Your top 5, What top 5 things would you like to see Options

[CradleWorm]

Okay, so I skimmed a few of the entries here and I'll apologize if I repeat someone else. But here are a few of my wishes...

+ Print adventures that don't have the party saving the world.

+ Stop printing sourcebooks for the sake of advancing some kind of storyline. I want to see stories introduced in adventures first.

Note: The first wish and the second wish are not exclusive. A good example is the introduction of bug spirits by FASA. First an adventure was released in which the party discovered the threat of bug spirits in Seattle, then a source book was printed to expand on the plot line and continue the story. The difference is the plotline was introduced in an adventure. I don't want to save the world, but I want the party to find, influence, discover, yadda yadda yadda... but no more save the world adventures.

+ Get back to the gritty shadowrun world that was introduced so long ago as "cyberpunk with a dash of fantasy and magic" Gangers should be able to kill you.

+ Balanced abilities across archtypes and starting characters that are more balanced. The general trend in shadowrun, as I have seen it, is samurais tend to start off more powerful then magicians... but as the game moves along and mages begin to get more karma the become more powerful then samurais. Ofcourse, there are exceptions, I'm just saying that is the trend I have seen.

+ Print full adventures, stop printing adventure packs for a while. Adventure packs are great for the GM that doesn't want to think to much. But full adventures are just better.

+ Okay so this is number 6... frag me... please please please... when you do print maps... please please please put doors, windows, security, and npc's on the map. So many times in the past I have gone through adventures and run across a nice simple map of a building with no doors or windows. Fortunately, I just picked a spot and made up where the NPC guards were... it would be nice to actually have these things on the map.

[Rev]

Mmm yea, I read like the first two pages of this long ago...

1) Rules for defeating security devices phsically, magically, and hackerly. Like several pages of them. The game is about breaking and enterering (to a large extent)! There need to be modifiers in this for doing research, practicing, etc so people can get benefits from the sort of thing in every heist movie (first you find out what kind of safe you need to crack, then you get one and practice, then you go and do it, if you can't do all that it is much harder).

2) Skill splitting/merging. Fewer combat skills, more sneaky criminal skills. No more "Stealth" covering everything from sneaking to sentinal duty to pickpocketing while there are a plethora of skills for slightly different weapons. The game should be at least as much about sneaking and breaking into things as shooting stuff therefore the skills should be similaraly granular. Personally I like a split more like hand held/rifle/heavy weapon split and a stealth/theft/sentinel split.

3) That accumulated success system for doing things that take a long time sounded great (where each roll takes a certain amount of time and you need some number of total sucesses to complete the task). Hope that is the plan.

4) Reduce the effectiveness of astral projection. Reduce the duration and make it harder to see mundanes and even harder to see low essence mundanes (previously it was 10-essence or something). This will mitigate some of the same problems with mages that existed with deckers where they were separated from the team for long periods of time, though of course magicians had a less severe problem.

5) Fix cyberlimbs, and take the opportunity to rebalance cyber in general. Same with spells (eg axe control thoughts).

[Spark]

i agree with the Rev for the most part except on the part where gangers are now a major threat. I mean thats why they had professional ratings in the first place runners are professional black ops type people they are not going to be bitch slapped by a bunch of scruffy gangers! (unless of course they are just plain stupid or God doesnt like them.

Also I think it would be much better of the rules for weight and organizational details were streamlined (i.e. made more accurate) I agree with the cyber and partially with the control thoughts thingy. I have had some hilarious but totally wrong things go on with that one and it allows an easier time for the players, not something i as an evil GM wish to encourage :D

[Mightyflapjack]

My #1 = Make it still have the same flavor, mystique, and essential elements (drain for spellcasting, karma for levels, contacts for story) as all the previous Shadowrun systems.

Top Five I want to see in Main Sourcebook:

1) Single, clear, and balanced character creation system.
2) Expanded information for "contacts" and making them more vital.
3) Simple Vehicles rules that still satisfy.
4) Balanced combat system for all power-level characters and (Near) identical systems for ranged/melee/vehicle combat.
5) Easier introduction chapter for new players.. Less history, more stories.

Top Five I want for the obligatory new magic sourcebook:

1) Spells creation rules that make sense and are easy to use.
2) ~100 listed spells, created using the creation rules.
3) Correctly scaled power between all types and sub-types of spell castors.
4) Expanded conjuration rules (new types of spirits, new spirit abilities, etc.)
5) Clear and concise rules on what is and is not possible in Astral Space.

Oh and a big book of equipment.. pleeeze!

and
and
and

TWINS!

[blakkie]

[Kyoto Kid]

1. Fix or eliminate the Physical Adept. It is a great concept, but under the current rules they are much less effective than a juiced up Street Sam (cyber or bio) or a full-on Mage/Shaman. Part of this has to do with the fact an adept is a melee fighter that basically cannot risk taking a deadly wound due to magic (read "ability") loss.

As a GM, I have played around with a few different concepts one of which involves a function of Essence, Unmodified Body, and Unmodified Willpower. This allows Cyber implants to still have a negative effect on the adept's overall reating, but taking that dreaded deadly wound doesn't (unless of course there is permanent physical damage). Of course some abilities, such as Astral Perception, are no longer available. The magical weapon focus is also replaced by a bonded weapon which the adept can channel her Ki power through.

2. Put the Core Rules and various supplements out in CD-ROM format (indexed of course).

3. To jump on the bandwagon, A more streamlined combat system.

4. To keep riding that wagon - streamilned deck...er...hacking.

5. Please Index, Index, Index all rule/source books.

[Kyoto Kid]

Sorry for the duplicate copies of the above reply Received an error message that the sumbission failed so when I resent it, somehow three copies were posted. Not sure how to go about getting the duplicates removed.

[warrior_allanon]

hey kyoto, you obviously dont know how to build a phys ad, i got one that i just created thats able to mix it up with wired reflex 4 sammies and takes out mages like its nothing....will send you a copy of him if you would like

[mintcar]

However that might be, the problem is solved because magic loss will no longer exist.

[Critias]

I'm not going to claim you don't know how to make an Adept, and I'm not going to brag about what a badass Adept I have, or whatever -- but I am going to say that getting rid of Adepts because you think they can't hold their own is a silly idea. In the interest of trying not to start up the whole "magic is better than metal" sort of argument (again), I'll just say I very strongly disagree with your notion that Adepts aren't worth their salt, along with your assumption that all Adepts are kung fu fighters scared of taking damage.

[Taki]

I think sammy-beginner kick the ass of of an adept-beginner.
I wouldn't say sammy-beginner is more effective than the adept-beginner, because the adept can easily have a wider range of potential, and less cyber means easier infiltration.
I wouldn't say sammy kick adept ass, as adept are far less limited in their potential ...

[Capt. Dave]

Get rid of adepts? No offense, but that is a horrid idea. So some adepts can't straight-up kill some samurai. So what; the reverse is often true. I've seen mages walk all over samurai and adepts, and vice versa. I've seen a decker kill samurai.
It's all in what you build your character for.

Adepts have a wide range of possibilities, and have been a favorite character type since the beginning.They aren't the end-all-be-all of combat gods, nor do they have to play senond fiddle to street sams. They are just another option for people to play, and the more options the better, IMHO.

[Arz]

1) Better Organization

2) New introductory fiction short

3) Better editing.

4) Smaller errata

5) Less change of existing rules. Simplify what SR has already got.

Unfortunately, I think we are all too late to have any substantial date as I imagine the final draft has long since been delivered to the print shop.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Edge2054]

My Top 5. No particular order.

1) A stream lined rules system. I've been playing SR 3 sense it's been out and rarely use anything more complicated then a handling check in vehicle combat situations.

2) Globe Spanning Plots. While having alot of the plot happen in Seattle/UCAS areas makes sense from a certain perspective (the fact that most games are based there) seeing it spread out more would give the world a more vibrant, alive feel to it.

3) More IC perspectives. For instance: What does it feel like to be constantly on edge, wired to the hilt? How do things like cyber-ware affect a persons day to day life? Dermal sheathing destroying sex life? Possiblities of sterility once essence drops to a certain level? Do deckers (or hackers) suffer a disconectivity from real world life from spending to much time jacked in?

4) Skill Synergies of some sort. I'm playing a character now in 3rd ed who's sort of a jack-of-all-trades. While I like the fact that firearms got broken down into many smaller skills I don't like the idea that a character with a high skill in one firearm is going to need to spend as much karma to improve it as another character with no skill in any firearms.

5) Weapons being potentially deadly. Under the current rules set, it would be impossible for me (Average human quickenss of 3, no skill in firearms) to kill anyone in one shot with a heavy pistol unless I was literally holding the gun to their head (even then auto-kill attacks aren't covered but I figure most people put something into play that would mimic them none-the-less).

*edit* Actually, after reading a bit of this thread I have to say the number one thing I want to see is... (drumroll) The Rules Done Right the First Time

Everything else is secondary in my mind and the last thing I want to see is a number of revisions to the rules through-out multiple source book releases. Adding additional, optional rules in source books is fine, but lets get everything canon right and in the BBB.

[Milo Simpkin]

1) Not relying on fiction in the book to give people information about the world.

2) Removal of close combat being 'opposed test-best hits the other'

3) Vehicles that make sense: No cars that can be taken out by a peashooter or planes that can only fly 20 miles.

4) More variation in weaponry to hopefully make it so that it's not just 2 heavy pistols that people use and so on.

5) A rules system to cover athletics that works and is in the main rules

[SL James]

[Bull]

[SL James]

[Hell Hound]

I think the problem referred to there is how that, admittedly perfectly workable, idea of an opposed success test fits with other parts of the game system, namely reaction and initiative.

The slowest of slow fighters (Reaction 1 and 1D6 initiative for any number of reasons) with a decent combat pool and reasonable combat skill could go up against the most insanely fast samurai (Move by Wire 4 giving a total Reaction bonus of +10 and +4D6 initiative dice) with a slightly lower combat pool and combat skill and without having to make an attack of their own the slowpoke can pound the samurai simply through counterattacks. The samurai's superior initiative should give him more hits and thus an advantage, instead it works in the slowpokes favour allowing him to finish the fight faster than normal, and in fact win a fight he perhaps should have lost.

[SL James]

Yeah, I got it. I stand by what I said.

[Kyoto Kid]

[SL James]

It would be cool if cybernetic commlinks are useful and attainable, as opposed to cranial cybderdecks which are most definitely not attainable and are nothing more than wastes of space.