There's been so much discussion in the past about the differences between 3rd and 4th ed that it's been mashed to death, but bear with me.

I came in at the tail end of 3rd edition; bought the main rulebook, ran a few games, and out came 4th edition. Third was great, and I loved the upgrades to the matrix and the streamlining of the rules in 4th ed. My problem is that having read both 3rd and 4th edition core books so close together, the fluff is all jumbled up in my memory and I cant' really pick out the differences. Complaints have been made that 4th has lost the "atmosphere" and the "fluff" but really, it can be carried over.

Has anyone made a conscious effort to carry the old atmosphere of SR into the new mechanical system of SR4?

What are the differences, really, between SR3 and SR4, as far as atmosphere? How can the atmosphere be re-applied to SR4?

I'm about to start a new campaign and want to make it the best I can, with the full cyberpunk feel.


Some ideas I had to bring Deckers back into the fold:

1) rule that in our SR universe, Commlinks are like smartphones in the real world: on the rise, but by no means as pervasive as the SR4 RAW says they are. Most "normal" people would still have cellphones and cyberdecks, with only the "early adopters" having commlinks.

or

2) Commlinks are glorified smartphones that everyone has, and are the hub of your PAN as in SR4 RAW, but for "hacking", a much more powerful Cyberdeck (albeit an upgraded, wireless one) is still required to get the edge on the matrix (both AR and VR). Thus it's still Decking.

Please comment, suggest, etc!

Both are cyberpunk. One is slightly more advanced cyberpunk. To be honest, I really don't see the point of it - if you want things to stay exactly the same, just paly SR3 and houserule the clunky bits

While I totally understand the sentiment (I haven't felt that the fluff has really been entirely "right" since Shadowrun 2 books, but that's because I came into the SR world with 1st and 2nd ed. books even if I didn't play really until 3rd), I can think of the following issues.

1. (And this is my favorite of the two, if given these two options)

They're cutting edge...so every PC hacker is going to want one. If you don't let them have one, they're going to complain. If you're okay with PCs having them because PCs usually keep up with SOTA then it could work just fine, but keep in mind that if there's new and awesome tech out there, players want it.

2. Not bad, but I have greater misgivings.

Okay, so everyone has a smartphone/commlink, but to do real Matrix interaction, you need a deck. I can buy that I guess, because the fluff had always been that the hacker was carrying around a Casio keyboard looking thing to deck with, but if you're going to just make it wireless and the equivilent of a 4th edition commlink (the thing you use to interact with the wireless matrix), then why bother doing it in the first place?

It just makes me wonder, in your past games has it ever really been important what physical form the hacker/decker's tools took? I can't think of any of mine where it was important beyond the usual chargen gear pr0n period.

Let me clarify my original post: I don't see the differences as obvious, glaringly horrible holes in the world. My purpose in the post was to find out what others miss about SR3 flavor and bring forward, because after reading all the posts of people up in arms... I'm wondering what it is I'm missing!

The move from cyberdecks to wireless commlinks is the only real difference in flavor I can personally see, so I used it as my example.

There are(ImO) two great differences in the Fluff between SR3 and 4
one is the Wireless and Augmented World(It has allready been in SR3 but on the Backseat now in SR4 upfront) and Spirits
in SR3 there was a clear distinction between schamanistic Spirits and hermetic Elementals (and WuJen Spirits and Voodoo and Wicca and Druid,and,and) now in SR4 the Spirits mixed and lost the Domain Hindrance.
As a Magician you have a different use of Spirits now that you can both conjure and bind all Spirits(wether you are Shaman,Houngan,Mage,CHaos Mage,Psionist,HullaWulla,Hedgemage or anything else

with a fluffdance
Medicineman

OK, stupid question time.
I think old age may be finally cathing up to me (as if my lower-back screaming in pain wasn't enough), I've forgotten what "RAW" stands for.

Rules As Written
or not fully cooked through, both apply to shadowrun4th *runs*

I miss that you can't have low odds of something happening or being successful. Much as I hated the shifting TNs of SR3, the fact that you have either a 1/3rd chance of an unskilled moron doing something or no chance bothers me somewhat.

Thanks, Stahseele. You get This.
What you choose to wash it down with is your call.

yeha this is what we do. We took the upgrades to hacking, AR/VR and the simplification of spirits/elementals and just otherwise kept to 3rd ed.

As for the lfuff, that stuff is wonderfully mutable since it is more for feleing rather than hard rules and number crunching so, for example there's no reason why such things as SoNA and SoE can't just be carried over whole hog.


thanks for asking, I was wondering too.

You are only considering 1/2 of the fundamental shift in the SR4 mechanic. SR4 changed the base dice mechanic in two ways: by fixing the Target Number for Success at 5, and by changing the nearly all tests from Success Tests to Opposed Tests. Therefore your comment above is incomplete, because the person doesn't necessarily have a 1/3 chance of succeeding with a DP of 1, they just have a 1/3 chance of getting a Hit. Whether they succeed in the task then all depends on what is Opposing them. True, SR4 doesn't contain some "plain" Success Test vs. a Threshold situations, but the majority of tests that PCs will be undertaking during a run will be Opposed by something/someone.