I started playing in 2nd Ed. I GM'd a short stint in 3rd Ed. and have been playing and GM'ing 4th. The mechanics are different. The feel is a little different but the difference between 3rd and 4th is far less than SR versus non-SR. I will second (or third, or fourth) that the subsystems are easier to grasp for the new player. My wife hated 3rd Ed. - she's a DnD player - but thinks that 4th could work for her.

It has quirks - as all games do - but I like 4th Ed. and would say that it is worthy of purchase.

I really like SR4 from the BBB. Decent dice engine, system is quite workable with a few tweaks, and it can easily be grasped by inexperienced gamers but supplies enough complexity for experienced gamers to go, "That's kind of neat".

Of course, there has been the obligatory constant ramping up of power and random twinkery since then so I'm slowly but surely becoming less and less impressed as the various books come out so we'll see where this ends up.

One thing I did like about the SR4 main book was that it was fairly complete. You had all of the essentials in one book - not just archetypes, basic rules, and gear, but also a good selection of critters, initiation to improve awakened characters, submersion to improve technomancers, sample grunts, common security measures, bioware as well as cyberware, and positive and negative qualities (the equivalent of Edges and Flaws from SR3).

Sure, you got extra goodies and rules from the new books, but I think it is possible to run a good shadowrun game using only the core book, if you want to.

Heartily seconded.

I would go so far as to say you shouldn't bring in any of the other books until you play a few games with the core book. The advanced books, in addition to providing great setting information, provide a lot of advanced rules and options that will bog down a new player. The core books have enough for you to play any archtype, but not so much where any of them are too complex for a fairly new player(though I still encourage new players to wait to try a magician, rigger, or hacker).

You can't even re-roll Glitches. Only outright failures qualify for Edge use when utilizing Skillwires with the Expert System.

That's right, skillwires helped round characters out but I never felt it was a game breaker. Capping knowsofts always seemed wonky because I always imagined it's like having a personal tutor sitting on your shoulder whispering the right answer or working a problem for you. I think it'd be fair, if there was abuse, to cap knowskills to the relevant attribute. Still it's never been that big of deal out our table.

You could also use the almighty power of GM discretion to determine what a character can actually find out from a knowsoft. A knowsoft simulating Local Area Knowledge would probably be able to give you stuff like the demographics, crime rate, and area businesses in a neighborhood, but it won't be able to tell you that Jimmy's Autos and Parts has a guy who deals BTLs and cheap firearms in the back, but only for people who know the secret password.

Well, it might, depending on who made the knowsoft.

But then again, it might not tell you that the guy at Jimmy's got busted last week, and the guy in there is likelier to call his brother at Lone Star if you ask him for BTLs.

YO!
(This is just .. .like... my opinion man. If you want to flame me, fine but don't bicker in this dudes thread too much)
SR4 is a different game.
Different in that the system and story promote more story telling and less Roll playing. Some may take this as a compliment, others as an insult. There are noticeable effects regardless of opinion.
The characters may start play with maximized stats and skills for a particular focus. These maximums include "enhanced maximums" No Villain is going to be able to challenge a group, short of a Dragon.

1. The end result is that there are no "Boss Fights". If your bringing in new gamers, such as MMORPG players, readers of fantasy novels, this can present a large challenge. Portions of the population have been programmed to have a boss fight. Synner gave a excellent response to a thread I started about how to run your villain in SR4.
2. Players may miss character growth. Opinions abound on what constitutes character growth. What players notice is when they are clearly better at X, when it comes out better every time. If they start with nearly maximized skill and stats, they will not have this growth in their future
3. There may be no point in new items for some players. They can only benefit so much from enhancement of any one skill or stat. Recently a publication preview had a NPC listed with Agility 11, my heart soared on the idea of open caps but a correction was issued and the NPC was knocked back down to 9. Not a chump but no different when compared to gun bunnies in many games.

Different in that at the end of the day, there are 3 character groupings

1. Normals. They usually get cybered up and have a broad range of skills. They sound boring but are the most necessary of the lot if the game covers a broad range of material and has a small player base. Its cheap to be "professional" level at a wide range of skills.
   
2. Magicians. The only uncapped group in the game. They can keep initiating and keep growing in power and adding dice.
   
3. Technomancers. Look at other threads for official descriptions but suffice to say "Magicians of the Matrix". I promise to read the rest of Unwired as soon as I get time.

My gaming group has two games, SR4 and D&D4. I run SR4 as a investigation, mystery and puzzle/riddle game. D&D is played for stat crunching, combo layering and game imbalacing good time. The D&D game could do the mental thing and the stat crunching thing, whereas we find SR4 cannot.

(This is ... like just my opinion.. .man)
That is a compliment. Both to the massive resources thrown at D&D4 (budget++) and the design choices made for SR4. As much as I would love a good boss fight without having to dictate unpassable barriers (Runners should know how to catch a guy alone or disarm his toys, yo), it forces me to write a better story and put a bit more thought into the game.

When my brain gets tired, the beer, pretzels, and D&D come out. Its not that kind of game, its different.


BlueMax
Did I mention that the core books come in a beautiful hardcover books? Its a huge plus for me, can't explain it.

Shadowrun is opened and allows you to play many types of games, but with more openess comes more responsibility by the GM and the players to agree on a power level and stick to it. Sure you may be able to make a starting street samurai with 30 dice with his custom Ares Predator, but it takes only a minimal amount of GM oversight to recognize broken characters like this and ask the player.. what are you trying to get out of the game? Would Final Fantasy have been fun if you started with an ultimate 'God Sword' that instantly killed anyone in the game with one attack? Surely not, and to make a character broken like that is not going to be much fun.

I admire the open system of Shadowrun. They could have added in rules limiting starting skills to 3, and lowered the maximum availability of gear purchase at start down to 6 instead of twleve... they could do a number of things to force players to make toned-down characters that have alot of room for growth. But they didnt... instead they trust GMs and players to be mature enough to make characters suitable for whatever type of game they want to play.

Agreed on the "responsibility and maturity" point. However, beyond what I would classify as blatant power-maxing ("Incompetent Artisan? Come on, give me a break..."), I'll let my PC's do the super, mega specializing if they want. Generally, to get a DP that high, the PC has to put every other skill/ability area in the tank, and that means your character is good at "only shooting." SR is all about having complimentary skills and there are lots of situations in the world where shooting will only get you into more trouble.

I suppose that's where the GM consultation comes in. "Your character is going to be awfully bored when there isn't any shooting to do. Are you sure you want to do this?"

I agree that hyperspecialists, while dominating, can be boring to play (even if you can use your schtick in another area - a face using commanding voice for combat situations, for example). But be sure to let players know what kind of dice pools you like beforehand, though, because it is easy to get high dice pools without gimping yourself in other areas, or sometimes without even trying too hard.

Also, high dice pools are not necessarily out of line, considering that you are playing super-tough, sneaky, cunning, badasses who make their living doing extremely dangerous work, and constantly going up against hair-raising threats. You are not office schlubs, street punks roasting rats over garbage can fires, or neophyte would-be-heroes out killing kobolds (unless it's a variant campaign...).

While the system is an open build one, it DOES discourage hard-maxing. If, for example, you want to be absolutely the best at pistols that an elven adept can be, you need to: pay for the elven race; get the adept, aptitude/pistols, and exceptional Attribute/Agility positive qualities; hard-max your Agility at 8; get muscle toner: 2 for it; get pistols (with a specialization in semi-automatics) at 7; get a reflex recorder for pistols; spend a Power Point for two points of improved ability in pistols, and get a pistol with a smartlink. Congratulations, you roll 24 dice for pistols! Now take the same guy, only you decide to forget about the two positive qualities, soft-max your Agility at a base of 6, and get the skill at 6 (everything else stays the same). Aw, now you're only rolling 21 dice for pistols! But you know, 21 dice is still pretty decent, better than most, in fact, and it cost you 73 less Build Points to get it. 73 Build Points. Out of 400. (Note that for simplicity's sake I've stuck with the basic book for this example).

Now, if you're decent at making characters, you could probably make the hyper-specialized version above, and not have any glaring weaknesses or lacks. But usually, the guy throwing 24 dice is better for "how many dice can you get for this" threads, and the guy throwing 21 dice, with those 73 points spent on contacts, tertiary skills, and so on, will be more fun to actually play. YMMV.

Also, while high dice pools might not be out of line, they might be, too, so it's always good to check with your GM.

While you're not wrong, I do have to say that fun is where you find it. A character with 30+ dice in one area might be a lot of fun, if you play it out. Even with a glaring weakness or two, those may just serve to heighten the character, give him more highs and lows to play with. Like you said, YMMV; but I've found that a perfectly balanced character can be boring to play.

The 30+ dice being fun depends a lot on the GM. Some GMs can handle it, and others will have no way to meaningfully challenge such a character (or will go out of their way to do so).

But I don't really like "perfectly balanced" characters either, if by that you mean a character who covers most areas competently but doesn't shine in any one area. Like you, I have an easier time playing highs and lows than averages. I guess I shy away from the extreme examples, except as dice pool exercises, because I fall somewhere between the two extremes (hyper-specialist vs. bland generalist). I don't have a bit less dice in my specialty in order to be more "balanced", but so I can be good at other stuff. They aren't generalists, so much as people with two or three specialties or buffed areas.

Like for the hypothetical 21-dice gunslinger who saved 73 points, maybe I would get the infiltration at 4, pilot ground craft at 4 (specializing in bikes), the 5-point gearhead positive quality for his bike, then put the other 34 points into resources, getting a synaptic booster: 2 and a racing bike. I would use the power points saved (synaptic booster: 2 for 1 PP vs. improved reflexes: 2 for 3 PP) to get combat sense: 4, making him less likely to get surprised or get hit. So now he's sneakier, harder to surprise, harder to hit, and a daredevil bike rider. Still far from a generalist, but closer to the type of character I like to play (nothing wrong or right about it, just my personal preference).