Edge costs buildpoints. Buildpoints are rare. And with successes only at a thrown 5 or 6, you don´t have success-rates of 80% anymore. You cannot have so much Edge that you would be able to compensate this.

You can still have enough Edge so that you won't die because of a bad roll which was the point I was trying to make.

I know your point and you are absolutely right about that, but I hope you understand my point, too. Life in SR4 is much more complicated (and less fun) than it was before. Sad but true. And combat pool was way cooler than edge.^^

If the players are shooting the Johnson as a negotiating tactic because they have more SMG dice than negotiation dice, then they aren't using smart tactics.

But even then, that isn't true. The first smart tactic in a high-dice-pool game is diversification of the team. A team that has one solution to all problems will fail fast. The second smart tactic is to put each member of the team where he can do the most good, which often means splitting up. But intelligence is not perfect, and there is always the possibility that a situation that is best suited for one team member will be faced by another.

Sometimes, when you GM, you have to delay the ambitions of your players in order to maintain game balance. A smart GM, rather than brushing off that delayed PC, will use that delay as an opportunity to engage him in other ways other than his chosen specialty. I have never seen a game system that had mechanics that allowed for the integration of the equivalent of a level-15 character with it's first-level counterpart. When you work with a game based on statistics and probability it's not possible.


I don't disagree but there are a couple of items that need to be acknowledged here: 1) if it was one development house that was dealing with the SR property over a number of decades, that would be one thing but the SR license has been passed around quite a bit and isn't even wholly owned by one company. When you get new devs, you often get repeated mistakes. D&D's devs are guilty as are the Star Wars devs. That's the nature of the beast. 2) A lot of what you're talking about has more to do with the layout and design of the books rather than failings in the rules themselves. But I do agree, there's a serious need for a summary/index in the core books. Not everyone wants to purchase a PDF and do searches.

Which is one of the reasons my group doesn't do SR4. I am one of those who LIKE that survivability (since this IS a game) is more dependent upon YOU than your dice, which is MUCH more the case in SR3. We still have guys who are brutal tanks go down to a burst of AK-98 fire from time to time if they walk into it. It happens.

As for the first part, I've learned not to take my frustrations out on my Players... and I'm dieting again anyway.


Isshia

I understand your point too, even if it's the opposite for me: I like it better now. I had too many experiences with munchkinized SR3 PCs who damaged cars when ramming them on foot, didn't bother to roll when soaking anything less powerful than a burst of APDS ammo and survived naval damage with at worst Moderate wounds.

Anyone ever had to deal with SR1 rules, where you bought successes from karma, not from karma pool, as long as you had at least one (with rerolls costing 1 karma too)? One of our players was very fond of hoarding karma, and then spending it to survive/kill the worst enemies.

Aaaah, different country, same problem. In my group, the GM doesn´t allow initiation before a 1-year waiting time. So can I tell him he is no "smart GM"?


Right. But from my professional side of view, it is not acceptable to publish unfinished products. I don´t understand that companies doing such things, can still exist on the market. If we would do this in our company, we would have never been founded.

Well, dang, if that poor player is sitting on his thumbs for a year, hell yeah, that isn't a smart GM. No player should be ignored and every player should have his opportunity to bask in the sun.


Oh Lord, the things that niche/nerd interest publishers get away with that the rest of the professional world doesn't is astonishing. I collect comics and some of the titles I read are constantly delayed because some prima donna artist or writer had some "personal issues" that got in the way (there was a three-year delay between the release of issues 2 and 3 of Warren Ellis' three-issue Ministry of Space mini-series and the final issue of Planetary still hasn't released... and the previous one came out two years ago!) or he was too busy playing Final Fantasy (*cough* Joe Medieura *cough*).

But it's not as if we nerds have anywhere else to go to get our fix.

Muahahaha....I sense a soul in search of answers....no stop, wrong game....I meant I sense a familiar player in the US of A.^^

Besides that, this poor player is me, but my collegues are not very supportive because they don´t care about initiation...or might...or world-leadership like I do.

Some of these comments seem to be aimed more at the eggshells-and-hammers nature of SR than at the specific rules problems. (Yes, there are specific rules problems. And yes, those problems would make shared-GMing really, reallly hard. But for most games those problems are easy to cope with.)

Even SR1 had the problem that it was very easy to kill the players even when you didn't intend to and they did everything right. It does seem more fragile that way with SR4. (From where I sit, handling that is a bit harder for the GM now than when I ran an SR1 game.) But that does not mean that the rules are broken. it means that the GM has to be a lot more careful about how he handles things.

Yours,
Joel

So we should summarize this topic to: It´s the GM´s fault if somebody dies. ^^

What! No! Unheard of! GM's can lie, cheat, and fake as long as the players are having fun? Unspeakable!

No, no. It's the Players fault if their character dies...and you've got to keep telling them that and telling them that and so forth until they believe it.


Isshia

What is the problem with characters dying? I have avoided a character death to make sure information was shared, but A senseless death can be very telling for a story. I recently, and impetuously, performed an action that almost got me killed. The rule read:"If the overflow exceeds the characters body, then the character dies..." or something to that effect. I had even erased the permanent edge, buying my ass out of limbo. Lucky for me, a team mate had made the acquaintance of a nice street doc who wanted to check his bones, moments earlier. One stabilizing role (and a week of rest) later, and I'm back running the shadows.

Edge prevents death, nothing prevents failure. I find that more players are more worried about "losing", or failure than death. Usually death is the consequence of failure, but not always. I believe the OP was angry over the rules not allowing him to succeed at his goal. But at the heart of the argument is that fear of failing. Role-playing is often described as a game where there is no win point. But the opposite is also true. Play a strong character, gain experience if not experience points, live a good story, and have fun. Do this and you can never lose, whether you survive 1 or 100 sessions.

Remember, the challenges that kill a character are the corner stone of the next one.

After reading this entire fascinating thread, my only input it that this idiom is so awesome I'm going to start using it in everyday life.

Oh god what have I done...

ACK...too much lawyering for my taste.

Players just need to learn to let go and play the damn GAME.

If there's a rule conflict, I just go: "GM, what do I roll?"

A decision will be made and I don't worry about it.

Of course, this comes from a guy who thinks Karma and XP should be optional. Stuff should just go up when they're ready. Unfortunately, most players cannot handle that much leeway.

***

As for "cheating" and lawyers:

It's a game, not a competition. Sheesh.

If you're worried about cheating, you're hanging out with the wrong people. It's kinda like dating a crack whore: you'll have to learn to accept an occasional missing wallet and an extra STD or two.

I frequently play with people who are new to Shadowrun, and often new to gaming. Like I was at that time, they're often at an impressionable phase in their gaming development. If the GM takes things a certain way, the new players will learn that Shadowrun is about fair play, cooperation, and having fun within the rules. If the GM goes another way, the players learn that Shadowrun is about powergaming, rules-lawyering, and shooting everything that moves.

When you're GMing for new folks, you're teaching them about Shadowrun. You're representing Shadowrun to them. And it doesn't take much for them to get the wrong lesson. If they catch the GM cheating, they'll learn to cheat as well. Whatever you model for them, they'll learn to do. If you're being forced to challenge the team with Force 12 spirits and Dragons, that's what they'll think is normal for Shadowrun, and they'll make characters accordingly. I certainly didn't start munchkinizing characters in Shadowrun until I ran across a GM who played it like a urban form of Rifts.

The problem is that once things reach a certain level in SR4, there's no fair way to challenge the characters. If they're decently smart, you can't bring in the opposition to properly engage them. Even if they're doing crazy stunts, like using their SMG skills in negotiations with Johnson-- by, say, shooting the cigarette out of his mouth-- they might be able to twist it into something beneficial or at least neutral for them. Players will learn what kind of tactics work. And so long as they're sticking to the stuff that works, it's damned hard to bring in forces that will be a challenge to them.

No game is immune to power-gaming, rules-lawyering and shooting everything that moves Game Masters, be it played in the 3rd or 4th Editions. Singling out 4th Edition is hardly fair as that GM naughtiness can, and most likely will, ruin campaigns played in 1st through 3rd Edition rule sets.

Any game can be like that.

Often, I find it comes down to: "Mr. GM, you're interfering with my fantasy!"

Players seem to forget that the GM is a player too. Instead, they take the attitude that the game "belongs" to Mr. GM. The game "belongs" to all the players. If one player isn't having fun...guess what...they leave. Next thing you know, it's a "competition"...GM versus [subset of players], player versus player versus GM, etc.

I find that having these rules really helps:

1) The GM is a player too
2) Your character shall work well with others
3) One other player character shall be a foil for your character (ie: can do something you cannot)
4) Your character has something he or she cares about

As for power levels: that's an easy one to fix.

It just requires a departure from the expectation of numbers representing the character. The focus has to be on the character's journey, not the result. It's easy to "build" a character and focus on the points; it's difficult to build a multifaceted, interesting character personality over time.

When the players don't ask for XP anymore, you know you're there. If the conversation goes something like this, you're good:

Player: "Hey, I think Glitch is getting pretty good at Pistols."
GM: "Oh? Why?"
Player: "Well, he's gotten in 25 gun fights, scored at least 40 hits while on runs. That's pretty good! I figure I can raise it up to a three. Current value is 1."
GM: "Well, that's certainly reasonable. Most cops only get in a few fights over their entire careers. That hit ratio is good, so go for it."

The root of all RPG evil is an attitude of antagonism between the Players and the GM. If a Player is designing his character so that he can "beat" all of the challenges that the GM throws at him, this is going to cause problems in any game system. I will agree that this attitude is exacerbated in SR4 because the rules are so much "fast and loose" and leaves much up to GM discretion. I think this sticks in the craw of these "oppositionalist" players because they can't find the rules they need to trick the GM so they can "beat" his opposition. Because so much is left up to GM fiat they are left without the ability to beat him. Conversely if the GM is just out to defeat the players, no one will have fun either. RPGing (to me) has always been about telling a story. If one wants to play SR in a mode of opposition to the GM I suggest they convert the rules to a miniatures style game, or just go play a stock miniatures game entirely, they will be far happier.

I am a well-seasoned veteran of SR2, SR3, and now SR4 and it is my firm opinion that SR4 is the most playable as a fast-past storytelling vehicle. With a few aids such as a spreadsheet for doing combat calculations, you can really make the game zip along. The point is: players should be focused on what the rules allow them to accomplish from a story or "objective" perspective.

Example: The team's objective is to infiltrate a corporate facility. The teams Hacker proceeds to hack the security host in order to subvert the security system. Now, this action could easily be boiled down to 2 or 3 die rolls. Is the player going to be upset because the rules didn't allow him to show how cool he was while throwing his dice ("Look how awesome I am at this!"), or is the player happy that he completed his task of subverting the security so that the team can achieve its objective and advance the plot?

Some RPGs have been drifting over time in their rules rigidity that they now much more closely resemble a board game or tabletop miniatures game. Personally, I like the direction that SR is going much more.

RPGs came from tabletop miniatures, and to tabletop miniatures they return.

I agree here. The issue here is that the antagonist can be the GM, a player, or even both. If it's both, there's no hope for you. But if it's only one, you have a chance to salvage the game and develop future gaming skills, so that later games will be about story and fun, instead of beating each other.


I have to disagree on one major point. If you need a computer spreadsheet to play a game, it does not "zip along". A cheat sheet or two is fine; but if you're needing a spreadsheet to keep track of everything, you may as well be playing a computer game. The thought that using a computer to make a pen-and-paper game move smoothly as a good thing is just silly.


Those two things are not mutually exclusive. In fact, IMO the best games come from when they both work together. A good story is filled with good descriptions, and a "cool" description is almost always a good one.

I'm also a well-seasoned veteran of SR1-4, as well as being one of the guys who was gaming in the 70's. While I like the idea of where they're headed with SR4, they didn't do it well enough. The made a play for a more narrative approach, and failed. They tried to eliminate some of the crunch, and succeeded, but only far enough to piss off the simulationists. The lack of flavor made it non-narrativist, and the lack of crunch made it non-simulationist. It's still pretty gamist, but that's as much a double-edged sword as the others. What we ended up with was a poor man's WoD clone, ported to d6.

My intention was never to say that computer aid was necessary, simply that it made the game move faster and helped to prevent mistakes. My perspective is probably biased since I work with computers all day long, but I have always seen them as a good aid in every RPG I have played.

Indeed. Even if only because the delete/backspace keys don't slowly wear through the charsheet like erasers do.

Note that he said "zip along", not that they were essential tools for playing. I'm bad at math and I don't use spreadsheets and the combat sessions in my games still move noticeably quicker than, say, an average D&D encounter. Or at least the ones I've played. But I also demand that my players know what they're going to do when it's their turn.

Maybe I'm biased, because I didn't even see a computer until years after I started gaming. But even so, a good game should not need those kinds of external aids to make it move faster. Be it slide rules, calculators, or computers, the mechanics of a game should be easy enough to run quickly on its own. I've seen equally complex games run many times more quickly and smoothly than SR4 does, without the need for spreadsheets and programs.

Those rules don't work very well when playing Paranoia, or any similar themed game, in which backstabbing and betraying the other PCs is either one of your primary goals or an effective means to achieve your goals.

<Jules Winnfield>Ex-AM-ple?</Jules Winnfield>

Presuming you're talking about d20, that's more a result of the system than computer use. D20 was not designed for super-fast combat the way that, say, Savage Worlds was. There's a spectum of speeds in RPG's: Shadowrun and Rifts is towards the bottom, d20 is practically on it, WoD is about the middle, and Savage Worlds is on the top. Speedy combat is not one of the good points about the SR4 system, at least not in comparison to many of the other games on the market.

I've played D&D since 2nd Edition so I'm referencing the THAC0 system as well as D20.

Do you believe that the SR1-SR3 mechanics were faster in terms of combat resolution than SR4?

I think 4e is faster on paper (how well your players know the system changes this) however SR1 was way slower in actual play because the numbers were not easy (initiatives in 7s not 10s, variable staging numbers etc) most of that was cleaned up in 2e then the extra books of 2e and 3e made it more complicated again. However I think 1-3 are all more fun combats than 4e. You had more options in combat because of the dice pools and if you had a TN of 20+ and you hit the room erupted with joy.

[edit] also nWOD is extremely fast on combat resolution, if not particularly deadly (in fact the only way to make it faster is have pre calculated pools and use 1d10 ala the LARP rules rather than dice pools). SR4s combat is very similar to nWOD only with more complications like rigging, melee vs range, etc

Hello all, I'm a little late the the part but hey...


So my frustration with the rules is 3 fold.
Firstly there are parts, important parts, that are so vague you can't claim you are your way is RAW. Take edge, a hugely important mechanic. The BBB suggests with equal weight that it refresh in ever conceivable way. Would anyone let it fly if magicians could summon a new spirit magic times a day or magic times a run or magic times a session by RAW? How do you run uses of the demolition skill? RAW says consult the build table... which is just 4-5 subjectively named entries. A core skill is all fiat without even suggestions thresholds. True vessels are just a vessel made with a spirit's true name. What do they do? No one knows! There isn't even a suggestion. Now I'm actually totally ok with making up everything on the fly in some games, but not a game that is explicitly about finding exploits. The ratio and distribution of explicit RAW and Fiatium is horrible.

Second, There are that rules leave me feeling like the dev's didn't really think this stuff through. The worst thing about that, is that I can't trust the dev's to actually write playable material. There contributions have to be vetted and managed just as much as house rules. Some times this leads to bad impacts on the game world if run RAW. Take EmoToys, Fake SINs exploding in minuets, Subscription limits and the impossibility of 8 on 8 FPS matches under the BBB, etc All of these things are problematic just by themselves, no bad GM or player required. Merely looking at them and there immediate implications reveals them as undesirable.
Other things feel lazy to me. Sorcery for instance have a lot development around it. There are lots of spell casting buffs and counter spelling options, and wards and mana barriers and what not. All back and forth is laid lowed spirit powers that don't have much of there own source material and don't interact with the sorcery mechanics so the test is just 2*F vs one stat, and the spirit wins. This is especially bad because it takes the PCs out of the spot light. The social rules too only hold up in the most mild of cases. At the low end a professional (rolling ~10 dice) can constantly dominate the untrained (1-4) dice. Good sales people can not sell at will. Under these rules they can. If your expected successes are greater than there total DP you can basicly make whatever tests the GM sets out. At the high end, a good face (14-18 DP) can eat the penalties for getting a "hostile" person to do some "disastrous" without any leverage. The rules need to be fudged all across the spectrum of DP in the situations it's suposed to handle.

double post

That's an ok face... I'm used to the ones with 30+ dice to throw at character creation.

Dryad + high cha + social group at 4 + adept powers for face + spend a point of essence/magic for tailored pheremones + first impression + emotoy

But I also don't like that... things like... what do nets hits do in a negotations test on the black market? If I'm selling or if I'm buying.

There's about 3 paragraphs on it... and they're confusing to at least some degree... since I start at 30% as the base sell price... and my negotations adept is throwing 34 dice at (10,6 hours) I can expect that within 10 hours it's sold...

But when it comes to the sale... do they get say 5% extra per net hit? if they take off 5% of the base cost (I'm guess thing the 30% of the book value is base?) they get bonus dice to find a buyer... so if they want to sell a 1,000 nuyen gun for 1,000,000,000 nuyen... they just keep rolling, need a whole lot more hits? It's an extended test... at 8 hits / 6 hours... it will probably take less than a month to make 1 billion nuyen for the 1 thousand nuyen gun.

Wut?

Dryads from RC get +2 to social skill tests except for intimidation
7 charisma
4 Influence Group
3 Kinesthetics
2 Increased ability negotations
4 Cool Resolve
2 increased ability con
2 increased ability etiquette
Tailored Pheremones 2
2 First Impression
Rating 6 Emototoy

7 + 4 + 3 + (2/2/2) + 4 + 2 + 2 + 6 = 31 on opposed con/etiquette/negotiations tests and 29 dice for instruction and 27 for intimidation

And I know I'm forgetting something off the top of my head... but my character's sheet is at home.

I could easily hard cap Charisma at start but I wanted the character to be able to shoot a gun and do a few other things.

Using this character in missions at Gencon... with another face adept assisting me and then using a point of edge to re-roll misses... got me 17 net successes on one mission for the pay negotations.

Here's Glyph's latest incarnation of the pornomancer:

I do recall that Kinesthetics has been capped at 3, and for Missions you need to use BP not Karma

That must be a house rule, then, because there is no official cap in RAW. Or am I missing something?

It's Throwing Mastery, not Kinesthetics , that got capped at 3.

You, sir, have just won the internet. Congratulations.


All the decently balanced game systems I have played will give you characters of roughly the same usefulness and power level if you give them all the same amount of XP / levels - unless the player deliberately shoots themselves in the foot. I maintain that, if the GM has to wilfully hinder a single character's development in order to preserve game balance, then you have a serious design flaw.


It comes down to relative quality. You wouldn't purchase a car that was only half finished and thrown together on the cheap because there are plenty of other cars on the market that have had years of testing before they were put on the market. The vast majority of gaming books are put together on the cheap (D&D and White Wolf being notable exceptions, but WW books have their own issues). Software is the same - people release unfinished products, but they still sell because everyone's doing it and there's no alternative.


All too true.


Quoted for emphasis.


I resent this implication. Our group has not had trouble with people adopting a 'players vs. GM' attitude. Our group has had trouble because we're new to the system, and when you aren't familiar with the rules, SR4 makes it very difficult to become familiar:

'OK, I open up on full-auto. Wait, how does that work again?'
'I'll ckeck *flips through book for two minutes looking for auto-fire rules while everyone sits around feeling bored* Ah, here we go: *describes autofire rules, taking anotehr 5 minutes* there'
'Damn, I don't have the dice-pool to hit jack squat with that. Oh well, I just shoot him on single-shot.' *action is resolved, next player's initiative*
'I try to hack his commlink'
'O... K... um, what were the rules for that again?'
'Lemme check' *spends 10 minutes wading through the wireless world chapter*

And so on... =/


I can olny whole-heartedly agree with this.

I've been asking for examples of these more-balanced RPGs but no one has provided me with one. Could you? I'm not trying to be snarky, I truly want to know because I want to check them out and see what they do differently from games I've played.

I'd also like to know how SR 1st through 3rd ed. were more balanced/quicker to play/better/easier than SR4, though that question isn't aimed specifically at you P.D..

Hmmm time to go back and refactor then... teach me to rely on my memory.

Paranoia is not a game.

It's a lifestyle.

You obviously don't play Paranoia like I do.

If you think PC's backstabbing and betraying each other means one will survive, you're doing it wrong.
If you actually roll dice and think it matters, you're doing it wrong.
If you think anything you do matters, you're doing it wrong.



If the entire group doesn't bust a gut laughing at least 10 times in a session, then you're doing it wrong.

It may be time to try a session or two. I'm not sure if I have the energy anymore to simulate the crack induced meth PCP viagra dreamlike state required to run one of these sessions.

The most balanced game in the world is Paranoia: The Computer wins, every time.

Of course, nobody playing actually cares, either.

In new WoD you can make equally sucky mundane characters... As long as it isn't PvP, balance isn't that big of a deal in RPGs, methinks. So what if the mage is more powerful than the sammy (which isn't the case all the time anyway)? The mage can't do it all anyway as it is a teamwork game, last I checked and played SR. If there's two chars in the same group whose powers overlap completely and the other is good and other sucks, then why is the sucky char still in the group anyway? The group would get rid of useless team members who just take their share of money without bringing anything in. Of course if the skills that overlap are needed in more places at the same time, then it's not a problem.

But yea, Paranoia is the most balanced game/lifestyle ever made

More Balanced systems - Hero, GURPS, Mutants and Masterminds... These to have loopholes though, no system is perfect. nWOD is more balanced as well (again not perfect and has a couple holes).

I already answered on the other one