I'm not trying to start a flame or edition war. I'm just wondering what editions every one is into.

Personally I'm currently running 3rd, I'm reading over and toying with running 4th.

Iv run 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. To me the system has always stood out to me. Its one of the only games That I didn't just convert to another system. which I do with most settings. For some reason to me the "flavor" of the system is shadowrun to me.

That is really the only thing standing between me and 4th edition. Its a whole new system for the most part. I figure if I'm going to convert to a totally new system than why not GURPS (which is my main go to generic system). Which is what I do with most games I play.

I trust that 4th is a good system as my friend ( spoonfunk here on the boards) runs it and likes it. He was part of my original 1st and 2nd edition games going back some 15 or so years ago. So im not saying that I don't think its an ok system. That is just my reason for using 3rd. I just feel the older system is shadowrun to me.

I feel the same way. It's not a knock against 4th, it's just that SR3 (and SR2) represent a pretty significant chunk of my gaming life. Some of the best games of my life were SR2 and SR3. Now when my group plays SR, we play 4th, but that's only one or two games a year, if that. (The last SR game to wrap up was mine, which ran about six sessions 18 months ago.)

SR4 has some similarities with previous editions but that actually screws me up more. If it was a totally different system, I'd have to learn it from scratch. As it is, my mind is a Frankenstein patchwork of all editions, and I can never remember which rule is for which edition. (It doesn't help that along with the rule changes, the new edition changed various things about the SR world itself, which is in some ways unavoidable but still makes it difficult for me to remember what's going on half the time.)

Nowadays if we're looking for a pick-up game, SR4 falls pretty far down on the list largely because of handling times; we spend more time trying to figure out how to play rather than playing. It's not a game you can pick up once or twice a year. To be fair, the previous editions of SR were the same way, but we were playing a lot of those games so we got the handling time down to manageable levels.

It's also worth noting that the part of my life SR2-3 occupied (some might say dominated) cannot be recaptured. Those were the post-high school, early college days when two of my roommates played and we might game 2 or 3 nights a week with whoever stopped by, each session lasting at least 8 hours. I still play with a lot of the same people, but now we have jobs, some of us are married, some of us are married with kids, and we have maybe 1 four hour session a week to play. It's like the blipvert version of gaming.

If I were going to a deserted island with a small number of gamers and I could only bring one system of books, it would be SR3, hands down. But in the real world I play what I can play when I can play it, which means I don't get to play SR very often.

i play sr3 mostly because of its extensive material and ive already got it. i just havent bothered buying fourth yet.

SR3; it's a deeply flawed system, but it has some awesome ideas (combat pool!, difficulty increases causing exponential dropoff in success rates but in general not creating situations where things become actually impossible, magic-doesn't-just-work-however-you-want-it-to, etc.), essentially none of which survived the transition into 4th edition.

(There are other issues, but you can just read the archives from 2006 for those.)

~J

I did deeply love SR3 but SR4 is more playable of the two.

The only thing I miss is things like the Combat Dice Pool but this has been more or less supplanted by Edge. Only problem is you have less dice and not as many players make full use of Edge.

- J.

SR3 for me. It has wonky subsystems for everything, and I dearly love (most of) them.

While i like the third more, i am playing 4rth now. Why? Because most of my group are pretty new and bought all the books of it, and now insist on using them *g*.

The overall feeling of the setting, dice mechanics, magic, technology and such i like 3rd better... But the 4th is ok.... i guess. Even though i have problems getting my magician and his spirits under control, don't like the wireless matrix and the world got a bit "softer and nicer" it seems.

Ah and what we used back then was the (2nd edition?) Initiative rules: if someone had ini 24 and another had 13... well to bad: person A can whoop your ass two times till you can do anything... loved that.

I prefer the 4A Edition. I've been Playing SR2 and 3 for more than 7-8 Years but the rules were
allways a Patchwork and we had to "mend" so much with Houserules,that at the End it wasn't Fun anymore and I nearly lost my Interest in SR in general,but than came the 4th Ed Rules and even though the first (German) BBB was flawed the Rules itself inspired me. Jup,SR has changed; its not "Max Headroom" anymoore its more like "Minority Report" but I like & welcome the Change.

with a changed Dance
Medicineman

I converted to SR4 the moment it was available and I love it. Not (only) because of the rules but the updated setting. SR4 turned the outdated late 80s Cyberpunk into a believable 21th century near future game. It was about time when the iPhone was starting to overtake a cyberdeck.

SR3 for me all the way

Mostly because I already own it all and some of the SR4 mechanics dont mesh with the way i like the feel of my SR.

I run SR4 all the way now. It has its flaws, but I find it more unified that previous editions. My groups never really like Dice Pools so our reaction to them being gone was "it's about time." My favourite part is the Wireless Matrix which means that you can actually have the Matrix specialist do their thing and be a part of the group now. Deckers were completely non-existent (with only 1 exception - which was a hybrid character) as PCs in my SR2 and SR3 groups.

Since all of my SR3 material was stolen, I adopted SR4 with open arms... The system, to me, is a lot better (I hated all of those wonky sub-systems that were in SR3) and more streamlined... the dice mechanics were much better, the fluff changes were interesting, and the introduction of the Wireless Matrix was long in coming but was greatly appreciated...

Keep the Faith

SR3

Because Otaku rock, Technomancers are crippled.
Because Shamans and Mages are different traditions and have distinct differences.
Because I like my Matrix to be wired. I don't like that you have to update your pop up blocker before a run.
Because I like the NAN. Just because you want to focus on more global things, don't forget the home front.
Because I like the dice. Are you kidding me? A 5 or a 6 is a success, a 1 is a glitch. What about the other three sides? Oh..forget them.
Because I like Karma Pool. You've been a runner for a while, fate has taken a shine to you. Not asked you to spend 30 BP.
Because I like Riggers. I don't like that anyone with a high tech Blackberry can rig.
Because I like cyberpunk. Shadowrun is moving away from its Cyberpunk origins in my opinion. Seems more shiny and polished as opposed to grim and gritty.

SR4, I loved SR3, but 4 polished the system, made it more streamlined and faster moving in alot of ways it needed (dice pools just didn't work well in my opinion) and the setting advancements make sense, the world should be settling a bit, people have had a 60+ years to get used to trolls, magic, cybernetics and the lot. SURGE? Ok, so now the troll is covered by blue fur and has a prehensile tongue, good for him, can I go back to watching my favorite show? Some rules still need some work, but nothing is perfect and I genuinely enjoy the sleeker, sharper and slightly lighter shade of grey in SR4, and hey, if you mistake that lighter shade of grey for the light that is your bad, chummer.

SR3...but gutted completely.
The only reason I haven't moved to SR4 is that I like the core mechanics of SR3 best of all.
So...I just stripped it to that.

I don't even use modifiers much to be honest.
I just use the difficulty chart.
That and, like I said, I've more or less re-built the entire system from the ground up in many areas and without much difficulty I found.

Most of the folks over at the SR3R know my strange approaches already, and I like continuing work with them to overhaul that version as well.

Keeps my grey matter tickled.


*For any that don't know what SR3R is, it's a rework overhaul of SR3 lead by Kagetenshi. You can find the work being done at: http://www.sr3r.net/forum/

A mix but predominatnely SR3

We liked how those systems worked and jived together, it's where we put a significant chunk of change and it's what we're use to. We didn't see a good reason to stumble along learning the new system, which did seem to have a few problems for mechanics, when we were quite happy with the 3rd ed- and isn't HAPPY why we do this?

We did adapt the 4th ed hacking rules because, while I know people bitch and moan and say they're flawed, they seem vastly superios play wise to anything else that's come along, let's facei t the hecking/decking computer warefre line has always been the weak reed in the SR game play because of how it brought other players to a screaming halt.

We keep an eye out for new cyber/bioware and weapons which can easily be converted to 3rd ed rules so while 4th Ed has it's uses, we're staying 3rd ed and enjoying ourselves.

SR4(A) all the way.

Have played all editions (though mostly SR2), and back then we developed a set of house rules, which really comes pretty close to what 4th edition has done (dice pool modifiers instead of TN modifiers; drastically lowering costs of equipment (esp. 'ware) to make money flow more reasonable; Karmagen (ok, that one has been around in SR3 already); etc.), so the 4th edition was very welcome.

Also, I always liked the elegance of the World of Darkness system (rolling attribute + skill in various combinations), even though I never played it much, and the SR4 system, which is very similar, works very smooth and a lot more intuitively.

Bye
Thanee

Interestinly it's the WoD style system stuff that was our big turn off. Combining which attribute with what skill? it seemed to adda new step in calculatinos working stuff out, more realistic but , to us, a needless complication of game play more like the old 1st ed rules.

Having only played SR3 and SR4A, I'm leaning slightly toward SR4A. The system is much more streamlined, the karma expenditure table is about half the size, and, so far, no books present themselves as being absolutely mandatory other than SR4A.

I'm completely in the same boat. The GM and I have talked about it, and she said that she had really wanted to try 4th, but now that she has she'd switch back to 3rd if we started a new campaign.

I do like that the 4e wireless world made deckers into viable team characters, but they went overboard to the point where deckers STILL require much of the spotlight of game time, and now they can accomplish far too much. The Sams seem almost irrelevant on even a halfway-well-planned run - the decker does the legwork, then opens the doors, kills the security systems, disables enemy comms, etc. The mage cleans up after, uses spirits for overkill levels of invis/concealment and movement, and occasionally modifies memories. The face fast-talks to save the mage some drain. Seems like the sammies really only have a job to do when we encounter paranormal bad guys...

Yeah, opinions differ, of course.

One thing I like about it is, that i.e. someone with the Pistols skill could also roll Logic + Pistols to show knowledge that automatically comes with the practice, while Agility + Pistols is used to fire it (the standard application of the skill). It's quite flexible that way. Knowledge Skills do not really cover that stuff... and if they would, you would need basically one Knowledge Skill for every halfway decent Active Skill you got. I prefer Knowledge Skills to cover areas, that the Active Skills do not touch at all.

Bye
Thanee

sr3. My favorite Shadowrun, and my favorite system in general. I keep pushing it on all my gamer friends (much to the chagrin of my wife).

Thanee, I agree it is far more realistic to do it that way but in mechanics I think that is why like the and initiative combat pool are, among other htings a combination of intelligence and quickness, at least in earlier editions but that doesn't cover other things, like driving-or climbing etc. BUT and itis a matter of taste, we felt it was getting too mechanical to approach everything like that. realistic but slowing the mechanics more than we liked.

I agree, this is a great benefit of the Skill + Attribute System...

Keep the Faith

none at the moment. I can't say what killed the enthusiasm for the game we were playing since I honestly don't know, but if we were to play again I'd prefer either 2nd or 3rd edition.

I don't think 4e is any more streamlined than the previous editions it just uses a different core mechanic and has subsystems galore still. 1-3e was roll dice vs BASE TN with modifiers changing the TN. 4e is roll dice vs 5 with modifiers changing the dice. On both sides of the GMing screen I prefer the 1-3 approach. As a GM I think its quicker for the player to always know how many dice he is going to roll and for me to say tell me how many X's you got, that for me to tell him how many dice to withhold from X modifiers. And for both sides of the screen I think the 1-3 method handles scaling difficulty better and handles a wider range of character power ranges. For me 4e breaks down completely around 14+dice, the only thing that broke 1-3 was the karma pool and edge is almost as bad in 43 but you can just start with it.

Yep, that's one of the few things I'm missing in SR4. The pools have always been nice.



In my 2nd Ed. house rules, I also added a pool for non-combat skill uses. These skills had way too few dice, anyways.

Bye
Thanee

I played 1E until 2E came out, 2E until 3E came out. We switched to 4E 2 years after it came out, but the switch was nothing major - the campaign did not really change. I like the 4E rules more, though we have a number of house rules, such as no karma or nuyen advancement, adancing by group consensus instead, which avoids some of the issues.

Started with SR2, started GMing with SR3 but I had a hard time getting a good grasp of all the rules (especially the not-so-optional rules found in CC and MM). SR4 made it easier for me while also correcting the issues I had with SR3 (armor making most characters invincible to anything that didn't shoot APDS and/or burst fire, useless light pistols, TN-lowering which led to optimized characters succeeding all the time, limited relationship between attributes and skills, description of the attributes and skills rating scale having nothing to do with the scale in game...). Sure it removed the combat pool that was a nice idea, but I always had trouble dealing with the NPC's pools as a GM.

Actually, the rule change didn't have much of an impact on the fluff of my games, even with the wireless Matrix.

SR3 mostly. I've played SR2-SR4, and while I live some of the concepts introduced in SR4, in general I prefer the SR3 rules.

SR3. I don't particularly like the system (but that's been a criticism of mine with regards to SR since inception), but SR3 is, for me, the last edition that stayed true to the original. I haven't been able to actually game most of the Sr2/3 stuff yet, so that's another reason; I'm still very much enjoying exhausting the SR3 setting. If I'd been able to keep up with the source material and play it as it came out, I might have made the switch to 4th.

SR4 Is our SR core now. I've run games since first and loved second but fell away from SR when third came out. It seemed a pale technical manual when compared to flavor of 1st and 2nd. A fellow GM that is also a player summed it up several times for me when he say's I can't believe how easy it is to resolve actions and tell any type of story with 4th edition. And he's right at its core 4th edition is a simple elegant system that if you approach open minded will do what its designed too. That hasn't always been true in SR.

I'm actually in the same boat, but I'm using 4th Edition. I never got to exhaust all of the 3rd edition setting material that I have, so I'm currently running my group through SR3 timeline stuff but using the SR4 rules. It works just fine.

I upgraded to 4th editon when I got my hands on the first book to come out, then continued to do so witht the 20th Anniversary edtion. Gotta stay SOTA.

Mostly SR3 because it still has enough of the old wonky fun of the SR system without being less fun for some characters. In my mind it still has most of what made 1e so great without a ton of the baggage. I feel it has several advantages over 2e and 4e but isnt perfect.

Im still in the SR3 camp as I have every single book there was released for 3rd editon, I also have some SR4 books but something about 4th edition does not feel right with alot of the changes they did. Some I liked, bunching some of the skills togather and refining of the cyberware. Along with alot of of things I dont like, which includes making drone riggers the same as hackers. And getting rid of the distinction between hermetics and shamens, not sure what was up with that but that was stupid in my mind. Being able to summon spirits without a summoning circle is what made the Shamen, and being able to cast any spell type without negative drawbacks the hermetic worth playing.

So what I did was kinda take elements from 4th Edition I liked and just made them work with 3rd Edition, along with alot of the house rules I have made and found around here on Dumpshock.

Here are some of the changes I did to SR3.

->Revised some of the skill sets (example is that Rifles now cover anything from assault rifles, sport rifles, and sniper rifles).

->Caliber System to make marshmellow fear for there characters life again and just to make it that much more lethal overall. Raygun did rifles right by giving them a inherent bonus against armor.

->Revised mounting points for firearm, now most assault rifles have a RIS system so you can mount things to the left and right of the barrel too.

With my current group, we play SR4, however, some of the older players and I still get together occasionally to continue our old SR1-2-3 campaign (started in '90 and turning 20 years in March), that's the one with great continuity (sort of).

I've played SR1 through 4th, almost of 50% was 2nd, the other half was split something like 34% 4th, 15% 1st, and 1% 3rd. While I have all the printed sourcebooks in my collection, I do not have all the published adventures. Though over time-4th might surpass 2nd.

In my opinion, SR4(A) is the best of the BBB. It's layout, the master index and other features (like the bookmark!!) were way above the quality of the FASA books in layout.

THat said I do like 4th edition better than the others for the following reasons:

1. Dice mechanics-easier to manipulate, the simple attribute+skill roll with target number 5 makes figuring out difficutly easier. The removal of the pools---I have mixed emotions about this as I did like the mechanic (I think this was the some of flavor 4E lost). However with the removal of the pools it did reduce the the complexity a fair bit, making it an easier game for the GM to run.

2. The other feature is that I like the unified magic system. The problem with the older versions of SR was that Hermetics were not balanced with shamans. All hermetics got was the ability to summon spirits at great cost (only to watch their services disappear in a matters of weeks or days). Also the problem of adding rules for to the other traditions, made the situation extremely complex.

3. The rules for rigging and hacking are one. Now you can have the two least (in my experience) filled roles in a group handled by 1 person.

4. You've got the base rule book (all a player really needs) and 4 supplemental books (Street magic, Arsenal, Augmentation, and Unwired) that are optional. The rest is fluff.

5. 3rd seemed too rules crunchy for me personally (if there is a situation there is a rule). The rigger rules alone gave me a headache. It seemed alot like 2nd ed, but more complex. Note my game experience with third was quite limited though.

I've never read 3rd ed rules. I compared SR4 mostly to oWoD, and it's far more.. stable.. For most things you can think of there's a rule covering how it would work and what the benefits or drawbacks would be. I've mined SR4 for ways to fix the oWoD combat rules for my VtM campaign.

That said, I've read some amount of SR3 and SR4 backgrounds, and I like the pink mohawks; 4's setting seems a little too serious and grown-up for me. I also dislike the way the focus seems to've slipped off the corporations and onto the newest magical craziness. (I'm including Technomancers in that.)

Oh, and I agree that hackers take too much time, but in SR4 because hacking is too useful. Too much focus on legwork would kill all the excitement. I guess I'll have to work on that as GM; the first step is proper Matrix security architecture on corporate facilities. (Like being offline, hardwired and with redundant systems that can't be accessed through the same network.)

Heartbreakingly true. I wonder if it is because of time and emotion in calling up those memories that those edition seem better than the ones of today, or if because they really were. There was such excitement and the material that was coming out was so ground breaking instead of rejigging. It's been so hard to get old friends together for even a weekend of gaming now that we are all grown up and have responsibilities. Remembering the glory days is great.

I prefer SR2 because:
1. Bioware didn't affect heal rates back then and was limited by body instead of the amount of cyberware you have.
2. Initiative was awesome. Speed meant something back then. If you were fast your chances of living were greater.
3. Everyone had a specialized role to play. Although I disagreed with magic affecting TN's in the matrix, everyone seemed to have a specialized area that only their archtype could fill.
4. Seemed to have the most balance. Mages weren't able to be king of everything like they are in later editions.
5. Cyberpunk back then was dark and gritty. It seemed to lose it's edge after 2nd.

3rd Ed, because neither me NOR the rest of my group found ANY liking in SR4 . . only thing we admit about SR4 is, that is has nice new toys.
Which i will port to SR3, when i find the time and motivation . .

Its actually pretty cool how there are some many different opinions on SR. Yet its all shadowrun. And still one community. When making the post I was afraid there would be a lot of flaming and edition wars crap you see with other games. Glad to see SR players are better than all that.

They are definitely not "better than all that", and you cannot determine the overall feelings from a poll thread (which by its very nature will give skewed results... poll threads are fun, but they are definitely pointless). Dumpshock has more than its fair share of flaming and edition wars. I think that the arguers sometimes are tired of arguing, and there's the whole holiday season to consider (when most people have more than just Shadowrun on the mind). You'll find the same neckbeards and lolformers around here as with any other forum, pretty much.

i think you missed the time when the mods had to ask to tone the fighting between us 3ers and the 4ers down . .

We are all more than a little passionate about our game. But I think most of the 3e folks have come to realize there is no going back so arguing is sorta pointless.

There may be no going back . . but there sure as hell ain't gonna be going forward either as long as i have a say in these things in my group <.<

There's no going back? Where are we going to?

The character sheet is 8 1/2 by 11. The dice have six sides. All else is theory.

im officially moving to forth now as i received sr4a for christmas. now ill just take my time getting the books.

It's not, but explaining why got old years ago. If you haven't noticed, you probably don't care enough for it to be worth someone's time pointing it out.

(But because I apparently value my time very little tonight, look at the discussion of the differences in the way gangs are portrayed, and in particular the Ancients and how they change in 4th edition, to see an example of why the worlds simply aren't the same and shouldn't be discussed as if they are.)

~J

New here.

Just bought 4ed from DriveThru this last weekend.

I've toyed with 2ed. Was once going to run a campaign with it but never got it off the ground. Even made a conversion of Marvel Comics' Elektra to use as an NPC (still don't remember how I calculated her... never did any others).

Looking forward to gaming with the new rules.

Wellcome aboard, have fun, don't take ANYTHING in here too seriously.
Take EVERYTHING with at least some grains of salt.