SR4 Pros and Cons: A Non-Player's Request Options

[Aubri]

To start with, I'm not a SR player. I cut my teeth on D&D and I'm reasonably familiar with White Wolf's system. I picked up an old copy of SR3 and read through it because I like the setting and I was curious about the system. I generated a sample character to see how it all works. To my shame, I didn't even bother to read the Magic chapter--I felt it was more important to get a grip on the game before adding the extra complexity of magic. I'm given to understand this may have been a wise choice, but whatever.

So. I've heard a lot about what's bad in SR4. I tend to agree that the damage system, dice pools, and the skill system gave SR a lot of its distinctiveness and an interesting take of simulating reality. That said, it was (and, I assume, still is) a very crunchy system. This is not something I mind per se, but... well, you know what I mean. Three or four dice rolls per attack? Yeesh... if nothing else, d20 has the advantage of simplicity in that arena.
But I digress! What I'd really like to know is... should I pick up SR4, or stick with SR3? Keep in mind that I'm not fanatically attached to anything about SR3; I'm asking on a purely qualitative basis. "It's always been that way" doesn't fly for me.

I suppose what I'm really looking for is peoples' complete reactions to the changes. What do you think is particularly good, what's particularly bad, and in total does it represent a positive or negative step?

For example, to show the kind of questions I'd like to see addressed, I understand that the condition monitor has changed and people no longer have a fixed 10-step damage track. Besides nostalgic complaints, how does this affect the game? Does it create any balance issues? Is it "more fun" or "less fun"--is it a "good thing"?

(Aethetic arguments are fine, mind--it's fine to say the removal of counterattacks in melee combat does make it more "bland" and, well, D&D-like. I rather liked the idea that a powerful combatant can overpower a weaker one, and it makes up for the seeming weakness and short range of melee weapons. OTOH, a good aesthetic decision was the AR system; I feel that anything that makes a decker--sorry, hacker--more involved in the real world is a good thing.)

I realize this all may be asking a lot, but I've yet to see a board where people are loathe to rant. I only request that venom and vitriol be backed up by fact! That reminds me--I'd prefer not to get into any running debates. If you disagree with someone else's points, just write your own essay and touch on the same point. Thanks!

[Gort]

To be honest, having not gotten a hold of the actual rules and run a game, it's very hard to say which is better.

[FrankTrollman]

From the standpoint of someone new to the system, SR4 is the way to go. The static target numbers and Attribute + Skill mechanics are going to be very familiar to someone with even a passing familiarity with Vampire: the Requiem. In fact, a standard die in SR4 has exactly the same average hits as a White Wolf die does (barring White Wolf's occassional brain farts like 9-again axes or negative 1s for Nosferatu). So you should have a "feel" for the game already, dice pool modiifers mean exactly what a veteran vampire player intuitively feels that they should.

That being said, the mechanics are smoother than they are in White Wolf. The Dice Pool Modifiers and Threshholds system is used pretty much throughout the game, and a gun shot does damage in the same way as a hand grenade. None of the White Wolf crap where firearms have one set of rules and explosives have another and electricity has another and so on and so forth for just about every style of combat you can think of.

So I would encourage playing SR4 over SR3 and over White Wolf. In fact, the mechanics of Shadowrun are so much smoother that I would encourage people who wanted to play Vampire to simply convert their characters in SR4 and play with those rules instead.

-Frank

[blakkie]

I don't think they went nearly far enough in cleaning up the core of combat. But it is an improvement, and with D&D to compare it to it shouldn't be that onerrous. Also you'll find yourself a bit more at home with some of the action options such as delaying and so on.

Did you ever try to do anything with the offical vehicles rules? Because if you had you'll be glad to hear they were ditched.

As to how things work when the rubber meets the road......Unfortunately our group hasn't had an opportunity to fire up with the new rules yet as we are in the middle of an extended Black Company adventure (mini-campaign). But we are going to actually try play in a subset of the full group outside the regular gaming night in the near future.

It looks like an improvement, but until we get rolling it is hard to say definitively.

P.S. By "crunchy" i think you mean a multi-step mass of rules? Ya, this is less crunchy.

[mmu1]

Hmm... As far as specifics go:

I don't like the new damage system. I think having both armor and body perform the same function (add more dice) makes no sense - it leads to situations like an average human in a kevlar vest being not much better off than a big tough guy in a t-shirt. (made even worse by things like armor-piercing rounds)

Another thing that really bothers me about how damage is handled is that the attack/dodge system favors the attacker to an extreme degree, and in a fight - much like in systems that use hitpoints - things usally don't end up coming down to whether you take damage or not, but how much damage you take from the attack.
If you want to dodge semi-effectively, you need to give up your entire next action... Since it only takes a simple action (effectively, half an action) to attack, this is pretty clearly a sucker's bet.

I hate the new called shot mechanics - because they reveal no understanding of simple mathematics. Taking certain kinds of called shots simply translates into massive amounts of free damage. Ditto for most special types of ammunition - they're mathematically unsound, and tend to be either better in every situation, or not worth bothering with. (APDS ammo, for example, is harder to get than explosive rounds, but actually worse at defeating armor)


Also, the skill system itself is a mess. It breaks down badly if you use large numbers of dice (and SR4 uses huge amounts of dice - in my opinion, absurdly so, for specialists who are good at what they do), because it lets people ignore certain modifiers that should make things impossible. Sort of like what you end up with in D&D, when a 20th level character with a 20 in a stat and 23 ranks in a skill makes a check (except in SR4, you don't need to wait to have a high-level character to do that...) which I happen to think is OK in epic fantasy, but a problem in gritty cyberpunk. To combat this, the designers have put extremely restrictive caps on abilities and skills - but that does little to fix the underlying problem, and only leaves characters with little room to grow.


If you're looking into SR purely for the sake of the setting, you might be quite happy with SR4. On the other hand, if you're looking to try both a different setting and a system that has a feel that matches the setting and is different from anything else out there, go with SR3. (warts and all)

[Lebo77]

[nezumi]

From what I've seen the question is simply:

Do you like more 'rules-lite', story-focused gaming?
Or do you prefer more rules intensive, but perhaps more realistic (and more tweakable) gaming?

If you hate rules, SR4 sounds like the way to go. SR3 is a lot of fun, but most of the people who say this enjoy math, calculating probabilities, etc. The story in each is probably about equal, but I suppose if you have simplier, easier to learn mechanics, it's easier to dedicate more attention to the story, even if it's at the cost of a few unusual 'glitches' and more GM modifications where the rules fail to support him.

[Kyoto Kid]

OK Out on a limb here.

The more commentary I rad on the many changes in SR4 make me lean back towards SR3. One of the big areas of contention for me is absolute maximums for attributes and skills.

In D&D 3 & 3.5, racial attribute/class limits were done away with. A human can quite conceivably be just as quick as an Elf or as tough as a Dwarf and all races have the ability to naturally exceed beyond a score of 18 for at least one of their primary attributes. For skills (class and cross class) you are only limited by level attained, and with racial traits, feats and skill synergies, even this limit can effectively be exceeded While in the the core rules a character tops out at level 20, in a good campaign, this would translate into a fair amount of a character's lifetime (and playing time). However, even this is not an absolute when you take into account multiclassing, prestige classes, and the Epic Level Handbook. In short, there is ample opportunity, even for a single class character to keep growing. though years and years of play

In one campaign (old A D&D - modified by the DM) I had a character who survived through nearly 5 years of actual playing time (roughly 30 years of the character's life), and still looked forward to growing.

As I mentioned in another thread, in SR4 once a character reaches the attribute and skill Maximums for their profession, there is little place to go, particularly if this character is a mundane. What is left to spend Karma on? What implants do spend your hard earned nuyen on? Some would say "branch out", but that kind of defeats the whole concept the character was based on in the beginning. What happens is either the character retires, or we get a society where everybody is a "Jack of all Trades". IMHO, It kind of takes some of the fun out of the game. My little Wiz Kid Inventor Leela desires to be better than the best of the best. But, if she sees she can only become only as good as the ex-Desert Wars demolitionist living down the street it becomes a case of "I may as well just go get a job with that controlled demolitions company I saw on the trivid".

Well, there's my recycled soy compound soap box.

If you are new to the game either direction would work. With SR3, there is no wait for supplements to come out and, if you are only going to play on a casual basis, the investment will not be as much since you will be able to find most of the books used.

[Michael K]

First Post here. :) Ah well, there you are.
I suppose one of the biggest differences to me between the systems is the de facto power level.
In all the games I have played under 3rd Edition rules start characters were so far above opponents (as presented in the world / in pre-gen adventures) in terms of power, is was blatantly ridiculous. That is not wrong in itself, but it does create (for me anyway) certain problems in game play, starting with challenging the players to finding believable explanations and jobs for someone that good.
I have a feeling, so far unsubstantiated through actual playing, that due to the limitations of 4th Edition this will change and characters can be challenged without resorting to immortal elves, great dragons, cyberzombies or 500 Halloweeners (which would if nothing else at least slowly empty the Karma pool).

For me therefore the question comes down to: what exactly is it you want to do with the game? High-powered "super"-heroes ("super"-anti-heroes) in a reasonably dark world are probably easier under 3rd rules. More down-to-earth (or gutter) street-level play should be easier with 4th rules, given the caps and limits at CharGen.

From a purely mechanical approach I would recommend 4th, if only because the matrix and vehicle combat rules in the 3rd edition were utterly useless. Matrix could be salvaged with a second game master or a lot of time from both decker and game master (and even more patience from the remaining players) but chase and vehicle combat was ... well, just leave it out. 4 pages of strange, counter-intuitive tables that absolutely killed any idea of a high speed action chase did not leave much fun for the rigger.

[Grinder]

You can customize SR3 as well as SR4 by lowering or raising the BP for character generation to get the power level you want.

[Catsnightmare]

SR3's big problems with Rigging and Decking were addressed to a degree. Check out the alternative quick-rigging and quick-decking rules in the back of Mr. Johnsons Little Black Book.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Actually, it is quite simple.

You like the way WW designed their system or want to start quickly?

Go SR4.

You don't, and don't mind to invest months learning the exact mechanics for each and every aspect, then houseruling many?

Try SR3.


From a 'Fun' PoV, SR4 includes more cool stuff into its main book than SR3, even counting the base supplements.

[Aubri]

[Aubri]

[Aubri]

[Taran]

[Aubri]

[Ancient History]

[Ravennus]

[hobgoblin]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[morlock76]

After reading up on a ton of rules and looking at house rules, I finally realize that I have undergone a change.

I very much seperated myself from SR3 ruleset and idea(set) and like the ease of SR4. I have to admit that I enjoy playing Feng Shui, too, and I think SR4 is SR3 + Feng Shui.

There are some things to be ironed out, but oh well, cant have it all, can we?

Maybe with SR4 the player base will change a bit, leaving the crunchers out a bit, as you reach hard caps very quickly.

The caps bothered me at first, but if you set the scale at the right level, they are no problem any more.

I remember from going to cons that the people playing SR were always the one looking tired, kinda like working.
I hope that is something of the past. Make SR intense, but not work.

SR4 did the step in that direction and for me it made the jump into the new millenium with that.

Next oder of the day: Get all Ghost in the Shell Seasons and collect ideas :-)

[Pandamoanyum]

[nezumi]

[Shadow]

If you enjoy a D&D esq game play SR4. If you like things a little more complex and customizable, not to mention mature, play SR3.