[X] My Assistant

[Elfenlied]

If they would just fulfill one wish for 5E, it would be this:

Do not cater to Grognards

Instead, please streamline the game and get rid of overcomplicated niche rulesets.

[ravensmuse]

I never did get around to writing up a 5e Wishlist, so I'll attempt to do so now.

1. Simplify, Simplify. The whole nature of the mechanic for the player. Shadowrun 4e is a really simple dice system - att + skill vs target number of sucesses. If you need to do more, you do an extended test. If you're opposing someone, you're trying to beat their number of successes. Very, very simple. However, instead of just saying, "roll an X check", you have things like the Chase rules, which come up with multiple paragraphs describing a simple opposed test. Why? Simplify, simplify.

2. Tell me ten things about this setting. Break the Sixth World down to it's component parts. I first saw this on an an Italian roleplaying board I hung out on; they did this order to describe the different fantasy settings of D&D. Dungeons and Dragons 4e used it as well to describe their Points of Light setting. It's an incredibly useful way of showcasing just how different the Sixth World is from our own real world, and allows people to make Shadowrun "their's." Which is a good thing!

3. Tell Players What They're Doing. Shadowrun is a great game that is terrible at actually describing what it expects a player to do. Sure, you can kind of muddle it out of the written work, but I've had to explain to players that they're not the army, that despite their cyber they're not the toughest folks around, and acting like it will only get them killed. Shadowrun really needs to spell out what it is, in plain text, within the first chapter.

4. Put Changelings in the corebook. Eh. Personal wish.

5. Reorganize the Skills. Blech, the skill groups suck because they have the weirdest shit in them or are missing other key elements of the skill, there's too many broad skills, and too many narrow skills (the argument about three skills for guns while one for artistry in general). This needs looking at.

6. Simplify the combat chapter. Seriously. We don't need multiple charts for modifiers.

7. Use the att+skill against Program Rating variant rule. Why is hacking the only ruleset in this book that ignores its own system?

8. Get Rid of the Gear Porn. Seriously. You can just do, "Heavy Pistol, DMG 5, AP /-1 or as modified by maker". Or the like. Why pages upon pages of stuff?

9. Get Rid of Extraneous +1 Cyber. Again, see my thoughts on gear.

10. Lots more GM guidelines. I'll be expanding on this when I'm not running for the door.

[Draco18s]

What makes you think potentially dangerous situations arise twice a year with GridGuide and all that good jazz?

You forgot that bit about GridGuide only having three dice, didn't you?

Also, "twice a year?" Where'd you get "twice a year?" I was giving benefit of the doubt so that the statistics might come back as at least marginally close. I was increasing the number of trials to get a larger pool of failures to compare with.

D) who gives a fsk if the roll in question isn't relevant to the story at hand?

It's called "suspension of disbelief." It boggles my mind that the rules that use a 0-6 scale of training assumes that a "0" is enough skill to grant you a basic operator's license and that a 2 qualifies as "years of specialized training." The statistics don't even start working out in your favor until you hit 4!

[nezumi]

EITHER:

1) Bring back enough mechanical support for greater granularity, dynamicism, and player choice, and properly respect laws of physics in fields where physics apply (like wireless technology). (It doesn't have to be SR3, but SR3 offers things SR4 lost, and I lost interest as a consequence. A new mechanic that does this would be fine.)

OR

2) Accept the mechanics don't support tactical gaming, so make them as simple as possible and focus on character- and plot-driven games (like with Tech Noir and Eclipse Phase).

SR4 is not enough of either to make it a worthwhile expentirue of my time or money.

ALSO:

Get more style. SR1 is beautiful in part because it had so much style. SR3 began to lose it, but at least it had the ties back to the earlier editions. Maybe I just haven't gotten over the cover of the core book yet, but SR4 still strikes me as goofy, cartoony, one-dimensional, and amateurish (from a STYLE perspective). I've never seen a character or concept from the SR4 books which inspired me (well, excepting the monofilament chainsaw).

[Fatum]

Do not cater to Grognards

Instead, please streamline the game and get rid of overcomplicated niche rulesets.

"Disregard the opinions of the core fanbase and cater to the people who're happier playing MMOs to get a massive failure like D&D4E was, yaaaay!"

instead of just saying, "roll an X check", you have things like the Chase rules, which come up with multiple paragraphs describing a simple opposed test. Why? Simplify, simplify.

While I agree that some mechanics (like vehicle rules in general, for example; not just the catastrophic Chase subsystem) can use a lot of work, Shadowrun has always been about going into at least some detail. Simplification is good until it's turning the game into a roll-to-win.

I've had to explain to players that they're not the army, that despite their cyber they're not the toughest folks around, and acting like it will only get them killed. Shadowrun really needs to spell out what it is, in plain text, within the first chapter.

That's in the introductory chapter of the core book?

Simplify the combat chapter. Seriously. We don't need multiple charts for modifiers.

Do you think that different firearms should have the same range penalties? Or that the darkness and smoke should affect thermal and low-light in exactly the same way? Where do you see the room for simplification without oversimplification?

8. Get Rid of the Gear Porn. Seriously. You can just do, "Heavy Pistol, DMG 5, AP /-1 or as modified by maker". Or the like. Why pages upon pages of stuff?

Nope. Just nope. Gear should differ in significant ways, and if you're going to have 10 different heavy pistols they should differ in more than just the default upgrades that you can get separately later on anyway, yes. However, having bunches of different cool gear is a large part of the game's allure, and frankly, the willingness of the humankind to spend dozens of hours just to see a single stat number increase has been demonstrated by Blizzard more than once.

9. Get Rid of Extraneous +1 Cyber. Again, see my thoughts on gear.

Why not, exactly? You're exchanging money and essence for attribute and skill bonuses. What is wrong about it? Especially minding that there are all kinds of ware that do much more than just grant you a bonus to this or that?

You forgot that bit about GridGuide only having three dice, didn't you?

How much dice it has is irrelevant. It prevents potentially dangerous situations on the road, and nobody has to roll those.

Also, "twice a year?" Where'd you get "twice a year?"

For a civilian to crash yearly with a 43% probability to crash at each potentially dangerous situation, how many potentially dangerous situations should arise on the road per year?

My point is, again: civilians don't do anything risky, and they're not under stress like the runners are. They don't have to roll for their day-to-day tasks at all, just like the core states it. When they do have to roll (which is very rarely), yeah, they have a significant chance to fail, and that's normal.

Accept the mechanics don't support tactical gaming, so make them as simple as possible and focus on character- and plot-driven games (like with Tech Noir and Eclipse Phase).

Minding that Eclipse Phase is basically Shadowrun: the d100, plus it uses certain additional basic mechanics like testing skill x2 or x3, I just don't see how it's "as simple as possible and focuses on character- and plot-driven games".

[Draco18s]

For a civilian to crash yearly with a 43% probability to crash at each potentially dangerous situation, how many potentially dangerous situations should arise on the road per year?

That isn't what I said.

A single roll of 2 dice with a threshold of 1 is a 43% chance of failure.

I asked for REAL WORLD statistics that would come close to matching that. I.e. how untrained/drunk would someone need to be to have a 43% chance of crashing their car if they drove that way for a year.

(i.e. how often does a single vehicle check come up for the average citizen in ShadowRun? If the answer is "never" then the rules are poorly written.)

[Fatum]

You seem to misunderstand the premise. A civilian has 43% to fail a vehicle test. A RL driver has a fair chance to crash in an actual dangerous situation - which is when a SR civilian's rolling his test. Whatever road accident rate is, you can presume that about one accident of potential two is avoided, and thus deduct how often a vehicle test is required of an average SR civilian.

[Draco18s]

You seem to misunderstand the premise. A civilian has 43% to fail a vehicle test. A RL driver has a fair chance to crash in an actual dangerous situation - which is when a SR civilian's rolling his test. Whatever road accident rate is, you can presume that about one accident of potential two is avoided, and thus deduct how often a vehicle test is required of an average SR civilian.

So the average citizen sees 1 dangerous situation every 52,650,009 miles. Or about once every 3181 years.

I respectfully disagree.

(That was calculated using the fatal crash statistics for 6 years, subtracted out the impaired driving related incidents, assumed it was the 43% failed tests, divided by 6 to get a "per year" average, then divided that into the number of miles driven by the 252 million registered vehicles in the US: 3 trillion miles to get the average distance between crashes for an average individual; dividing by the average distance driven by an individual driver to get the average distance in time between events for a single individual).

Now if we assume a 10% chance of failure, the time-between-events is reduced to approximately 123 years, which is not unreasonable (that is, on average, people will experience about 0.89 lethal crashes in their lifetime*). THAT is a starting point for an average person.

*That is, "in a crash where one or more people dies." They needn't be one of the fatalities. By car insurance industry estimates, you will file a claim for a collision (not necessarily fatal) about once every 17.9 years. There are about 10 million accidents of all kinds each year, from parking lot scrapes to multi-car pileups, according to the National Safety Council; in 2009, just three of every 1,000 of those accidents involved fatalities.

Extrapolating backwards, 0.3% of crashes are fatal, which increases our initial assumption by a fair amount: 81,671 collissions per year from fender benders to fatalities (ignoring drunk driving) over the original 24,501. Which still leaves us at 1 accident per 15,795,080 miles driven (at a 43% failure rate).

[bannockburn]

To what lengths you go to be right on the internet. It boggles the mind.

[Stahlseele]

To what lengths you go to be right on the internet. It boggles the mind.

You DO remember where you are posting, right?

[Fatum]

So the average citizen sees 1 dangerous situation every 52,650,009 miles. Or about once every 3181 years.

They have GridGuide, and it makes it so.

[Iduno]

In any case, the matrix rules really need a good redo. Forget everything that exists in 4E and start over from the ground up: what's the goal, how long should it take, what are the relevant dice pools.

I would agree with reimproving the rules, but starting over isn't going to help. A lot of the problems with the matrix rules is that we get a new set each edition, so they've never been around long enough to get the bugs worked out. Start with the matrix from the core book (Unwired added a lot of complications with every program being trackable and new programs that needed more programs to counter them). streamline the rules so a hacking attempt takes about the same number of rolls as combat, then add complications for more options, then make sure nothing broke the system. I'd like to see cyberdecks that are bulkier and heavier than commlinks, but more powerful and customizable.

Someone mentioned not having equipment that did everything cyberware does but cheaper and with no essence cost (like contacts instead of cybereyes). Make them have some drawback, maybe the bonus can only be used once per round or takes an action because wireless is slower than wired directly into your brain.

I also liked the suggestion to stretch out the skills and stats a bit, at least at the lower end. A person with average skills and stats should be able to succeed at simple tasks (just tough enough to require a roll).

Make sure to compare RAI and RAW when copy-pasting things from previous editions.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

So the average citizen sees 1 dangerous situation every 52,650,009 miles. Or about once every 3181 years.

I respectfully disagree.

(That was calculated using the fatal crash statistics for 6 years, subtracted out the impaired driving related incidents, assumed it was the 43% failed tests, divided by 6 to get a "per year" average, then divided that into the number of miles driven by the 252 million registered vehicles in the US: 3 trillion miles to get the average distance between crashes for an average individual; dividing by the average distance driven by an individual driver to get the average distance in time between events for a single individual).

Now if we assume a 10% chance of failure, the time-between-events is reduced to approximately 123 years, which is not unreasonable (that is, on average, people will experience about 0.89 lethal crashes in their lifetime*). THAT is a starting point for an average person.

*That is, "in a crash where one or more people dies." They needn't be one of the fatalities. By car insurance industry estimates, you will file a claim for a collision (not necessarily fatal) about once every 17.9 years.

Wow... Lets see... 1 Accident, 35 Years of Driving, No Injuries whatsoever. *shrug*

[Draco18s]

They have GridGuide, and it makes it so.

Hooray, all hail the magical gridguide!

No. I still don't believe that gridguide is that perfect.

Wow... Lets see... 1 Accident, 35 Years of Driving, No Injuries whatsoever. *shrug*

You're beating the odds. Good for you.
(Of course, that means, that you're insurance company loves you)
Or perhaps, you're nearing in on having your second (your driving time works out to 1.95 accidents on average, so you aren't winning by a whole lot yet).

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Hooray, all hail the magical gridguide!

No. I still don't believe that gridguide is that perfect.

You may believe it is so. That does not MAKE it so. *shrug*

[ShadowJackal]

Nope. Just nope. Gear should differ in significant ways, and if you're going to have 10 different heavy pistols they should differ in more than just the default upgrades that you can get separately later on anyway, yes. However, having bunches of different cool gear is a large part of the game's allure, and frankly, the willingness of the humankind to spend dozens of hours just to see a single stat number increase has been demonstrated by Blizzard more than once.

But the issue is that gear doesn't vary in a large sense. You don't get much of a significant advantage from anything and the ratio between gear, power, accuracy and difficulty to obtain isn't enough to ever warrant me wanting to bother with upgrading beyond the basics. The positives of obtaining an extra dice or two of damage isn't worth the hassle of getting the weapon and then worrying about getting caught with it and having proper licenses.

TL;DR I have more fun making a character that has unarmed skills and an Ares Predator than wasting time and money with a gun bunny that has to bother with menial weapons upgrades and the complications that come along with them. JMHO.

[Fatum]

You have more fun that way and it's okay, but why derive the others of their way of having fun - upgrading their stuff, then customizing it, and then upgrading the addons on customizations?

[ShadowJackal]

You have more fun that way and it's okay, but why derive the others of their way of having fun - upgrading their stuff, then customizing it, and then upgrading the addons on customizations?

If the system was more cohesive to allowing weapons that made logical sense to spend time on, I'd have fun with that too (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Fatum]

You're getting like two dice more on a test!

[nezumi]

Minding that Eclipse Phase is basically Shadowrun: the d100, plus it uses certain additional basic mechanics like testing skill x2 or x3, I just don't see how it's "as simple as possible and focuses on character- and plot-driven games".

Eclipse Phase shares a lot of setting similarities with SR. But mechanically, it's very different. Even SR4 is fairly balanced, with some degree of nuance. The reason an SR4 player dominates the game is because he knows the rules better than the other players or GM. Statistically, tactical considerations play a significant determination in success (changing likelihood by several standard deviations), the probability curve is in fact a bell-shape, and 'gauranteed success' is uncommon.

EP has a much simpler d100 system, which is basically there to get conflict resolution out of the way of story-telling. It's trivially easy for a player to 'break' the mechanics and have a 90% chance of succeeding on their skills of choice. Once you get past chargen (which is, admitedly, very complex and messy), most things boil down to a handful of simple dice rolls. Statistically, modifiers are usually insignificant compared to the PCs skills and mods (the former rarely shifting probability by more than one std. dev., while the latter shifts it easily to the 90 percentile), the probability curve is a line, and guaranteed success is quite common.

Most EP conflicts comes down to 'okay, roll a die. That's your skill? Well this one is tough, so subtract a round number. Still succeed? Okay, I'll roll a die. You win.' Sometimes there's a second roll to determine damage or something, but statistically, it's all quite boring. It's very fast, very back-of-the-envelope. I belive it's a design decision to reflect a setting where PCs can really accomplish anything, if given enough time and the right tools.

[ElFenrir]

1. I'd like to be able to play a Physad without wishing I had taken cyber.

2. Bring back Hermetic/Shamanic spirits. Yeah, it's a little more complicated but I really like that flavor.

3. PLEASE leave Cyberlimbs as they are now: finally, awesome and affordable. Don't bring them back to the old 3e and before way where a rather 'popular' item took a mint and a half to get made properly.

4. Leave in the martial arts rules. Really love these.

5. I love how the new Shapeshifters work-keep them as well. (I'd like to see Changelings/Other Metatypes still in the game. Not sure about the core book but definitely in the game. At the very least in one Big Book o' Races. I wouldn't mind them in the core book, however, if it could be done fairly simply.)

6. Try to get a more even balance between 'god-stats' and 'dump-stats.' I don't want to see any stat that's the one that rules them all, but try to slim down the dumpstats a bit. It's okay to have concepts that would not favor some stats as much as others of course, but when a fighter concept can pretty much freely dump Strength there's something a bit wrong.

7. Balance out the costs of the core metahumans a bit better. Really for the benefits they get as of now, Elves should be the cheapest and Orks one of the costlier ones. Dwarves should be costlier as well. Trolls I think are fine(or they will be if Strength becomes even a tiny bit more useful.) I also feel that with cosmetic surgery being as common as anything that Orks no longer even have their 'orkiness' as a racial disadvantage-they can get cosmetic surgery to look *exactly* like a bigger human, and unless you test their DNA or something you'd never know. (A troll, you'd know. He could have cosmetic surgery enough to make Adonis look shabby next to him, but he's still going to be 8'6'' tall and built like a truck, people will know.)

I'm sure I'll think of more, but those are the ones that hit the top of my head.

[nezumi]

I definitely agree on those cybercosts. I play SR3, and my cyber costs are all still based off of SR4. Greatest change in the update (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[phlapjack77]

Skill webs.

[ravensmuse]

"Disregard the opinions of the core fanbase and cater to the people who're happier playing MMOs to get a massive failure like D&D4E was, yaaaay!"

Despite the poo-poo'ing of the older, established fanbase, 4e did quite well for itself. It also achieved all of its design goals: it streamlined the system for both players and GMs, it brought in new fans to the hobby (always a good thing), it made non-magical characters fun to play, it made all three tiers of play experience fun and easy to do...the real flaw was that they spent so much time on the combat system that they kind of dropped the ball on the stuff outside of combat. Which was fine if you were capable of hacking in new stuff, but very clearly annoyed some people. And Essentials was a dud, but oh well.

Your quote above? I could remove "people happier playing MMOs..." and replace it with a general "video games" and throw it back in time to any other edition change-over and have it resemble exactly what the established playerbase was saying at the time. In other words? Your shit isn't new. Get used to change.

While I agree that some mechanics (like vehicle rules in general, for example; not just the catastrophic Chase subsystem) can use a lot of work, Shadowrun has always been about going into at least some detail. Simplification is good until it's turning the game into a roll-to-win.

Which is not what I'm suggesting in the least. I'm suggesting streamlining and simplifying the very many rolls that can happen in this game for no good reason.

Here's some links to Shadowrun hacks the Story Games crowd have come up with Shadowrun. While I'm not suggesting that we go as full blown as these, it's a good way for the two of us to get on the same page regarding simplification and ease-of-use, yeah?

Shadowhack (requires Mouseguard)

Shadowhack (.pdf link)

World of Shadows (requires Dungeon World / World of Dungeons)

Or, go read Dungeon World, which is my current new favorite game, and makes me excited to run D&D again for the first time in ages.

That's in the introductory chapter of the core book?

My problem being that it's buried in with other junk that makes it's message unclear. It also doesn't explain the game's purpose - its "focus" - which needs to be right there, clear as day. The game needs to talk about it's themes, what it sets out to do, what it expects from both players and GMs. The message isn't clear in the tiny blurb they give it in SR4a.

Do you think that different firearms should have the same range penalties?

Yes. Short / Medium / Long / Extreme, with an escalating penalty. For an example, look at the new FFG Star Wars book, for their concept of "rings".

Or that the darkness and smoke should affect thermal and low-light in exactly the same way?

Who cares? It's a flat -2 to penalty that you can negate if you're wearing the right equipment.

Where do you see the room for simplification without oversimplification?

Here's the problem: gamer's seem to equate "simplification" with "dumbing down". And gamers fear "dumbing down", because to some degree it makes it a little less arcane and a little bit easier for other folks to join their inner circle.

All I'm suggesting here - and it follows through with what I'm about to say about gear and cyber - is that this game and its' books focus way too much on little niggly stuff like, "here's a bunch of equipment / cyber / qualities that can get me one more +1!!!!" and uses up way too much bookspace for it. Seriously. It also does it for rules; I mean, the book goes into all sorts of could-have-would-have situations, where all you need to say is, "if it's a penalty, give it a flat -2 penalty to the roll or the pool." Or, "have the player roll a Dex check" instead of big titles and subdivisions that state "HERE'S ALL THE RULES!!!". It's not worth a damn, and it eats word count. It's porn. It's there to make a gamer feel like they're smart because they have ALL THE +1S!!!! Get rid of it. Simplify, simplify.

Nope. Just nope. Gear should differ in significant ways, and if you're going to have 10 different heavy pistols they should differ in more than just the default upgrades that you can get separately later on anyway, yes. However, having bunches of different cool gear is a large part of the game's allure, and frankly, the willingness of the humankind to spend dozens of hours just to see a single stat number increase has been demonstrated by Blizzard more than once.

Again: all I'm suggesting is that you can cut a huge chunk of the equipment chapter - which is huge, and unwieldy - starting with, "light pistol - 4P. Heavy pistol - 5P /-1 AP. Automatic - 6P /-2, SA / BF". And not lose much! Hell, then it leaves open the door to put in the customizing rules from Arsenal, which is a net gain, right? Right?

(I would also like to point out the irony of you poo-poo'ing Blizzard above, and then using them here to support your need for gear porn. Just sayin'...)

Why not, exactly? You're exchanging money and essence for attribute and skill bonuses. What is wrong about it? Especially minding that there are all kinds of ware that do much more than just grant you a bonus to this or that?

What's wrong with it is that there's too much space given to Yet Another +1 and not enough to the weird and useful cyber and bio. You can just genericize the +1 cyber, stick them at the beginning of their section, and then leave room for other stuff.

My basic point stands - condense the +1s and the gear, and use that room for something else. Something that can improve the game for everyone involved, not just the guy who likes to sit on Chummer for hours making characters. I'm not a fan of system mastery, and loathe Monte Cook for really introducing it into the mainstream. If we took the attention away from getting one small niggling bonus to your character sheet to the stuff that's actually interesting - where did they get that gear? That cyber? Why are they running? Why do they have the skills that they have? What's their goals? What do they want? What kind of runs is this guy going to go on? Where did he meet his team? Does he like his team? - this game would be a lot more fun to play and talk about.

All we get now is, "is this build okay? Where are my screw-ups? LOOK AT THIS MONSTER BUILD I'VE MADE!!!" and that's boring.

(Your mileage - and Sixth World - may vary. And that's okay.)

[binarywraith]

Despite the poo-poo'ing of the older, established fanbase, 4e did quite well for itself. It also achieved all of its design goals: it streamlined the system for both players and GMs, it brought in new fans to the hobby (always a good thing), it made non-magical characters fun to play, it made all three tiers of play experience fun and easy to do...the real flaw was that they spent so much time on the combat system that they kind of dropped the ball on the stuff outside of combat. Which was fine if you were capable of hacking in new stuff, but very clearly annoyed some people. And Essentials was a dud, but oh well.

4e didn't exactly do 'quite well' for itself, as evidenced by WotC bringing back on many 2e and 3e designers (Monte Cook included) to work on 5e. It did successfully bring in a few new people... and generate a huge market for the guys at Paizo by alienating a lot of the previous playerbase. Honestly, I occasionally wonder if that wouldn't be helpful for SR as well, to pull a full on edition split, let Catalyst go out into the banal idiocy they keep worldbuilding in and do up a revised and clarified SR2 descendant for the folks who really prefer the old flavor and style.

My basic point stands - condense the +1s and the gear, and use that room for something else. Something that can improve the game for everyone involved, not just the guy who likes to sit on Chummer for hours making characters. I'm not a fan of system mastery, and loathe Monte Cook for really introducing it into the mainstream. If we took the attention away from getting one small niggling bonus to your character sheet to the stuff that's actually interesting - where did they get that gear? That cyber? Why are they running? Why do they have the skills that they have? What's their goals? What do they want? What kind of runs is this guy going to go on? Where did he meet his team? Does he like his team? - this game would be a lot more fun to play and talk about.

All we get now is, "is this build okay? Where are my screw-ups? LOOK AT THIS MONSTER BUILD I'VE MADE!!!" and that's boring.

(Your mileage - and Sixth World - may vary. And that's okay.)

This is something that's bugged me for years as well. We lost a lot of the fun and flavor by losing gear books like the old Street Samurai's Catalog. A fairly limited new set of gear, but with all the in-world shadowtalk, illustrations, and marketing text really helped to put all of it firmly in place in the setting and help players wrap their minds around what the stuff on their sheet -means- in-universe.