oh and, the consensus kwown from the start at my table is that : "Shoot the mage first"

You just gave me an idea for a magician/mystic sniper that uses illusion and manipulation magics instead of technology to suppress the noise and flash of gunshots. Will have to work the numbers on that to see about feasibility.

As for the lifespan of suppressors, I did some looking around and found that depending on some factors (like caliber, barrel length, muzzle device, and firing schedule) they can potentially last quite some time, many referring to tens of thousands of rounds fired without degradation of performance. Saw one forum post where someone likened the use of a suppressor to driving a car in the way of longevity; full-auto 500 rounds straight, twice in a row, has a good chance of ending a suppressor's life really quick, while regular target practice had next to no impact. Another statement, direct from a manufacturer, stated testing in excess of 30,000 rounds with no noticeable degradation in sound performance (sadly lacking some details as to the time frame and weapon/ammo used), and that their suppressor could outlast several barrels (I'm assuming that this is with some regular cleaning and maintenance of said suppressor).

As for something like gel, doesn't seem mandatory for a suppressor, it looks like it enhances the performance of a suppressor for a relatively short while, and is more likely used in pistol suppressors as opposed to rifles (the later being that rifles run so hot that the gel is typically gone after three shots). I also am under the impression, from what I've read, that wet suppressors are much higher maintenance than dry suppressors.

It's nice to see this thread and realize its not just me.

I stopped playing around 2007, after I graduated college. We ran 3rd ed pretty much exclusively, and once 4th came out with its drastic changes to both lore and mechanics that I liked (Wireless? Combined mage/shaman mechanics? Thanks, but no thanks) I pretty much stopped following entirely. I wasn't even aware of a 5th edition until recently.

And now, I've been tapped to run a game for some friends and family. I did a quick check of 5e, and from what I can tell, I'm *still* going to stick with 3rd, warts and all.

While I like the magic and updated Matrix systems of 4th Ed, what keeps bringing me back to 2nd/3rd is the flavor text, especially in the supplementals.

The stories are nice, but it still feels like something was missing in the extra books for 4th.

Here's the thing. Back in the day, when Shadowrun first came out, it was unique. It was innovative, and it used new(ish) mechanics in an interesting way. It was also very inspirational: some of the playtesters went on to found White Wolf, and based the Storyteller dice system on Shadowrun's. Basically, the entire 90's RPG resurgence came about because of Shadowrun. SR3 was the height of the classic rules system-- sure, it had warts, but by and large the system worked well, and did things differently than anyone else out there. While everything else was copying d20, Shadowrun was one of the most original games out there.

Then, 4e hit. Steven Kenson is on record as saying that he deliberately based the new system on NWoD, believing that since they copied off of Shadowrun initially, it was fair game to copy off them. Rob Boyle did the same on a podcast. What this meant was, instead of being a leading innovator in the gaming world, Shadowrun was now just another copy. The system was also rushed to market, with inadequate playtesting, which led to a lot of play issues when real players got a hold of it. Ultimately, those flaws were part of what sparked 4.5; flaws that fans on Dumpshock screamed long and hard about were among the big fixes they implemented.

It's sad to see Shadowrun decline so badly. For a while there, Shadowrun was easily the second-most popular RPG out there, behind D&D. Later, it took third, after White Wolf. Now? I'm not sure where in the pack it is, but it's likely not even in the top ten.

Is 4.5 purely a mechanics change, or did it reinstate cyberpunk back into the game?

I maintain it never left the game... but some aspects of it have transformed.

Wireless has about as much place in cyberpunk as diesel engines have in steampunk.

I disagree... *shrug*
Even Cyberpunk 2020 had wireless access points.

While sales charts are not as easily available as for PC games, I don't get the impression that there are many games which surpass SR in terms of popularity. D&D certainly and possibly Pathfinder, but further than that? WoD has essentially been reduced to a number of hobbyist PDF releases, DSA is popular in Germany but nowhere else, the 40k RPGs are clearly less popular than SR from what I see (they don't even make it into the Amazon Top 100)...

RPGs as a whole have shrunk a lot, but I don't think Shadowrun has lost ground disproportionately

Honestly, I think it took some of the cyberpunk out. Cyberpunk is a very specific setting, a particular era's view of the future. SR4/4.5 was a projection of our present, and used current ideas to form the setting. There were a couple of nods to cyberpunk, but for the most part, it was less the future as seen by Gibson and Stephenson, and more the future as seen by the WinXP User's Manual.



Well, once upon a time, there was only one popular game: D&D. Everything else was an also-ran.

Around the early 90's, though, RPG's went through a boom. A lot of new and innovative games hit the market, most notably Vampire and Shadowrun. Both took off like wildfire, although eventually White Wolf would almost dominate the RPG world. D&D itself was declining during this time, as TSR basically lost focus and D&D 2e fell prey to power creep, rules bloat, and supplementitis. Shadowrun was wildly popular during this time, and not only was it a big name in American RPG's, it was running neck and neck with DSA in Germany for a while. That's why the game got a lot of German supplements. When Shadowrun first arrived, it was the talk of the gaming world, and was among the first non-D&D games to make a huge splash. It was pretty much the talk of the town until Vampire took hold.

At the end of the 90's, TSR would die in its sleep, and Wizards took over D&D. Around 2000, they showed their take: D&D 3.0, and the D20 revolution. The OGL blew people away, and even though D&D was slipping away, it came back with a bang. Pretty much everything was dominated by d20 during that decade. White Wolf was bought out, and the World of Darkness would slowly start sliding out of the limelight. To rekindle interest in Shadowrun, 4e was released, but it didn't catch on as well in the wake of D&D 3.5.

Now, we hit today. With the release of 5e, D&D is currently leading the pack. In second place is Pathfinder, riding on the coattails of d20. Shadowrun is now, charitably, in the middle of the pack, and is competing with a lot of others. I'd personally put it out of the top ten, based on games played online and at the FLGS's I frequent.

On Amazon.com, The SR5 BBB is ranked 36th in the gaming section, after a lot of D&D and Pathfinder stuff as well as PC game tie-ins and guidebooks -- and Minecraft novels -- but long before other RPGs.

On Amazon.de, the BBB is the No. 1 topseller, leading an e-book on Minecraft seeds and a DSA adventure. Do they load those minecraft PDFs on every kindle or why are those so far up? Anyway, as far as Germany goes I'd also point out the fact that Pegasus sells the books for 19.95 €. No matter how much printing costs have collapsed, that's just not feasible if you're an also-ran in an already small market.

Not sure why you consider nWOD as a bunch of Hobbyist PDF releases. It is BOOMING, and Onyx Path (Current License Holder of the World of Darkness) is definitely producing high quality and mainstream games. FAR better quality, in fact, than CGL ever thought of producing, never mind being able to actually produce. Onyx Path's quality blows CGL out of the water completely.

Not a huge fan of NWoD or quality of early products. 20th anniversary stuff brings out the 90's nostalgia and got my wallet open. Shadowrun still sits a shelf higher in my current campaigns section though.

Have not really looked at the 20th Anniversary editions at all. I still have all my original books, so see no real need to purchase them again. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
For me, Both Shadowrun and nWOD occupy the same gaming space. I like them both. Each one scratches a particular (and different) itch. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Though to be fair... FATE can cover both quite nicely. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Damn. I knew this was the case for 4e. I was hoping that 4.5 was an effort to undo some of the damage and bring back at least some cyberpunk elements. Looks like that's never going to happen, though.

Of course not . . Shadowrun is a progressive setting after all.

Indeed... Eventually Cyperpunk MUST bend to Post-Cyberpunk, and then to Transhumanism.

SR4 is Post-Cyberpunk.

SR5 tried to turn back the clock, to which I say, bollocks.

I still kind of lost most interest in Shadowrun when I discovered Eclipse Phase, though.

Shadowrun has transhumanist themes, but despite the populace living permanently online/in an AR environment, and minor augmentations such as datajacks or cybereyes being fairly common... shadowrunners are still the outliers, rather than the norm. They instill awe, fear, revulsion, or obsessive fandom among "regular" people. This is a core feature built into the very premise of the game (exceptional people who do exceptional things, who have incurred various physical and emotional costs to do so), and the mechanics of the game (where augmentations and magic give cheap, easy boosts that give people superhuman capabilities), so I don't expect it to change soon.

I think the game's tone is a bit schizophrenic at the moment. Some people seem to want a near-future vision that extrapolates from modern trends such as ubiquitous recording devices and an information society, while others want a retro-cyberpunk future with corporate feudalism in a decaying society with a wild-west atmosphere. I think the game needs to grow - I think retconning nanotech away with a bogus virus and bringing back cyberdecks were mistakes. But I also think the designers need to remember that this is an alternate reality future when they introduce things from our own modern times. So sure, do away with 5-pound cell phones, but also keep in mind that file-sharing might be less common in a future where data is more balkanized, and jealously guarded.

It tries, but they insisted on shoehorning in the wireless Matrix and trying to be transhumanist while still explicitly having technology eat your soul if you try to use it to improve the human condition.

I'd have been a lot happier if they'd just stuck to cyberpunk and remembered that the timelines diverged back in the late 1980's, so the things that happen in our world do not need to be reflected in Shadowrun's world, nor should they be. After all, they had a decade of plagues and natural disasters after the Ghost Dance that mean that a logical progression from current tech is impossible. It's like trying to assume what the 2010's would be like without knowing that the 9/11 attacks would happen.

Hell, you couldn't even build an iPhone in SR's 2015's, China's overpopulation is busy being decimated by VITAS, if I recall the timeline correctly.

One site sales figures is not very representative. For example, World of Darkness has more or less abandoned the traditional FLGS and brick-and-mortar stores, they now sell almost exclusively POD and online. So, they don't get counted in these sales figures. PDF's also aren't figured in.

Actually, you're wrong there. One of the charges leveled against Catalyst is that they overcharge for Shadowrun books. Based on prices at my FLGS, $60 for a core book is on the high end-- most comparable books run for $50 or less. Because the price is so high, that drives down sales. Pegasus has better business practices, and so can put out the same book for much cheaper than CGL. Because the price is lower, the book will logically be more desirable, and thus more people will buy it.

Maybe that was a bit drastic, but a game line which does no longer put books in stores simply puts itself outside the mainstream, even if we're talking about the mainstream of a non-mainstream hobby.



I wouldn't use those figures to determine an exact ranking (or even a rough one), but if Shadowrun is among a field of second-line RPGs, I'd expect those to show up somewhere within the same top 100 list.


A lower price makes the product more appealing to interested parties, if it's sufficiently low even those with just a passing interest might pick up the product "just in case". But it does not generate customers out of thin air. I wouldn't buy the Minecraft book if it was ten cents, because I don't play Minecraft. The EP guys put out their stuff for free, and it's still a rather obscure game most RPGers haven't heard of, let alone have tried.

Not for lack of trying on my part. I've been seeding the EP big torrents since I got into EP. I'm at 28.7 GB uploaded on a 203MB folder. I've been seeding this one for 17 weeks now...

I should check and see if they've updated to a newer version of the torrent.

[e]Nope, I'm up to date.

Shameless plugging time: Eclipse Phase is a game of transhumanism and space travel, of functional anarchy and dysfunctional hierarchies, of a time in which sapient, recursively-growing AIs were (probably) tampered with by extraterrestrial intelligences and (definitely) wiped out most life on Earth, leaving the rest of transhumanity (which now includes uplifted ceteceans, octopi, hominids, and birds, as well as non-recursive AIs) to inhabit the rest of our solar system and beyond, thanks to wildly irresponsible exploitation of unknown artifacts known as Pandora Gates. Dying is a disease which has been cured, you can have as many of yourself active at one time as you feel sane having, and everybody has a psuedosapient AI in their headware computer.

Oh, and you have as many goddamn augs as you want, because EP doesn't buy into that bullshit cybernetics eats your soul thing.

If that sounds interesting to you, grab it here. This is a link to The Pirate Bay, but it is 100% legal, as the developers of Eclipse Phase released it by way of a Creative Commons license. If it later turns out that you like it and you have an income to dispose of, feel free to support them by ordering the books hardcopy or something.

The Mainstream is changing, and it is changing rapidly. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

As for Eclipse Phase - It is definitely an awesome product. Not participating in any games currently (too many others in the wings right now - Shadowrun, DnD, Fate of at least 3 varieties), but no worries, I am sure they will come. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)