Yeah like I said personal preference. The problem is we all like it different. Maybe to varying degrees,but different. In the end no one's really wrong, rather just different.

Like you I like most of my game to be simple, and involve the fewest steps. However I'm sure we both have some variety, and in the end I just prefer to say as long as you're having fun you're doing it right. Saves a lot of time.

Ok, I went back and checked SR3. When crashing an IC, it doesn't modify the Decker's Detection Factor, the Rating of the IC that was crashed is added to the "security tally" (the number of hits that the System has scored against the Decker), but the Decker can sacrifice a point of Detection Factor in order to "suppress" this increase in Security Tally. This is a mechanic in the SR3 BBB, so it's core.

However, having gone flipping back through my SR3 BBB I can add a few mechanics to my list of "not sorry it's gone" from SR3: LTG's and RTG's, IC Initiative and Damage varying by Color Code, the TN IC needing to hit an Intruder varying by Color Code and whether the intruder has a "legit" Account or not, and different "kinds" of IC. I think it is much simpler to say that IC are simply Agents run in a defensive role, with their capabilities being determined by the program loadout that the GM happens to give them. This is easier than remembering that "Cripplers/Rippers" attack Deck attributes, "Tar Babies/Pits" crash Utilities, and "Killer/Blaster/Sparky" IC attack (with varying degrees of lethality). It was almost like you had to remember two different "terms" for things: 1 was the name of the program that that the PC used, and the other was the name of the IC that performed the equivalent.

Here's the thing: none of the SR3 Matrix rules were overly complex in and of themselves. Each one, individually, was fairly straightforward and had a logical reason for existing. However, when you stack enough of them together you create enough "little things" that the PC and GM must remember to make the system slow as someone forgets something and needs to go look it up. I had a Decker PC in my main SR3 group and my runs regularly included a Decking element. We were able to do about 1 "deck" per session with a fair degree of success, but I find I can integrate Decking/Hacking related actions in SR4 and resolve them faster with less "bogging down" of the overall session.

So, Cain, when crafting your counter-example, take note that I have used mechanics from the Core rulebook only. I will concede the point right now that both Unwired (SR4) and Matrix (SR3) added unnecessary complication with the expanded number of options they presented.

However, in the end Paul is entirely correct. A game's system is just the means of facilitating fun. As long as everyone is having fun, it doesn't really matter what system is in use.

Like the awesome "Head or Tail" rule set, I just made up?

Say what you want to do, then flip a coin. Head: It works as intended, and you describe the outcome. Tail: It fails, the GM describes the outcome.

Doesn't go much quicker. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Bye
Thanee

That sounds like an awesome system. Expand it into 300 pages and sell it to someone (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

White Wolf might buy it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

That would be switching a core mechanic... If you state my system uses attribute+skill but make an exception that certain tests will be different those tests are no longer following the core mechanic. It an easy change in this case but its still not following the core mechanic. If Log+skill was in the core book (like it is in SR4A, but not as the main method) then matrix actions would follow the core mechanic.

d20 has long stated "simple rules, lots of exception", to which I would say then its no longer simple... Shadowrun has always had exceptions because of the subsystems. Before 4e none of the subsystem matched up. Now some of them do, some do not. Perhaps thats why I don't see it being any more simple (overall, certainly there are places where it is), they still have exceptions when I was expecting none where as in 1-3e I expected the exceptions.



Yes but the book would talk about this amazing fliping system and how it never gets in the way of your story and then they would add charms, disciplens, merits, feats, humanity, etc where you needed more coins and different ones. Ok if the copper come up with more heads than the nickles your ok but if the nickles get more than half tails...

After all the years it has been dead. I find it interesting that 3rd edition still has as much interest as it does. All this has been argued back and forth countless times before that with enough searching could be found in the archives here.

At my FLGS all the local 4e games are winding down and I see a lot of people looking for 3rd edition groups to play with. Unfortunately because there is no product to sell the game store doesn't want to support it.

If you put together a regular 3rd edition game tete let me know.

For the record, I always hated the pre-SR4 die mechanic. Probability of success scaled non-linearly with increasing TN and TN 6&7 being identical drove me nuts. The complexity of SR never bothered me much. In fact, I like some crunch. The change to the die mechanic in SR4 sold me on the spot.

So, I think we've pretty much beaten the specific question the OP asked to death. Now we're just going back and forth on subjective preferences like the one I just stated above.

I had one, we switched to 4e at leased till the end of the year. I wanted to give it a fair chance. So far there are some changes I like but overall I still prefer 2e over all others. I will probably end up with some 2e/3e/4e hybrid in the end much like I did with Vampire.

While I agree with you that fun is all that ultimately matters, the ease-of-use of a system certainly makes a huge difference. And the empirical fact is, SR4 isn't any simpler or loophole-free than SR3. I *do* feel that SR4 has much better writing, making it seem simpler and more streamlined. But if SR4 was written with the same clarity and layout that FASA was famous for, people here would complain about how impenetrable it is. I think the SR4 writers deserve some serious kudos for bringing things up to industry standards. (And yes, that is an opinion. Compliments always are.(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

When more time is spent playing the game and less time is spent over the rules that is always a good thing.

Well thats "Engel" ,a German RPG by Feder & Schwert (Translators of World of Darkness) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engel_(Rollenspiel)
I'm afraid but I can't find an englisch Page.
Its a Post apocalyptic RPG an the Players are Angel fighting for the Angelic Church vs Demons that Plague the Country
(but there is a very Dark and sinister Secret regarding the Chars,the Angels.They're not quite what they appear to be)

He who dances with Angels
Medicienman

Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engel_%28role-playing_game%29. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

We've always had this house rule at our table: No more than 45 seconds can spent debating any rule at the table, or looking up rules then the GM makes a ruling. Right, wrong or indifferent this ruling stands until after the game is over, and someone decides it's worth going over.

By the by-I like Shadowrun but I feel SR4 feels outdated, old even compared to how SR1 felt like it really was cutting edge. SR4 feels old. I'm not sure I'd give the people at the helm kudos just yet, but obviously I'm still buying product so there doing something right.

There's one I haven't heard before. What do you mean by "old" or "outdated?"

SR 1 proved if you had a cool concept and a lot of top notch background and adventures you don't need a working combat system.

Games have sold on worse. Look at D&D 4e. (And anyone who thinks any published Shadowrun adventure is good has mental health issues.)



When SR1 hit the scene, and even through much of SR2 much of the tech was beyond cutting edge. You looked at SR1 and said "Wow! That could happen." Much of the tech in SR4 has already happened. It's so rooted in today that's it not really transhuman or on the edge anymore. When I looked at the art in SR1, at the time, I felt like much of it was also on the edge. It took a style we hadn't previously seen. SR4 feels like a bad combination of crappy anime, crappier punktech, and worse bad television spin offs.

Shadowrun when it hit the scene redefined the genre. Shadowrun 4 is all too often described by people by using phrases like "It's like the Matrix, but cooler!" And that's kind of sad for me.

All of that said, yup I'm still buying the product. And yes, I get I can ignore the parts I don't like and make changes as I see fit. I'll make Shadowrun 4 my own game, just like I did previous editions.

Personally, that strikes me as pretty harsh, but to each their own.

AJC

I think the reason it feels old, is some of have been playing it off and on since 1st Ed came out. In 1989-Cell phones were just becomming common. Even then you average cell phone cost a couple hundred minimum. They had wristphones and comminks as headware in the . Nowadays you could get a cell cheap for like 20 bucks and some airtime. In some respects they tried to play catchup with the wireless and other computer advancements since its introduction, but until 4E-the matrix (pre crash 2.0 fluff) required to much bandwith to use a wireless connection. Now that bandwith is there.

Paul makes a good point. In SR1, a lot of the tech stuff was still pretty far off in real life, so there was a lot more of that wow factor feel to the stuff in the game.

Looking at SR4, yeah, we still have 'ware, but there's not really a whole lot new since earlier editions and we have wireless today in real life, so its not a huge leap. Plus, the 2070s aren't that far off. I mean, we are playing in the same century, so its just not as far removed.

I don't know how much the developers have done to really look to the future and get creative. I mean, it obviously didn't take much to write in wireless stuff for SR4. It would be nice to have some creative minds think about what's next, and no matter how crazy that sounds today, run with it...

The problem I see with "being creative" with the future and that gets obvious when reading Augmentation is that you quickly enter transhumanism territory. And while I like transhumanism, it'd clearly shift the game in a completely different direction.

Well, Augmentation, is my least favorite SR4 sourcebook. I don't know why I feel that way, but the writing is dull and it reads more like a technical manual than anything else. Plus, I have a hard time incorporating anything in that book to my campaigns. They would have done better if they just took all the gear and rules out of that book, published a few online PDFs and called it a day. Augmentation has zero positive effect in SR4...

We've had tranhumanism since SR1 as every piece of 'ware is an improvement, in some way. I really don't see that being a shift. Augmentation just took it to some extremes and is more of a novelty. Seems like a lot of pages wasted for such little impact to the game.

Maybe all the ideas have dried up? Besides the streamlining and incorporating wireless, there's not much different from earlier games...

Maybe all the ideas have dried up? Besides the streamlining and incorporating wireless, there's not much different from earlier games...
Technomancer ?
Some of the Runners Compendium stuff (Nartaki,sentient Critters, free Spirits,f.E.) ?
Creating your own Magic Tradition ?
For Me thats quite a lot new Stuff compared to SR3 and whay much more compared to SR1

HokaHey
Medicineman

Well, in a canon sense, Augmentation is a technical manual. It's three or four augmentation catalogues stitched together with shadowtalk and a discussion of black box science: cyborgs, cyberzombies, and bio-drones. So if it reads a little dry, think of it that way. Imo, I think Augmentation is one of the best for the core line (I actually think that Arsenal is the weakest, myself).

The problem with cyberpunk, as someone who is far more literate than I am in the subject (think it was Wesleystreet; what happened to that guy?) put it, is that the environment that created cyberpunk is deader than dead. Japan is no longer a big boogeyman (well, the Chinese are), and there isn't this pervasive feel of dread when it comes to technology. In fact, we've actually embraced it full on and integrated it into the full spectrum of our lives. The environmental situation has marginally improved (based on your own thoughts on the subject) but we're definitely more aware of our impact on the world and the steps we can take in order to live greener.

Plus, a lot of people (like myself) find cyberpunk grimdark just kind of...boring now. I will fully admit to being closer to the fluffy bunny / pink mohawk range than the grimdark grittypunk that many players of earlier editions found so interesting, mostly because I'm far more interested by transhumanism and what technology can do for a person.

(Slight aside: it still astounds me, and I think this is two / three years after the fact, that someone had that big a problem with there being breast and penis implants in Augmentation. Let's face the facts: people buy all sorts of hookum now that claims to be able to enlarge and expand your manhood, even with the vast amounts of literature out there that prove it wrong wrong wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if genital implants were like, the second thing ever invented within the Sixth World - and think about it from the perspective of a runner. There are all sorts of devious things you can do with an implant, especially if you've become Lothario, Destroyer of Worlds.)

I don't find the Shadowrun adventures to be terrible, myself. Most of them work pretty good, with the usual amount of tailoring one would have to do to make it suitable to a group. I was running On the Run just fine for the group I had a year or so ago. Yes, I was making edits - what GM doesn't? - but what was there worked just fine. To say that they're so bad they're terrible is just...an odd thought process to me. And this is from someone coming from a background in White Wolf material...

But as someone said earlier, much of this is subjective, so yeah...

Totally agree here. Much of the cutting-edge near future fiction being written right now is buying into one version or another of the Kurzweil/Vinge Singularity theory. Kurzweil would have it take place by the 2030s. Obviously the events of the 2010s and 2020s in Shadowrun would slow things down. Still, by 2070?

Anyway, the point is that the cutting edge of futurism right now postulates a civilization-changing threshold beyond which it is nearly impossible to predict what things will be like. That's totally different from what the mid-80s cutting edge of SF was like. The future is a whole lot more unknowable than it used to be if you go along with the transhumanists. Just about every piece of fiction I've read dealing with transhumanism and the Singularity is from the point of view of those left behind after some flavor of Singularity and therefore living a sort of life that is still knowable to us. See Eclipse Phase (rpg) and Ken MacLeod's "Newton's Wake" for good examples of this model.

Applying the post-human Singularity model to Shadowrun would be such a radical change as to make it mostly not Shadowrun anymore. This leaves the developers in a rough spot. Unlike the SR1 developers, they can't just borrow liberally from the contemporary SF zeitgeist. If you do that, you get games like GURPS Transhuman Space and Eclipse Phase. Instead they have to pick and choose elements of futurism that they feel will enhance SR without making it not SR. This is my long-winded way of explaining why I think that SR4 seems like it only projects a short time, from the present, into the future of technology and society.