Big ideas from a little mind, Reforming the rules (warning: long) Options

[Eyeless Blond]

The more I've been reading the rules, I'm noticing that a lot of the core mechanics in SR are not very internally consistent. The main thing that's missing, IMO, is something that was a central design consideration in D&D, and something that's sorely missed here. What I'm referring to is the idea of rules mastery, that the rules should line up in such a way that once you understand a few core concepts the rest of the rules should be similar enough that you don't have to memorize dozens of exceptions to everything. The fact that few things in SR line up so elegantly creates endless confusion and is one of the biggest problems with the system.

Of prime example is the conceptual difference between rigger and decker initiative. When jacked into their respective gestalts, deckers and riggers both use their minds--and only their minds--to issue commands and perform actions. On the surface you'd expect certain similarities in the way they determine how many such actions they get in a round: that if one used cyberware to increase his mental initiative then the other would too, or if one used Int in place of Reaction then the other one would too, but this does not seem to be the case. I've never understood why riggers get initiative boosts from cyberware while deckers get init boosts from external hardware. You can make up excuses by referring to different sections of the brain and whatnot, but looking at in terms of balance there doesn't seem to be a real reason that they *can't* work in a similar manner other than they always have worked that way.

So, to correct this and other perceived problems I came up with a nice long cluster of house rules.

Initiative

First off, rather than having all these weird exceptions and crap when it comes to initiative, there will be exactly two types of initiative: physical and mental (I might later decide to add in astral as a third type, but for now I'm just leaving magic entirely alone.) This really isn't much of a departure from canon; I'm just naming the different types rather than listing a series of exceptions. As usual, you only roll one initiative, depending whether you're physically moving or mentally controlling things through pure DNI (or in astral space, but that comes later.)

Physical initiative is, naturally, the initiative you use when you are physically moving around. It starts out as Reaction+1d6 and gets modified by cyberware and such as appropriate. This is where all the sammie's reaction boosters and such go. Mental initiative is the initiative you use when you've activated a RAS override and are controlling things through simsense and the like, such as when rigging or decking. Like physical init, it starts out as Intelligence+1d6 and is modified by cyberware and such as appropriate.

Cyberware

Yes that's right, there is cyberware that modifies mental initiative in the same way as physical initiative. But it's not the VCR. The VCR does provide all its other bonuses though: driving TNs are lowered by the device's rating; you can use it to "jump into" drones and the like; and you add twice its rating to control pool (everyone gets a control pool now equal to their Reaction; riggers just get a lot more of it) VCRs also cost less because of this: 20,000 and .5 Essence for a level 1, 30,000 and 1.0 Essence for a level 2, and 100,000 and 2.0 Essence for a level 3.

What boosts your mental initiative is the encephalon. As it stands noone in their right mind usually ever bothers with an encephalon, so I basically completely redid it. Basically all it does is add 2+1d6 to your mental initiative per level, kinda like wired reflexes for your brain. As a side benefit, when you're not jacked in, you get one extra free action on your turn per level, which can only be used for purely mental actions (note this does *not* include calling a shot or dropping something, but does include activating any cyberware or DNI-controlled devices.) Level 1 costs 40,000 and .5 Essence, level 2 costs 80,000 and 1.0 Essence, and level 3 costs 150,000 and 2.0 Essence.

Equipment

Of course it doesn't matter how fast your brain can go if your equipment can't keep up. Most DNI-enabled equipment does not need specialized hardware to deal with faster-miving brains by virtue of a limited command set. Equipment that must process and utilize the entire simsense feed, like the matrix interface capability of the cyberdeck or the rigger's black box capability of "jumping into the machine," require a bit more. Both rigger "black boxes" and cyberdecks require the Response Increase component, as described in Matrix p. 59. Pricing information on p. 67; treat the rigger's black box MPCP as equal to twice its base (on-road) Handling for pricing purposes, but with no maximum rating limit. Generally this means you'll hardly have to pay anything unless you're trying to mod something with a Handling of 5 or more.


More to come later; mostly just interpreting what the new rules mean for drivers and such. I'm pretty sure you can guess most of it by extrapolating from these rules though.

[Kagetenshi]

[Eyeless Blond]

[Kagetenshi]

[Fortune]

The idea looks good to me ... at least at first glance. :)

I like the idea of Deckers needing more than just a Datajack to be really good.

[Kagetenshi]

They do. In fact, aside from a Math SPU, pretty much everything that goes into being a really good decker you buy or steal (or, for some parts of it, program. The hardware is still necessary, though). Fastjack on a MPCP-3 deck still isn't going to do too well.

~J

[Ol' Scratch]

I just think it's odd that a software-oriented character (deckers) require more hardware and software than the more hardware-oriented character (rigger). Yes, the rigger has more invasive cyberware, but there's no really good reason for that in my eye considering that a decker can get similar and vastly improved (as much as +5D6) performance out of his hardware.

[Toptomcat]

You sure about that? You can get some pretty obscene things going with the Rigger 3 rules...

[Eyeless Blond]

[Ol' Scratch]

You're on a good track. The problem is: What are you going to do with this when it's done? A complete rewrite of the system is more than a handful of house rules, and it's not something many (if any) will take-up.

I mean, I know the feeling. I'm positive I could do a really good job at completely rewriting the magic rules to make them more sensible, balanced, and logical (I've tossed around a skeletal set of rules for it in the past several times)... but what would be the point of seeing it to fruitation beyond my live gaming group? As a rule, people just don't like to learn a ton of house rules and, as mentioned above, redoing entire sections of the rules from scratch is way beyond house rules.

As thought exercises on a message board, talking about various improvements has its uses. But a complete rewrite just isn't going to accomplish much.

[mintcar]

If there was a collection something called "the unofficial dumpshock ruleset" as a sticky, don´t you think people would read it, and if it was good possibly use it? If someone would start a project of completely rewriting the rules, and do the mind-storming here on dumpshock, it would fast turn into a huge discussion. A lot of good ideas would surface. Of course it would also turn into complete chaos, but hey, I think it would be fun. :)

[Botch]

[Fortune]

And who would decide what is endorsed and what isn't?

[Kagetenshi]

Amen. There are many pages with houserules out there; most get ignored. Feel free to try to put up another, but keep the fate of the others in mind.

~J

[Tanka]

Pretty much the rule to live by:

If it works for you, use it. Doesn't mean it works for everybody.

[Stumps]

Except he's not looking for a house rule.
He's basically looking for a House SR System.

It's a completely (well...nearly so it sounds in his desire) alternative system rather than a few rule changes.

That means core changes in a larger amount than most house rules get near.

Honestly...I would want to be paid for that much work. I mean...count the amount of source books with rules.

Have Fun! :grinbig:

[Eyeless Blond]

Pssh, like I need a reason for doing this. :P Honestly I'm only writing all this stuff down because my brain won't let me leave it alone; pretty soon I'll end up getting bored of it and move on to other things, and this thread will slip of into the aether like all the others on this forum.

On another note, I find it especially amusing that people with several thousand posts are asking *me* why I'm wasting my time. :)

[Kagetenshi]

Hush, you're not supposed to notice things like that :)

~J

[mintcar]

Yeah. What I was talking about was that IF a group of hardcore dumpshockers in agreement with the moderators would start a forum project of making a dumpshock version of the rules. Using the forum for input but ultimatly deciding together what goes. This is not something I would undertake. I don´t know if anybody would. I´m just saying that IF that would happen it would be interesting. It´d have to be highly ambitious though.

[Kagetenshi]

I don't think anybody would. I mean, just glancing at some of the most vocal posters whose positions on things I know of, I think with ten Dumpshockers you're going to get fifteen possible rules systems with no more than three people in agreement on any one. Just take a look at some of the more contentious threads (if they go to two pages (100 posts), they're probably contentious) for evidence.

~J

[mintcar]

I suppose. But don´t you guys get inluenced by eachother as time goes by? There should be a lot of FLAWS you could agree on at least. :) And every part of the system has it´s un-crowned king, I bet... No? Look, I´m just pondering. I too realise how hard it would be.

So, aside from the fact that it will never happen. Don´t you think that if someone were to have read, and participated in good as every discussion ever held on this forum (as I´m sure some of you have) And then would have taken the insights from all that and peiced together a comprehencable system from that? Aw, drekk I guess it would be far to anal for my taste anyway. ;)

[Stumps]

[Kagetenshi]

I think you mean AH, not AE :P

~J

[Stumps]

every damn time....every damn time...gotta stop watching A&E/History Channel...it's getting me all mixed up when I think of AH.

[Eyeless Blond]

Kagetenshi and others make a very good point in that not many people are going to accept a house system that rewrites a significant portion of the rules. Even the amount I have up already would generate massive debates if most of the posters weren't daunted by its scope into ignoring it. If I had any sense at all I'd simply abandon the idea entirely and forget about it; I knew that from the start. Really the only reason I even wrote all this up is, well, when the muse comes scratching at your brain you've gotta let it out sometimes. :)

And it's not like I'm changing *everything*. The decker rules will be staying basically the same. Well, I might change the way attack programs work so they act like every other program (rolling Computer skill and using the program rating to modify the TN) rather than rolling the program's Rating, which is how the rules as written currently work, but that's a pretty universal house rule anyway. Everything else is pretty consistent there. And most of ranged combat would remain the same, save for adding range increments onto spellcasting (and thus actual human vision) and changing how visability mods work.... of course the melee rules will have to go, as will some of the driving rules, and a few of the stuff about astral space, and all instances of Open Tests...

Ugh, there goes my muse again. I'd better drown it in Nyquil or something or I'm never getting any sleep. :P