Apparently, I've offended some by quoting from a AD&D 2nd Edition rulebook a statement that if a rule doesn't work you & your group to go ahead and change it. Especially since one or more of the people offended are apparently writers / contributors for SR content. A comment was even made that including such a statement was basically saying "Hey, we put out a crappy game." Never mind the details of making such a statement are exceedingly short-sighted, rude, condescending, and decidedly unprofessional. Such a comment also tells me no one bothered to go read the full (unparaphrased) statement from said rulebook and the supporting reasons why it was included.

My opinion on why it was included in said rulebook... it seems to me the designers from TSR back in the day were humble & talented enough to recognize that they didn't have a monopoly on "A Good Idea" when it came to rules for their game. Now that's not saying other game designers aren't humble just that the folks at TSR knew they didn't have "the end-all, be-all" in role-playing games that would take care of everyone know matter their interests or preferences.

(Yes, I'm quite aware the intense hatred and loathing that some have toward mentioning anything related to D&D. They can get over it. I tolerate their preferences for games. They can tolerate mine.)

This understanding is reflected in the phenomenon called "House Rules". Every game has them to some extent. Some more, some less. Hell, different groups playing the same game have different house rules. All the TSR folks were saying was that if a given rule in the book didn't work for your group, to change it so you could follow the rule of "Have FUN". They were all but saying "There's no wrong way to play if everyone at the table is having fun."

So the question of the poll is simple. How much Canon must there be in the game for it to be fun for you? Does the game have to follow the rules so strictly that stepping even slightly out of line gets you banished from the table? Or have you not met a houserule that you didn't like? Does playing fast and loose work for you? Or is it somewhere in-between?

Feel free to state your poll choice if you are so inclined.

Back when I played, I was usually the rules lawyer or GM. But, on occasion the rules given maybe just don't fit. Example: AD+D 2nd edition martial arts rules. One of my players' monk wanted to drop kick a guard, but the roll turned it into a kidney punch. So we just treated it like a regular attack and allowed him to get his kicks. I like the rules, I usually know the rules pretty well, but sometimes you just have to toss a rule that just doesn't seem to fit your specific game. If I'm the GM and you can present a reasonable case, I usually allow the players to get by with what they want to do, as long as it makes game sense.

My vote is 80%. I generally will make / ask for a few adjustments to smooth out what I / the rest of the group perceives as rough spots or areas that cause problems (game play slowdown, confusion, etc) depending on whether I'm running or playing the game.

Otherwise, I generally stay as close to the rules as possible. I gave up being a stick-in-the-mud regarding rules a long time ago. It wasn't all that fun for me and the folks I played with didn't much care for it either. On the flip side it did encourage us to lay out the ground rules before a new campaign started so everyone was on the same page.

As for canon changing things, depending on how major it was would determine how / when it would get worked in or otherwise be ignored. A prime example of this is the Trial of Refusal between Clan Wolf & Clan Jade Falcon (BattleTech). Our group was in charge of a galaxy within Clan Wolf. Not one of the ones listed for Clan Wolf in published products but one in addition to those. We had the foresight to make sure our changes to canon would be compatible with anything published. In other words, we worked within canon, rather than against it. Thus when Khan Ward left with the Warden faction of Clan Wolf, what was left of our Galaxy (after the Trial) packed up shop and left with them. So having the Trial happen didn't change much for our group.

Did we houserule BattleTech? You betcha. We had houserules regarding Heat as well as critical spaces. The rules as published (at the time) didn't make a whole lot of sense such as Heat couldn't ever go above 30.

the world should be about 80% Canon . . including both rules and background . .
the other 20% are used to make the 80% canon be fun to play with/in

I went 60%. When it comes to rules, Im a huge fan of ''if it causes fun to be trampled on, it goes out the door''. As for canon? We've had fun making up our own corporations to mix IN with the current SR world; honestly it doesn't matter in the end. I put 60%, because around that(maybe even half), still feels like Shadowrun to me. It starts sort of dissapearing after that.

As for rules, though, whatever makes the game more fun. I don't think i've played a shadowrun game YET that used the BBB 100%, and i've been playing it now about 13 years.

what "it" are we being asked about, here?

Canon says that if you don't like rules of if they don't apply to a situation, the GM can change them. So I guess that playing 100% canon means changing rules you don't like.

if someone becomes offended that their product does not have rules for every situation, and that all of the games being played HAVE to incorporate non canon rules and ad hoc situations to cope with the "left out" material. then they should have done a better job of filling in those holes. now shouldn't they.
that's like getting upset the guy you bought the car from neglected to inform you that after your car runs out of gas you have to put more in it.

I go for 10% or less. I don't care that much about the canon metaplots and stories in my games. I just enjoy the fact that I can afford to buy the books to support the company producing this game and because they're usually very interesting to ready. The likely hood of me using stuff from them is usually slim to none, the exception (so far) being Emergence around which I based my current games.

As a player, which I usually am, I don't mind deviations from canon (either background, or rules) so long as the GM lays them out up front. Nothing bothers me more than getting into a situation where I think I have a good picture of my odds based on the rules I assume we're playing with, only to have the GM throw them out or change them at the last moment. Same goes for background fluff. I should be able to assume what I know about the SR universe to hold true unless I am told otherwise. If that isn't the case, I feel like I have to bounce everything off of my GM. ("So, there ARE trolls in this world, right? And they're still big and ugly and not small and cute, right?")

I answered 80% canon. I want my players to be able to expect things from the world, like BlackHat says. My house-rules and deviations from canon fit in a two-page document, which all my players get.

It does not have to be "canon". It must be, to the greatest extent possible, well-codified and available to the players to at least the degree that it would be available to their characters. To the greatest extent possible, this must happen before the players could make plans based on whatever is being changed—the time to tell your players that Strato-9s come unarmed or that you never, ever resolve social situations with dierolls is before they buy Strato-9s or social skills.

In other words, "this is how we're doing it for right now" is unacceptable. "This is how we're doing it from now on, and that will be as consistently applied as if it had come from the book" is acceptable. "This is how we're doing it for right now because we can't take a two-hour break to analyze the new rules in the middle of the session, but we'll have it firmly codified as soon as possible, preferably before next session" is the unfortunate compromise that life forces on us.

Additionally, the ability to houserule is never, ever a fix for broken rules. Knowledge of the difference between a fix and a workaround is critical. As such, it is my opinion that a statement such as the one you indicate (a broadly similar statement appears in both SR3 and SR4) is totally inappropriate for inclusion in a rulebook.

~J

...I chose 70%,

Mostly this comes from adding to rather than subtracting from the setting. Personally speaking, I prefer to have a consistent base setting to work off of. Now there are some elements I downplay most notably the IE/GD metaplot as well as ED tie ins (never played the game). Oh they're still there in the background, it's just that I choose not to bring them directly into my campaigns.

I enjoy infusing more personal colour into a campaign, again not so much to take away or replace exsiting elements as it is to broaden the world setting a bit more. I have my own corporations, though none are megas. There is one Consortium which is about as close as I get to a mega. While I don't deal with GDs and IEs I still have some powerful NPC figures (like Lady Meggan Grande). Of course the greatest expansions I have made in the past involved technology, most notably vehicles and space systems (such as HighStar Station™, Marathon Precision SStHEO Spaceplane, and [my "baby" ] the Brimstone™ Focused Solar Canon).

Unfortunately the lack of frameworks and parameters for hardware/vehicle design in 4th ed has, for the time being, put a damper on things.

The one time I did take what I felt was a fair amount of liberty with the setting was with my Rhapsody in Shadow campaign. In seeing that there was pretty much no background material on the Balkans between the end of the last Euro War in '37 and peace talks taking place in Summer of '63 I was left with pretty much a blank slate that spanned just over two decades.

It's not a game you can go about playing in any meaningful way if the rules are constantly in flux.

I voted 80%. Like Blackhat, I don't mind house rules if they are explained before the game. Because the whole point of having rules for building characters is to be able to quantify their abilities. I admit, though, that one of my pet peeves is GMs who make up house rules before they try it with the canon rules, or sometimes before they even read the canon rules.

I voted 70% but in actuality I'll throw the whole damn canon out if it's making the goal of gaming, amusement, from occuring in any given situation. I'm fairly willing to ditch canon story but I'm reluctant to drop whole rules unless my players and I agree that they suck. Typically we just hand wave through situations that don't make sense.

Given the orginal 'fight' let me weigh in with an observation first:

There are at least two types of Canon. Rule Canon and Fluff Canon. I seem to recall the fight was over fluff canon...

Anyway: Rules wise, I don't like changes. That doesn't mean I do 100% canon, but I'd rather cut out a rule that write a new one. As a GM I probably ignore more rules than I use... but I'm a lazy bastard. I'm not sure how to rate subtractive canon so I'll say 50%...


Fluff/Background wise: I'm happy with Nada if I'm told in advance. I mean, if I can play a Troll (rules for trolls exist), but you call it a 'Giant Fargleplaster' or whatever, I don't care.. much. Still, at least a little fluff canon should be used for common ground or else I might as well use another game all together. So lets say 20%. I guess that gives me a poll average of 30% (and my initial Fluff percent was a lower value, so I round down...)

I try and stick with the story/fluff as much as possible, but how much it impacts the game is pretty much up to what the players do, what jobs they take or do on their own, etc...

As for rules... well... I have to say I am not a huge fan of the Shadowrun rules. From 1st to 4th editions. I've played them all and had fun campaigns doing so, but sooner or later they all began to annoy me.

After my last 4th edition campaign ended last summer, I began working on converting the Shadowrun rules over into the Hero System. Now with my new campaign I find it works a lot better, the players are more into it, I am more into it, the rules are grittier and more detailed and more flexable then Shadowrun 4th edition. There are a lot more cool options for characters and it allows for more variance in character design, growth and specializations.

So for me I am 90+% canon when it comes to setting/story and currently 0% when it comes to rules.

philosophically, i think if you have less than 75% of the original material, you are basically playing a different game. not that this is a bad thing, just that it is no longer the original. if you take the shadowrun rules and play star trek with it... its not shadowrun anymore.

i dont think 'plot' matters to a game for cannon, meta or otherwise, but i think setting and rules do. setting and rules are what make shadowrun what it is.

It depends on what you consider canon and what is RAW.

Although RAW states that you can change the rules that do not work for you, that rule in itself is only a very small percentage of what is RAW. To me, canon means not only RAW but also only the material statted out in the published material, a much stricter defination.

I try to stick to canon as much as I can, hence my vote of 100%. Should not be a surprise to anyone here. But practically speaking, it is inevitable that there is some deviation because most games themselves are not canon.

80 percent. you need a little room to breathe.

"10% Canon or less"

We're still using six-sided dice? Good, let's play!

10% or less for me as well.

Shadowrun using Wushu rules and Unknown Armies magic paradigms? I'm there!

Using Exalted rules to play Solars in the Shadowrun setting? Sign me up!

I voted 80% and that's meant rule-wise. I like to have some house-rules (which, whatever game used, tend to focus on modifications to character generation).
Fluff-wise I like to keep it as close to 100% as possible. That does not mean that I don't invent own stuff (NPCs, corporations, etc.) but I stick to the metaplot and don't introduce anything that clashes with canon.

I share this stance. If something from the rulebooks is not helpful in my game, I don't use it. RUles-wise, I usually make house rules to cover some aspects, but over all play like the rules are written.

FLuff-wise, anything goes. Since as a GM, the game has to be fun for me as well, I don't use stuff I dislike, or feel is stupid. I am a grognard, so to speak, from SR1, and for me the feeling I want is a world dominated by megacorps, with people using magic and cyberware to survive. Fluff that runs counter to this I usually don't use.

I have to throw my hat in the ring with Toturi. I run my games at the strict letter of the Law. I am the comsumate rules lawyer. I also play in Missions so that to does not allow House Rules. I try and memorize/learn all the rules/errata/FAQs updates to the SR world.

I'm not sure I could nail down a percentage, but I'll try in a sec. Rules are awesome, unless I think they don't work for my game, in which case I change them. Fluff is great, unless I don't like it, in which case I rewrite it.

I like the game to "stay Shadowrun" (lol), but I definitely give it a little leeway in doing so.

edit: I voted 70%. That's probably fairly accurate.

I view some segments of the book as non functional and prefer that they are replaced from a mechanics standpoint. This is usually true for most games too. Everyone makes mistakes.

Then I'm fine with anything from rules to flavour changes, so long as changes and expectations are provided with an indication of the supporting reasoning to allow one to draw further conclusions. For example if the GM wanted to focus on British rule hong kong, I'd want some indication of why (to set the scene for cultural tension? So the players can be part of an espionage game between the brits and the warlords?) to allow players to make informed choices (for example, in the first case racial questions should be answered in my background, but in the second I'll need make sure my character is suitable for a game about espionage).

...just to clarify, I and my group do use a couple "houserules": The Blakkie Cha x 2 for Contact BPs at chargen (almost an "alternate" rule now) and the Logic + Skill capped by Programme rating for all Matrix tests (which more closely follows the standard mechanic for other skill tests). We have also considered a different mechanic for Adept advancement whereby the character only need initiate, but does not gain the benefit to raising power caps and must choose between either an additional Power point or Metamagic technique (but not both).

Apparently you are also either delusional or a liar, since no such thing occurred. No one got offended except maybe in your imagination.


What a novel idea.

I cannot understand this place. I cannot comprehend why so many people spend so much time defending their decisions to support a company that produces poorly-written work, expect nothing less, and then compensate by effectively doing the heavy lifting for said company that should have done that work in the first place, and then arguing with people that they are out of line for wanting better.

I know we tend to be a rather foolish lot at times. But I am stupified at the lengths to which some people have gone, and will go, to justify them maintaining an allegiance to a game that they have effectively warped into their own through constant "adjustments" of grossly broken rules and glossing over or retconning their own PCs because of poorly-written plot and setting material.

Someone once said "I don't listen to shitty music. I don't watch shitty tv shows. I don't go out and see shitty movies. I'm just stupid like that." That's exactly how I feel any more. I didn't buy Corporate Enclaves because I read the preview and read through it at the store, and quickly came to the conclusion that it's not good enough to buy. Arsenal is awesome. I got the PDF as soon as I could because it's guns and toys, and generally stuff I wanted. I like that. But I haven't bothered to read the fiction or materials on how to find the black market. I don't care. I don't need it. I don't want it. But I'll deal because most of the book is worth having. When the whole section on L.A. is the same nonsense that pervaded the CFS chapter, and that is the only reason I'd even buy it anyway, then why bother?

I try to stay as close to canon as possible. Not because I'm a rules lawyer, or in whatever multi-group deal Critias is in. It's because I've paid for the book. I want my money's worth. And I am not going to be taken for granted and expected to purchase dreck from this or any other game company, almost all of which have the same attitude of "take it and be grateful" because for some stupid reason their most vocal customers don't expect or demand anything better. They just waste their own time fixing something that shouldn't be broken in the first place.

I don't want Fanpro or Catalyst or whoever's producing Shadowrun next month to include whole sections of "fixes" and mods. It shouldn't be necessary. The rules should already work so you don't have to include a bunch of workarounds to compensate for shoddy rules.

You expect garbage, and that's exactly what you'll get. And then people complain about it tasting bad and having to make do with their own creations. That's insane.

@MartindV: While I do not share your kind of attitude, I´m also a bit amazed about those with only a few percent of product usage. If I can figure out how to do that with other products, I´m going to rule the business world.

I voted so low in percentage not because I don't use the canon but because it's not required. Plus, suppose my view of canon is that it's separate from the rules. Canon refers to the world, IMO, and that world is completely optional in my games. I don't worry too much if my L.A. doesn't have P2.0 or if I have runners working in Philadelphia or Atlanta or other cities that haven't had much focus in the canon.

I'm loving the LA section of Ce so far. Hilariously awesome and totally usable. Hell, I've just buying the fluff for the last few years until Ar came out, when I went and bought Au and Sm along with it.

But I've played Shadowrun without magic, I've played it without tech, I've played Vietnamrun. Whatever. The SR4 mechanic isn't as intuitive for me as SR< but it's usable.

I guess I just feel like Kyoto Kid does about Portland.

If you live here, it's easier to understand how absurd the coverage of southern California has always been. I especially am baffled by how the writeup of a metro area of around 17 million, of which a comparably very few have anything to do with the media and entertainment industries, and more money flowing through it than most countries needs to focus on the vapidity of Horizon and Hollywood.

It read slightly better than the self-adulation heaped upon their own little world by the CFS chapter authors, who were obviously sheltered UCLA students or recent alum. But that's like saying it's slightly better to be executed by lethal injection than to be electrocuted.

One of the things that people still keep forgetting or ignoring is that El Infierno walled entire cities, including cities that serve as part of the industrial core of the Southland--a term which I noticed was shockingly absent from CFS and the intro of the section in CE by a "native". Stuff like that gets annoying.

I think you fail to understand that just because I (or you) don't like something doesn't mean it's garbage. Please, don't tell me you expect all food produced and perfectly for your taste, and call others fools and worse for using spices to get the taste they want.

Well, if the rules don't actually work at all, tell you 'the GM should make something up as he sees fit' or contradict each other or the descriptions... and those are basic rules - then that is flat out bad design.

Did you even read my post? That is the worst analogy I could imagine.

I don't badmouth gamers (much). I have no problem badmouthing game companies. But if you want a food-related analogy that might not confuse you, I am saying that I don't like going to a restaurant and ordering a meal, only to be served something that is still raw and missing sides.

That is how I would some of the rules, such as the Matrix rules, and pretty much all of the setting information. I've gotten to the age where I am no longer willing to tolerate being offered garbage and will not take it. But in this case I feel like I'm standing in the middle of a restaurant dining room complaining while people are making their own dinners with food they brought from home and are happy to do so.

I like cooking! And thats true for this analogy, too. Yet I see what those who don´t are missing. Really.

Some of us are happy to use even jacked up Matrix rules as written. So, to steal your analogy, you see raw meat, I see Steak Tartar.

Not saying I love Steak Tartar, but I don't necessarily get offended that it's raw either.

In other words: the matrix rules are not to your taste. Probably not to a lot of peoples taste. And, assuming you didn't walk into SR4 utterly ignorant of the previous three editions, if you don't like the setting, what the hell are you doing here?

I've reached the age where I no longer view settings and mechanics as linked together...

Shadowrun is more like a recipe book than a resturant.

Matrix rules... bleh...

You see steak tartar, I see something that makes me consider being a vegetarian.

Than I go buy a /real/ steak and show it a picture of a fire before eating it.

I've always considered SR more of a restraunt guide. It list of bunch of places you can go but what you order is really up to you and your players.

In unrelated news: Thank you boards for having a twit blocking feature. I can now read posts without resisting the urge to alternatively vomit or start flaming individuals.

(RANT/)
On RPG game designers:
Thank you guys for staying in a business that can't be all that popular anymore and that I doubt makes you uncomfortable amounts of money. I've always assumed that people who write RPG's are people like me who love RPG's and want only the best for them. Oh, and to make enough money so they don't starve to death. Because of this I don't expect all that much from them, the worst case scenario is that they completely cock up (Cancer Causing Game 4th Ed) I read a couple of reviews and I don’t buy their game. Building games isn’t exactly rocket science, but it is a huge amount of work. If I thought it was that broken I’d build my own goddamn game system and write my own goddamn background material. Given how small the tabletop RPG market I’m just glad they haven’t given up entirely and gone off to build another mindless MMORPG.

My other thing is this. I’m willing to pay 10 bucks to go see a good movie in theaters. That 10 bucks gives me between 1 and half to 2 hours of entertainment and I consider that a reasonable exchange of services, even if I loudly complain that I remember when it was only blah blah. I’m willing to pay 30-50 bucks per Core RPG rule book because I typically get at least one campaign out of each book I buy. Most games run about 6 to 8 hours and each campaign runs at least 10 sessions. So for my 40 dollar investment I’m getting roughly 70 hours of enjoyment, usually more. Looking at the raw dollars per hour I’m actually making out like a bandit, and that’s saying I only run one campaign, I never loan my book out, and I never do anything else with it ever again (like steal it’s setting or rules for a homebrew). Sure I have to do all the heavy lifting but I find that half the appeal of tabletop gaming to begin with. When I buy a gaming book (which I’ve reviewed ahead of time) I’m saying “Hey thanks for doing X (X being the amount of money I spend) amount of work on stuff I really didn’t want to do myself.” That’s why I haven’t bought certain books, because they don’t interest me and I don’t think I’m going to get my money’s worth out of them. I don’t begrudge the writers for writing them and I don’t begrudge other players for buying them. If ever my players suddenly demand to shift their operations to somewhere featured in CE, groovy I’ll get the book. Till then… it’s all money.

I will note that I am the kind of freak who absolutely loves building models; particularly complex wood ones that require hours of love and dicking with before they look halfway decent. This is probably why I think of gaming as a craft, something that is meant to be refined, adapted, and/or ignored to derive the maximum amount of pleasure from a given investment of time and money.
/RANT)

...you mean to tell me you have Argon, Gold, and Samarium?

Hehe, I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets confused when people start throwing around all this acronyms

SR4, Sm (Street Magic), Au (Augmentation), Ar (Arsenal), Rh (Runner Havens), Ce (Corporate Enclaves), Em (Emergence), Un (Unwired). Easy, right? Ok, so I made them all up.

I'd have put up the list, but I figured it was rather self-explanatory.

I guess that's you.

If I pay $100 for a baseball steak with drawn butter and a couple of sides only to have the waiter brings me out a raw slab of cheap meat, I'd be pissed.

If I wanted steak tartar, I'd ask for D20... er, yeah.

It's not that I just walked into it. It's that I came to my fucking senses and realized that the companies making Shadowrun and various other games have treated me like a chump.

I play Shadowrun 3rd and 4th editions. I am generally fine with the game mechanics. But I am pissed that I have a whole stack of books that are of various levels of uselessness. I look at RH and just shake my head sadly. I will go against canon, but it pisses me off to have to pay for the privilege of rewriting it. I don't need CE to create my own version of Los Angeles. And thankfully I wasn't stupid enough to buy it or give what was actually in it any more thought than what's come up here.

Im totally with Dashifen on this. So far my group has never once used a Canon plot. I do like to read them though, and they do give run ideas (just not in the same context).

No, those rule simply don't add up when it comes to how networks work. Thats not a matter of taste, that's a matter of mathematics.

I actually really like the matrix rules because they don't add up when it comes to how networks work. I work with real networks and computers all day. I like being able to relax a bit and not thing so hard about why or how this is working and accept that it's a different world, with different technologies, and different purposes for those technologies. YMMV, as always.

I don't have a clue about networks and the underlying technology - all I can do is to use a computer and surf the Internet. But still, even with my small amount of knowledge, I find the new Matrix rules lacking. Too much remains unclear and/ or suffers from bad wording.