Sixth Edition, Release Announcement Options

[Rotbart van Dain...]

I also felt that 3E had the best world setting.

That's because SR3 had a world setting at the very end of SR3: Shadows of North America, Shadows of Europe and Shadows of Asia. In fact, even Shadows of Latin America was impacted by the embezzlement & subsequent walk-out... as was the SR4 6th World Almanac and the new corp book.

Mostly, I run SR4A games using SR2 & SR3 lore books, using updates from current SR4 books like Seattle 2072 and the 6th World Almanac. Things like the Magical Matrix, Borgs and the 4th World reenactment in Denver just... never happened and will never happen. Like the things from Cutting Black.

There were a lot of great threads and sub plots to use, most of which were poorly explained away in and after System Failure and some that were just forgotten.

System Failure was quite weak as a SR3 book, indeed. The flat out declaration that the big AI were dead was really bad, and killing off Captain Chaos as a SysOp and the Shadowland node system really drained the lore. ShadowSea is worse than Craigslist, Fastjack & Jackpoint just did not compare... and Jackpoint under Bull is just the same mess like anything else including Bull.

It was truly unfortunate that The Untethered Life never happened in Attitude due to the walk-out from AH... but, alas... we all know that the ghost of Cap is out there somewhere. Given SoLA, Chile would be my bet... if I were a betting man.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I have been converting that campaign (still set in 2061/62) over to 5E mechanics and doing some serious houseruling. (such as perception being an attribute roll like Memory or Composure, Using appropriate knowledge skills to complement active skills, and making all Chrome "throwback" but still granting bonuses as if it were wireless).

I still think you are seriously better off basing that on SR4A, as things like cyberware having DNI and internal connections are default there. And don't get me started on the things they did to some implants like the Trauma Damper in SR5...

Equipment can be wireless enabled for ease of integration... or not, at no real penalty. Or just Skinlink'ed - a nice option they just flat out retconned out of SR5 - without any explanation other than '..but combat-hacking, bruh!'.
There are no 'WiFi bonuses', limits and marks either and Unwired even features optional rules for a SR3 style Security Tally. And if you really want that 'Deck' lingo... just call everything up & including Response 3 a Commlink and everything above that a 'Deck'.
Playing Traveller 2nd Edition from Mongoose, even SR4A computer rules are horrible micro-management anyway. The SR3 deck rules or that stuff from SR5... just look positively insane in comparison.

And of course, SR4A features a core rule book that not only is actually including errata and polished layout to find things, but a master index referring to all the core supplements.

The only thing going for SR5 was that it was the most current and thus officially supported edition in things like Missions or convention events... and that is now in the past.

[Jaid]

Chrome "throwback" but still granting bonuses as if it were wireless).

you mean actually throwback, as in "actually has all of the functions that the old 'ware had back when it was not specially designed to be hacked by your enemies" rather than the new stupid throwback where your throwback gear is retconned into being incapable of functioning without being connected to the wireless matrix that didn't exist when your gear was made?

[Kyoto Kid]

...there were some things I didn't care for in 4E. One was turning deckers into "phone phreaks" by using coimmlinks instead of decks which allowed anyone to hack, even spell slingers. I also was not too keen on the hard skill caps as well along with spells becoming way too uber powerful while adepts got crocked by the initiation rules (needing to both increase their MA and initiate to get a power point [this was "sort of" fixed in Street Magic with the alternate rule of a flat 20 Karma per PP]).

I actually prefer the autofire rules in 5E as they impose a penalty from defence tests rather than increasing the DV, and love the suppression fire mode (allows for characters who are not primary combatants to have an effect in combat). I also like the fact that Genetics and Nanotech are better set up than they were in 4E.

I actually introduced a "skinlink" bio option when I was running in 3E. which I will be using in the updated campaign.

The final point is why I chose to use 5E over 4E or just going back to 3E. All the setting "fluff" is still primarily 3E particularly SoE, SoA (for Russia) Target Wastelands, and the two SOTA books. Also using Euro War Antiques (4E), the setting notes for Hawai'i from the Paradise Lost module (2E). as well as material from the Germany, and London Sourcebooks (1E).

@ Jaid: Exactly, all the original functionality. If you wanted to hack someone's internal systems in 3E, you had to physically jack into their gun, head, or cyber prosthesis. I also thought that teh 5E version of throwback was weak as the old stuff should have still worked. I have a 14 year old Notebook that still functions fine just as it did when I bought it, Crikey I have a TI-1200 calculator from the 1970's that works as it always did.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[...] the wireless matrix that didn't exist when your gear was made?

You mean the Magical Matrix? The one that is powered by the Souls of 100 dead Technomancers? Where everything is virtual and backup-ed everywhere?

Because wireless matrix predates back to SR3 - in fact, the Cellular Satellite Service provided that matrix worldwide to every cellphone and deck with a cellular interface. (It got destroyed in the 2nd Crash)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Well, to each his on, I suppose... but I kind of get the feeling that you didn't not quite take a look at the 20th Anniversary Edition... some of those things are kind of misconceptions of what SR4A does... and what SR5 does. SR5 is basically the MagicRun edition of SR4, with lot's of inflation added on top.

...there were some things I didn't care for in 4E. One was turning deckers into "phone phreaks" by using coimmlinks instead of decks which allowed anyone to hack, even spell slingers.

Like everyone is allowed to pick up a gun and shoot, indeed. Does that diminish the street samurai? If the only thing defining you character's role is a single piece of gear... I got really bad news for you. Because if there's one thing 'spell slingers' got to spare, it's money... so the mage was more likely to get a better deck. On the other hand... what you think of an 'exclusive' character concept in both SR3 & SR5 still is just a name under 'Connections' for the spell slinger. And God help you if you ever lost your deck or it was slagged by a Power Ball. The way the matrix works in SR5 was a complete aberration in the history of Shadowrun, and unceremoniously dumped again with SR6. Personally, I think that even SR6 is more similar than SR5 to SR1-4 matrix, as it has no MARKs. Still, SR3 Matrix was a lot different than people actually cared to remember... and it did not age too well. And neither has the variable target number.

My general impression is that in SR5, Magic became even more powerful - especially compared to Mundanes. Buying power Points was flat out broken in SR3 and only included as a stop-gap solution since there were no initiation rules in the main book - it completely threw any semblance of balance between Samurai and Adepts completely out of whack. Then again, since essence costs in SR5 went through the roof, the halving of the lower part of bio/cyber was removed, cyber is now brickable... let's just say it's pretty obvious they don't want people to play cybered mundanes. If you want to play lightly cybered Adept deckers or Mages, though... SR5 is the perfect system, as there are less skills involved than in SR4. Playing a hacker in SR4 really meant investment in Skills and Essence. In SR5 & SR3 - not so much... mostly money.

Can't really change your preconceptions, though... only encourage you to check how the systems actually work without house rules. And the skill scale thing... well, it's something that always was like that in the WoD. Personally, the option to build a new character that is world-class in one areas is something I really think grounds experienced characters. Like the Olympics - it kind of would be boring if there is no new talent, because the old guard has such a head start.

I actually prefer the autofire rules in 5E as they impose a penalty from defence tests rather than increasing the DV

That's in SR4 already, it's called wide burst. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

and love the suppression fire mode (allows for characters who are not primary combatants to have an effect in combat).

..and that is in SR4 was well. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I also like the fact that Genetics and Nanotech are better set up than they were in 4E.

Those were just carbon copies from SR4. Actually, with the whole CFD thing, the nano and gene thing in SR5 was a lot worse.

..scratch that. When I take a look at the rules for Nanite Hives in SR5, that is horrendous, compared to how it was in SR4. Basically telling people not to get them. Then again, Nanites did only degrade monthly in SR5 without them, instead of weekly like in SR4... making Nanites even better for Awakened, instead for Mundanes. MagicRun even there.

[Nath]

That's because SR3 had a world setting at the very end of SR3: Shadows of North America, Shadows of Europe and Shadows of Asia. In fact, even Shadows of Latin America was impacted by the embezzlement & subsequent walk-out... as was the SR4 6th World Almanac and the new corp book.

The third edition was released in 1998. So Shadows of North America was released in 2001, and System Failure and the Fourth Edition in 2005. SoNA doesn't really belong to "the very end of SR3". What's true is that Dragons of the Sixth World in 2003 and Shadows of Europe in 2004 (technically, the writing of SoE started first, but DotS got out before) kickstarted some sort a "World Tour" with Shadows of Asia, and the ill-fated Shadows of Latin America, but also a broader geographic coverage in books like Loose Alliances, Sprawl Survival Guide or State of the Art:2064.

Shadows of Latin America cancellation was a decision made along the the move to the 4th edition in 2005, with the "Shadows of..." format discontinued and replaced by the "two-cities" format (in Runner Havens, Corporate Enclaves and Feral Cities). That was four years before the embezzlement story and the departure of freelancers, which took place in 2009.

As far as I understand, the "Shadows of..." did not sell that well, especially given the amount of time, work, and pages they required. And obviously the 100 pages in Sixth World Almanac could not replace or properly update the 700 pages from 3rd edition (and 850 if you include SoLA) after the five years hiatus of System Failure.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

So your point is that the actual 'world setting', instead of just focusing North America, was either published 2004 (SoE) or 2005 (SoA)? Kind of at the very end of SR3? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Concerning SoLA, there was an option fostered by Synner to do a release as PDF only even after SR4 (that's why the fan PDF wasn't released earlier) - that possibility died when Hardy took over and declared that option dead. Thus, the fan-release coordinated by Synner.

As a whole, I agree on those books not generating enough RoI - that's why you saw the shovel-ware PDF style thing under Hardy, at the end of Sr4 and in extremes in SR5 where gear-books were split up a lot.

[Kyoto Kid]

...I admit I prefer point build systems (such a system was an optional choice in both 2E and 3E (Shadowrun Companion). The one major complaint I have with 5E is that they went back to the old priority table (the Karma Build option is weak in comparison to the older point build ones). For my campaign I am using the Sum to Ten build which gives players a bit more latitude as well as a slightly modified version of the Prime Runner level (as this is a difficult campaign). Basically what I am doing is combining what I like from 3E and 5E together and adding several house rules. Being that I have been involved with Missions for the last four and a half years and that most players in my area are very familiar with and well as have all most of the materials for 5E, that is what influenced my choice. If I had my druthers I'd just run it in 3E again but finding players knowledgeable or even interested in backtracking to an older edition is a real challenge.

I also fell out of the loop shortly after 4E was released partly because, as I mentioned, I had some issues with it and and setting. as well as because there was a general falloff of interest where I live at the time (hence I missed the 50th Anniversary edition), I actually did do another run-through of the campaign arc in 3E about 10 years ago and was in a short lived 3E campaign after that). I only got back into SR when I learned of a missions group about 5 years ago which met weekly at a FLGS nearby. Since then I became very comfortable with 5E (about the same as I was with 3E), in spite of its flaws, and over the years, picked up all the books on PDF.

Oh and I disagree that playing a Decker in 3E didn't require lots of skills particularly if you wanted to repair, modify, and upgrade your deck using the deck customisation rules as you needed quite good repertoire of supportive knowledge skills (as these actually had more value due to the complementary skills rule). The other part about 3E I liked were the resource levels as you could start with a pretty good deck, good mental attributes and enough physical augmentation to keep from ending up on a slab in the morgue. I actually played two different Deckers. who were quite successful.

[Jaid]

You mean the Magical Matrix? The one that is powered by the Souls of 100 dead Technomancers? Where everything is virtual and backup-ed everywhere?

Because wireless matrix predates back to SR3 - in fact, the Cellular Satellite Service provided that matrix worldwide to every cellphone and deck with a cellular interface. (It got destroyed in the 2nd Crash)

practically speaking, no the wireless matrix does not go that far back. oh sure, you could connect to the wired matrix through a wireless connection, to some extent at least. but the matrix was most definitely wired.

[Kyoto Kid]

...yep the decker just couldn't sit in an armoured van and remotely hack a host. Back in the "old days, he or she had to go in with the rest of the team and physically "jack in" perform overwatch for the team, open doors, loop cameras, disable countermeasures. suppress alerts, all while avoiding IC and spiders. Being a resourceful stealth decker was far more valuable and programmes meant a lot more.

They sort of tried to bring that back in 5th but with the reduction in resources (which occurred in 4E) pretty much all your starting funds as well as attribute and skill points (at lower priorities) went to supporting decking with little left over for protecting your hoop and being at best, marginally effective in the meat world. My current decker violet primarily works from AR just so she can "jack out" when it looks like drek is going to hit the fan in meatspace so she can get out of the line of fire. Her 3E counterpart had no trouble when the lead started flying and could dish out some of her own pain (usually with her Ares Super Squirt II [modified to look like a toy squirt gun] that was usually loaded with some nasty DMSO/toxin cocktail in or her Savaltte Guardian with APDS).

[Rotbart van Dain...]

practically speaking, no the wireless matrix does not go that far back. oh sure, you could connect to the wired matrix through a wireless connection, to some extent at least. but the matrix was most definitely wired.

You really should check out the SR3 Matrix sourcebook and Unwired:

In Unwired, it is stated that the backbones of the matrix still are fibreoptic cable. And in Matrix, it is stated that every cellphone and PDA is connected to the matrix over cellular service... because everything is the matrix.

The big difference between SR4 & SR3 is the unification of the wireless interface, which, from a gameplay perspective, is the only non-masochistic option*... and the fact that SR3 had world-wide coverage through the Cellular Satellite Service.

*There were options emulating remote control decks with decks back until ShadowTech - and it was just arcane and painful.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

(the Karma Build option is weak in comparison to the older point build ones).

Well, YMMV - from what I have seen, in SR3 even, Karma-gen became the norm as it made min-maxing more costly. And in SR3, that was a fan supplement.

I also fell out of the loop shortly after 4E was released partly because, as I mentioned, I had some issues with it and and setting.

I still don't get the 'setting' part... then again, I get that you never actually got into SR4(A) and SR5 grew into a habit as it was the only game in town.

That's too bad. After playing D&D5 and the more I get into Traveller 2nd, the less I can even imagine playing game system parodies like SR6 or SR5, with their weird complex comparison mechanics for basic game elements like Limits on guns or comparing the attack value of the gun to the armor value of that target to determine who gets Edge. Even SR3 kind of looks silly in comparison - as the actual results of those high-detail rules are still producing the same patterns over and over, so abstraction would have been prudent. Then again, it was a system of it's time, where high-detail rules were the norm.

Oh and I disagree that playing a Decker in 3E didn't require lots of skills particularly if you wanted to repair, modify, and upgrade your deck using the deck customisation rules as you needed quite good repertoire of supportive knowledge skills (as these actually had more value due to the complementary skills rule).

And if you just were a rich mage or an adept, the only thing you really needed was Computer and a lot of money. SotA added the Improved Skill in SR3, too. Compare that to SR4, where there are two entire Skill Groups dedicated to the Hacker... and tell me again, how some dabbler with a Commlink is going to steal your character spotlight. The implants like Encephalon and Maht SPU are the same, but things like Simsense Booster were added in SR4. So unless you cybered up, you were missing speed.

...yep the decker just couldn't sit in an armoured van and remotely hack a host. Back in the "old days, he or she had to go in with the rest of the team and physically "jack in" perform overwatch for the team, open doors, loop cameras, disable countermeasures. suppress alerts, all while avoiding IC and spiders. Being a resourceful stealth decker was far more valuable and programmes meant a lot more.

Actually, quite the opposite was true in most of the cases I experienced - the team moved in with some Radio Links (see Matrix SB), plugged that into the super secret jackpoint and the decker lay drooling in the armored van... because exposing his limp body and his incredible expensive deck to gunfire kind of was a no deal. As there was no AR, you had no real option to move with the team... and mostly, all of what you just said was hand-waved by the GM using a decker contact that had the Radio Links shipped to the team, as that allowed for (ch)easy dramatic license, like the signal cutting out, etc.

They sort of tried to bring that back in 5th but with the reduction in resources (which occurred in 4E) pretty much all your starting funds as well as attribute and skill points (at lower priorities) went to supporting decking with little left over for protecting your hoop and being at best, marginally effective in the meat world.

Well, leave it to Hardy and Bull to screw things up for Mundanes... in SR6, if you have an cranial deck, if gets bricked (which happens now automatically at the end of the security tally), it's as much damage as a cortex bomb. And even if you have an external deck... if you glitch on the repair roll, it's totaled. Better play a Technomancer, eh?

It's truly unfortunate that SR6 is not a system of it's time (and SR5 neither)... but creating something with the mechanical robustness & character balance of D&D5 is probably something that the current team will never achieve.

[Jaid]

You really should check out the SR3 Matrix sourcebook and Unwired:

In Unwired, it is stated that the backbones of the matrix still are fibreoptic cable. And in Matrix, it is stated that every cellphone and PDA is connected to the matrix over cellular service... because everything is the matrix.

The big difference between SR4 & SR3 is the unification of the wireless interface, which, from a gameplay perspective, is the only non-masochistic option*... and the fact that SR3 had world-wide coverage through the Cellular Satellite Service.

*There were options emulating remote control decks with decks back until ShadowTech - and it was just arcane and painful.

sure. your cellphone can make calls over the matrix, and your PDA can make and receive emails. that's very nice.

it is also very much not the same thing. there is no "my deck is connected to the matrix, I am close to that computer terminal, therefore I can directly hack that computer terminal" situation (never mind being able to hack some random person's cybereyes and view all their pictures). your deck would be connected to some specific broadcasting device over your wireless connection (which most decks wouldn't even have, certainly none had such a thing by default), and you would start in the matrix from wherever that wireless access point is, then go wherever else you go from that point. if someone puts up a barrier in between a device you want to reach and whatever access point you are connected to, it does not matter whether you are 5 feet or 5 miles or 5 astronomical units away from that device, you cannot use your deck to hack it without either installing a new connection somehow (and no, the ability to change something to become wireless does not make that thing inherently wireless), or going through everything that is between the thing you're actually wirelessly connected to and the device you want to reach.

some devices in SR3 had wireless capability. that does not mean that the matrix as a whole was in any practical sense wireless, any more than the existence of highly specialized electrical vehicles 50 years ago means that you could just go to a typical car dealership and buy an electric car then in the same sense that you could do so today. yes, they had electric vehicles in 1970 (like the lunar rover). no, that doesn't mean that it is reasonable to describe the 1970s as having electrical vehicles in a broad sense.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

it is also very much not the same thing. there is no "my deck is connected to the matrix, I am close to that computer terminal, therefore I can directly hack that computer terminal" situation (never mind being able to hack some random person's cybereyes and view all their pictures). your deck would be connected to some specific broadcasting device over your wireless connection (which most decks wouldn't even have, certainly none had such a thing by default), and you would start in the matrix from wherever that wireless access point is, then go wherever else you go from that point.

And if you used the cellular service, that was the local access grid. Basically going directly to any cellphone and PDA. Congratulations - that's pretty much how it is in SR4 with commlinks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

if someone puts up a barrier in between a device you want to reach and whatever access point you are connected to, it does not matter whether you are 5 feet or 5 miles or 5 astronomical units away from that device, you cannot use your deck to hack it without either installing a new connection somehow (and no, the ability to change something to become wireless does not make that thing inherently wireless), or going through everything that is between the thing you're actually wirelessly connected to and the device you want to reach.

True... not only in SR3, but also in SR4... just in SR3, you had no way to defend your cell phone or PDA... or vehicle for that matter. That was only introduced in SR4. And given that there are offline systems or wired only systems in SR4, as detailed in Unwired... well:

The forced hackability for gear & ware was introduced in SR5. In SR4, turning off wireless capability came at no real penalty, especially using Skinlink. (Unless it was the wifi of your commlink. Kind of a penalty not getting calls... Then again, that's what airplane mode is for in cellphones.)

Mostly, WiFi in SR4 is about daily convenience, like bluetooth today.

some devices in SR3 had wireless capability. that does not mean that the matrix as a whole was in any practical sense wireless, any more than the existence of highly specialized electrical vehicles 50 years ago means that you could just go to a typical car dealership and buy an electric car then in the same sense that you could do so today. yes, they had electric vehicles in 1970 (like the lunar rover). no, that doesn't mean that it is reasonable to describe the 1970s as having electrical vehicles in a broad sense.

Cellphones, PDAs and vehicles had cellular matrix access - and all of those even could be used for tortoise hacking... which was kind of the predecessor of AR hacking. You whole home was connected to the matrix anyway, as per SSG. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Most people did not did not quite know how connected the life & world in SR3 already was - and how bad it was to make an enemy of someone who knew how to hack stuff. And concerning the matrix not being wireless... well, like I said - Cellular (Satellite) Service in Matrix, wired backbones in Unwired. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)