New to the forums but not new to Shadowrun (been playing since the day 1st Edition hit the streets...). I dragged my girlfriend (now wife and mother of our three kiddies... future Shadowrunners, all!) to go get the rules the day they came out and we were playing a couple of days later.

We had a long hiatus that we're just emerging from. Our campaign is significantly behind the official timeline... we're in 2058. Dunkelzahn's death, the Mob War, the Corp War... they're all in the near future for us. I'm not sure how closely we will follow the timeline at this point but I've been pretty loyal to it in the past. Despite the hiatus, I was keeping up on the books. I even have one of those pre-ordered, leather-bound 3rd Edition rulebooks stashed away (popularly referred to as BABY, if I recall).

We played 1st Edition and then 2nd Edition when it came out. When 3rd Edition came out, we opted to stick with 2nd. Now 4th is out. My group STILL prefers 2nd Edition. We've incorporated some 3rd Edition stuff and even a few 4th Edition things so we refer to our rules as Shadowrun 2.5 when we need to differentiate but its close enough to 2nd Edition that I'm pretty sure anyone who preferred that Edition would be happy... We are!

Is anyone else out there an anachronistic, 2nd Edition hold-out?

I was for a while. I'd only got most of my SR2 books when SR3 came out and was a little miffed as i recall. So i stuck with 2nd ed until i found i preferred the SR3 rules system as it seemed to iron out a lot of old problems (whether those problems were with the system or with me i don't know, a lot has happened for me since then).

As it stands i'm still a staunch SR3 fan as, despite the new system being, in my eyes, ten times better than the lurching monster that is the SR3 system (well, once you added all the books it certainly became that, the original set wasn't all that bad), the feel of SR4 is different thanks to newer tech and an advanced timeline. That and my game is still somewhere around early 2064.

However, i'm looking a lot more towards SR4 at the moment since augmentation came out. I've been looking at doing a Transhumanist character for a while but SR3 seemed to lack that special something that would help pull it off. SR4 Augmentation book has really brought out the chance to do so with it's fine line in cosmetic cyber/bio/gene/nanoware. I'm just trying to get together with an SR4 running group at the moment, but we're having 'logistical' problems at the moment.

Sorry, got carried away a little there!

I could go for a second edition game, but I had so much trouble finding any game it is usually the current edition. It was certainly true when SR3 came out. I've played one SR3 game since SR4 came out.

I liked the Second Edition skill groups and threat ratings. We used to give the players the option of increasing the threat level point for point with karma rewards. Anchoring was still worthwhile. There was the problem when the shaman discovered he could summon a Force 1 spirit, have it materialize in the enemies midst, and fireball them from the astral by grounding it through the spirit. I think there was even a "loophole" where the magicians did not need Sorcery above 1, because you rolled the Spell's Force + Magic Pool to cast spells.

I also liked better how some cyberware worked, like the Tactical Computer (making it worth the monetary and essence cost) and Encephalon. I do like how 3rd edition simplified Decking, I do not care for how it made Matrix combat pointless most of the time. At least there are not matrix hosts to map out.

...played in every edition. Yeah 3rd is one of the most rules heavy and at first I didn't like the more specialised skills (for example, Firearms was broken up into four distinct weapon skills). However, I actually like the old style decking better and the fact that Riggers were a unique personality. I also like the fact that casting and summoning drain was harder to shake down and there was clear cut a distinction between Hermetics and Shamans.

However, 4th ed still has me hedging. I still am not pleased with the skill caps. I am not into the whole idea of Edge (replacing Karma pool) being a purchased Attribute. I also do not like the progression rules for awakened characters (even though I rarely if ever play a mage). Knowledge skills were nerfed. some of the basic flaws (like Phobia) were omitted. The Incompetence quality is bogus. Kinesics and Critical strike are broken. Anybody can be a hacker (even mages) Riggers were nerfed, The price of a loaf of bread is obscene, and I'm building a swimming pool and there's dirt all over the place...

...oops sorry, spiraling again.

I want to try 1st edition.

I am a staunch and vocal 2nd edition hold out. I can complain all day about the things that I don't like about third edition, and won't even bother with fourth.

Each edition has a few loop holes, it's the nature of enterprising players to take things to the extreme, but a smart gm would just start turning the tables around on the players when they start pulling the "astral grounding through spirits tactics" or whatever exploit applied.

1st edition was good ... but it took all day if you were using full auto because you rolled for every bullet.

They changed the damage staging to standardize damage codes so things would go quicker. All it wound doing was making every shadowrunner carry a heavy pistol.

I really loved the effect speed had on characters in 2nd edition, and how everyone was such a specialist. It was a gritty, dirty and deadly edition. I still pine to play it.
Also if you were an expert in rifles ... you could actually pick up and fire another gun, instead of not having any kind of ability like third. The only downside was how mages had to learn a different spell for each damage level for combat spells.

Sr3r has some really great ideas that they are incorporating into their project. Some small changes to decking etc, that are worth plucking out and inserting into your game.

I liked the old way of decking, but VR2 really streamlined it and sped it up which is what 95% of the parties needed out there. Unfortunately most people were too lazy or could not figure how to properly integrate a decker into a party to make it worth while having a PC decker instead of a NPC. They say they fixed this in fourth, but I don't like how it works at all.

I started back in SR2. I really enjoyed it. I moved on to 3 when it came out and I liked it too.

That being said I pledge total and undying allegiance to SR4. Seriously, my thing is that I hate rules. In a lot of games that I've been in I'm the Gm in more than 1/2 of them and I never bother to learn complex rules. I favor SR4 because everything's a lot more streamlined than previous editions. Also, I love the fact that the matrix finally went wireless. It was getting to the point where my cell phone was more high-tech than anything in Shadowrun.

The rules for SR4 have so far been quicker and, to me, much more intuitive than rules in other editions.

Now, if a friend said "Hey, you wanna play some SR2 or SR3" I'd say yes; because I enjoyed the games but I won't run them. That being said if someone wanted to run a game of advanced second edition of some other game; I'd say no.

...I for one like Decking over Hacking I like having to get your butts into a facility or tapping a commline to surf a corp's matrix.

I liked it when Dynamo Jo could go into a stuffer shack and pay for a bag of Orc Rinds and a 6 pack of Spud Lite & leave no datatrail behind. I liked the fact that her Cyber implants did what she wanted them to and not what some snot nosed kid hacker thinks they should do. I like the fact that she really was indeed "the best pilot you ever saw" and not just like "every other best pilot you ever saw"

I like the concept of the "Million Sammy". The "A-Rod" Quarter Million version just doesn't have the same ring to it.

I have run both systems and overall, I actually prefer dealing with the more "complex" rules of SRIII as a GM over the homogenisation of character archetypes in SR4. In my campaigns, Deckers still reign supreme in the matrix, not Sammys, Adepts, or Mages. Riggers are kings of the roads, skies, & seas, not Sammys, Adepts, or Mages (well, unless they levitate & use the appropriate spirit or elemental to move them along).

2nd Ed player here. I'm familiar with the 3rd Ed rules, but my core SR group is 2nd Ed through-and-through.

(OK, OK, we use some 3rd Ed rules and material. But the timeline and most of the rules are all 2nd Ed.)

Sounds like you should look up amber. It's a diceless system that depends heavily on storytelling.

I started playing with 3e and I like it, even if there are some really weird situation specific rules (Matrix searches done using etiquette? Buying gear uses Intelligence for TN but fencing using Willpower, with both using a Charsima linked skill?) I like the core mechanics.

I do like SOME things about 4e, even the fixed TNs are growing on me (they're easier for a GM to fudge - saying 'yeah that's enough successes' is alot easier than having to check how well each individual dice rolled) but one thing I absolutely loathe is adding attributes to skill tests. It plays into the GURPSian philosophy of natural ability trumping hard earned skills everytime, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Actually, there's a lot of indie games out there that are worth checking out. Universalis, PrimeTime Adventures, and Dogs in the Vineyard. Just off the top of my head.

I started playing with SR2, and my group switched over to SR3 when it came out. In terms of rule-specifics, its a little hard to judge, but some of the best games of my life were SR2. That had a little to do with the system and a lot more to do with where I was in life-- right out of high school, working and going to school part time, no real responsibilities and nowhere to be early in the morning. Its hard to recapture that magic.

I liked SR3. It wasn't too terribly different from 2ed and there's always that bit where a new system will "fix" everything I liked and leave alone the stuff I don't like (*cough* vehicle combat *cough*). But 3ed had enough going for it to win my heart. I preferred 2ed Initiative-- and my main 2ed character was a private detective that started his career at 5+1d6 and ended it 400 karma and millions of nuyen later at 7+1d6-- but 3ed was more balanced.

SR4 is what I play now, because that's what people play. It's not a bad system, and I have a lot of fun playing it. I don't know it as well as a knew 2 or 3 (in fact, its been so long since I've played them that I don't know 2 and 3 that well anymore), but I'm learning.

I've also lost my grail-like obsession with finding "the perfect system". There used to be this feeling that if the rules were absolutely perfect, the games would rock. My current theory is that what makes games rock is far more ephemeral than what can be found in the text. All I'm really looking for these days in a ruleset is that it doesn't actively get in the way.

I'm not here to say that SR4 is the best, I have my own gripes with some of the new rules, but I'm really surprised by some criticisms:

Yes you're right about the skill caps (I forgot them because I houseruled skill caps). Still, it was really hard to create a character that was an expert in an area, compared to other characters.
Granted in SR4 if you create one, it'll be hard to push him any further (but it's possible with various augmentations/power/spells)... But such a character won't see a lot of people matching his level of expertise.

And for the decker/mage it's exactly the same way in SR4. At chargen a hacker/mage won't be as good as a full blown hacker or a full blown mage.

SR4 doesn't actually work without the skill caps, so the houserule isn't much of a fix (what with characters getting Immunity to Normal Modifiers at high diepools that are normally prevented only by the caps and the cap on modifiers which is made absolute by the caps—SR3 suffers the same fate with high-initiate-grade Centering, but even Riggers can't muster even close to the same level of modifier-ignoring). For SR3, there are a number of areas where you can make experts, but that's due to the existence of expensive gear or edges that a non-specialist wouldn't take—the ability to be great does indeed come after chargen. However, it does eventually come, rather than being impossible.

~J

Every edition I've avidly played (started near the end of 1st Edition but didn't really get into Shadowrun until 2nd Edition was almost over), I've pretty much put together an extensive list of house rules due to major inconsistancies, oddities, or what I just felt were flat-out stupid rules. My biggest notebook, naturally, has been for SR3 -- and while it's packed away in a box at the moment, it was well over 30 pages long at last count. So far, my notebook for SR4 is only 4 pages long. While I know my views aren't really all that popular, I still think that says quite a bit about SR4.

That said, there's a lot of things I don't like about the core mechanics in SR4. I really dislike the new mechanic. Yes, it's more consistent and less difficult to explain to a new player, but the old system (despite its flaws) was more robust, fun, and versatile. This system you basically have two options which amount to the same thing; add/remove dice, or add a threshold (basically counting as 3 dice at once). The older system let you control the target numbers, the thresholds, and how many dice you could throw, each having their own unique impact on your overall odds. That was just a ton more useful as a GM and a ton more unpredictable which, for me, equates to fun.

But, yeah, in the end my point is that as far as SR4 goes as written, it's a big step towards being less in need of house rules than previous editions were. Some of it seems pretty weird at first, but if you play within the constraints of typical characters (as opposed to creating outrageous examples or munchkin characters to "prove a point"), it works fairly well.

On one hand that's a good thing (solid, consistant rules), on another it's a bad thing (less room to move beyond the standard street/medium-level of play), and on your third alien arm it's a horrible thing (completely broken if and when you do move beyond a certain level of play, which the game permits).

Since my preferred playstyle revolves around more street-level, underworldy and magic-oriented emphases, SR4 isn't too bad of a system. I miss the diversity each subgroup (magic, hacking, rigging, combat) had in the older systems, but the consistency is nice, too.

...@Kagetenshi thanks for the reply on my points about skills and Awakened characters being deckers/riggers. Pretty much ths same thoughts I have.

As to the commlink thing. It depends on who is running. GMs for the most part in the games I've played in make every purchase (even the at corner SS) a commlink purchase. So yes, Dynamo would have needed to do an electronic transaction for her Orc Rinds & beer and get a hacker to cover her trail.

As to having internal systems hacked, any crowded area will work. It doesn't have to be in combat. Heck a TM can slip a sprite into your ware, or a "Matrix Specialist" can do the same with an agent & then simply walk away.

The core divergency in every edition seems to be the Matrix rules.

4th edition is no exception, and I no longer have faith that Unwired will stave that off. I predict at least seven major distinct Matrix systems used by Shadowrun players.

-Frank

Granted 8 is not "the best" but "one of the best" and it was not a system issue, more of a consistency issue.

I had trouble envisionning runners being as good as people dedicating their lives to something. Even if they are top-rate criminals, they still can't afford to focus on a single skill and even if they do, it'd be hard for them to do it as well as a world-class celebrity who'll be in the perfect environment to dedicate himself to his art.
So, even if I allowed it, I was already reluctant to let players reach the 8th skill rating (naturally at least, magic and tech are here to push the limits).

And I didn't want to see it further, because then It'd lead to totally ridiculous characters. I mean, when a player has a natural rating of 15 in a skill (I've seen it), it doesn't make much sense (at least to me).

Right, but the question is, what does it really get you? Three successes on a TN 6 test with 15 dice is still under 50% likely, for example. Single successes are likely pretty far up the TN scale (there's a catastrophic drop from ~57% chance at TN 11 to ~34% at TN 12), but relatively few tests in Shadowrun give big payoffs in for single successes. Besides, Adepts can roll twelve dice before pool out of chargen (15 or 18 if you use ambidex), which sorta weakens the argument against skills getting anywhere near that high.

~J

As I told you, it's not a rules problem. It's just a fluff problem.

SR3 is a lurching old monstrous chimera of a rule system. Just about everything I would do to improve it has been done in SR4.
The system is cleaner and simpler, making it more accessable and user friendly.
However SR3 for all its faults, now that I have put in the effort ot learn, is more evocative and still interesting. The biggist reason however for me to stick to SR3 is my current game. The second is all the books are out so its as balanced as is going to be. I know the loop holes and the flaws.
Till Unwired comes out am just not interested in SR4.

Dude... it's a game .... not real life. If someone is going to pump that much karma and money into their character why not let them become the best. They can't be the best at everything. If you look at special forces soldiers or astronauts, they are brilliant people that are very very good at many things and world class at a few.

I have two problems with skill caps.

1) It removes both the "I can always get better" and "There's always someone better" possibilities.

2) Why does a fluff issue nee a houserule?

Fluff and rules need to reflect each other. I don't agree that there's a conflict here, but where they conflict, one needs to change to match the other.

~J

If the rules work as written, and the fluff doesn't, why is he changing the rules?

Easier to redefine those two pages that most people never even read when making characters.

...when Leela was still a PC, invested nearly 90 Karma into her performance related skills an attributes. At the time of her retirement she had:

Keyboard Performance: Spec. Piano of 15
Keyboard Performance: Spec. Harpsichord of 12
Keyboard performance: General 9
A number of knowledge skills in the following areas
...Music Literature: Spec. Keyboard music
...Improvisation and composition
...Music History
...Classical Composers: Spec. Josef Haydn, Frederic Chopin, Claude Debussy

Natural Charisma OF 8 (we were using the Shadowbeat performance rules)

The funny thing is as "fluff" as this sounds it did come into play on several occasions and was setting her up for when she would retire and become an NPC for an upcoming campaign of mine.

...however, give her a 5 kilos of C-12, a couple radio detonator's, & her GyroJet & she could still be a very dangerous and cunning little runner being that she cut her teeth on the shadows of Occupied Zagreb.

I have no time at all for SR4. Skill caps were pretty much all anyone had to say to me to put me off this system, and the system is written in such a way to make it near impossible to house-rule the skill caps away. My style of gaming is characters striving through experience to reach an elite level. Danger comes from going up against professionals and the highly skilled, and the adrenaline comes from coming out on top. I don't like that you quickly reach the limit of skill levels, and thereafter you really are getting no better.

I always very much liked SR3. I think the new fixed 'target number' system in SR4 is stupid. If I wanted to play White Wolf games, I would have. The SR3 system was good as a GM specifically because it allowed for variation in target numbers and far, far more fine tuning of tasks. I dislike the SR4 system to the point that I cannot see myself ever running it.

SR3 had a huge amount of rules, but I for one liked them so much that I learnt them. Of course there were things I didn't like or use much, but compared to other games these were trivial things. I never liked the SR3 open test for stealth and interrogation and I had kept some SR2 things in that regard, and I have never used the SR3 Vehicle Combat rules because I run vehicle combat a different way, but apart from that I use all of SR3, in all of its glory.

I always had a feeling that SR2 favoured street samurai types too much. I think this was related to the sheer amount of 'ware you could cram into a person, and also the megolythic Firearms skill covering everything that has bullets, essentially. SR3 favours magicians more, and I'm OK with that. I far prefer Man and Machine's approach to ware to Shadowtech, Cybertech and so on, but all of those books have the edge over the waste of space that was Augmentation.

When SR3 came out I converted almost immediately, and I think the thing that drew me in was the new skills. I hear whining a fair bit from the people I game with about the split firearms skill, but no-one has yet convinced me it didn't make the game more interesting, and more balanced.

I have bought SR1 books because of how much I was in to SR2 and SR3. Never actually played it. Based on the SR1 adventures I have, I would have thought it was a game with a very different flavour to SR2 and SR3, but I don't know from experience.

I have a mate that I game with that has a theory - every SR1 published adventure is media-related (media being defined to include rocking out/the music industry). Either you're protecting a rocker, or extracting one, or involved with the media or something. I think the theory falls down with Harlequin, but other than that I haven't been able to shoot holes in this theory.

Going solely off my aging and senile memory from years ago ...

One of the NANs had a Toxic Shaman at the Kingdome (or equivalent) during some kind of public event or other (sports or music).

I think Ivy and Chrome was about a teenage private school girl and her ganger boyfriend.

UB had the media all over it, and even had an introduction by an investigative reporter, IIRC.

DNA/DOA was a dungeon crawl, but I can't recall any appropriate connections right now.

Bottled Demon was a semi-Bad focus and a Tir assassin and a dragon or two all rolled into one unholy package.

I was just listing the media related aspect.