[X] My Assistant

[Tashiro]

Here's a diagram of what really should be, IMO.

Game<---------------------|-------------------->Realism

If I want 'realism' I'll take a step out my front door.

I wouldn't quite go that far. I want my games to be fairly realistic in flavour and setting, but I want my mechanics to be smooth and fluid. I like my internal consistency and setting that makes sense, and I like my cause-effect to be fairly realistic as well.

It's one reason I can't run pink-mohawk Shadowrun. I can't comprehend a way to realistically let the players kick down the door, guns blazing, and not expect to be ripped to shreds shortly afterwards. But that's my hangup. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Patrick Goodman]

I used to have a six-sider that had a head, a torso, and each arm and each leg on its faces. If I absolutely had to know where the shot hit, I rolled it. It's so worn down now it's hard to read, but I can always jot down a quick table and use a regular six-sider if I need to.

[phlapjack77]

I always liked the GURPS hit-location scheme. Seemed to produce good results, and we always felt awesome when you rolled that 3.

[ElFenrir]

Personally, I'd like to see "must-have" items increased in price, or adjusted to no longer be "must-have".

The worst offender in my book is:
-Emotionsoft/toy: Either everyone has it, or no one. Not having it while facing someone who does puts you at a major disadvantage.

Followed by:
-FFBA: I'm fine with wearing it under regular (or lightly armed) clothing, but when SWAT+FFBA becomes better than Milspec, it gets stupid.
-Smartlink: It's essentially a free +2 DP bonus that you'd be stupid not to take. I wish they would distinguish between implanted smartlink and smartlink goggles. Which brings me to...
-Visual/audio enhancements: Nowadays, Cybereyes and Ears are rarely seen in game anymore, since all the relevant upgrades are available as cheap external devices.
-"Best in category" items: Most item types, especially weapons, have one clear "best" item. I wish they would include viable sidegrades, but as it stands, the Ares Alpha is the best Assault Rifle (2pts of free RC), the Morrisey Elan is the best holdout (free plastic upgrade), the AA is the best shotgun (FA, GV and R availability. Did I mention that GV are usually not available for shotguns?)
-Betel: 5 extra BP at chargen, +1 to all perception checks, all for the measly price of 1 Nuyen per dose and 1 notoriety.

I'm fine with certain items being necessary, e.g. comlinks, lifestyles and fake sins, but the list of essential items should be kept small.

Now, this I can get behind. Even though we use stuff like FFBA and everything and it doesn't unbalance the game, I don't necessarily think it's the best way to go about it.

How I'd handle some of this stuff...FFBA, I'd again, leave it effective(Maybe 3/0, 4/1, 5/2 depending), but again, crank up the price actually dramatically on it. Picturing it like Hollywood Armor. This is what George Clooney II would buy to go to the Oscars which were threatened by some gang who really didn't like the movies that year. A well-off character, yes, could probably afford it at the start(maybe jack Availability up for people who play with that rule or put a note on the Level 3 like 'GM Discretion at chargen' like Adapsin has. I think Level 1 should be okay.). A combo of this might help out with that whole 'Must...Have' feel. It'll still be good, and it should be(while I'm pretty firmly pink mohawk and love things like changelings, I do have SOME 'realistic' thoughts as well in the game, and it simply makes sense to me they'd develop better and more discreet armor over time. In other words while I can easily roll with pink mohawk, and prefer it, I don't have a problem picturing things like 'technology getting better over the years'.)

(Note: I do not have a problem with armor layering to a reasonable extent. IMO, FFBA under armor just plain makes sense. Which is why I'd crank up the price on it considerably. If I were to try to cut down armor layering but still keep it making sense, I might lower the effectiveness of armor by, say, -2/-1; so take the layered armor's total and knock -2/-1 off of that. So in the above example, George Clooney 2 might wear some...Armored Tux at 5/3 and a full FFBA for 5/2, but instead of 10/5 he'd run on 8/4.)

Smartlink I'd go back to differing the goggles and the implanted one is all.

Eye mods? This is another one of those situations where it's plain sensible to have them. Maybe do the same here as with smartlinks? Have the non-implanted versions nice, but not quite as good as the implanted ones.

Now the 'Best In Slot' syndrome...I honestly don't feel that as much, since I always liked tweaking out my own weapons. Get an inexpensive assault rifle and pimp it with the works-it's always been great fun(I have a sam right now whose essentially got a high armoring skill and he loves doing this stuff.) That being said, I can maybe see some sorta thing here. What I'd do-and keep in mind I'm more of the type that's 'Don't take away from people, ADD to the fun' is make building your own stuff more appealing. This however has it's own drawback for people who prefer a more pick up and play style, though, I admit. I'd love to find a happy medium with this one.

All in all, I'd love for there to be more good choice in the game instead of 'just pick this', because I love toys and gear I admit. But at the same time I don't want to see a ton of stuff nerfed to hell and back, especially stuff that makes sense that would be in the game. I think some simple changes would help though.

[phlapjack77]

An interesting result of the way cybereyes and eye "gear" work, is that mostly mages want the cybereyes while everyone else gets the contacts/glasses. Good or bad?

[Umidori]

the AA is the best shotgun (FA, GV and R availability. Did I mention that GV are usually not available for shotguns?)

Sorry for taking this snippet out of context of the larger post, but I dunno, man.

The AA packs some power, sure. But it's also the most expensive and least available shotty, with a base cost of 8,000 nuyen and 18R availability. So that's Restricted Gear to get one at start (the only shotgun in the game which needs it), and modding it is gonna be expensive. I also don't know why you mentioned it being only R availability, as there are no F availability shotguns. The FA firing is something of a double-edged sword, as shotguns suffer doubled uncompensated recoil, so even with further mods to help stabilize, you're losing a whole lot of dice to fire the damn thing. The unique gas-vent is nice, but only really valuable if you do plan on firing in FA, as BF can easily be compensated for with other cheap recoil mods. To be honest, the nicest thing about the weapon is the one thing you didn't mention - half ammo usage with suppressing fire. And since suppression doesn't impose recoil modifiers? Well, you don't actually need that gas-vent, now do you?

One other thing to note is the drum magazine, but that kind of depends on interpretation. Drum magazines are normally available for SMGs and assault rifles, at a cost of increased concealability. An inbuilt drum magazine on a shotgun ought to increase the concealability modifier compared to a standard shotgun with an internal magazine or removeable clip. Spare drums to reload with should also suffer a similar concealability modifier, being as they are larger than a standard clip. But that's something which isn't made clear via RAW, and will likely be argued over by GMs.

Compare to a Shiawase Arms Riot Guard (GH2, p. 24), modified for FA firing, given an additional clip, and with any of the 1 RC mods or accessories added onto its in-built 1 RC (presumably a folding stock, although the listing doesn't indicate one except via the RC stat). You end up with 2 less rounds of ammo split between two clips, identical concealability (dependant on how you rule the AA's drum magazine), identical RC, a price tag 3000 nuyen smaller, a char-gen friendly availability, free melee hardening and reduced weight, and even the in-world setting advantage of a police or security level weapon rather than an infamous military grade one. All you lose out on is 3 mod slots.

~Umi

[ravensmuse]

4e D&D stuff

You and I are going to disagree on this, so I'm not really interested in continuing it. What shadowjackal said is true though - it did bring in tons of new blood. Which you helpfully dismissed with, "they're just going to go back to their video games and card games!" and is kind of insulting to the folks that anecdotally, I know have gone deeper into the hobby.

The current belief regarding the changeover from 4e D&D and Next is essentially what shadowjackal said, by the way; they lost folks, 4e wasn't the OMG SALES BLOCKBUSTER Hasbro wanted, and Mearls has gone far, far off the deep end.

Existing simplified versions prove nothing - for all it's worth, I can create Shadowrun Diceless in a single sentence ("Let GM be the final arbiter what the characters should be able to do; if you have a conflict you need to resolve, play rock-paper-scissors until the GM wins twice or the player wins once"). The existence of simple variations says nothing when it comes to what rules subsystems should be changed in which way.

So, you're being a little dismissive here. Which you also do...

If you want to play with newbie players, there are rules-light systems, quick-start rules and the rest of the usual tools.

Here.

Right. Complex mechanics totally prohibits you from considering any of that.

And here.

Which is cool, but not really.

The examples I linked to are examples of how you can simplify Shadowrun without losing the stuff that's important: the themes, the archetypes, the games you can run. There's a lot more than a simple RPS system here - and frankly, this goes back to what I was saying before about a certain consensus of gamers who feel a certain way about simplified or streamlined systems: "they're dumb, and shallow, and for newbies."

My linked examples are for a sole purpose - to demonstrate what others have done, and show what could help improve Shadowrun in the long run.

It's the very first page after the usual "what is roleplaying" bit. How can it be hard to find or to read?

It doesn't go far enough. It doesn't really delve into the why's and who's and the roleplaying aspect of the game. It goes into the most basic running skeleton - yeah, you're going to be hired by a corporation, work for a Johnson, deal with fixers - but doesn't talk about why your character would do this. Hell, it barely even covers the archetypes properly, or the themes of the game. It just feels cursory, and needs to be expanded upon and discussed further.

With the same ranges for each category? Glorious. I'm sure it'll be fun to play a game where light pistols have the same range gaps as sniper rifles.

Because heavy rain is as difficult to see through as a thermal smoke grenade.

...it's bad because it removes the simulation of detail from the game.

...both rain and thermal smoke grenade are visibility modifiers, but arguing that both should give the same penalty is removing a layer of detail...

This is where you and I differ, and I'm afraid will never agree on.

I simply do not give two tosses about simulation in a game where fantasy elves, dwarves, orks and trolls, mix it up with regular humans while surfing the internet and drinking coffee. At that point? Realism / simulation has gone out the window.

My whole goal when it comes to utilizing a ruleset is, "does it make this game easy and fun to run?" A secondary concern is, "do I need to keep track of a million little modifiers and consult a bunch of tables to simply adjucate anything my players toss at me?"

Having to worry about multiple range tables for different guns is annoying to me, as is keeping track of the million little modifiers smoke, rain, car exhaust, or whatever scenario you care to throw at me can come up. This is not an important aspect of the game for me. It is for you though! And that's fine - just don't be surprised that we don't see eye to eye on this.

Considering that this topic is, "what do YOU want from Shadowrun 5e," I thought it was okay to share how I'd like to see the game turn. Because the above is what I would like to see.

And why exactly don't you skip the intricacies you don't like and let the others decide whether they want them in their games on their own? It's not like even SR4 is a system bloated enough for anyone with a free evening not to be able to decide which part of it he likes.

Oh, okay, never mind then.

[ravensmuse]

There is a certain difference between "I get that generic implant that gives me +1 IP" and "I get wired reflexes". Because the latter comes with fluff, and that is half the immersion.

Again back to my previous point: there's "heavy pistol 5P / -1 AP" and then there's Ares Predator or Ruger Super Warhawk. Guess which one is iconic and interesting to have on your charsheet?

Tell me why the Ares Predator or the Super Warhawk are important and sacrosant, beyond name recognition and canon legacy. And then I'll agree with you on this.

All we're talking here is skin and bones. I'm not afraid to change skin ("Heavy Pistol" = "Ares Predator") without changing bones. It's a lesson learned from 4e D&D, and it was a good lesson to learn, IMHO.

Maybe that's because I'm trying to take a sober view of things, pointing out both the achievements and the failures for anyone, instead of using "poo-pooing anything" as a point of an argument?

This does nothing to mitigate my perception that you're being hypocritical, but that's all right, I'll drop it.

I don't know if a setting as complex and nuanced as Shadowrun really invites newbie RPGers anyway.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but this is the weirdest thing to think.

You want new blood in your game, because that's the only way to survive. Continue to make it arcane and have a barrier to entry, and you get D&DNext.

[AKWeaponsSpecial...]

Seriously, you guys? Can't you just leave the pissing match in PM's? At least that way the rest of us don't have to watch you measure your hate boners.

On topic:
I'd love to see combat be more lethal. Hit locations (random or otherwise) would be a boon to the system, as would subsystem damage.
Make hacking as intuitive as combat. Make melee combat a risky, but rewarding endeavor. I could go either way on the mage/shaman divide, since I didn't arrive in SR until 4e, which brings me to my next point.
A fraggin' timeline. Not some shenanigans involving the corps, because without knowing the canon, that's all pointless. What IS Dunkelzahn's will? What are Immortal Elves? Drakes?
Shadowtalk is nice, but I shouldn't have to read callbacks and references and then tell my players I have half a clue what's going on in this world.
Make Legwork intuitive. Player's Resources (Contact Rating, Knowledge Skills) vs. Security Rating.
Increase the divide between AR and VR. Don't just make VR "AR, but better and slightly droolier". Remote VR hacking is silly, since it would either require hacking every node between you and your target (no way that could go wrong); a datajack could still have a place, if VR hacking were both on-site and brute force. If you have time to set up a fake account with all of the associated benefits, it's better to have an AR hacker slip in and out. If you have to brute-force it, call in a decker, and pray your gunner can keep corpsec off him long enough to retrieve your target.
If the timeline is moved on, make mages and adepts more common; also, give mundanes more magic resistance. Yes, magic is scary and special and dangerous. Doesn't mean that wizards should make runs simple.
Honestly, most weapons SHOULD be pretty similar within a category. Any unique or awesome weapons should be at the bleeding edge, and ridiculously difficult to get. Yes, that gun will be more accurate, but more prone to malfunction. This other one, though, is cheap, and almost unbreakable, but its accuracy is....lacking, to say the least.
Encumbrance rules: Wanted. Give items a Bulk rating (could wrap into Concealment) instead of a weight. Give clothing items (and armor accessories) Bulk Reduction (or a Concealment bonus) so that wearers can make better use of their gear (and carry it more efficiently).

This is my current 5e Christmas List.
By all means, let me know your opinion. If you're halfway civil and aren't waving an edition flag, I'd be glad to discuss it.

[ElFenrir]

I'd love to see combat be more lethal. Hit locations (random or otherwise) would be a boon to the system, as would subsystem damage.

What I'd like to see is, in the combat chapter, a section on easy ways to make combat more AND less lethal that are more in depth than the tiny charts they have now. Our table goes with the middle-ground approach, for example. It'd be great if they could have some pretty clean, not too crazy rules on how to adjust your game fairly simply for this. The hit box rule could be a great optional one, for example. I mean the past few expansions they gave some very basic ways to do it, but I'd say try to get it both a BIT more in depth, but still not too convoluted. Hit boxes would I think go a decent way into potentially making combat more lethal. Including the armor degradation rules in the core could also help with that.

As for less lethal options, they could perhaps say that armor layering is easier, or somehow get being able to cut down damage with a defensive roll easier.

[NiL_FisK_Urd]

Remote VR hacking is silly, since it would either require hacking every node between you and your target (no way that could go wrong); a datajack could still have a place, if VR hacking were both on-site and brute force.

Half of your sentence is missing ^^
@Hacking every node: This is not true, like today, your data packets are routed from you to the target system.

[Sengir]

The problem with hit locations becomes creating armour values by location, health by location, and then creating a smooth system for determining where people get hit.

1. Armor by location is precisely what I want, because it solves the headaches of somebody running around with no armor but a helmet.
2. Health by location would be unnecessary for natural limbs, because getting shot in your flesh and blood leg certainly leg does affect your whole body. At most you'd need a system that renders a limb useless if it takes X damage in a single shot, if that happens to the head the victim goes unconscious.
3. Cyberarms and -legs with their own CMs, why not actually? The extra bookkeeping (compared to what cyberlimbs always bring) does not sound prohibitive, and the extra CMs would be balanced by the fact that Armor in your left arm no longer protects the whole body...

So what it boils down to is creating an easy system for determining hit locations. And it should fit the rest of the system, "roll a D20 for each attack and check the Hit Locations Table" would obviously work but break with the rest of the system too much.

I agree, a datajack in a cyberlimb shouldn't have an essence cost -- the cyberlimb's already attached to the nervous system -- you aren't making 'more attachment'.

I meant that putting a Datajack (or Commlink) into a limb should not change the 'jack's Essence cost. The cost comes from the necessary wiring, an that needs to be done no matter where it gets installed.

[nezumi]

Going back to the idea of a 'dual-statted, high-complexity/low-complexity' game, where people can use either set of mechanics and play in the same game ...

What if you set it up so your low-complexity player has a small list of skills that she is especially good at. She gets bonuses to the point that she is basically a specialist, so her sheet says "this is what you're good at - and that's it".

Then the high-complexity character gets to run things basically as they are now, but with the system set up to make it easier to excel in a broad range of synergistic areas. However, your high-complexity character isn't likely to be quite as good as the low-complexity character in the field of her choice.

You can choose one path or the other (but not both).

This means that the high-complexity player can still play with those numbers and have a useful character. In fact, knowing these sorts of players, he can probably *still* make the system sing for him enough to compete with the low-complexity character (the system just doesn't make it easy). The low-complexity character takes a 'penalty' for doing things the easy way, but it's one that gives other people a space to shine, without making things not fun for said player.

It also means that when you're running large groups, the system supports you. Large groups need specialists, not generalists, and faster gameplay. So force everyone to play the low-complexity rules.

Thoughts?

[bannockburn]

1. Armor by location is precisely what I want, because it solves the headaches of somebody running around with no armor but a helmet.
2. Health by location would be unnecessary for natural limbs, because getting shot in your flesh and blood leg certainly leg does affect your whole body. At most you'd need a system that renders a limb useless if it takes X damage in a single shot, if that happens to the head the victim goes unconscious.
3. Cyberarms and -legs with their own CMs, why not actually? The extra bookkeeping (compared to what cyberlimbs always bring) does not sound prohibitive, and the extra CMs would be balanced by the fact that Armor in your left arm no longer protects the whole body...

So what it boils down to is creating an easy system for determining hit locations. And it should fit the rest of the system, "roll a D20 for each attack and check the Hit Locations Table" would obviously work but break with the rest of the system too much.



I meant that putting a Datajack (or Commlink) into a limb should not change the 'jack's Essence cost. The cost comes from the necessary wiring, an that needs to be done no matter where it gets installed.

First off: I disagree with your whole posting, but it's certainly a valid wish.
I just hope it gets disregarded as a whole.
Some of the things I really like about SR (and have always liked) is the lack of hit locations. If I want that, I play BattleTech. Everything else can be done by liberal application of brain.

Also, no, essence cost for a jack and / or similar ware _should_ be 0 when installed into a cyberlimb. The limb already has DNI. You don't need any more wiring. (Yes, I realize, it's a fluff reason which stands against your fluff reason, but it also works well mechanically, IMO)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I agree, a datajack in a cyberlimb shouldn't have an essence cost -- the cyberlimb's already attached to the nervous system -- you aren't making 'more attachment'. The amount of additional implantation would be so miniscule as to be irrelevant. It's why I'm glad cybereyes and cyberears give a certain amount of freebies on essence. I can see where you're coming from in reference to bone lacing (and I think the same should apply to things like muscle augmentation, too).

Datajacks in Cyberlimbs do not have an Essence Cost (They take up Capacity of 1 instead). I am curious as to why you (or anyone, actually) think they do.

[Stahlseele]

Because for a Datajack or anything else that needs to have a DNI-Connetion to work in a Cyber-Limb, you have to install a second DNI which then takes up essence, as it has to be wired into your CNS to propperly work, because these devices function differently and can't hitchhike on the DNI to the limb. Else, every time you give a command via the Datajack, your Arm moves for example.
At least, that's how it was and explained in SR3.

[bannockburn]

Nah. You can just use the databus of the cyberarm DNI connection (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
See? Fluff reason trumps fluff reason. Both are equally valid.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Because for a Datajack or anything else that needs to have a DNI-Connetion to work in a Cyber-Limb, you have to install a second DNI which then takes up essence, as it has to be wired into your CNS to propperly work, because these devices function differently and can't hitchhike on the DNI to the limb. Else, every time you give a command via the Datajack, your Arm moves for example.
At least, that's how it was and explained in SR3.

Except that that is not how it works in SR4A. *shrug*

[Sengir]

Some of the things I really like about SR (and have always liked) is the lack of hit locations. If I want that, I play BattleTech.

I see where your scepticism is coming from when you're equating hit locations and Battletech...Torso bombs for the win (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

The limb already has DNI. You don't need any more wiring. (Yes, I realize, it's a fluff reason which stands against your fluff reason, but it also works well mechanically, IMO)

Well, my fluff reason is that the limb only has the DNI wiring required for its function, but not much more. Controlling a spur is not "much more", but Simsense via a Datajack is.

[bannockburn]

Don't get me wrong, I love BattleTech (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I propose that we agree to disagree on the matter of DNI. It's all in the fluff and doesn't matter a lot, after all. My line of thinking is that you've payed a lot of essence for the limb, so it should have some perks. Because I like having people run around with cyberarms. Very iconic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Epicedion]

Any update to the system has got to address at least the following issues that were introduced in SR4:

1) Cyberware is too easily replaced with non-cyberware equivalents. It's often easier and cheaper (and costs less essence) to have skinlink contact lenses with thermo and full visual display and full smartlink than it is to have cybereyes, and spatial recognizer earbuds with filters and recording capability hooked up to your inifinite-storage commlink than cyberears.

2) Smartlinks are too weak.

3) AR hacking at VR speeds with no significant shortcomings.

4) Wireless hacking in general -- it tends to be either a headache or impotent.

5) Capabilities of computer systems -- computers in SR4 appear designed specifically to be hacked and defend against hacking. Actual work seems to have barely gotten a thought. There's no way a node could handle an office environment or connect to passersby and generate AR content without breaching active user and program limits. This means that a regular office would need dozens of nodes (probably all named stuff like O1F2WGP_XL7_3415) and be fairly impenetrable in the same way hiding your spare door key in a fake rock stored in a pile of hundreds of fake rocks each with fake keys would make your house pretty secure.

[Fatum]

You and I are going to disagree on this, so I'm not really interested in continuing it. What shadowjackal said is true though - it did bring in tons of new blood. Which you helpfully dismissed with, "they're just going to go back to their video games and card games!" and is kind of insulting to the folks that anecdotally, I know have gone deeper into the hobby.
The current belief regarding the changeover from 4e D&D and Next is essentially what shadowjackal said, by the way; they lost folks, 4e wasn't the OMG SALES BLOCKBUSTER Hasbro wanted, and Mearls has gone far, far off the deep end.

I'm glad you see that the supposed new fan base did not not bring enough money in to keep the edition around.
Let's leave D&D discussion at this, nothing good ever comes of it.

So, you're being a little dismissive here. Which you also do...Here. And here.

I like how you simply drop the arguments you can't counter.
Each tool has its use. You want a system that allows you to run a game ten minutes after making that decision, or one that doesn't require reading a full book worth of rules, etc - all in all, any one good for the first games introducting someone to the hobby, you take a rules-light system or a diceless one. Why you think Shadowrun should be one, when it has a tradition of being exactly the opposite, is beyond me. It's like saying we don't need electronic microscopes because they take a long time to set up, and a simple lens magnifies things, too.

The examples I linked to are examples of how you can simplify Shadowrun without losing the stuff that's important: the themes, the archetypes, the games you can run.

None of these depend on the rulesystem at all.

It goes into the most basic running skeleton - yeah, you're going to be hired by a corporation, work for a Johnson, deal with fixers - but doesn't talk about why your character would do this.

Because no sane person with a runner's skill is going to be a runner unless under some very specific set of circumstances. It does explain what you initially wanted of it before moving the goal posts, though: that the runners are not the cavalry.

I simply do not give two tosses about simulation in a game where fantasy elves, dwarves, orks and trolls, mix it up with regular humans while surfing the internet and drinking coffee. At that point? Realism / simulation has gone out the window.

Apparently we're not agreeing on this one, yes. My take is that we're having the same coffee whether it's a human or an ork drinking it. The world works by the same general laws, it's just some of the circumstances that are changed. Same goes for magical medieval settings as well.

Tell me why the Ares Predator or the Super Warhawk are important and sacrosant, beyond name recognition and canon legacy. And then I'll agree with you on this.

Name recognition and canon legacy are reason enough. For implants, it goes deeper, of course, because for them fluff descriptions are the thing allowing you to imagine what having that implant feels like.

This does nothing to mitigate my perception that you're being hypocritical, but that's all right, I'll drop it.

"The Blizzard's fan base has demands different from those of the roleplayers" and "Blizzard's games prove people are willing to go to any length to advance their character" combined make me hypocritical? That's nice to know.

You want new blood in your game, because that's the only way to survive. Continue to make it arcane and have a barrier to entry, and you get D&DNext.

Why do you equate players new to Shadowrun to players new to the hobby at large?

[Misdemeanor]

Don't get me wrong, adjusting the timeframe is fine. 'Jumping' in 20 years and basically replacing HUGE parts of it, just 'cause is what bothers me. Wireless was already being introduced in SR3, and should have slowly come along, especially given how insecure it is in SR4. Why the hell would anyone, much less a corp with billions to spend on security, put anything out there on a SR4 node?

Aside from that, jacking in was just cooler. Buying an off the shelf tablet and being at the highest level of hacking hardware possible is lame. Make it personal again, where you write your own code and make your own stuff. I don't care what year it is in-game. That is just better for the setting.

Something that most people fail to realize the future is closer then we think. A fully wireless world WiMax ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX ) will be Fully realized in a very shot time, Limb replacement (cyber-Ware) and Stem Cell research (Bio-ware) there was even another dumpshock post about future muscle replacement. If anything SR needs to Step up to keep ahead of reality

[Bigity]

Something that most people fail to realize the future is closer then we think. A fully wireless world WiMax ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX ) will be Fully realized in a very shot time, Limb replacement (cyber-Ware) and Stem Cell research (Bio-ware) there was even another dumpshock post about future muscle replacement. If anything SR needs to Step up to keep ahead of reality

Because that's not cyberpunk. SR is, or at least should be, a mainly cyberpunk game, along with the fantasy elements that made it unique. If I want to play a modern scifi game or something, I'd play it/buy it.

And you are fooling yourself if you think we are gonna see a wireless world in our lifetimes. Not while someone can make money off of slowly upgrading areas outside of major metropolitan areas (read: most of the world).

It's beside the point anyway. SR was never meant to be a real world in the future with elves simulator. It was based on a specific idea of what the future would be, and should stick to that. At least, IMO. Of course whoever owns the license gets to make that call. I can't say what sales looked like in previous editions vs now, and I'm not even sure those numbers would mean anything with the way the industry has been lately.

All I can say is that I, personally, will not be purchasing any of the RPG material if it sticks to what 4E has already been doing, because I'm not interested in it. Fluff wise, or crunch wise.

[Tashiro]

Because that's not cyberpunk. SR is, or at least should be, a mainly cyberpunk game, along with the fantasy elements that made it unique. If I want to play a modern scifi game or something, I'd play it/buy it. And you are fooling yourself if you think we are gonna see a wireless world in our lifetimes. Not while someone can make money off of slowly upgrading areas outside of major metropolitan areas (read: most of the world). It's beside the point anyway. SR was never meant to be a real world in the future with elves simulator. It was based on a specific idea of what the future would be, and should stick to that. At least, IMO. Of course whoever owns the license gets to make that call. I can't say what sales looked like in previous editions vs now, and I'm not even sure those numbers would mean anything with the way the industry has been lately. All I can say is that I, personally, will not be purchasing any of the RPG material if it sticks to what 4E has already been doing, because I'm not interested in it. Fluff wise, or crunch wise.

Hmm. I'd say Shadowrun's moved closer to near-future science fiction and is moving away from pure cyberpunk. (post-cyberpunk, in fact) I disagree that Shadowrun has to 'stick with' anything. The modern world is evolving, and Shadowrun is stronger for evolving with it. If it tried to cling hard and fast to 'cyberpunk', it'd go the way of the Cyberpunk RPG - which basically fell into irrelevancy.

I like Shadowrun specifically because it is a living, evolving game. As we develop in the present, it develops. As some things fall by the wayside, it discards those as well. This keeps Shadowrun relevant, and easy to connect with. If it didn't, if it stuck with things like Cyberpunk did, I'd start getting the same disconnect: "I can do this now, how come I can't do this in the game?"

As for wireless... it'll get there, a bit at a time. In Shadowrun, it got a boost, because a specific megacorp jumped in and made it happen while everyone else was still recovering from Crash 2.0. I don't think we're going to need that kind of kick in the pants, but I think we're moving in that direction.