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Guntherfuzz8
Still very new to the Shadowrun 4E rules, but I like what I've seen so far. But I can't help but wonder if anyone has adapted the Shadowrun rules to other settings like Dungeons & Dragons style fantasy or Modern/Old West type settings?
Summerstorm
Oh no... the forbidden words...

Well no, i haven't. I think, setting and rules should be tight-knit together. And it is better to have different sets to fit different settings. So i never mix rules up or transplant them unto something else. (But i do houserule a LOT)
EH44
I have never out and out adapted it to a different world. But I have ran a couple of campaigns that felt like it.

One was an all mage or adept campaign that was heavily involved in seeking out artifacts, going to metaplanes, etc. Nearly all combat was via melee weapons that were magic focuses or via spells. Most of the enemies were spirits or paranormal creatures or dark mages protected by a ton of focus's. It had nearly a high fantasy feel except that the adepts did pack a few guns and tidbits for non normal weapon immune creatures. It was also very fun.

Another I am currently running is a cyberpirate campaign (using the old 3E book cyberpirates) in the Carribean League which, due to the lack of surveillance and open water dangers, runs a bit more hack n slash than your normal campaign. It has a bit of a wild west feel with rampant bribing, ambushes from people who want their gear, etc. So far the players are really enjoying it. I could easily imagine going wild west if you want in some small communities in the high deserts of CA free state, the deserts of North Africa, etc. It definitely feels and plays very differently than say a game set in Seattle, Denver, NYC, or other city in a large metro.

I don't know if I would every try to truly adapt shadowrun to an alternate world as I think it would be difficult and could seriously affect game balance. I also think it would make it much more boring. What I really love about shadowrun is that there is surveillance to keep players in check, guns that allow even wimps who ambush you to pose a serious threat, a matrix that can be very unforgiving, etc. If you start unravelling these things, I think you are damaging a well crafted world for something inferior. But you can adapt the shadowrun world to play up or play down whatever you want to and that can make a complete change to the tone and feel of a campaign. I would try that before trying to create an alternate world. I hope this helps.
Ravor
I've never had a problem with transplanting Fourth Edition's rules, you just have to decide what to cut, getting rid of the Matrix is easiest, but the game does suffer if you cut too much out of cyber/magic. Personally I just "refluff" cyber as enhancted objects, and rule that the magics in the objects interfer with casting spells.

It gets alittle wonky if you allow the items to be set down and the lost "Essence" to return, but you can get around that by declaring that everyone is an Adept ala Earthdawn.
deek
I was starting to plan a post-apocalyptic campaign, similar to Fallout, using 4th edition. The only changes I was going to make was increasing the availability on about every piece of tech (equipment, ware, etc) to insanely high levels. Add gremlins to everything and make all ware act as second-hand from a maintenance perspective. I was then going to add a lot smaller ranges to vehicle fuel consumption, to give a Mad Max feel.

So, honestly, not a whole lot and almost everything used existing rules, just applied in a different way. Obviously, the players would not normally be using firearms, at least not at first. Mainly melee weapons.

For matrix stuff, most everything would be a deadzone or close to it. Magic, I hadn't really adjusted, due to my players not usually wanting to use magic...
Cthulhudreams
It's very hard unless you keep magic and cybernetics. As soon as you bin one, the other one becomes all powerful. If you penalise one, you have to penalise the other one.

For example, In a post apocayptic game like that proposed by Deek - I'd be a mage... I can still summon spirits, and you have a crowbar and no initative enhancements. Combat would be a total joke as my F6 spirit is stronger than anything the entire rest of the team can put together, and I'm still running around throwing down stunballs or whatever else it is I do.

The matrix rules can be deleted with little to no loss.

Over at the gaming den people were stringing together a D&D version in which everyone was magical, and you could certainly do something steampunk, but magic and technology counterpoint each other.
StealthSigma
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Aug 4 2009, 08:31 AM) *
It's very hard unless you keep magic and cybernetics. As soon as you bin one, the other one becomes all powerful. If you penalise one, you have to penalise the other one.


I have to disagree with this. You can remove magic and cyberware will be just fine. If you remove cyberware then mundanes will never be able to compete with anyone that is capable of using magic. We've nixed magic from our Shadowrun game, however cybernetics are fairly ubiquitous in the sixth world as is. The problem exists with balancing cyberware against bioware with the lack of magic. While bioware has a far lower profile than cyberware, most of the added cost in bioware is balanced around the lower essence costs due to magic. I don't believe essence really bound any mundane character aside from staying above being a cyberzombie. Add in that bioware frequently can't do what cyberware can and you have a situation where bioware is stupidly cost prohibitive.
Cthulhudreams
Dude you just agreed with everything I said after prefacing it with "I disagree"

Mundane characters without 'ware cannot compete with wared characters. Guys with 3IP will just gut people with 1IP.

So if you pull magic out, characters have to get cyber or bioware, otherwise the geared guys are just better.
deek
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Aug 4 2009, 07:31 AM) *
For example, In a post apocayptic game like that proposed by Deek - I'd be a mage... I can still summon spirits, and you have a crowbar and no initative enhancements. Combat would be a total joke as my F6 spirit is stronger than anything the entire rest of the team can put together, and I'm still running around throwing down stunballs or whatever else it is I do.

Ok, minus the fact I said I neglected modifying magic due to my players likely not wanting to play an awakened character, if someone did, then I'd obviously have to modify magic. The simplest thing that comes to mind is massive background counts, so you are having to push some high force magic in order to get a little return. Maybe I'd also require all spells to be fetished or limited? Again, I hadn't thought about it due to my group, but once someone chose a magician or adept, I would have to think about it and balance that out. But, I think just applying existing rules in different ways would even out magic being overpowered...and if not, then I could simply remove it altogether.

I do agree, combat balance, specifically with IPs would be the biggest issue. And while I didn't want ware to be easy to get, I wouldn't mind a little bit during chargen...

Anyways, the campaign wasn't selected, so I didn't flesh anything more out than some basic ideas, but with a little more thought, I think the Fallout setting could be done pretty well with SR4 rules.
Cthulhudreams
yeah sorry i was just picking on you to make a concrete example of my point, which was that if you'd taken away cyberware, you'd have to modify magic.

Incidently on a total tangent the high background count is probably not the best way to address it, as that will never go away (without GM handwave) but the people with cyberware will start a power accumulation curve that will make them outstrip the mage, especially as with a high BC the mage cannot summon spirits.

Also, the fetish thing isn't a disadvantage as people will fetish all their spells anyway to get the better drain resist, so making them do it isn't a disadvantage.
StealthSigma
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Aug 4 2009, 09:14 AM) *
Dude you just agreed with everything I said after prefacing it with "I disagree"

Mundane characters without 'ware cannot compete with wared characters. Guys with 3IP will just gut people with 1IP.

So if you pull magic out, characters have to get cyber or bioware, otherwise the geared guys are just better.


That was already the case, a non-cyber mundane couldn't compete with a magic user or a cybered user. However, as you've pointed out, magic can pull some stupidly powerful stuff with little to no effort, and the only way for mundanes to keep up with it is to use ware. Non-cyberized, non-magic user NPCs don't provide much of a challenge to PCs, augmented or magical, except in overwhelming numbers. Also, given that most cyber augmented individuals have a low willpower makes them vulnerable to magic, I would hazard a guess that magic is significantly more powerful than augmentations.

The scope of magic versus augmentations is also a matter of how much you have to mess around with lore. How many corps get fouled up greatly by removing cyber/bioware? When you remove magic? The only two of the AAAs that I can think of that have heavy influence from magic would be Saeder-Krupp (due to being owned by a dragon), and Aztechnology (correct me if I'm wrong). Only a few nations are fully founded via magic, so breaking them up and distributing them to nearby nations would be effective.

If you try to gut augmentations though, you have to do a huge reworking of the economic structure of the world.
deek
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Aug 4 2009, 09:41 AM) *
yeah sorry i was just picking on you to make a concrete example of my point, which was that if you'd taken away cyberware, you'd have to modify magic.

Incidently on a total tangent the high background count is probably not the best way to address it, as that will never go away (without GM handwave) but the people with cyberware will start a power accumulation curve that will make them outstrip the mage, especially as with a high BC the mage cannot summon spirits.

Also, the fetish thing isn't a disadvantage as people will fetish all their spells anyway to get the better drain resist, so making them do it isn't a disadvantage.

Fair enough...I just didn't want to imply that I had all the answers for the setting I was presenting in this topic. You make solid points and the general message is, you do have to keep balance between physical, matrix and magic when altering settings. Now, I could see removing all matrix and magic from a campaign and still having a fun game. I could also see a VR matrix only game being played, although the rule subset, even when taking Unwired into account, would be pretty minimal.
Mr. Mage
I'm looking to try and do a "Cthulhu-esque" kind of game (don't actually have the Call of Cthulhu RPG books, but I could go find them I suppose). One of the options I thought of was actually adapting the SR4 rules, since I like the system (No extra hitpoints as you progress in "levels" or what have you, grittier, more dangerous, etc.) All I'd do is get rid of Matrix, Cyber and most magics (probably only reserve magic for certain, high-ranking NPCs...like...y'know...Cthulhu or something) And then it's just a matter of figuring out what equipment to keep, like: keep the revolver, but remove the futuristic laser cannons....hehe....obviously.

Adapting the rules to a new setting has definitely been done before (as this thread shows) you just have to pay attention and actually ADAPT the rules, so some changes may necessary.
ZeroPoint
One thing I did that was a lot of fun was run a Resident Evil style zombie apocalypse/survival horror. We only got to do a few sessions of it, but it was a lot of fun. It was a modern day, no cyber, no magic. The reason I used the SR system over anything else is basically because of the BP system and its ability to make flexible characters. I had thought of using something like Rifts or GURPS instead, but I was more familiar with SR rules at the time and thought that I could make a pretty good conversion with it.

We started with only 300BP I think. Maybe less. And I capped their starting skills and stats lower.
I think I gave everyone 2-3 IPs to start with instead of 1, that way I could make the zombies use less IPs.
Primary focus of the campaign was basically exactly what you would think from a zombie game, scavenge everything that you can carry that could be useful. Using fire extinguishers, bar stools, and just trying to stay alive was really quite fun.
Mr. Mage
I suppose if you modify the rules a bit or something, Rifts would have worked too...but one thing I've noticed about the Palladium system is that a level one character can pretty much take on a level 20 dragon if made right...which is kind of, well "cheap" in a zombie apocalypse scenario. Of course, i don't know what you would have removed, class wise and such, but in order to make it difficult in a zombie game, I think most of the OCCs and RCCs would have to go...hehe

P.S. If someone reading this is unfamiliar with the Palladium system (Rifts) then OCC stands for Occupational Character Class (like a Juicer [drugged up fighter] or a Mage) and RCC is Racial Character Class (Dragon or Atlantean)
Usually, you choose one or the other (Dragon OR Mage, not Dragon Mage) but there are exceptions (Atlantean Nomad)
ZeroPoint
yeah, basically I would have restricted it to just a few OCCs. I had only played Rifts though, never GM'd, and wasn't super familiar with the rules. I fealt it would be easier with SR, and I just wanted to capture the idea of normal people thrown into a bad situation, and the rifts/palladium system - while allowing you to be somewhat flexible - still used OCCs which I felt would pin characters to much to a particular role.
StealthSigma
QUOTE (ZeroPoint @ Aug 4 2009, 02:06 PM) *
yeah, basically I would have restricted it to just a few OCCs. I had only played Rifts though, never GM'd, and wasn't super familiar with the rules. I fealt it would be easier with SR, and I just wanted to capture the idea of normal people thrown into a bad situation, and the rifts/palladium system - while allowing you to be somewhat flexible - still used OCCs which I felt would pin characters to much to a particular role.


Our exposure to Rifts left me very sour on the whole system. Of course that may have been due to the archer character somehow being more potent than guys with freaking guns, or it may have been the fact that inside your glitteryboy suit the rest of us were mostly useless, and that out of it you were useless.

Maybe it was just a bad GM. I don't know.
Mr. Mage
QUOTE (ZeroPoint @ Aug 4 2009, 02:06 PM) *
yeah, basically I would have restricted it to just a few OCCs. I had only played Rifts though, never GM'd, and wasn't super familiar with the rules. I fealt it would be easier with SR, and I just wanted to capture the idea of normal people thrown into a bad situation, and the rifts/palladium system - while allowing you to be somewhat flexible - still used OCCs which I felt would pin characters to much to a particular role.


While both systems are incredibly flexible...I think they differ on how...
Like you said, Rifts has specific CCs of some sort (OCCs or RCCs) and the flexibility for it comes from the fact that there are, like, 200 books filled with them. The sheer volume of choices makes for good "flexibility". That's of course excluding all of the third party and player made classes on the web.
Shadowrun (and consequently, GURPS) get their flexibility from a Point-Build system where you have so many points that you can allocate to skills.

Shadowrun was probably the better choice, but now I can't help but thinking of a Protoss Zealot and a Super-Saiyan paired together against an endless horde of zombies.... love.gif

EDIT: Did you ever think of picking up the All Flesh Must Be eaten RPG? It is specifically a zombie-horror survival rpg with some very interesting expansions...theres even an expansion that makes the Star Wars Empire into an Undead Empire...all the storm troopers are zombies! hehe
StealthSigma
QUOTE (Mr. Mage @ Aug 4 2009, 02:18 PM) *
While both systems are incredibly flexible...I think they differ on how...
Like you said, Rifts has specific CCs of some sort (OCCs or RCCs) and the flexibility for it comes from the fact that there are, like, 200 books filled with them. The sheer volume of choices makes for good "flexibility". That's of course excluding all of the third party and player made classes on the web.
Shadowrun (and consequently, GURPS) get their flexibility from a Point-Build system where you have so many points that you can allocate to skills.

Shadowrun was probably the better choice, but now I can't help but thinking of a Protoss Zealot and a Super-Saiyan paired together against an endless horde of zombies.... love.gif

EDIT: Did you ever think of picking up the All Flesh Must Be eaten RPG? It is specifically a zombie-horror survival rpg with some very interesting expansions...theres even an expansion that makes the Star Wars Empire into an Undead Empire...all the storm troopers are zombies! hehe


Rifts has one of those feelings where there's just too many source books, I got into that feeling with D&D. Pen and Paper RPGs are sometimes just stupidly expensive. Ultimately the issue with trying out new systems is the trying out part. How do you do it? Do you invest the money into a book that you may use once and never touch again? That would be fine if these books were maybe $10, but most RPG source books run $40 or more.
Mr. Mage
QUOTE (StealthSigma @ Aug 4 2009, 02:29 PM) *
Rifts has one of those feelings where there's just too many source books, I got into that feeling with D&D. Pen and Paper RPGs are sometimes just stupidly expensive. Ultimately the issue with trying out new systems is the trying out part. How do you do it? Do you invest the money into a book that you may use once and never touch again? That would be fine if these books were maybe $10, but most RPG source books run $40 or more.


A lot of these games have "test" modules out for them...you download them for free and its a short and sweet, yet incomplete version of the rules...then you decide if you like it or not...

And yes...Rifts and DnD have way to many sourcebooks...but that doesn't mean you have to use them all....in fact, most of my DnD games are "Base 3 books" only...as in PHB and DMG for players...and the monsters all come from the MM ( I run 3.5 btw...)
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Mr. Mage @ Aug 5 2009, 01:38 AM) *
I'm looking to try and do a "Cthulhu-esque" kind of game (don't actually have the Call of Cthulhu RPG books, but I could go find them I suppose). One of the options I thought of was actually adapting the SR4 rules, since I like the system (No extra hitpoints as you progress in "levels" or what have you, grittier, more dangerous, etc.) All I'd do is get rid of Matrix, Cyber and most magics (probably only reserve magic for certain, high-ranking NPCs...like...y'know...Cthulhu or something) And then it's just a matter of figuring out what equipment to keep, like: keep the revolver, but remove the futuristic laser cannons....hehe....obviously.

Adapting the rules to a new setting has definitely been done before (as this thread shows) you just have to pay attention and actually ADAPT the rules, so some changes may necessary.


The only problem with this is that the core dice pool system doesn't scale very well.

For example, it really isn't possible for the PCs to ever kill a monster - so a delta green game won't work very well. But if monsters are Powered By Plot and the PCs only really fight cultists and the life it will work very well.
ZeroPoint
QUOTE (Mr. Mage @ Aug 4 2009, 02:18 PM) *
While both systems are incredibly flexible...I think they differ on how...
Like you said, Rifts has specific CCs of some sort (OCCs or RCCs) and the flexibility for it comes from the fact that there are, like, 200 books filled with them. The sheer volume of choices makes for good "flexibility". That's of course excluding all of the third party and player made classes on the web.
Shadowrun (and consequently, GURPS) get their flexibility from a Point-Build system where you have so many points that you can allocate to skills.


The Point build system was what i wanted. while class based systems are nice for making a character concept, they tend to help make specialized characters. And while you can make specialized characters in a point build system, they usually tend to favor at least some spreading skills, thus making more realistic characters. Only reason i didn't try GURPS was that I didn't have any of the books for it at the time, only acquiring them later. And I honestly like SR's rules better. Gurps's has a tendency to overgeneralize that me and my players don't really enjoy.

QUOTE
EDIT: Did you ever think of picking up the All Flesh Must Be eaten RPG? It is specifically a zombie-horror survival rpg with some very interesting expansions...theres even an expansion that makes the Star Wars Empire into an Undead Empire...all the storm troopers are zombies! hehe


Hadn't heard of it. Will have to look into it some time but I doubt I'll be able to buy it any time soon.

As another sort of idea on this topic, I pretty much never run a standard campaign. I'm always making some sort of crazy change to one part of the system or another whether it is D&D or SR. And I've also developed my own games on occasion. My newest/oldest system that I've developed (started working on it a long time ago, and only recently got it to the point of being playable) is based on the Naruto anime/manga. Part of the reason its taken me so long to develop was that midway through, I discovered shadowrun. After looking at the system and playing it, we (my brother and I) started over, taking in a lot of the concepts behind the point build and initiative system and began applying it to what we were already doing. It's still not really anything like SR really, but there are a lot of aspects where shadowrun has influenced the system.
StealthSigma
QUOTE (ZeroPoint @ Aug 4 2009, 08:54 PM) *
And I honestly like SR's rules better. Gurps's has a tendency to overgeneralize that me and my players don't really enjoy.


QUOTE (ZeroPoint)
As another sort of idea on this topic, I pretty much never run a standard campaign. I'm always making some sort of crazy change to one part of the system or another whether it is D&D or SR. And I've also developed my own games on occasion. My newest/oldest system that I've developed (started working on it a long time ago, and only recently got it to the point of being playable) is based on the Naruto anime/manga. Part of the reason its taken me so long to develop was that midway through, I discovered shadowrun. After looking at the system and playing it, we (my brother and I) started over, taking in a lot of the concepts behind the point build and initiative system and began applying it to what we were already doing. It's still not really anything like SR really, but there are a lot of aspects where shadowrun has influenced the system.



This is true. We, the players, frequently bring up areas that we have issues with in the rules presented by a system. The biggest one I recall was that melee in epic level D&D sucked and sucked bad. It took a significant amount of munchkin crunching to get melee characters up to spec with fighter/mages or pure mages. We found, I believe, three methods to make melee characters be able to deal damage. Favored Enemy, Sneak Attack and being able to mitigate sneak attack immunity, and massive strength, and all three of these methods required us to brew up some house rules to make them work. We work with ZeroPoint and always come up with a solution that both sides consider fair. Right now, one of our big ones is concerning the cost of bioware over cyberware given that magic has been removed from our game. This is more of a concern for me compared to the other PCs because I've made the willful choice to have my character use nothing but bioware. The only bit of chrome he has is a datajack. My character makes it painfully obvious how far behind a character can be relying on bioware. You basically shoot yourself in the foot if you can't utilize magic or be an adept. ZeroPoint's solution, for the meantime is a flat 30% reduction in the cost of bioware. Personally, I think it could be a 50% cut and it would still be more expensive, in most if not all cases, than equivalent cyberware solutions, but 30% is better than nothing. It drops the cost of Synaptic boosters down to 56k instead of 80k.

I don't think I've ever been in a ZeroPoint game that hasn't been heavily customized from a setting or is made up a new. In fact, I'm surprised that he's kept as much of the canon for Shadowrun as he has.
Guntherfuzz8
QUOTE (Mr. Mage @ Aug 4 2009, 03:38 PM) *
I'm looking to try and do a "Cthulhu-esque" kind of game. One of the options I thought of was actually adapting the SR4 rules, since I like the system (No extra hitpoints as you progress in "levels" or what have you, grittier, more dangerous, etc.) All I'd do is get rid of Matrix, Cyber and most magics (probably only reserve magic for certain, high-ranking NPCs...like...y'know...Cthulhu or something) And then it's just a matter of figuring out what equipment to keep, like: keep the revolver, but remove the futuristic laser cannons....hehe....obviously.



QUOTE (ZeroPoint @ Aug 4 2009, 05:42 PM) *
One thing I did that was a lot of fun was run a Resident Evil style zombie apocalypse/survival horror. We only got to do a few sessions of it, but it was a lot of fun. It was a modern day, no cyber, no magic. The reason I used the SR system over anything else is basically because of the BP system and its ability to make flexible characters.


Thanks for some great examples of what I was talking about. And for putting some ideas in my head smile.gif.
Synner667
QUOTE (Mr. Mage @ Aug 4 2009, 04:38 PM) *
I'm looking to try and do a "Cthulhu-esque" kind of game (don't actually have the Call of Cthulhu RPG books, but I could go find them I suppose). One of the options I thought of was actually adapting the SR4 rules, since I like the system (No extra hitpoints as you progress in "levels" or what have you, grittier, more dangerous, etc.) All I'd do is get rid of Matrix, Cyber and most magics (probably only reserve magic for certain, high-ranking NPCs...like...y'know...Cthulhu or something) And then it's just a matter of figuring out what equipment to keep, like: keep the revolver, but remove the futuristic laser cannons....hehe....obviously.

Adapting the rules to a new setting has definitely been done before (as this thread shows) you just have to pay attention and actually ADAPT the rules, so some changes may necessary.

Have a look at CthulhuPunk, a GURPS sourcebook for Cthulhu in a Cyberpunk world

Alternatively, look up Trinity or Aberrant - both of which use mechanics very similar to SR v4, in their original incarnations...
...SciFi with psychic powers and dark secrets.
Rasumichin
QUOTE (deek @ Aug 4 2009, 12:19 PM) *
I was then going to add a lot smaller ranges to vehicle fuel consumption, to give a Mad Max feel.


Ah, that movie where fuel is so rare that people have no other choice but drive up and down the desert in souped-up muscle cars all day... grinbig.gif
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