Excited for SR5? Options

[DrZaius]

Hey everyone,

So I figured after having started reading the forums a bit this past week since SR5 is coming out soon that surely SOMEONE else is excited. I have a theory that there is a very vocal minority that is upset about some of the new rules, but the majority of the community is excited for a new system, improving on and and expanding from SR4.

So what do you think? What are you excited about from the new system?

-DrZ

[Draco18s]

My optimism was high and rising as the devs discussed things on the blog. As I see material coming out I'm retreating back to Bogata!

[Fatum]

You're misunderstanding. People are upset about the new rules precisely because they're excited for the new system, but it's not looking as promising as they'd wish.

[Draco18s]

You're misunderstanding. People are upset about the new rules precisely because they're excited for the new system, but it's not looking as promising as they'd wish.

QFT. I was excited about limits and wireless bonuses and so on, but the rules that have come out have been...lackluster at best.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I'm excited for the overall direction of the product with a handful of bitches based on what we've seen. I put myself at cautiously optimistic due to the issues I have.

[Not of this Worl...]

The 5th edition looks like it has checked off 2.5 out of 3 of my essential boxes for me to come back to a new edition. I know better than to get my hopes too high though, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

There are some game direction things I don't care for, but so far they seem like they'll be very easy to homerule away. So long as 5th edition does return to forcing those things in later books, I'll probably be shelling out for a number of products. But at this point it is still very conditional.

[Glyph]

Limits didn't bother me that much. I saw them as a necessary complication to cut down on dice pool bloat by having another potential vector that bonuses could go to. I was discouraged by some of the other rules, but the nail in the coffin for me was those stupid wireless bonuses. I could have gotten behind the concept if they had expanded on things like tacnets, but needing to connect to the matrix so your wired reflexes and your reaction enhancers can work together is beyond lame. I won't be getting it when it comes out. I will wait until they fix some of the more glaring problems, and possibly I won't be converting to the new edition at all. It's a shame, because the initial previews had me excited for it.

[nezumi]

I'm not CGL's target audience and haven't been for years. I don't expect SR5 is a game made to scratch my itch, so I haven't even been reading about it.

I'd love to be surprised though.

[Draco18s]

Limits didn't bother me that much. I saw them as a necessary complication to cut down on dice pool bloat by having another potential vector that bonuses could go to. I was discouraged by some of the other rules, but the nail in the coffin for me was those stupid wireless bonuses. I could have gotten behind the concept if they had expanded on things like tacnets, but needing to connect to the matrix so your wired reflexes and your reaction enhancers can work together is beyond lame. I won't be getting it when it comes out.

I could get behind things like clearly wireless functionality in items (the inductive charging thing is actually quite clever), but some of them are retarded.

And it pretty much moved me from "excited" to "fence" in one fell swoop.

[Shortstraw]

My optimism was high and rising as the devs discussed things on the blog. As I see material coming out I'm retreating back to Bogata!

Take the submarine it's faster.

Also I voted no as I never buy new editions of anything until after I have had a chance to try them out and see if they are better than the old ones.

[binarywraith]

Definitely bearish at this point. I'll probably spring for the .pdf, but I'm out of the market for a $60 hardback version of rules that it's looking like I'm going to have to do heavy lifting in the houserule department to make playable at my table.

[Godwyn]

I went with cautiously optimistic. I love getting new rulesets and delving into them and learning them. So, I am still excited about doing despite some dire portents I have already seen about them. Wireless bonuses: Idea = good. Implementation = bad. I am not going OMG Hackable 'ware! I always assumed it was hackable, and either exploited that potential or took steps to prevent it. I even made a GM cry when my fully cybered up character and an ai character had his node implanted inside and linked up so he could control my 'ware at his convenience. Ai + skillwires = continue operating while unconscious. Even if operating was simply fleeing.

The problem being most of the bonuses seem stupid. Oddly, one of the few I actually do like is the wired reflexes + reaction enhancers online allowing you to exceed the regular cap. That is nifty. GPS/phone on a knife? Useful if in an area with matrix access and you lost your commlink.

I am also not as upset about it as many because most of the wireless bonuses seem so worthless as to be negligible to begin with. Change color of the gun only while online. What? Concealable holster more concealed while online?

[cndblank]

I'm all in.

I can house rule the worse of it (switch the bonuses on Smartguns, Allow DNI links to active gear as a free action, restore skin links).

I like nearly all of the structural changes they are making.
My issues are all about them going a bridge too far.

Plus since I run in 2056, I'll need to house rule some of the changes just to stay in the spirit of the setting.
Maybe set Delta prices to 4 times base cost instead of 2.5.

I was ready to buy it for the change to stick and shock alone and the skills going up to rating 12 alone.

[Medicineman]

I will definitely wait for the errataed german version AND for (German) Running harder, because the Priority System is ...Sub-optimal and I'd like to have the karma Version for Char Creation
So I'll have to wait maybe for 1/2 a Year

with a patient Dance
Medicineman

[ShadowDragon8685]

I will definitely wait for the errataed german version AND for (German) Running harder, because the Priority System is ...Sub-optimal and I'd like to have the karma Version for Char Creation
So I'll have to wait maybe for 1/2 a Year

with a patient Dance
Medicineman

Stahlseele suggested that I should bide my time and learn German until the German SR5 drops. I then wondered why nobody would back-translate the German SR5 into English and sold as Shadowrun 5 + German Engineering, and he pointed out that the German producers offered and CGL declined.

*Sigh*

The forums are angry because we've been anticipating SR5 for a while, and now it's turning out to look like a major subsystem is going to be so thoroughly screwed-up as to render the entire setting irreconcilable. It's not asking us to suspend our disbelief the way we can suspend our disbelief to accept the existence of magic, cybertechnology and Great Dragons, it's asking us to suspend so much disbelief that we just accept whatever they tell us. It is fully equivalent, if more complex, to telling us to accept that wearing a flourescent pink, neon suit grants you a bonus to initiative whilst at the same time negating any attempt at stealth, and telling us to accept that as a fair trade-off, nevermind the fact that does not make sense.

It's very much like an MMORPG telling you that a man wearing approximately as much armor plate as went into the construction of a main battle tank's turret and a woman wearing an inch-and-a-half-thick steel bikini are equally as protected. That flies in an MMORPG because hey, most of the demographic likes looking at nearly-naked women. It even can fly somewhat in fantasy TTRPGs, though there are still places that if you bring it up, you'll light off a firestorm.

But Shadowrun isn't like that. Shadowrun is a game that tells us that the game setting is our world plus sixty-some years and magic. We can accept both of those premises. We can accept the cyberware premise, too, we can accept hot-sim VR, we can accept elves and trolls and so forth and so on as being sapient beings with genetics very similar enough to that of baseline humans as to interbreed. We can accept those. We cannot accept "don your flourescent pink neon zoot suit to gain a bonus to initiative," because that has no basis in the physical laws of our world and the suit is not enchanted to do so. And even if it were, we would question why the suit cannot be, say, an enchanted outfit which is matte black, or rutherenium, or why we cannot then cover the enchanted pink initiative-enhancing suit and still retain the initiative bonus whilst regaining your stealth bonus.

We're angry, because we want to love Shadowrun 5, we want it so very much, but something which is wholly incongruous to the setting we know has been installed as a core part of the setting.

To put it in an analogy, it's like someone who is an avid motoring enthusiast, eagerly anticipating the day when Porsche releases a true successor to the Carrera GT (love that car,) and they make something which is beautiful and handles like a dream... But the engine only operates on two cylinders and the transmission only operates as an automatic in first through fourth gear, unlessyou activate the car GPS system that records your location and rate of travel and makes this information freely available to anyone (including law enforcement officers) who thinks to ask it.

[Sendaz]

Stahlseele suggested that I should bide my time and learn German until the German SR5 drops. I then wondered why nobody would back-translate the German SR5 into English and sold as Shadowrun 5 + German Engineering, and he pointed out that the German producers offered and CGL declined.

*Sigh*

I am sorry if I am being obtuse, but I am curious, why would the German version necessarily be that much different than the English version? Maybe I missed a key post somewhere to explain how the errata would be that much of an improvement so sorry if this seems a dumb question.

[Elfenlied]

If the forum shitstorm is any indication, Mystic Adept Hackers/Deckers are going to be the most awesome characters ever.

[Sunshine]

I am sooo the targeted marketing demographic for this: I already preordered 2 Core Books and a Limited Edition (one for the Shelves, one as Birhtday Present, one for me, oh dang I forgot one for my wife..., oha wait - no she gets the german one) in my local gaming store.
If it is Shadowrun and L5R I am an early adopter (or as we call it in Austria, A Trottel) only with the Microsoft Game I dodged a bullet but SR Returns is already preordered.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! A Run After Midnight... Rickrolla!
Sunshine

[hermit]

I then wondered why nobody would back-translate the German SR5 into English and sold as Shadowrun 5 + German Engineering, and he pointed out that the German producers offered and CGL declined.

What, CGL even implying they can make mistakes?

Bearish. Maybe the iffy parts can be salvaged with house ruling. Maybe not. A fucking pity, because SR5 had many ideas I could get behind in an instant. So far, however, I haven't liked many implementations.

[Shinobi Killfist]

If the forum shitstorm is any indication, Mystic Adept Hackers/Deckers are going to be the most awesome characters ever.

Mystake Adepts sure, deckers we will have to see how fast you can hack for real effect. If at best you are ejecting a clip in your pass, its kind of a so what level. Hacking might still not be up to snuf for combat hacking on the players side. Now the GM can really hose the players with it though as the deckers in the corp facility have all the time in the world to get the players. The players bump into a security team, they don't have all the time in the world to hack them. Still they sped it up and deckers were already one of the most awesome archetypes in the game so now the hecking they used to do can be done with less prep.

[carmachu]

I'm excited. More shadowrun stuff is always good.

[Draco18s]

I am sorry if I am being obtuse, but I am curious, why would the German version necessarily be that much different than the English version? Maybe I missed a key post somewhere to explain how the errata would be that much of an improvement so sorry if this seems a dumb question.

The German version has errata.

[Stahlseele]

IF i decide to buy this at all, then yes, as Medicineman said, i will be buying the obviously better german version as well . .
If only just to know what's being talked about anyway . . no plans of playing this period.

[Elfenlied]

The German version has errata.

And tends to cut content that is nonsensical, i.e. the Slow spell and the Concentration camp ghosts from War.

[DrZaius]

And tends to cut content that is nonsensical, i.e. the Slow spell and the Concentration camp ghosts from War.

Just a guess, but I think there may be other reasons they'd be hesitant to discuss concentration camp ghosts? I know there are laws in Germany about how you can and can't discuss the Holocaust.