 SR3 vs 4 in Play |
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 Mar 5 2006, 05:53 PM
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#51
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Shooting Target  Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006  |
I didn't realize that you were that lost. I thought you just misremembered the BP costs. Not that you forgot that basic limitation. Although it certainly helps explain your lack of understanding of the strengths of SR4 characters. :( So why again couldn't you use one of the spreadsheets or programs at work? Or work on the character on your home computer?
No, I was going by actual characters built not the sample characters. The most extreme example is one I posted here, with 21 or 22 starting skills and another one picked up about two sessions into play. He wasn't really built optimal though. He is more of a concept character to see how playable a mundane with no implants was in SR4. He's been a lot of fun, I'm in the middle of editing the story of his latest adventure. An early on character I built while I was still in an SR3 frame of mind only had 10 skills, but after that the lowest skill count is in the mid-teens. Compared to very, very few characters with more than 7 Skills in SR3. I find I'm going in the opposite direction too. In SR3 I started out with more Skills and then found just how brutal it was on the character, although still somewhat playable, and slowly reduced Skill count as my play evolved. On the flipside I find I'm increasing the skill count in SR4 as my play and understanding of the system evolves. It isn't just the character generation though that is driving this. Skill rating 1 is something that is useful in SR4, in SR3 Skill 1 was playing Russian Roulette. |
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Mar 6 2006, 01:42 AM
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#52
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Well, not until immediately after chargen, when you can get one for dirt cheap. Unless you're playing an To be honest when it comes to specializations SR3's system was actually better; under that system you could actually justify getting specializations at chargen, but only if you never planned on raising the "base" skill. Now there's no reason at all to justify getting one at chargen. Brahm: as I read it, your rebuttal to my post is essentially trying to argue "security through obscurity." Your argument seems to be that fewer people people will work at optimizing their characters just because the process is not as easy as it was in SR3. For rebuttal, I offer this:
Yes, the context of that article is about cryptography and computer network security, but the argument is still valid. |
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Mar 6 2006, 02:16 AM
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#53
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
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Mar 6 2006, 03:09 AM
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#54
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 399 Joined: 27-May 04 Member No.: 6,361 |
SR3 certainly has it charms. The feel is nice and had some interesting attempts at combat realism (by far better than d20 system IMO). As with all systems, it had its holes, but I rarely had any problem with them. SR4 is also interesting. I like the attempt at simplification, I like much of the new setting, and I like how they altered the initiative and reaction set up. I'm uncomforatable with the hard caps for skills. Attributes I have no prob with, but skills bother me. I also don't like the ambigious rules involving bonuses and rating mods. Easy enough to house rule, so no big deal at all. With house rules, I'll love SR4 just as much as SR3. :rotate: :wobble: :spin:
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Mar 6 2006, 03:34 AM
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#55
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
How do you think upping the cap on skills will work? Will the cost be normal for them?
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Mar 6 2006, 03:39 AM
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#56
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Cost would be double "base" cost, and really that's all you need. I'm not sure why the Aptitude quality (EDIT: or the hard cap, for that matter) even exists. You've already got to pay double to raise a skill past 6; shouldn't that be enough?
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Mar 6 2006, 12:33 PM
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#57
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Target Group: Members Posts: 53 Joined: 16-February 06 From: Goring-On-Thames, UK Member No.: 8,271 |
Working in Infosec myself, I have to say that I prefer the Matrix Rules in SR4.
I feel they have added a touch of realism to it. I think it needs to be remembered that in 1989 when Shadowrun first came out, the wired world was very different from now, the wireless barely even existing. It ties in alot of themes and influences, from a more gibson'esque feel to the matrix (johnny mneumonic the movie comes to mind in regards to AR), as well extrapolating the electronic scene from now, as opposed to 1989. The rules for matrix actions have become alot less complicated and cluttered, and magic/matrix/rigging rules all seem to follow a comon system, which helps alot I find. Attribute tests and actions have also been simplified. I agree that it is not built to be ultrarealistic, but for me it's all about the storytelling, as such i welcome the changes regards Bladepoet |
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Mar 6 2006, 05:00 PM
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#58
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
You discover the limitations by building characters. It takes me many hours to build a character, hours which I don't have. You discover the strengths through playtesting, and that's where hyperspecialization really shows its true colors. The strengths of a detailed build-point system is generally customizability. GURPS, for example, offers a lot of choices allowing for a wild array of characters. SR4 can't even compete with GURPS basic on that level! That means one of the purported strengths isn't really there. The biggest flaw with a detailed build point system is generally calculation time. It'd be unfair to compare a GURPS program to SR4 pen-and-paper, so I can't do the reverse. In general, it takes me less time to create a 400+ point GURPS character, using multiple books, than it does for me to create a SR4 character. Sometimes the differences are small (two hours versus about two-and-a-half) and sometimes they're astronomical (two hours versus four days).
I'm going in reverse, and so are the character's I've been seeing. There's been a greater trend to push the one skill/stat combo further and further, while leaving the rest at middle levels. What's more, when we were in the SR3 mindset, we tended to avoid specializations, since they were a double-edged sword, forcing a reduction in your overall skill. Now, specializations carry no penalty at all, meaning you can load up on them without worry. |
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Mar 6 2006, 05:19 PM
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#59
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
With all due respect, Cain, it sounds like SR4 isn't the game for you. You seem to be much more satisfied with the other systems you've mentioned along the way, and would probably be happier playing those. |
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Mar 6 2006, 07:01 PM
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#60
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
Then you read it wrong. It isn't that there isn't an optimum or that everything is ok because it is obscured, it is that the band of the near optimum is wider and the peak isn't as high. Partially because the difference between least and most optimum BP versus karma costs of Skills is really at most a factor of 2, and in practice ends up being a lot less than that. That is down from SR3 which are like the Technomancers complex forms. Ironically that that page seems to have listed the numbers for this. Though I haven't gone through and verified all their assertions and I think they might have missed a point or two, but they generally are on the mark. So I'm not sure why you haven't grasped this? Notice also that they don't actually address every choice that goes into a character, and they are only giving general advice and are usually tempering the numbers with counter reasons why to look past the highest/lowest number on a table. The broader band of near optimum allows for a wider variety of Skills, and thus more options for near optimum characters. It also means that the optimum is more sensitive to situational specifics. This brings even more variety to the group of optimum and near optimum characters. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Expectations of Utopia Yes there are optimums for a given game world style, character type, and playing style. You think you can avoid that in a system? Sorry, short of having no options that just isn't going to happen. Even if you switched to a karma character creation it would exist, they would just come out at a different point. |
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Mar 6 2006, 07:13 PM
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#61
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
It is also where it shows how it weakens the character that tries to push to hard to the maximums during creation. So how many skills are your characters taking? Post a couple for examples.
During play Specialization are likely too cheap, they would have been better at 3 karma. Also Specialization of anything in a Skill Group has that inherent cost that you can nolonger use the cheaper advancement rates. In SR3 I forget now how advancement worked with Specialization. I remember it striking me as rather wonky, and somewhat more costly. Although the fact it didn't actually cost anything extra at character generation time did lead to it being actually used, as opposed to SR4 where the post creation cost is the same karma as BP. You just had to make sure it wasn't something you intended to advance as a whole Skill and would eventually be OK defaulting from the Specialization back to the general Skill But outside of that as soon as you try to push the envelop to the maximum during SR4 character creation you really hurt the character. |
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Mar 6 2006, 08:23 PM
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#62
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 914 Joined: 26-August 05 From: Louisville, KY (Well, Memphis, IN technically but you won't know where that is.) Member No.: 7,626 |
Cain if it really takes you between 2 hours and 4 days to make a SR4 character with full access to the SR4 book then there is a disconnect between the SR4 writers and your brain. Considering that most characters ignore about 30% of the book (mages tend to ignore riggers & cyber, technomancers ignore magic and usually cyber, gunbunnies ignore magic and hacking, etc, etc.) and at least 20% of the book is background and combat mechanics then the page count for any character is way, way smaller than GURPS. Either a) you have Gurps memorized and feel you need the same level of familiarity with SR4 so you look every little detail up every time, b) your brain begins to short circuit when you read SR4, or c) you are totally and absolutely over-optimizing the SR4 characters. if a) then you're just going to have to spend more time with SR4 'til you are comfortable. b) sorry, have a buddy come up with an SR4 crib sheet and maybe that'll help. c) Relax, breathe, and force yourself to write down the general specs of the new character and what the priorities are. Make the most important sections first (i.e. skillbunny, cyber-tank, ubermensch athlete) and accept the fact that the character is not going to be perfect because it has room to grow. |
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Mar 6 2006, 09:16 PM
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#63
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 137 Joined: 21-February 06 From: Lenexa, Kansas (Yes Kansas, we ain't all hicks y'all.) Member No.: 8,291 |
As fun as discussing the pros and cons of the new character creation system is, I think this thread has drifted away from what the poster was originally looking for.
So here are my impressions as one who played a bit of 2nd edition and a metric crap ton of 3rd. Overall I really like it. I feel that this new edition has made the game a lot smoother and basically allows us to fit more fun into a session of gaming since things can be resolved faster, thus allowing us to get to the next bit of the story. By way of example let me tell you about our most recent session. We were supposed to break into an old listening post in the Aleutian Islands that was being used by smugglers. We were supposed to get in, steal some samples of the drugs and BTLs they were smuggling and destroy the rest. We screwed the pooch going in and ended up getting into a room-to-room gun battle against the smugglers. What followed was an incredibly long, drawn out fight wherein we had to clear the defenders room by room, all while preventing them from flanking around us and while our hacker kept them trying to wrest control of their own security from them. Battered and bleeding (not to mention shot) we finally took enough of them out that we convinced the rest that surrender was a viable alternative. Over the course of the battle we used melee and ranged combat, the hacking rules concurrently with the combat, grenades, explosives vs. barriers, and more. The amazing thing was that the battle never felt slow, the rounds went by quickly, and we didn't have to consult the book too often (although we did need the scatter charts and such.) The fight was quick, effecient, and most of all, fun. Now this was after we have been playing awhile, so we all know the rules pretty well at this point, but I feel that it ran faster then SR3 ever did, and I approve whole-heartedly. Mind you, the system has it's flaws. Quite a few really. I agree that the layout is counter-intuitive, and some of the systems are confusing and/or lacking important bits (ahem... rigging) but most of these problems will likely be resolved in upcoming supplements (provided, of course, that these are ever made.) |
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Mar 6 2006, 09:29 PM
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#64
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 26-January 06 Member No.: 8,201 |
I'll jump in here about character creation. Sr3's system was rather straight forward and simple. Though thats not to say when I was a new player to it, that by pencil and paper it did not take several hours or even a day to create a character. By pencil and paper it still takes me a hour or two to do a sr3 character, but then again i'm picky and am usualy have a concept i'm trying to build towards and am trying to get it to work. But the system did not allow for a wide variety of characters at all. Infact I felt it very restrictive in what it allowed you to do as a player. Then they came out with the point buy system and while it allowed for more customization and a few other things, as a GM, I was not fond of the characters my players were making with it and went back to the priority system. SR4's system is less straight forward , but thats more due to the layout of the book, than it has to do with point costs. This is not to say that 4 points per skill point is straight forward, but it is to say that the main hinderance of CG is the layout. When the book first came out and I made my first character it took me, and my friends about 2-3 hours to create our first characters (this does not include the legaly blind gentleman I play with who had to take a lot longer time due to his very slow reading speed and the problems with the original PDF I loaned him so he could more easily read it). While there was math involved and people were new to the system the thing that hindered us the most was flipping back and forth. Best method I've found to do it by paper is to simply have a scrap sheet of paper and go section by section and write down what you're doing, the bps and then the total for that section and move on to the next one. All in all SR4 to me gives you more options in chargen than sr3 ever did. Virtualy every sr3 character I've seen is essentialy the same thing. with about the same skills, the main difference being in how the cyberware is laid out. Now with sr4 asside from the rediculously specialized and prety damn good in a singular area but completely sucktacular builds here on dumpshock I've yet to run across, two of what essentialy is the same sheet. I've created a dozen or so characters for myself in the past month working on builds, and while they're similar (generaly based off the same concept or two) their layout, and how they actualy worked mechanicaly changed prety drasticaly from sheet to sheet. Its all in the build points. Cain decided to compare it to GURPS for a second (later on saying you can't fairly do it)
Its purported strength -IS- there. Not to the level of GURPS...but then again there really isn't a system out there that competes with GURPS in sheer customizability. And as Cain goes on to say later you can't compare the two fairly. The thing is while it doesn't appear to be stupendously customizable, you have to realize, even as little as 16 bp's of change in chargen can drasticaly change the way your character interacts with the world and works in the system in general. Oh and as for not believeing chargen stories of time lengths...10-15 mins for a WoD character...gah...I can pull that off but its the most generic characters I can come up with, has really no life to him or quirks. Even fast creation takes me a half hour. And thats kinda stretching it...usualy takes me about 1-2 hours to flesh something out there because i'm always trying to phenagle something here or there to get the concept to work right (and quite possibly much longer if its Exalted as i can agonize over charm choices forever...) |
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Mar 6 2006, 10:21 PM
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#65
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,556 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Seattle Member No.: 98 |
Making the jump from SR3 to SR4 really didn't make any difference in chargen times for me... we always used the point-build system from the SRComp anyway. Now it's just what everyone uses.
The part of chargen that always takes a long time for me is buying gear and fiddling around with cyberware/spells/programs/whatever. Actually laying down a character and his stats/skills is noticeably less than half an hour. |
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Mar 7 2006, 01:52 AM
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#66
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 197 Joined: 15-June 05 From: Portland, Or. Member No.: 7,447 |
so sr4 is not using edges and flaws anymore?
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Mar 7 2006, 02:19 AM
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#67
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Decker on the Threshold Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,922 Joined: 14-March 04 Member No.: 6,156 |
Sure they do, and they're in the main book now. They're called Positive and Negative Qualities.
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Mar 7 2006, 02:24 AM
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#68
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panda! Group: Members Posts: 10,331 Joined: 8-March 02 From: north of central europe Member No.: 2,242 |
and some of them are allready being abused to get that extra bit of performance out the theoretical glass cannons...
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Mar 7 2006, 03:24 AM
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#69
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
Pshaw. Basic modern game design theory: The more options you give players, the more simultaneously entertaining and vulnerable your game can become.
Oh, and yes, you can actually get a degree in video game design nowadays. How nerdly awesome is that? |
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Mar 7 2006, 03:58 AM
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#70
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Target Group: Members Posts: 20 Joined: 23-October 05 Member No.: 7,882 |
Just a quick shout out to Waltermandias for noticing the thread drift. I don't mind a character gen thread, but thats what I thought I started! :)
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Mar 7 2006, 04:22 AM
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#71
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
i don't have any particular quarrel with SR4's chargen system, but i would just like to note that it's okay if the chargen section is hard to use because you can just have a program do it for you is a really, really silly argument. for chrissake, it's called pen-and-paper gaming for a reason.
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Mar 7 2006, 04:33 AM
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#72
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 560 Joined: 4-March 06 From: Pueblo Corporate Council Member No.: 8,332 |
How does it play? We've only been playing for a month or so, but it seems to move along smoother, and combat goes quicker. It doesn't have the same... attention to detail as the old versions, but I like that. Maybe you won't.
Making characters is tough, because you're limited. You can't just grab all fives and sixes in attributes, and dump the rest in a few high skills. You have to spend a lot of time balancing out your points. As someone said, it's fiddly. But I think it makes for better characters. The important thing is not to let yourself get bugged by having seemingly low skill ratings - remember you get to roll skill plus attribute now. |
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Mar 7 2006, 09:28 AM
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#73
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
I've been playing Shadowrun since it first came out. My Big Blue Book is autographed. Up 'til now, Shadowrun has always been the game that satisfied me the most. Just because SR4 doesn't compare favorably against other games is no reason to dump seventeen years of role playing.
The characters *aren't* weakened, though. They keep about the same level of overall functionality, and add a super-specialized area. In other words, one-trick ponies aren't as weak anymore.
A) No human being could possibly have all of GURPS memorized. B) Not my brain; but my fingers get tired from all the back-and-forth. C) I thought the whole point of all the limits was to prevent that sort of thing from happening? Even though it doesn't work. Additionally, a hyper-optimized character in any of several systems I play doesn't take nearly as long.
Yeah, which adds to the problem. If you change one little thing, your entire character concept can unravel on you, forcing you to go back and rework almost everything. I could live with that if there was more customizability, but I don't think we're even getting that.
I haven't noticed any improvement. I won't say that it's *worse*, since it isn't; but I don't think it's noticeably faster or smoother. To be fair, though, I've been playing a lot of Savage Worlds recently, which makes everything else look like a slug with arthritis. I might just be having a different perspective. |
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Mar 7 2006, 01:58 PM
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#74
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Target Group: Members Posts: 68 Joined: 26-January 06 Member No.: 8,201 |
So being able to really tweak how your character works fundementaly in the game is not a good level of customizability? Interesting. I've never had to go most of the way back and rework my character in SR4. I've had to several times in SR3 when i realize i need a few more nuyen or that extra stat point to do what i need to do. In SR4 i look at where i've spent my points, remember i write everything out and make nice little tallies for each section and skill and such makes life so much easier in this regard, decide where i might be able to skimp on something, or change it slightly to work just a tad differently. In all honesty I find it easier to rework a concept and such in this system than it ever was in sr3. With just 16 buildpoints i can really change how my character works. I don't see that as a problem, atleast when you're somewhat intelligent on how you go about building a character...ie writing everything out so its easy to see and look back at when you realize you're a few points short. I haven't had any problems with the chargen system other than the book being a little wonky in layout. As far as gameplay goes, so far its been a little bit quicker, but it promises to pick up using that wonderful 9 page char sheet from the comunity forums. God damn that thing's beautiful. Saves us math durring the game and gives you alot more information at your fingertips that you don't have to go flipping through. |
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Mar 7 2006, 02:13 PM
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#75
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,138 Joined: 10-June 03 From: Tennessee Member No.: 4,706 |
There are some nice things about SR4's character generation and there are some nice things about SR3's character generation. I don't think anyone can argue that SR4's system is anywhere near as simple as SR3's priority system. Also, BeCKS was far better than anything I've seen built for SR4 (yet). However, the priority system in SR3, with its non-linear point allocations and the like was quite tricky. Not only that, it was inconsistant with the priority system to the point that it definitely paid to build your character both ways (if you had the option) and pick the one that came out better.
SR4 has the benefit of linearity (1 bp is always worth 5k :nuyen:) and independancy (you don't have to rework your skills if you change an attribute). It has the downside of extra math. Earlier, the generation program thing was brought up and mfb rightly pointed out that you can't rely on something like that for character generation. I agree, to an extent. The biggest benefit from generator programs is that it lets you quickly get a feel for how points should be distributed on most characters. Once you've got a good feel for it, you can make characters with just pencil and paper in a respectable amount of time. You'd get the same experience from slogging through a dozen characters with pen and paper, as well. I guess one of the primary problems is that in SR3, a couple of dice was very important. The difference between getting 4 dice for a test and 6 was pretty big. In SR4, die pools tend to be bigger in general and individual dice are less important. The difference between 8 dice and 10 is not huge (it is an advantage, but it's not that big of one). If you build an SR4 character worrying about getting every die just right in every test, it willt ake forever, but fortunately, doing so is not necessary. "Close enough" seems to work pretty well in SR4. |
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