What is good about Shadowrun, If the system is so "broken", why play? Options

[Writer]

I love Shadowrun. I have since the second time I looked at it. The first time, back in '91, I didn't give it a chance. A year later, I was buying books left and right.

I see so many people on these forums pointing out what is wrong with the system, and I have even questioned a few rulings, but it can't be that bad, if we are all fans of the game. If it were just the setting, there are other game systems that could be used, but we stick to the Shadowrun rules and throw in a few house rules.

I would like to hear what people DO like about the system (not the setting).

[Draco18s]

I suppose I could pose the same question back to D&D. 3.5 is so ungodly broken you can actually become a diety level character at level 5 (the famous Pun-Pun build, which uses a trick a 14th level druid could do as well).

Or you can build a level 4 artificer with +infinity to all skill checks (at the cost of three mules).

Or you can build a 10th level character who in 6 seconds can make any enemy a friend (+50 to diplomacy checks).

Or a build that can jump over whole towns (960 foot horizontal jump).

Or take any build that gets at least +60 to some skill check, add a feat that allows them to use that skill in place of diplomacy (Hide: "Look at that guy! Wait, where'd he go? When he gets back I want to have his man-babies" Climb: "Wow, look at that guy skuttle up a sheer smooth wall of ice! I'm totally going to follow him!" Forgery: "Look, I have this document saying that I am a god, signed by the other gods."*)

Then came The Other Fourth Edition. D&D4E is so balanced it's painful. Class choice, race choice, feat choice all mean nothing. Item choice has a marginal effect (there was one item that was like a 4th or 5th level suit of armor that allowed you to use an exhausted daily power, it was so overpowered that the errata said "Remove this item") but in some cases lower level items are actually better than higher level ones. When my group got a chance to buy items at the end of ShadowFell keep I actually kept a 2nd level item in favor of any and all 4th and 5th level items. +2 to my Healing Surge value (12 hp recovered instead of 10) made my surge value nearly equal to HALF my hit point total instead of the usual 1/4 (actually, as I was going up in level if was closer to a third, but at the time I'd gotten the belt +1 more would have been half).

[Writer]

It is amusing that we are gracious for the rules that allow us to escape reality, but we are also ingracious that the same rules do not give us the reality we are escaping.

[BlueMax]

It is amusing that we are gracious for the rules that allow us to escape reality, but we are also ingracious that the same rules do not give us the reality we are escaping.

Careful where you place that we and how you scope it.

BlueMax

[BullZeye]

I haven't played any other game where the GM and even on some occasions the player can cause such awe to others by taking 20+ dice in the hand and have a big grin before tossing. The old WoD came quite close on some cases, but SR usually has much more dice on those specialized rolls (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

But for more serious answer...

One can't fully take just the rules away from the system in games like SR. I like the opportunity to play cybered up mage with guns. As in, fantasy-cyberpunk and I think SR has more than adequate rules to cover the setting. Yes, it has it's rough edges, but over all, the rules do cover quite well most aspects for such setting. Using D6's and having a set target number is easy for players to understand (well, one would think so) and everyone usually has those D6es so no need to go buy 20 different dice just to roll damage. I like dice pool system of SR as there it's easy to estimate how well one would succeed in any given task. On games where you roll one or couple of dice against your skill, the chance of failure doesn't actually reduce after certain skill level where in SR, you can be quite sure that with 20 dice, you won't mess things up. Old WoD had the fatal flaw where more dice did not add the chance of success as a failure did reduce successes. I think that was explained something like the best can mess up things even more or alike (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) In SR, if you are good, you are good. Of course one can always roll a lot of 1's, but the odds of getting 10 1's and no successes with 20 die is quite unlikely.

There's few positives for starters.. I think there's lot more than just these (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Ancient History]

I've played generic systems, and they have their merits. Just for me, I like a system tailored to the setting. There are elements of Shadowrun that would be completely and irrevocably lost or altered if you tried to do it with GURPS, or Savage Worlds, or anything else. (I am, however, just a tiny bit biased.)

[kzt]

I've played generic systems, and they have their merits. Just for me, I like a system tailored to the setting. There are elements of Shadowrun that would be completely and irrevocably lost or altered if you tried to do it with GURPS, or Savage Worlds, or anything else. (I am, however, just a tiny bit biased.)

I'm pretty confident I could do it with HERO, but the huge number of free points that you get for 15 points of Mage in SR makes doing a 1:1 translation impossible. I saw one for SR3, and it looked like it would work well if you just wanted to play SR with HERO rule. Using actual HERO character generation it would change the game flavor a lot.

[Ancient History]

No. Just no.

[kzt]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Ancient History]

Call it a personal quirk, but I've never seen another system with an acceptable substitute for the Essence mechanic that you wouldn't have to rewrite half the rules in the game for. Force is an integral concept to all Magic-related doings that most games don't really have an equivalent to. SR is so simple in some of the fundamentals and so detailed in the particulars that any straight translation to a generic system is more painful than its worth.

Provided, of course, you're going for any level of accuracy. Shadowrun isn't the only game where you can play a dwarf with a gun, and many systems can handle the gross concept - hell, GURPS and d20 Modern basically embody the "grab three books, shake well, and create your own setting" kind of gameplay. Where Shadowrun shines is that everything works seamlessly - that doesn't mean there aren't a few oddball and clunky mechanics (though those are much reduced in SR4) but all the magic, hacking, combat, and gear rules are designed to work with each other and the setting; there isn't the redundancy you get when you have two or three rulebooks that need to reinvent the wheel with each book.

Like I said, I'm biased.

[Kerenshara]

Well, to answer the OP:

Essence, first and foremost. Like "heat" in Classic Battletech, it's a somewhat unique limiting dynamic that gives a simple means of measuring and quantifying a complex and nuanced combination of factors, has remained constant for twenty years, and seldom of itself draws ANY complaints from any player I have known.

In SR4? The split of Intelligence into Intuition and Logic, and the split of Agility into Agility and Reaction. People tell me I'm nutz, but I PREFER systems with larger numbers of core statistics. I know lots of clumsy people who are death in first person shooter games, or the opposite - people who could have been professional dancers but can't control the Atari if heir life depended on it. And very creative people who can't remember their mother's birthday, while some of the most brilliant people I know can do high level calculus in their heads (You want real life Hermetic magical discipline? THERE you go!) but when you give them an unorthodox way to look at or deal with a problem, it takes forever and a day to just get them to understand what you're talking about.

Edge: not just the statistic and what it represents, but how it gets used mechanically.

Initiative passes. So much more reasonable than "everybody acts at the same speed, just in diferent order" or worse "the fighter goes, and makes six attacks... now it's your turn", especially in a world of magical and technological boosts to cognitive and reaction speeds.

Drain: show me another system where the primary limit on your abilityto sling mana is your endurance, factoring in secondary characteristics like willpower, force of personality or raw intelligence or intuitiveness? It's self balancing and keeps things from spiraling out of control (read: epic level spells).

On the topic: Totrems-er, mentor spirits. (Frag you guys for changing that on me. Fine, fine, it's more inclusive and I like the new approach, but I will always think of them as totems... even when I'm talking about technomancer paragons. They're totems, slot it all!) I may quibble about some of the exact bonuses and penalties assigned to any one in particular, but the idea of closely embodying the aspects of your tot- whatever and seeing Crunchy Bits^TM that support it? That's unique, and it's one of the things I like best about magic in the 6^th world and whatever you want to call the SR MEchanics system.

Spell design: it's limited by drain, but you could in theory build ALMOST anything... ok, so there's no extra-dimensional spells yet (where's my bag-o-holding^TM?), but with spirits starting to be able to take even mundanes into the meta-planes... My point is that it flexible, consistent and inclusive. That's hard to find. And I include in that things like medicine lodges/hermetic circles and magical libraries, or the creation of new spirit and spell formulae.

Wound penalties: I am a 20th level fighter and I have one hitpoint left! Yet I fight with all the power and energy of a fresh unharmed man! That's one of my BIGGEST problems with MOST RPGs - hit points that don't work worth a drek. Here, as you get more and more hurt, you start to slow down, lose strength, whatever. And there's a separate track for physical damage that needs real healing, and temporary fatigue and bruise damage that can go away with rest.

Abstract combat: For all we complain about it, compared to say... Top Secret^TM, where ever location had it's own armor and hit point values? Or the wonderfully simple tables at the back of the I.C.E. Rolemaster^TM based systems? Give me my oddball, abstract, somewhat less-than-reality based armor and damage codes any day. And unlike many other systems that aren't quite so "detail oriented", it's potentially and seriously deadly.

Lifestyles: you mean a substantive and nuanced way of measuring my quality of life outside combat that has game benefits and penalties with Crunchy Bits^TM if I'm so inclined? Something more elegant than "I am Elma J Fudd, miwyonaire. I own a manshen and a yaht" or "um, ale and whores?" A way to make sure we actually PAY for how we want to live that works?

Flexible character creation: no matter what version of the rules or the creation system used, you have CHOICES how to structure you character beyone classes or flat allocations. There are limits to prevent abuse and encourage some form of rounded creation, but not every combat character is alike at start.

Skills: a system (with a workable cap) that tried to compare roughly to real-world levels of capability so you can get an instant feel for what somebody can do with a very quick glance at their sheet. As compared to "yeah, I have that proficiency" or "ok, I have vac-suit skill" or the worst: "My Survival is +57, so I can track a hawk throuh the sky on a cloudy day!" Say what you will, but it's about the best role-playing meter stick I have seen out there (with the exception of Dream Pod 9's Silhouette system, which has it's OWN glaring flaws).

Races: not everybody's human, and for the bigger, more powerful types, I don't have to track a "level adjustment". What rot. And the races are sufficiently diverse to offer (especially with the metavariants) plenty of scope for creativity without getting just plain silly.

Karma: you mean a measure of experience that is useful directly and unto itself? I can pay off a spirit with it, buy up a skill, impove a statistic (anothr beautiful thing, compared to many systems), or save my bacon from Certain Doom^TM. As they say in the commercial: "priceless".

Damage that scales up with the quality of the hit, without going into silly levels of math or detail. There's a novel concept.

Active support of the developers? As opposed to "hah hah hah! you bought that worthless drek in hardback? YOUR problem NOW sucker! YOU figure out the rules... or buy the next edition where we MIGHT actually address the shortcomings."

I am sure there's more, but I would start digressing into more fluff-related things.

[kzt]

I still like Hero's willingness to have the developer definitively answer rules questions, typically within 24 hours. Vs the another company whose policy is "We won't officially answer rules questions, but we might consider issuing an official FAQ that creates more questions than it answers, and about which we will then ignore any requests for clarification."

[Draco18s]

Damage that scales up with the quality of the hit, without going into silly levels of math or detail. There's a novel concept.

Not the only one though.

Alpha Omega--while not quite the same--does have an ingenious method for increasing damage due to "better accuracy."

The defender has a DR (Defense Rating, or in the case of other tasks its Difficulty Rating) that is based off of a couple of stats, your average human will have a 5, base PC human has a 6, average PC has probably a 9.

The attacker rolls dice (Physical Acumen for guns; what size die depends on how big their stat is, how many is based on how many they want to, up to 6--as they split 6 dice across ALL actions taken in a combat round, even if you have more "initiative passes") totals the pips, adds skill and feild ranks, and compares.

Then you add the weapon's Exertion rating (for swinging a melee weapon it'll be higher based on it's unweildiness: two handed swords have a higher exertion than daggers; for guns it's effectively their recoil) to the defender's DR (or subtract from the attack roll, it's the same) and compare again. Repeat until you've either missed or run into the maximum swings for that weapon (in some cases you have to chose how many swings you're taking before rolling, full auto fire from guns states how many bullets are fired--in which case, after you miss all the rest miss too).

So for example, my melee monster with 2 feild, 4 skill, and 6d6 in dice with 2 passes a round (if your die pool isn't even, say 2d6+4d4 and you roll 3 twice, you get the best dice every time so it ends up being 2d6+1d4 and 2d6+1d4), and unarmed combat having an exertion of 4.

I choose 3 swings and 3 dice, roll and get 11. Add 6 gives me 17. Against most targets with a DR of about 10. I hit. Against DR 14 I hit again, but miss my third swing (17 vs. DR 18). So I get two hits, each doing 1d4 damage + a bonus for high strength + another bonus for claws, if I have them. I can also get brass knuckles and increase the d4 to a d6.

This system also ends up managing automatic weapon's recoil very well too. A lousy shot on full auto means that you get 1 or 2 bullets into the target, and the other 8 or 9 miss wildly.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Not the only one though.

Alpha Omega--while not quite the same--does have an ingenious method for increasing damage due to "better accuracy."

The defender has a DR (Defense Rating, or in the case of other tasks its Difficulty Rating) that is based off of a couple of stats, your average human will have a 5, base PC human has a 6, average PC has probably a 9.

The attacker rolls dice (Physical Acumen for guns; what size die depends on how big their stat is, how many is based on how many they want to, up to 6--as they split 6 dice across ALL actions taken in a combat round, even if you have more "initiative passes") totals the pips, adds skill and feild ranks, and compares.

Then you add the weapon's Exertion rating (for swinging a melee weapon it'll be higher based on it's unweildiness: two handed swords have a higher exertion than daggers; for guns it's effectively their recoil) to the defender's DR (or subtract from the attack roll, it's the same) and compare again. Repeat until you've either missed or run into the maximum swings for that weapon (in some cases you have to chose how many swings you're taking before rolling, full auto fire from guns states how many bullets are fired--in which case, after you miss all the rest miss too).

So for example, my melee monster with 2 feild, 4 skill, and 6d6 in dice with 2 passes a round (if your die pool isn't even, say 2d6+4d4 and you roll 3 twice, you get the best dice every time so it ends up being 2d6+1d4 and 2d6+1d4), and unarmed combat having an exertion of 4.

I choose 3 swings and 3 dice, roll and get 11. Add 6 gives me 17. Against most targets with a DR of about 10. I hit. Against DR 14 I hit again, but miss my third swing (17 vs. DR 18). So I get two hits, each doing 1d4 damage + a bonus for high strength + another bonus for claws, if I have them. I can also get brass knuckles and increase the d4 to a d6.

This system also ends up managing automatic weapon's recoil very well too. A lousy shot on full auto means that you get 1 or 2 bullets into the target, and the other 8 or 9 miss wildly.

Sounds kind of complicated...but then again, I have never seen this system, so I have no real basis for a comparison

[Draco18s]

Sounds kind of complicated...but then again, I have never seen this system, so I have no real basis for a comparison

It's only complicated in knowing what dice to roll, really*. After that it's roll, add bonuses, compare. Make the DR higher by weapon's exertion (there's a spot for that on the sheet), compare again.



*There's a chart in the book, spots on the character sheet for each stat, plus an additional one for each weapon, though there are magic buffs that can screw with that, but it's all referred to in Dice Pool Steps. +2 Fear States (+N state is always good for the effectee, and maxes at +/- 4 levels per state**) gives +4 DPS, which turns 6d6 into 4d8+2d6, as each DPS turns 1 die into the next larger die. Each step is basically a +1 on average.

**There are 7 states, most of which go unused most of the time. Fear comes up in combat all the time because Fear is AWESOME. Size, Density, Speed, Emotion, Thought, Disposition come up less often, though I did once make a bunch of motocycles smaller during a chase scene. Our other mage used Speed on us in the first couple of sessions before he started realizing how hard it was to keep casting buffs and keep them up (all buffs cast outside of combat can never last more than 1 round in combat and +4 Speed state for 4 hours is rather taxing).

[Kerenshara]

Not the only one though.

I said it was novel, not unique.

I was referring to the fact that most game systems, with the exception of the never sufficiently to be damned "critical hit", tend to have a damage mechanic completely divorced from the actual roll to determine the hit. As an example, I roll the highest possible number on the dice and have tremendous modifiers to the basic roll, but for some reason, the hit does not count as "critical" so I roll my damage and roll the minimum possible value. Or worse, I DO confirm the critical, and wind up rolling minimum on the dice rolled. Having the damage DIRECTLY tied in, via a very simple mechanic that is easily understood and implemented is wonderful. And the idea of a "floor" on damage entices me as well, the only thing getting "lost" being the grazing shot, but that's more for flare and role-play than a base mechanic I want to build my game system around. Maybe on a tie, or something similar. But my point was that Shadowrun has ALWAYS had the idea of attacker staged damage, and I wish more systems would have addopted the concept.

After all, the thread OP asked "What do we LIKE about the system?"

[Draco18s]

True enough.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

All of this is just my own personal opinion.

Shadowrun is breakable, but I've never met a system that isn't. I like three things about it: it's easy to run, it's easy to understand, and, when things get unbalanced, it's easy to bring back into balance without being an asshole about it.

[shuya]

biased or not, i would have to echo what AH said. i couldn't care less for the rules of shadowrun in ANY edition, but the fact that the system is tailored to the setting is what makes it important. if i wanted to play "Universal Post-Cyberpunk Transhumanist Roleplaying Game" (UPCTRPG for short) i would do it using tri-stat dx, because it is a way better system for my kind of gaming.

but, UPCTRPG for tri-stat dx wouldn't have emotitoys in it. shadowrun does, and they are a significant enough THING in the world of shadowrun to actually be represented by rules (regardless of whether or not you agree with those rules, because i don't want to start an emotitoy bitchfest here).

i don't really see problems or holes in a game's system as necessarily negative - having to work within the game rules (which for your character is the same thing as, say, being limited by the laws of gravity and thermodynamics) is a necessary part of the holistic shadowrun experience, and i play shadowrun because i LIKE that experience. otherwise, i'd be off playing UPCTRPG (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

sometimes i wonder if gamers with children sit down with their kids to play monopoly, but houserule the shit out of it because it's not "realistic" enough

[Cthulhudreams]

SR4 is actually quite well balanced. The core mechanic is very good. Combat works well except for the damage boxes thing typically. A few edge cases that are easy to surgically remove and the matrix rules are broken.

Overall, resounding success.

[Writer]

I want to thank Kerenshara for the long detailed list of lovable Shadowrun qualities. (The Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fud reference was a nice bonus).

Also, I would like to thank Tsuyoshikentsu for the Shadowrun abstraction of why Shadowrun is awesome ...

it's easy to run, it's easy to understand, and, when things get unbalanced, it's easy to bring back into balance without being an asshole about it.

[Cain]

Despite AH's bias, it's entirely possible to port Shadowrun over to another system, say GURPS or Hero. In fact, back in the SR2 days, I saw a Gurps conversion on TurboGopher. I was working on a Savage Worlds conversion, and I've actually got a Wushu conversion ready to run.

What I like about Shadowrun is that it's Shadowrun. The spirit of Shadowrun does live on in the SR4 rules. I contend, however, that it could live on in another set of rules. If anyone's interested in experimenting, I may try that Wushu conversion here, and see what happens.

[The Jake]

I've been roleplaying for around 20 years now (my god, THAT LONG?!) and I don't think I've seen a game system that can't be broken to be quite honest.

Nothing is perfect.

- J.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

ALL Games have their Pros and Cons, and they are all imminently breakable, though some worse than others...

[Cardul]

I love Shadowrun. I have since the second time I looked at it. The first time, back in '91, I didn't give it a chance. A year later, I was buying books left and right.

I see so many people on these forums pointing out what is wrong with the system, and I have even questioned a few rulings, but it can't be that bad, if we are all fans of the game. If it were just the setting, there are other game systems that could be used, but we stick to the Shadowrun rules and throw in a few house rules.

I would like to hear what people DO like about the system (not the setting).

Well, Writer, first, pay attention to the people who complain about the rules. Most of the time it is the same people, going to everyt hread and repeating their blind hate. They hate SR4, SR4A, SR3, SR2, whatever simply because it is "different." Really, I tend to ignore them most of time, because if I responded to every thread I saw these hate-mongers in, I would probably have a LOT of warnings.

That said, what makes SR a great system?
No matter WHAT edition, there are some universals:
First, magic has a cost. So many systems are pretty much "I am a mage, I can do whatever I want!" In SR, sure, you can reduce the drain, but chances are,
you are going to take it.
Second, well, combat is not nice. In so many other games, combat is "I take 100 points of damage..OK..I can take it" or it is "I soak all your damage." In
Shadowrun, even in Second edition, while there was a chance to not take damage from an attack, chances are, you were taking at least some, and then
you got screwed. In 2nd and 3rd, one point of Damage, then 2 more would start hurting your ability to defend. In 4th, sure, you can have higher condition
tracks, but the odds of taking damage are actually increased. If you get hit, you are either going to take physical damage, or stun in most cases.
Third, is that, unlike OTHER systems, the Shadowrun world is evolving, but not changing wholesale. There are no changes that make you go "Oh my god...
what have they done!" (The new edition of the Forgotten Realms...there really is NOTHING that makes it the Realms anymore...)