Missions are part of the ebooks line. There's no reason for them to be considered any less important to the Shadowrun line than any other ebook or published adventure. There is a perception that they are a "con thing", but we started this in Season 4 fairly successfully, I think with the plot lines we ran there, and we plan to continue to do so in Season 5.

It likely won't be major, world changing stuff. We're not going to start wars between countries or have immortal elves invading great dragons. But it will effect the setting in some way it can have lasting repercussions. We managed to turn Seattle upside down, and Chicago is a lot more open. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)



Yeah... no. Not at all. The new edition is about fixing things. Some things didn't need fixed and were left alone. Some things are just tweaked ever so slightly to fix wording or play style issues. And some stuff it was felt would work better if it was changed in some way, large or small.

Bull

...we are?

I mean, that's exactly what's going on, here. The confusion is over, the multi-thread debates about when and how spirits spend edge can stop, etc, etc. The rules text is being fixed.


It's hard for me, who took part in so many arguments over the last few years, to reply to this sort of thing without cussing...but I'll give it a shot. I assure you, we didn't spend the last couple of years just willy-nilly "making things different." The new edition absolutely is about "fixing things." No one just threw their hands up and went "Whee, let's change stuff!" and if they had, Jason would have shot it down. The changes that are being made are all things that were fought over, tooth and nail, and then playtested, and then fought over again.

If your mind's made up, fine, your mind's made up. Hate the new edition (sight unseen) all you want to, that's your gig. But I'd really appreciate it if you could tone down the cynicism just a bit, and not cast aspirations on the motives of those who've spent all this time working on it, too.

Maybe so (can't tell before I've read the new main rulebook), but when I read "spirits no longer have Edge", I don't have high hopes.

It's a difference between what Missions are and how they are perceived. I'm afraid that not too many gamers out there know of Missions at all, part from con goers, forum users, and the occasional ebook buyer. As for the Seattle example in Missions Season 4: I bet most people would take Seattle 2072 as up-to-date.

it'll make oversummoning/summoning in general less dangerous if the spirits can't use edge to resist i'd guess?

And, if GMs chose to go the other way with Edge, it makes summoned spirits less overwhelmingly potent (in that you didn't have a one-shot character spending their Force in Edge points in a single scene). There's less risk to summoning more powerful spirits, and less of a power spike in summoning a spirit; the power curve has been simplified, smoothed out, confusion withdrawn.

Uaaaarrgh

so . . wait . . what?
you can do your creation, keep some karma left over and, for example, immediately after game start spend your left over karma on getting rid of negative edges/flaws?

I would like to point out exactly why this wouldn't work (or, rather, why it would technically "work" but would accomplish exactly nothing and bring exactly no benefit, so while it maye technically be some sort of a loophole it is one with no practical or exploitive value or potential), but it's 5:30 in the morning right now and there's no one awake for me to pester on Facebook to see if I'd be violating my NDA.

So instead I'll just have to be vague, I guess, and say "Sort of, but don't worry about that."

I personally wouldn't like a system wherein a being like a spirit doesn't have Edge at all. I have no problem with the idea that a summoner wouldn't be able to access it, though.

Yea I'm afraid I can't agree. While the couple I've seen are well done modules, they are just that: modules. They can touch on plot stuff, or handle behind the scenes kind of revelations, but the big, important stuff should be in source books or campaign books.

Just my opinion anyway. I've never been a big buyer of one-shot type modules for any game system. I understand the missions stuff is a little more connected, but still. This seems like a way to grab some bucks by putting story info in a module that will never see a printer.

I disagree. Edge should remain the realm of free-willed beings. Free spirits for example, should get Edge 1 at 'freedom' and have to increase it like everyone else.

If a summoner is abusing spirits, the GM should just give extra dice to the spirits now and then or other things to get the point across that spirits are miffed at em.

What exactly would be the problem with that? The player is essentially replacing "Illiterate" (or some other flaw) with "gets X karma less during chargen".

My problem if priority gen is the extreme coarseness of the system. You have a character concept that requires 450k ¥? Well S2BY, the only options available are 400k or one million. Want to put 35 points in skills? Either cut it down to 34 or get 40 points and have another area truncated. If they are now apparently replacing "X points of attributes and Y of skills" with "X karma you can put into attributes and Y for skills" presumably does little to change that.

I liked the Sum-to-10 priority system. It's a little quicker and easier (especially for newbies), but retains some flexibility to avoid human street sams, deckers, and riggers all having a million nuyen to start with.

Pick up a flaw for an-amount-of-priority that converts to N karma.

Spend aN+c (where a >= 1 and c >= 0) karma buying off the flaw.

Yeah, I don't see this as a loophole at all.

I quite liked the priority systems, but more of the SR3 style(I felt the priorities were generally the most solid there, however, I felt that the races at C and D were a bit wonky, particularly how Orks and Dwarves were the two races who got the least amount of minuses for their bonuses but were lower.) The SR4 prio system in and of itself I thought was good for what it did, but it was obviously geared toward street level games since it literally gave you less of everything. (Which is fine with me since I support systems which can be used for a variety of games, but we didn't use it.) I'm looking forward to how the new priority system is set up. I'm quite intrigued about how it's Karma related by the sound of it.

That would be a loophole in the system you're envisioning, I agree. Which raises the question: Is the system you're envisioning the same as the one in the book?

It's not a loophole if it costs you more karma to get rid of than you got by taking it.
In any case, I cannot answer the second question without violating an NDA I don't have.
(e.g. I don't know the answer, and if I did, I still couldn't say).

The Priority system in SR4's Runner's Companion was designed to make characters of 400 BP, give or take 5%. So a character made with the system should be roughly the same as a 400 BP character, no matter which combination of priorities you took.

To address the issue with spirits and edge: Jason didn't exactly say that they won't have any. The quote is:

I'm taking that particular quote to mean that the only way for a summoned spirit to spend edge is if their summoner spends a point of edge.
Essentially putting the Edge-resource back into the same bucket that all other players have.

(For NPC spirits, this would fall back to the general "mook edge pool" as well)

It lends itself to a very broad interpretation. Spirits could still be able to spend edge to resist summoning, is another possible one.

But yeah, I think having them have mook edge sounds good.

Which will make a different mechanic necessary for the situation where the GM can let high force spirits use their individual Edge against summoning / binding.

Which I'm fine with. I want those situations as being spelled out. There are no less than three different interpretations of it floating around on the forums ("always","force > N", "force > magic").

Personally I use Force > Summoning skill rating (Specialization applies) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)