I did not say can't. The players are all capable of making a character. And each one of them is an experienced tabletop RPG player coming from other games. But the process of making Shadowrun characters is extremely fiddly and time-consuming compared to other popular games out there. And there isn't even really any sense of payoff from that extra effort.

Also, I second everything Bertramn said.

I agree that Shadowrun is needlessly crunchy. But while I was playing both D&D5 and Numenera I found that the systems weren't crunchy enough to make my character feel really unique.

There are a lot of overlapping roles in Shadowrun. Like the Adept and Street Sam both fill the role of physical combatant. And while Adept Powers and Ware do share the same benefits, they both come with different costs. But of course the biggest problem is that Adepts can get chrome which does throw some balancing out the window. But still, there they can fill the same role, but they won't be the same both in mechanics and flavor.

Like you need to get into a open window on a second story. The adept can run up the wall, while the street sam can use his hydraulic jacks to jump up to it, or whatever.

In Numenera it can be described like that too. But it doesn't really feel any different since you'll still be rolling your d20, -level if you're skilled, -level if you got some gear to help, -level if you want to spend some effort. Super awesome since it resolves so quickly. But it starts to feel a bit same-ie.

In Shadowrun, your adept needed to buy the wall run power, needs some good str and the running skill. A window on the second floor would probably be some 4 meters up, so they need to get 4 hits on the test, which is pretty difficult or at least require a significant resource investment to do this one thing.

Then you got the Street Sam doing the same thing. They do a jump test with their hydraulic jacks. So the max a normal person can jump is 1.5x their height. Say our Street Sam is human, 2 meters tall, that's 3 meters without the jacks. Just one meter short from being able to reach that window. Each rating of a jack adds 20% to the max jump distance. We just need 1/3 more distance, so a rating 2 jack is all we need. The Sam makes gymnastic + agi test, each hit counts as a half meter in vertical distance, so is also a threshold 4 test, since he only needs to go up by 2 meters from his natural height of 2 meters.

And while the example in Shadowrun were WAY more complicated than doing it in Numenera. There is something about the crunchiness. It adds some drama, adds more strategy and tactics, and more meaningful choices. In Numenera, you can just say you walk through the wall, or travel through time to before the building was made and walk in and then travel through time again. This isn't to say Numenera is bad, because I love it. But its not the same reason I love how crunchy Shadowrun is.

Despite that Sams and Adepts share a lot of the same roles, they also go about it differently enough to make the characters feel really different when approaching the same task. Which can make player's characters feel more unique.

IMHO there are several factors which make SR very complicated for new players:

- Complicated equipment lists for Hackers, Riggers and Streetsams

- Bad archetypes

- Missing a good missing intro adventure (which really takes players and gamemaster step by step through an entire run) in the basic book.

- Missing a basic runner setting in the basic book.

- Missing better examples, not only for one specific rule, for for an entire scene.

- Missing basic help for players and Gamemaster in "the first 10 steps, what should I do, what do in need to do ingame"

- cumbersome rules in many instances (compared to what many other RPGs have today)

SYL

No, it doesn´t.

It add massive rule blocking the way. There is no drama and no choice if a new gamemaste (and many old ones too) have to check the rule system for several minutes. Because it is not only the jumping test, but dozen of other tests as well. This is something a lot of people forget who advocate for crunchy rules: the entire rule system, from attribute tests to skill testes to infiltration, magic, drone modification, program scribing, enchanting, katana killing, wallrunning adepts and thousands of different things, would be crunchy and complicated, not only one specific part. Especially in SR, which doesn´t have not only normal rule areas like attribute, skill, close combat, ranged combat, but also magic, magic item creation, alternate dimension, rigger, matrix, gear building and modification etc. And with that your rule system explodes. On the contrary: it *kills* every drama, every cool idea, every player/setting interaction, because ... "on page 285 there is a rule which does not allow that or which required you to do the next 3 steps".

It was part of SR3 - and even some of the main authors mentioned that they don´t use this kind of rule detail in their private game.

SYL

Shadowrun has always been a mechanics-heavy game. This is no more of a bad thing than blueberry pie being a blueberry-heavy dessert. If you don't like rules-heavy, that's okay--don't play Shadowrun, or pick up a port to some more rules-light system (the beautiful thing about rules-light is they are so very easy to port to). I've heard of plenty of people who play Shadowrun on a d100 or d20 system, and it works for them.

Speaking for myself, and I imagine a lot of other SR fans, I like mechanics-heavy. This is a huge part of why I didn't transition over to SR4. And the fact that SR5 seems to be transitioning back seems to suggest that CGL recognizes this as well.

If the point is though that it's hard for new players to start, and more guidance on that would be helpful, I can get behind that. Maybe that's something that Dumpshock can put together; Dumpshock's Guide to Playing Shadowrun. Certainly, getting from 0 to Table can be a little intimidating with crunch-heavy games (be it Shadowrun, Axies & Allies, or Kerbal Space Program), so a tutorial usually is a good fix.

I also think Method's comments really hit a note. While SR5 is coming closer to what I'm looking for, I already have SR3. I own all the books, I know the rules. What motivation do I have to change over? They have a very high bar to meet to get my business. But then, in order to meet that bar, they need to offer something new (and something buyers are still interested in). How far afield do they have to go to provide that? Among the big RPGs, Shadowrun is rather unique in that it's the only setting that's really tied to a short-lifespan genre like that (meanwhile, fantasy and vampires have both been around for ages). I do feel like Eclipse Phase did break out of this box, by taking a new, yet somewhat familiar direction. Should Shadowrun be that aggressive as well?

What are you arguing for?

You basically got two extremes. Super crunchy, requiring a lot of rules and math. And super abstracted which makes every test the same thing.

Like in Numenera, say we got a Glave (Street Sam equivalent). We want to do that same second story window jump. Maybe it's a level 6 task. Which means only a roll of 18 or higher will succeed. This means your Joe Average is probably going to fail at the test. But our Glave has hydraulic jacks (jumping asset) and is skilled at jumping. Which lowers the level to 4. Now the Glave has to roll 12 or better, so about a 40% chance to succeed. Odds are the Glave will spend some effort lowering the level by 1 more, so will need a 9 or better which is a 55% chance of success.

In the Shadowrun example, that Street Sam has almost a 100% chance of making it (especially with the use of edge), since he only needs to make a threshold 4 test and will probably be rolling some 15 dice (8 agi + 5 athletics + 2 hydraulic jacks) on the test.

There are some upsides and downsides. in Numenera Joe Average who has a 15% chance of success, while in Shadowrun has a 0% chance of success. Does that sound like a good idea or a bad idea? I don't know. Since most games aren't designed around boring normal people, I don't think these edge cases of what normal people can do is particularly helpful, so I'm not sure why I brought it up. But still a point that can be discussed.

Anyway, while I agree that Shadowrun's crunch is a barrier, I really wouldn't be Shadowrun without it. Since, it'd turn Adepts and Sams, Technomancers and Deckers, Mages and Shamans (though this may have already happened), etc into the same archetype. What makes Shadowrun interesting is that there are no classes. Just roles and different ways to fill those roles with archetypes. If you eliminate the crunch then it'll force Shadowrun into classes to really try and force differences in character choices. Which isn't a bad philosophy of game design, but I don't think its what makes Shadowrun, Shadowrun.

No, because EP have certainly some Cyberpunk/Shadowrun Elements in it, itis more of a SF/Horror Game, more like Transhuman meets Ctuuluh. Taking away the basic cyberpunk/fantasy-aspect would end like DnD4.

And to be honest: I do not feel that SR was always be a very rule/mechanic system . I own a SR1 basic book and compared to the basic book of SR3 and 5 it was an almost weightless light system (except matrix). I do not remember SR2 being as rules heavy as SR3 (lets just say ... "internal connection map for your cyberware"). And as it was said earlier: the general direction goes "light" and the general player base of SR gets older with less time.

SYL

I just take your own examploe

Then you got the Street Sam doing the same thing. They do a jump test with their hydraulic jacks. So the max a normal person can jump is 1.5x their height. Say our Street Sam is human, 2 meters tall, that's 3 meters without the jacks. Just one meter short from being able to reach that window. Each rating of a jack adds 20% to the max jump distance. We just need 1/3 more distance, so a rating 2 jack is all we need. The Sam makes gymnastic + agi test, each hit counts as a half meter in vertical distance, so is also a threshold 4 test, since he only needs to go up by 2 meters from his natural height of 2 meters.

In the end, it is just a jumping test. Other RPGs do that in 2 lines. Image just that for *every* other part of the *entire* SR rule system in every sub-system (magic item creatoin, high speed chases, seduction, firing a rocket launcher etc).




That is absolutely true - and for me, a class less, level less system, which includes high tech and magic is THE most defining cornerstone of what makes or breaks a SR rule sytem for me. I suppose I could live with a lot of other changes, from D10 to D100, from Edge or Karma, from high prices to low prices ... but I could never learn to play SR with classes or levels. It would be an atrocity.

SYL

I do think so,
and it is what they did somewhat half-assedly in fourth edition.

I use the word half-assed because the break was everything but clean.
Everything now is the same, but different, in a bad way.
The cyberpunk is still there technically, but it seems out of place,
amidst elements of transhumanism and a cleaner vision of the future.
Somehow the matrix has changed extremely for example,
while cyberware has not become any more essence-friendly or more effective.

My theory for this disconnect is that the timeleap they made from one edition to the next,
was too small. Just 5 to 6 years.
If they wanted to change the setting, they really should have made a greater leap,
of say: 40 years.
This would have allowed to change the power levels of matrix, magic and cybertech,
as well as all of the rest of the setting, without it seeming strange within the universe.

Sure, it would have been a different game in a way, but that is no different from what it is now.
One of the things that frustrate me the most at the moment in the Shadowrun meta,
is that Wired Reflexes have not gotten any better really, for 25 years.

At the moment they seem to be wanting their cake, while they ate it 10 years ago.
Bringing Decks back is awesome, but what the hell? It does not really make sense in the universe.

Its not a simple jump test though. That's the whole point of needing rules to clarify what the threshold should be. Else it's just the GM looking at the players dice pools and thinking to themselves, "well, I want this to be challenging. They're rolling 15 dice, so why not make it threshold 5." Which may or may not be fair for the player, whom would be slightly punished because the GM understand the opportunity cost of being good at jumping buy crap at other things. Or they under shoot it and now it's a threshold 3 test and everyone can make it, making the Street Sam less special.


But classes are implemented into more abstract games to offer player choice. Or else you'll end up in the homogeneous state that was SR4. Where everyone could be pretty good at everything which starts to defeat the point of playing a team game. That's what makes SR5 nice, is since there is a larger opportunity cost to specialize in your role, you need others to offset your weaknesses.

The Street Sam can't afford the best augs and a deck to defend himself over the Matrix. So he needs a decker. The Sam can't protect himself from magic, since his essence and max magic (if he was awaken) would get eaten by the augs. So he needs a mage to counterspell and handle awaken threats.

The Decker needs someone to protect his meat body while hacking the gipsons. So the Decker needs a Street Sam or Adept. And still needs a mage to handle awaken threats like when a spirit manifests right behind them.

The mage is still the more broken archetype, since they don't need the Decker to protect their magic gear or really needs the Street Sam since they can cast combat spells pretty effectively. But at the very least now in SR5, drain is kind of tougher and direct spells aren't one shot wonder fests. But Shadowrun has always had the problem of awaken characters being too damn strong. But at the very least, they're not so strong now that they're a no brainer all the time like in every previous edition.

For the record, while I enjoy the hell out of Numenera, I'm not really advocating that any form of Shadowrun be as mechanically-light as the Cypher System. Still, on the sliding scale of mechanical complexity, Shadowrun has a lot of room to slide towards being more streamlined while still remaining dramatic and flavorful. D&D5E, for instance, is considerably streamlined, but not as mechanically-light as Cypher System.

No. They are an archaic concept from the 1970s, nothing more. They can be useful if your vision of the game is only based on archetypes (like the Feng Shui Hong Kong Martial Arts Role Playing System with classes like Sorcerer, Ninja or Ex Special Forces).



You mean SR1234 and 5? Because a class less and level less system is pretty much the cornerstone of every edition of SR so far. Except for mundane/adept/aspect magic/ magic/TM, which is as close as you get to a "class system" in SR. I know it is a very often used "accusation" of SR4 that "everyone can do everything". Well, that is true if your gamemaster never challenges you. The moment high level spells, matrix attacks or full auto bursts are in the game, you want specialized sams with soaking pools 30+, hackers with military links and programs (because your rating 6 agent with rating 6 programs does not work really very well against military nodes and enemy hackers with 20+ dices) and you want mages to protect you from high level spirits attack, which in turns are slaughtered by SNS FA fire from the rigger drones. Specialization is still very necessary in SR4, but yes, simple, basic things like hacking a school terminal, fighting against a weak ganger or breakig a rating 2 maglock is quite easy for everyone.



I am note quite sure if that is really covered both in SR3 or SR5. At least in SR3 it was possible after a certain point because nuyen costs exploded so a Kraftwerk from Renraku, some cracked programs and the little Karma you need for computer 6 was definately an option (after all, computer included everything necessary).



No, actually SR had always the issue, that cyberware was too rule intensive, too expensive (remember the non optional surgery costs in SR3 or the ridiculous idea of making an internal networking plan for your connected cyberware?) and simply not cool enough. You see, my mage can simply fly (levitate) with a rule perhaps one small sentence long and almost unlimted possibility. Your street sam have to remember multiple sentences (your own example, sacrifice a lot of nuyen and essence (because jacks only work in cyberlegs IIRC) for a unimpressive bonus in jumping. Ever watched Ghost in the Shell? Cyberleg-using characters there could jump/fall 30 meters. That is how you make cyberware cool. Not with "add 20% istance" but with "add 10 meters". Not with "1 dice against toxic attack, but with full immunity".

SYL

I understand the appeal of a rigid rule-set.
The more rules there are,
the clearer it is what you can do,
and what you are expected to do.

The more detailed the rules are too,
the easier it is, to picture what happens,
because the description has not to be delivered by the GM,
or the player, because it is already written in the book.

This is a continuous line, which ranges from daydreaming on one side,
to playing a computer-game, on the other.

The RPG industry has changed nowadays. Players want games where they can make characters quickly, and get to playing-- no more Monday Night Character Lab sessions.

And for the most part, the industry has responded. White Wolf deliberately cribbed off the original Shadowrun system, and make character creation much easier. FATE brags they can create characters in minutes. Even D&D 5e is much easier: getting attributes takes a minute or two, hit points are fixed at first level, and then you just pick a class and race. They have equipment packages, so you never need to pour over shopping lists ever again. You can get all that information in about 10-15 pages of reading, so flipping through 50-100 is not normal anymore.



In the end, though, it's really an art form. And there's no guarantees where dice are involved-- you can have the brawny fighter critically fail a Lift Gates check, only to have the wimpy mage succeed, regardless of where you set the difficulty at.

But what would help is if the system has realistic difficulty numbers. Is 3 successes really challenging for the average character? That depends on the average character in your game. If there's a high degree of inconsistency among characters, it's really hard to generate that level. And to do that, it *really* helps to have clear and transparent rules. For example, even if you have enough dice or modifiers, what happens if suddenly someone pops a hidden or overlooked rule on you? The the challenging test might become too easy for one person, but the super anime jumper now can't do it at all?

I like rules systems that are crunchier than the norm, but you can have crunchy and clear. You can have a one-line description of rules like jumping, and be perfectly easy to follow, and still have mathematical rigor.

Also D&D (i know mainly 2nd edition) is an insane hodgepodge,
of an extremely easy rule-set on one hand,
and 50-100 tables per book, and pages upon pages of rules for every character class.

I love it though,
being DM is a breeze.

Yes, but DnD is not as frontloaden in the beginning as SR. In DnD, you pick your class, choose your attributes (explained in full during the creation), choose some skills, some feats from a small list in the basic book add the basic equipment pack for your class ... and that is your level 1 characters. Bonus time if you are a spellcaster and need to choose usually 2-4 spells.

In SR you are not level 1. You need to be able to defend against bullets, magic, matrix attacks, gas attacks, social manipulation and killer robots from the very first second - and every one of these attacks can be a trap, distraction or the real thing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

SYL

There is nothing elitist in requiring that someone who wants to play a game knows its rules. Nobody's asking for a gold-plated Core Book with fist-sized diamonds. Anyone and everyone who can read (and everyone can read, we're in 2014 here) can spend a couple hours of their time reading.

It doesn't "imply", it says so outright.

The complexity of the traffic laws becomes the limiting factor here.
If the drivers feel them needlessly complex, it's not them who are at a loss, but the road system.
At the end, all that matters is whether you get from point A to point B, whether or not the traffic laws hinder your journey.
Demanding a driver's license is one of the weirdest trends among the drivers in my opinion.
It would not surprise me if this does not only drive people away from Ford cars, but from driving cars in general.

Okay, watch the logic now. PnP RPGs are an engaged hobby, where you're supposed to arrive on schedule on your most likely off day to spend a few hours with the other players, adhering all the while to pretty strict social conventions. This can be going on for months if not years. What kind of player commitment does the unwillingness or inability to spend a couple of hours reading the rules demonstrate? If the player's interested in playing so little, why would anyone want to bother, and why spare the feelings of a loafer for whom reading a tenth of a book is a problem?

I'm not saying every RPG should be rules heavy, nor that your Shadowrun should be rules heavy, for that matter, too. Once everyone knows the rules, it's easy to make an informed decision on which subsystems to change, or which ones not to use, if they appear to drag the game along. If you want granularity and detailed representation of what's happening, you can use the rules as written, plus optional rules from the splats, etcetera. If you want sleeker gameplay, nobody's stopping you from throwing away subsystems until your SR turns into a freeform with dice resolution or even without it at all. But you can't decide what you want from the rules unless you know them first.

Inability and unwillingness are hardly distinguishable when they produce the same results.

No, actually, it isn't. What is necessary for making a character is determining his attributes, dropping points into half a dozen skills, add half a dozen implants/spells/adept powers, throw in a commlink, a gun, a vehicle and a lifestyle. Bam you're done. Half an hour spent tops if you know the system.
Fiddlyness arrives when you don't want just an Ares Alpha, but a personalized Ares Alpha with modifications for its addons; not just a Harley-Davidson Scorpion, but a overmodded Scorpion outfitted with mounted personalized Ares Alphas with modifications for their addons; not a human street sammy, but an awakened infected changeling who's into hacking a lot. But if you do not feel this extra effort is worthwhile, why exactly would you even bother? What's the worst that could happen, losing a couple of precious dice from your dice pools? So what, who cares if the rest of your group does chargen the same way?

Good for them. If they want to play generic characters without giving thought to their particular abilities, personality traits and social dynamics, which can be created in three clicks, they can play anything from MMOs to jRPGS to Bioware games.

Yes, because rolling a die to determine HP will literally kill you and ship your remains to parents in small packages for ten years for Christmas.
Somehow it doesn't, say, in Pathfinder, but we all know it's geared towards these stupid grognards.

A couple of days ago I happened to open DnD5e DMG on the chapter on magical items...

I do not intend to press the point about elitism any more than I have, since you prove my point with so much more bravado than I ever could.

If you let me take your metaphor of the traffic system, although I find such things exceedingly silly:
Where do you want to drive a hundred kilometres, on a narrow road with lots of traffic lights and potholes, or on the german Autobahn?

And since you mix your metaphors, I will add another:
Which car do you want to drive in? A car you can just drive off in, or a car you have to assemble from scratch? Especially if you are not a mechanic.

My point was:
The system may not be played, but the group will go on.
That is bad for the system, since it is designed to be played.

Elitism is requiring something hard to acquire as a prerequisite for your games.
Two hours of time to read a book are generally available: everyone in the world gets around eight such periods daily, inability or unwillingness to commit these two hours spells out either lack of commitment or mental retardation.

A German Autobahn will have its lines marked, its turns labeled, and its traffic police after you with prejudice. And that's why it is enjoyable to ride: everyone knows the rules and follows them, not drives in zigzags on the opposite lane.

What an incredibly counter-intuitive thing to try and prove.

Fatum, I am not going to try to convince you to my way of thinking. But I do honestly believe that Shadowrun's overly complicated mechanics and character creation frequently hold the game back from adoption. And that's not even going into the complexity of the setting and its decades of metaplot backstory. I'm coming from the perspective of an experienced Shadowrun player and someone who wrote for the game and I know how time-consuming it can be to make characters for, build encounters for, and actually play.

Yes, if the players can't or are unwilling to spend the time to make characters for Shadowrun because it's a slog compared to another game, the end result is the same: not playing Shadowrun. There's no lack of fascinating and fun tabletop RPGs out there, so if another great one attracts the players by letting them jump right in and attracts me as a GM because it's easy to run and allows me the freedom to improvise on the fly, then that is probably where I'll go.

I have said all I have to say on this, Fatum,
and you seem not to have anything to add anymore.

Aquila non capit muscas.

D&D 5e has the advantage of a fresh start. There's only 3 rulebooks out to date, the PHB, the DMG, and the Monster Manual. Since you only need the PHB to create a character, it's pretty easy to go through all the options you ever need to worry about. If you want it even easier, there's a free Basic rulebook that describes a few core classes and races, plus the main rules. You can create a perfectly strong character with only the stripped-down rules.



True enough, but even crunchier systems have made it easier to create a character.

And honestly, I'm having trouble thinking of many systems that are crunchier than Shadowrun these days. From what I can tell, after D&D and Pathfinder, the next most popular games are the new Star Wars, Savage Worlds, White Wolf, and Dark Heresy. I don't know Dark Heresy, but a quick skim looks like it's somewhat lighter than SR5-- maybe not by much, though.


There is a huge difference between being able to skim a player's guide and start planing in a few minutes, and needing to read a 500+ page rulebook to grasp the basics.


Honestly, I'd rather spend forever picking out a character's personality traits and social dynamics than crunching numbers.

You don't start with magic items in D&D5, though. And even when you get to higher levels, they're rare-- I ran a character to 11th level, and only had one useful magic item.

And sometimes, even those items aren't as useful as they could be. I'm tempted to give my players the jar of everlasting mayonnaise to see what happens.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

Just to be fair, with a rating 6 cyber jack, you'll be able to jump 6.6 meters in to the air for a 2 meter tall person, which is almost enough to jump up to a 3rd story building. It requires about 9 successes, which is pretty nuts, but possible with a liberal use of edge. So come on, how awesome is that shit.

Anyway, on the topic of class/classless. The reason why Shadowrun has archetypes is because there are some gear/stats/skills/etc combos that clearly synergize with each other. The problem with SR4 is that it was too easy to cheese the system to make yourself immune to different aspects of the game. The Matrix being the biggest offender. As if skinlinking wasn't enough of a problem, it was too easy to toss nuyen at the Matrix to not even need a dedicated hacker. You just need your rating 6 agent, with rating 6 programs, on your system 6, response 6, firewall 6 commlink. Why need skills or attributes when nuyen can solve all your problems? Then you get Emotitoys and just get a bunch of gear to make being a dedicated face pointless or completely unbalanced. That's the problem with SR4, is that almost all problems could be solved with just spending more nuyen to the point where you get more successes than the opposition has dice, or that everyone can do everything so there is no point in specializing.

This is why classes exist in other game systems to prevent this much level of stepping on each other's toes.

SR5 solves the team of generalists problem by making players need to dedicate a significant amount of resources to specialize in that role. Which makes it hard for them to branch out into other roles, especially at chargen. Not impossible, just difficult.