Sixth Edition, Release Announcement Options

[Jaid]

so, i was just thinking of something.

i was considering how in the interviews jason hardy talked about making the books shorter and challenging themselves to reach 300 pages, and how they were streamlining everything (we'll see how that goes), and so on, and then i remembered something more... i'm pretty sure he also talked about adjusting the amount of fiction to make it fit.

isn't that pretty much cheating on the supposed challenging of themselves? all of the wonderful things that he was imagining would happen as a result of that restriction rely on not just getting around that restriction... that's basically the equivalent of adding pages to your allowed amount.

now, it's possible i'm just crazy and remember it wrong. but i'm almost certain i remember that being something he said...


(also, on a side note, SR4A was deliberately made longer than SR4, and as far as i can tell seems to be widely regarded as the better version of the book, so the idea that shorter is better feels sketchy in the first place, but it feels even more sketchy if you're gonna cheat your system... )

[Sendaz]

One of the weird things that keeps bugging me about the new Edge is doesn't just boost YOU the edge user, it can actually undermine an opponent with little to no normal resistance.

In Hardy's podcast example, at 34:30 specifically, they mentioned how one could spend a pile of their edge to cause their opponent to count 2's in addition to the normal 1's toward glitch totals.

Okay granted, it not's as good as the Accident Spirit Power, but consider even with the Accident power a runner gets to roll Reaction+Intuition to avoid that Power effect at least, where as the Edge effect can not be directly avoided though the target can of course spend their edge (if available) to buy off those glitches.

[Jaid]

One of the weird things that keeps bugging me about the new Edge is doesn't just boost YOU the edge user, it can actually undermine an opponent with little to no normal resistance.

In Hardy's podcast example, at 34:30 specifically, they mentioned how one could spend a pile of their edge to cause their opponent to count 2's in addition to the normal 1's toward glitch totals.

Okay granted, it not's as good as the Accident Spirit Power, but consider even with the Accident power a runner gets to roll Reaction+Intuition to avoid that Power effect at least, where as the Edge effect can not be directly avoided though the target can of course spend their edge (if available) to buy off those glitches.

well of course. how can you possibly withstand the mystical powers of having better armour than your opponent's weapons causing you to become more clumsy?

[Kyoto Kid]

One of the weird things that keeps bugging me about the new Edge is doesn't just boost YOU the edge user, it can actually undermine an opponent with little to no normal resistance.

In Hardy's podcast example, at 34:30 specifically, they mentioned how one could spend a pile of their edge to cause their opponent to count 2's in addition to the normal 1's toward glitch totals.

Okay granted, it not's as good as the Accident Spirit Power, but consider even with the Accident power a runner gets to roll Reaction+Intuition to avoid that Power effect at least, where as the Edge effect can not be directly avoided though the target can of course spend their edge (if available) to buy off those glitches.

...exactly and that is where it takes it from being a "situational modifier" to being more like a "power." I would house rule that use out immediately.

[Sengir]

i'm pretty sure he also talked about adjusting the amount of fiction to make it fit.

isn't that pretty much cheating on the supposed challenging of themselves? all of the wonderful things that he was imagining would happen as a result of that restriction rely on not just getting around that restriction... that's basically the equivalent of adding pages to your allowed amount.

Then I hope they add a lot of pages at the cost of fiction, because SR5 just overdid the fiction in rulebooks

In Hardy's podcast example, at 34:30 specifically, they mentioned how one could spend a pile of their edge to cause their opponent to count 2's in addition to the normal 1's toward glitch totals.

From the collection of known stuff
1 edge for +3 init
1 edge to re-roll any die, up to 5
2 edge to add +1 to a single rolled die
2 edge to give 1 edge to a teammate
2 edge to negate 1 edge used by the opponent
2 edge for “Signal Screening”: next action ignores penalty from Matrix noise
3 edge to get an automatic bonus hit
3 edge to heal a point of stun damage
4 edge to add your edge attribute to your roll with exploding sixes
4 edge heals a point of physical damage
4 edge to reroll all failures
5 edge to make your opponent’s 2s count for glitches
5 edge to create a special effect

[Sendaz]

From the collection of known stuff

Cool, didn't know someone had put together a list. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Kyoto Kid]

...they may as well go back to the old Karma Pool. At least that kept growing as the character advanced, and would only affect outcomes for that particular character.

You also only had one chance to save your hoop in what would be a fatal situation by burning all your good remaining Karma and Karma pool.

[Iduno]

...they may as well go back to the old Karma Pool. At least that kept growing as the character advanced, and would only affect outcomes for that particular character.

You also only had one chance to save your hoop in what would be a fatal situation by burning all your good remaining Karma and Karma pool.

They should probably go back to a combination of 3rd and 4th editions, and then work on the balance so every role is about equally useful.

[Kyoto Kid]

...and get rid of the "Luck Attribute."

[hermit]

Karma Pool always was a Luck Attribute anyway.

[Iduno]

I appreciate the simplification that edge was supposed to be: less figuring out the right balance of spending your pools on offense/defense. Unfortunately, because it didn't refresh often enough (because you had too much?) nobody at my tables used it much.

[Kyoto Kid]

Karma Pool always was a Luck Attribute anyway.

...Karma Pool wasn't an "Attribute," but a derived pool somewhat like Combat, Hacking, and Sorcery pools but which was based on TKE during a character's career. It started at 1 (2 for humans) at charagen and could be increased by +1 for every ten Karma earned (twenty for metas) which required expenditure of 1 point of "Good Karma". If there was no Good Karma Available (it was used say, for improving an attribute, skill, learning a new spell, or for initiation), it couldn't be increased until the character earned more. Yes it functioned sort of like Edge, but also had different uses and refreshed based on situation and/or GM call so characters tended to be more "judicious" about using it than what I see occurring with Edge in 5E.

Characters also only had one chance ever to call for a "Hand of God" and it required burning the entire Karma Pool plus all Good Karma the character had, and you often still had consequences to deal with.

[hermit]

I know. It filled the same slot, a representation of luck. I prefer an attribute raised whenever (that has a hard cap) instead of a Karma Tax, though, that created all sorts of inequalities, imbalances and problems. Also, I used Karma Pool more often than Edge actually, since characters very quickly had more KP than you can have Edge - and frankly, because it was plain necessary with SR3's skill system for non-pool supported rolls (hence my idea of making all tests skill + derived pool).

I did prefer the one Hand of God, but they decided to go for a more "cinematic" style. It's been in fashion in RPG design for a long time now - keep the rules as dumbed down, and the game as cinematic as possible. Besides, that still mmakes death far more meaningful than, say, in D&D with its drive-thru resurrection temples.

[Sendaz]

In case anyone wants to listen in...

----------------
From Hardy's Post elsewhere....
--------------------------
In case you're interested, I'll be talking Shadowrun and stuff online tonight at #randomworlds! Starts at 7:30 CDT!
https://www.shadowrunsixthworld.com
To join: https://tinyurl.com/randomworlds-chat
Log to be posted at: https://gmshoe.wordpress.com

[Kyoto Kid]

...play session #3 going live in about 5 min on Twitch.

[Tyro]

What a time for me to come back to the forums!

[Adhoc]

Reserving judgement until seeing the whole picture.

This is hardly a constructive strategy for facilitating a uninformed, highly opinionated & uninformed debate.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

/A.

[Sengir]

Well, the countdown on shadowrunsixthworld.com has gone to zero, and after glitches you can now watch some shadowtalk...or just read the complete version.

There also has also been a kind of ARG going on, which I completely missed because it was done as podcasts

[hermit]

Attack of the Null. Crash 2.5. Ah well, they had to transistion to new Matrix rules, device-based computing and sensibly priced cyberdecks somehow.

[Nstol_wisper]

I am the only one who has noticed the clues of regression in this book?
The name implies anarchy, yet it's the most obvious attempt at ordered and neutral toned narration to date.
Or is just the effect of a pendulum swinging the other way?
Or explaination hidden here is that kids do secretly hate their parents? OR parents do secretly hate their kids?
And strive to be different? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[AquaBlack0B]

I remember hearing someone in one of the other SR communities talk about how SR seems to have a "defeatist" attitude towards punk, as if since the corps won people may as well give in.

From the QSR (And reused from the Anarchy book): For some of us, corp life is not a life. The megacorps own enough in the world. They don’t need to own us. So we drop out and find another way. We do the jobs corps don’t want their regular employees to do, the things they don’t want connected back to them. Espionage missions; missions of theft, sabotage, and assault—maybe assassination if you swing that way That’s how we survive. We still have to dance to the corporate tune to some degree, but if we live right and build up our skills, we can become the best at what we do and get paid what we deserve. Then, maybe, instead of being one of us, scrambling under the heels of the powerful, we can be one of them, and remake a small part of the world in our image.

Supplanting authority and becoming it yourself doesn't seem very punk to me. It sounds more like what someone would say about a neo-anarchist or other sort of populist rebellion- where they're just putting on a facade. Sometimes true, sometimes not, but I always thought SR leaned more towards the "runners against the system" part of the cyberpunk genre. Even the QSR module is about saving a government official from some gangers. Are they trying to get the runners to work more within the confines of the system and for its own interests? It's off-tone, which is kind of a turn off, which is too bad since I really loved the edge system when I played through this.

[Iduno]

From the QSR (And reused from the Anarchy book): For some of us, corp life is not a life. The megacorps own enough in the world. They don’t need to own us. So we drop out and find another way. We do the jobs corps don’t want their regular employees to do, the things they don’t want connected back to them. Espionage missions; missions of theft, sabotage, and assault—maybe assassination if you swing that way That’s how we survive. We still have to dance to the corporate tune to some degree, but if we live right and build up our skills, we can become the best at what we do and get paid what we deserve. Then, maybe, instead of being one of us, scrambling under the heels of the powerful, we can be one of them, and remake a small part of the world in our image.

I mean, you could generously read that as having shades of the way SLC Punk ended, but I think it was meant to be somewhat of a downer (and probably realist) ending. Neither of which is a good way to start your future fantasy game.

[Koekepan]

I don't find it particularly defeatist.

Especially not compared to the original punks.

For those of you old enough to need the reminder, or young enough not to have heard the first time: the original punks were many things, but hopeful about the future and energetic about replacing the world were not often characteristics. They expected (remember, this was late Cold war era) to die in a fireball of nuclear ruin, and often thought that trying to build a legacy in that context was absurd, or at least darkly comic. This was one recurring theme behind their mockery of the establishment, as well as their rage at it.

The one thing that is relevant here is that they often did have a strong DIY attitude because they recognised that people inside the establishment would generally only collaborate with them, for the purpose of exploiting them. You couldn't rely upon the elite to do anything you wanted, so you might as well do it yourself. Tape your own music over someone else's, draw your own covers, and put out your own 'zines. But they still bought denim jackets at all the usual places.

So I don't think it's all that antithetical to punk to work within the limitations of the era.

[Glyph]

I am the only one who has noticed the clues of regression in this book?
The name implies anarchy, yet it's the most obvious attempt at ordered and neutral toned narration to date.
Or is just the effect of a pendulum swinging the other way?
Or explaination hidden here is that kids do secretly hate their parents? OR parents do secretly hate their kids?
And strive to be different? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

I'm not sure I would call it regression if they have finally toned down the douchebro tone that made SR5 so grating at times.

I dunno, I'm trying to be optimistic about the new edition, but I really don't like what I'm hearing about the new Edge rules. It seems like it makes the game more fiddly and complicated, but more abstract at the same time. I just hope these new situational uses of Edge won't be as ambiguous and subjective as they seem.

[hermit]

I'm not sure I would call it regression if they have finally toned down the douchebro tone that made SR5 so grating at times.

Instead, one of them went neo-nazi slang. The lack of douchebro-ness is noted and positive, though.