yeah, i like the fact that a lot of spells in SR3 are useful at F1--though i don't like the fact that many of those spells are just as useful at F1 as F6.

*Swooooooooooooosh*

That's the sound of a point flying over Brahm's head.

I disagree. You can play an old-style shaman easily enough: just don't take the Binding skill, and spend your 16+ skill points elsewhere. Perfectly balanced, and considering what I've seen a shaman do with unbound spirits on remote service, very, very nasty.

That assumes that there was a plan to stick to those two, which there wasn't. Originally the intention was to have different systems for each magical tradition (hence first edition voodoo) - although that went down the drain when SR2 (actually, to be fair, it was the London sb) began shoehorning stuff into the two main traditions. I know Kage would have appreciated the original solution, I for one always thought some intrinsic problems with balancing the traditions (one of the legacy systems that ran through the first three editions) meant shamans had a distinct gameplay (from a shadowrunner standpoint) advantage over hermetics and later traditions.

Shadowrun 4 attempts to reset the balance by blending the tradition mechanics into a single balanced system while attempting to maintain the distinct paradigms and worldviews seperate. Some people prefer distinct and distinctive mechanics and that's all right, the SR4 approach probably isn't for them. Others believe that distinct tradition mechanics are unnecessary and distinction between an water elemental and an undine is a matter of perception - SR4 is targeted at these.
Unfortunately the base book had precious little space to illustrate the fact that the flavor and roleplay distinction is very much there, so it remains to be seen how well this filters through upcoming books -- but for some reason I've got a feeling its something we'll be getting to soon enough.

The flavor text that there were hundreds of traditions goes all the way back. In previous editions, this wasn't brought across well because it required many pages pf special rules to make a new tradition, so lots of magics ended up getting lumped where they didn't really belong because it was easier.

In SR4, there are 181,440 game mechanically distinct non-threat traditions possible. I think that ought to cover everything. So now comes the work of writing up flavor text to make things seem different.

When previous editions set out the idea that every different tradition had different rules, it failed. Idol Worshippers end up as Shamans with Totems out of laziness. With SR4's tradition designation system, that won't ever happen.

Maybe the difference isn't enough for some people, but the difference is always there. Previous editions delivered a difference in spades when they could be bothered to (Shamanism, Hermeticism, Vodoun), but often as not they couldn't be (Idols, Druids).

-Frank

I agree that dragons seem to have already proven that the distinction between shamanic and hermetic summoning was a human construct. The fact that has eroded by 2070 doesn't bother me.

If I were running a game with SR4 rules set in 2065 or earlier, I'd probably consider restricting shamanic characters to summoning and hermetic to binding to return to the old ways.

Perhaps most internet message boards are assumed to be at a conversational (read: retarded*) level of language. I like to think that anyone that claims to be armed with enough wit to engage in debate should be able to use the language at a higher level than "kthxbye".

It was, however, merely an observation made for the purpose of light humor. You needn't take it to heart and turn it into its own subject of debate.

This is off topic. I'm getting worse about that. Sometimes things just need saying though, even if they're somewhat a tangent.

*caveat: If you're using a second (or third, or fourth, even) language to speak to people on the internet, big kudos to you. I'm not disparaging your ability to speak a second language. I'm disparaging the lack of ability that some display in speaking their first.

i've seen a hell of a lot of shamans--eight years or so of gaming on an online forum with several hundred active users over the years--and it is not my experience that Invoking is anywhere close to always being a shaman's first initiatory power.

top three, i'd say offhand and in no particular order, would probably be Centering, Shielding, and Masking. more shamans take Invoking than do hermetics, but in general, it's not that common. there are no GM-imposed hurdles to initiation, but the rate of initiation is slow because the rate of karma gain is slow--a single combat can easily take as long as a month to resolve, since most people post maybe once a day.

to a point. it also means that players are very, very careful with their karma expenditures, since advancing is so rare.

I still prefer the differences in elementals to spirits my self, and the change I see is less in rules than the feel of the game because of the change in the rules. But I suppose that's just a matter of personal preference. As you were.

hee hee hee ha ha ha hahahahaha! yes, very cautious.

Last week my character Slim let it ride on a poker game. Slim had a few hundred more in the pot than he had cash. The other player was on a first name basis with the casino workers, and he just screamed 'made man'. Which was later confirmed. From a metagame perspective this is an email conversation with the GM from the day before.

GM>Mind if I get Slim into trouble at the casino?

Me> Define trouble. "Oh god, we are all going to end up buried alive in a
cornfield" trouble? "So that is how I got the name 'Four Finger Slim'"
trouble? Or just "Damn it, I felt so sure about being able to draw that
inside straight. Now I guess I'll have to help you out with your little
problem, but at least I still have enough money to pay the rent and maybe
even hire a cheap skank off the corner and maybe I'll even be able to make a
coin or two helping you" trouble? The last one or something like that I
could live with.

Ominously I received no reply. But hey, go big or go home. I threw in Edge up front and rolled very well for 7 hits. GM says "We have a problem." Lifts the screen to show his roll. Couldn't tell you how many dice since I don't like knowing the exact number, but it was a fistful. With a sinking feeling I count the successes, but only 6? Problem? I had thwarted the ratbastard's cornfield plot hook.

Even given an extra few minutes reflection the downside of losing that roll could have scared me off and cost me the 10K+ I came away with.

lessee... just my main guy, Italy. in his first major conflict, he meleed a force 7 great form earth elemental so that the rest of the team--i'll note here that everyone was dressed for a meet, not for a run--could take on a team of Deus' blues and their medusa; ended up at S+3 damage before the mage managed to fry the medusa and was thereby freed up to banish the elemental. armed with an MP-5K (5 skill), one clip, and no armor, took on a five-man mob hit team (stats taken from the character examples in the BBB) with a similarly-armed street sam. snuck alone onboard a boat full of mages and adepts (10 of 'em or so) in order to obtain evidence for a run. takes point every time (or co-point with his street sam partner). shot up an assault chopper that was gunning for his team, taking no cover in order to get the clearest shot. moved up to attack an uberpowerful (F12, and 3 SE) shedim after our rigger downed it, making a TN 15 will roll against the fear power because he didn't get there in time to take its head off before it regenerated (and i made it with no karma, haha!).

the street sam i've mentioned Italy partnering with is even more retarded. if anything, i'd say the pace of the games makes us more likely to go for the big risks--after all, the GM has just as much time to plan as you do; winning big now can mean thwarting the bad thing he's about to do to you.

they're advanced now. Italy has around 200 karma; i've been playing him for about five years, now, making every effort to keep him book-legal. but a few weeks back, i had a starting-level character of mine leap out of a speeding car and onto the roof of another car, for the sole reason that she wanted to be the one to take out the target, before the other characters (most armed with ranged weapons and/or spells, while she was armed with only her aluminum bone-laced fists) could. given my incredibly shitty luck with the die roller (how about rolling 13 dice for a stealth test and getting nothing higher than a 5, regularly), i ought to be as cautious as possible. they do it because it's in their character, not necessarily because it's the best option at the time.

well, that's not 100% true. they also do it because i'm a competitive motherfucker who loves winning.

A lot of the crazy crap we pull off comes very specifically from having access to, and being proficient at getting the most out of, Combat Pool. Which is (for myself, at least) a huge reason that SR4 quite simply does not appeal to me.

Knowing when to use it in a mad suicide all-out attack (IE, "if this hits, the balance is tipped in our favor, so I go for it"), knowing when to hold some cover and just trust in your base attack dice (keeping CP handy for dodging), knowing when to dole out a CP here and a CP there to just maximize each shot. Even being very, very, carefull with Karma Pool expenditures (Cursed Karma flaw means my sammie never counted on KP to help out), you can do an awful lot with a decent base attack skill, decent Body, and a high CP. There's also the "when do I want to aim instead of take two shots" thought process, the "benefits versus drawbacks of exceeding recoil comp versus firing single shots" question, the ever controversial "do I keep a low TN, or do I call a shot" ideas, and the "I drop the gun and rush him to brawl" situations.

To be quite blunt, being a better player when it comes to figuring out combat effectiveness is all that's kept MFB and I's "signature" characters alive (IMO). Quite simply, there've been some games where we've understood the basic logic behind CP expenditure, aim actions, called shots, etc, than our GMs (though not all of those GMs, by a long shot).

That comes from a knowledge of the rules, an understanding of basic probability, and a halfway decent (though by no means truly optimized, at last in my case) character build. A lot of that is gone from SR4, though. The decision making isn't the same. You can't modify your TN any more (which makes a huge difference, potentially, much more significant towards the probability of a roll than adding or subtracting a die or two), you can't spend CP every turn, and you don't (quite) have Karma Pool.

I understand the purpose of Edge is to, at least partially, make up for the lost Karma Pool and (supposedly) Combat Pool. But those three -- altering your own TN through your action choices, allocating Combat Pool based on the probability and/or importance of your attack, and using Karma Pool at key moments to make sure things go your way -- are a holy trinity to me. Taking away all three, and half-assedly replacing them with a mish-mash of two of the original three? That's just not enough. Like a stool, you need all three to be present for it to stay stable/balanced. They can't make two-legged stools.