Rough guess, about 800+. I didn't exactly stop and count them. We were all participating in several massively huge battle sequences, so I had to keep an eye on just about everyone in my vicinity, friend and foe. I was the support mage, and I also provided fire-support; my job was to cover my teammates retreats, so we could constantly swap in fresh fighters.

The general gamers are the target market for SR4; the issue of competing dollars thus comes into play. If you've only got enough cash for one game system, which are you going to choose? Many of the people I know choose to buy several used books, instead of one new one. The ones who are interested in the new books are going to be comparing SR4 vs nWoD, CP3.0, D20 Modern/Future/Spycraft, Dreaming Cities, RIFTS, and so on. It's not going to be easy for any game to stand out in that crowd.

You are. I'm not currently running SR4, I'm joining a new Sr3 game.

Then why do you even care? It's not like I go over to the RMSS boards and point out all the obvious flaws it has over RM2 (which has it's own flaws). Or even go over to SR3 boards to tell you people that your game sucks because it has variable target numbers that allow the imposible to happen. It's just not worthwhile, unless you're looking to stroke your ego by acting superior.

Several hundred across the years. You were the one who brought up the numbers game. You wanted to know how limited my experience pool was, so I gave you an answer.

And CP3.0, and D20 Modern/Future/Spycraft, and RIFTS, and Dreaming Cities, and several web expansions for Savage Worlds and GURPS, and GURPS Technomancer, plus a few others....

I've been playing Shadowrun since it first came out. I still have my original BBB, and it's even autographed. I learned to GM by running Harlequin. I have a collection of just about every Shadowrun sourcebook ever published (I'm only missing Tir Tairngire and Prime Runners in hardcopy) and a few extras besides (I own DMV and Series 1 Duels figures). I have *every* right to express my opinions on any edition of Shadowrun, and to help others get the most out of their Shadowrun experience. I just don't happen to feel that SR4 is the best way of doing that.

What's your point? I've done all of the above. Would you like to buy my Tir Tairngire and Prime Runners? I can always borrow a friends if I need to.

Everybody knows you don't feel like SR4 is the best way to get a shadowrun experience. I don't feel SR3 is. We've both expressed that opinion over and over again, and had that opinion discounted over and over again. But in the end it doesn't matter. It's not like anyone is listening to either of us anymore anyway. and I certainly won't ever convince you of anything, no matter how right I happen to be.

Basically you've expressed your concerns with the system. I (and others) have demonstrated how it's not as bad as you think as long as you actually use the rules and interject some common sense (something you've had to do for all editions of all complex games ever). You disagree, as if we didn't know you would.

Basically my points all boil down to: SR4 is great if you use some common sense. Your point is "SR3 is great if you use some common sense." I agree with you, or I wouldn't have played SR3 for so many years. But SR4 is here now, and is, in my limited experience, a better base engine. YMMV

I've discussed SR3 and my desires for SR4 with possibly thousands. I've been on these forums since before they were known as Dumpshock (they used to be known as Deep Resonance) in what's known as the "Christmas tree days". People here have been kicking around improvements for Shadowrun for at least a decade. Dumpshock has probably had several thousand people pass through it over that time.

Actually, Shadowrun is dystopian fantasy, not necessarily near future. RIFTS, for example, easily fits that mold. But when it comes to purchases, people lump Shadowrun in with all the other cyberpunk games out there. Right now, I think all the freelancers and FanPro staff will agree that their biggest competition is CP3.0.

You've been playing since 89? And you have an *autographed* original BBB? Jordan told me that I was the first, although there may have been others since.

You mean: "Use common sense and interject some house rules". You're not following the strict RAW either, I'll bet you've got several pages of house rules. When I buy a game, I prefer it when I don't have to come up with a ton of house rules-- some is inevitable, but I don't like having to change everything from the bottom up to deal with broken mechanics.

How many have you actually engaged in conversation on a meaningful level (like we've had here). And how many of those conversations were about SR4. Not what you wanted for it, but what it is? And how many weren't exactly like this one, with them saying what they're saying and you saying what you're saying ad infinitum ad nauseum? In other words, how much of that has been actual, meaningful conversation where both sides were open to change, as opposed to the pissing match we've got here?

2070 is "near future." Lord of the Rings is dystopian fantasy. Shadowrun is a blend of sci-fi and fantasy. You could call it dystopian sci-fantasy, but to leave the sci out indicates to me we've got even bigger differences about our ideas of what SR is. Or do you not use advanced computer technology in your games?

Sorry, that was a bit of hyperbole. I also didn't learn to GM by running Harlequin, I learned prior to that. I figured since you were so obviously intelligent (or at least seem to think you are) that you would recognize a bit of exagerration. Forgive me. I'll try to dumb it down in the future.

I currently have no SR4 house rules, although I've got some in mind. I'll probably solidify some if/when it becomes necessary. I can assure you I won't be changing everything from the bottom up to deal with broken mechanics. I'd just throw it out the window and play a different game. But I've yet to see anything, from your list of gripes or anyone else's, that requires the game be rewritten from the ground up.

So far everything you've said was a problem involves taking rules to extremes, something every game has problems with eventually. At some point, no matter what the system, the gamemaster has to say something along the lines of "enough is enough." Ok, not everything you said. Some of it was just the rules working as intended, which isn't actually a problem.

Probably thousands. I've never bothered to count.

Less than ten

We could really get into this one, but LotR is most decidedly not dystopian fantasy. Dystopian means anti-utopian, signifing a utopia gone bad. This is a common theme in cyberpunk, and many other sci-fi settings (Logan's run, Firefly, the Borg in Star Trek). One of the core themes of Shadowrun is "where man meets magic and machine"-- basically, how much humanity we can hold on to in the face of all these changes. Most people in Shadowrun are faceless cogs in the megacorp money-making machine. Shadowrunners have always been the few who are true individuals, the ones who have not sold out their humanity to adopt a corporate identity. Since most dystopian settings are strongly sci-fi anyway, I didn't think it was necessary to repeat it.

You've posted more than a few house rules in this forum in the last few days. And the problem isn't taking a game to extremes, it's how rapidly it can be taken there. If you couldn't break the system without a 1000 BP character, then it'd be reasonably solid. However, I can crack the most secure database in the world with a starting character, with Logic 1. Heck, I could do it with a 350 point character, which is classified as "low powered". If the low-powered characters can pull such extremes, there's something seriously wrong.

That was just *one* example. There are many others. The only way to fix this problem is to make some serious changes to the way teamwork tests work.

Once again, this isn't the "far end of the rules". This is a simple trick, easily done by any starting character. The extreme would be to use 100 rating 12 commlinks, loaded with rating 12 agents. We're nowhere near that level.

By that point, I'll have deleted all the other admin passkeys, and turn all the IC back onto their controlling deckers. I'll also have drained enough money to buy out every megacorp on the planet, started all-out corporate warfare as I trash all the banking transactions the megacorps depend on, and quickly retire to my own private island and sip mail-tais while the world collapses.

Seriously, though, the problem isn't hacking Z-O. The problem is that the exact same trick will break open every other system on the planet as well. You're not going to be able to challenge your decker without resorting to the extreme of sending 100 agents after him-- and like you said, at that point, every system breaks down. For 12.5 BP, you can have a character who completely trashes the system. If something is potentially game-breaking, it should be difficult to acquire, yes? Now, I know people have different standards about this, but for such a complete game-breaker, that's way too cheap.

Except if ZO uses a 15-tier access node system which actually links to the internal systems via a controlled vanishing-SAN-style bridge which is watched 24-7 with the first twelve nodes hooked up to 150 subsystem processors running 100 agents each with "Simon said" orders to attack intruders. Goose, gander, you get the idea... whatever a hacker has the corps have better. What you're describing is not the stuff of shadowruns but of corp war.

And, for the record, you could do exactly the same thing with smart frames and agents in SR3 only worse because there wasn't a node Response rating.

Of course, this assumes that both the GM and the player are reading the rules in the same way and agree with your interpretation of them anyway (the subscribing agents issue will be addressed and clarified in the aforementioned FAQ for instance). And at which point I will also point out that the base book includes only the basic rules. Unwired will address the rest and clarify some of the gray areas - you know, sorta like Matrix did with the holes in the SR3 Matrix chapter.

Your comment on the "challenge" level and 12.5 BPs tells me you're likely not playing playing by the same rules everyone else is so further discussion is pretty useless. Maybe you should check the Idiot's Guide to the Matrix thread to see how "easy" it is for a specialist hacker to hit a high security system.

I'm tight for time right now because I've got some deadlines but I will get back to this thread later. I would like to reply to mfb.

I dunno if that's a good idea, Syn. Replying to Cain or MFB is usually like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

Your last sentence hit it exactly. Some of the core premises of Shadowrun start to break down. This trick is so easy, suspension of disbelief becomes an issue if everyone's *not* doing it. And if everyone is doing it, it becomes total matrix warfare to check your email.

Except SR3 didn't have the same sort of teamwork tests that SR4 does. Complimentary rolls had a lot more limitations than teamwork tests do.

Edit: Just re-skimmed the Matrix thread. You do realize that Aku is also using the multi-agent trick? Not quite the same way, I'll grant, but he's squeegeed out quite a nice bonus for himself.

Not really - every free icon generates it's own tally.

The only problem is that one of those might trigger IC constructs, security deckers or alarms, which affect all of them.

You say "many" but gave a list of what, 5 - 7? All 5-7 have been addressed. What are the rest? I'll happily address them one by one. Some of them may actually be as bad as you think, but I can be almost positive that all of them just require a little GM common sense, something every game system ever created requires. That SR4 requires common sense is not a negative selling point, it's a fact of gaming existence.

What Cain proposed in the other thread was to run agents on different commlinks under a "Simon said" protocol to overwhelm the defenses (assuming the defenses don't have the exact same capability in the first place - not to keep out idiot shadowrunners how pull this stunt but to keep out megacorporate hack squads). That is entirely possible in SR3. You plant your smart frames on different computers/decks/hosts/telecom units instead of your own deck and put them on a "Simon said" order. From that point on the results are essentially the same in SR4 and SR3 . Why?

Nowhere does SR4 say that the teamwork rules apply to agents (or to any other program, piece of gear or device for that matter), in fact, the teamwork rules refer only to "characters". Furthermore, I see nothing to say "cooperative" hacking is any more possible in SR4 than it was in SR3. To the contrary, there are references that indicate that subscribers/account users on a node are treated as separate ("independent") entities by the node (just as hackers in SR3 faced individual security tallys).

They wouldn't do it because its a stupid tactic.ZO (and any major corporate network under such assault) would turn off the tiered access nodes and the massed agent assault would never get past the first chokepoint - unless of course you hacked onsite. Not that it's "that easy" in the first place.

Except you're laboring under the misunderstanding that teamwork tests apply when hacking (with or without agents).

I see this working more along the lines of the "infinite monkeys and Hamlet" technique. Also known as "zerging," if you're hip to that lingo.

I'd think it'd start to look more like a denial of service attack at that point more than an unstoppable security breach. Response go poof, node shut down.

I dunno, why would you post here if you're not even playing the game? These are mysteries for the ages.

Like MFB said-- that's a refutation?! Wow, you really missed the point. If you can obliterate Z-O under that tactic, imagine what'll happen when you attack normal systems. As you yourself said, the way to counter this trick is with the same trick-- which leads to all-out Martix Warfare to check your email, and eventually Crash 3.0. If you simply disallow it, you run across another suspension-of-disbelief issue; Pilot programs are allowed to coordinate and make teamwork tests normally, so why do they suddenly lose that ability in the matrix?

Some with no *easily reached* breakable flaws. In the D&D example you mentioned, you can't do that as a 1st level character... I don't have a book on hand, so I couldn't tell you exactly what level is required, but isn't it 10+ to be able to cast all those spells? Once per day?

Replace the agents with a decker gang. Same thing happens.

You missed the point. Leaving aside the onsite decking job, there's absolutely no reason for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to not be running around with a personal army of Mr. Smiths. Everywhere you go, you face massed agent attacks. With that many tests required to settle a simple trip to your email, the game quickly bogs down and breaks.

Translation: It doesn't work because I weild ULTIMATE GM POWAH!! Bad player for finding a clever trick! Here comes the bovine bombardment!

i've answered this before. i suggest trying the search function if you can't recall.

haha, you're comparing the zerging of Z-O to magic freaking missile? wow.

What, try to sort through all of your contentious posts to find a single reply of "Because I want to?" No thanks.

Nope.

Tally carries over from RTG to LTG to Host, but is handled individually.

the other option, of course, is to buzz off. you're not contributing to the discussion--you don't even seem interested in the discussion. why are you here, posting in this thread?

i've played a hell of a lot of D&D, both 3e and 3.5e, and i've never had any problem with mages overusing magic missile. it's way too easy to stop them, and the spell damage is hilariously low anyway. oh noes, the mage is hitting the monsters with 1d4+1 damage! they're in trouble now!

as far as player maturity, i am the goddamn GMs in a lot of games. i don't want to have to take personal control of every single die roll everyone makes. i want to be able to trust the rules in most cases, only stepping in occasionally. i've got enough of a load on my back just bringing the setting to life without sweating every roll someone makes.

Oh, I'm here in the futile attempt to curb your traditional "SR3 good, SR4 bad" rhetoric so the actual thread topic can continue. Rather self-defeating of me, ain't it?

Care to agree to a mutual buzzing off? I'm open to it.

i'm not talking about carrying tally from host to host. i'm talking about SR3 page 212, last three paragraphs under Host/Grid Reset.

my position is not "SR3 good, SR4 bad", and if you believe it is, then you're not paying attention. regardless, that's not the topic.