Don't forget countering. We had a bodyguard take out 30 gangers with counters.

When SR4 came out and I was really, really disappointed with it, I revisited the old books, of which we have, I guess, every one. My idea at the time was to take SR2 as a base and add the few things I liked about SR3 [mostly rigger-oriented, but some rules here-and-there, as well]. I never did it, of course, because that would take lots of time and effort, and those aren't things I spend easily, but sometimes the idea still appeals to me.


Amen.

Some cheese with your whine? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Bradstreet and Alexander set the mood for me; that bastard Laubenstein about killed the vibe of the game for me with his pastel slapstick wonderland.

Okay, now that my standard vent is out of the way...

I loved the meta-plot until they went crazy with the Immortal Elves. "Everything that was ever cool or intelligent was done by an Immortal Elf in human guise!". Screw that, screw them. Nigel Findley was the man though. R.I.P.

3rd edition became strictly technical manuals with every bit of spirit that was Shadowrun strangled out of them. Without the Bradstreet pictures and the brilliant storyline the game became lifeless.

4th edition impressed me. Sure it was a White Wolf version of Shadowrun but I liked the system a heck of a lot more. These new devs are handling the evolution of technology and society as realistically as they can (IMO) and I'm totally digging it. I like the changes. Especially wireless! It makes sense to me. Cyberware starting to take a backseat to bioware makes sense too; you can see it happening in our world right now. I think the new writers are visionaries. They've got a good handle on tech and that's important to me.

The negatives with 4th?
I prefer my damage a bit more debilitating. Serious damage? One month in the hospital. But I understand the reason for changes and the advanced damage in Augmentation cleans up my problems here, for the most part.

The culture is becoming a heck of a lot more "white". The amerindians and Japanese are not as an important part of Seattle as they once were.

Metahumans seem to be getting along too well. I'm glad that the Seattle 2072 book is mixing it up with Brackhaven a bit even though it appears a little too forced.

Spirits and mages are crazy powerful. They use to be nukes, now, well, HOLY CRAP MAN!

Technological-freakin-overload!!! The game is becoming so detailed in technology that you need a PhD is Shadowrun to "correctly" portray the gameworld. The hacking rules are realistic in some ways, and while I'm a tech nerd, even I'm overwhelmed a bit. Drones are more plentiful than ever, commlinks, PANs, subscriptions, AI, agents, nanites, GAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

The lack of support when it comes to all of this stuff frustrates me too. The guys at CatLabs rule, I love these guys, they resurrected a dying game, but we need an easy checklist for new people who are trying to play this game. Seriously, does it say you need Firewall (or encryption or whatever) on your datajack anywhere? But people on the boards are fully aware of it even though the sample runners aren't. And that's another thing, those sample runners that are suppose to help newbs learn but they don't help at all!!! They're lack of gear will get you killed, even on milk runs! I heard Adam is working on the Runner's Toolbox, I sure hope it comes out soon and this list is in it. Cause this is my biggest gripe.

I think 4th edition rocks, sure I'd like some Bradstreet, but I'm proud of where CatLabs is taking MY game.

And yes, I'm ancient, and yes, I started with 1st edition.

Edit:
Oh, and most importantly, as a negative, the world doesn't feel as dark and hopeless. I loved that feel! Things are too bright and shiny. It occasionally has a teenie-bopper Buffy the Vampire Slayer feel to it.

Of the 10 points you mention, only these 2 are something that could be altered in future fluff supplements. The rest of the points you mentioned are fallout or perceived changes due to rules mechanics, and those aren't likely to change.

In starting this discussion I was hoping to generate some practical ideas for bringing back a "feel" in Shadowrun that some of the older players feel is missing. Assuming what has already been published will not be changed in any radical way, what can be done in future books to bring back those elements that are perceived to be missing? The above two are points that could be emphasized in further books.

Ayeohx, I agree with you on the IE-thing. After reading all the "King Arther was an IE, Merlin was an IE, Leonardo was an IE..." stuff I started to think "Geez, can't a regular human do anything anymore?"

Exactly!!! 'bout time someone understands. "Humans were just monkeys; elves rule!" So pissed off..

Anyhow, Malachi, to answer your question, I want the dark oppressive feeling to come back. Before Laubenstein... sidestepping rant... but you know what I mean. The awesome black and white pics of Alexander and Bradstreet hit the vibe perfectly. Dark with a bit of humor. We need that back. And the "wtf" factor is missing. Remember the Universal Brotherhood? Wow, that threw us for a loop. the game was dark and gritty. Now, while I love the realism, we need to stir more darkness back into the game. "Shadow" the game up a bit more, you know?

Edit: I know Laubenstein was there in the beginning but it was in contrast to the awesomeness that was Bradstreet and Alexander. In 2nd edition Laubenstein really got the spotlight and I started losing interest. 3rd edition art really alienated me.

I bought the first edition books when they came out 20 years ago (was it really that long ago?), and loved the feel of the game. The attitude of the game was just so different from the other games we played at the time. It had a real Hammet/Chandler feel to it, even more than Gibson.

As much I loved variable staging, it was a great idea for a video game, but back when the game came out a portable computer was a Compaq suitcase with a built-in 4 inch CRT green screen - so implementing it required a degree in applied mathmatics. I learned to cuff stuff as a GM thanks to the first edition.

Funny thing - both Harlequin and Harlequin's back are currently remade for SR4 by the French SR licensee...

You know I'm glad the NAN got diminished. I NEVER agreed that they could have held that much of the US after the GGD. I mean most of their big mojo slingers DIED at the end of the GGD, and they were still able to hold that territory... IMO, nope! Not going to happen.

I accept that other people think it was really cool, but honestly, the people at FASA made the NAN just because... no further thought went into WHY & HOW something like this could happen.

I guess that having a war to reclaim it would be really Non-PC IRL. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
I'm sure that would be on the news...

But, it's already done. It's part of the game world. Ignoring it won't help. And I can think of very good reasons that they were able to hold it. Chiefly the US didn't know that most of the GGD folks died and I don't think the US knew what it took to create such powerful magic.

Besides, I kind of liked the shamans and the amerindians. Shamans... remember them? But if ya can't summon fire elementals who needs ya? I guess 4th edition really over-homoginized magic. Of course, I haven't fully read Street Magic. It looked like they tried to add diversity back into the system.

I understand where you are coming from. There's a lot in Shadowrun that doesn't quite make sense but it was created 20 years ago. Back then we weren't quite the sticklers we are today. Geez, remember our cartoons? And Airwolf or the A-Team? Pretty unlikely events but during those times it freakin rocked.

i suspect its not so much the game that has changed, as the players...

most that frequent this place seems to have started out around 2ed, where shadowrun was something odd in that it mixed high magic with high tech, and the characters where not heros but criminals for hire.

and at the time most of the world was unknown, as the history section of the main book had only covered UCAS and seattle (with some points towards euro wars, natural disasters and similar), so each time a new book came out it was truly new, new gear, new places, new magic (tir na nog dropping in path magic, awakenings introducing voodoo, virtual realities 2.0 basically replaced the matrix rules).

with SR3 and SR4 its been more of a repeat of SR2, especially on the gear side. with SR3 only the SOTA books really introduced something new, and SR4 have inserted new along with restatted old.

in the end, one is sitting there with a sense of deja vu if one have been with the game for a decade or more, rather then the experience of cracking open SR2 and reading the timeline, finding out there are 2 elven nations, half of USA and canada is one nation, while the other half is a patchwork of native run ones, that a dragon is running a megacorp, and a european one at that...

i guess one can basically say that the sense of wonder have dropped out of the books, and one is now opening them mostly to see what have been changed, rather then wondering what its all about...

and i would say that the writers cant really reintroduce that wonder back in the books, as its a issue with the players, not the books...

I never liked A-Team all that much. I completely and utterly despised it and will never watch another episode EVER after the one episode when the A-Team was running away and were being chased by guys in a helicopter and it crashed into a cliff. I mean, on fire, there's no way in hell that ANYONE would have survived THAT... except people in the A-Team universe. The people got out of the copter almost none the worse for wear.

Blame Standards and Practices for that. Just like the purple Klingon blood in Star Trek VI.

The A-Team, however, were prototypical Shadowrunners. And Hannibal was obviously an Immortal Elf... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Oh, and put me down in the "I miss Tom Dowd and Nigel Findley" crowd. And the Bradstreet crowd. And the Bob Charette crowd, if there is one...

I'll get in on that list too. Been rereading Secrets of Power trilogy. (wow that brings back memories) Also Nigel's stuff is always worth going back and looking at!

Yeah, you should go watch McGuiver create a nuke with a pack of bubble gum and duct tape!

Too bad Nigel Findley is sleeping with the fishes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Wow. This just sounds incredibly racist to me.

Y'know, considering all the terrible things white folks did to the Amerindians over the years -- breaking treaties, giving them smallpox-laced blankets, breaking treaties, shoving them onto reservations, breaking treaties, etc. -- and you still have a problem with giving them back some of their land, even if it's fictional? Give me a fragging break.

Hey, I didn't give them small pox! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

But let's not make this a race war. Seriously. I understand where he's coming from. With the size of the US military let alone all of the gun carrying Americans I'm a bit surprised the NAN thing worked out. I know a few folks that would rather die than give up their homes (most, now that I think about it). You'd have to come and fireball them yourself before they'd believe you can force them out with magic and a few volcanoes wouldn't scare them away. Some of us Americans can be "special" like that.

Screw reality, screw reason. Someone was nice enough to craft a wondrous world that we call Shadowrun.

I embrace it, in all its glory and ridiculous beauty.


BlueMax

No arguing with that man. But Laubenstein corner in Downtown Seattle has to go. In my gameworld it's constantly violated with grafitti and vandalism while the Bradstreet museum across the road is thought to be the pinnacle of turn of the century art. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

That's a key attitude. I have seen on these boards some people saying, "Don't give us a shadowy reflection of what exists now, be daring create something cool, new, and different!" Then I have also seen people rail against things that are "unrealistic": "That would never happen! They didn't do their research! That writer is stupid!"

Someone said earlier that it's not so much that the game changed, it's the players that have changed. More and more I'm starting to think that's truer to the point. Back when we started SR we were younger, maybe less educated, didn't chat on internet forums so much and so on. Now a lot of us have grown up, we're more educated and more skeptical, and we post on forums where some people are bent on pointing out every flaw to show how much "smarter" they are or something. I think if we really want the CGL authors to "wow" us and create that sense of wonder and excitement again, we need to back off on that "that wouldn't happen" kind of stuff.

Malachi do you write for the game? Are you a freelancer? Or an actual staffer? The reason's I ask are many, but include simple curiosity.

I agree; for the most part. I think there has to be a certain caution taken when dealing with a franchise that didn't change much for a long period and then it's recently been rebooted. A lot of people were alienated. I'm sure most of us had the moments when someone pissed us of by mishandling one of our comic book or favorite story heroes:

• Break Batman's back, screw you!
• Kill Dunkelzahn, screw you!
• Kill off <insert any hero>, screw you!
• Kill off Jason Todd... well, okay. Thanks even.

But you get the idea. Gotta be careful if you want to retain your fanbase.

That said, you can't please everyone. You will piss off some people with changes just don't piss of everyone all at once.

One thing that does kind of bug me is that it seems todays writers have attempted to fix the problems of the past like Bug City, the Horrors, the Arcology, AI wackiness, etc. I understand that it's no fun writing for someone else's loose ends. But when you finish up one story you should introduce at least another story that is just as interesting. The ACHE and the AIs that live among us are rather bland in comparison. I can see these bits as important building blocks for some cool stories down the road, even in our own games, but I'm ready for some new metaplots. You know, some dark "holy crap" metaplots.

Mess with Laubenstein and you get a broken nose.

Heck, everyone in his art did.

BlueMax

Another aspect to remember is that there as a more "realistic" near future game. It was CP2020. Some of its fans are now playing, writing for and changing Shadowrun.

I totally agree with the "younger mind" aspect. As a scientist, I exercise my younger mind as often as I can.

I hope someday to get all of my last Catalyst order and then get Dawn of Artifacts. If anything lately has a hope for greatness, it is that series.

BlueMax