Full Version: Regrets
| QUOTE (mfb) | ||
meh. the stuff you need to know to play a decker isn't much more than what you need to play an otaku--you've got more programs than otaku have channels, but that's about it. deckers only really get substantially more complex than otaku when you're trying to a) build one from scratch, or b) improve one. |
..and you have to worry about memory allocation, interface bandwidth, your deck in general, drekcetera.
BTW - Other than the age factor, otaku were quite nasty compared to technomancers, because implants did only increase their powers.
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
| ..and you have to worry about memory allocation, interface bandwidth, your deck in general, drekcetera. |
by the time you have enough money to have lots of memory-eating programs, you also have enough money to buy more memory. i've never run into memory allocation issues on any decker i've played. interface bandwidth is an optional rule (one that doesn't make sense), and your deck takes care of itself until it comes time to upgrade.
that's the other thing i don't like about TMs. otaku were mean. they did one thing, but they did it well. TMs, not so much.
| QUOTE (tisoz) | ||
This statement seems incredibly silly to me since SR4 has so far only released two core books. There is no way anyone is going to convince me Street Magic does not contain as many rules as say MitS. |
Hell, the issue for me with SR3 (which I love, btw) is not just that the rules are spread through so many books. It's also that it's spread into so many places even within a single book.
I can't think of any specific instances right off of the top of my head, but I distinctly remember cursing profusely on many occasions about how I had to reference no less than 3-4 pages spread throughout a single book just to get a complete picture on a single situation, and this would be in addition to having to reference pages spread throughout the many other books!
I expect having to reference several books in an RPG (if I'm using extended rules), but having to reference pages in several different sections in a single book to resolve a situation is just crap. Related rules should be grouped together.
They often weren't in SR3. They are in SR4.
That's exactly what I mean my an improved layout in SR4. The system itself isn't any better, but you're not flipping throughout the whole damn book in order to find a single rule. Things feel like they're better, when they;re just better organized.
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) |
| I actually went as a GM from using the 3rd ed Matrix rules to not using them. It wasn't that they were difficult so much as they represented about an hour of time where I had to focus on the decker(s) and nobody else. |
The thing I like about the new hacking rules is that there is WAY less dice rolling. Instead of Decker v System + Probe IC + Probe IC and rolling upwards of 40-60 dice for every single action it is usually diceless now.
The only time that I find I roll a lot as GM in hacking attempts now is when a Trace program is being used.
Dog gone it now I want to go out and buy SR4 even though I have no one to play with.
I am over joyed to hear about improved layout.
My only question I have in regards to rules being spread over many books I will give with an example. In SR3, and possibly SR2 my memory is fuzzy, there were no rules for actually using the skill Athletics within the core book. There were reasons given for having Athletics but no mechanics for how it affected a PC's ability to jump, climb, fall, or run. All of which are useful things to know early on. Does SR4 still have this or any similar problems?
Thanks
I am over joyed to hear about improved layout.
My only question I have in regards to rules being spread over many books I will give with an example. In SR3, and possibly SR2 my memory is fuzzy, there were no rules for actually using the skill Athletics within the core book. There were reasons given for having Athletics but no mechanics for how it affected a PC's ability to jump, climb, fall, or run. All of which are useful things to know early on. Does SR4 still have this or any similar problems?
Thanks
Yeah, and the Athletics rules didn't feel too well done either.
Regrets, I've had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
But then again, too few to mention.
Athletics is now a skill group encompassing 4 individual skills: swimming, running, gymnastics, and climbing. And they all have rules attached. Gymnastics in particular is sextacular, since it can be used for defensive purposes as well as for balance, leaping and falling tests. It can also be used for dancing, so it can make an effective performance skill as well. Pretty much all of my samurai and spec op characters these days are competent athletes boosted with Synthacardium for very nice dice pools.
There's other skills to pick up the slack when it comes to being vague and poorly fleshed out though. The skill parachuting, as has been pointed out before, doesn't seem to have any real rules (or hell, even existing parachutes) connected to it. Specializations are kind of messy and vague too. Unarmed combat, for example has a specialization called Martial arts, which is especially fun to argue about because there's plenty of people I've talked to who interpret that to mean you can just gain +2 dice whenever you do any unarmed melee combat actions. Which would probably be fine, if it weren't for all those other seemingly useless unarmed specializations sitting there waiting to be taken as alternatives. As for myself, I just think of Martial Arts as "Striking", by which I mean you should gain +2 to any standardl melee combat attack action.
There's other skills to pick up the slack when it comes to being vague and poorly fleshed out though. The skill parachuting, as has been pointed out before, doesn't seem to have any real rules (or hell, even existing parachutes) connected to it. Specializations are kind of messy and vague too. Unarmed combat, for example has a specialization called Martial arts, which is especially fun to argue about because there's plenty of people I've talked to who interpret that to mean you can just gain +2 dice whenever you do any unarmed melee combat actions. Which would probably be fine, if it weren't for all those other seemingly useless unarmed specializations sitting there waiting to be taken as alternatives. As for myself, I just think of Martial Arts as "Striking", by which I mean you should gain +2 to any standardl melee combat attack action.
Personally I like the fact that skills and specializations are so broad (again). I like the fact that I don't have to take Finance, Accounting, Human Resources, and Sales Management if I want to actually make money off my front business anymore. I also like that I can now drive all ground vehicles and be extra good at driving bikes.
The athletics skills in SR4 make tons of sense (except as someone pointed out most athletes can run but not all can swim) especially the rules for them.
The athletics skills in SR4 make tons of sense (except as someone pointed out most athletes can run but not all can swim) especially the rules for them.
| QUOTE (Cheops) |
| I also like that I can now drive all ground vehicles and be extra good at driving bikes. |
As opposed to SR3 (don't recall regarding 1 or 2), where you could drive all ground vehicles (within reason, such as if your character has no reason to know how to drive a tank, he can't drive a tank) and be extra good at driving <whatever you actually have skill points in>?
| QUOTE (Whipstitch) |
| Athletics is now a skill group encompassing 4 individual skills: swimming, running, gymnastics, and climbing. And they all have rules attached. Gymnastics in particular is sextacular, since it can be used for defensive purposes as well as for balance, leaping and falling tests. It can also be used for dancing, so it can make an effective performance skill as well. Pretty much all of my samurai and spec op characters these days are competent athletes boosted with Synthacardium for very nice dice pools. |
Why is SR4 implementing gymkata? I thought they were trying to be less 80s.
I actually made a character for SR3 who was supposed to be a gymkata adept. He was a direct rip off of the main character from gymkata.
The SR martial arts rules have always been hideous and bad.
"The system itself isn't any better, but you're not flipping throughout the whole damn book in order to find a single rule."
I disagree, one thing that Fanpro is good at is providing everything in one book. The core SR4 book really has everything you need. Hell, they incorporated stuff from about five different books from previous editions if you consider the bioware, metamagic, etc. Hell you have to buy at least three books to play D&D (Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide and the Monsters Manual). And White Wold makes you buy one general book to play and then a separate book for each of the main character types! (Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, etc). Shadowrun is hands down the best value for the money of any of the major RPG systems.
The problem with previous editions were there were too many rules. SR4 core covers more rules than SR3 and the book is half the size! Good job all round to the developers, it is much, much, much easier to pick up and play. The only thing I miss is combat pool...
I disagree, one thing that Fanpro is good at is providing everything in one book. The core SR4 book really has everything you need. Hell, they incorporated stuff from about five different books from previous editions if you consider the bioware, metamagic, etc. Hell you have to buy at least three books to play D&D (Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide and the Monsters Manual). And White Wold makes you buy one general book to play and then a separate book for each of the main character types! (Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, etc). Shadowrun is hands down the best value for the money of any of the major RPG systems.
The problem with previous editions were there were too many rules. SR4 core covers more rules than SR3 and the book is half the size! Good job all round to the developers, it is much, much, much easier to pick up and play. The only thing I miss is combat pool...
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) |
| Why is SR4 implementing gymkata? I thought they were trying to be less 80s. |
SR3 had gymkata. you could roll your athletics (gymnastics) skill and gain bonus dice for dodging as a complex action.
| QUOTE (eidolon) | ||
As opposed to SR3 (don't recall regarding 1 or 2), where you could drive all ground vehicles (within reason, such as if your character has no reason to know how to drive a tank, he can't drive a tank) and be extra good at driving <whatever you actually have skill points in>? |
Lol...you've obviously never had a group get caught because the only person who can drive can only drive Bikes.
I can't remember the specializations for SR3 anymore but I remember them being ridiculous for certain skills. Like by weapon type or by vehicle model.
The problem I have is that anyone every vehicle has a Pilot rating, which means it can drive itself. If you're packing a pilot 3 program of your own, then you've effectively got a skill of 3 in every vehicle you step into.
| QUOTE |
| I disagree, one thing that Fanpro is good at is providing everything in one book. The core SR4 book really has everything you need. |
Putting on the old grognard hat, you didn't need anything but the BBB for any edition of Shadowrun. With SR1, we didn't know what would be coming out-- or if anything would be coming out, the line could have died before any splats went to press-- and we managed to play a pretty decent game anyway.
What the splats did was escalate the power level, so the only way to compete with someone using those books would be to use those books yourself. That's why a lot of people felt it was "necessary" to use them. It wasn't, strictly speaking, it was only necessary for an upped power level which became mistaken for the default Shadowrun one. Street Magic might not have *more* rules, but it jumps the power level in much the same way, so now you "can't" create a mage without it.
| QUOTE (Cain) |
| What the splats did was escalate the power level, so the only way to compete with someone using those books would be to use those books yourself. That's why a lot of people felt it was "necessary" to use them. It wasn't, strictly speaking, it was only necessary for an upped power level which became mistaken for the default Shadowrun one. Street Magic might not have *more* rules, but it jumps the power level in much the same way, so now you "can't" create a mage without it. |
Agree with you there BIG time. I personally wish they'd had the space to put the extra Traditions in the BBB instead of in SM. While the stuff in SM (and the possession traditions which didn't need to necessarily be different) was good it wouldn't have been terribly useful if it didn't include that (for all us lazy GMs/players out there).
The funny thing is the thing that attracted a lot of people to SR3 was the rules bloat. Stuff like the deck design/programming rules and the rigger modified vehicles appealed to a certain subset.
What this means is that we will experience pretty significant bloat as more books come out for SR4 but the books will contain more and be more streamlined between rule sets.
I thought that SM did a fairly decent job of avoiding powerbloat, for the most part. Adepts probably got the biggest -practical- boost out of anyone, which I'm fine with, since I honestly believe they deserved quite a bit more diversification. Everyone seems to obsess over possession mages, but they generally don't run into many more balance issues than the standard traditions do. They're pretty mean, granted, but there's plenty of times where it'd be better to have both the Mage AND the spirit available to perform multiple actions than it is to have one possessed UberMage. Toss in the severe need for channeling metamagic and needing big stacks of prepared vessels available to make proper use of bound spirits and suddenly, I'm just not all that interested anymore.
One small area that bothers me about street magic though: the spirit selection. Guidance and Task Spirits are waaaay more versatile non-combatant spirits than well, any of the other spirits available in the core book combined. I mean, really. Task spirits can take physical and technical skills in lieu of optional powers while Guidance spirits can just go ahead and use divination for you. Beats the crap out of beast spirits and their control animal crap. I've yet to see the mundane animal I couldn't just as easily handle by having my Spirit of Man break out a couple of StunBalls.
One small area that bothers me about street magic though: the spirit selection. Guidance and Task Spirits are waaaay more versatile non-combatant spirits than well, any of the other spirits available in the core book combined. I mean, really. Task spirits can take physical and technical skills in lieu of optional powers while Guidance spirits can just go ahead and use divination for you. Beats the crap out of beast spirits and their control animal crap. I've yet to see the mundane animal I couldn't just as easily handle by having my Spirit of Man break out a couple of StunBalls.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| by the time you have enough money to have lots of memory-eating programs, you also have enough money to buy more memory. |
There's never enough memory. Especially not with cranial variants... which were hideously expensive.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| i've never run into memory allocation issues on any decker i've played. |
That's interesting.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| interface bandwidth is an optional rule (one that doesn't make sense), and your deck takes care of itself until it comes time to upgrade. |
Hardly. Your deck gets damaged by grey ICE, needs constant upgrading to stay SOTA, as do your programs - and of course, if it gets shot, you'll cry.
And don't forget all those funny little options you have when choosing programs... oh, and there were quite some.
That is, if you played real deckers and not deckers light.
Compared to that, otaku are so beautifully simple it makes you wonder if the developers hated deckers.
| QUOTE (Whipstitch) |
| One small area that bothers me about street magic though: the spirit selection. Guidance and Task Spirits are waaaay more versatile non-combatant spirits than well, any of the other spirits available in the core book combined. |
Agreed.
The fact Guidance, Guardian, and Plant spirits can Counterspell/Dispel massively inflates their usefulness compared to the BBB spirits.
| QUOTE (Cheops) |
| Lol...you've obviously never had a group get caught because the only person who can drive can only drive Bikes. |
No, I haven't. That would be because unless you made it explicit in your character's background or something, it's assumed that any character can drive regular old cars, pickups, vans, motorcycles, or whatever fits, but that you must default to Reaction if forced to make any driving or crash tests. "Getting around in a car" is explicitly described in the core book as not requiring an actual skill.
| QUOTE (Cheops) |
| I can't remember the specializations for SR3 anymore but I remember them being ridiculous for certain skills. Like by weapon type or by vehicle model. |
I'm not sure what this has to do with the topic at hand. Specializations are subsets of Skills, and yes, it would be by weapon type or vehicle model. If it were a major part of your character concept that he/she "only ever drove her Yamaha Rapier", then the skill list would contain
Motorcycles (Yamaha Rapier) 5(7).
And that still wouldn't mean that the character couldn't ride another bike. It also would by no means indicate that the character couldn't just drive a car or other vehicle (again, GM's call on stuff that wouldn't make sense, such as piloting a Galaxy C-5 when your character has never so much as seen the cockpit of a Cessna).
| QUOTE (Cain) |
| What the splats did was escalate the power level, so the only way to compete with someone using those books would be to use those books yourself. That's why a lot of people felt it was "necessary" to use them. It wasn't, strictly speaking, it was only necessary for an upped power level which became mistaken for the default Shadowrun one. |
QFT.
| QUOTE (eidolon) |
| QUOTE (Cheops) Lol...you've obviously never had a group get caught because the only person who can drive can only drive Bikes. No, I haven't. That would be because unless you made it explicit in your character's background or something, it's assumed that any character can drive regular old cars, pickups, vans, motorcycles, or whatever fits, but that you must default to Reaction if forced to make any driving or crash tests. "Getting around in a car" is explicitly described in the core book as not requiring an actual skill. |
...heck even KK can drive a car and actually did so pretty well when she was running in OtR. Threw a couple of the Toll gangers off the car by hitting the brakes
| QUOTE (eidolon) | ||||
No, I haven't. That would be because unless you made it explicit in your character's background or something, it's assumed that any character can drive regular old cars, pickups, vans, motorcycles, or whatever fits, but that you must default to Reaction if forced to make any driving or crash tests. "Getting around in a car" is explicitly described in the core book as not requiring an actual skill.
I'm not sure what this has to do with the topic at hand. Specializations are subsets of Skills, and yes, it would be by weapon type or vehicle model. If it were a major part of your character concept that he/she "only ever drove her Yamaha Rapier", then the skill list would contain Motorcycles (Yamaha Rapier) 5(7). And that still wouldn't mean that the character couldn't ride another bike. It also would by no means indicate that the character couldn't just drive a car or other vehicle (again, GM's call on stuff that wouldn't make sense, such as piloting a Galaxy C-5 when your character has never so much as seen the cockpit of a Cessna). |
Yes any character can "get around" in any old cars. I never made anyone make tests to just drive. You'll note the "getting caught" part. When it is important for the run then roles are called for. And when no one has the skill to drive a car at rapid pace away from a scene of a crime that poses a problem.
I was responding to someone who had mentioned that they didn't like the way specializations worked in SR4. I think it is much better starting broad (I drive all ground vehicles) and narrowing with specialization (but I'm best with a bike). In SR3 you had I can only drive bikes and I'm best with my Yamaha Rapier.
Only Street Sams could safely default to Reaction in a car chase or a getaway.
| QUOTE (Cain @ Apr 17 2007, 01:55 AM) |
| What the splats did was escalate the power level, so the only way to compete with someone using those books would be to use those books yourself. That's why a lot of people felt it was "necessary" to use them. It wasn't, strictly speaking, it was only necessary for an upped power level which became mistaken for the default Shadowrun one. Street Magic might not have *more* rules, but it jumps the power level in much the same way, so now you "can't" create a mage without it. |
It has been a few years but believe I recall being pretty annoyed at how powered down my 1rst ed decker became when the first matrix book came out (virtual realities?).
| QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig) |
| There's never enough memory. Especially not with cranial variants... which were hideously expensive. |
Yeah. If you were smart, you'd just install a big ass memory chip in one of those body cavity implant things with DNI.
| QUOTE (Cheops) |
| Only Street Sams could safely default to Reaction in a car chase or a getaway. |
Unless the car was rigger enabled. Then a rigger could default quite happily.
| QUOTE (Vaevictis) | ||
Yeah. If you were smart, you'd just install a big ass memory chip in one of those body cavity implant things with DNI. |
Actually, those only served as storage memory.
If you were smart, you just got yourself a tortoise, some nice programs and never again worried about IC.
On the subject of vehicles and vehicle skills I have to say that one my favorite things as a SR3 GM (I don't do SR4 anyway) was exactly the "look on peoples' faces" when it turned out that none of them had adequate vehicle skills. It's funny because it's one of those things which most people forget about or neglect because they're trying to be T3H 1R0N SN1P3RRR!!!!!oneone!!!!! and then it turns out that he doesn't know how to drive.
GM: "OK, you're in your super secret 1R0N SN1P3RRR bunker which you've designed to be out of the way, defensible, and difficult to find in the hills away from Seattle which you created using the expanded lifestyle rules. The Johnson expects you at the McHugh's in an hour. How do you get there?"
Player: "I, um...oh crap. 1R0N SN1P3RRR has no vehicle skills."
I mean, personally, I think that's just terrific.
GM: "OK, you're in your super secret 1R0N SN1P3RRR bunker which you've designed to be out of the way, defensible, and difficult to find in the hills away from Seattle which you created using the expanded lifestyle rules. The Johnson expects you at the McHugh's in an hour. How do you get there?"
Player: "I, um...oh crap. 1R0N SN1P3RRR has no vehicle skills."
I mean, personally, I think that's just terrific.
| QUOTE (Glayvin34) |
| A few of the books are available, but not enough to play. If you like Shadowrun, play SR3 for now. |
Sure there are. Why would you play SR3? Our group plays SR4 and has lots of fun. There are issues that come up that require a GM ruling but that's true of any game.
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) |
| GM: "OK, you're in your super secret 1R0N SN1P3RRR bunker which you've designed to be out of the way, defensible, and difficult to find in the hills away from Seattle which you created using the expanded lifestyle rules. The Johnson expects you at the McHugh's in an hour. How do you get there?" Player: "I, um...oh crap. 1R0N SN1P3RRR has no vehicle skills." |
"...uhh, I take the bus?"
Actually had a fellow player who's character did that once to get to a meet.
Had another character take a Johnny Cab (yeah I have them in my setting).
...still not as humourous as Sammy on a Ten Speed though.
Please bring this thread back to subject. Start a new thread for rules discussions or comments on the idiosyncrasies of player trasnportation.
...once again...
(had Windows decide lock up Firefox just as I was finishing, losing everything in the process)
...apologies for fueling the derailment.
There was more but in rewriting what was lost, the tone became more a GM's regrets concerning changes to some of the game's aspects and lack of source material, which alas seemed more appropriate for a discussion relating to Campaign Design and the aspects of the different editions.
(had Windows decide lock up Firefox just as I was finishing, losing everything in the process)
...apologies for fueling the derailment.
There was more but in rewriting what was lost, the tone became more a GM's regrets concerning changes to some of the game's aspects and lack of source material, which alas seemed more appropriate for a discussion relating to Campaign Design and the aspects of the different editions.
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