Yes I do. And whether you can see the target is largely irrelevent in this case, since we know exactly where the target is in the example. The concept at question is in fact that characters in shadowrun can pop off shots at things that are very far away in a short period of time so long as they know where the target is. This is actually something that Shadowrun has never ever done well as far as shooting is concerned.

In SR3, you could pop off a shot at max range from the hip at no penalties against a target so long as you had a scope. In SR4, you can do the same thing, but using the scope itself takes an action. That's a baby-step towards the kind of realism you are complaining about SR4 abandoning. Let's ignore the whole question of whether you can "see" your target for a moment, because for your example to hold any water you have to know where they are. We are seriously talking about the modifiers for your opponent having an opaque shower curtain in front of them, not the modifiers for you having to guess the location of a distant Charlie.

Shadowrun has always allowed people to take shots at distant targets in the same time it takes to shoot a near one. That's bullshit, I know. We all know that shooting a sniper rifle as a sniper rifle is a time consuming process of calibration, calculation, and aiming. Shadowrun has never had any rules that required you to do that. Ever. In SR4, they introduced some - scoping in on a target takes a simple action. That's extremely generous. Extremely generous. But at least it's something. Previous editions didn't have that, scoping in on a target took no time at all.

Um... no it isn't. That's the problem with your whole argument, it's not true. Performing difficult actions requires you to hit high thresholds (whether they be generated because of having an opposed roll generate thresholds or simply having thresholds that are high in the first place).

Consider hacking into the Commlink of a security hacker. In order to actually do anything, you need to get Admin Access (Threshold + 6), and to get in at all you'll need to get past the firewall (Threshold 5). So you need to accumulate 11 hits on your Exploit + Hacking Extended test. That's fine, you don't even need to be that super to get that - on average you'll need to roll 33 dice and that's well within the capabilities of any serious Hacker PC in 3 tests, and within the reach of even a dabbler in 5 tests. But wait! You get apprehended if the node's Analyze test gets a number of hits equal to your Stealth (max = Threshold 5). Even a lackadaisical security Hacker is going to hit that in 2 tests, which means that your ass is grounded. Hacking into that node is in the realm of extremely unlikely for even the most min/maxed Hacker Adepts and Technomancers. They have to switch to cybercombat and try to dump those guys or keep their hackings so circumspect that they don't get caught in the first place.

Yeah, a dedicated Hacker can perform easy Hacking tasks (give tasks to a shared printer, spam the crap out of a message board, etc.) while bleeding profusely and wracked by a spirit's confusion effect. But performing actually difficult tasks (inserting yourself in as an Admin of a secure node, deleting IRS history data, etc.) is actually difficult.

Now, you may consider shooting a gun at extreme range on short notice at a known stationary target to be a "difficult task" rather than an "easy task". I actually somewhat agree with you. But the game doesn't. The game considers shooting a target at any range on short notice to be an easy task. Every past version of the game has come to the same conclusion - firing at extreme range, or any range is simply an obstacle that is removed if you have a frickin telescope.

Your underlying complaint is actually false when you look at the actual success resolutions in the game. Your specific complaint is not any more valid for SR4 than it is for SR2.

---

But you'd know all that if you actually internalized what we've been telling you for months of real time.

-Frank

You are correct, and I understand that - but there has to be a limit. I can see a second printing to correct errata, or event to correct a rule that was found to be broken one it was exposed to the flames of DS. But the fanbase has to stand up once in a while, quit being sheep, and tell the companines that we're tired of having the books redone every X years.

Yeah I can, and will stick with SR3. And eventually, I will not be able to play anymore becuase I will not be able to find 3rd edition players anymore. Either becuase 4th took off and is doing well, or Fanpro killed the game.


Everyone is complaining the the RPG market is shrinking - for a whole host of reasons. One of those reasons is shelf life. How long do you want your RPG investment to last? A couple years? a decade? Longer? I bought SR products for over ten years, and I expected to be able to continue to play for a great long time. The gaming industry however is preventing that.

But I ramble on.

Sr4 = Bad. *Smacks club against tree and returns to cave*

Uh... What the hell are you talking about? Shooting in SR4 at long ranges is easy, period, and shooting with a scope in SR3 is also easy, therefore both games work the same way? That's an interesting sort of logic, there. "These two sets of circumstances are different - therefore, they're identical."

I think that sums it up nicely. I really don't have a problem with a new edition coming out. I don't even have a problem with having the rules completely rewritten (I've had frequent and massive rules arguments in SR3).

All in all, I'm not sure SR4 is getting a fair shake from the oldtimers. SR3 has a lot of problems as a game system that are easy to forget when you've been playing it for 5+ years.

I think you are onto something. Sometimes people don't realize what they are putting up with until they are shown they don't need to anymore.

But I am still chalking it up to problems in SR3 have cleansed a large number of people from the player ranks. The ones remaining are those best able to cope with SR3's warts grating on them session after session.

Without SR4 I likely wouldn't be playing Shadowrun anymore, I was close to being purged. Hell who am I kidding, I was purged. Not just because I was having trouble finding someone to play it with. For a while I might have still occationally bought SR books, I do like the setting a lot. But eventually I would have just gotten too sad to even do that. Sad that I wasn't playing anymore, but not sad enough that I would go back. Sure SR3 said it still loved me. But then it would get drunk and the hitting would start again.

I'm glad they didn't mess with the setting too much, although I will miss CC. I'll wager at least 8 out of 10 SR1-SR3 players do. But all that cool CC stuff is still sitting there on the shelf waiting to be reread. Hope Fastjack carries the torch well.

which is one of the things i don't like about the system. the conditions surrounding a highly skilled character do not hinder that character from completing otherwise easy tasks--the character might not complete the task with as much finesse, or whatever, but he's able to get it done most of the time. there should be times when conditions stack up to keep even the most skilled character from being able to perform, but they don't--not until you get into the realm of the truly ludicrous. the example you give is an opaque shower curtain, for the sniping thing. here's a better one, and one that's more likely to come up: you're in a firefight at night, trying to shoot dug-in opponents you can only spot by their muzzle blasts.

if they're opposed, yes. otherwise, most tests with thresholds seem to be extended--it may take longer, but even on 3 dice, you're going to get the task finished within a few tries. moreover (and this is in the vein of comparing SR3 and SR4, not really a direct counter to any argument you've made), difficult tasks in SR3 were also difficult.

which leads back to my other big complaint, which is that GMs have to lay out thresholds themselves for many tests, based on whether or not they think the test should be hard or not.

believe me, i know all about those problems. to be honest, i'm really not all that happy with SR3--when i first heard SR4 was coming out, i was ecstatic. it is still my opinion that SR3 needs to be replaced, just not with SR4.

QFT.
I shall now go back to my hole and get the hose.

I think that's the most scathing review of the SR fanbase I've ever heard.

Wha? Please elaborate, as I haven't the foggiest what you're talking about.

~J

I have to say I don't have reason to believe that's not accurate.

As someone who has played both riggers and deckers and run the game with both, I can say that allowing them to happen in-game is a recipie for delay at best and a headache and argument at worst. One thing that SR4 does right is putting the hacker right there with the team, on the same level of reality even if it looks like they lifted the general idea from Cybergen.

I haven't played SR4 yet, and am still reading the rules. I dislike some of what I see and like a lot of what I see. If you've already invested the time and energy in fixing SR3, then I can certainly reluctance to do that kind of work all over again with a new system.

Oh, rigging from a cyberdeck. Yeah, I'll grant you it doesn't work well—it's beyond me why they even tried to make it possible. I wouldn't exactly call that mutually exclusive, though—at least not moreso than ranged and melee combat (what with melee being a complex action and all that, preventing you from firing a gun in the same pass).

There are, but I have yet to find anyone who can adequately explain to me what, exactly, it is about the rules that is so difficult. IIRC there was a lengthy thread a while back trying to answer that question—at this point, I'm fairly well convinced that it's a combination of the perpetual bane of Shadowrun (that being absolutely atrocious organization), a few difficult corner cases (multiple illicit deckers in a system), and the reinforcing effect of everyone saying that the rules are a nightmare.

On Rigging, I've got nothing. I don't think they're as difficult as they're made out to be, but they're still a mess.

~J

honestly, if i do anything drastic about the SR3 rigger/decker rules, i'll probably just port over as much of the SR4 rules as possible. aside from the few portions which leave me screaming obscenities while i claw out my own eyes with a handful of rusty heroin syringes, the matrix/rigging portion of SR4 is pretty swell.

I'll accept that, although what has long kept me from being interested enough to bother was just that – not being interested in decking or rigging. Then I got to play pseudo-drone rigger with a street sam, and well… I'm a drone rigger whore now.

ok ... This is a huge piss off of mine. Sure the decking rules are broken and need some tweaking, but a decker almost always has to go with the team. I have house ruled, that matrix/real world happen at the same time. Your neurosystem is only so fast, anyhow, most of the intrusions that I have run with a decker actually have him/her with the team. There are so many little electronics/system things that come up that require having a decker there. I have cut off otaku, since I think they are just silliness, and go by the old decking naked rules. The decker might have a firearms skill, but it will just be one, and basically along for consultation, cracking, and other finess jobs.

SR4 didn't put a hacker with the team, it basically just forced to take a look again and play the archtype like they should have been. I think AR is over the top, and everything running off a simple commlink seems really stupid to me, but I already argued about the wireless world in another thread.

My biggest gripe is that I think deckers/hackers/ etc should pay more essence for their craft. not all datajacks/commlinks are created equal. I think that even though there are great advances in neurotech, they should have been treated more like VCR's. Actually, I would have like to have seen them integrated in sr3.

That is a start, but off the top here is my list of the problems with decking:
[*]1 Exersize in bean counting. The most obvious of this is tracking memory usage by the programs. Sure I can add up numbers and keep track of them on the fly. It just isn't a whole lot of fun.
[*]2 Another initiative system, that didn't really match up with the rest of the game.
[*]3 Another game system with its own way of doing things that didn't really talk to the other computers in the game, the rigging.
[*]4 Building a separate game world for one character. Not quite double the preparation, but a good deal more unless you tried to wing system descriptions.
[*]5 Overwatch or everyone else goes for pizza and beer. Breaking into buildings or traffic overwatch were applicable such a small percetage of our time.
[*]6 Patience of the other players. Sure I wanted to deck, but the burden it put on the game cost other players time. So I didn't. I have heard people say their table had a standing bounty on the head of any PC Decker, and it was more of a race to see who could leave him dead in the ditch first.
[*]7 Rigging/vehicles and the rest of the SR3 rules. If it didn't take so much of an investment so much in the rest of the sprawl, or if you could reuse some meaningful part of that investment, then there might be something left for decking. Is that fair to decking? Not really, but that is the way it was. If you were looking to cut out some deadwood to give breathing room decking was the nature choice because it was usually cleanest. Vehicles were a close second to get replaced with some sort of handwaving, but they remained PC used. Decking was NPC realm because a Decker of note took huge creation resources for just having the GM roll a couple dice every other session for you to look up somebody's name in the phone directory. Yes that is an exageration, but the player involvement was very minimal unless everyone else was looking to go for pizza and beer.

Hard? Better described as painful and confining.

Congratulations, you have just houseruled the rules from canon to canon.

I'll address Brahm's claims shortly.

~J

[1] it's not rocket science to add up a few numbers, but it should be easy to have a few utlities loaded. If you find it a problem, just have a max of 3 programs running. (or have the number of programs and levels limited by the sophistication of the deck.

[2]agreed, we just made things happen at the same time, since some actions needed to take place at the same time. (houseruled that a commlink could be hooked up to the deck so that the team can communicate, but you also stand the chance of being detected)

[3+]we always just made sure things happened at the same time. Generating a host system isn't really diffucult. I used to whip up a system based on the layout of the building. everything from lights to coffee,pots, but it is not really difficult.

yes, but with the same initiative dice. I just used basically what was in sr2 with some updating of course for system detection, and changed supression.

It is not about rocket science. It about being a hassle. So you are suggesting to play without a full deck? So then I have to go through and cut and burn and adjust another section of rules down to something more feasible to fit in?

Much easier to just cut the whole thing.


That is really what it came down to. SR3 was such a sprawling clunky mass that it didn't all fit. Decking wasn't the hardest part of the game, but it was the easiest to cut out. So out it went.

I am a post-whore tonight.

the flame war about editions has seemed to die down since both sides concede there are problems with both editions. What we are starting to see now, are how people get around the problems that they see. (this is worth hanging in for)

I guess I ended up doing the same as you did for fixing up SR3 decking. I just saved myself a huge number of hours of twiddling with rules and just bought it instead. Maybe you've heard about the product? Even at the cost of a Limited Edition and a PDF it was a steal of a deal.

I would have done the same thing if I liked their implementation. Twiddling worked better for me. Heck I am still stuck on SR2. (yes, I like the magic system)

this thread is about which one is more likeable.

How is SR2's magic system different? I never played it.

That's sort of what I mean and sort of not. Most runs I've been on, the first order of business is to set up the decker in a secure location on-site (often by tapping in to a jack point and posting a guard with him) while the team progresses. Then again, I find the idea that security systems are designed in such a way that they can be hacked to be stupid. I have real life experience with security systems and hardware, some of it higher order stuff, and I just can't understand why corps spend millions of nuyen on a facility and then use accessible and hackable computers to do the security. There are exeptions, of course, but most low-mid security facilities shouldn't have the kinds of systems that can be decked.

Anyway, you'd think that after the 30th shadowrun hit they'd learn to run a few wires and do it with hardware. It's not like the majority of the sensors and alarms in the books are high tech or even beyond today's capacity. They're even lacking some common sense things that are available today.

Anyway, if you were one of those rare groups that could run decking and rigging concurrently with regular combat and without significant houseruling, congratulations. You're better than 90% of the people playing the game. Judging by the number of GMs I've met that simply disallow decking, it's probably closer to 99%.

EDIT: FYI

1. This is how
2. you do numbered lists
3. in your posts.
4. Just quote this post to see how.

• You can also
• do bulleted lists.

Which is entirely subjective, has no answer, and is an exercise in futility.

It sounds like he did significantly house rule it. Trimmed it down a lot.

Welcome to the Dumpshock Forums. Have a nice day! *grin*

that may be true, but most monitored or centralized Immediate response systems today use computers

and if you think those aren't hackable you have never known the right people

A friend of mine went to RuxCon (big hacker convention) and came back with new data
one trick was a way he discovered to get root access to a Unix or Linux shell in about 12 seconds

he did this on a secure linux server to demonstrate to us

if anyone wants to know the theory, I will give bits of it out over Private messages only

eh, mneh. i personally get a lot out of these. i like dissecting the games i play and seeing how they work/don't work. whether or not anyone changes their mind isn't really the point, at this stage. finding the filthy SR4 players in order to strike them down with ninjas is the po--er, i bear them no ill will.

I can't agree with this. I'm not even in the top 50% of SR GMs, but back when our group had a decker I certainly did run all three at once. It was approximately as hard as running three combats for groups in three different places: trickier than running one combat, sure, but not as ridiculously hard as people are claiming.

I should note, though, that my rigger and decker both understood the parts of the rigging and decking rules that applied to them. If my job had been to teach them the rules while running the game, I'd have had a rougher time of it. Perhaps that's the problem?

I think that's a lot of the problem. If you have a rigger player who knows his rules well, a decker player that knows his rules well, and a GM that knows both rulesets well (and has done the legwork up front to be ready to run them), then it's doable. However, I've never had a chance to play in a group like that. Often the GM isn't up to speed on decking (which is kind of sketchy in the BBB, anyway). The rigging usually happens, but often times the GM finds it difficult to deal with drones and vehicles without blowing up the entire party in the process.

Believe me, I've played a rigger and if the GM goes into rigger vs. rigger combat and doesn't know the rules inside out, it's going to get rough.

However, if you're playing once or twice a week and SR is your primary or only game, this would likely pan out pretty quickly. The problem is that most groups don't dedicate themselves to just one game, which makes learning multiple, intricate rulesets difficult at best.

I showed SR4 to my gaming group over the weekend. Half of our regular playing time was devoted to asking questions and checking results. Conclusion: Rejected in mass. It seems we'll stagger on with our tired old SR3 rules and our house rule patches (Of course our group house rules TWERPS) rather than try the new, shiny SR4 Yugo.

So... you showed a veteran SR3 group the SR4 book during a play session and people were confused? Gosh, I'm shocked. Absolutely shocked. It's a 341 page book, it's unreasonable to expect an entire group to read it and understand it and make characters and play a game in a single sitting.

That's like instead of doing a Pepsi Challenge, simply shooting someone in the nuts with a can of Pepsi and asking if they'd like their Coke back.

A better test might have been to lend the book to each player for a week while continuing your SR3 game. Then, once everyone has gotten a chance to actually read the damn book, have a character generation party and play a game that way. That's what our group did, and we've never looked back.

Making everyone play a new game they haven't had a chance to read all the way through and internalize is asking for trouble.

-Frank

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

~J

It never got as far as making charcters. Some didn't like the basic mechanics (Attri + Skill), other didn't like the new wireless hacker/rigger system and our mage player just about shot flames from her eyes when they found out what they did to spellslingers.

The only thing it does to Magicians is removes riggers from competition for the top character class spot.

About the only thing is if you are moving characters over and don't move their metamagic with then, then a well develop magician is going to take a hit until Street Magic comes out.


EDIT

Unless you have some sort of emotional attachment to the clunky rules wierdness about how Hermetics handle spirits differently than Shamans. Of course the player is free to play the Magician handling spirits in the old school way only.

Yes, some of us do have an attachment to the idea that different things do things differently.

~J

I mean an unhealthy attachment. Since the old Shamans and Hermetic divide is still in there. The old magicians are just a subset and the divide isn't forced on players as part of the RAW, although the GM could still enforce it.

I am glad to see the "which domains are here again" rule question go away.

.....No. There is NO SR4 divide between hermetic mages and shamans in SR4. None. Whatsoever.

Why? Because they are the same damn thing. They're identical tradition. One spirit different, swap one attribute. That's not even as different as totems in SR3.

Saying they are different is like saying a body 5 str 6 adept is different from a body 6 str 5 adept, when they possess exactly the same powers. You can't tell the difference in any way but looking at the character sheet. As opposed to hermetics and shamans, when there's rich differences in the rules to support the differences in flavour.

**

And as for the spell slingers? Lets see.. some of us actually liked the idea of some spells being effective right from the get-go. I like the idea of some spells being tremendously useful from low force. Some of us like how someone with high skill can make a low force spell worth something, rather than a joke. I like the skill 10 spellcaster throwing a force 1L stunbolt and knocking out the troll Sam.