Why every time a person disagrees with a rule the rule is "Broken"? There's a dozen threads active at all times discussing how broken something is or isn't but only a couple doing just the opposite, saying how good something is. I don't want to see praise threads flooding in, but instead of using always the word "broken", how about using something different, like "I disagree with this rule" or whatever?

One can in most cases start a much more civilized conversation about almost anything by not starting the topic with such statements that something is *ucked up.

But that's not what the internet is for! If it was we'd all already be living in Utopia!

TMs are broken!
Magic is broken!
Cyberware is to powerful!
Guns are broken!
This thread is broken!

RAAA!

When most people say a rule is "broken", they mean it's causing them to not have fun in their games. It's breaking their enjoyment, their suspension of disbelief, their sense of game balance, or what-have-you. So, it's not a case of "I disagree with this rule", it's a case of "This rule is ***king up my game." Now, the positivie approach is to add: "What house rules can I come up with to fix this?"; but that doesn't change the fact that the rule is, for them, broken.

So why not just post that part? It doesn't fix the problem by saying something is broken or *ucked up now does it.

*adds more food to troll-plate* Looks like there are some hungry buggers around again...

Depends. Some people just want to rant, and that's OK. Others know that if they just ask for house rules, they'll get buried under a bunch of "If you use the RAW, you wouldn't have a problem"; so they need to put up an explaination as well as a request. And sometimes, you need to play devil's advocate in order to start discussions.

You got it. Broken is a matter of opinion. It's broken if it messes up your game. I just wish people would be more flexible about it. Instead of arguing that anyone who thinks the rule is ok is wrong, they should just say "hey, I want to fix it, and I'd like advice on how, I don't want to debate whether it needs fixing in the first place." That would save a lot of grief.

Objectively, I would say that something is broken if it has a benefit without a roughly proportional cost. You can't put costs and benefits on a scale or add them up mathematically in Shadowrun, so it has to be a rough estimate. For instance, airburst grenade launchers aren't broken because while they're powerful and fairly inexpensive, they are Forbidden and they make a loud boom. Not that I want to debate grenade launchers, but that's what I mean about rough proportionality. Each pro side of the thing has to have a con side. If it does, then I submit that it is not an objectively broken thing. It might still mess up your game, you might not like it, it might still need to be house ruled at your table, but that doesn't mean it's universally broken for everyone. "You" not being Cain in this instance, you in the general sense.

This thread is broken.

Some of us do...

There have been a handful of times that I've simply stated a situation that I came across in-game, how I handled it and then posted it here to find out what other people have done in their games. So far, I've gotten 2-3 responses on how other GMs handle it at their table and perhaps one or two thoughts on how it could be done (but have not actually been used).

I would certainly agree, that when someone asks about a rule in context, everything seems more civilized. Its when someone is just reading through a book, don't like the rule and then post her to point it out and talk about all the reasons it sucks that we get things flowing out of control... I really don't find many posts here, at least rules wise, that are backed up with saying they happened during gameplay.

Yep, many of these things are those theoretical builds/situations that never reached the game. Yes, one can make a pornomancer or such weirdness build but how many would actually want to play a character that can do something like that?

*looks at the empty plate and refills it for the trolls*

If this were a CCG, you could also add NERF.

Cards are either Broken, have been nerfed, or nobody cares about them.

BlueMax
/ain't got the money for that habit

Bad example : airburst IS broken Your definition is quite narrow as it only takes game balance into account, but there are many things that are at least as important, such as the consistency between fluff and rules. For the airburst system, the problem is that the deviation decay drops to -1 per success instead of -2. So if you're good enough with your grenade launcher, you can achieve closer shot without airburst than with. Can you imagine all the weapon specialists turning of their hi-tech targetting device because they're better off without it? I can't.

Use the Force Luke?

Therefore it would make sense for Adepts?

Sorry, you asked.

BlueMax
/Not trying to be confrontational
//just funny
/// yes, its bad humor

No, balance has nothing at all to do with realism. Nothing. At. All. They are two separate, unrelated questions. In fact, the thing you point to is a balancing factor. Airbursts have the advantage of going off when you fire them, but that is balanced by less accuracy.

Now, you seem to be talking semantics, and that is a HUGE problem with the work broken. Nobody agrees on what it means. I've had people tell me that things are broken when they are not powerful enough.

So, not only do I propose an objective, workable definition of balance, I also propose that we don't use the word broken anymore. It has so many meanings that are so unrelated to each other, that it's a worthless term. We might as well talk about good and evil. This is a gaming board, not a philosophy board, so we should kill and desecrate the bodies of such worthless adjectives as "broken." There is balanced, unbalanced, fun, not fun, but there is no such thing as Broken. Everyone defines it differently, nobody can agree on a definition, so for god's sake let's all save our sanity and pretend it's not even a word.

Larme,

Grenade Launcher grenades are contact fused.




I'd also like to point out that I don't say that things are broken. I try to state my frank beliefs about a topic that compel me to suggest changes. Sometimes that may be "these rules are badly designed" - I will state them without saying "in my opinion", because you should just be reading that in by yourself. There's no objective game, there's just a bunch of rules that mean different things to everyone.

There is no such game as Shadowrun.

Because saying so is not required. Nearly all of my house errata has been made because of gameplay experience. I have as much house errata as there is official errata, & guess what? The game is significantly better balanced because of it.

It's also not necessary to have something in your games to know it's broken. How many people here ban pornomancers? Versus how many of us have actually had one in our games?

Sometimes, just knowing that a rule is theoretically broken is enough. You don't need to take cyanide to know it's bad for you.

I don't think you should have to write "in my opinion" every time you make a declarative statement about a rules issue. What you do need to do is, if someone says "you mean, in your opinion right?" you need to say "Yes, of course I'm talking about my own opinion." The thing that starts flame wars is someone saying "No, this is not my opinion, this is the only way to decide the issue." I dunno how you conduct yourself on the forums, but as a general matter, that's how it needs to be. Failing to make that basic admission leads to pages being 13+ pages long and being locked.



...in your opinion. See? Now we all feel validated. You get to tell us how your game, to you, is a lot better with all of your changes. But it's no longer an offensive slur on everyone who disagrees with you, you're no longer insinuating that we play the game wrong or that the game we love is too shitty to play as-is. All it takes is those three words and everyone's happy.

I think the main issue is this: people mean different things when they say broken. I can think of the following definitions:

• Comparative Worth: I think X gives too much oomph compared to Y or Z. Thus it's broken.
• Counterintuitive: X is meant to do Y, but it really does Z. Thus, it's broken.
• Preference: I do not like or enjoy X. Therefore for me it's broken.

Example of the first might be the age-old Bows debate. Example of the second might be the now-optional hack in SR4A to direct combat spells. Example of the third might be the presence of IEs in the setting. There's a strong element of subjective option in this, though some are more than others. Preference is entirely opinion, while Comparative Worth and Counterintuitiveness is slightly less so -- you can at least show with game mechanics why you think X or Y. But in the end, a lot of it is opinion.

I think that's why there's a lot of arguments. People mean different things when they say broken.

I just did a display-by-post search for "Broken". Entertaining results.

Eleint, you're missing one more meaning of the word broken.

• Nonfunctional. The ruleset does not function in this regard.

For example, the rule that added the Hits to the Drain Value for Direct Combat spells was broken. It didn't tell you what to do when you're using Area spells.

That's why, henceforth, the term "broken" shall be abolished. Anyone using it to describe rules shall be fed to the almighty Sarlaac!

Can we also abolish the acronyms for the Anniversary reprint (and the corresponding errata)? I'd like to be able to say SR4 without referring to old versions of the game. I've, personally, stopped using SR4A precisely because using it implies some actual difference between SR4 last year and this year.

Seconded! If we stopped acting like it was a different game, people might actually download the free errata and stop complaining about how they're being forced to buy a whole new core book

I'm good with calling it SR4. From here on out, that's what I'll will use...and I will no longer use the term broken. I feel warm and fuzzy already:)

Until SR4A is actually in print, perhaps it should have a unique marker. As far as I know the Shadowrun run at Origins and Gencon, with Catalyst support, will be without the Anniversary Edition changes.

Therefore, at this time there are two entities. The present and the future.

BlueMax

No. One key reason not to merge the two (of several) is page references. The book has a different layout & page numbers than the previous printing. Further, not everyone has SR4A yet, & may not for quite some time (even after it's in print, many will likely rely on the errata & earlier printings).


Even after it is in print, it will likely take at least several months before enough SR4 books have been replaced to have any form of reasonable justification for altering/merging the terms used.

Right. Our GM threw out Chunky Salsa because it made it too easy on the players (when using grenades), not to mention they'd outright kill players too (when the NPCs use them)!

So I'll refer to the book as the Anniversary BBB. To call the game that you play using the rules presented in that book SR4A or SR4WWLOMTB implies that it's a different game - which is not true. This implication is exactly what the SR4.5 folks' complaints are based off, and to continue to treat the games as different linguistically is as much as strengthening their position.

Names have power, if only in the way we think.

So, from now on,
No more using "broken" but something more like "this doesn't work in my game, any suggestions how to change it to fit my group better?".
The game shalt be called SR4, not SR4(a) or whatever.. though when giving page reference, then one ought to tell which book one is quoting for others.

right?

I would suggest reading today's chat log then... cause this information is wrong. Missions and the other games at the major Cons are using the latest errata, hence, SR4A printing.

Wrong seems a bit aggressive. Have I offended you?
Your quote shows clearly that my information was "out of date".

BlueMax
/optimistic that all of the GMs have bought SR4A pdfs
// and are ready
/// isn't himself

BlueMax--

Yes, all of the GMs should have either purchased the PDF or downloaded the Errata. As it has been said, the errata is free so there is no reason not to have it except for either laziness or lack of information. (I chose lack of information instead of ignorance, since ignorance has its own special connotations.) Missions are run with the most recent errata, and all page numbers now reference the SR4A printing.

The division between SR4 and SR4A will always live as the page numbers are a little off between the books. (Damn the extra fiction and pretty artwork that got added to the book.) Though I'd suspect that information regarding street dates will be released in the near future--I'm guessing here--because there has been talk on the Twitter feed about actually holding up a copy of SR4A to a webcam. My guess is that this was a real book, not a PDF flashed to the screen.

OP--I agree that the term "Broken" can be inflammatory and is not precise to the needs of the community as a whole, though it may apply for the individual. My official tables run entirely RAW, and I've never had someone tell me that they don't like the game. Whether they were just trying to not hurt my feelings, I don't know, though I've had long discussions about rules and variations with people at conventions. At my home table, I run with a slightly tweaked system--Edge refreshes at the beginning of each assignment (when the Runners say "Yes we'll do the job") and my one-off games run with the Tweaking the Rules Cinematics 4+ is a hit instead of 5+. The one-offs are meant to be 1-2 session games that I run because we have people missing from our normal game or it's seasonal. On Bastille Day we're going to blow Paris back to the stone age--It will be our game for July 5th and 12th and have absolutely no impact on the real campaign.

Technically, when we (and by we, I mean freelancers and/or developers) refer to SR4A, in long hand we say "Shadowrun, Fourth Edition, Anniversary Eye Candy Printing" - but since we all got tired of typing that, we switched to SR4A. All future SR4 products will reference the BBB in "Section Header, p. XX, SR4A" format, to reduce confusion for readers. (Note that generally speaking, page references have the section header in there, such as "Electronic Warfare," so readers with a non-Anniversary printing will be able to still find the reference, it just will require a tad bit more work.)

And yes, I do believe there has been a sighting of a printed copy, as mentioned on the twitter feed. In fact, I bet my GM has one in his hot little hands right now...

That's only because your GM cheats.

The sad part is he's gotten to hold a copy and I haven't! The injustice!

If you don't have to write IMO every time because it is assumed, why would someone ask? Only reason I can think of is because they are douche bags trolling for a fight. The type of people who deserve any asshole response you give them. The person asking the question and forcing the issue is being the rude aggressor, since again the IMO is assumed.





How nice of you to provide an example in the same post.

I don't think the IMO is assumed. Why don't I think that? Because I have asked people, "you realize that this is only your opinion, right?" and they have responded, without a face or anything, that it's not just opinion, that their way is the only right way. Assuming the IMO makes an ass out of u and me, because with some posters, it's patently false assumption. If you are a reasonable person and you know that everything you say is just opinion, that other people can have equally valid positions on an issue, it shouldn't hurt you to say so if someone asks. It is not rude to ask people if they realize that I'm just as entitled as they are to hold an opinion. I'm saying, in effect, "Maybe we disagree, but you can at least concede that there are two sides to the issue right?" The douchebag is the one who says "no."



No, that wasn't an assumption, it was a question. I asked Mus[whatever] if that was what he meant. The rest of the statement was intended to convince him to agree with me on that count, by showing how it's offensive if he says "my game is better than yours because of my house rules," but not if he just says "IMO, I have a much better game thanks to my house rules." In other words, it was a query and not an assumption. Given his past conduct, I am very far from assuming that he accepts the validity of dissenting arguments or admits that his ideas are anything other than objective truth. I'd love to be proven wrong, but so far he hasn't said anything to do so.