Greetings,

I do not yet own a copy of SR4 though will likely pick up a copy of it, System Failure and Loose Alliances. The release of a new version of the game has given me the bug to possibly play it again or possibly run it and the question becomes which version? I've got copies of both SR2 and SR3. I consider SR3 to be worlds better than SR2. The couple of friends in my area have a bit of experience with either SR1 or SR2, not sure which. Effectively they'd have to be learning things from scratch.

Accepting the fact that SR3 will do some things better than SR4 and vice versa, what are the reasons to select each of the two systems? Also, which would be easier to run?

Thanks!

With a sweep of his...

Hat

The only thing I can say without knowing your gaming preferences, and without being too partial, is that with SR4 you will have a (much) easier time running vehicles and matrix side by side with the rest of the game. With SR3 you will be able to use a lot more of the sourcebooks and adventures, and so it could well be easier to get started at this point. Keep in mind that future source books will be for SR4 though.

lets see, reasons to either stay with SR3 or go on to SR4, hm.....well,

SR3 you already have plenty of material to work with and are able to go back to the previous missions and adventure books without having to remake the characters out of them

SR4 has fixed or at least tried to fix the rigging and decking rules so that people will actually want to play hackers, (what were called deckers and riggers)

people who have played SR1-SR3 will be used to the mechanics of the game and will not have any problem assimilating into an SR3 game

SR4 is a whole new mechanic except to those new SR players who have played almost any white wolf system game being that it is a fixed target number the only differences being that they will now be using the 6 sided dice instead of 10 sided

honestly i will continue for a while playing SR3, but i am currently working on retrofitting some of the adventure books so that they will be able to be played as SR4.....all these were made obsolete by SR4

Well I learned on sr2, then moved to sr3, and now sr4.

SR3 I don't really like at all. I don't like the way some of the game mechanics worked. I don't like the restrictiveness of the rules. I don't overly like how it forces some characters out of the party so to speak. But those are my feelings on sr3 so I don't overly recomend that.

as for SR4...i like the dice system. I like the flavor they pumped back into it (my opinion others don't have to agree with it). I like the unification of rules. I like how it brings the different archetypes back into the party and doesn't force them off to the side. I like the looser rules set which allows for alot more leeway on certain things.

To me sr4 is far easier to run as well. No more managing of 15 different tn modifiers. Quick simple underlying game mechanic that goes across the board into anything you're doing be it magic, matrix, rigging or gun combat. But then again I've also played exalted for the past 2-3 years which uses a similar mechanic so I may be biased.

I've got a lot of the sourcebooks, though none of the mods for SR3 and haven't played SR3 since I left Chapel Hill over 5 years ago.

I like the idea of being able to more easily integrate Hackers/Deckers into the game as a whole. My frustration with Cyberpunk 2020, SR1, SR2 and SR3 is that if someone logged into the Matrix it was almost "Ok, everyone else go take a break. I'll get back to you eventually."

Is there any reason that SR4 rules couldn't be used for a game that's set earlier say in the 2050s or early 2060s? Arguably the cyber and bio would have to be downgraded, not sure how much of an issue that would be.

What are some of the key watchouts if I do SR4?

Thanks for the quick responses.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

i just recently upgraded the entire "First Run" adventure book, as far as characters go, i think i could get away with doing "Missions" as well but after that i think just about everything thats in the adventure manuals is pretty much wasted, i dont see the ability to take your characters back or upgrade the games to SR4 because of timeline issues

But you can still use the new rules for "classic" hacking, which isn't bad.

I guess I should be clear, I'm not necessarily looking to go back to those years, just curious if the option exists.

Any other thoughts on the strengths/weaknesses of the two systems or recommendations?

With a sweep of his...

Hat

i donno, i personally, starting from a new campaign, dont see a problem with back timing the wireless matrix stuff. You can just say that thats how it is, or say the 2.0 crash happened earlier. Intergrating it into an existing campaign out of the timeline would be trickier IMO