Hey, i'm a third edition player who's been considering GMing a fourth edition short campaign. My GM absolutely refuses to run fourth, but he says he'll play a character if I ran it. So, I was wondering if theres any tips or anything I need to know going from third to fourth? The biggest thing i'm worried about is that I hear it's a lot easier to tweak out and make an overpowered character if you spend a lot of time and effort making your character.
So, is there anything I need to remember? Do I need to watch my players and make sure they don't start with certain equipment, cyberware, or edges/flaws? And, of course, are there any books that you'd consider must haves? Any just general tips? Thankyou.
Full Version: From third to fourth
Remember that in Fourth Edition, ( Rating 4 ) represents the same powerlevel as ( Rating 6 ) used to, and ( Rating 6 ) is the same as ( Rating 9 ). Of course, Adepts never got the memo so they got shafted in terms of PP costs.
So personally I encourage people to play with lower dicepools, don't allow starting characters to roll bucketfulls of dice, because that is when Fourth Edition breaks and you get screaming, naked, orange men sneaking past corp security fairly regularly.
So personally I encourage people to play with lower dicepools, don't allow starting characters to roll bucketfulls of dice, because that is when Fourth Edition breaks and you get screaming, naked, orange men sneaking past corp security fairly regularly.
I'm new to 4thed myself and am going to be running a campaign at college and this topic came up which I think is pretty useful. There are links within this topic to a bunch more on the subject, although it's really for new GMs in general.
GM Advice
GM Advice
Firstly, welcome to the forums!
If you've played 3rd Ed. you'll probably know most of the stuff you need for the setting: watch astral security, be prepared for grenades and the salsa they create, etc.
Specifically with respect to 4th edition, I've not had too much of a problem with twinked out characters, but that's probably more due to the people I play with rather than the edition itself; it's been proven here that, like Ravor said above, it's relatively easy to create monster dice pools at character gen.
I've also noticed that in my 3rd Ed. games, about 6 or 7 players was relatively easy to game with. But 4th Ed. seems to provide more generalist characters with more skills at lower ratings. As a result, 5 has been the optimal number of players for me so far.
Watch out for the matrix. As you can tell from a variety of threads here on the DSF, the matrix rules are open to interpretation. Remember that as the GM, if something doesn't make sense to you, don't allow it. If you don't think cameras should have a signal of 4 and be hackable from the parking lot down the street, then give them a signal of zero and they're only hackable if you stand underneath them outside of any cover.
For magic stuff, the biggest oops I've seen in game is people with Adept characters who don't pay attention to their maximums with respect to powers like Increased Attribute and Improved Ability. These powers do have caps but some people don't take that into account during character gen.
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about the rules for reputation (i.e. street cred, notoriety, and public awareness) until you've got the rest under your belt. I've only recently begun to incorporate those concepts into my games after two years of playing 4th edition, not because the rules suck, but because they're icing on the cake.
And, finally, I've found that the grunts, etc. in the SR4 rules are a little too light for full-fledged runners. Beef their stats, skills, and equipment up a little bit (depending on your characters) if you want to create a better challenge for people.
And, no -- there are no prices/availability for street drugs.
If you've played 3rd Ed. you'll probably know most of the stuff you need for the setting: watch astral security, be prepared for grenades and the salsa they create, etc.
Specifically with respect to 4th edition, I've not had too much of a problem with twinked out characters, but that's probably more due to the people I play with rather than the edition itself; it's been proven here that, like Ravor said above, it's relatively easy to create monster dice pools at character gen.
I've also noticed that in my 3rd Ed. games, about 6 or 7 players was relatively easy to game with. But 4th Ed. seems to provide more generalist characters with more skills at lower ratings. As a result, 5 has been the optimal number of players for me so far.
Watch out for the matrix. As you can tell from a variety of threads here on the DSF, the matrix rules are open to interpretation. Remember that as the GM, if something doesn't make sense to you, don't allow it. If you don't think cameras should have a signal of 4 and be hackable from the parking lot down the street, then give them a signal of zero and they're only hackable if you stand underneath them outside of any cover.
For magic stuff, the biggest oops I've seen in game is people with Adept characters who don't pay attention to their maximums with respect to powers like Increased Attribute and Improved Ability. These powers do have caps but some people don't take that into account during character gen.
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about the rules for reputation (i.e. street cred, notoriety, and public awareness) until you've got the rest under your belt. I've only recently begun to incorporate those concepts into my games after two years of playing 4th edition, not because the rules suck, but because they're icing on the cake.
And, finally, I've found that the grunts, etc. in the SR4 rules are a little too light for full-fledged runners. Beef their stats, skills, and equipment up a little bit (depending on your characters) if you want to create a better challenge for people.
And, no -- there are no prices/availability for street drugs.
| QUOTE (Dashifen) |
| And, no -- there are no prices/availability for street drugs. |
Which obviously means that they're free and come standard with my Unhappy Meal from McFragIts.
Kamikaze for everybody! 
Tanks everyone. Dashifan's information was a lot of help. I really thought the reputation rules were very interesting but they don't seem too important, so I may hold off on them.
If you use the street cred and notoriety rules, you may want to change them a little. As written, being an illiterate who can't fly a suborbital craft makes you scarier when you're intimidating someone.
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| If you use the street cred and notoriety rules, you may want to change them a little. As written, being an illiterate who can't fly a suborbital craft makes you scarier when you're intimidating someone. |
...good a point there.
With KK (the character) I have a hard time visualising someone of 4' 10" stature as being intimidating, even though she has Dain Bramage, a mild addiction to Deepweed, and Distinctive style (3 notoriety).
On a more serious note, one change that required some adjustment on the part of players and GMs in my group was the fixed TN. Open tests & thresholds are for the most part, a thing of the past since everything is based on the net number of hits on a skill test.
While Physical Adepts have been left a bit behind in the power level shift, one variant, the Social Adept, seems to have emerged as the most useful and potentially powerful (especially for a control based Mystic adept).
The blurring between Hermetic and Shamanic traditions also took a bit of getting used to. In the past, only hermetics could summon multiple spirits (elementals). Now with Binding skill a shaman can do the same. We noticed that magic also is a bit tougher on mundanes.
While awakened characters appear to have a lot of potential for growth, getting that next point of Magic attribute (especially where adepts are concerned) is now very expensive Karma wise. If you are playing on a more intermittent basis (such as ever two or three weeks), players with Mages and adepts will see little development of their characters. It is hard to saw what the fix for this is. I have taken to allowing adepts to purchase additional Power points one in play for a flat 20 Karma (up to MA x 1.5 - just like attributes and skills). To go beyond that she must then initiate and apply Karma to increasing her MA.
One of the seeming inconsistencies with regard to game mechanics, are the Hacking rules. Hacking tests use Skill + Software as opposed to Attribute. Our group has house ruled the mechanic to me more like spellcastng in that programme rating acts as a cap for maximum successes and the pool is Skill + Logic. Another thing we (and many other groups) have done is to let a character have 2 x unaugmented Charisma in free contact points. at Chargen (similar to the 2 free contacts in older editions)
One of the biggest changes is the Commlink and wireless matrix for it really impacts the dynamics of the game in many ways. In previous editions. you made a transaction paid for it with certified cred and that was the end of it. Now, you go to a Stuffer Shack and leave a data trail that even though it is linked to an alias, could still come around to bite you in the bum. Sure the game appeared to be falling behind RL tech curve but the fact that you need one of these devices (and the associated services/accounts) in order to get through life IMO takes a bit of the "shadowiness "out of the game.
You are actually coming in at a good time since several supplements (in either book or PDF format) have already been released and more is on the way. One of the good points is that the core rules are more comprehensive than in previous editions. However, for the time being the world lacks a lot of colour, especially for those of us who became so spoiled with the wealth of material to draw on in SRIII.
KK on Deepweed hurts my head. She just doesn't seem the type!
(Tho it might explain where that Dain Bramage came from.)
-- Wak, needs to see if he can find that datafile again. Never did get it uncorrupted! Sad!
(Tho it might explain where that Dain Bramage came from.)
-- Wak, needs to see if he can find that datafile again. Never did get it uncorrupted! Sad!
...more like what may be prolonging it.
The actual damage stems from beatings she suffered as a child at the hands of her father.
The actual damage stems from beatings she suffered as a child at the hands of her father.
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