Please continue D&D 4E discussions here.

Thanks.



Strange, those are two problems that I've never really had in SR. Both uneven levels of competency, since the areas of competency tended to be spread wider across situations than in D&D, and judging what some team may or may not be able to handle. Other than SR tends to retain deadliness that D&D slowly removes with higher levels (though not as much in D&D 4e). Of course changing the later is a pretty serious change to the world/conflict resolutions. Respect for a mook with a shotgun is something that would create a very noticeable, wide felt change in the atmosphere of the results of the conflict resolution if removed. Ergo it is not a problem, it is a feature.



Tellingly in a decidedly different manner. Then there is the matter of how the spaces of modern worlds mean something very tactically/strategically different than the spaces of even faux medieval worlds. It is actually something that SR isn't the greatest at modeling, and it's been built for a modern setting from the very beginning, and obviously D&D is pointed somewhere very different. For good reasons.

A better fit for a system is something a bit more modular where the core isn't the combat system. So you can readily replace out the combat system if it isn't geared towards the modern setting without gutting the system core. Also keeping combat more a peer of other actions.

Of course range doesn't matter in SR depending on how you normally run your games. If you are constantly fighting in buildings or smallish compounds it isn't an issue -- may as well be in a dungeon. I think it would be good enough to deliniate a short range (which may come up in a grid combat) and a maximum which will let you know for longer ranges. YMMV, but I haven't seen any SR tactical combat being used for long range battles at my tables (usually this is because it is a sniper or ambush at range so the other side doesn't even get a chance to fight back). Huge range battles, like mortar fire, naval battles, dogfights, and artillery bombardments are probably best handled through the skill systems or skill challenges -- not grid combat.

Competency isn't about coverage -- its about usefulness. Try putting a Street Sam into a party of 4 mages. How useful is he? Not very. How much better is a group of 4 mundanes just by the addition of 1 mage? What is at issue is why can't everyone be just as useful? Let's say you need to add a Striker to the group and you have the choice of a Magical one or an Augmented one. In SR you are almost always better off with the Magical one. In SRD&D4 it wouldn't matter -- what does the player want to play? Does he want to shoot fireballs or shoot guns? Both are equally useful to the team and both do the designated role.

Actually the competency of the D&D system is that it DOESN'T make any rules for stuff outside of combat. That is left completely up to the group to decide at the table. There's a rough skills guideline but the idea was to leave decisions about fluff and setting to be decided at the table and not in the rulebook.

With all respect to people who want D&D SR this is not a game I would want.

Here is why

I HATE COMBAT!!!!! I have no interest in playing a combat game, I'd rather go play counter-strike. Shadowrun is AWESOME because its about sneaking and lying your way in to get something and getting out without having any combat. What drew me to Shadowrun was that if we did it right there was no combat and if we did it wrong combat was over fast and people were dead (usually us). I also dont want a balance RPG. I enjoy playing a mundane face, decker, magician, everything. Its not about winning or balance its about having a good time and getting to play a fictional character. I dont want my mage and my street sam to play the same at all, they should feel very different. Also I love dice pools!

Who says you aren't allowed to sneak around and be clever in a D&D version of the game? At least if you failed and ended up in combat you'd have a very solid, exciting, and balanced set of rules for simulating that combat. I'd rather have a super slick combat system and then be allowed to have lots of leeway in handling the non-combat stuff than the other way around.

The reason balance in characters matter isn't because you can't have fun being weaker than someone else. It's because it is a royal pain in the ass for the GM if the group is as unbalanced as a typicall SR group. If you have 1 character who can routinely get around/through/over absolutely every challenge single-handed then, when the GM throws something that is a challenge for that 1 character it guarantees that the other players won't be able to contribute or that their characters die. It's not about the players -- it's about the GM.

I'm not sure what the hang up on "balance" is for some people. I've haven't cared if I was the toughest, weakest or on equal footing with everyone else in a long time. SR isn't a game where "balance" is measured easily as a face with no combat skills is just as likely to complete a run as a cyberzombie, they just have to go about it differently.

I have found that DnD would not support the concept of a sneak around game at all. The whole game is geared around combat encounters which net you x amount of experience and y amount of treasure. Get outside of combat and the game breaks down.

Yes, you can...

My personal best example is I had a BLAST playing a 0 level character in AD&D because when I rolled up my 3d6 stats I didnt even get a 9 in anything. For 2 years (off and on because we played other games) I played this character. I was the only PCs who didn't die at some point. Some of the guys even hit level 9 and I was still having fun with my 0 level commoner. When a monster attacked, I ran and hid! BEST D&D GAME I EVER PLAYED IN!



Whos to say its not balanced as is. My face can walk right into a building convincing the guards im someone else and walk out without a shot being fired. I dont need to even have any firearm skill. That is balance, I'm a face guns/magic not my thing, lying is my skill.


[edit] To use D&D 4 for example, a shadowrun game would be a series of various skill challenges with combat only occurring if a skill challenge fails. So all those at-will etc powers that they have, would come up rarely if ever in actual play.

First of all if you are going to Quote me then please quote the entire context. I did NOT say that it isn't fun being weaker. I said that it ISN'T because of lack of fun. It is because it is difficult for the GM to judge the appropriate difficulty if combat does start when the PCs are unequal.

Why can't you be just as competent as the Street Sam/Mage in combat just because you are good at lying? Since you choose to focus on being good at lying they are better at other areas than you by investing their resources differently.

You are correct. If it was a run I needed to get out of the way quickly in SR D&D I would just run it as a Skill Challenge. That would be an example of a sub-quest (our target is building A but we are going to hit building C so that we can zip line over) or a run that is a set-up for greater plot elements later in the story. Eg:

Story for the session is that the group pulls a run that results in the Mafia's interests being harmed. The main plot of the session is that the Mafia has it out for the group and now the group needs to find a way to deal with it (negotiation, make an offsetting run against the yaks, etc). However, instead of just handwave the run I do it as a Skill Challenge instead.

So, out of combat balance. Let's say that your face, a street sam, a hacker, and a mage are all trying to infiltrate the building to succeed in the above Skill Challenge. Your face is successful at every single Diplomacy and Bluff check you are called to make because you are an awesome people person and liar. However, the mage screws up one too many times checking the Arcana aspects of the security. Now security is alerted and combat starts and lets say that your face is discovered at the start of combat by more stringent accreditation checks. The GM had decided that the combat with security should be moderately difficult for the party. How does he do that in SR4?

The mage and the street sam are much better combatants than the hacker and the face. Something that will be moderately difficult for them will likely be killer for the other two. However, something that is moderately difficult for the Face will be a cake-walk for the street sam and mage. In D&D4 this is no problem -- all are equally good in combat. It is also easier to scale if someone is missing. Let's say your face manages to get away before being discovered. The GM knows exactly how many NPCs to subtract to make it equally difficult without the other character.

If it is the out of combat stuff and role-playing that defines your character then why does everyone being on the same footing in combat cause so much hatred?

Edited: for clarity in first paragraph.

apologies for the mis quote.

That said, what if I as a Face dont want to be good at combat... My tactic is to RUN AWAY.



Hopefully no mis-quote here.

Because I dont want to be good at combat, I dont ever even want to enter combat. You know how people say when the decker does his thing we go grab a pizza. Thats how I feel about combat, when you go into combat I want to go do something else call me when your done. Dynamic combats and short combats are better but I would like to spend less than 10% of my roleplaying time in combat. D&D 4e is all about the combat. They did a great job offering abilities making terrain matter etc. Kudos to WOTC, but none of that interests me. I've got to a few demos and been bored out of mine mind because its all about the combat. Sure you can do things outside of combat but really they are segways to get to the monster. The best Shadowrun games I've played in had 0 combat. We planned it out, did the leg work, broke in, got the item got out and got paid. AWESOME.

[histoy] I started with D&D redbox, we played it like a board game... HATED IT. Later a guy invited me to Traveller promised me it was nothing like D&D. IT WAS AWESOME, we were merchants dealing which getting good prices on goods then selling them at a profit it was like Settlers of Catan with acting! LOVED IT. I didnt get into RPGs through wargaming I got into them through improv acting so apreciation of the tactics of wargaming are lost on me. Never something I enjoyed.

I understand some people like tactics of wargaming and enjoy combat but the thing that always drew me to shadowrun was that if combat happened it was a punishment for doing something wrong not something that was going to happen every game.

Then you run away. How is this a hard concept? You can be better at something out of combat while still being equally useful in combat. Whether you decide to participate in combat is up to you and your table -- not the game designers.

However, for those of us who do participate in and enjoy combat we get the best of both worlds. We can all be just as useful in combat but still have some spotlight time out of combat when our specialty comes up. Also, now that you are just as useful as everyone else at the table, if the session ends up being combat heavy (say the Street Sam decides to settle the Mafia issue with his guns) then you don't get excluded because you can't fight.

but your forcing my character to be good in combat, I dont want that. Under the current rules I could spend my nuyen and skill points to be good in combat and lying if I wanted, or I can be good in basket weaving and lying.

[edit] Lets take your combat heavy example, I want to be excluded... Thats not my character. If the street sam choose that route either A. I dont go or B. I assist in other ways, perhaps as a distraction. or C. I turn the street sam in and gain a favor from the mafia.

There is nothing wrong with everyone having there own time to shine, for the street sam that is combat. I don't need to be a part of his shining moment if I dont build my character that way. I get the choice.
Doing it the D&D 4 way I am forced into a character concept that I will be good at combat.

So yes your gaining the best of both worlds FOR YOU. What about those of us who want to play a social game with no combat. If you say theres no reason you cant do that, I say to you well then remove all the combat rules except the skills needed (no movement, techniques etc) now play your combat focused game, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from doing that.

[edit 2] Again nothing against D&D 4. I think they did a great job designing a game based on what the design goals were. Mission Accomplished! Its just that the design goals they had have nothing to do with the type of game I personally enjoy. Shadowrun is a game that I currently enjoy, I would hate to see it go down that path. Not because it wouldnt be well done but because I would no longer buy or play it. I would either have to play an older edition (nothing wrong with that) or change games.

It is far easier for you to give yourself penalties to symbolize the combat deficiency of your character than the other way around, making your character worthwhile and good in combat while also being good in non-combat stuff.

Also, if your character betrays the street sam, prepare to get a punch in your face by the player of the street sam, as you rightly deserve it, "roleplaying" or not.

People moan and bitch about how they have to focus and specialise being good in something and mediocre/sucky in the rest, and all Shadowrunners ought to be good in tailing, sneaking, fighting, and escaping, be it the muscle, the mage, the mesmerizer or the matrix-jockey, else they're dead weight and a liability.

You're always allowed to screw yourself over with stats-wise and make your character a retarded luddite with spasms and epileptic seizures if you don't want to play a character who can contribute to the essentials of shadowrunning.

First off, betraying the street sam is option C. The guys I play with it wouldnt happen because they wouldnt Fing go after the mafia. Thats just stupid! Better plan on retiring after that run cus payback will be a bitch.

I'm not making a luddite just because I have no combat skills. I can spend those points on driving, sneaking, all kind of useful abilities. Especially in a game where combat doesnt happen.

Put my group in perspective, in 6 months of play (about 20 runs) we have had 3 combats. Combat only happens when we F up. Now this might not be your group but please dont penalize mine by forcing your style of play on us. These are the types of groups I look for and play in. Its the type of game I enjoy.

[edit] SR4e has already forced a style of play because now as a Face I max out without cyberware where as before I could just keep spending karma on my Negotiations without ever buying cyberware because there was no cap.

Then that option never existed in the first place. And betraying means that the other player is allowed to punch you in your face with no consequences.

Of course you're making a luddite. You can't even use a gun and smart-link to fend yourself in the sixth world, so this cripple who drags everybody down might as well go back in the woods naked and look for the company of satyrs and sasquatch who won't maul him to death. Perhaps a pack of hell hound wil find him first, hopefully.
And you think that when your character (and everybody else) has good combat stats, you'd suddenly be forced to play dungeon-hacks and hour-long combat scenes every time you meet? Either you don't know what you're really talking about, or you don't trust your gaming group.
So what? You're still able to play a retarded luddite with spasms and epileptic seizures, even if you have well-rounded stats everywhere, and 40 dices as an average pornmancer who talks as sexy as a redneck hillbilly performing intercourse with his livestock and giving birth to his cousin.

I'm with tete on this one. D&D4 forces you to be, first and foremost, a combatant. Everything revolves around combat. The vast majority of powers are combat powers; before the advent of utilities (I forget which book introduced utility powers), every power was a combat power. The entire game is built on the assumption that your character goes around killing monsters and taking their stuff. If you want to do something other than kill monsters and take their stuff, well, you're on your own. Skill challenges are a laudable effort to disguise just how half-assed and tacked-on the skill system really is, but don't actually change the fact that the skill system is half-assed and tacked-on.

In SR4, by contrast, the skill system is the game. You are not forced to take any skills or qualities that you don't want. You can be a completely badass hacker who doesn't know which end of a gun the bullets come out of, or the slickest con man who ever walked the earth but who runs screaming from battle, or a magician who refuses to harm anyone, but is still an asset to the team with creative use of illusions and other non-combat magic. None of those concepts are mechanically supported in D&D4. My experience as both a player and DM in D&D4 is that once you become familiar with the rules, you hit the boundaries very quickly. SR4 also has boundaries, but they're much more generous, IMO.

That would be the Player's Handbook 1. Where all the combat powers are introduced first too.
I'm pretty sure that you actually mean something else than utility powers, as you'd have to be blind to oversee them in the Player's Handbook 1.
That's the price the skill system in D&D has to pay since 3rd edition. The good is that the mechanism (roll a d20, add modifiers, compare result wih difficulty check) is the same as for combat (roll a d20, add modifiers, compare result with armor class), which hasn't changed in 4th edition. Who knows what the developers where smoking when they thought about skill challenges and how it would change the skill system of D&D.
At least, you're not incapable of being intimidating or climbing as a fighter anymore.
You can easily play a retarded character in D&D (all editions, some forcing it upon you) too, just the same as in Shadowrun. Just give yourself some penalties that make you have a roll of -100 if you try to attack or whatever when your character started having an epileptic seizure and was masturbating at the same time, because you want him to be a retard who goes into danger.

No other player should be forced to have a character that is good at combat, but incredibly sucks at interacting with other mentally npcs and dirt farmers, or a player who wanted to play a cunning bard and powerful mage like Väinämöinen, but is foced to suck so hard in combat, he might as well play something on his x-box 360 or similar.

But if you really want to be Dumbdumb, the fighter who is too stupid to breath, or Elan from the Order of the Stick prior to gaining a level in Dashing Swordsman, then you're allowed and encouraged to handicap your character for your amusement.

I mean, seriously, are you people trying to tell me that if you see normal combat stats in a pen-and-paper rpg, that you become retarded in real life and will only play out combat situations for the rest of your life?

As someone that has played a Shadowrun character without a firearm/ranged weapon skill other than a couple points in a Flare Gun, and a bear minimum in fisticuffs Skill (that he never really used, and was only taken for defense during combat), and an IP of 1, I assure you he wasn't a cripple that dragged everyone down.

There were other people to handle the bulk of the shooting. That wasn't his time to shine (though he did save the bacon of a couple on his team by once by untrained shooting of some pesky guards using a firearm he picked up off a body during the run. His time to shine was when there was a need for some oddball skill like piloting a boat or talking their way into some place or trying to understand some magical effect/artifact (not Awakened but he had a serious academic knowledge of the arcane).




D&D proper is still, despite improvements over the decades, and some attempts during the d20 years, relatively weak outside of combat. It very much centers on combat, the definition of character abilities center around it. I don't hold that against D&D, 4e is one fine kill-things-and-take-their-stuff game. But I sure don't deny it. So no, you wouldn't actually get the best of both worlds.

When I started on replacing the SR system I went to one that even more emphasized other abilities on equal standing with combat. As well it's combat is even more modular, so I could swap out it's out-of-the-box medieval combat systems. Yes, systems. It actually comes with a few of them to provide choice between different levels of detail depending on how much screen time you want a given combat to have. Then I completely replaced the combat systems to give a much stronger tactical feel than SR 4e, consistent with modern firearms/combat/vehicles/spaces.

Of course I wouldn't consider it particularly "Shadowrun" in that the SR systems generate fairly flashy results. The action is somewhat over-the-top. I made my choice because I wanted something slightly more mundane feeling. Because I'm big into movie imagery I set the primary benchmarks for one of the particular types of combat (the most detailed but not the chase/dogfighting one) as the final shootout in Way Of The Gun. That is the atmosphere I decided I must be able to create. Well that and I had to be able to do the scene off the cover of 1e/2e SR, which so far is working well, too (though I've only tested play of that archtype scene at a contemporary tech level, not at SR level tech, yet).

The result, while even closer to the movies often listed in those "what movie is SR to you" threads, is even further from what you get with the D&D combat/system.

So you mean your character wasn't a cripple and a drag because the gm created very specific situations where the cripple is useful, like Elan before training under the captain of the Mechane was sometimes useful (he knew how to climb up a horse and tell others how to do it)...

No. Other than, you know, the GM didn't artificially dictate/create situations where combat Skill use was the only ingredient to what was dictated as the single/only viable solution(s).

P.S. I picked up the watercraft piloting skill in response to what we the players saw as an opportunity to procure and use a boat as part of a solution. Because that was his job, to have/learn oddball Skills. His catch line was "Can I ____? I've been around ____ all my life!" So he proclaimed he'd "been around boats all his life", even though he grew up in the desert. *cough* Then while the others were busy trying to rent a nice boat he was at boating school learning the basics of running one.


EDIT: He might also have had a point or two in bladed weapons. I'm not sure, I'd have to check. I do know he had a knife. I don't recall him ever having stabbed someone...though he did infamously once take on a speeding car with a knife...and won*!

* 'Won' being defined as 'didn't die'.

Either you had many months to prepare and the run was unimportant, or you're going to have a hard time explaining how your character learned driving a boat without ramming the next giant tanker that fast.

And combat skills will be important as when you're entering a high security facility to steal a prototype/extract a scientist/find out about the connection of victim to a company man/upload a virus into their unconnected network/re-arrange the furniture to create a bad Feng-Shui for the execs and other stuff, you're going to deal with armed guards, spirits, paranormal creatures, noisy wage slaves, security drones and other hazards. No matter how good the best one is, it's the die results from the one who rolled the worst that matters.
High stealth, good combat abilities, and ways of escaping from law enforcement are the bread and buutter of any average Shadowrunner working for your average mysterious Johnson.

Have you ever seen a James Bond movie? Like that. Edge, baby. Plus, what's the Attribute again? Reaction? The Threshholds he was rolling against were pretty high. Six or eight or something. The write-up of the AP is somewhere on these forums.



Sure combat skills are really useful at times. That's why he tolerated the psychos he worked with.



Wah? For shooting things? That's silly. For stealth, for the people at some particular point where sneakiness is required, sure. That's why you send scout-types off by themselves. EDIT: Not that I'd personally ever bother everyone to roll Stealth is some situation. Just the one with the worst ability + worst modifiers.



Go Team!

James Bond works alone (or is hindered by some chick who'll land in his bed). And he gets state-of-the-art equipment that the russians (or Blofeld's minions) won't ever get even if they begged on their knees for it. 007 is also backed by a national counter-intelligence agency. A typical shadowrunner can be glad if he that "beta-grade cyberware" really is "beta".
You have to be mentally challenged to work as a terrorist for hire together with other building-blowing mercenary terrorists without any means to defend yourself.
Shadowrunners are not the good guys. They're the ones who will blow up orphanages, sky scrapers, airports and hotels for the right price when hired by a Mr. Johnson with connections to religious fundamentalistic organisations. Being a pacifist while working as a Shadowrunner is like screwing little children to prevent pedophiles from screwing them.

You can of course claim that your character is a bloody amateur who will soon let himself be overrun by a car, that's understandable. After all, playing a tragic clown can be funny.
Everybody has to sneak by the entrance for starters. Having the runners with the good stealth skill being alone in the facility while the hacker who needs to disable to security system inside because it's not connected to the wireless matrix (ohz noez) staying outside or worse, being detected will lead fast to such problems. And then shooting will be determined which team works better. Security, soon backed up by law enforcement, or the rag-tag gang of greedy kidnappers and terrorists hired by an ominous Mr. Johnson who needs deniable assets?

Slim had no implants so he did not need to worry about reported quality of implants.

Also, James Bond improvises all the time with things/vehicles other than his own r33t Q supplied goodies. Maybe you haven't seen anything other than trailers?



I tire of your circular logic. Conflict must be resolved by combat, so combat is the central skill. Combat is the central skill so conflict must be resolved with it. :/

QFT.

D&D 4E works just fine out of combat as long as someone isn't kicking and screaming about how the game is all about combat and is willfully sabotaging the out of combat gameplay. You just think up what your character could do in a situation and the GM has enough guidelines to tell you what to roll to see how it works out. The limit is really your imagination.

Just because some people play D&D 1E, 2E, 3E and even 4E for combat, does not mean D&D is about combat. In SHADOWRUN it is called playing a pink mowhawk game. Should we run around screaming about how shadowrun is all about combat because some people run pink mowhawk games? Of course not, that would be silly. It is equally silly to make those accusations against D&D.


Now, D&D 4E does things differently than Shadowrun, in that they made the decision that having players taking turns dominating the spotlight doesn't make a good team based game. Combat for example is about the party working as a team to be successful instead of one or two players with absurdly over the top combat monsters destroying everything without using any sort of teamwork.

In reality, the D&D4E 'team effort' model respects the idea of 'you've got to respect a mundane with a gun' better than SR4 does. In D&D4E your characters that are "bad" at combat (i.e. a controller or a leader), won't put out as much damage or absorb as much damage as a striker or defender, but they can do well enough to be dangerous, or they can lend support to the combat characters. So you can have your leader face that is "bad" at combat run around and hide and shout out warnings, and fire off shots with your "dude its a gun, you point it that way and pull the trigger" training (which in the SR setting is supposed to be enough to be dangerous), while tricking attackers into chasing you or tricking them into falling back, or confusing them, or hacking their communications and smart links, or any number of "I'm not a gun fighter" activities that you can do during combat.

Roleplaying games are group activities, why do people want to set a group of people down at a table and then not cooperate as a group? It seems very strange.

QFT.

You can make Clerics in D&D that have no offensive combat ability whatsoever. They either heal all combat or else provide bonuses to other team mates. They still have a function and a value in combat that is equal to everyone else -- without them people would do less damage and die more easily. But they are not good at being the one to actually hit and kill the enemy.

As far as absolutely refusing to participate in combat that it is a matter for tete and his table to discuss. If combat has 0 value for him I fail to see how a balanced combat rules system hurts him in the slightest (-1*0 = 0). For those of us who like both D&D4 is wonderful. So essentially for tete he is no worse off with D&D4 -- he can still shine out of combat and can avoid combat just like he always did in SR4. For those of us who like a balanced combat where everyone can participate without it being instant death D&D4 is better. So, no one loses out in the equation and some people gain.

Being good at combat in D&D4 in NO WAY limits your ability to make a good character in non-combat aspects -- you just use your character options on non-combat stuff instead of combat stuff like the Sam. It won't be your focus but you will still be competent at combat.

The limit is crappy support. Someone above mentioned the poor differentiation between characters. Further that skill test for extended conflict resolution is half-baked. The designer has acknowledge that. It's an interesting germ of an idea, a work in progress. Maybe for 5e? The difference when you use a system that very actively supports what you mention, and goes even further, is stunning. Plus, and SR 4e is short here too which was a large reason for me going beyond it, supporting verbal conflicts to the level of combat conflicts. Then those matrix/electronic ones. I can't really speak about SR 4e outside the core as I haven't really delved into Unwired but the core is half-baked...which is sad because it had potential.



That boating trip mentioned above wasn't a picnic. D&D really only manages it because it defines every character in a 'combat' centric manner. Every character is a 'combat character'.



I think D&D does emphasize team more directly in overt combat actions (I mentioned that earlier as a positive it had going) and Initiative in SR has always been problematic with allowing contributions from around the table. SR 4e was certainly an improvement. Slim, with no Init/IP boosts could choose to fire at key points and he was a decent attention sink. Still, team action tactics, really tactics at all, isn't SR's strong point. It was very much a top design goal I aimed at *cough* when designing the CQC combat sub-system.

But the latter part of your statement entirely misses, in a number of ways. "Mook with a shotgun" is about danger, about how much larger the force multiplier for a firearm is compared to the force multipler of melee weapons. How that person can directly kill you. See Omar's fate in The Wire for an example. Back in d20 days there was a bunch of messing around with critical hits and stuff to try jigger something together but in the end it required what was effectively a rewrite of the system front to back so that the product wasn't even d20 anymore.

Further the use of space is all wrong. Starting with firearms being largely vector weapons.

Combat character doesn't equate to "offensive combat ability".

Or maybe you can't even understand that James Bond doesn't roll anything...
Conflict situations where people are shooting at you is resolved by combat. That is so obvious, I speculate that you're being dense on purpose.

The scene in "The Terminator 2" where they break into Cyberdyne Systems Corporation and the resulting shootout with the police is what Shadowrun is all about. Not James "I'm working solo because that's what agent flicks are all about" Bond.

And of course, James Bond is a beast in combat with high combat skills. 2070, in Shadowrun, his equivalents walk with Deltaware-cyberware around and can shoot stun bolts with his mind if they go the extra mile. 1950 to 2010, the only implants his enemies have are metalic teeth and cardial pacemakers if at all. Ooooh, how terrifying.

I'm talking about how it looked. The excuse the writers use. Further, to address your missing the point down post, not the whole format of the movie as having one central character (though Bond does share the screen with teammates occasionally they are a lot like he use to be with women, going through them like a hay fever sufferer goes through kleenex).



Bigger picture, how did the situation where shooting arose happen? The GM just skipped to there?



One part of the break-in sequence is what you are focusing on. *facepalm* The combat monster vs combat monster part.

Round-round you go.

Acting like Terminator 2 has one combat scene, and that none of the other characters participated in the combats is absurd. I'm finding your accusations of circular logic to be fallacious.

Taking the terminator thing further, the Sarah Conner Chronicles were very 'shadowrun', and they got into combat all the time, and they all participated in it despite basically having their own cyberzombie on the team.

Which is why I am NOT doing that. You, however, were cherry-picking...yet in the process showed off the very uneven level of combat skills across that "team".

I'll tangent this thread slightly... I have always felt, and still feel, that D&D doesn't need to rely on skills and rules outside of combat.

RPGs have always been little more than a game of Let's Pretend. And as kids, we certainly didn't need a bunch of rules to tell us how to pretend. And that's all roleplaying is. Pretending you're something or someone else.

Honestly, I think 3.X made D&D players lazy in many ways. THe game became about the math, and how to put together a character in the best or most interesting way, about what you were going to do 10 levels from now, what prestige class you were taking, what magic items you needed to best be whatever. It was never about who you were, it was about what you were.

And this make Baby Jesus cry.

It used to be, if you wanted to be a "Prestige Class", you simply were that prestige class. Except, you know, we just called them characters. I had a 1/8 Hill Giant Barbarian in 2nd edition D&D, playing just with the core 2nd ed books. If you look back at 2nd ed, there was no Barbarian in the main book (Ok, I'll be honest, I'm only about 90% sure there wasn't. It's beside the point here). There were also no rules for being "Giant Blooded" or anything like that. I was a straight up fighter. I rolled old school for the character, 2d6, assign em in order. I had an 18/37 strength and a 7 Intelligence. So I came up with a backstory that involved his grandparents, a potion of giant growth, and a love afair between a man and a demi-attractive hill giantess. His name became Brawnar, often called Brawnar the Dense. Sometimes called Brawnar of the Hill People.

Brawnar was an amateur taxidermist and an amateur armorer. He would often attempt to make armor out of monster trophies (He had a helmet fashioned from a minotaur helmet and a shield made from the scale of a white dragon). He was illiterate, but the groups Swashbuckler (A by the book rogue who liked to leap around in combat and swing around by any rope or chandelier that happened to be nearby) taught him to "reed and rite", poorly. He had a great affinity for horses, and when he cooked he could even burn water.

D&D was always great because you were only limited by your imagination. We didn't need a sense motive skill, or a diplomacy skill, or a bluff skill. We could talk to the NPCs in character and do our best to roleplay what we were attempting to do. Any competent GM would work with us, accepting our efforts for what they were, and deciding whether we succeeded or failed based on our merits and our effort to succeed. Sometimes, if that wasn't enough, you could role a die. A d20 role would suffice, and you could roll and simply add an attribute modifier vs a TN set by the GM, based on difficulty, how we usually played our characters, and how well the GM thought we were doing based on our roleplay, or you could roll against your attribute, attempting to roll under it, again with modifiers based on your actions.

I take it back. D20 didn't just foster lazy players. It fostered lazy GMs too.

I'm not saying 2nd ed was all sunshine and roses. Overall, 3rd edition was a vast improvement in the rules set, simplifying things like saves and armor class, and for the core classes, balancing out the power levels a bit better. But third went way too far, IMO, and added way more crunch than was really necessary, and I think it was detrimental to the game.

The rules themselves should be focused on combat, and that's where 4th got it right, more or less. YOu ened rules to arbitrate combat situations. That was always the weakest point of "Lets Pretend". It was easy enough to decide that you and your cousin were going to be Han and Chewie, and that your brother and other cousin were going to be Boba Fett adna STormtrooper. THe problem always came when you both pulled out the sticks you were pretending were guns, shot each other, and then had the tradition "I shot you first! No, I shot YOU first!" arguement.

The rest of the rules? Not that necessary. Any half decent GM should be able to come up with a ruling on the fly and be at least semi-consistant. YOu use yur stats as a general guidelines. And roleplay out the rest.

I even think that applies to Shadowrun a little bit. The very best gaming sessions I've ever had, both as a player and GM? THey involved little to no dice-rolling. Because dice weren't necessary.

Bull

This is exactly what we are talking about. Combat is the one and only place where you can and should have universal rules for an RPG. It is the place where characters are the most likely to die so having a good set of mechanics to simulate this danger and to ensure that the Table knows how it should go down is essential.

Here's a mind blower -- SR4 is no better and no worse than D&D4 at resolving out of combat activities. It can't be. Or else you'd end up with the most messed up, 2000 page rulebook you've ever seen (FATAL anyone?). There are essentially an infinite number of possibilities outside of combat (limited to imagination) and no game system has ever gotten close to a true mechanic for resolving ALL of them. The simplicity of the D&D4 mechanics and its focus on combat allows each individual Table to decide how it wants to make believe -- well written, exciting, and balanced combat make sure that every table has fun in the deadliest portion of the game.

So I guess the question comes down to how much rules cruch do you want interfering with your game of cops and robbers -- D&D4 is more rules light (options heavy) whereas SR4 is rules heavy (options heavy)?

Just wanted to comment on something Bull said in the Rumors thread. Specifically it is about lack of resources.

The awesome thing about the Encounter/Daily set-up is that it is very easy to modify to be any length you want. In fact, Silent7Seven Games has done just that with a product called Rugged Adventures. Now they made theirs pretty defined with a Short Rest now taking 6 hours (instead of 5 minutes) and an Extended Rest taking 2 days (instead of 6 hours). For those who aren't D&D4 literate, this means it takes a full night's rest to recover your Encounter powers and a full weekend of rest to recover your Dailies and Healing surges. It makes for a slower paced, more resource management system.

Okay, let take the changability of this system and instead of placing hard time limits on it let's instead place plot limits on it.

The team has just finished a run and is going into down time. The group gets an Extended Rest before going into downtime but is only given a Short Rest at the end of it because it is 2 weeks and they aren't sure when they'll get work. The Street Sam's player loves combat and for shits and giggles gets into a bar fight thereby using 2 of his healing surges. Everyone else plays it more moderate and uses their various feats to build/repair stuff using a modified Ritual system (I was using it for everything like Forgery, Vehicle Modifications, Spirit Summoning, Ritual Spellcasting, etc -- Martial Practices kind of gives a guideline for this). So when the call goes through from the Johnson they have all their powers but the Street Sam is out 2 healing surges going in.

The story is this: the team is hired to extract a kid from an MCT facility. They get the kid back to their safehouse where they soon discover that he has weird abilities to control machines with his mind. They foil a couple of his escape attempts while waiting for the heat to die down. The moral dilemma is that he has been experimented on mercilessly (first aid reveals that his head has been opened multiple times) and that he says if the team doesn't let him go he will only suffer more at the hands of new scientists. Let's say, for the sake of argument that the team has some moral fiber and decides to help the kid out. They meet the Johnson and tell him they won't go through with it sparking a fire fight. They then have to dodge the Johnson's strike forces while trying to get the kid to a safe haven in SSC lands. The story ends with them placing the kid in protective custody in Bellingham.

Breakdown is this: accepting the job, extraction, escaping the heat, escape attempts by the kid, convincing the runners, refusal/fire fight, chase scene, setting up the safe haven, crossing the border, ambush in the forest, arrival in Bellingham.

Armed with that knowledge of the scenes the GM can now decide how tough he wants it to be in resource management. Let's say he wants the post refusal part to be difficult resource management but not killer. So he makes all the combats from the fire fight to Bellingham be at level or level - 1 (normal or easy not tough). But he doesn't let them have any extended rests and only a short rest after crossing the border. He also decides to call the extraction a dungeon with the kid as the treasure parcel at the end. Thus no extended rests while doing the extraction. So, using the pacing and naming of a play, here's the scenes of our 1 act Shadowrun:

1) Accepting the job, extraction (extended rest) -- remember the Street Sam is down 2 healing surges until after the extraction now
2) Escaping the heat (extended rest) -- can make this one a really tough encounter since they get an extended rest afterwards
3) Escape attempts (extended rest)
4) Convincing the runners (extended rest)
5) refusal/fire fight, chase scene, setting up the safe haven, crossing the border (short rest), ambush in the forest, arrival in Bellingham (Extended rest, likely downtime)

I can guarantee you that the 5th scene will be really hard for the team. Of course, unless the GM is being a total dick he should forewarn the players about how this will all go down: "Okay guys, we are starting an extended action scene. You won't get a short rest until you are across the border and no extended rest until you deliver the kid." Street Mage: "Guess I won't try to end this fast by using all my Dailies then." Street Sam: "This is going to hurt..."

Sorry, heavy index finger

As long as you understand the deepest conflicts, the crux of the resolution, was combat. It is the kill things and take their stuff game.



I'm not going to argue that, to be sure I will never sit at a D&D 3e/3.5e table again (yes, never is a long time, and if the zombie of Dave Arneson rose out of the grave and said "hey, want to sit in a 3e game I'm running" I'd still turn him down....and not because he might just snicker-snack on my brains the first time I failed a saving throw). Except D&D 4e still isn't about who you are, it is now how can you synergy with others in combat. Which is interesting, for sure. I like a lot of what 4e has done. But the interludes become cut scenes, relatively speaking, as...



I argue that was just the symptom of unresolved disagreements. It fell down the rungs until combat became the 'solution' and then it failed there too because there was no framework for resolving it in combat, either. Putting lots of rules in for combat but anemic support upstream just re-enforces players behavior to head to combat when you really want something done (or whine/bluster/screw with peoples, primarily the GM's, head).



Ah, the false dichotomy of dice and roleplaying.



Yet where was the conflict? If I and the other people around the table all agree then we could stay at home and write out our fanfic. You could chalk it up to "art through adversity" I guess. With the dice there as grease you can push harder, farther, deeper. You discover things that you didn't know, nobody at the table knew. I've seen those emotional moments without dice but the most sterling examples, certainly the most consistently delivered, are when roleplay included the dice.** They were the grease between the two forces of nature (AKA players) headed at each other in opposite directions.

Certainly as the GM it is much easier to push hard, to bring a challenge. Otherwise constantly with a "well how would this happen, with no uncertainty?" and "am I being fair here" tying one arm behind my back. Can't bring the A-game heat when you are holding back on the pitches.


** Note: No, I am not talking about D&D 3e or 3.5e. It has rules bulk with little to no support via an extendable framework. I would hazard a guess that the most disappointing, empty feeling, "incorrect" feeling result on a social roll I can remember was a Diplomacy roll made in D&D 3.5e.

I loath my ISP

Its a conceptual thing, not a play thing. In every edition of D&D even if you pick the wizard your ability to hit goes up with new levels regardless of if you ever have pulled a knife. I know that at level 10 my wizard will be better with a dagger than he was at level 1, even if he has never used a dagger in combat. In contrast with skill systems I either get to spend my points where I want or only on things I use (Call of Cthuhlu for example). If the same thing happend in Shadowrun as D&D then my firearms may go up even though I never have used a gun. This breaks certain concepts, I can still chose never to enter combat but my points were spent for me in a way that has nothing to do with my character. It would be the same as if your Street Samurai suddenly got better after 100 karma with sorcery even though he has never cast a spell. Sure he doesnt have to use that ability but if you concept is a street sam who doesnt trust magic users... your concept was just smashed by the rules.



That depends on how focused your game is on combat. Look at something like Vampire where when my social character can beat your combat character by telling him to go for a walk in the sun when you attack me and if you fail your "will save" combat is over and you go for a walk in the sun. I mean that was literally 2 or 3 die rolls and combat was over. Unknown Armies is another great example where you dont want to get into combat because one shot from a gun and its time for a new character. These games tend to spend less time on their combat rules because combat is not what the game is about.

Wow. You haven't ever played D&D4 or else you don't play at a table with much imagination. I've found that lack of imagination is the primary reason why tables latch on to sub-par core mechanics and also why they don't tend to encounter the problems with said faulty core mechanics. You realize you get skills and feats on top of combat ability and you get to pick where you want to put said skills/feats?

i think his main issue is that of the BAB, and how it goes up with class, not with how skill(point) deployment.

btw, CoC's basic system only allows a skill to increased if it gets a good roll during play. So no skill use, no increase.

Also known by nicknames such as The Rambo Philosopher. Present in varying degrees through out the history of D&D.

My main issue wioth 4E D&D is that unlike 3.0 and 3.5 is that it seems at the 3000 foot level of combat, everyone does the same thing. One thing the got rid of was mind control spells, IIRC. The other point I'd make is that the system is basically designed for running dungeon delves. Which if that is your thing. go for it. THe minitures rules supports this. It is also of the heoric type (which while fun at times, does lessen the challenge), this means PC death is rare and that mooks are insignificant.

In the end I picked up just a few of the 4E books, even ran a few RPGA events, but ultimately lost interest. Part of that is that I have 2 groups that I play shadow run with, one where I am the sole GM and the other where I am a player. THough we have 4 people that are the same in both groups.

What he said...

My problem with D&D isnt the out of combat stuff, it is with the combat stuff. Its a conceptual thing rather than a rules thing. D&D (any addition) forces you into a combat roll because as you level you automatically get better at combat, you can ignore going into combat but your character sheet still shows the improvement.

I wish I had recordings of my groups "sub par" imagination for you... I think you would be shocked at how little we roll dice and how much improv acting goes on. For instance in our Halloween game we played for 12 hours all in character and we had one die roll as a PC was confronted by a vampire and got off one shot (the one roll) before he died. The rest was all investigation, it was a modern day haunted theater game. I suppose you would say Ars Magica is a sub-par system because has a terrible combat system, but the game isnt about combat its about being a wizard and researching spells so who cares if the combat sucks your never going to use it. Its like adding a combat system to settlers of catan, its never going to come up so why bother.

[edit] I'll admit some systems can be sub-par.I think that as long as you are not throwing in house rules its ok to be sub-par. Why? because the game didnt really need those rules if the situation comes up so rarely that you don't care about sub-par rules. D&D doesn't need to spend 20 pages on how to properly craft a sword because it doesn't come up that often. I could say it has sub-par rules if I want to run a game around crafting or... I could pick a system with more intricate crafting rules. I dont want Shadowrun to become D&D 4e because now I'm being force to take my non-combat style game and use a system designed around combat or choose a system that better fits my style of play. D&D 4e is great at what it does but what it does well is not a game I'm interested in playing. And yes I have played several games of D&D 4, even with some of the guys over at WOTC (Thanks guys it, much like the 3e games you ran for me are always enlightening into the mechanics), and I will say the dynamic combat was really well done and amazing, skill challenges are interesting (need some work on them though) and all it all its a well designed game, its just not for me.

[edit2] Shadowrun 4e already forced a few character types (and I will admit most were more obscure ones) to vanish as playable characters while taking others that were as obscure if not more so and pushing them into almost the norm. I just don't want this slide to continue further because it at some point will force me to only play older edtions and not buy new books and that would be a sad day seeing how I've been playing SR since 1e.

My groups have always played D&D and SR for different reasons, in D&D regardless of edition it was for the thrill of battle and the new and shiny stuff that could be gained from it, including advancement.
In SR it was for the run, gathering intel, assembling gear and trying to avoid combat so I could collect those Karma points.

Grexul

My screenname is missing an 'x'.

I will keep it simple and only talk about 3 of my players
I love 4eD&D
Player 1: Loathes it and hates getting hit in combat. [They are doing it just to make my last 20+ years of playing worthless and whines and take it personally when he take more than 10 points of damage].
Player 2: Has not played in 15+ years who walked right in and loves it.
Player 3: Who is Apathetic to the System, he just want to Bash Monsters.

The same basic group is part of our SR game.
Player 1: Dislikes SR, but it is the only game in town for him [There is not enough combat for him and we don't loot the bodies for treasure]
Player 2: Has been enjoying it.
Player 3: I bad at SR4 Characters building, but has come up with some good chatacter concepts.


As far as D&D I think player 3 has is right. It is Dungeons and Dragons not Barmaids and Blackmiths. Yes you can play a non-combat campaign, heck 4e makes it possible to make it to 30th level and never get into a fight. But that not the point of the System. You could also run a SR game where you spend 10 minuets getting and planning the mission and the rest of it is firefights.

As a friend of mine puts it.
D&D Adventures are Home Invasion Robbers.
Shadowrunners are professional Jewel Thieves

A D&D version SR4 should play more like Black Hawk Down than The Kingdom.

To the Reverse a SR4 version of D&D should play like Ladyhawk rather than LotR.

*bing!*

Or Potters & Ploughmen. D&D is, has always been, and always will be... a gateway RPG game. No more, no less. Hit the monster, get the loot. Easy. 4E took a simple concept and stripped the BS to permit accessibility. Which was the right move.

"But... but I could do so much more with previous editions!" the nerds doth protest shaking their Tomes of Horror in the air.

"No," I reply. "No you really couldn't. At least, not within the rules as written. Everything you think was great was actually what you accomplished through improvisation and imagination, not RAW. Which is the bloody point."

D&D has always been the RPG equivalent of a chain restaurant. Tastes fine, perfectly filling, but not particularly challenging to the pallet or inspired... though once in awhile something unusual will be introduced that will make you sit up and take notice. D&D has the power of THE BRAND and funds to hire professional illustrators. That is all.

I enjoy 4E. It's fine. But D&D is not the best RPG product ever created nor even the best fantasy product. There are many current and out-of-print products that I could hold up as contenders; games that actually, by RAW, utilize large lists of craft skills extensively, etc. etc.

I played 2nd edition. It was terrible and I felt like I had wasted my time and money. I was brought back into RPGs by a friend who wanted to try 3.5. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't particularly great. D&D 4E isn't great either but it's definitely not terrible.

If you can accept that D&D is and will always be a flawed game with a simple and fun premise, you can begin to enjoy life a lot more.

The other thing to remember:
The System is Unimportant
The System is all Important

That a mean with this is they system is important to how the game feels.

Modern/Cyberpunk
If you want gritty realism like Blackhawk down, d20 modern isn’t going to do it, the PCs will have to many HP and will feel invincible. If you are planning on running the A-Team, it works perfect.
I am currently running a Modern Sci-Fi/Horror Game. I started with Twilight: 2000 than went to SR2. about 3 months in SR3 came out. Then d20 Modern came out and to get “Player #1” involved I went to it. Now I am back to SR4a. It is working good, but for a few small thing like the one players “Horn of Vahalla”.


The same goes with Fantasy
For Lord of the Rings you want something like GURPS or Roll[Rule]-Master.
If you want Hawk the Slayer D&D is the way to go.

Personally I want my Fantasy games to be quick, deadly [for the monsters] and a little over the top and D&D 4e fits that bill perfectly.

DISCLAIMER: as I post this, I haven't read any other posts in this thread (I'm moving a reply that I was going to make in another thread here, as this thread is more relevant. I apologize if I repeat anything that anyone has said so far here)



One of the things that I like about the way that the rules are set up in D&D4E is that (in theory) there is always a "broad" rule that applies (this, in fact, is the basis of two of the "Three Basic Rules" laid out on p.11 of the PHB)...as opposed to SR4, which lacks such an assumption. There are at least three extremely opinionated (rules) arguments that I have seen in the past few weeks based around the fact that there is only one "rule" that can be cited in SR for something that happens to be an arguably limited scenario. The argument then degenerates to a he said/she said debate over whether the rule cited is the "default" rule.

(As an example -- the printed rules for stacking armor in SR are pretty much limited to the passage on SR4A p.161: "If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies." Now, one point of view is that this rule means that the default rule is that any non-worn armor stacks. Another point of view is that, since the only way that someone can gain Armor in the core rulebook (without using something that explicitly states that it stacks with worn armor) is to wear armor, the default rule is that armor does not stack.)

Of course, one needs only spend the barest of time perusing the official D&D forums to see that they are rife with arguments about rules...which, as you pointed out, tend to be pedantic as hell. D&D4E rules arguments tend to boil down to what is or is not a "specific" rule.

I won't even get into comparing D&D4E movement with SR4...mostly because the movement rules in SR are such a mess (as rules); the SR movement rules are perfectly serviceable as storytelling devices.




Personally, the more things that a game system requires that I put points into or roll dice for outside of confrontations, the more limited I feel as both a player and a gamemaster. While I certainly don't think that *every* character should be able to write Oscar-worthy films while winning Top Chef, the Pulitzer, and the Nobel Prize for Physics, a player whose character is a former chef shouldn't have to be constrained by die rolls to take a job as a short-order cook to fill the time between runs.

(Or, to go to an example where the game-world fiction failed when game rules were applied: there was no way (using D&D rules) for Bruenor to forge Aegis-Fang until D&D4E was released (and, based on how the character has traditionally been statted out, even then you had to wait for Martial Power 2 to have an entirely "mundane" version of Bruenor that was able to craft a magical hammer. In this case, we're talking about a major character is (arguably) the most influential set of D&D novels that violated the game rules for 20+ years; yes, he only ever crafted the one item, but...someone hung up on the rules wouldn't have let him).

"Never let the facts get in the way of a good argument." -- P.T. Barnum, 1875

I feel exactly the opposite. From the time I first started playing D&D4, there was something about the character sheets that made me deeply unhappy, and it took me a little while to figure out what it was: almost every single thing on it pertains to combat. Although, in the specific example you give (a PC who is a former chef taking a job as a short-order cook) I would not require die rolls, and would disapprove of any GM who did, I emphatically do not subscribe to the school of thought which holds that every single interaction other than combat should be handled purely through roleplaying. I believe that clear rules for non-combat activities richen and deepen the game. Roleplaying is certainly good and desirable, but if I, the socially awkward player, am playing a slick-as-oiled-glass con man, I definitely don't want to have to rely on my own (nonexistent) fast-talk abilities to sway an NPC. That's what dice are for.