Power-Ball is much more Fun.
At least, if you're not up against Spirits.

Switching between the two is also a nightmare of bookkeeping. Suddenly, you've got to recalculate movement rates, reroll initiative, and so on and so forth. Then, you've got to recalculate it all again once tactical combat ends and Chase combat resumes. Not to mention, what about the rigger/wheelman? He was operating on one initiative score before he took fifteen seconds to deal with the sniper; now he has a totally different one, because he rerolled initiative.

No, the solution is to unify Chase and Tactical combat, but how do you do that without creating a whole slew of house rules? This is why I say SR3 was easier to fix.

Well, you're already rolling new Initiative values every Combat Turn so that can't exactly be a "nightmare." I would make the break at the end of a Chase Combat round. You're already rerolling Initiative for everyone. Then all that remains is determining the exact current Speed and Distance of the vehicles. Then you run Tactical Combat until you feel you're done, again ending at the end of a (Tactical) Combat Turn. Then when entering the new round (in which you're rolling new Initiative anyway) you switch back to Chase Combat turns.

Chase combat and tactical combat also run on different timeframes. Trying to keep those straight would be a hassle.

What are your options?

50 Combat Turns of rolling initiative while nothing happens except you move miles along the map in order to have the one or two combat runs of a vehicle encountering sniper fire, followed by another 50 combat turns of initiative where nothing happens? (No hassles here!)

A few Chase Combat initiative, followed by a few tactical combat initiative of vehicle under sniper fire, followed by a chase turn?

A variable combat turn options, where you set your time interval for the long scene, followed by short time interval, followed by another long interval?

You either have a single fixed interval, or variable intervals. If you have variable intervals you need to make a decision to switch between and set the size of those intervals. Can you come up with another model? (No hassles here either! Oops some one has to make a decision!)

How often do you need to know the exact timing of actions during a run? From a game-mechanics perspective the two run on the same game timeframe: Combat Turns. The only difference between them is the amount of "real game" time each represents. Even if you do need to know the exact timing of events, I wouldn't think its that hard to keep track of the fact that Chase Combat turns are 1 minute and Tactical Combat are 3 seconds. Given the fact that Tactical Combat turns are such a smaller time division in comparison (1 Tactical Turn is only 5% of a Chase Turn), you could even ignore the Tactical Combat turns (as long as you didn't have a whole bunch of them, like more than 5) that occur within a Chase Combat turn and still come out with a "game time" result within a handful of seconds.

If that result is inadequate than I would say whatever style/adventure you are playing that requires you to keep track of game time down to the second is the "hassle," not the game mechanics.

The fact is, it's Cain's preferences in the first place that create every problem he claims needs a "fix." I'm not saying he's wrong to dislike some of the rules, there are rational reasons to do so. I'm just saying that he doesn't have a valid claim that the rules need to be fixed for everyone. He wants the game to work just so, and it doesn't. That's the only reason why he feels the need to fix it. I, and the other people who disagree with him, think that "just fine" is a much better standard than "just so." Is it perfect? No. Do I have the time/energy/ingenuity to write my own game that's better? Also no. Do I have fun playing SR4? Yes. And that's where I stop. Now, Cain and his group seem a lot pickier, it sounds like smaller things, like paperwork hassles or lapses in reality, have more ability to affect their enjoyment than for me and the people I play with. Nothing wrong with that. But this whole argument is pointless -- the rules need a fix if you don't like them, but if they work for you, then obviously no action is required. The whole shebang, even the questions about whether SR3 or SR4 is better, is a case of YMMV. I think we've clearly pointed to problems with both systems, but there is simply no way to make a final decision for anyone but yourself about which game is better, about which problems are serious enough to require house rules, or any of it.

Yes, I can; or rather, I should say that I tried. Here is the thread I created, just to discuss this issue. Personally, I think I should have been more controversial, as to keep the debate going. Anyway, there's the core of one idea-- but the catch is, it's not really Shadowrun, it's Burning Wheel converted to Shadowrun.

After enough house rules, it's not the same game anymore. MY contention is that the fixes needed for SR4 are so deep and heavy, you end up with not-Shadowrun. The problems were just as numerous for SR3, but it could remain Shadowrun even after all the fixes.

Well, on Friday I'm going to be running a session for my group that will heavily involve some vehicle combat/chases. I think I'll run a couple as Chase Combat and one as Tactical Combat and compare the results. I'll post a summary of the action here (second link in my sig), so people can read and see for themselves what they like.

Wow, nice long thread

On the topic of the OP, I can understand a little of the initial shock. As someone that pretty much skipped SR3 due to *cough*D&D*cough* and went straight from SR2 > several years hiatus > SR4 it was definitely quite a bit different! Some concepts were difficult to grasp at first, but the system definitely seems a whole lot more "unified" now, and a little easier to grasp. Some things seem fairly arbitrary (Hacking that doesn't use stats, only skill+prog), but easy enough to work around that by making use of stat+skills to round out the hacking process.

Overall I would have to say I agree with someone else's sentiment earlier who said "SR4 has a whole lot more SR1 than SR2 or SR3 did". SR1 felt new and different, and people hadn't figured out how to max characters out like they did by the time SR2 came out (can't speak to SR3 since I never really played it). When playing SR1, people just kind of played what they wanted and it was fun. By the time I was playing and GM'ing SR2, everything was about maxing things out. I actually came to like the initial BP caps (though I can't say I'm a huge fan of the hard caps on improvement).

I also liked their initial forays into making initiative less of a "samurai-fest" and try to give everyone a chance to do something in combat. Of course I took it a billion steps further and just houseruled IP to death (giving everyone 3 IP and completely removing IP-granting powers/cyber/bio/etc.), but that's neither here nor there. I've always been a houseruler, and I actually think SR4 is much easier to do these things in given the unified system.

And yes, I'm very sorry Shinobi Killfist, to have to expose you to my houseruling ;P

Overall though, I like the changes in SR4. Mixed bag, but definitely weighing more to the yummy-colored brown M&Ms and less of those nasty green ones.

Either I've been playing a different game from you from the getgo, or your contention is much better classed as an opinion. I literally have no problem with any of the mechanics you've mentioned, which shows that the "need" for house rules is a preferential, subjective thing. There are only three things I would house rule in Shadowrun -- bows, empathy software, and grenades. Bows were already fixed, not as nerfed as I would like, but good enough. And empathy software, that's a quick fix. And grenades, all I'd do is provide that everyone inside the blast radius gets a defense test, removing the option to auto-hit by targeting "the ground."

Larme, I would modify grenades to go off at the end of the turn. This gives a chance for people to get out of the way. Defense tests only apply to characters who have some kind of cover or fall prone before it goes off.

As for vehicle chases at a certain point rolling dice should never remove relative common sense. If you can't move fast enough to catch up then the test automatically fails. This is not a failure of the rule because they are always assumed to have a GM to determine those calls. The rules are not intended to cover every issue, but rather to give you guidelines for the most common situations.

I'd wait and see what Malachi's test reveals first. Most people don't spend a lot of time with Chase Combat, so they're incredibly surprised to discover how broken it is. Just like the SR4 Matrix; most people never delve deeply enough into it to see where the flaws are.

As for grenades, we had to come up with a substantial set of house rules, when someone modded a grenade launcher to fire full-auto. Again, it depends on how they're used.

And haven't I seen you complain about manaball, yourself? Or direct combat spells in general? They're easier to fix, granted, but I seriously doubt that you haven't had a problem with them.

The only way something is broken that it needs to be fixed is when it has no counter. Yeah, mundanes are screwed against manaballs, but the simple counter is another mage. The game isn't perfectly balanced like D&D 4e, where characters could fight each other and it would be up to random chance who wins because characters are all the same. There is going to be some broken-ness no matter what, because the real world is broken. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons are broken as shit, but that's not an excuse to remove them from the game, no more is it for manaball. Nerfing every powerful thing is a twisting path with no end, you end up rewriting the game because there is no clear line you can draw between things that need fixing and things that don't -- it's all arbitrary decision, and if you're not careful you can make the game worse than it started out, not to mention impenetrable for newbies who need to learn the base rules and then all your custom modifications.

Wrong. Things are broken when they are no fun. A full-auto grenade launcher, or a high-force manaball, by the rules, is an automatic "I win" button. Having to deal with massive intrusions of reality in a game is no fun at all, so chase combat needs to be fixed.

Your proposed solutions: "Just nerf it" is also no fun, because it removes someone's enjoyment. An ideal situation would be one where everyone walks away satisfied, including the guy getting nerfed. You should never take something away without replacing it with something else.

Just because something has a counter, doesn't mean the problem stops there. Sure, counterspelling can help against a manaball. But then, to counter that, the mages start raising their Sorcery dice pools. Before you know it, you're locked in a not-fun arms race, trying to justify higher levels of Counterspelling to deal with higher Sorcery dice pools. It's a neverending spiral, and definitely Not Fun.

There's a clear line that can be drawn, between things that are Fun and things that are Not Fun. For mfb, that line was so huge, he couldn't enjoy a game of SR4. For me, the line is further back: the concepts are okay, it's the executions that are Not Fun. There's even a group of people who say they like everything, and never examine it. That's okay, too; even if IMO they're missing out on a lot of fun.

Cain, you mentioned Longshot tests as being hard to fix. What about my house rule?

If a player spends edge, he or she may take all penalties and add them as bonus dice to the opponents roll. For unopposed rolls the GM rolls the penalty dice and adds the hits to the threshold. You could even go the SR4A route and increase the threshold by 1 for every 3 dice. Exploding dice and all other rules for edged rolls apply. Makes a longshot just that: unlikely but possible.

Right, things are broken when you make a subjective decision that they're no fun for you. So you can stop telling us that we're playing SR4 the wrong way by not rewriting the whole rulebook to "fix" it. If we have fun, then none of your fixes are necessary.



You're misunderstanding. My suggestion is you can't nerf everything, because that creates a vicious cycle. My proposed solution is to leave the game intact. Just play, and don't torment yourself by obsessing over the ultimately illusory concept of game balance. In my experience, no combination of "broken" things so far has even come close to making a dent in my enjoyment of the game, so I see no read to fix anything of any real significance. Maybe it's just me, but when my character makes things go "boom," I bounce in my seat and clap my hands. Boom is fun! And it's the same when I'm the GM -- NPCs are unlimited in supply, and it's fun to see them go boom. When NPCs go boom, it's a grand old time, I really don't care whether the thing that blew them to hell was "balanced," because the process of endlessly balancing and rebalancing an entire game is too much effort for me to put forward (and that's assuming that "balance" is a real thing -- I doubt that anyone could ever fabricate a satisfactory, objective definition of "balanced" that could be applied consistently across the game -- AFAIK, nobody ever has).



I dunno, that sounds like "fighting" to me. You know, the thing where opponents want to kill each other, and are compelled to try and beat each other by being more powerful than each other. I'm not sure what your basis is for calling it "definitely Not Fun." But all I have to say is I disagree -- you might not think it's fun, but that really doesn't make it so for anyone else.



Ok then, so we agree. It's up to each group to decide what's fun and what needs to be fixed. Your ordinary rhetoric, claiming that mechanics are deeply broken and must be fixed belies this statement, but I'm glad to at least you pay lip service to the idea.

Sometimes it doesn't take nerfing something so much as completely removing it from a game. I've not had to do this in SR, but I did have to do it when I was playing in a D20 Star Wars game. After playing a character with Battle Meditation, Battle Influence and Inspire nearly maxed out, we realized that I could control entire battles (as is expected, given that's the PURPOSE of those abilities) and make it completely pointless to face off against NPC's. With high enough rolls, they were attacking each other instead of us. It's now agreed that those abilities are no longer available to PC's due to the overpowering capabilities of the skills/feat. Is it less fun for us? Quite the contrary. Now that I'm not walking over every single encounter (no counterspelling to stop me after all), and knowing that NPC's won't be using the tactic on us makes it all much more fun in the long run.

So sometimes nerfing or removing abilities *improves* fun, not kills it. It's a matter of perspective. Cain, your perspective is no less valid than Larme's, but you keep coming off as if yours is the only correct one. Not sure if this is intentional, but it's how you're coming across.

Definitely agree here. For me in SR4, it was multiple IPs. Or rather, differentiating numbers of IPs. When I first played SR4 out-of-the-box, it was pretty much a given that every combat-oriented character would purchase abilities/warez that would give them multiple IPs, preferably over 2. Yes, I play combat-heavy games, that's just the way it is - fun for me, fun for the group. I decided to see what would happen if I just removed those abilities altogether and gave everyone 3 IPs. My group have an open agreement that they can "respec" at will, provided it does not detract from the overall character concept, so test it we did. Worked out rather nicely, actually! We have very interesting character builds now that people don't feel the need to load up on IP, so they spend money/power/essence on some ablities/'ware that I never saw people using in the past.

Probably not to everyone's liking, but definitely works for us (unless of course my players are choosing *not* to complain to me )



Definitely improved fun for me; it's so much easier to keep track of movement now that there's a set number of IP in every engagement and everyone moves on every single one.

Problem here is that Thresholds don't apply to Opposed Tests. Change that, and you start mucking with some fundamental assumptions about the whole combat system.


In my experience, while one character making things go boom is fun for everyone at first, it rapidly becomes boring if that's all that happens in a game. Theu, "game balance", where everyone shares in the spotlight time and gets to make things go boom in their various specialties.


I said as much earlier: an ideal nerf replaces the broken mechanic with somethine else that's fun, so no one feels left out. Suppose I decided to fix Manaball by removing all direct spells from the game? Unless I replace it with something fun, I've just nerfed the mage and given nothing back. Not Fun.

As for my opinion, of course I believe my opinion is right! If I thought it was wrong, why would I have it?

I didn't say you thought you were right. I said you're coming off like your opinion is the ONLY one that is right. Maybe pulling something from your games without giving something back is Not Fun for you and your group. For others, it might be perfectly acceptable. So long as you acknowledge that and stop pushing your opinion on others, I think we can all get along here.

*dies from laughing so hard*

heheheHAAHAHAHAH!

Points to Sig \/

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.

The way to prevent that from becoming the whole game is for the GM to create differing circumstances. If the GM's only idea is to present targets to kill, then the players will use the same tactic every time to kill them. We're back to where we started, to your D&D 4e mindset where the GM has no discretion to change things up and make things more challenging and interesting, where it is the job of the system and the system alone to make combat fun. When you call all storytelling railroading, I guess you can't escape that conclusion.

Game balance is "Can the character add a positive contribution to the party?" The GM is also responsible for not making a player useless.

And I don't believe in trying to house rule weapons that have real life counterparts and very lethal (automatic grenade launcher). Collateral damage, notoriety and being hunted should have enough effect to limit such weapons.

Well, of course my opinion is the only one that's right! Where would we be if we acknowledged dissenting opinions?


First of all, I've only played D&D 4e about three times. Not long enough for it to have given me cancer.

Second, you're missing the point. It is the job of the rules to provide a framework within which you can share a story. The rules should make things easier for the GM to do his job, not harder. In fact, it should be up to the system to provide challenges, as much as possible; all the GM should need to do is select them and place appropriate flavor text on them. The system is flawed when you try and provide interesting and varied challenges, all of which are beaten in the exact same way. For example, many combats end when the mage casts manaball. You can make a couple of edge cases here and there, but for the most part, it's an "I Win" button. The same holds true for fully-automatic grenade launchers.

You know, I would ask if you are kidding, but we all know the answer to that one don't we...

Maybe that is why we don't get along all that well...

Anyway, to each his own I guess...

See, I don't think "interesting and varied challenges" can all be solved one way. That's almost definitional, if they're not highly similar what are the chances that they'd all have the same solution? You seem to be taking similar situations and grouping them together as "varied," thus leading to your erroneous assertion that manaball solves varied challenges. The only thing that can be solved with manaball is a group of mundanes, fairly close together, in an area with no background count. That's the ONLY one. This is why I say you're trying to rely on the system and not the GM to mix things up. If the GM always throws tightly bunched groups of mundanes at you, it's not the system's fault, it's his lack of ingenuity and creativity.

And if you're always throwing the same contrived counters back at the team, to nerf the manaball, then you're railroading. If there's always a significant enough background count to restrict the manaball tactic, your players will notice.

F10 Manaball only insta-wins in the following conditions

1. The Enemies lack magical support...
2. Are all within 10 m of each other...
3. Are arranged so that the mage can avoid hitting allies and himself...
4. Are in an area without background count...
5. and can all be seen by the mage.

As for background count, look at what creats background count

1: Violent Crime, Love affair, Awakened Hangout- Runners often create background count of level 1!

Background count is pretty common.

You are right the rules are to make a GMs job easier within reason. They are not to cover every action nor hinder the game/storyline to the point where the entire story fails. If it comes up often for a particular scenario not covered then you can formalize rules, but overall rules are a guideline rather than law, and unique situations don't need to be codified by a mechanic.

The problem you are giving us is the GM shouldn't have to put the prepatory work and thought process into designing scenarios and missions where players have to try different tactics. The GM is not catering the game to his players, but rather sleepwalking through design. Maybe this is the problem with the group refusing to play different styles, but that is less a problem with the mechanic than the group.

Manaball can be countered by magicians and spirits. It doesn't work as well if the opponents are spread out.

Grenades have nasty effects if they are detonated. Grenades are heavy and bulky. Fine you have an automatic grenade launcher, but how do you carry them? With armor of 2070 then grenades will have less of an effect. They can't be used close and only work within 4 meters for an HE or 12 meters for a fragmentation grenade where an opponent with body armor might only take stun damage even on a direct hit.

Not everywhere has to have a background count, but once you start getting into the high levels of shadowrunning rather than the penny ante stuff you should be dealing with background count on most missions. The reason is corporations will be aspecting the count to their advantage. Spirits will patrol the area and so will mages. Do you think their physical security won't have a mage with them to protect the group? It is no different than the physical security having more body armor or better weapons. It comes with the tougher jobs.

There are other places such as Chicago and other toxic locations, which would be very dangerous and highly aspected. High notoriety shadowrunners don't get the plum stealth missions instead they get the smash and grab missions where they are expendable and no one cares if they are seen.

A mage that has to deal with this often enough with background counts will get filtering metamagic.

A challenge is something a character can overcome with the right skills and actions
A nerf is when you diminish the power of something with no recourse.
Railroading is no matter what the player chooses to do the result is the same.

Generally, even when the other side has magical support, they only get Counterspelling to try and soak that manaball. And I guarantee you, a well-designed mage with be throwing more dice in Sorcery than they get in counterspelling. Counterspelling does not instantly negate high-force spells, it just slows them down a bit. You can also with hold dice to increase the area of effect on spells.

As far as background count goes, a background count of 1 or 2 isn't going to slow down a high-force manaball, either. You'd need a significant one; and like I said, your players will notice that everytime they try to cast a high force spell, they happen to be standing in a high-power background count.


The problem is always with the group. The group has a certain style, and the game will support that playstyle to a greater or lesser degree. If it's a lesser degree, maybe they'd be better off playing a different game.

But if you think the rules aren't to blame, you're mistaken. Poorly written or thought-out rules can make an otherwise enjoyable game into a headache. A good game will suggest varied types of challenges that require varied approaches to solve. In SR4 combat, there's certain uber-tactics that simply win every time. This is a problem, and they need to be fixed.

You keep saying that the same tactics always win, no matter what counters I provide. Because for you, using the counter to an auto-win tactic is unfair railroading. You have already decided to fix the system, you're not arguing, you're just stating your opinion over and over without considering or really responding to the counter proposals. Like your last post, you effectively just said "no you're wrong" and restated your original position. For you, it's a circular argument, the system is broken and must be fixed because it's broken and must be fixed. I don't need to change your mind, but I'm not going to let you foist logical fallacies on everyone else unchallenged. I have never experienced a game of SR4 become dominated by auto-win tactics -- if you were right, every game would be. The exception shows that the universal statement you make about the system being broken is actually specific to your table. Maybe your GMs are uncreative, maybe your players do their best to destroy the system even if it leads to them having less fun, I don't know. But the fact is, you're pretty much the only one here who thinks like that, so you need to accept that things you take to be true are actually anecdotes, and not facts.

Civility.

Larme, I can find dozens of threads complaining about direct combat spells. Your "counters" only work if you use them all the time, which makes them railroading. Surely you can see that? So, before you go attacking the GMs at my table, maybe you should read through the archives, and see how many people have posted the exact same problem.

Link 'em. Let's see if any of them were started by someone other than you.

If in D&D you always bring hordes of skeletons as foes you'll end up thinking that Turn Undead is overpowered.

You're just repeating, for the dozenth time, this same vapid all or nothing idea, that if it ever auto-wins in any situation, it requires a total rules rework. What you're doing is defining "broken" in such a way that no amount of work within the system could ever possibly fix it. Thus, your entire argument is a circular fallacy -- it is broken because it is broken, and the way we know it's broken is that we define "broken" in such a way that it could never not be broken-- indeed, in such a way that no RPG exists which isn't broken.

I submit that everything auto-wins at some time, and thus everything is broken according to you. Following your train of logic, bullets are broken because you need to wear armor to survive them. You have to rewrite the whole system, because the only way to counter bullets is to wear armor all the time, and that's railroading if the GM makes all NPCs wear armor. Cars are broken too, because people can't really survive being run over by them. The only counter is to drive a car of your own which offers protection from being run over. But of course, the only way to fix that is to have the GM make the NPCs drive cars *every time*, which would be railroading. And let's not forget about explosives -- the only way for NPCs to survive a bomb is to carry a chem sniffer and detect the bomb before it goes off and kills them. But of course, it would be railroading for the GM to make all the NPCs carry chem sniffers, so you can't do that. Everything is broken because, even though everything has a counter, you can't use that counter 100% of the time.

Your definition of broken-ness is plainly unworkable, because everything can auto-win when you don't use its counter, and you can't use everything's counter 100% of the time. Your definition invalidates literally everything in the game. It's a worthless tool for anything except arguing that the game should be ripped up and thrown in the trash. But try this on for size: nothing is broken unless it cannot be reasonably countered. That is a workable definition. Balance doesn't mean a 50-50 chance of success every time. It means that no move can be made that can't be countered. The fact that combat spells can be shut down when the GM deems appropriate ensures that they will be shut down enough of the time to make things interesting. Same with cars -- NPCs can't survive being run over, but the GM can ensure that NPCs will have their own cars enough of the time that running them over isn't an auto-win every time. Balance is not random chance, balance means that each tactic has a counter-tactic, and a counter-counter tactic, ad infinitum. There is no final "I win and you can't do anything" button. Combat spells are not such a button, because they do have a counter, and a counter counter, ad infinitum. Whether the counter is used depends on the players and the GM, on how the players set up the situation, and how the GM makes it flow. The fact that a counter isn't used doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and the fact that it is used doesn't mean that the GM is forcing it on the players who don't want it. In short, everything you've argued about game balance is disconnected from a reasonable and workable definition of what balance means. Is it what you really believe, or just a troll to make me angry? I hope you'll answer, but I know you well enough to suspect that you won't.

If you're ready to be reasonable, to concede where you have to, and be a fair and balanced adjudicator of SR4's merits, I'd be glad to continue this conversation. But please, don't just repeat your unproven, unworkable assumptions of what game balance means. It's insulting.

Cain,

You also always pick the most screwed interpretation of the rule. IE the pistol killing the driver in the APC. Doesn't matter that it is explicitly stated it is up to the discretion of the GM to allow it in the first place.

Are vehicle combat rules screwed up? Sure they are, but this is not unique to shadowrun 1, 2, 3, 4. I found it to be true in almost every game. The games where vehicle combat is done well tend to be games where the two types of combats don't merge well anyway or are so time consuming with tables as to be a pain.

As for the I win combat are we assuming non crowded spaces with long LOS and no civilians. Once you start getting into the high levels of Notoriety don't you think rewards and threats should go up? This isn't GTA where they stop looking for you after awhile. Get it high enough and you will find threats of 5 different shadowrunner groups gunning for you at the same time and place. And they will be armed and armored accordingly. The tactics will be the same and you might find more spirits than you can shake a stick at. That is the limiting factor for combat. The repercussions of the combat. I don't think any player wants a reward high enough every shadowrunner in Seattle is gunning for you let alone the corporations who no longer view you as a deniable asset, but rather a threat to be squashed.

And I do like SR4 for putting in a lot of simple but profound optional rules such as the number of dice is equal to your current EDGE not your entire edge stat. Same with number of hits, etc.

Let's face it your group are probably a bunch of rules lawyers who are trying to use optional rules and interpretations to break the game and then say how broken it is. Maybe if the spirit of the rules was followed more rather than the exact + and -, and the GM gave you varying situations where you are limited in your combat choices or tactics the game would be more fun. If I was your GM and you used an AGL don't expect there wouldn't be a racking up of Notoriety and the consequences that came with it.

QFT

WTF

Is that a jeer, or a request for explanation? I'll be charitable and assume the latter. A circular fallacy is one where the conclusion is also the premise, i.e. it's broken because it's broken. It's logically invalid, because a conclusion that is also the premise does not prove anything, it's little more than a statement. In order to logically prove something, you need to prove its premises in the first place, and the statement "it's broken, therefore it is broken," relies on the unproven premise that "it's broken."

To expand it out more, Cain explains it like this: if something ever auto-wins, it's broken. Because combat spells sometimes auto-win, they're broken. But all he's really doing is using an overbroad definition of broken to make this argument. What he's saying, in essence, is that auto-winning some of the time is the same as being broken. The problem is, he's making that assumption without proof, making it nothing more than a restatement of his conclusion. Subbing in the appropriate terms, what he's saying is "It's broken because I write the definition of broken to include it, therefore it's broken." Simplified, "It is broken, therefore it is broken." That's not a logical argument, that's a rhetorical abortion. Maybe Cain didn't realize that when he wrote it. I hope not, because if he did, it makes him a dishonest and cynical person. But I'd like to think the best of him, no matter how aggravating he can be.

Woah, deja vu.

Alright, after lurking here since hearing about SR4.5 I am finally compelled to the point of having to post again. I have to defend Cain on this one. His table and mine seem to share similarities so I will explain why I think that SR4 is so broken and needs fixing.

We play 2 different kinds of games at our table: heroic and realistic. I'll detail both below.

Heroic (D&D4, Exalted, SR4, Earthdawn (sort of)): These game are where the world revolves around the PCs. Difficult scales up with their level so that when they hit level 8 they are now facing level 8 challenges. They never face a level 15 or a level 1 challenge. You don't need a horde of rules for this one except -- Is it cool?

Realistic (D&D2 or 3 (sort of), SR3, nWoD): These games couldn't care less if your PC bleeds to death in the gutter or dies at level 1 in a bar fight. Difficulty does not scale -- if you so choose you can fight the City Prince with your starting character (as my Mage players did) or you can decide to get into a firefight with LoneStar. In these sorts of games the rules are VERY important because it is a lot more competitive.

We've always played SR as a realisitic setting which I am starting to realize is NOT how the devs nor most people here seem to play. In what I call a realistic setting the GM is there to officiate the rules and to provide a living, CONSISTENT world -- not to TAILOR the world to his PCs. As GM I set the bounds of what is normal according to the fluff and the GAME MECHANICS. Both the NPCs and the PCs are held to this same in-game laws of physics and society. To be fair this requires that the same rules apply to both and that there be a logical explanation for why something is the way it is or how something happened.

The way I've seen things play out in SR4 and the way the game mechanics work is what has largely turned me off this game. I LOVE the fluff of SR a lot. However, there are so many no-win situations or auto-win situations in SR that I have, largely, given up (I am being forced to convert ED to SR4 for my time hopping campaign because I haven't finished with my SR D&D4 conversion yet). Here are some examples:

Mr. Lucky: not for the so often mentioned APC shot. For the fact that he can add 8 extra dice to a test 8 times per session. This forces me to not regen Edge every session which penalizes everyone else at the table. Even at 4 or 5 Edge this becomes a problem. You can't get rid of it without making humans less interesting however. To be fair this problem also existed in SR3 but only at the high Karma end (ie. after playing for the better part of a year).

A-rated Neighborhoods: Runners CANNOT enter these areas anymore without 24/7 Hacker protection. The inexpensive cost of constant Cyberware scans, ID scans, Hidden node scans, chem sniffers and sensor/drone surveillance means that runners can't go into these areas. The same applies to Corporate facilities.

Matrix Security: Hate to agree with Frank Trollman especially after arguing against him so long and so vehemently but he is 100% correct. And Unwired made things worse not better. Either the GM has to "dumb" down the security to a point that strains the difference between my Heroic and Realistic settings or else the Hacker gets completely replaced by a Face (social engineering--hello Pornomancer) or a Street Sam with a commlink (infiltrate building and use their connection).

Arbitrary Band-Aid Fixes to Core mechanics: I find it funny that people should decry Cain and his APC shot so much when SR4.5 seems to have SPECIFICALLY gone out of its way to remove that problem (with the Longshot changes and the Bypassing Vehicle Armor changes). Note also that they tried to change Manaballs in 4.5 but due to general outcry of "Shitty Rules!" decided to make it Optional instead. For another good laugh look up the thread based on Object Resistance in 4.5 and Invisibility. Essentially SR4 was a poorly designed system and band-aid fixes have been applied. I would have been much happier if the Anniversary edition had been a complete rework of the rules instead of a 4.5 edition.

As my final word in this post: I am not saying that one of my defined playstyles (heroic or realistic) are better than the other. What I am saying is that Cain and I both seem to fall into the Realistic camp and we both see SR4 as major failure for that playstyle. That is where the major disconnect seems to be occuring. This is in my opinion.

I don't see SR4 as heroic.
Actually it's the exact opposite: I used to feel an heroic trend in SR3 (but I still wouldn't say it was an heroic game, at least as long as the karma pool wasn't too high), which I disliked and I feel like SR4 more or less corrected that problem.

Anyway, my point is that I try to play a realistic game and even though I do use house rules and respect common sense more than rules (but that's what I do for every game I GM), I still don't think that RAW SR4 is unsuited for a realistic approach.

I think that the point isn't that SR is broken (even if there are failures and problems), but that SR let you play in a lot of different ways, and if you chose to play it in a way that doesn't suit what you expect, you'll end up disappointed.

Perfectly valid. That is where the disconnect seems to be coming from. Especially between Cain and Larme.

And in my group, as far as SR is concerned, our idea of fun is to succeed in a world where everyone tries everything REASONABLE to accomplish their goals. Handwaving away problems doesn't fulfill that notion for us.

"So why didn't Stuffer Shack spend 600 nuyen (or whatever it was) on every store to have a Cyberscanner/panic button installed in the front door?"

(ie. for 2 nuyen a day they can be forewarned about all cyberware short of Beta/Delta and automatically call the Star if R/F pieces are detected for very little cost to gross profit margin)

A well written post, Cheops, and I understand your position. I'll explain my own by starting with your premise of Heroic vs. Realistic playstyles. I do agree that those are two ends of the spectrum, but I would say there is also a third, middle ground (or possibly sub-type of Realistic): Contrived Result Realism. Shadowrun exist in an interesting middle ground between Heroic and Realistic. In so many ways, it parallels our world so as to seem realistic, yet it introduces completely fantastical elements. This is because the Shadowrun game exists to achieve a certain result: shadowrunners doing cool stuff, stealing, shooting, and all that fun stuff. The fluff of the world is thus "reverse-engineered" to produce this contrived result. Sometimes (often times, even) the reverse-engineered fluff reason for the contrived result produces logical inconsistencies. For example, one of things I very much enjoyed about Frank's rules was his introductory section explaining why Shadowrunners just don't commit bank fraud with their easily acquired and disposed identities. This is a classic example of a logical inconsistency coming from contrived result fluff: in order for Shadowrunners to do their job they need to be able to quickly and easily acquire false identities, otherwise law enforcement would quickly shut them down. So, the game makes false identities readily available: the fluff is reverse engineered from the result. However, when one tries to "forward engineer" from the resultant fluff you end up with "huh?" moments. You must learn to be okay with those. They are a fact of life in a system that is designed to produce a certain result. The key to moving forward and maintaining the "fun" of the game is to hold the result constant and change the fluff. If you can think of a fluff-driven reason why the contrived game result shouldn't be, just go back and hand-wave a reason for that result to not occur. Otherwise you're just a masochist ruining your own fun. Its an easy trap to fall into when the SR world, upon surface inspection, appears so real and vibrant. This is great and wonderful, but never lose sight of the fact that it was created in order to generate a specific result. This technique of "hand-waving" away non-desired results is one used by Frank himself.


I think it is unrealistic to expect any RPG system to be able to simulate a completely realistic world and not have logical inconsistencies. The key thing to remember is not to get hung up on them. If they are inhibiting your fun, remove them, change them, or whatever you need to maintain your fun. Cain has said a few times that he "politely" asks his players to limit their dice pools to 20 or lower. Great! Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Cain and his group find their game much more fun when the DP's are smaller. By the same token you can "politely" ask your players not to make Edge 6+ characters, or not Overcast Manaballs all the time, or whatever. Shadowrun is a game that has grown in scope with every new edition, and it supports a wide variety of play styles, which I think is a great credit to it. The designers clearly do a lot of work to try and support different play styles within their game, but there will inevitably be some bumps in that road. I don't think that's a good enough reason to dump the whole system and throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.

You don't have to tailor things to defeat an auto-win tactic. If there's a counter to it, nash equilibrium states that the counter will be employed as often as practicable. You don't have to railroad the players for there to be magical security, there's going to be magical security wherever there's a hardened facility. You don't have to railroad players to ensure they fight drones, drones are a common part of many security arrangements. The only way the PCs can use their same tactic over and over is if they specifically go after milkruns. If the PCs only wanted to attack low level rentacop guarded facilities and gangers, then it's true that the GM would be wrong to force powerful threats on them. But it's also true that a game involving nothing but milkruns is a boring waste of time. If you want to run with the big boys, expect to see the things you're not invincible against. Again, something is broken if it's always invincible, not if it's invincible against weak, negligible threats. It sounds to me like your play style isn't so much realistic as it is street level. Only without limiting the power of starting characters, they're going to make a mockery of street level. 400BP is not a street level character, so playing your so-called realistic games with 400 BP characters is doomed from the start. If you start street level, and never graduate up from there, is it any wonder that your PCs always win without being threatened? No. It's not that the game is broken, it's that neither the GM nor the PCs are actively trying for challenges, they seem to be unaware that there's some kind of run other than "kill the clump of unenhanced humans."