run a game ten minutes after making that decision, or one that doesn't require reading a full book worth of rules, etc - all in all, any one good for the first games introducting someone to the hobby, you take a rules-light system or a diceless one. Why you think Shadowrun should be one, when it has a tradition of being exactly the opposite, is beyond me. It's like saying we don't need electronic microscopes because they take a long time to set up, and a simple lens magnifies things, too.

None of these depend on the rulesystem at all.

Because no sane person with a runner's skill is going to be a runner unless under some very specific set of circumstances. It does explain what you initially wanted of it before moving the goal posts, though: that the runners are not the cavalry.

Apparently we're not agreeing on this one, yes. My take is that we're having the same coffee whether it's a human or an ork drinking it. The world works by the same general laws, it's just some of the circumstances that are changed. Same goes for magical medieval settings as well.

Name recognition and canon legacy are reason enough. For implants, it goes deeper, of course, because for them fluff descriptions are the thing allowing you to imagine what having that implant feels like.

"The Blizzard's fan base has demands different from those of the roleplayers" and "Blizzard's games prove people are willing to go to any length to advance their character" combined make me hypocritical? That's nice to know.


Why do you equate players new to Shadowrun to players new to the hobby at large?

Posted by: Misdemeanor Dec 28 2012, 08:08 PM

Something that most people fail to realize the future is closer then we think. A fully wireless world WiMax ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX ) will be Fully realized in a very shot time, Limb replacement (cyber-Ware) and Stem Cell research (Bio-ware) there was even another dumpshock post about future muscle replacement. If anything SR needs to Step up to keep ahead of reality

Posted by: Bigity Dec 28 2012, 10:02 PM

Because that's not cyberpunk. SR is, or at least should be, a mainly cyberpunk game, along with the fantasy elements that made it unique. If I want to play a modern scifi game or something, I'd play it/buy it.

And you are fooling yourself if you think we are gonna see a wireless world in our lifetimes. Not while someone can make money off of slowly upgrading areas outside of major metropolitan areas (read: most of the world).

It's beside the point anyway. SR was never meant to be a real world in the future with elves simulator. It was based on a specific idea of what the future would be, and should stick to that. At least, IMO. Of course whoever owns the license gets to make that call. I can't say what sales looked like in previous editions vs now, and I'm not even sure those numbers would mean anything with the way the industry has been lately.

All I can say is that I, personally, will not be purchasing any of the RPG material if it sticks to what 4E has already been doing, because I'm not interested in it. Fluff wise, or crunch wise.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 28 2012, 10:21 PM

Hmm. I'd say Shadowrun's moved closer to near-future science fiction and is moving away from pure cyberpunk. (post-cyberpunk, in fact) I disagree that Shadowrun has to 'stick with' anything. The modern world is evolving, and Shadowrun is stronger for evolving with it. If it tried to cling hard and fast to 'cyberpunk', it'd go the way of the Cyberpunk RPG - which basically fell into irrelevancy.

I like Shadowrun specifically because it is a living, evolving game. As we develop in the present, it develops. As some things fall by the wayside, it discards those as well. This keeps Shadowrun relevant, and easy to connect with. If it didn't, if it stuck with things like Cyberpunk did, I'd start getting the same disconnect: "I can do this now, how come I can't do this in the game?"

As for wireless... it'll get there, a bit at a time. In Shadowrun, it got a boost, because a specific megacorp jumped in and made it happen while everyone else was still recovering from Crash 2.0. I don't think we're going to need that kind of kick in the pants, but I think we're moving in that direction.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 28 2012, 10:26 PM

Actually, new regions are covered in wireless from the get go as of now. Because building a single backbone line and an LTE/WiMAX/whatever hub is cheaper than laying hundreds of "last mile" cables. So the client devices are going wireless in the next dozen years at the very worst. Wired connections will be as outdated and quaint as wired phones are now.

Posted by: DireRadiant Dec 28 2012, 10:34 PM

I think the only thing I would add into the current SR4 setting as it evolves to SR5 would be a few more elements of Transhumanism.

Posted by: Patrick Goodman Dec 28 2012, 10:42 PM

Blech.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 28 2012, 10:52 PM

I do find transhumanism to be very interesting, and a growing part of Shadowrun. It's something I like to explore. Actually, my sister took this to an extreme in our recent Shadowrun campaign. A combat adept who clones herself, augments her clones, then 'possesses' these clones to perform her assignments. The clone seems to act and move almost like a puppet, floppy, fluid, and too graceful, and speaks in the third person. It's really creeped out the players. I thought the character was particularly inspiring.

She's currently trying to develop metamagic techniques to allow her to 'carry' some of her abilities into her clones.

Posted by: Remnar Dec 28 2012, 11:13 PM

This, for me. Shadowrun's allure, to me, was always the Cyberpunk aspect, and since 4E I've been missing both the cyber and the punk. If I want to play near-future "hard" Sci-fi with transumanism... Eclipse Phase gets its right for me. If I want Cyberpunk... I guess I'll go back to 2E or 3E Shadowrun (fluff wise).

My wish for 5th Edition would be to give some homage back to the roots by making it era independent and maybe produce material for multiple eras. That'll keep everyone happy fluff wise, and if the crunch is sililar or better than 4E (which I like, rules wise) then everyone will still be mostly happy.

If the meta stays on its current timeline and path it'll probably be the end of my Shadowrun purchases. Sad to see an era end after 20 some odd years.

As usual, YMMV

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 28 2012, 11:14 PM

Kinda goes counter to the explicit crunch and fluff behind Essence there, chummer. One of the setting's hard rules is that humanity is humanity, and altering that irrevocably reduces it.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 29 2012, 03:02 AM

I'm with Remnar.

I like transhumanism. I play tons of EP. I'd love SR transhuman supplements. However, when I play Shadowrun, it's because I want cyberpunk. Can't say I wouldn't play a transhuman game with magic and orks. But I wouldn't call it Shadowrun, and it wouldn't be an 'upgrade' for me; it would be a totally new game I'd play in addition to SR3.

Posted by: Micawber Dec 29 2012, 05:54 AM

I wonder how this wouldn't be Cyberpunk anymore? Let's see the cornerstones of Cyberpunk:

Negative Impact of technology on humanity - check
Fusion of man and machine - the transhumanism aspect that could be expanded on even further - check
Corporate control over society - check
Story focuses on the underground - check - it's the name of the game
Ubiquitous Access to information - wireless matrix rocks - check
Cyberpunk visuals and style - arguably the only one regressing but only if your a fan of that oldschool 80s punk look

Every genre is evolving all the time. In many it's hard to perceive the progress cuz the genre has already spread so far and is so omnipresent (the Tolkien-esk fantasy genre for example) that the change happens more on the borders and it often takes years or longer to ooze into the peoples perception and finally becomes a generally accepted part of the genre itself. Cyberpunk is just in it's puberty when compared to classic fantasy and moving the genre forward has a much bigger influence on all of it's followers as it's is much easier to perceive.

My point beeing: it's good that people redefine, remix, progress and evolve what's perceived as Cyberpunk.

Shadowrun is still a living and breathing Cyberpunk game as the cornerstones of the genre are far from beeing transgressed. I for one think Shadowrun was indeed created with the idea in mind to project a realistic future with the added aspect of magic. What was done with SR4 and the wireless matrix, the commlinks, expanded nanoware, gentech and technologie in general reinforce me in that opinion as it is a visible effort to - again - project technological progress at a reasonable rate. Granted - it's not out-of-the-box thinking and chances are we will reach the SR tech-lvl much much sooner but thats a general problem in sci fi and another topic alltogether


on topic Shadowrun 5th edition wishlist:

> streamlined hacking (as mentioned numerous times)
> shorter fights ooc and longer fights ingame to give anything not directly involved in the fight a realistic chance to react to it
> a less tiered initiative system. Right now additional initiative rounds for a char feel too much of a power multiplier and combat oriented characters without those suffer hard
> more ways to personalize magic traditions
> find a niche for technomancers to set them apart from Hackers without just making them techno-magicians
> at least second base for Lofwyr and Hestaby

Posted by: SIN Dec 29 2012, 03:28 PM

I've loved Shadowrun since 2nd Ed. but the simple fact is that 4th Ed. is the first time I've been able to get a regular game going for any length of time. I play with a group of good friends, all (mostly) pretty bright people and regular gamers across a range of systems, but the level of complexity in earlier editions was too much of a barrier for them.

For me then, my big hope is that they continue the slide towards simplicity, slickness and speed of play. I know 4th Ed. isn't perfect, but it will always have a special place for me in that it finally allowed me to play games in a setting I've loved for almost 20 years.

Specifics I'd like to see...

- Make the GM's life easier! More sample goons, more guidance re: nuyen and karma rewards to help keep the game balanced, more sample security set-ups etc. etc.

- Bring the Matrix in line with everything else. Having hackers with crappy mental stats just seems weird. Make attributes matter again please.

- Make the Matrix faster and easier. As has been said by loads of other people, it shouldn't be necessary to go through the whole rigmarole of hacking an entire node for every little action. I don't care if it's not realistic in RL terms, I just want the hacker in the group to have fun, feel effective and not hold everyone else up for an hour when they do stuff.

- Explain the Matrix rules in the BBB so that an idiot like me can understand and use them straight away. It boggles my mind that there was no step-by-step description of how to hack a node in the rules - I ended up making my own, which is on the other forum if anyone's interested (Hacking 101 in GM's Toolkit section). A flow chart or something in the core rulebook please!

- Whilst I'm all for the simplification of magic that 4th Ed. brought, a little more differentiation between traditions would be nice. Make mentor spirits and shamanic masks an integral part of the basic Shaman template again and I'll be happy.

- If they're dead set on going down the maximum gear porn route (which it sounds like they are), more interesting differetiation between different bits of gear would be great. It's been said by others above, but make the choice between different guns/armour say something about the character, not just "this gun is the obvious choice for maximum bonuses".

That's my tuppence worth.

Posted by: Draco18s Dec 29 2012, 04:09 PM

Transhumanism doesn't need to violate the setting.



The game can explore the cultural impact of implants and the desire for people to want to implant more and more chrome into their bodies, getting genetic tweaks, and so on even while maintaining a limit on just how much you can tweak someone before they die.

Posted by: Patrick Goodman Dec 29 2012, 04:12 PM

speaking solely for myself here:

Keep that crap outta my game. You want transhumanism? Go play Eclipse Phase. It's a phenomenal H+ game (and I mean that sincerely; it's a great game, and it didn't win all those awards by accident). I don't think it has a legitimate place in SR.

Posted by: Grinder Dec 29 2012, 04:39 PM

Yup. As long as uploads of minds, sleeving, and morphs/ cortical stacks don't get introduced into SR, it can work.

Posted by: CanRay Dec 29 2012, 07:17 PM

Not exactly a font of education, but this quote succinctly describes the Transhumanism/Cyberpunk differences:

"Transhumanism is about how technology will eventually help us overcome the problems that have, up until now, been endemic to human nature. Cyberpunk is about how technology won't." — Stephenls of RPG.Net

Posted by: binarywraith Dec 30 2012, 04:39 AM

It's not a matter of how much before they die. It's a matter of anyone capable of astral perception being able to tell that 'ware literally kills part of the recipient's soul, turning them into something less than human. Transhumanist philosophy is objectively -wrong-, in Shadowrun's world.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Dec 30 2012, 04:50 AM

I for one want one thing, above all else.

A Glossary of Defined Terms.

No more grey, no more misinterpretation, a specific definition for every stat, rules term, and attribute in the game.

And make sure every writer has a hardcopy stapled to their forehead.

Okay, maybe not that last bit. Maybe.



-k

Posted by: All4BigGuns Dec 30 2012, 04:54 AM

I think the supposed "issue" with writers not being in constant communication with each other was explained on the other forum. Believe it was something about a "leak" or something. So long as there aren't any of those, I don't think there will be a problem there.

Posted by: UmaroVI Dec 30 2012, 06:04 AM

Yes, this. Maybe with duct tape instead of staples.

Posted by: SIN Dec 30 2012, 11:35 AM

I think that's fair enough, but remember these guys are paid bugger all for their efforts. I think that the onus should be on CGL to do whatever they can to make it easy for the writers to get these things right. Especially if they're not going to pay them more handsomely for their efforts.

On the subject of published materials, other things I'd like to see in 5e...

- Location / History source books that are actually properly accessible to a new reader. I've been around on and off since 2e and I still struggle with some books. There ought to be a proper "the story so far" bit in products like these.

- Don't shove random chunks of data in random source books. London write up in Conspiracy Theories? Why exactly? I'd much rather have seen that in a dedicated location book, along with other appropriate places. When I buy a book, I'd like it to be roughly "what it says on the tin" and Conspiracy Theories would have been a much better read if they'd stuck to the theme of the first half of the book.

- I imagine that this won't be popular (though I'd like to hear other people's thoughts), but I'd like to see a return to books like the Street Samurai's Catalogue. If we're going down this route of "MOAR GEARZ!", I'd love to see them make the gear genuinely interesting and unique with proper write-ups, nice art-work and shadowtalk style "reviews". I'd happily see less gear in each gear book, but more gear books if they did it like this - much more fun, flavourful and interesting than the Arsenal style tables of numbers.

Posted by: nezumi Dec 30 2012, 12:12 PM

I don't think that should be an issue for documenting terms and events which are a core part of the already-published setting.

(But yes, ultimately it does come down to the editors on this. Freelancers are just that. They aren't tied to a product. They aren't required to have read all 10,000 pages of your previous products. They write a story or a cool chapter that fits in with the current line, and the *editor* is responsible for fitting that into the previous lore, and making sure the mechanics are all correct.)




I've never heard anyone complain about the SSC. It was shorter than current gear books, but few people will need sixty or seventy handguns to choose from. The only issue is that art is expensive. SSC was a short book, but it cost as much as M&M to the end consumer, and probably cost as much to make as well. It would be a gamble on catalyst's part to make another.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 30 2012, 01:07 PM

CGL has already been doing it with the downloadable pdfs that make up the Runner's Black Book.

Posted by: SIN Dec 30 2012, 01:41 PM

Ah! Well I haven't looked at any of those, on the assumption that it'd be more tables of stats.

I also completely understand what nezumi's saying re: the cost of art-work and I'd gladly pay the same money I have been paying for less gear presented in a more engaging format. I'd even buy more gear books in total if the content was good, entertainingly written and some effort had been made to make the different items sufficiently unique and interesting both in look & feel and in game effect terms. Perhaps the books could be separated by themes, like in the old days - maybe a Ganger's Guide for street level weaponry, a Street Sammie's Catalogue for more professional shadow stuff etc. etc.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 30 2012, 02:16 PM

Well, the quality of the fluff, shadow talk and stats is sometimes debatable, but the general format is the very same.

Posted by: Bigity Dec 30 2012, 02:47 PM

The impact has been lessened in the current edition. Also, other technologies are overtaking metal implants as the best way to be augmented.

Transhumanism <> cyberpunk, as has already been explained. CanRay's post says it better than I could

I'll grant you that, but it sure seems subdued lately.

Uh..I'm not so sure. The latest series of published modules dealt with J-pop stars or something? Maybe it was just one. Some of the latest books have focused on stuff WAY above the underground. A whole book about War!, for example.

Hm, not really. Cyberpunk was always iconic with plugging your brain into a computer, at least to me. The wireless stuff isn't nearly as problematic for me as the 'dumbing' down of decking to the level where anyone can do it pretty well, or automated programs can do it for you.

Agreed, it is regressing. Not just different, but in alot of cases, just flat out worse. Again, art being art, this is just my opinion.

Evolution is ok, but SR is becoming something else really, or is very close.

I want mohawks, chrome, steel, leather. I don't want form fitting underwear that stops bullets. I don't want hats that replace a datajack. I don't want rigging to be an extra program a hacker runs.

Again, they are free to develop what they want, I'm just stating like 4E, if 5E is more of the same, they aren't getting any money from me is all.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 30 2012, 03:20 PM

Personally, I want to continue seeing technology and society advance, and I like that Shadowrun dealt with other levels of society. If I want to play a military campaign, I want it viable. If I want to run a black ops campaign, where the PCs are working for the government and playing spy games, I want this viable as well. The core book should cover the street level stuff, but I like that other books let us take a good look at other aspects of the world.

I like that the technology is becoming more ubiquitous -- anyone can become a hacker if they can find the proper programs to use with their computer. Anyone can control their car with the right software. Why not? In my opinion, this is entirely realistic within the context of the setting - and to me, in-world context is important. I'd have stopped playing Shadowrun over a decade ago if the setting didn't evolve and progress.

Posted by: Bigity Dec 30 2012, 04:37 PM

And I stopped playing nearly a decade ago because it did.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 30 2012, 05:04 PM

Fascinating. Considering you have the classic books to use, or can just run the game 'old school', but it is much more difficult to run a campaign which progresses if you have nothing to support it.

Posted by: ShadowJackal Dec 30 2012, 11:11 PM

And here I was thinking I was the only one that was shipping this.

Posted by: Fatum Dec 31 2012, 01:50 AM

It's like saying anyone can become a Marine sniper if they can find a sniper rifle.

Posted by: Tashiro Dec 31 2012, 04:17 AM

Err, no. That would be 'anyone can become a military hacker if...' Anyone can train to be a sniper with the proper tools and knowledge. Funny thing though -- programs probably come with a 'how to'. Or do all hackers need to find someone to teach them what to do?

Posted by: Fatum Dec 31 2012, 06:46 AM

Anyone with a sniper rifle can learn to shoot it, given the right tools, time and effort.
Anyone with the right software can learn to be a hacker, given the right tools, time and effort.
Absolutely the same logic.

Hackers need someone to teach them as much as snipers do. A rifle comes with a manual, just like a cracking program does.

And hacking is not about knowing how to use each of the programs' functions, it's when to use which and how to use them, what are the common software vulnerabilities and how to exploit them, and how to find new ones, etc. Hacking is not launching a script and going away for a cup of tea, just like system administration isn't.

Posted by: Umidori Dec 31 2012, 07:16 AM

My question is, with all the reality-disconnects that SR has, most of which we all take more or less in stride, why do some of them end up being the things to spark debates like this, but not others?

It's not the mere fact that at some point, things become too fantastical for certain tastes. It's not that eventually you get so far from reality that various people can't continue to suspend their disbelief. It's that the things which prove to be the final straw are always something other than what you'd expect them to be.

I mean, we're all cool with mythological creatures of every culture manifesting in various physical forms through some nebulous, inexplicable "return of magic" to the world. We all accept that magic can manipulate matter and energy in ways that contradict ordinary physics without any more explanation than a handwave and a muttering of "a wizard did it!". We can easily stomache so many absurd notions that are just pure fantasy. But then we get all pissed off over how the game world handles the organizational systems of computers that communicate wirelessly?

Why does that particular quirk hit us so hard? Is it a sort of Uncanny Valley effect? Is the wireless Matrix perhaps not fantastical enough for us? Is it that because the matrix is so similar to our extant wireless communication, that it's that much more jarring when it differs in absurd or illogical ways?

The Wired Matrix of yore was no less absurd. It was built pretty much directly out of the '80s concept of cyberspace, which we all know was just the bizarre popular imaginings about those strange, complex computer things that the future was going to be built on, right? So why didn't we get pissed off about all those fantastical, idiotic, unrealistic qualities the old matrix possessed? Why do some of us still, even today, look back fondly on the ludicrous notion of inhabiting cyberspace? Is it simply so far removed from reality that we're just happy to accept it as an entertaining absurdity, much like elves and dragons and vampires?

~Umi

Posted by: Fatum Dec 31 2012, 07:24 AM

Or you get Muscle Toner and Reflex Recorder and

Posted by: Wakshaani Dec 31 2012, 08:11 AM

The phrase that pays is internal consistancy. As long as a universe remains constant, people will accept the oddness. For example, if green Kryptonite always takes away Superman's powers, the how and why isn't *that* important, as long as it always does what it's supposed to do. If he blasts soem with his heat vision, then gets more powerful, we go, "Hey! That's not how that works!" ... even though the whole thing is a fantasy. You broke the unwritten code.

So, if Elves start showing up as 4'10" wolf-riders instead of 6'6" regal people, there'd better be a darn good reason, because that's not what was supposed to happen.

Thus, if Great Dragons are these great big kickers of butt, but someone walks over and knocks Lofwyr out with a punch, people will be up in arms.

Posted by: Umidori Dec 31 2012, 09:44 AM

But how is the Wireless Matrix not internally consistant?

The big complaints in this portion of the thread were about the game's genre and setting - about Cyberpunk and Post-Cyberpunk and then a bit about transhumanism. Specific complaints touched on the "jump" from the 2050s to the 2070s, and the shift from the Wired Matrix to the Wireless Matix. Various arguments and points were brought up - chiefly that [1] the Wired Matrix was cooler (which is entirely subjective); [2] that the Wireless Matrix doesn't suit the game's cyberpunk origins (but somehow dragons and elves do? I musta missed those parts of Neuromancer, Blade Runner, and Ghost in The Shell); and [3] that the Wireless Matrix doesn't make sense and isn't realistic.

There's lots of game lore about the Wireless Matrix. The Crash 2.0 is just as internally consistant as anything else written up to explain other in-world events. Pax, Winternight, their megavirus, the EMP strikes on major Matrix centers... it all makes just as much sense as any other major storyline developments. You've got the backbone of the old Matrix destroyed, and you've got NeoNET filling the vacuum with their new wireless Matrix.

But does the new Matrix make any sense? Is it secure, and effective? Is it well designed, well structured, and well thought out? Maybe not, but who cares! It's better than no matrix at all, and a lot of people stand to profit quite a lot by it!

In game terms, the new Matrix allowed for the game to reflect some aspects of actual wireless communications in the real world today, in the form new game mechanics that changed the way hackers were able to play the game. In story terms, it allowed for progression of the overarching storyline, with major changes in the corporate world and the tying up of a lot of old strings. Old arc characters were laid to rest, and new ones came to light.

It's not very different than the shift from LoneStar to Knight Errant, if you stop and think about it. In game terms, the shift to Knight Errant allowed for the game to reflect new aspects of modern policing that previously weren't a part of the SR universe, or of reality. And in story terms, it, too, helped progress the storyline, again with corporate shake-ups and a rotation of the cast of major characters. But how many people go around complaining about the lack of internal consistancy of that particular setting change? How many people complain that Knight Errant just isn't as cool as LoneStar always was, or that Knight Errant doesn't quite fit the game's genre properly? How many people point out just how unrealistic and illogical Knight Errants operations are compared to actual policework?

I still think the problem is familiarity. If the average player were more knowledgeable about real law enforcement practices, we probably would bitch and moan about Knight Errant's absurdities and inconsistancies from reality. But because the average player or GM is only vaguely knowledgeable about police practices, we're better able to suspend our disbelief. Meanwhile, if we as a whole knew less about computers and wireless communication, we'd be just as happy with the modern matrix as people in the 90s used to be with the concept of cyberspace and getting somehow sucked into a digital world Tron-style.

A quick personal example. I went to go see The Avengers with friends when it came out. And the one moment that destroyed my suspension of disbelief was the aircraft carrier. Why? Because my grasp of the physics involved made the concept so laughably absurd that I couldn't NOT be struck dumb by it. But for my friends who had no such grasp of the impossibility of the vehicle, there was no such disruption to their suspension of disbelief. And even with those of my friends who were aware of the physics, there were some who were such great fans of the comics, who were so eagerly anticipating the inclusion of the iconic vehicle for geeking-out reasons, that they without effort were able to forgive the craft's absurdity. Despite knowing it was completely ludicrous, they had no problem at all accepting it.

~Umi

Posted by: S.N.D. Dec 31 2012, 11:15 AM

There are a lot of little polish things that need to be amended and clarified, but listing all of them is an old topic that's better linked to than reiterated.


Here is the one thing I most want from 5th ed.
I want every piece of gear to have a date of introduction. Then I want to be able to decide when my game is set.

This would solve so many issues for everyone wanting to go back to ____ or keep ____ out of their game and would make time passing in game fun because the new X just came out and now your top flight Y is last years model.

Even new players could experience every major event in the series history, and all the old missions could be updated with new mechanics and re-released.
Everybody wins.


Mechanics-wise, I want the designers to come up with 50 fun-ass shadow running scenarios and then look at how the rules interact in those instances. At that point they need to figure out how to tighten it down rules-wise, deciding what rules (and rolls, but not necessarily rolls,) are necessary to accomplish what feats. (After that, spell big chunks of it out ala Anatomy of a Shadowrun. This is critical for new players.) Naturally the Matrix rules are at the top of the "unfuck this plz" list when it comes to tightening up the rules based on the effect and actions taken. Basically, I want to see them work backward from "I want this effect" to "how is that effect achieved in a fun and interesting way."

Also, integrate knowledge and active skills more. These lines are already pretty blurry. For example, Shadowing is just the understanding of when to use Infiltration, Con or Disguise while maintaining your Perception. It's a skill made up of other skills and governed by knowledge, not rigor. Abstract skills like this need to be better defined to get in line with the concrete combat rules. We get a whole 8th of the book talking about what a pistols skill is all about, but you can't give any idea on what 11 net hits on an Infiltration test might mean?

You know, the more I talk, the less the impact.
So, reiterating the primary point, I want Shadowrun 5th ed to give me access to ALL OF SHADOWRUN not just the next few years or whatever.
I want to be able to play a game that takes place before the day of goblinization or during one of the primary VITAS outbreaks.
I wanna get shut up in that Arcology or stranded in Bug City.
I wanna sabotage a comet probe.
I wanna shoot General Saito in the face.
I want to PLAY SHADOWRUN
ALL OF IT
GIMMIE

Posted by: Halinn Dec 31 2012, 11:37 AM

Here's an example from Used Car Lot:
http://imgur.com/niHT8

Posted by: Umidori Dec 31 2012, 11:45 AM

Just being an imp, but 11 net hits on an Infiltration test means you're undetected. *snicker*

But yes, more than two paragraphs for the entire Stealth skill group would be nice.

~Umi

Posted by: nezumi Dec 31 2012, 03:26 PM

Wakshaani hit the nail on the head (although you hit a few other topics which are also true).

And to be clear, no one is arguing that the old-school matrix connection totally worked either. We've had four versions of Shadowrun, and four versions of the matrix. The problem is that real-life hacking takes a loooong time, and doesn't fit in well with the fast-paced style of a team-based infiltration game. SR4 did make hacking a lot faster, easier, and better integrated with the team, but it had costs in that it made hacking more silly. I agree with the fans who said 'try again please!'

Ideally matrix should:
- Play fast and integrate with a team actively infiltrating a facility
- Make sense (storing your work-critical files on a server a five-year-old can hack into doesn't make sense)
- Not violate laws of physics (this is a subset of 'make sense', above), unless we're actually saying this is a magic matrix
- Add to the sense that this is a real world, where people use these computers for work, and it isn't just 'another challenge the GM is throwing at you'
- Be balanced
- Be fun (this is perhaps the toughest one to quantify)
- Be cool! (plugging your brain directly into the computer is cooler than a technicolor dwarf waving in the air)

I think SR4 really focused on that first one (and did well!) but lost a lot on some of the others.

Posted by: SIN Dec 31 2012, 04:12 PM

See, now that looks great. I'd much rather Arsenal had less stuff in it, but all the stuff be laid out like that. If we weren't on the cusp of a new edition, I might even go back and buy those pdfs... Hell, I might buy them anyway.

Posted by: _Pax._ Dec 31 2012, 10:45 PM

I'd like to see Stealth and Camoflage overhauled - along with Chameleon suits, Camoflage suits, Silencers, and so on.

For starters, I think things like camoflage clothing or chameleon rigs should provide a BONUS to the user's skills, not a malus to observers' perception rolls.

That way, there's no questions like "how does Disguise (Camoflage) work, when you're alreadyw earing a chameleon suit?" The answer would be simple: the suit gives you +4 to the roll, as it's coloration can be shifted to whatever is needed.

Then, I'd like to see firearms (etc) grant a bonus to observers' perception checks. So, if say a silencer is worth -4 (-6 or integral models) ... and light pistols are +2, heavy pistols +3, SMGs +4, shotguns and rifles +6, sniper rifles +8, antimateriel rifles +9, and so on? Sure, sure, slap an integral silencer on your .50BMG Barret. Great, now it's only as loud as an Ares Predator. Congratulations. But it's not silent, yet.

(Maybe let silencers push things as far as -2 or -3 net, but I'm no sure about even that.)

Posted by: Fatum Dec 31 2012, 11:36 PM

I think this is a great idea!

Posted by: All4BigGuns Jan 1 2013, 01:58 AM

Could be a decent idea, but I think it'd just be too much of a PITA for the writers, most of whom are underpaid enough as it is.

Posted by: Fatum Jan 1 2013, 03:27 AM

Am I reading this right? "Sell us bad product, because good one would cause you money to produce"?

Posted by: Draco18s Jan 1 2013, 03:31 AM

Where are you reading that?

Posted by: All4BigGuns Jan 1 2013, 03:46 AM

Do YOU feel like going through all of the gear, matching them up with source books from old editions and coming up with dates for them? I sure as hell know I wouldn't, and I wouldn't expect the writers (be they freelance or otherwise) to go through all that. Gives me a headache just thinking about doing such a thing.

Posted by: Fatum Jan 1 2013, 04:17 AM

That's a week's work, without putting too much effort.
Flipping through a dozen books - not exactly rocket science.

Posted by: All4BigGuns Jan 1 2013, 04:33 AM

Then send Hardy an email offering to do it for free if you think it's so easy.

Posted by: Fatum Jan 1 2013, 04:49 AM

How about I support it in a thread on suggestions for the new edition, instead?
And people who get paid for writing it will do the work they're paid for?

Posted by: S.N.D. Jan 1 2013, 04:55 AM

Either the old books have this information in them, in which case, it's as easy as making a list and skimming some texts, or they don't, in which case it's as easy as making shit up.
It's probably the easiest task any writer could hope for.

The important part is that it sets things up for old works to be updated and resold.
That's work for writers, money for Catalyst, and grist for groups.

Posted by: Lionhearted Jan 1 2013, 02:26 PM

Time spent on that feature is time not spent on something else, the unfortunate truth is that in that cost of production in relationship to expected return is a major factor, especially if you don't have the luxury of spending infinite time or money on something. Writers gotta eat to.