T'be honest, playtesting is a mixed bag. The playtesters are rarely skilled at giving good feedback in a timely manner, and to be frank some of their responses are both difficult to read and insulting...I won't share some of the true gems with you, but trust me when I say they rank up to the worst things said on this board and then some. On top of that, few playtesters actually playtest - many of them just read the rules and never pick up a single die.

On the topic of playtesters, how does one become a playtester?

Didn't read the entire thread did you guys. Short recap. A) never said you couldn't complain (note the inserted bold above: rational good, ad hominem bad), and B) already stated it was a dumb idea to make a sig thread, let alone put it here and expect people to honor a simple request. Yes, dumb, inane, idiotic me. Happy everyone? Or do I have to say these things about a million more times (cause it's frikkin getting old).



Please don't tell me these people actual get paid to playtest.

Well... as much as you would seem right Ancient History to me the rules seem to be written with a little too much complexity. I'm not saying with enough patience people can't figure out the rules, but it is a big problem that there are quite a large number of people that fret over the rules and the little nuances of applying the rules. There is some wording when you read the rule book that people can and have found confusing. There are tons of topics on the forums that go back and forth on certain rules and applications in the books. In the end I think most of what Shadowrun survives on is fluff at this point. People play the game because they are attached to the universe and like the fact that it is not a setting full of smiles and sunshine. I love the fluff and I like the in depth character creation that lets me flesh out a complex and gritty character. Yet in the end our group ends up almost creating a house rule a session or having (sometimes lengthly) discussions about the applications of different rules.

@ Ancient History and devs: Have you considered, in a sense, "dumbing" it down a little? If someone is having problems getting through the rulebooks before they even play test it shouldn't that send up large red flags? There are systems where the rule system is easy and straightforward, but there are certain.... how should I put this... quarks in SR that end up sometimes being needlessly confusing sadly enough.

Cthulhudreams summed it up perfectly when talking about the meta variants as most people when looking at the point disparity will instead of taking a huge blow to BPs for no real reason many GMs will just let their players take Orc and add on the "qualities" without taking up the 35 bp quality pool and call it the meta variant listed in the Runners Companion. If it was more balanced there would not be this complaint. There would be far fewer people in the end saying "I don't like that this meta variant has these balanced qualities set over this other one." The answer is they will probably just go and play the other meta variant if it was more balanced.

How long does play testing last and how many people are involved? A few days a few people and a few hours each day, or months with at least seven different tables for four hours each day? It just feels to me there is not enough play testing, and when the book is slapped together there is just not enough time allowed to give the book an thorough play testing before it is sent to the printers. Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels so right. I would really love to get an answer or at least a ballpark figure of hours spent play testing the game.

Playtesters are not paid to my knowledge.

How long playtesting lasts is based on the product and production schedules. It doesn't take long to playtest simple mechanics, and the more advanced rules are given longer for playtesting. For specific hours spent, that would be a group by group thing. Generally the playtest materials are sent out with a deadline on when notes should be turned in. The amount of time spent actually playing varies.

The number of people involved in a specific book can be clearly seen by checking each one. The playtesters are given credit at the end of each table of contents.

On a side note: I'm curious how many of the Admins were at GC Indy over the last week and if any of them were actually watching the forums.

I'd like them to hire me so I can do some of the work, it'd beat the snot out of my current job.

Oh wonderful now knowing the most excellent working relationship the Devs/Freelancers have with the Playtesters.

WMS

They get a (physical) copy of whatever it was they playtested.


I'd heard all but one.


Your current job probably pays better.

That is correct, though this forum is one of prime discussion today.

This means you didn't get the right playtesters. How do you select them?

If I had to select playtesters, I'd actually specifically recruit physics grad students. They know math and they know physics and are thus best equipped to evaluate a RPG rule set.

Like yourself, I am on the outside looking in but I could definitely understand the issues recruiting said persons. There are financial considerations.. And you need to find people who are interested, capable and consistent.

Dumpshock is a perfect example. I honestly believe that almost everyone who comes here and posts quite a bit does so for a love of Shadowrun. However, the message of some posters is lost in their venomous posts. There have been a number of warnings given out where I wished for a way to send the poster to 'Anger Management 101' and 'Written Communication Skills for the Successful Negotiator'. I understood what they wanted to convey, but the message they posted wrapped in up in personal attacks, a large dose of flaming and pulled a paragraph from no where which was nothing more than trolling.

That said, in a perfect world, I absolutely agree. They would reduce the variances in the rules to a degree that should, theoretically, level the playing field.

The problem is that the skillset of

'People who want to play test shadowrun'
'people who have the analytical reasoning to playtest shadowrun'
'people with the mathematical skills to playtest shadowrun'
'people who are strong communicators'
'people who are friendly co-operative communicators' and
'people who are clear and concise communicators'

is actually a pretty limited set. Frank is a perfect example of someone who had 5/6 qualities and thus got banned. The vast majority of people don't have skills 2-4 - pretty much everyone who posts.

Given that you will very rarely find people with all 6 qualities, and everyone here definitionally has quality 1,
you either need to accept bad criticism, or you need to accept critism presented in unclear of off putting ways.

The physics grads solution just generates lots of people in categories 1-3, but doesn't deliver on 4-6 - but without assuring yourself of 4-6 you just end up with frank or even mulshemmiers flaming of AH about rarity pricing. Their criticism is unquestionably (imho, franks work on skill/attribute pricing is very good, and mulshhemmiers points about karmagen and rarity pricing are mathematical facts) correct, but their opinion is not valued due to presentation.

That brand criticism is just not welcome by the dev team, so it is equally valueless.

I can already see the catgirls cowering in terror.

I don't. Freelancers, unless they run the playtest groups themselves, generally have no say in who their stuff goes to for playtesting.

3-4 of 6 and not banned, only suspended - But if we derail into that conversation I will be forced to lock this thread before I get suspended.

As with any business you do the best you can. I think a number of the play testers are well meaning folks, just like most of the Dumpshock members. The problem is the same I run into everyday in RL. A disparity in oral & written communication skills. Also, as noted above by Aaron, play testing doesn't pay well (a copy of product). That removes the motivation for consistent, professional play testing beyond the love of the game... and even then, RL (financial needs and otherwise) trump for time.

The primary issue is the impersonalization caused by the Internet and remote working. As a remote worker in RL, I have worked to improve my written communication skills and to find parity in my oral and written skills. Because written communication lacks body language (smileys don't really work to replace it) you have to compensate by strengthening your skills. Also, in oral communication, the other party has the ability to inject into the conversation and stop it from digressing. Finally, written communication provides a shield from physical threat and allows a conversation to digress to a level that in RL would either result in people walking away to cool down or entering a fist fight.

The issue here comes from the last paragraph. People are here for the love of the game. The devs are on a tight time-frame and I really doubt any of them are gonna retire writing source books. I would further bet that for almost (if not) all of them, the writing truly does not pay as well by the hour as many commodity jobs.

If I were a writer and a majority of the people were relatively happy, I would not give much time to people who would rather trash-talk and bash me and my work than work with me to make it a better product. That includes people who refuse to accept that some corner stones will not change. ergo. New rules will not invalidate the BBB. Just because this is a Shadowrun and a game does not mean that decorum and etiquette go by the way side. If you want people to hear you, if you want people to listen and if you want people to act you have to respect them first.

Final thought: If you twist my words when you reply to inflame rather than progress the conversation, that should tell you that you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Obviously. I mean your other choice is to engineer the first quality of intrest by employing professionals. I didn't mention that option because it is obviously not an option, given that RPG mkaing is hardly a high margin industry.



You've missed the key difference between formal employment and a messageboard. In formal employment there is a externally created and enforced social structure in which you have a specific role to complete, and a measure of authority is assigned to you. For example, whatever I think of my manager, there is a way the relationship is supposed to work, and we have structures for providing feedback etc.

It's not the face to faceness that saves you - ever been to a seedy bar? Its the social context and structure that moderates the range of allowable actions.

No such structures exist in this environment. Given there is no structural measure for providing feedback, the ways to do it are limited. One option that some pick people is standing on their soapbox and shouting endlessly. It has mixed values.



I am not sure what this has to do with my point. You are just saying that people find people with abrasive manners disconcerting to deal with, as I outlined earlier. The problem is that if you make the concious decision to bin crititism from people with abrasive manners is that you will disgread a significant proportition of valid critique of your product. That is certainly a valid business decision, and one I have made, but then the onus falls on the maker of that decision to make an extra effort to validate outputs with customers.

But anyway, you make a very dangerous statement in that paragraph. Because the majority of your customer base is relatively happy, this is no reason not to improve. Doing the same thing is a reciepe for failure. The Bethlehem steel collapse is a testament to the shortsightedness and narcissism of companies that make that statement with regards to their conduct and operation. TSR nearly got kneecapped by exactly the same thing, and only D&D's brand strength saved their bacon.

Sticking with what you know dooms you to failure.

I think we both agree that there are primarily two extremes: Love of the game (ie. passion) at one end and hard math at the other.

That has nothing to do with oral vs written communication. A message board is no different than remote working (boss excluded) in that if you want peers, co-workers, partners, customers & suppliers (or other users, devs, mods & customers) to work with you, you must maintain a level of decorum and you must at least have a reasonable level of proficiency in several of your items from the list:
- 'people who are strong communicators'
- 'people who are friendly co-operative communicators' and
- 'people who are clear and concise communicators'

Actually I would rather make the point that you can't please all the people all the time, so you have to put your best foot forward to please as many as you can. Regrettably, that means someone will be unable some of the time. Regrettable but unavoidable. With limited resources and an a foreknowledge that some people will be unhappy, combined with the knowledge that you can work with more people who are not abrasive than those who are the raw math of the business decision is easy. Does it take into account every situation? No. Is it perfect? No.

If you interpret that from my post we are not communicating clearly.

I agree. I'm hope you have not translated anything in my post to think I disagree. So to clarify, level-headed and constructive criticism will go miles farther towards being heard than flames and trash-talk.

Final note: Thanks for a clear, level reply. This is the discussion I was hoping to continue.

And hard maths is correct, and passion is valueless for analysis.



Sure, but thats my point. The issue is not oral vs written communication, its the difference of operating within defined social structures and... not.

I have no meaningful way of influencing synner in convincing him rarity pricing is stupid, as you have over your manager (and visa versa!). There is no social structure for our communication to function in. He is under no obligation to even listen to my point, let alone actually consider my reasoning. It doesn't matter if I said this to him in a bar, or via a message in a bottle. He doesn't care. He doesn't have to care.

My only recourse is to point out the issue repeatedly and at great length. The objective is of course not to pursade synner, as that is impossible (It would be like obama pursading McCain to step down, or visa versa). The objective is to pursade enough other people that synner will respond to customer feedback.

So my tone, message and pitch should be (assuming I want to convince the populace) targeted at the body of the people. A simple glance at your TV and political ads will reveal that the most effective approach for that is not constructive harmonious debate, it is attacking polemics. Not that it is worth engaging in the less effective path of reasoned debate, at this junction as synner's position is impervious to any logical debate other than 'rarity pricing is destructive to game balance' to which his response is 'I'm okay with that'

So if I was to exhbit passion about the game, I need to actually repeatedly attack synner in the best of political style to achieve the changes I want.

Of course, I don't care either way and he can do whatever he wants, I'll just not pay for the product. This is probably for the best.

Some ounce of clarity has sunk in while reading the posts on how much gets put into the game and how much play testing goes on.

Just to make sure I understand this I will post step by step what I feel is going on.

1. An idea for a book is created and different sections are passed out to different people on staff. Some work freelance and some are devs.

2. There are a few chats that probably happen online and everyone gets to spend some time looking over what everyone else has written and edits are made as needed with the devs generally having more say then the freelancers.

3. The freelancers do not actually collaborate all that much between themselves for chapter continuity and progression as most of that is left to the devs to tie in effectively. Some rules are changed as needed when they may or may not be too powerful, but it is hard to really come up with that.

By now two and three has probably happened about twice now, but since the project deadline is so close there is only very little time for play testing.

4. Play testing happens for about... two weeks? Maybe a month tops?

5. Play testers send out information on what they feel needs improvement and some are nice and others not so nice.

6. The devs take the comments and disperse the comments to the people creating the individual chapters. The writers tend to disregard most of the work because what they have written is their baby that they poured their heart and soul into creating, and these people are being over the top and harsh. Maybe using profanity, maybe saying something like "Your rules for emotitoys are just about the stupidest thing I have ever seen." (Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel Ancient History was talking about people being insulting so I'm just running with that.)

7. Book is released fight a final edit and maybe one or two people give it a whole once over to see if they can't catch any mistakes and it goes to print. Their might be one more meeting possibly two yet there will probably be chats between the devs and freelancers, possibly an open chat line to discuss the book as a whole.

The problem I see is that if play testing is not regarded and/or given a very small slice of the time pie in creating a book it is generally skipping an important phase in most game development. Play testing helps fix "bugs" or glitches in the system that might need reworking. In the end the developers and freelancers become attached to the work they have put in and find themselves defending the work they have created. When the book goes to print I find the negative outpour on how people do not like the way one rule is constructed or another the writer of that part of the book will (for the most part) stick to their guns no matter what and defend the writing to the death.

When I write I have a hard time admitting that my work might have been bad or was in need of some serious improvement, but sometimes it's the harsh almost cruel comments that has made me create some of my best work. It is especially true when I cook food, since I generally put much more of my heart into it. In the end though the minute I stop listening and say tough luck is the minute I stop growing as a cook.

I don't like it! I will keep yelling till someone changes it!

Effective.

The design decision was made, it's built in to the game, it is not in principle "stupid", but a choice in design. It's been printed, tested and based on the evidence works in creating mechanics that interact with the players choices to support the genre. The fact you favor the alternate choice and choose to keep complaining about it won't change the thousands of books out there, and it especially won't change the one sitting on the table that I use.

If you're relying on customer feedback to support your opinion, I can tell you exactly which way it goes based on the feedback surveys of a large sample of players who have tried the game out. I am certain your yelling at them will contrast well with their actual experience at playing SR4.

Because the Line developers have made a choice that you don't like does not mean that they have abandoned the social construct. A choice must be made between options in designing a game. They made one, and have stuck to it. The choice was made in the base rule book, and has been maintained in the expansions. Kudos to the development team! It's really you that has abandoned the social process as soon as their is a decision that you don't like. Once that fundamental design decision was made, there's no going back from it without destroying the integrity of the game.

In the end, just because it's a different choice from what you would have made does not make it a wrong choice, but a different choice. If you are going to start yelling and screaming at everyone's different choice from yours, well... you are going to end up shouting and screaming a lot.

If you are really seriously opposed to SR4, then really don't buy it, or play, and go away. There is something out there for you. GURPS and Champions/Hero System are at least two other game mechanic system where you can use the SR genre, and have your precious non rarity costs for character build points.

And while you are thinking about rarity pricing, you haven't yet started yelling about all those different priced guns and options unbalancing the game. I mean, a 6P -1 AP pistol has an enormously wide price range. Some are more then double of others!

It is probably impractical for them to incorporate playtesting into the entire development cycle in any sort of structured manner due to costs.

Consider what WOTC did for its playtesting over the lifecycle - basically the devs ran some campagins and used those insights for 4th ed. Thats what.. 3 campagins? Maybe? Run by the authors themselves who are imaging how its supposed to work? That informed the vast majority of the play test cycle? And I'm being generous.

And FASA is a 2 bit operation compared to WoTC, so you can see the problem with the commerical pressures at work here.

No doubt. They might not have the choice in the matter anyway, since the revenue might be too badly needed to have a few months dedicated to have some people play test the game for the price of a book (hell I would settle for a PDF and there is a good chance it is.) Every month they spend is a month not making money, but it is a short term view of the situation. Hell maybe they can only plan for the short term when it comes to pumping out a book, but in the end if it is given to the right players for at least a month there might not be griping that the whole meta variant stick just doesn't cut the mustard or bla bla bla, ect., ect. In the book business you are only as good as your last book, and when people get upset about a book that they believe is an inferior product, or are upset that the only response they get to their argument can be interpreted as "life isn't fare so deal with it" they might not be as inclined to buy any more books.

*edit* @ Dire: you might want to take out the part where you said it has been tested as that seems to have been said otherwise. Well maybe it gets tested, but it seems like for only a very short period of time. Is it truly enough testing?

Also just because something gets printed does not mean it is set in stone. There are erratas for goodness sakes, but I do agree that someone just trying to be the loudest voice in a crowd is generally a pain in the ass for the other people who have to put up listening to it, or have a more quiet and reasonable point. *edit*

Admins can get suspended? (asked out of curiosity only)

--------

On the upside it seems at least some good has come of this

I had a friend at WotC at the time; he was in a playtesting group. I learned some of what went on then. I don't know how playtesting is handled now, under Hasbro; but here's what he told me about the release of D&D 3.0:

• There were hundreds of playtesting groups, spread across the country. I don't know how they were selected.
• Each group was given a draft copy of the rules, and, I believe, some adventures to run. I don't know if pregen characters were handed out or not. NDA's were, of course, required.
• Feedback forms were solicited after each session, and after each adventure arc. Individual GMs also came up with their own adventures.
• Many different character types were run, at various levels.
• After a time, new draft copies of the rules would come out, and the groups would playtest the new drafts.
• The cycle continued for a while. I believe the process went on for over a year before the last draft copy came out. I do remember that his playtest group was folded almost a year before D&D 3.0 hit the shelves.

That's certainly a good way of handling playtesting. Obviously, the larger your playtest sample is, the better off you are. Also, so is sending out revisions to be playtested before release, instead of simply rewriting a rule before release. Standardized forms cleared up communication problems, but still left room for individual comments to be solicited. Also, the game was played at various levels; I know that the SR4 playtest were only run on starting characters.

Naturally, this would slow down a release schedule; so it'd work best with a major release of a new edition, which would have the most tweaks to work out. And even then, problems might not be noticed until too late; that's why 3.5 came out so quickly. Compare that to the quick release of SR2 after SR1; it's not that different.


What do you think the old letter-writing campaigns were all about? Sometimes they worked, and sometimes they didn't. But when the manufacturers listened, we often got a better product out of the deal. If you look at the errata, there's a couple of rules there that were changed/modified/clairified in response to arguments made here, on Dumpshock. Causing a ruckus raises attention, and attention is what often causes change.

You probably weren't alive during the Vietnam era, but one of the reasons we pulled out was because of all the negative attention it received. Huge protests here, plus the horrifying news footage coming from over there, caused massive pressure on the people in charge. You definitely won't remember the Civil Rights March on Washington; but the footage it received helped push in a new era of change. It was all about drawing attention to the problem.

We're in the internet age now, and our stakes are much smaller: a small idea we love, called Shadowrun. A lot of us don't like the direction it's headed. So how do we make ourselves heard? The same principles apply. You cause enough noise that you can't be ignored. Here on an internet forum, that means causing enough controversy that your thread grows ten pages overnight. Flaming and insults aren't required, but you don't have to have a constructive solution in order to have a complaint.


Ah, the "Love it or leave it!" argument that used to go around so much in the 60's. It didn't hold water then, and it doesn't hold water now. If you want something to change, you use what methods you have to change it. You don't abandon your car because it doesn't have tinted windows.

Oh... I see how it is Cain! Not taking the game at face value and instantly accepting everything you are given... well you can just get out and stay out with your calm rational argument! Take whatever you are given and be happy with it or burn heretic!

*/sarcasm off*

Note: I am being silly and this is no way has anything to do with anyone else's responses in this post. It's kind of tough when you agree with both sides, and none at all... don't ask.

I'd really prefer you made your points without upsetting the other members. The change caused by ruckus is not always a good thing.

While I understand your intent wasn't inflammatory here, you really have no idea when DireRadiant was born. It would probably be best not to assume you know when he was born.

The counter point being that a lot more do....

"The counter point being that a lot more do...."

You can't track this statement one way or the other. Most people who get fed up will just simply just stop posting for one thing, while people who like the game will still give it a thumbs up. There is not enough hard evidence to go off of right now until the long term book sales are in, and even then there is no real way of knowing what everyone thinks. To many factors to take into account. Both of you have stated a feeling based on pretty much nothing except what your gut tells you. Sorry but I feel that an argument on one side or the other is more or less pointless. Everything else is cool, but these kind of comments do not further the discussion, but only bog it down.

The really funny thing is that the devs then complain about the lack of page counts in books. There is a serious disconnect there somewhere.

But really this doesn't matter like rarity pricing on metatypes does. The gap between any two pistols is insignificant next to the Oni and ogres. The gap is the equivalent of like 75k nuyen. Thats a big gap. I don't care about two pistol options that cost 1/5th and 1/10th of a BP, when we have a 15 BP gap right there. Thats like 10 skillsofts.

I'm sure you can appreciate the difference in scale here. Anyway, I just tell my players to take the 'best' option, gun wise, and call it/style it whatever they feel like. I'm pretty flexible. If you want a railgun and all the railguns are terrible, you can use the 50 cal sniper and call it a railgun. Why would I care? I'm not here to brutally oppress my players into not playing what they want because its 'rare' in the game world (yeesh).



Probably not. But lots of people think its stupid, and have already started building fixes. Thats the joy of online communities. I signed up to the fix that made orks more expensive and elves cheaper ages ago. Excuse me for snipping the majority of the rest of your post. I never accused the devs of abandoning anything so that point is silly (I said nothing existed to abandon), and if no one aside from me cared, why are their two threads on page 1 right now about exactly that issue, one of which has no posts by me in it?

It's a forum. It supports a multitude of opinion.

And incidentally, it doesn't work. Either you are backdoor banning the character - free spirits are a great example of this. Why include unplayable rules? - or you are just ruthlessly punishing players who want to play a 'concept.' Anyone who chooses to play an oni or an ork is being punished by game mechanics for not playing an ogre.

So power gamers are just going to write down 'ogre' instead of ork and take his 9k nuyen to the bank, and anyone who actually wants to play a cool daemon from japan just gets to suck for no reason or has to play something that they didn't want to play.

Given that the makeup of the PC party is obviously stupid anyway (sammies with like 30 years wages implanted? Stupidly rare high powered mages working as criminals?) I'm not sure that making everyone play an ork actually accomplishes anything measurbly good and does encourage several things that are empercially bad (Unless you are in favour of min/maxes dominating 'role players' in which case more power to you)



You know as well as I do that GURPS is possibly the crappiest system ever. Seriously, it does everything badly, NONE of the costs are well balanced and it has a billion traps for the inexperienced player in character generation (Playing in a Sword and Sorcery game? Didn't know one level of whatever the skill that lets you kip up is mandatory? Prepare to suffer n00blet).

Sure, nice idea, but execution is terrible.

Champion is a supers game with knowledge problems of its own, but I've never looked at a book or played it.

Anyway if it makes you happy, yes, I am refusing to buy runners companion as it is a poor product. I have also refused to pay for unwired on the same basis. I do feel that the basic book (aside from the matrix) and street magic contribute significant value

It's hard to do once the battle lines have already been drawn. I do try and avoid outright flames and attack, although I do confess to resorting to snippiness and sarcasm. Really, there's some strong feelings on either side, and it's hard to post anything negative about SR4 without upsetting *someone*. However, I will stand by this one fact: when I make a nice, noncontroversial stance on a subject, I'm usually ignored. When I make a controversial argument, and defend it voraciously, a lot of discourse will result. Such is the way of the internet forum.

That's why I said "probably". If I was wrong, or if I offended him, I offer an apology.


Like MasterofM said, that's hard to quantify. I've certainly seen more suggested house rules on Dumpshock than I have for any other dedicated game forum, or even on RPG.net. That indicates that a lot of people aren't satisfied with the rules, they're just tolerating them and making patches as they go. I pay money for a product that requires as few patches as possible, and so do a lot of other people. I really, sincerely doubt that you'll find anyone who plays Sr4 without a good bundle of house rules, or ignore good-sized chunks of the game. So, I wouldn't say that a "lot more" people are satisfied with the way things are headed. It's a spectrum; it's all degrees of how dis-satisfied you are.

I think you are taking a micro view and I am taking a macro view. Quite simply, growth of the line supports my assumption.

I'm not trying to infer that everyone loves every aspect of the game. I think the rarity factoring is silly, but I agree with the general direction of the line. I think Peter is way to active defending his decisions. Rob's lack of posting added to the mystique. I really hate how an assault rifle is a better choice than and LMG in about every single case. I'm not going to belittle any of those points because as a generalization I more agree with the direction than not.

Some things will get changed and some will not. IMO the Unofficial Errata: Runner's Companion topic is a great example of the change Cain and Cthulhudreams were speaking of. Alternate Matrix rules and other house rule threads are a great example of options when a group of fans disagree with a subset of the rules that are not going to change.

I heard Runner's Companion sold out at Gen Con. I bought both Unwired and Runner's Companion there and feel that overall, both are good, playable products. In any case, you have exercised the strongest statement a consumer can make. You have voted with your wallet.... and so have I.

I will agree with redjack that aside from the matrix rules - which are really in a bad place because they are trying to guess what the future will look like and the bullshit professional 'futurists' running around cannot do that, let alone some RPG designers who have bigger problems - overall shadowrun is actually pretty well designed. (The matrix rules would be much better served by disconnecting themselves from whatever the future might look like and just trying to do something that is 100% focused on playability rather than trying something new all the time to keep up with the latest buzz words in IT.)

The basic mechanics for armour and shooting and character generation and sneaking and all that good stuff work quite well. Magic is probably the best magic system in any game in print currently. Melee is a bit tacked on but its a game with guns so who cares about the dude with a sword.

I have only skimmed through the last 3 pages but isn't the entire point of the argument: Post your criticism but don't be a jerk about it?

If not, I demant the return of the Lounge under the name of "Your Houserule Sucks!"

Part of this is that you can't really get useful feedback on issues from the people who know what the ideas behind the rules are. (Defensive posturing doesn't count as useful feedback) Particularly when you compare it to something like hero, where there is a rules question forum, and the line developer is the only one who can post answers. Which he normally does in under 24 hours. Most of the answers are of the "The text on 5ER 81, under the heading ..." type, but that's also how the several hundred page long FAQ got built, so some questions are non-obvious or just keep coming up.

lol. tbh, I wish the same quality of the magic rules was fully present in the matrix rules.

It would easily be the best RPG in print currently.

I'm a big fan of franks rules, and they have the mathematical quality (as he's photocopied the magic section's copies and changed the names), and they integrate well with gameplay (thanks to the xeroxing), but they don't quite permeate the setting in the same way which is a shame.

Do you have any evidence that 4th edition has more overall players than previous editions?

I really don't think 4th edition has caught on the way previous editions have. The game sells that is obvious but stores don't move the volume of Shadowrun books I've seen them carry and sell in the past. That is just the stores in the places I have lived though and doesn't mean anything unless someone has numbers.

and beyond the numbers of any edition, is it possible to do it much better than currently?

The arguments for 4th edition that I've seen have nothing to do with the health of the franchise. They simply have people stating that they like what they play (duh, the same can be said by any fan of the games that tank horribly) and they want it not to change (for better or worse).



That doesn't mean much. Hardback 3rd edition sold out in like a few hours at Gencon. They didn't make enough though. Gencon is also one venue and you can ask Wizkids and WotC about numerous games they've sold out at GenCon that were abysmal failures that the company took a huge loss on. I'm not a fan of the edition, but the better argument is simply that CGL doesn't show the signs of losing money on Shadowrun.

But the simple fact that there are a large number, and obviously large number by not just these forums but many other gaming forums is that Shadowrun has a lot of disgruntled fans from previous editions. That fact that they're still fans who talk well of the setting means that they're all highly potential customers CGL is failing to capitalize on. So obviously if they were able to deliver a product that satisfied those fans as well as the current ones they could sell more product and make more money.

Sadly through the life of 4th edition at Fanpro and CGL I've not seen anyone try.

But we still remain fans and know that "this too shall pass". In fact fans of the franchise left unhappy by 4th edition are logically going to encourage the demise of 4th edition till they get something they like. Just like it is with many other franchises which are left to wallow until someone visionary reinvigorates it in a way to attract old fans while growing new ones.

Yes. Boiled down that was my original intent.

Fits into your sig, doesn´t it

Yes, it does. However, I didn't think to boil it down in that fashion because A) ironically I wanted to be more clear than that (which ended up obfuscating my meaning unfortunately), B) that has zero impact - it's a statement that's easily ignored, for the reasons Cain is talking about, and primarily C) I just didn't think. 404 - Brain Not Found.

Addendum - Of course it helps that I had been up about 24 hours when I came up with this harebrained idea. Not an excuse, but whatever y'know?

This has been a really interesting discussion, albeit on that has chewed up about 30 minutes of my morning, but hey, I'm at work, getting paid AND surfing the internet, so I really can't complain without coming across as an idiot:)

I think there are a lot of egos at play, not just between devs and DSF members, but just in general when feedback is delivered. The biggest thing a forum does is solicit feedback whether people want it or not. I work as a analyst, focused on updating and releasing a package of software, so I think its fairly similar to the process of producing an RPG book. And I know that while our devs get 5-6 weeks to code and my team gets 3-4 weeks to test, it rarely seems to be enough and we are always having to go out with some flaws that we are aware of. Sometimes we disclose that and other times we just let them roll, plan to fix them in the next release and hope that someone doesn't find them before that.

And, because our team has spent a lot of time planning and drafting all these changes, when someone out in the field says that something is wrong, the initial goal for any of us is to prove them wrong. So, we look to find evidence that it is really working and the problem is with them.

Point is, the bigger the egos that are floating around, the harder it is for a side to admit a mistake and fix it.

But, there is a big difference between a printed book and a piece of software...I have one copy to deal with. So, if I make a fix to a typo or a huge piece of function, well, its takes literally a few days to get that out into production. You can't go printing a new run of books 2-3 times every month, else you lose any sort of face with the consumers...

But to TRULY analyze the math and provide legitimate statistics you have to cross reference to the industry as a whole, which has suffered since the time of sr3 due to computer games.

I'm talking about sr4 beginning to now. The game and player base is growing, not diminishing. Could it grow at an even faster rate? Without a doubt. Then we digress to a business marketing analysis and the question then becomes: Will tweaking the rules or tweaking the marketing plan increase the user base? I actually would hypothesize that the latter would carry more bang for the buck.

But this is really semantics, a WAG at statistics and my opinion/your opinion. In the end, we both seek the same result: A better Shadowrun game. Regrettably, my style of play will not be exactly the same as your style of play, so even if one of us gets the perfect game the other the other definitely doesn't. I have chosen to be a promoter (as opposed to a detractor) of Shadowrun even with its small flaws (Please don't interpret that as me saying anyone specific is a detractor). As the saying goes, pick your battles. Since I know I will never get every fix I want, I work towards getting the ones most important to me. I watch for and use the methods that are truly most effective at getting results over the long term.

Final Thought: The loudest voice sometimes get early recognition. The strategy is ineffective in the long term.

You insight is well timed, very in tune and parallel to the experience I was attempting to translate into the RPG gaming industry (though you seem to have summarized it better).

Excellent observation. This highlights the need to consider not only various 'camps' of existing players, but the first impression given to potential new customers.

Yeah. It's called "Fourth Edition."

Somewhere, someone must have stats of units sold of SR4 materials. In the comics industry the number of titles sold per week is made public knowledge.

I would advise against making such data available in a shrinking market with low margins. Knowledge is power.

Just to dash in with a quick post about the health of SR4: SR4 as a line is selling strongly, and for a non-WotC RPG in the current market, doing very well.

Looking forward to pumping out some great stuff for the 20th Anniversary, for current and lapsed players alike.

Uuuug... Redjack can you not see this has still just created circular arguments? It all boils down to what camp you are in, and since there is not enough hard evidence (I'm sorry but there just isn't) neither side is right or show clearly enough that one side is right and the other is wrong when dealing with a fan base. I unfortunately believe that after unwired and runners companion came out that there might be a big difference in sales. Now I am only using my gut, and I could be right or I could be totally wrong yet there is really nothing to go on but my gut right now so we will see how that goes. The only basis I have to go off of my decision is my reasoning. The BBB and Street Magic were both good books that brought quite a lot to SR 4th ed. Augmentation, and Arsenal also helped out at our table although I found that the fact there was no index was somewhat of a turn off (because when I am trying to find a certain rule it's a pain to flip through the pages until I find it or sticky note the book,) and was actually not to pleased with the quality of the paper used in Arsenal. These are minor details that can be overlooked as well as some of the rules on the items brought up in these two books can easily be ignored or overlooked which again is totally fine (emotitoys as the primary example,) as you have a nice fairly soft pillow that is the BBB to fall back on.

Where I base the problem is in the most recent two books is that there was a large part of the fan base that was hoping that Unwired would make hacking easy, more effective, and gimp the effectiveness of script kiddies. Didn't quite happen that way. Yet most of all many people were looking forward to Runners Companion for the meta variants and new playable races. It is a mixed bag who do or do not like this, but if you get burned twice when looking at the rules and both times when the issue is raised the answer is "Tough cookies. It isn't getting changed so don't even bother talking about it anymore," People are not going to buy the next installment in the series. Now how many people do this and how many people keep buying the books is something that will only show months down the road. I like SR and my view is somewhat grim, and maybe I am wrong and maybe I'm right. Maybe it's not a large part of the fan base that wanted to see changes in hacking and the meta variant thing (you can't really quantify what people want and who will buy what until later down the road.) Only time will tell if you are right Redjack, or I am. I hope you are, but in the end it would be nice to see more quality work like the BBB or Street Magic when the next installment of books are made. These books might have their problems too, but they are a good buy. In the end all of this talk is of the future, and I am perfectly willing to sit back and let the future become the present instead of trying to predict it.

It helps no one to stick your head in the sand. The comics market had a huge downfall in the 1990s but has been making a very slow comeback with it's various niche markets. That data is easy to find with a google search. In fact... I just did one for PnP RPGs! According to 2007 sales charts, RPG sales are on a slow uptick overall and FanPro (who I believe was publishing Shadowrun at the time) had positive, though small, sales growth.

If anyone can provide more current sales data, I'd appreciate it.

You know, for the first time in forever, I can't tell if you're joking or not.

I think he's serious. I agree with him to a point...it would be nice to have someone looking over the math, but I'd rather not have a bunch of academics deciding the direction of a game, holistically, at least. You want that aspect covered, so you don't have problems down the road, certainly, but math isn't the only thing a fun game has...you don't want the math to break a game, so that angle should be covered.

My assumption is that most "play testers" are not given a whole game to read, digest and run. They are given certain parts and looked to run certain tests and get back to the devs. That's the most efficient use of everyone's time, albeit not the best way to ensure consistently throughout. I mean, I might be given an encounter to run with 4 or 5 pregens. That doesn't test the validity of chargen, it doesn't tell me how they are balanced...I mean, its a slice of the rules in a limited scope.

But all that testing takes time, and setting up those scenarios, frankly, doesn't take passionate gamers to do...it takes analytical types that can cover the majority of the bases and point out the flaws and successes.

I don't know, nowadays, "games" are so focused on balance...that's a lot of weight on everyone's shoulders to make sure all the pieces come together in a compact system that plays smooth AND is fun...that's a tall order...

Not really, there have long been computer games. Heck I'm no spring chicken but I was raised from childhood on a TI-99/4A playing computer games long before their were PCs or Nintendos. Computer game companies are simply getting better at reaching out to their market and making better games. Something traditional roleplaying has been slow to catch up on. Digital distribution is one of the things where traditional RPGs are starting to learn and adapt.

Anyways you and another poster also missed the second part of my thread which attempts to look at the bigger picture:



All the disgruntled players are not only potential profit not realized, they're a weight on the company and developers. Just look at it here in Dumpshock and after these years that SR4 has been out you still take a beating and a colder reception than necessary. In the case of Shadowrun X-box this broke FASA interactive. I was initially and briefly part of early beta for that game and a lot of Shadowrun fans flocked to it and disappointedly found it wasn't Shadowrun (consider it a version like SR4 is a version but without the fluff/history) they wanted. These players weren't upset with gameplay, or first person shooters, they were upset with how the story was handled and large numbers of players turned their back on the game and refused to buy it. This was probably one of the points that tipped that company over into the loss category.

But the franchise continues on. Shadowrun is still a strong franchise and Smith & Tinker formed to take up the license before the dust have even settled from the end of FASA interactive. I have high hopes with Jordan Weismann in control of the new Shadowrun computer game it will be the game also us refugees of Shadowrun 1st-3rd are looking for and they will capitalize on old players will growing the franchise heavily with new ones.