My suggestions for Shadowrun 4th ed Options

[The Horror]

When I heard the news I was shocked, surprised and excited. In the past week I've sold all my S4 core books on ebay, and am eagerly awaiting a 4th edition. I started with 1st ed, moved onto 2nd ed and finally onto 3rd ed. Shadowrun has always been one of my favourite games of all time, and I just felt like I had to come on here and post my suggestions for the new system. So ignore, flame, or agree as you will. At least I will have voiced some of my opinions on a S4 system.

To start off with, my problems with the Shadowrun system:

1) Too many rules sets.
2) Too many modifiers and optional add ons for guns.
3) Too many dice being rolled way too many times. Way too many opposed rolls.

Introducing new players to 3rd ed has been quite difficult for me. The basic character generation rules, skill use and the combat rules are easy enough to grok, but everyone always gets lost in the magic, rigging and decking sections.

So a mere simplification of the rules would be good enough IMO, and I am looking forward to anything FanPro puts out. Each FAQ post makes me more and more excited about what is coming (I love everything that's been mentioned so far).

As far as changes go however, I really feel that a more complete overhaul would not go astray. So here are a list of changes I would personally like to see:


1) Eliminate almost or all opposed rolls from the game. Try to boil everything down to one roll whenever possible.
1a) Boil down opponents to a threat rating. To beat them at a contested skill check you must roll a number of successes that is equal to the threat rating (set TN). Uncontested skill checks are made vs a GM set difficulty as per normal.
1b). Alternatively use the target number as (fixed # + opponet skill rating).
1c) In combat get rid of opposing Body rolls. Roll to hit, count successes and stage up damage. Damage is automatically staged down a number of places that is dependant on the Body of the target. Armour stages it down further. Alternatively use something even more different like this :
i) Roll x dice where x is equal to the rating of your skill. Your target number is determined by the range +/- a small number of modifiers. Total damage is determined by multiplying the base damage of the weapon by the number of successes (base damage is listed as a number from 1-20 or so). From this number you subtract armor ratings and Body rating (or threat rating, or a base Toughness value, etc). When being attacked the GM rolls a number of dice equal to (fixed # + threat rating) for the NPC, and follows the procedure above.
OR ii) Bring back variable staging. Give each weapon a penetration rating. The staging of a weapon always starts at x, is modified up by the penetration rating, and down by the armor rating of the target. If you are using opposed rolls, then the defender always rolls at a staging of 2 to stage down the damage. If you are not using opposed rolls, then the damage level is automatically staged down a bit based on the Body of the target.


2) Get rid of the spell system and replace it with a more freeform spell system. More flexibility, less hard and fast rules. I'm thinking something along the lines of Talislanta here. So essentially, more effects based magic where choosing different variables will increase the target number, and where choosing to take drain damage will lower it again. During character gen players choose areas of magic to place skill points into. These include attack, defence, conjuration, summoning, etc (all treated as skills). Roll x dice where x is the skill rating. Target number is determined by the effect you are trying to accomplish, minus the amount of frag you are willing to take. In the case of damaging spells you increase TN to increase the base damage of a spell (just like my examples for firearm base damage above). Roll the dice vs TN. Number of successes dictate how well you succeed (ie. acts as a multiplier to the base amount conjured, base damage inflicted, etc). Amount of frag taken is equal to the amount selected if at lest one success was obtained, or double the amount selected if no successes were obtained.


3) Make vehicle combat an extension of character combat, and reduce it to a few handling rolls here and there. There are plenty of good vehicle rules freely available out there that could easily be adapted to Shadowrun. Apply the same rules for vehicle chases as for character chases. Avoid precise calculations of acceleration/deceleration etc.


4) Seriously consider adding in some optional rules tying the characters more intimately into the story. Take a good hard look at games like The Riddle of Steel for some ideas. Keep any such rules simple and optional.


5) Make sure to put some critters in the core book!


6) Remember that it is ok to delay the release of the book iff it requires more playtesting.


I'd also like to add in that I really miss the skill web...



The Horror