It's been forever since I've run, played, or chatted about SR and most of the old debates about what was busted and what was too weak have slipped my mind. Can someone whose been here more recently give me a brief rundown of the various rules arguments and "that's borken!" debates that crop up?

Thanks!

Number one thing to look out for... Dumpshockers!

List of things that have been brought up as 'Broken'

• Magic
• Cyber
• Bio
• Guns
• Edge
• Matrix
• Hackers
• TM's
• Spirits
• GM's
• Players
• The BBB
• Street Magic
• Emergence
• Augmentation (You know it's going to happen)
• Contacts with 6L/6C
• Dragons
• Immortal Elves
• Orks
• Elves in general
• Trolls
• Humans with their damned +1 Edge
• Drones
• Etc

Have fun.

But things I have run into

- Very little reason to buy cyberlimbs, I think this detracts from flavor significantly. (This is one fo the very few things I would consider house rulling in some way to give incentives)
- Matrix is very much simplified. How can you tell? If you try to go into any depth at all in doing multi step node crawling hacking fun you run into oddities. If you stick to the one or two rolls approach and follow the Program Rating + Skill model, you're set. Any more complex, you can get tied up in knots thinking about it.
- Rigging - Several Modes, which switch mechanics, so you can end up as Attribute + Skill, Response + Skill, or Program + Skill. Fun to keep straight.
- Connection 6 contacts = headaches
- Edge, longshot rule can be very nasty, make it clear it probably won't be allowed.
- Edge, HoG, make it clear it still means something nasty happens, but you live.
- Magic, as per usual, summoned spirits are powerful. (Duh. Like they never were?) However, they also seem relatively more powerful.
- TM can't be anything other then a TM and be good at it, almost every other archetype can usually do at least one other job.
- AR, VR, simsense, trodes, DNI wireless and skinlinks, learn how they work. It's easy to end up not knowing how to give your wireless device commands.

Most of the other stuff I can think of has more to do with players, Gm's, and the runnign of particular games, which is all circumstantial stuff.

Thanks! I'd be interested in the circumstantial stuff as well.

• The Build Point systtem is fundamentally out of alignment with the Karma system, leading to "anything you can do" scenarios. The solution is to adopt a Karma for BP system (like Serbitar) or a BP for Karma system (like Frank).
• Blood Spirits are an infinite power loop and they cannot do that. The solution is to give them regular Essence Loss and Essence Drain.

-Frank

My goal is to have fun and survive runs. I'm mainly asking so I'll know what issues to bring up to the GM. We're hashing through a few things over email during the week and looking for holes to fill.

In general I would recommend having
- Matrix Cover
- Magical Cover
- Social Skills Cover

For some reason there's always plenty of firepower of one kind or another, so I make that a given.

The degrees to which these are implemented can vary, and you can definitely have cross matches and duplicates and build up from there.

If no one wants to be a Hacker, you can gain cover by purchasing the "Hacker in a Box", a powerful commlink and agent loaded with instructions to guard your stuff. Or go luddite.

No magical cover is trickier, but you'll want to look at the base tactics for dealing with magical threats by Mundanes and make sure you do them well.

For some games you could easily get away without social skills. but in SR4 they are quite useful.

We've got the bases pretty well covered, I was mostly looking for rules problems. Thanks for the help!