So does anyone still play SR3? We do... or at least we are going back to a very long running campaign (500-750 karma characters).

General consensus in our group is that we do not like SR4 rules. Putting a cap on skills and the whitewolf system for successes... blah!
Otherwise, continuing background material is probably just as useful for our GM but then so are most things that can be ripped off.

Admittedly, it does get a little dice heavy at our karma level. For example, my PC is a Katana specialist. With all bonuses including off hand, foci etc. I roll 29 dice + 12 dice centering. Thus, not much can stand before my blade.


On that note, what sort of distance do people get in their campaigns? Its taken about 3 years of gaming every Sunday for 6 hours to get to 750 karma). What about your group?

Yes.


The success system, I can live with. I do miss dice pools more than I would have thought, though. I severely dislike the low caps too. I should note, though, that I also play SR4.

And with regards to dice heavyness? SR4 pre-4A could get as many as 56 dice together for a starting character. How's that for dice heavy.


I have a four-digit Karma character and a couple of two- and three-digits.

My SR4 group has got an average of about 125 Karma and I think they're kinda snacky...

i still play sr3. not at the moment though.

i prefer the mechanics of sr3 over sr4. i like the dice system and the lack of hard caps on stats. we have never had a character that had dicepools of over 30.i also prefer 3rd edition initiative.(probably in the minority there)

i guess i just plain dont like sr4.

I still have all the SR3 books but I haven't played a game since SR4 came out. I'm seriously thinking of selling my core books off (I always keep the fluff books).

So do I. 4th Edition Initiative really fucked non-cybered mundanes over, who can never even dream of having 2 IP now except if they spend Edge.

I still run SR2 on occasion. Does that count? The highest karma we have ever had is in the 500-600 range.

I play and run SR3 as well as SR3R. Both are fantastic. I played SR4 and it rubbed me wrong on basically every level.

if i ever do get to play, yes, SR3 will be the game.
same reason as nezumi

Yes, as I both I am several of my players, cannot be bothered to learn the new mechanics with the, 'still to be destruction tested' flaw.

Every Wednesday night. More often than I play SR4, by a large margin. We're currently playing in the Wake of the Comet, about a decade earlier than the SR4 timeline. Much fun, although "foreknowledge" is kind of difficult to avoid.

Every Saturday. It's set in an alternative Chicago where there actually WAS a VITAS outbreak instead of a bug infestation. Well, we haven't been at it long, and we don't get much done. Three 6-hour sessions to break a kid out of an orphanage. A Horror-tainted kid, admittedly, but still. The place was guarded by an orc and some automatic vacuum cleaners.

We only use the core book, though - no supplements. I haven't seen them myself, but my fellow players looked at and decided they didn't like the SR4 rules. Of course, there are things in need of houseruling in SR3 as well; like those rules for demolitions.

i would love to see a hardback reprinting of the core books. but thats never going to happen.

Since SR4 came out i once played sr3 again and in direct comparison didnt like it as much as i do the sr4 system. In SR3 i had dozens of chars, on average in the triple digits karmawise.

@Hermit didnt try drugs instead of edge?

No. I currently play SR4. The fixed TN system works fine for me but I hate skill caps with a passion. Personally my SR system preference is SR 2,4,1,3. I like them all though.

I didn't like SR3 much. It was SR4 that roped me back it.

I prefer the SR3 as well. I like the modifiable target number system, and pretty much everything else in SR3 too. None of the groups I was in ever used magic much (I think an adept was the most magic we had), so I can't really speak to that aspect. And the GM we played with was stingy enough with karma that over about a year, we'd get in the high double-digits at best. He was notoriously stingy with nuyen as well, so if you didn't have it at chargen, chances are you weren't going to get it at all.

We also played D&D 3E, and he was stingy with XP and gold there too.

SR3 is my preferred system, 2nd wouldn't mind playing but barely played more than 2 dozen games with it.
I'll play 4th if coerced but I doubt I'd play the same kinds of characters I used to find enjoyable, its a much different game and while some things are interesting, its just not the same.

...currently in the midst of a fairly intense campaign (as a player) set in the mid 50s but using 3rd ed. Even though I have most of the 4th ed PDFs I have been pretty put off by many of the changes. Not just the caps and simplistic "hit/fail" system but I really dislike what has been done with the Matrix (as to me at least, it has taken the "shadows" out of Shadowrun) and the fact that "dumb luck" (via the Edge attribute) is now a game mechanic.

Having a lot of fun playing my original Violet character (who is a teenage kid genius Decker). She can be a real pain in the hoop sometimes`with her "technomania" quirk ("oooohh shiny toys with flashy lights"), but the team does their best to keep her out of harm's way even though she's been quite effective at times with her Narcojet and Ares Super Squirt.

I am also in the process rebooting my UK/Euro campaign (also 3rd ed) in a couple weeks for a new group. Could never pull it off in 4th not only because of the "time warp" to 2070, but also the Matrix and the way magic is handled as they both pretty much kill the notion of mystery and intrigue.

Haven't played SR3 in two years. The Sunday group I was in half broke up due to players work schedules or conflicting gaming schedules. Those of us left took up the GM's suggestion for a WEG d6 Star Wars game, added a few more people (we all share a mutual hate of D20 Star Wars of any edition) and have been playing that for a year and half before the GM got on a fantasy kick and wanted try out 4th edition D&D for a while. (Is it just me or does everything 4th edition just suck ass? GURPS, Star Wars, SR, and now D&D!)
I've been reading up on SR3R and it's going in directions I'm beginning to seriously dislike. I've been wanting to play Shadowrun again a lot lately. If I do it will definitely be 3rd edition.

Haven't touched SR3 for a long time. Mechanically, I prefer SR3 in many ways but having said that I find that SR4 fixes a lot of issues.

I am giving serious thought to lifting the rule on attribute + skill caps to be honest... but I'm undecided. I think that would severely nerf adepts/TMs/magicians who have to spend A LOT of karma and take a lot longer to reach comparitive levels to someone who is cybered.

- J.

Adepts were already nerfed by the having to spend basically twice the Karma to improve in adept abilities. A mage could learn new spells, acquire foci, take gesa (with less of an effective penalty), etc without necessarily having to increase MA whereas an adept is forced to initiate and pay Karma to increase MA to improve/learn adept powers. Yeah there's the whole argument about munching out and adding Cyber/bio, but then, why bother playing an adept at all?

Furthermore, the "price" of most powers was not adjusted to fall in line with the "6 becomes 4" rule of thumb. In a sense this effectively increased the cost of powers as no adept could really afford to begin play with an MA of 6 and enough skills to be as effective as a Sammy with 200K worth of ware & gear.

Finally, with the elimination of the counterattack melee mechanic, multiple IPs are far more important for an adept than than they were in previous editions. This is a major PP/BP outlay at Chargen. My namesake had little issue with only 2 dice of initiative in 2nd & 3rd ed but was outclassed with only two IPs in 4th.

just my dwa Zloty's worth

Yeah pretty much all comments above are in league with my groups thinking. Converting my 750pt Katana Adept to 4th would no doubt nerf him horrendously while the 650pt Cyber with his minimum of 60mil gear would probably be even more uber by comparison.

Plus of course, our GM really doesn't fancy re-working two decades of background material and characters.

Also, whats with being able to hack cyberware? I think I remember reading that somewhere when SR4 came out. One other fundamental reasons why we never took it up... whats next... is teleportation and raise dead been put into SR4 (two fundamental no-no's in our shadowrun!).

I play SR3 exclusively (at least, among SR games). We play once a week.

JaronK

Hacking cyberware has been blown out of proportions. It's hard, impractical and will be only used as a plot device or for a complex plan... At least in all the games I've played so far.
As for teleportation and raise dead, I don't know what you're talking about: it's still said that they are considered impossible.

Good good, just checking

once a week

I gots a numbered core book.

Once a week, and I've had characters in campaigns get up to low hundreds in karma. I like the wonky mechanics for everything even if I don't ever use them. I like mostly static dice pools with very variable TNs, and I like the fact that 6=7. I don't like the fact that deckers don't get to play with the rest of the shadowrunners and riggers are sometimes left out in the cold with them, but that can be fixed.

The only thing I really like about SR4 that doesn't come from the bowels of major mechanics changes is AR, and that's easy enough to backport flavor-wise.

I GM an SR3 game every month. So far, I don't mind the mechanics as compared to SR2. In fact, I find very little difference between 2 and 3. I find the setting for SR2 better than SR3, but that's mostly because I was away from SR for a while and liked the 2050-2055 era quite a bit.

I don't own SR4 and want to exhaust the old setting first, but who knows?

How do you implement this? Any details you can share?

I agree, especially if one uses VR2 and R2.

I can't speak for the other SR2 fans but for me even though Awakenings, VR 2 etc are part of the 2e line I don't use them. What I really enjoy is a simplified 1e which is the 2e core plus any errata updates like the reprinting of the street samurai catalog and the grimore. I also fall in the order of preference 2e, 4Ae, 4e, 1e, 3e.

AR is mostly fluff, so that's mostly how I use it. There are no SR3 commlinks, so you need either some kind of computer-equipped HUD or an image link with either a computer linked through a datajack or a headware computer, but once you have that you can tweak your visual senses to your heart's delight. There aren't good rules for non-audiovisual input, but we mostly handwave the other senses through datajacks.

I'm personally in favor of treating every datajacks as an Otherland-style neurocannula, and that's how I run them. They can access all senses and allow for direct manipulation of devices by mental impulse alone; no need for the transducer 'ware. It makes things simpler, makes AR easy (fluff-wise), and makes it much easier to understand why everyone would want one of those things drilled into his skull.

I haven't played SR3 since I got SR4. I still have SR1-3 around for reference/fluff/collection, but I'm pretty well sold on SR4 in general.

I'd definitely still play in an SR3 game if somebody wanted to run one though.

@Mystweaver, there are a few changes to the feel that some people like, some people hate, some people ignore, etc. One of the biggies is the change to who uses the Matrix, how they use it, etc. that the wireless stuff brought. Some people complain and balk at the mere suggestion that you could hack a cyberarm, other people think it just adds something else from the hacker to do in fights besides look for a door to open or a camera to loop. /generalization

I prefer SR3, play it when possible and GM it. Have a game using the karma for cash rules and some very powerful characters, but the odd thing is, they usually derail the game by figuring out an optimum solution that works well.

I have run SR4 often and have never really enjoyed it as much as previous editions. It seems like the players use a few basic stategies and tactics that are hard to counter and really get upset if things do not go in their favor. As a player using the SR4 system, I hated playing, but that may have been because the GM liked killing PCs without die rolls, or another GM allowed a character concept and character then totally nerfed the characters strengths by making the use of those strengths under control of the GM.

As is, it is difficult anymore to find a tabletop SR game using any edition.

I too prefer 3rd ver 4th edition. For me its the Technomancers I just can't stand them.

Currently running a 3e game every Monday for 5 players (~3-4 hour sessions). It's taken a while to get the group developed enough to play certain scenarios - generally they're characters are noobs to the running scene and from more Middle class backgrounds. Also had a lot of drop-in/drop-out players and several PC swap-outs over the last 18 months of gaming. Just when I thought I had a core group of PCs something would disrupt my planned campaign timeline. Good news is now the group and their PCs are more or less set as they want and are just getting to the overall level of being able to handle the "real meat" campaign (highest Karma PC is currently around 100 but then I award slightly more than average but I altered the Attribute/Skill increase costs too).

Current campaign is set in Seattle @ June, 2055 . They'll be relocating to the midwest soon...

As for edition preference, have 4th and like a lot of stuff that fixed many problems with previous editions. In particular, the new Attributes make sense and getting rid of the Dice Pools for a skill system that works universally. I see Edge as replacing the Karma Pool and a little more balanced for lower-Karma PC survival and less high-Karma PC abuse. I always had a problem with the 1-3e Skill or Attribute defaulting which I believe the 4e combined dice roll fixes quite nicely. Having generalised magical traditions to what you want to roleplay is another good idea, as is the no Force Points for spells - you can cast them up to double Magic Attribute if you've learnt them. I also like the damage and combat rules, especially the variable box condition monitors - helps reduce the huge gap between light and heavy pistols.

I still rely heavily on my 1st & 2nd edition fluff though - albiet modified for 3rd edition rules. Most of 3e stuff slots straight into the 2e setting, only have to rework certain Matrix gear costs etc when using early 1e scenarios. Knowing the future events and tech releases also helps me integrate them into the current timeline as active themes - IE: drones are still just evolving and smartlink 2 systems are the latest thing. As regards to earlier edition rules, still using 3e in majority with many minor 4e tweaks - spells not requiring Force ratings for example. I'm going to overhaul and adjust the combat rules as regards to use of skills & dual weapons to balance out several discrepancies between armed and ranged combat. Kept the Pools for the time being though. Thinking about toying with variable Staging as in 1e too, although I'll probably end up with 4e Damage Value + Successes or something cimilar. We'll see.

we use 3rd ed, though we took decking and the simplified spirits from 4th ed

We play SR4, but I know most spanish players still play SR3 because 4th Edition never was translated to spanish, and so they decided to stick to what they could understand.

Are there many Spanish players?

Just chiming in as another SR3 player—well, ostensibly, our group has been on hiatus for the last six-odd months, but that's the idea in principle at least.

~J, keeping the faith

Playing a mix of SR2+ SR3. 4th didn't do anything for me or my group.

Some interesting replies. Looking back on it, we still use a few things from 2e in our 3e game but they are extremely subtle. Timeline wise, our gm is using some of the fluff from 4e I think, but I haven't read looked at 4e, just read opinions on these forums.

Glad to hear 3e is still running in many other groups out there.

I'm running a 3e game for some of my friends, but I've been reading 4e recently and I'm really starting to like it. For my group, we never really deal with Rigging and Decking because the rules are really complicated and we don't have anyone who really wants to deal with it. I like that in 4e they made the rules so less complicated. I also have finally (I think!) wrapped my head around the whole Wireless Matrix. So I am strongly considering moving over to 3e.

I like 3e but because of the shifting target number system, I never know when I should look for the highest possible roll or should just look for lower target number successes. With the fixed target number system, they just need to beat a threshold and it seems a lot easier for me. It also seems that combat would run a lot smoother in 4e because you don't have to worry about target numbers increasing or decreasing but only the number of dice. And not having Dice Pools in 4e would make running my NPCs a lot easier.

I think the new spirit system in 4e is stupid though and I hate that it took away the biggest difference between mages and shamans. I always thought that system was really cool. But I always thought magic in 3e was way too powerful. I mean there isn't much of a reason to be a non-magic character in 3e because you can do mostly everything you need to with magic of some sort and there is no cap on your power.

Compared to what you could do with magician characters in 1e, 3e significantly places some well-revised limitations. I do like the 4e rules in character generation that mean you have to assign your Magic Attribute rather than it starting at Essence (rounded down). That is a good way of determining how potent a magician PC wants to be - sure, he can be powerful, but they have to make some hard choices rather than get it handed to them.

I kind of like the simplified rules in spirit conjuration - especially the universal use of short-term conjuring and long term binding, it promises more adaptability to a magician character. however, that said I still use 3e divisions between mages/shamans due to my current campaign timeline. Maybe in another 10 years gametime they'll see the "new" developments in magical theory. (And thus have to split their Conjuring and Sorcery skills or keep them to Group skills). The select your spirit powers rules are usefulin that a character can actually summon up a spirit that they actually need to do a task, but yes, there is a little loss of individual flavour there.

My biggest adoption has been the skills -I've expanded the 3e list to include quite a few divisions of Core/General skills that 4e utilises - IE: Stealth into Shadowing, Infiltration, Disguise, etc. I've also sitched to the 4e rules for specialisation - only one specialisation per skill an it gives you a +2 dice bonus to that skill's test. Keeps the Karma cost math simple and you don't have the hey, my base skill can be improved above the specialisation I took at character creation" syndrome. I rule that it costs 5 Karma in game to acquire a specialisation (or change an existing one) and you have to have a skill of 2 or more to learn one. Its the simple -1 to your skill rating and add specialisation if bought at character generation.

Aside from that, I do prefer a sliding/adjustable Target Number but the whole 4e still holds true to the 1e tenent of more successes (hits) equals better overall level of achievement. Admittedly though, I don't really like the rating 6 skill cap limit in 4e - that I'll probably raise to 10 in keeping with the 3e scale listed in the skills chapter (I'll still be enforcing starting limitations however).