I've been browsing through Augmentation on and off tonight and noticed several references to metavariants and SURGE changelings.

Which had me wondering: Has there been anything "official" in SR4 regarding either of these character options yet? Or perhaps something officially announced about them being featured in an upcoming product? I've only seen the occasional reference, but that's about it.

I believe it's slated for the SR4 Player's Guide (like an SR4 version of the Shadowrun Companion). I believe this because developers have said that is where it goes.

There was some discussion of throwing some SURGE stuff in the genetics section of Augmentation, but that was shelved for the Player's Guide. Presumably it'll be put in there.

-Frank

Much obliged. Is there a release schedule somewhere?

not by the looks of it. its not even listen under upcoming books over on srrpg.com...

I am officially a sad panda then.

i know the feel. i had someone sound interesting when i told them about night-ones. and while i could wing some rules and stats for them, it would be nice to have the official take.

My naked dual mono-whip ninja pirate puss... ehh, catgirls, yes catgirls are sad too.

Canon would be nice. I like mine ahem... I mean my rules, RAW.

Runners Companion (working title) is tentatively on the schedule for sometime next year - the book will likely include the various metavariants, changelings and rules for playing "off-beat" characters (like shifters and ghouls).

please, PLEASE roll metavariants into surge. Please. Maybe as a package of traits. Just to clean the rules up a bit.

Eh, I'll just be ignoring the silly metavariants even if they do pop up. There's enough Tolkien in SR already, IMO.

it would be oh so nice, sadly one may think, if SR robbed the idea of D&D where one have basic info about how to play any known "monster" that shows up in a book...

Hey, you didn't notice the part about bio-drones in augmentation, did you? And the part about Jar-heads? It is only a matter of time until someone puts a jarhead into a biodrone, and we have full species-switching.

Also, nothing really stops you from making humaniod bio-drones, that I could see.

well there us always these:

Actually I wouldn't mind some rules for playing sasquatches or any of the other sentient critters. If only because it would provide a workable framework for developing NPCs of those species. Not every dwarf has the same Body, neither does every sasquatch. Besides, depending on the flavor of your campaign, a sasquatch could be a good time.

Nope. Just ordered print copies of each book this morning.

The general path went:


The sig would be different, but the WSOD prevents my altering it at the moment.

One thing I desperately hope they avoid in the new rules is adding a BP penalty for the "rarity" of an optional race. That includes but is not limited to requiring Positive Qualities.

BPs are there to create balanced characters, not to dissuade people from choosing things simply because they're supposed to be rare. Rarity is handled in the gameworld and it should be up to GMs to say if optional races are permitted or not on a case by case basis.

Rarity of metatype is an inherent disadvantage. If anything, it should be paying you points because you get to stand in shorter police line-ups.

-Frank

That I wouldn't mind at all as it's a tangible disadvantage of being one. I'm talking about how, for example, in SR3 it cost an extra 5 BP (closer to about 15 or so BP in SR4) just to be a Metavariant, complete with all the roleplaying hardships that it entailed.

That's the sort of thing I don't want to see. Also having each metavariant looked at again based upon their type and description would be nice. Some were really odd, like low-Charisma Satyrs (which make more sense as an Elf variant to me anyway) or Dryads who were nearly unplayable as a standard shadowrunner.

But yeah, extra cost just to simulate "rarity" would be a major moment for me. Especially since SR4 seems to have been avoiding that past trend so far.

Pricing is a difficult thing in RPG design because it doesn't directly correspond to the standard pricing in capitalist markets that we are all familiar with. The goal is not to maximize the price that will nonetheless sell the most units - the goal is actually to get everyone to get what they pay for. Thus, it is more analagous to pricing in a paternalistic command economy.

SR3 had a number of pricing schemes based on the erroneous idea that everything was supposed to "sell". So Dwarfs got their price ratcheted down while Variants got their price cranked up. In order to get everything sold, SR3 ended up charging people less points to be a Dwarf than the raw attribute bonuses you got. Taking any human character and writing "Dwarf" on the race line actually paid you 3 BP (about 10 BP in SR4) with no real drawback.

This is the sort of logic that ended up with D&D having Clerics who can out-fight fighters, and druids who can out-blast wizards. If I have any say about it at all, that won't happen in SR4.

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It seems like you could get "stat modifier info" by just subtracting the human average from the listed attribute for each critter. If a bear has a 10 Strength, and human average is a 3, then a bear gets a +7 Strength (or whatever). That parts easy enough.

It's just the build power cost that you kind of have to wing it for. It seems like if you're going to have someone playing a Sprite in your game it's gonna be pretty heavily house rules anyways, though, so I'm perfectly okay with them not encouraging that sort of behavior by making official rules for it.

I liked my D&D just fine when there were just a handful of racial choices, and I like my Shadowrun the same. Trolls are already weird enough and extreme enough (when compared to the other playable races -- do we really need centaurs and junk like that in every group, too?

rule 1 in every rpg, even if its in the books does not mean one have to use it. but i would find it nice to have.

and yes, i have thought the same thing about going for the 3 average and work something out.

as for centaurs and junk, thats only a argument for when one does not properly deploy social effects of choosing a unusual kind of race.

Well, no. The problem is that if you do use appropriate social modifiers, most of the far-from-normal-metahuman stuff in Critters ends up killed two minutes into the first session, and stuffed, and mounted above some bounty hunting Shadowrunner's mantle (or killed for being a Wendigo/Vampire/Banshee/whatever, etc, etc).

Some character types are just innately disruptive, and some players refuse to acknowledge that. Just like all the Drow fanboys in a regular D&D game -- if you let the character in and hassle them like most societies should, that character becomes the central point of the game, other characters (particularly elves and dwarves) have to bend their character over backwards to accept a racial foe in their midst, the party as a whole will get static everywhere they go, and you have to count on that player being a solid enough RPer to make it all worth the effort in the first place. And if you don't hassle the Drow (just to continue using that "for instance"), all you've got is someone who's an elf, but more elfy and magical, and you're losing the whole point of the race, and it just becomes a Munchkins R Us race to see who can find races with the most Cool Special Abilities ™ attached.

I don't want that to bleed over into Shadowrun, too (anymore than it already does). But with attributes being so much more important in SR4 than in previous editions, I can see it certainly becoming a problem quite quickly. All the zany would-be-Critters will either completely disrupt the games they're in, or skate by with the GM giving them free passes all the time (and min/max their way to munchkin heaven).

heh, this is starting to sound like prohibition...

Not at all. Just a preference.

Changelings and metavariants shouldn't have too much trouble fitting into the Sixth World, especially not anymore. How do you tell a Changeling with Satyr Legs from a Street Sam with synthetic Raptor Legs? How does a Night One really stand out anymore than a normal Elf who's used Genetech and other implants to make himself into some kind of Fetish King? etc.

Yeah, they'll all stand out if they go to a fancy restaurant or try to get a job interview, but in the shadows and especially in low rated zones? I don't see it being nearly as much of a problem as it may have been in the past, where such options weren't available to the general public. Or even WHY so many people ever were all that prejudiced. I know if I saw a satyr walking down the street I'd be all, "dude, cool."

Metavariants and Surge just wrap so nicely into each other that I don't see requiring separate or even special rules for it. Wanna play a fomori? You area troll with the "covered in fur" surge trait and the "exceptional ability" quality applied to charisma. Done.

Heck, we can even roll it in for characters with radiation mutations and the like. One single mechanic for acquiring weird traits, either through surge, mutation or metavariation. Hell, I'd even list essence and price cost for the bioware versions or each, if they don't already exist.

I have to agree with PlatonicPimp. I like the idea of the metavariants being early cases of SURGE, that just happen to typically occur in one sort of meta. There are a few rationales that could be used to explain that.

I'll be glad to have ghoul rules again. I wouldn't mind rules for the sentient critters either. There are a few of them as I recall. I would rather see the metavariants wrapped into SURGE, and the page count they would have taken given to the critters.

I just want an "opposition"book, with page apon page of pre-generated seecutiry guards, cops, and all the fun critters. Rules for non-metahuman sentients could be in there too.

Naw, a "NPC" book may be the one sourcebook that I would refuse to buy, I can make up my own quick and dirty stats that makes more sense (To me anyways.) then the ones in the core book already.

However, I'd love to get my hands on Threats 3 or a HMHVV sourcebook.

And I'd lap it up, both because it save me effort on making up figures, and it provides a baseline of opposition. So that I can look at a runner and go "OK, they can take this many lonestar officers in a firefight." provide me with practical baseline so I don't make the NPCs I do create more powerful than their niche calls for, which is a bad habit of mine.

Well, why don't you then simply use the NPC charts in the basic rule book?