Which leans harder into the MagicRun paradigm that Hardy likes.

After all, if mages can summon multiple spirits now (which each get their own IP) and sams no longer routinely get multiple passes, all the action economy breaks are in favor of casters.

conflating them how? 6th edition edge is your starting edge pool. 7 edge is the maximum pool, according to their podcast discussion on edge. edge is now intended to be something you gain and spend quickly, which means if you start at 7 edge you can expect to not gain those points.

therefore, 7 edge is a stupid investment. it has always been an expensive one in terms of character build resources, well now if it hasn't literally been removed (it is entirely possible 6 or lower is the new absolute cap for edge attribute, they haven't specified that) then it is probably a combination of high cost with low benefit.

therefore, it is reasonable, given the information provided, to conclude that edge 7 will be a thing of the past, at least as the game is presently constituted.

I know what I'm going to say is heresy, but right now I'm in the middle of GMing a D&D** game. I'll take a look at it when it drops, but I'm not wasting my money if it looks like a complete dumpster fire.


** == D&D modern/BESM with elements of World of Darkness thrown in for Fun and Profit!

Something the C&P fairy ate from my previous post: Parts of the previews seem to be based on the quick start rules, so some of the stuff that's simply missing may just be missing from the QSRs. Recoil was for example not present in the 5th Ed QSRs


But sams get to do multiple things in that one pass, before anyone else gets to act once. That was recognized as a bad system in 1st edition, I'm not seeing why it should be better now...

Because Samurai need to be shown a little love if they are to remain a viable choice in the ever more magic run environment of the current trend of shadowrun developement.

samurai can get two actions, but that's all. from everything i've heard, that is "like SR1" only in the sense that an electric scooter is "like a motorcycle".

At first I saw the title to this thread and thought:

" ... nah. Must be a joke. If they'd realised that they had a monumental turkey on their hands with 5e, they'd surely have started fixing it sooner...."

But no, apparently it's real, and it has been in the works for a while. OK, cool. I guess that makes sense, because they did start fixing it sooner, but they just didn't announce anything sooner.

But having said that, I care a hell of a lot less about the picayune details of rule elements than I care about the big picture, and that shortlist did nothing for insights into the big picture.

* Mystical online bonuses, yea or nay?
* Technomancers, yea or nay?
* Panopticon-level security, yea or nay?
* Canon retcon, yea or nay?
* Shadowrunning as a viable pursuit, yea or nay?

These are just right off the top of my head, but they all revolve around the question of whether or not they actually stopped and looked hard at the milieu, rather than which dice get rolled for what outcome. Fixing MagicRun comes under the same heading; consider the desired outcome and then describe that in rules.

We've not really heard about that.

The fixed duration thing on spells raises all sorts of questions in my head, by the way. I'm not sure what that is supposed to mend about the milieu, nor how. Maybe they don't want magicians sitting around, sweating bullets and looking constipated for some reason? And what does this do about wards?

So many questions, mostly on a different meta-level.

Koekepan, where are my goddamn Redneck Runs? IT'S BEEN FOUR YEARS.

As for the big picture:
- Nobody has mentioned wireless bonuses yet, so they might be gone
- Technomancers are still a thing
- Security TBD
- I've never known Shadowrun to retcon canon - unless you want to count quasi-retcons like CFD wiping out nanotech - so this seems unlikely to me
- I don't know if Shadowrunning is a viable pursuit, but I too would like an economist to take a pass at the game's macro- and microeconomics

For those of us who are interested in the minutiae, there is a Google doc that is accumulating notes as users pour through the various interviews, podcasts, and actual plays*:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZPN1-6x...=h.h701ncsxs7zi

* Major caveat: Many of these are based on the Quick Start Rules, which means there might be significant differences with the full rule set. Also, the people playing through the rules might be misinterpreting things themselves, or confusing terminology, which could lead to further misunderstandings.

Similarly, I don't have a perfect understanding of things, but to me it looks like they went back to old editions to borrow ideas. I'm seeing elements of all the Shadowrun editions represented:

- Edge sounds similar to the Combat/Control/Hacking/Magic pools, not so much in sense of how it's calculated but in the sense of trying to strategically use varying amounts of a finite resource.
- Base skills are rolled up to a much higher level, like "Firearms", but concentrations and specializations are back (now call "specializations" and "expertise" respectively, which is doomed to confuse me).
- Armor isn't part of the soak roll anymore, but is important vis-a-vis the power of the attack. There are shades of 1E-3E there, although there seems to be a lot of confusion about how armor works, which might be subject to the major caveat above.
- Weapon ranges are now five broad buckets, which is a concept from Anarchy which I liked so that I wasn't triangulating distances down to the meter to calculate the exact range penalty.

And so on. It's still a continuation of 5E rather than 3E, but the influence of the first 15 years seems to be there. I'll be interested to see if that creeps into the broader setting and game world as well.

SR1: The character with the highest Initiative score acts, substracts 7 (not 10) from the score, repeat. So a character with high initiative got multiple actions before anybody else could do something. That was seemingly not considered very entertaining and therefore was never again seen in SR.
SR6: The character with the highest Initiative score does everything that previously was spread out over multiple IPs, then the next character, repeat.

It's not the same, but it's close in being very front-heavy.

Sams get, at best, 2 major actions (ie attacks) a pass.

Casters can summon multiple spirits now, up to Magic*3 in Force, which means a separate IP track for each one. I'm sure you can do the math on what that means for their action economy, especially with say 6 x Force 3 spirit, each getting 1-2 major actions depending on how their initiative rolls.

sure. just like a scooter is close to being a motorcycle in terms of being a two-wheeled vehicle with a motor.

there are similarities, but 2 major actions simply is not nearly as much as getting several entire turns. (particularly since i wouldn't be surprised if a 1st edition turn could have 2 simple or 1 complex action, meaning you could potentially shoot 2 short burst per action for example, and probably get enough damage scaling on your weapon to one-shot small buildings per burst).

===================

anyways, a few things i caught from the interview with hardy podcast:

the only thing armour does other than helping you generate edge (when comparing attack power to defense power or whatever) is that you can put stuff on it, like electricity resistance for example. it definitely does not help you resist damage (some augmentations may help in that department, but for the most part damage resistance rolls will be only your body attribute)

by the sound of it, more than one person have explicitly gone over the matrix rules with a specific eye towards making technomancers function. how good of a job they did of that, well, i guess we'll find out when they release the rules (no mention was made that they did anything about the fact that technomancers have major penalties in the non-matrix sections of the rules, so personally i'm expecting to find that technomancers are decent in the matrix, and still absolute trash anywhere else, while deckers will probably be able to do just as well in the matrix but also be far more effective in any other situation).

"some" wireless bonuses are there. no details beyond that, and let's face it, some wireless bonuses actually make sense (for example, i have absolutely no problem with a survival knife being able to give you a GPS/map when connected to the matrix), so that *could* mean that at least the really stupid wireless bonuses are gone. of course, it could also mean that they're still there. only time will tell.

expertise is just specialization where they crossed out the +2 and made it +3, pretty much. it sounds like you'll be able to specialize and have expertise in different sub-skills though. (no examples of specializations were given in the interview, but i presume the quickstart rules have examples).

while they technically did get rid of marks in the matrix, the replacement system is very similar in a lot of ways.

from the sound of it, metahumans have lower costs, but it sounds like they mostly start with higher maximum attributes rather than actual higher attributes, and penalties to... i think it was logic and intuition? are mostly gone.

SR2, as I recall, was similar, subtracting 10 as you note and allowing potentially multiple actions prior to others. This method was revised with SR3 after being the status quo for SR's first decade.


Twas SR2 introduced simple and complex actions with much the same initiative system. Your point stands.

I really will have to see it before I make up my mind. For things I dislike from previous editions, such as background count or bricking, the implementation has been the important thing. I also hope that in their zeal to simplify things, that they still keep the flavor and uniqueness of the game's core character concepts.

Wow, yeah, y'know, the weirdest thing happened with that. There I was, busy as a beaver - you have no idea, it was like half a megapulse of work I had - and these two freaks show up. One elf, one ork. The elf was thinner'n a string bean in a lean season, with a hard core dip habit and maybe three-four teeth left. The ork smoked stogies that stank like burning rubber, and I swear he had an extra set of tusks. About as broad as he was tall, too. Anyway, they give me names - I knew they were fake, so I didn't bother remembering them - and told me Johnson had this sweet gig, all they needed was a wiz and a rigger, and wouldn't you know it my regular fixer had somehow told them that I was both in one, instead of half of each. Anyway, Stogie did most of the talking, which was a good thing because Dip tended to dribble and spit a lot, and Stogie explained that the wiz part was just for magic security for a little run on this Daiatsu-Caterpiller repair shop way out in Pueblo country. No magical assistance expected, you understand, it was a run to grab some machinery, specifications and other mechanical goodies, and a rigger would be most useful. Hey, no problem, I can do all of that for a modest price, I can meet them there or they can transport me and a portable toolkit. They're in a hurry (who isn't?) and so they just tell me to grab the kit, and hop in the back of the Bulldog. I do exactly that, pausing only for a certified credstick to bless my accounts as a down payment, and away we go. Dip does the driving (for which read: autopilot babysitting) while Stogie and I are in the back. Turns out, Dip's a sniper, and he has the van. When he's not on runs he uses it to go hunting, judging by the decor and debris combo in the back. Stogie's infiltration and muscle. Make that: infiltration by muscle. His philosophy was never to pick a lock when you can just crowbar the latch right off the door. He had a sideline in decking, but we never did any of that together, so I only have his word for that. Anyway, the trip down was uneventful. At the Tir border the guards didn't want to talk to Dip any more than I did, so they basically checked him for pointy ears and a passport and waved us through. Stogie and I looked like stupid hired help, and they asked no questions. The Pueblo folks cared even less, as long as some kind of stupid machinery tax was paid, but once we're over the border things start to get weird. Stogie says he'll get some rest - good idea, I reckon - and Dip just keeps slapping his dip supply and staring at the road. So far, so good, but after maybe twenty miles from the border, Dip starts to make regular pit stops. Kidneys working overtime, it seems, but basically over every arroyo there's a new stop. After the first three of these I start to get suspicious, and I do a little snooping. He's not being magically controlled or anything, but his aura shows more paranoia than a raccoon in a coonhound kennel. Stogie's snoring up a storm, but on one of Dip's little brushfire prevention stops, I sneak a peek at the autopilot. Wouldn't you know, it's pointing straight at a house in Denver, no name attached, but I start to get suspicious (I always was a slow starter) and I just lean back in the back of the van on a pile of rolled-up deerskins, and act like I'm just passing the time on my commlink - which I am, of course, just not listening to music. I'm running a few datascans around the area of that address, and it doesn't take me more than two or three more of Dip's little pitstops to figure out that it's a hotspot for suspected Azzie activity in Denver. And no sign of anything related to Caterpiller, Daiatsu, or Caterpatsu. Now my old man always called me a sucker whose trusting ways would lead him into trouble, and maybe that's so, but even I was starting to smell trouble in this mix. However, I wasn't going to cause a ruckus while I was in their van. I just needed to slow things down a little to get time for thinking, so I equipped my smallest maintenance drone with a wrench, and sent it down to loosen a few bolts just enough that oil and grease would flow out, making the Bulldog's autopilot bitch like a city slicker at the first mucking out. Not only that, but it falls back to get-home speeds, which is about 10 klicks an hour, with all the flashers going. Dip's eyes bug out like baby onions resting on a pot roast, and he's cussing up a storm so bad it spraypaints the windshield's inside brown. I'm acting innocent, asking what's up while the little drone goes back to sleep in my kit. Stogie wakes up about this time, while I'm pointing out that there's a truck stop about five klicks down the road and I don't mind walking to get fresh supplies from their store so we can hit the road. Now all of a sudden Dip and Stogie want me to stay with the van, and they start to argue about who goes. Dip doesn't want to leave his precious van, but what Stogie knows about mechanics you could have fit in one of Dip's hollow teeth with room to rattle around. I suggest that they both go, but they don't like that, and Dip refuses to leave his van unwatched so all three of us going isn't an option. Then I suggest that Stogie and I go, but Stogie has a million reasons why he doesn't want to do that. His knee's bad, he didn't sleep well in the van, whatever. Anyway, finally I tell them this is stupid, do we really want to wait by the road for the Pueblo cops to come ask what's going on? They really, really don't like that plan at all, so I dig out a deck of cards and tell them high draw stays with the van, low draw walks to the truck stop, middle draw gets to decide. Aces high, spades over hearts over diamonds over clubs. They don't have a better plan, so we draw. Dip draws ten, Stogie a three, I draw a seven. Stogie grumbles like the van's suspension, but I tell him I'll go with him to the truck stop because he won't know everything I'll want to buy for supplies. I tell Dip not to worry, I'd pay for this out of my own pocket because it won't be too much and besides who needs the heartache arguing with Johnson over a few nuyen? So we set out, and fortunately it's early evening but already cooling down because walking in the Pueblo sun isn't my idea of fun. I have my pack over my shoulders, Stogie has his jacket with a box of his bias ply special stogies along for company. Now five klicks doesn't sound like so much until you start walking it. It'll keep you moving for an hour if you're walking, unless you're in a crazy hurry, and I wasn't. I started off by getting on the windward side of Stogie's toxic dump fire, and popping in a stick of gum, keeping it casual while we stroll on down the highway. While we're walking, I gently quiz Stogie about what we're supposed to retrieve from the supposed workshop we're supposedly hitting, but he denies knowing any details, saying Dip has all that on lockdown. OK, then I ask about Dip's bladder habit, and he just laughs and makes some very crude remarks about elves and their plumbing. I laugh along (what the hell, it was kind of funny) and keep walking along. I sing him a little dirty song I know about a cowhand's daughter and her search for a man who's hung like a bull, and we're having a good time. By now we're out of sight of the van, and not yet in sight of the truck stop, so I reckon it's a good time to magically sing Stogie to sleep. Maybe this was what he was afraid of, in which case he was right, but I didn't want to kill him. I just wanted him temporarily disabled. He goes down like a slow motion mudslide, and I put him to bed like a good boy in a nice, sandy little ditch. I ziptie his limbs together so that even a troll couldn't bust loose, and I cover him up with a few tumbleweed and broken branches. I also roll him like a drunken cowhand in a back alley, relieving him of a commlink, a knife, a Predator, a garotte, and a stungun. I left him a pouch of water and his box of stogies. Then I get back to walking, but picking up the pace a lot. I make the truck stop, sweaty and tired, but probably twenty minutes ahead of when Dip would expect me to. Then I get to their greasy spoon, grab a table and get to work. First thing, I quietly send a couple of watchers. One goes to check on Stogie, who's apparently awake but still where I left him. I tell the watcher to let him know I mean him no harm, but I don't care for lies. The other goes to check on Dip, and wouldn't you know he was on a little biobreak again, except that it wasn't his bladder bothering him, but some kind of technogizmo. Of course, the watcher couldn't tell me what, so I shelved that question and instead concentrated on my next step. First, I called my fixer and told him that the deal was a bust and we'd have words when I got back to his neck of the woods, but that it would go a lot better if he could find out where the bodies were buried as far as Stogie and Dip were concerned. Next, I drop a line to some very, very committed anti-Aztlan folks I know in Denver, with the address in question. I don't know what will happen, but it'll probably get people's minds off me. Then I turn off my tech, put everything away, and I go looking around the truck stop. Luck's on my side, and there's a bunch of bikers around. I go to ask them a little favour, telling them that there's a Bulldog van that they can have, no problem. All it needs is a little wrenching and a fresh bit of lube and they can ride it all the way to Miami if they so choose - I just get my pick of the contents, and quality time with the driver. At first they're hesitant until I explain to them that the driver tried to kidnap me for the Azzies, and I want a little vengeance, but I'd rather hitch a ride there and I don't mind paying with someone I don't like's van. I go to pick up some lube for them, plus a minikeg to seal the deal, and they're a happy gang of schoolboys. I grab my pack and hop on the bitch seat of a bike, and we roll out. Five klicks is just a couple of minutes at highway speeds, so less than five minutes later there's about twenty cycle headlights lighting up the van like a fairground mainstage, while I'm shoving my Cavalier Deputy's muzzle up Dip's right nostril and explaining what a max pressure hollowpoint will do to his cranium. It's amazing how persuasive that little speech can be. With my front sight reconfiguring his sinus, I walk him out of the van, and then I have the gangers (who are cheering me on every step of the way - great guys) tie him up like a ham and I do a quick run through of the van. I grab all Dip's crap, then tell the gangers exactly which bolts I had my drone back off. I tell 'em if they need help I'll be right there, but in the mean time I need to spend some quality time with my newest, bestest friend. So the first thing I do, right in front of Dip's very eyes, is to go through all his goodies, crack his commlink wider open than his momma's slot, and worst of all I don't ask him no questions. Not a one. His commlink told me everything. For starters, he was an Azzie elf poseur. I wondered aloud whether I should give him back to the Azzies as a failure (he didn't like that plan) or whether I should hand him over to the Tir for having a false passport and being in league with the Azzies, not to mention being human scum (he liked that plan even less) or whether I might be persuaded to let him go on his own recognisance if he hands his Johnson to me, signed, sealed and delivered on a silver platter with daikon garnish. That idea appeals to him much, much better. So there we are, sitting in a little cleft between some rocks, with thorns tickling his ass and my revolver tickling his skull while he chitchats with his Johnson. Leaving aside the biggest lies, he tells Johnson that he got some mega-secret CAS military data off me, and wants to hand it off for extra pay. Johnson agrees to meet him in a squat outside of Denver proper, and we sign off. I go talk to the bikers, who are just finishing with the van, and tell 'em where to find Stogie as well, and suggest that just maybe there'll be a reward for them handing Stogie and Dip both over to authorities at the Tir border. We shake hands, I wish them a safe and profitable ride, and then I walk back to the truck stop. Wouldn't you know, the truck stop is still there, and the greasy spoon is more tempting than ever, so I settle back for a real dinner and planning my next move. I identify a flatbed trailer with a tarp heading into Denver, so I wait my chance and stow away under the tarp. A few boring hours later, I drop back out when the truck slows down for the line at the Denver checkpoint, and start hiking to the rendezvous. It's a nasty part of town, but I blend in pretty well. I grab an outlaw taxi to the right corner, just to save time and look inconspicuous, then I perch up on a flat roof to wait in the night. Sure enough, Johnson arrives in a beat-up looking Americar that still sounds like the motor's brand new. Two heavies and the Johnson get out, but the driver stays in the car. The heavies are a complication, but not unexpected, so while they're casing the joint and preparing to enter, I set up a tiny cutting laser on a tripod and carefully aim it to put a hole in the brake caliper of the nearest front wheel. Then I cast a vocal illusion of a couple of angry trog voices shouting about having found the azzie drekheads, and wouldn't you know the tough guys and Johnson come moving out there in disciplined bodyguard style. They get in the car quick, and as the doors slam I continue the illusion with some Or'zet about a roadblock and burning cars. Driverman guns that engine like it's a race, reaches the intersection, brakes to turn, and the asymmetrical braking flings the car around so that the front gets sliced in two by a utility pole, while the rear slews around into fast-moving traffic. Instant pileup, with them at the bottom. I think it over for about a nanosecond, and decide that I really don't like them so I shoot a few extra rounds into what's left of that vehicle with Dip's rifle and ammo. The gift that keeps on giving, I reckon. With that, I reckon the Denver air reeks, so I clean up and make my way out of there, hitching a ride back to the countryside, or as I like to call it, civilisation. When I get there, what do you know, but some slot had broken in and taken all my work, so no more redneck runs. Life is hard.



I didn't really expect an all-out retcon, but a rewrite of the milieu has certainly happened a few times, so that's something to consider. I definitely agree on getting an economist (and maybe a cultural anthropologist) to take a deep, deep look at what they have.

Closest thing I can think of is 5e removing the reflex trigger, which was a very very early patch to SR1 rules (Street Samurai Catalog, same publishing year as the BBB). Then again, 5e and 6e sound like they're doing a lot of experimenting with the worst parts of SR1, so...

Well, they can't even get people who are able to understand basic mathematics. What makes you think they'd shell out for actual experts in their fields and corresponding consultancy rates? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

In a system where each attack is one Major Action and characters with less than three Initiative dice (i.e. the majority) get only one MA, it is. And the intended counter to that seems to be that sams have to spend those two-in-one turns to Geek the Mage First™, because otherwise, as Jaid pointed out, a decently prepared summoner will just wipe the floor with everyone.


Well, that's the elephant in the room nobody mentions because it's been there since 2012, isn't it? The people who screwed up so often an consistently are still at the helm, while those people who were even willing to fix those screw-ups for free on their own time have long since given up...


@Link

Whoops, you're right

- you could do a lot better than 2 actions in previous editions.
- those actions were frequently worth more in previous editions, because weapon scaling was a lot scarier. in 5e, it looks like you're gonna be struggling to kill someone... the highest base damage is 7, you're gonna need at least 11 to kill/KO anyone who is built even remotely tough, which means you would need 4 net hits after dodging and soak roll (plus possible edge), and that's probably using something stupid like a rocket launcher; using a pistol, you'll probably need 8 net hits after dodging and soak roll. in SR4, i'd say it's pretty plausible to kill/KO someone in a single turn anyways, and still have 3 more IPs to kill other people. in SR6, it looks rather like you'll be needing 2 major actions to take out one enemy (with damage, at any rate), so in my opinion this is overall a nerf.
- +2 initiative dice does not appear to be particularly hard to get. i'm kinda expecting most people will have it some way or another, tbh.
- 2 major actions does cost you the ability to do minor actions, so it actually has a cost. again, IMO this is a net nerf.
- the person pointing out mages get stupid action economy was not me. that was binarywraith (and possibly someone else before that, i'm not sure).

- i'll definitely agree that i have low expectations overall, though. both for technomancers in particular, and for the edition in general, actually. as i said, i'll probably wind up buying the core book just to get a good look at the system in spite of my low expectations, but if there is a team i trust to be able to make major sweeping changes to a game and get everything right, that team has not been in charge of shadowrun for quite a while.

I mean, you'd want to have a good idea how matrix rules are going to work (and have someone who understands how rules should work design them), and make technomancers and deckers at the same time you're finalizing those rules. So uh, no chance.

You may think what you want about Frank, but at least he does rules right.

I only watched about half of Bobby's video on the 6th edition Quickstart rules, and while I like what I'm hearing over 5th edition, I'm still really enjoying my shift to 3rd from 5th. I actually just got my physical copy in from eBay on the 3rd ed core rulebook a couple weeks back. Its a softcover, but I paid $14.99 with free shipping and its in almost pristine condition.

The question is not how well characters would perform in a hypothetical fight between two editions, but how they compare when playing the game, with the same rules for everyone. And I'm not seeing the newly relaxed gear rules suddenly making n+3D6 the new standard Initiative...except for mages, who don't need to sustain their Increase Reflexes any longer...


Sure, I guess most people will

when the statement is made that something is like the way it worked in those earlier editions, it is exactly about how well characters would perform in the 2 different editions.

street samurai getting 2 major actions in 6th will probably be about as impactful as getting a single combat turn before anyone else would have been in those earlier editions. it is not very similar to how those earlier editions played at all, with street samurai getting multiple full turns before everyone else. frankly, i'm expecting them to be extremely weak. i'm going to go so far as to predict that a regular human standing 5 feet away from another regular human and unloading a burst into them will struggle to kill them. the dev team for shadowrun seems to have this idea that damage is what is broken, and that they must nerf it into the ground; one of their points about balancing magic was reducing the damage on combat spells. because, you know, in a world where you can mind control a dozen grunts into betraying everything they believe in for several minutes using a single action, a combat spell actually dealing damage is the real source of imbalance.

Funny how that works. I remember distinctly how 5 was advertised as "being more deadly". Which it wasn't even on first sight, but everyone kept repeating it.

If 5e is more deadly it's because the characters who want to do damage are going to try and hit like trucks. There's usually little reason to try and do 7-9 damage when you could be trying to deal 11-13 damage. As with most other combat system you'll find, dealing damage is most martial character's best way to incapacitate an enemy, or at least the simplest.

Magical way to incapacitate: Roll Mind Control
Martial way to incapacitate: Option A: Kill in one to two passes. Option B: Follow this flow chart to deal the same damage over 3-4 passes.