Just my .02 cents, Diving into the madness...oh what a fool Options

[Eugene]

I'm mostly a lurker here at Dumpshock, but it's always been a blast to read everyone's comments. Well, except for this forum, anyway.

Here's my take:

We don't really know much about the new Shadowrun, except for bits and pieces. People can speculate all they want, but it's pretty much just that. Most of us won't really know until the actual book comes out in August (which, BTW, is going to happen - a company can't put all this effort into something and then just drop it).

We have at least one playtester who's supportive of the new edition, and at least one who has concerns. I imagine that opinions are divided in every playtest of every game, so that doesn't really tell me anything.

The worst case scenario is that the rules aren't what you like. So what? Don't buy the rulebooks (i.e. the new magic book, the new rigger/decker book, etc.). It's not like the old rules stop working. There are plenty of people who still play older editions of GURPS and D&D and Star Wars.

You can still buy all the setting stuff - heck, most of the stuff that FanPro has come out with doesn't have many rules at all, and you already know that it's been quality work (Dragons of the Sixth World and Sprawl Survival as particularly commendable examples). And I'm sure that it the fine folks at FanPro won't mind putting out a conversion guide for people who want to use the new adventures.

It's clear that people are very passionate about this game, and I think that's a great thing. It means there's still a lot of life in Shadowrun, and that people are actually playing instead of/in addition to reading rulebooks. But I also think it's clear from everybody's passions that everybody needs to take a break. Just stop posting here for a while. Go back to the other forums and post about your latest run, or your theories on Dunk or the IEs, or why you ought to reconsider the stats on a Ares Predator. I think everyone willl feel better, and will be able to look at things more objectively in a few days or weeks.

[Eldritch]

You see a car heading towards a wall at 100mph.

You yell. The driver doesn't hear.
You wave. Maybe he doesn't see.
Maybe he hits the wall, maybe not.
Maybe he even waves back as he hits or misses the wall.

The point is you have to yell, you have to wave. It may not make a difference, but you can hope.

And Hope is all we got. Yeah, I accept that this will happen. I accept that it will hapen at gencon. Doesn't mean I won't yell and wave at the car as it speeds by on its way to the wall.

And there hasn't been much over a t the regular SR forums lately - Some stuff from AH, Kages's Sr3R, and an occcasional story.


Disclaimer: To all: This is my opinion, only my opinoon and should only be taken as my opinion. It is not fact. I do not Hate SR4 or SR. I question the descision to make SR4. I do not fear change. I question it's need.

There is no 'speeding car' - it is an analogy. Does it Make sense? It does to me.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[SR4-WTF?]

I see it as a bumper car at the county fair. It is definately going to hit something, and Rob's candy cotton might fly out of his hand or the ice slushie he is holding between his thighs might spill. So I guess it is kinda important to warn him. But he probably already is aware that he is going to hit something. So maybe we should instead not to distract him. He seems distracted enough already by the ride attendant in the halter-top and tight denim cutoffs.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Shadow]

[Bomber]

hehe.....we had a 2nd ed. game just the other night.....

still the same after all these years.....

don't listen to me though, because we still play boxed set D&D ( Rules Cyclopedia for the win!!!)

[Maxxi]

Your .02 Cents?

I didn't know you could have 2% of a penny! :rotfl:

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[SR4-WTF?]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Snow_Fox]

[SR4-WTF?]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Like I said earlier, it's the mechanics that keep me playing the game. I dislike a great deal of the storyline and setting books for various reasons, but I use them. It's a pretty sheer slippery slope for me. If I am going to be house ruling the mechanics now that I have an out (they're not supported or going to be 'fixed') then why should I stick with less important elements that I don't like?

[SR4-WTF?]

Ah. I started at the bottom of that slope.

I have always skipped stuff I and/or my group found cumbersome, tedious, or backwards. Like the whole of decking rules in SR. Or applying D&D alignment game mechanics to anything other than a planar determined alignment. Ok, if you just ripped the head off a living infant to guzzle it's still hot blood that gets you the Evil tag for a bit.

So slide on down to where the cool kids hang, the water is fine. Much less stressful too as you need not worry so much about the occasional innane book, chapter, or paragraph. :)

[Ellery]

It's harder to be at that side of the slope when you're gaming with random groups who aren't quite where you are. It's a lot easier to find a group of people who have the books than a group of people who have the books and also agree that the matrix rules should be ignored entirely.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Right. Some of us are in a particular position where it is just easier to follow canon that have a bunch of houserules for every different GM you may be gaming with.

[SR4-WTF?]

There is your problem. You need to look for a group of people that don't have the books. Then you can tell them whatever you like about the rules. :cyber:

I guess I have always been fortunate in that even with pick-up style SR games that the loathing for the Matrix was universal enough that nobody even suggested running a decker. Complete fudging or avoidance of the vehicle combat rules also seems fairly universal. SURGE nearly so. There was that one guy that wanted to play a feather covered female SURGE victim that drove around on a three wheel motorcycle. I was never quite sure about him, but the player didn't physically hurt or touch any one so I could let that slide. :D

I've found that someone being a complete stickler on D&D alignment is a sign of other issues to follow, bad issues. Short of that I am willing to flex enough in the vision of whoever is behind the screen. If I sense they might be of certain philosophical bents I'll avoid the more alignment sensitive classes.

Oddly I think some of my worst gaming experiences were in canon strict games. I think it tends to provide a bit too much of an openning for unchecked lawyering when the rules sit above the GM. Canon is still a good baseline but I'd rather let the GM have more leeway to keep the game on course.

That is difficult for Living campaigns and also makes things tough on players for one ofs. But for enjoyment purposes I have stopped playing Living campaigns. For one ofs take the view that my PCs death, life, or inbetween matters not, I'm just playing battle tactical senario.

Seriously how long of campaigns do you play in? Are you unable to find a group to string together even six months? You can't get enough in sync with a few other people well before then?

[Critias]

If you're addressing those questions to Ellery and CD 2.0, the "problem" isn't that our games are short. Heh.

The thing is that we play on-line, with (for lack of a better term) an often round-robin style of GMing. There's no single GM at all times; that responsibility falls on the page owner, or in the case of a private campaign (a much more traditional "GM and four or five players" gig) a temporary GM. The end result is that everyone GMs every now and then, everyone players more often than not, and everything about your character better fly with everyone who might end up GMing for you -- making most "create it yourself" stuff a no no, making "ask your GM before taking ___________" stuff off-limits, etc, etc.

We try to stick to canon, since we don't have any one person saying what's legit and isn't. Sticking to the books as much as possible is the best (if not only) way to be wholly impartial about some of those GM-decisions.

[mfb]

heh. he--and i--have had the same gaming group for, what, nine years now? it's all online, and the players tend to rotate in and out. so, like he said--easier just to stick with canon.

[SR4-WTF?]

Six years now with the current group, everyone has taken at least one turn behind that screen. That includes a short stint by the most unlikely GM. She did really well but we scared her so it will be a long time before she takes another turn. We don't get too deep into the canon metaplots though, the PCs tend to be closer to the street.

We use canon rules as a baseline, but don't really have issues at all with rules flexing. We end up with communally developed house rules.

Mystery items and hidden threads that survive between GM terms get handed off. The new GM is at liberty to tweak the 'facts' about it as long as it meshes with what the group has already seen or found out.

I could see online being tougher though with the inherent limit on communications. But maybe that is only my personal dislike of internet gaming shading my view?

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Or maybe you're just not reading what Critias said. It's pretty straightforward.

At its peak, SL had more than 1,000 users: 1,000 GMs and 1,000 people playing as many PCs as they want (I'm GMing 3 Private Campaigns, working as a demi-GM for a couple of locations in T6W, and running a dozen PCs in T6W and in Prviate Campaigns) all with their own houserules playing across as many games as they can handle in private campaigns and The Sixth World, which is the canon universe in electronic form. When Seattle went dark in BS, T6W Seattle went dark (that was amusing). When the suborbital carrying one of Fuchi's CC justices crashed in Redmond, it crashed in T6W's Redmond. When the Arc shutdown... It shut down with PCs inside (we had fair warning since one of the authors of RA:S was Dave Hyatt).

House rules at that level, or even when the user base has fallen to dozens, is impractical. Go ahead and make your house rule monsters in PC, but if they want to actually interact at all in The Sixth World or The Matrix on Shadowland and any divergence from the rules by one player makes their lives more difficult when they run into n PCs who adhere to canon.

[Shadow]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

It does.

[SR4-WTF?]