I was reading the SR3 book today and I read the page, 'The Developers say'. At the end they said,

"9 years is a long time, yet we are confident we just set Shadowrun up for another 9 years... see you in 2007!"

I am sure it was totally Whimsical but I have to ask, is FanPro planning a 4th edition, ever? I think we all agree there are some things that could be changed or clarified. But does SR3 need a whole new edition? Personally, I don't think so. I think they should use reprints as an opportunity to add in clarification, or revise rules. Stick the errata in everytime the book prints and always look for new things to change. That may not be economical, as the artical hinted at in the back of SR3, you need a new edition to make money. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

I think they have too much planned for third edition for several more years to switch even by 2010. If the sourcebooks keep selling then another edition won't be seen as "more" profitable.

I disagree. It's even worse in my opinion that they stick the errata into the newer editions. I always get my books as soon as they come out. It's impractical for me to after a year or so buy the exact same book with just a few minor corrections. It is good for those that wait I admit, but whatever. Not that I mind greatly, and I think it's better than nothing.

[EDIT]People misunderstand my comment. I think it's great that they put out the erratas for free (I've got a organizer filled with them) and that they keep going back and revise the erratas. I think it's great that they include the errata in each new printing. What I was trying to say (all be it very poorly) was that I think that getting an errata after errata should not make someone think that there is no reason to have a 4th edition. Also, constantly putting revised version of the same book can lead to confusion as one persons book says one thing and another persons book says another (though if your keeping up with the erratas this shouldn't be a problem). I hope this clarifies my position a little better. I realize what I wrote somewhat contradicts the purpose of what I was saying, but the edit is closer to what I had initially intended[/EDIT]


How long was it between SR2 and SR3? I'm in a lab right now so I don't have my stuff.
[EDIT] 9 years...Oh...right...god I'm an idiot.[/EDIT]

Maybe 2007 isn't a bad target date. 3 more years. I'd be willing to buy a new core book by then. Plenty of time to moderize shadowrun's story and system.

This of course begs the question "What would SR4 look like?"

BP in the core rule?
Becks in the companion?
Cyberlimbs that make sense?
Stats having a greater impact on skills?

I'd prefer they didn't make the errors in the first place but since I have trouble spelling my own name I can't complain.

Hey, don't mind him, Adam.

I'm sure he's among the minority in regards to this issue.. I know that I, for one, am grateful that FanPro provides errata for confusing rules and misprints. The fact that they can be downloaded for free makes is that much better.

At least they haven't made SR3.5 yet..

They should make SR 3.125 or 3.0625. That way we can let people know our commitment to infinite incremental revisions

~J

I'd love to see streamlined design rules. As it stands now, gun and vehicle design follows one set of rules, spell design follows another, lifestyle follows a third, Skillsofts a fourth, and so on. Every sourcebook seems to want to reinvent the wheel. IMHO, this creates an obstacle for new players learning the game, as well as old players wanting to GM.

While we're at it, apply the standardized design rules to cyberlimb creation and get rid of the current half-assed design rules.

Ewww... standardized design rules? Just... ewww...
Magic design for magic. Vehicle design for vehicles. Etc. Combining them can only end in grief.

~J

Ditto. How /would/ you standardize such massively different fields?

But I was really hoping for a High Lifestyle with Rigger Controls that can sustain Force 10 spells. Can I squeeze all of that into a pistol, or will I have to go SMG?

er ... sorry, It's been a long day.

All I want to see is rules for computers that make sense. For the love of god computers get cheaper and faster as time goes by. Millions of Nuyen for the top of the line deck with all the goodies? They should figure out a better way to limit the Decker other than money.

The top price for the top-of-the-line deck is exactly what it should be. The Fairlight Excalibur is like heavy metal in a man-portable package. It is a tiny god.

~J

The component cost should be negligible - it's the programming cost that is the problem. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but in order to create an Excalibur Fairlight someone with the Computer (Programming) Skill of 12 has to write the code.
Of course, if all Fairlights have the same factory MPCP then it is a one time cost for the company, but Programming 12 - Ouch!

Negligible component cost? Eheh...

~J

I'll disagree with you, hp. Check out the cost of video cards, as a nice example. The code in video cards is negligible. You're paying for R&D, processors, fans... And the more power you put into your box, the more hardware you need to support it. The difference between a server and a laptop is far more than just the OS.

Let us not forget that cyberdecks =/= cyberterminals in the direct sense..

A good cyberterminal will only run a few thousand nuyen, and that's about standard.. You get get a Desktop PC for cheap as well..

Remember, cyberdecks are HARDLY standard off-the-shelf-at-the-local-Gateway terminals.. They're restricted as all hell, and sometimes just down right fraggin' illegal.. Besides, what self respecting Decker has an off-the-shelf deck? I just wish it was easier (and better defined) to start your decker with a custom made deck at character generation..

The same goes for programs.. A Decker can create a nice program for virtually no cred during a few weeks of downtime, and possibly even make a copy of it and try to sell it off.. In my games, Deckers tend to be either stinking fraggin' rich, or so lazy that they just barely manage to pay the bills (regardless of relative skill level).

And why the frag are programs so damn huge? Seriously, why should a data file that is nothing more than a glorified .doc+.vid be so damn huge? I usually make datafiles (even paydata) rather small.. I can almost understand the size of actual programs, since they have to operate on a 3D level in a virtual world, but does every choice bit of paydata have to be comparable to an Attack program (as far as Mp size goes)?

And has anyone figured out just how large an Mp is? Sure, it's a million pulses.. But how large is a pulse? I understand the use of a generic term like Mp to keep things simple, but face it.. We all know that the deckers in every group are the biggest computer nerds around, and they want to know just how large an Mp is.. My best explanation so far is that a single pulse is roughly a MB, making a Mp about million MBs... That seems to satisfy their first question, but then they always ring in with complaints about how even a highly complex program shouldn't be more than 100GB, at most (and that's REALLY pushing it into the far ends of technology).. Sure, ASIST is complex and all, but is it really THAT much more advanced than what we're working with now?

Now, I understand that most of the questions of that nature arise from my own explanation (Mp = 1 million MB), so it's not exactly a problem with canon material, but I'd really like some sort of canon explanation (even half-assed) for just how large an Mp is compared to our current storage devices.

Anyway, that's my 2¥.

one word about your all generalization:
Yök!

with your system there is no difference in characters, after all.
they all got the same amount of goodies in every damn situation without reflection about his choices he makes while distrubting those points.

currently; i take top attribs, i CAN have cheaper skills but money less and less magic.
if i take lots of money it is straight compared how much and what class of EQ i get.
with that system you just pay some magial all around karma that can give you anything regaldes what ELSE you take. like bad alternative for Becs karma system, that itself is IMO a bad home-brew version of PB system.

PB is damn good system except the money-for-PB rate is not logical in SC.


~

i hope they make SR4.

1. the grenade timing rules suck.
last game session we were having this catch-the-grenade-and-it-toss-it-back-fragging-many-times for four grenades, and one of the was thrown sixs (6) times back and fort.

we simply ruled that you can make grenades that go off after hard enough hit, thus you can't throw it back unless you cast the grenade against something soft (water, sofa, thick snow..)

2. explosive rules suck big time.
hear out this. you go to store and take 300gram's of C-4 and plant it all inside a plane. pull the detonator and -BANG- there is no plane anymore.
in SR; take 9kg's C-12, plant it in ON the plane, hit the detonator and -puff- there is MAX ~36 meters hole in the plane, BUT anything beond that radius is unharmed.
and as i have figured from the rules, C-12 should be three(3) times stronger than C-4.

also there is no difference where you plant the charge in SR, but in RL you need one quarter of the amount of surface charge, if you can plant the charge inside of the target.
one quarter.
(yes you would need roughly 1,2kg's C-4 to blow that same plane from out side)

what about puting those explosive rules to this form.
damage code drops with one for each distance multiplier from the detonation (now the damage power drops but the code is same).
thus offensive grenade (15S) has damage code 15S inside of 15m radius, after that it drops 15M and lastly it drops to 15L thus grenade would have potential kill radius much more closer to RL.
standing 16m from frag grenade and being unscratzed is a jocke for all those who has ever thrown or used live grenade.

3. Essence cost for cyberware should be more depend what other stuff you have installed and what the ware realy does. having a Math SPU 3 and separate smart2 ballistic calculator sounds ricidicolous. specialy if you got farlight inside of your head also. and why amount of head memory has different essence cost? why not just put access point inside of your brain and locate the actual memory e.g. inside of your nose?
i have undestod that the essence cost represent the drift from humanity to machine. having a finger tip comaprement should IMO have no essence cost. anyone can loose their finger and get a some piece of goo to replace it, but their no less human. even if the finger would be hollow and you would store your pills in there, i dont feel that you would be any less human.
BUT as soon as the finger starts to twist and it can reshape itself in to a knife and it can transfer you consiousness to a virtual network... then we are talking about drift from human to a machine.
also if you fall now, broke your leg and see a doctor they are likely to put metal plates inside of you. are you less human then? no.
even if they would replace majority of your bones to titan? no, because there as much of human as anyone else but they have amusing time in airports.

and definently YES for one month more for publishing timeline for killing all the bugs. errata is always a big sign of unfinished work.

and definenty one last YES for SR4.
my book has lost 43 pages and the rest is also falling away rapidly. i need a new one.

I was always under the impression that there is -no- comparisson between an MP and a MB/GB, because data storage in 2056+ is based entirely on holographic, light-based storage media -- nevertheless, for the sake of argument, the easiest way to figure out a conversion between the two would be to consider how much space it takes to record a second of trideo in MP (it's written somewhere) and then figure out how many megs or gigs it takes to record an equivalent second of 3D video.

Oh, I KNOW that Mp doesn't translate into MB... I understand it, and I even understand the thinking behind it.. But, as I said, computer nerds will want to play Deckers, and they'll raise so much hell on the issue that it makes Deckers even less appealing to the GM and the rest of the group.. And it's a shame, because I LOVE Deckers.. They are, hands down, my favorite archetype..

I'm just saying that one thing I'd like to see is some sort of canon explanation(again, it can be half-assed, so long as it at least attempts to set the groundwork for understanding) for how an Mp compares to an MB.. If it's as was said, they can't compare because Mp use optical chips (which, as I would guess, aren't compatible with magnetic forms of storage), then I'd at least like them to say that officially in some book so I can throw it at my resident computer nerd/Decker/bitcher and finally get him to shut up..

Also, I'd love for them to simplify decking even further.. I like most of the changes from SR2 to SR3, as it helps streamline a lot of issues, but it still bogs down and makes the Decker all that much less appealing (despite the fact that a Decker is almost always a requirement for a successful run) to the rest of the group..

And all the common work arounds for deckers (work with the Decker before the game; have the party use an NPC decker, and just make the rolls yourself quickly; have the Decker just make a few simple rolls) still take away a lot of flair that the Decker has..

And rigging.. Christ.. as much as I love vehicle combat (Riggers are my second favorite archetype, and the one I'd probably most likely be if I were in the Sixth World), everyone can agree how annoying it can be to have to go back and forth among the charts to figure out TN#s for every little action.. Christ, you have to do at least 4-5 different modifiers just to get the damn vehicle initiatives figured out.

Also, I don't understand several of the cyberware costs.. I understand how essence/cyberware relate to one another, thanks to the lovely opening for M&M, but it still leaves a few areas untied.. If it is as the canon rules say, why does bone lacing take up so much damn essence? It's not like you're actually wiring the plating to your nervous system.. In fact, you're sort of bypassing the nervous system entirely.. How is it any different from getting, say, a metal plate in your hip (albeit, on a much larger scale) in terms of reducing your humanity? Sure, there's the issue with the lacing allowing the bones to distribute the blood cells produced in the marrow, but even then, that's not that huge of an issue.. It's bone LACING, not bone PLATING.. You're strengthening the bones by lacing specific areas of the bones to increase durability, not covering the whole damn skeletal structure in plates. Also, why should Titanium cost any more essence than Plastic? If you're shoving an invasive material into the body and covering up the skeletal structure with said material, why does the nature of the material play such a huge roll in the essence loss? Surely plastic, while not as heavy or durable, is every bit as invasive and 'blocking' to the bones functions as titanium or ceramic..

Hell, this may be a minor issue based on my having missed a very simple concept, and if one of you has a satisfactory explanation for it (the idea of Mp being holographic in nature, and stored on optical disks explanation never occured to me, and it is what I'll use as the unofficial answer to any further complications that arrise from the XMp=YMB? issue), I'd love to hear them..

2 questions about this whole thing.
1) If so many errata are needed to make Shadowrun 'work', or make sense what ever form you prefer, why didn't FASA, now FanPro, have players test this stuff? If they do they either have bad testers who don't push the game at all or they don't take the advice of their testers, which amounts to the same thing.

2) Directed more towards all of us. If there are so many problems with Shadowrun then why do we play it?

Answer to question #2:
because the setting rules and the the ruleset is better than most stuff I've seen out there.

They definately need to simplify things. And I mean pretty much all things.
Healing needs to get simpler.
Rigging most definately needs to get simpler. Because of the complexity of the rules I currently dissallow anything that even closely resembles a rigger in my games. I love the idea but the rules just kill all the fun in it and make it tedious work to play out a simple car chase. (Rolling dice for accelerating? )
Decking rules are cool so far but distract from the flair. Fair enough, I don't have an idea how to bring back the athmosphere without re-introducing such old problems like running two different games - one for the decker, one for the rest of the group.
The build point system needs to replace the priorities system.

And some more things I can't think of right now because my brain is jammed...

I say they allow us to dikote everything.

One of my players plans to dikote himself.

And I'm going to let him!

Nice.

Personally, I couldn't give a rat's ass about a new edition, though I'll buy it if it comes out...

...provided the atmosphere and the storyline still rocks as much as it does. I think the atmosphere of the game has taken a real dive lately, what with the Comet story-arc and everything, and I wasn't so pleased with the IE, SR/ED crossover storyline either, but I loved the Arcology story-arc. I say, less manapunk, more cyberpunk. If they don't totally erase that element I'll be fine.

As for the rules...they're just rules. They're secondary to storyline in my eyes and I really don't mind playing with a slightly broken system if the story and setting makes up for it.

I second that. Although some rules need to be simplified (mainly rigging, as I already stated) the most improvements are about flavor. Second edition had so much more flavor and 'feeling' to it.
They need to remove all this rediculous mana-mystery stuff and get back to the streets and the grit. Magic adds some cool perspectives to the game but if I want a strongly magical world I play a fantasy game.
My vote (just as DV8's): less manapunk, more cyberpunk (or gutterpunk)

@LoseAsDirected:

If you want a comparison, in the description for the cyber that's used to record sound/video it gives the amount of Mp needed to store 1 min. of each. So, you could always use that as a rough translation. I'd look up the quote but I haven't got any of my books near me. It should be with the basic gear in the BBB though.

But those rules list the size of a minute of audio to be the same as a unit of video. ~70 minutes of uncompressed audio today takes about 700 megs. ~10 minutes of uncompressed video takes slightly under two gigabytes of memory. There is no useful comparison to real life storage that can be drawn from those numbers, they're for ease of use in the game only.

~J

If we're talking an entirely new edition rather than minor errata I want the system for making tests in general to change.

The current system is idiotic in many ways, notably the fact that once you have a skill your attribute suddenly means nothing, which makes relatively little sense when you consider that the attribute costs more to upgrade. What's worse, in many situations your odds of success are far higher without a skill than with it, a real bummer if you want to learn a new skill. A skill level of 1 = failure most of the time, while a skill level of 0 may = success if you've got a reasonable attribute.

Take our in-need-of-a-fix rigger. With the high-end mods he'll have a rigging reaction of 18, and a max skill of 7 taking a specialization.

That means that if he has no car skill, then he can throw 18 die at this crash test (Let's say the test has a difficulty of 6) and his TN is 5, which gives him an average of 6 successes, and works on all vehicles period.

On the other hand the skilled rigger has a TN of 3 and throws 7 die, giving him an average success rate of 4 per test, despite having more skills and the same cyberware as his unskilled compatriot. That is not right.

I want a system of tests in which the attribute and skill both contribute to every test. I devised one myself in which you always rolled the attribute and the skill rating was subtracted from your TN (Had to use d20 die to make the math reasonable) but I suspect Fanpro can do even better. I know this would take a lot of playtesting and thinking but it would hugely improve every single aspect of Shadowrun since it would fix a flaw at the most basic mechanical level.

How about using the Attribute as a complimentary skill? Every 2 successes counts as an additional success, but you still need to get at least 1 success from the base skill roll. Obviously, you couldn't do this if you were defaulting to the Attribute.

Well, I didn't say they were great numbers. The video is probably more useful than the audio. I think we ended up houseruling audio-only taking up much less. Although, it still shows the abstractness of the SR system. Even pseudo-benchmark comparisons are tough to come by.

You're still not understanding me..

I just want them to give some canon explanation for how an Mp compares to an MB... If they'll just say 'Mp is the rating of storage size for a holographic optical chip, and cannot be logically compared to the MBs of magnetic storage devices...' then I will be happy, because then I'll have some canon reason to give my Decker players and get them to leave me the fuck alone about the issue..

My assumption had always been that a Pulse was the amount in information transfered over a single wavelength per second. Which if I remember correct that 9 gigs.

so a megapulse would be equivalent 9 million gigabytes of information. Which would be about in line for technological development in 60 years.

The complimentary attribute ideas a good one, but how will it affect gameplay? You're basically handing most tests anywhere from 1-4 more dice with every test, which could cause trouble in some areas. Still it at least fixes the problem of Skeletor the Ghoul (Charisma 1, etiquette 2) being just as good in social situations as Sweet Lips the Elf (Charisma 9, etiquette 2).

Also complementary skill rolls are a pain because of the two sucesses for one thing. They have to be rolled and examined separately. Much easier to just roll half the amount of dice along with all the other dice.

Rev's idea would speed it up significantly.

IIRC having a high charisma decreases your target numbers on social tests.

Yeah I agree, I usually just go with +half skill for complimentary skills anyway.

Next potential issue: Imbalanced Attributes. Not all attributes are equally valuable.

Quickness is definetly the most valuable trait. Not only are almost all the firearm skills (And some melee skills to boot!) linked to it, it adds to your reaction, which can keep you alive in surprise situations. It determines ground speed, which can keep you alive in a dangerous non-surprise situation. And it adds to your combat pool, which can keep you alive in almost any situation. As if that wasn't enough the amount of armor you can easily wear is dependent on quickness as well, which will keep you alive even better. There is no archetype which doesn't benefit hugely from high quickness.

By contrast unless you're a conjuror or face you have little need of Charisma. It has only a handful of social skills linked to it, which under the current system can be upgraded and thus be equally useful anyway. It also adds to no other stats or pools.

I don't thing fiddling with attributes is a good idea. The attribute system has been pretty much the same since SR came out, and it works pretty well. The problem is that there are rules to make a character with a low Chr hurt, but no one uses them. Adapt the rules from Racism to apply to ugly people, NPC reactions, etc. Besides, in the shadows, not everything would be equal.

You're a shadowrunner, living the life totally, probably have a few arrest warrents, enemies in various gangs, and a few corps gunning for you. You live in a crappy part of town where people will take potshots at you out of boredom and leave your corpse for the devil rats. You can't sleep unless you hear gunfire every few minutes, you have so many locks on your door it takes you 20 minutes to get the thing open, you've grown eyes in the back of your head because you've had so many chipheads try to jump you from behind (Or you literally had one implated), you don't feel comfortable unless you've got damn-near security grade armor on, etc.etc. Now which is more important...being able to find cover fast, or having pretty eyes and being articulate?

The Abstruse One

actually plastic bone lacing should cost huge bunch more essence than titanic bone lacing.
why? human body (generaly) rejects plastic while it "thinks" titanium as a bone thus not rejecting it. thats why you get titanium hips, not plastic ones.

~

attribs should indeed reflect/impact skill uses but not by lowering TG's. then it would be damn unbalancing for other races because races having high attribute caps benefit from them even more.
i would give something like (½ the attrib) pool to used with linked skills, thus Quickness 6, rifles 6 would give you max 9 dices to roll for once per round + combat pool (rifles + Quicknes pool that is half of its rating).
it would also smooth the huge gap betwean characters with one iniative pass vs characters with multiple passes and it would high light even more the attribute/skill relations (that IMO are the best things of the game).

and if you think quickness is the most important one, try playing character with quickness 6 and str&body 1.
your dead in no time because you cant even carry your long coat.
also its damn humiliating not beeing able to open car/store/bar doors or even a jenki style beer can.