Im GMing my first Shadowrun game shortly and I put together a list of personal house rules that I use when GMing and I'd like to get some feedback from players how they'd feel playing with this set of rules

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Character Creation
I have a small cache of “off books” items (mostly weapons) and I will allow MOST of them to be used; I do however reserve the right to yank/modify them at any time if I feel there are balance issues (these items are un-tested) but I will not do so without sufficient compensation. You shouldn’t be penalized for my lack of quality control.

I don’t follow the gear availability rules too closely. The point of Shadowrun is that you are established individuals and barring the more esoteric and heavy duty firepower, you’ve probably had a chance to get your hands on some pretty wild stuff. I may veto some things because of availability or practicality but if you can make a convincing case why you should be allowed to have it, I’m willing to listen

I allow one free contact at character creation with a loyalty/connection rating equal to a character’s Charisma (maximum of 6/6). This contact must be approved by me.

I allow players to exceed the normal 35 point max for qualities provided it’s kept in a reasonable range and the player can give me a convincing reason why they should be allowed to have extra.

Gameplay
I’m not a rule lawyer, I don’t always go by the book and if you can make a convincing case for something I will usually let it slide. If you have a serious issue with a rule, write it down and talk to me about it after the game. If it’s about something that MUST be decided at that moment, I will probably come up with a band-aid solution for that session and deal with it more fully afterwards.

Recoil with weapons is not fixed; a dwarf firing a heavy machinegun at full auto will have a harder time controlling the weapon than a troll will. Your Body and metatype will be a factor in recoil compensation. A +1 recoil compensation bonus is provided for every point of Body that is 5 or higher. Orcs receive a +1 recoil compensation bonus and Trolls receive a +2 bonus, but only if the Body score is 3 or higher.

Edge can be burned to save your life. If you are in a situation where death is certain, you may opt to burn one Edge point to coax the Hand of Destiny to save you. You won’t escape unscathed, but you WILL survive that particular event. Note this does not prevent you from crawling out of a burning building only to be run over by a bus; it simply saves your bacon once.

Tests or skill ratings are not required to do basic four wheeled vehicle driving IE: Basic commuting, highway driving, etc etc. Anything more complicated will require a test.

You and you alone are responsible for the rules that govern your character. Because I allow the use of ANY 4th edition books, rules can get confusing and forgetting is not a mortal sin. I HIGHLY recommend you have a small crib sheet with any specific information for your character that isn’t on your character sheet. Forgotten rules are NOT retroactive for anyone (myself included); if you forget it, it’s gone, remember it for next time.
I do not follow Shadowrun vehicle damage rules strictly; I usually modify the core rules slightly depending on the situation.
Side conversations and jokes are perfectly fine, but keep one eye on the game. Pianos have a habit of falling out of passing cargo planes when someone isn’t paying attention.

I award Karma for clever solutions to a problem (not necessarily on if they WORK or not) and on good roleplaying and handling of a character. Talking your way out of a botched Social test with good roleplaying is a primo way to earn lot of Karma. Having a one-dimensional character or a lack of character development is a good way to lose bonus Karma.
Racial max for attributes is not fixed. I allow artificially jacking your attributes up as high as you wish, just be aware that the body was not meant to be treated in such a fashion and the consequences for “overclocking” can be serious if engaged in repeatedly or for a long period of time.

Keep track of your ammunition. I operate under the assumption that the average runner knows to keep his ammunition in clips or belts or whatever so I don’t care about that, so long as you are keeping track of how many bullets you have. If I ask about your ammunition and you don’t know or don’t have any marked down, your weapon will suffer an automatic critical failure and jam.

If you are used to having a printout of house rules for other games, then this may be the norm and thus be OK.

I usually stick to games where our house rules can fit on a 3x5 notecard. Not that we ever print the house rules on such a card.

BlueMax

If you're running a VERY VERY freeform and powergamer setting... it's fine. But reading through I recommend against pretty much all of it... Reading through this... I see one thing recurring... the only rule is there are no rules only my fiat.


A rating 6/6 contact is exceptionally powerfull. You'd be better giving 1 contact w/ sum of loyalty & power and then to vet them very closely. EG: cha7 elf w/ a 5/2 or 3/4 contact is still pretty good for free. Or a Cha2 or 3 street sam w/ a basic fixer or ammo/arms dealer contact...

Availability is easy enough to swing depending on setting... it's just supposed to set a baseline of starting equipment as opposed to stuff available later. The primary purpose of availability in-game though is to establish how hard (AND LONG) it is to get and how much extra you'll be paying (if you can get it at all).

Read these forums... you'll find players can come up with stuff to justify pretty much anything and everything and it just opens up pandora's box.


As far as house rules, you haven't really made any except to say that you're big on Rule0. And that instead of rules, you're setting up a very freeform setting which is apt to change on your whim.

Example: the dwarf is just as strong as the orc in question (base str8, vs base str8 on example orc, body scores are the same at 6)... but is far closer to the ground and far more stable.. Generally putting things higher off the ground leads to more leverage problems for keeping them stable. Yet you're arbitrarily being a 'racist' against the equal strength dwarf for what reason? Orcs and trolls don't already give far more in BP advantages than they cost?!

Another example is roleplaying your way out of a botch... at that point why bother making up character w/ sheet... it's the PLAYER playing himself... not the character. The PLAYER may be the ultimate face and fast talker... but if his cha is low and his influence isn't great... his CHARACTER isn't. I'm not saying, don't encourage it... but you should be a little more aware of the player/character differences. Either the numbers on the sheet have some meaning or they don't.


Also, you've never GM'ed the game and as an observation you're already doing radical changes to the ruleset...

Yeah, I am like the Space Baby here: I got nothing.

To me, these rules just are not necessary. Shadowrun has a decent rule set as is... It isn't perfect and there are things that actually do need better explanation but I have played through 17 years and 3 editions and the only major problem I have ever had is the damn matrix rules! Most things can be worked out on the fly or with minor adjustments...

Especially in Second edition...

Hmm very few actual house rules here. For example, driving generally does not require a vehicle test, so your rule changes nothing there.

Rule 0 is also part of the game, and alot of the rules are already described at being "at the GMs discretion."

Your recoil rules favors trolls and orks obviously. I don't mind dwarves with heavy weapons (in fact I think it's a staple of the setting), but you want to discourage it for some reason?

I don't get your rules for racial max. Since there is no fixed max, humans can get more than 6 in their unaugmented attribute right? And then it can have consequences if "jacked" up repeatedly or for a long time? So what happens if I buy Willpower 9 for my human?

Burning Edge: This is already allowed of course. But by your rules if you're in a difficult situation you could risk burning Edge repeatedly in a very short amount of time. As in your example you burn edge to escape the burning building, then so you won't die from the truck, then after a piano drops from a plane and hits you while you're lying on the ground (said to be a common occurrence in your games).. and then because a mugger shoots you in the face while you're lying helpless under the piano.

As for the character creation, I mostly agree, I allow most things if people can convince me it has a good story behind it and would be good (fun/moodsetting/whatever) for the game.

You may say that, but I don't agree. Sure they may be able to somewhat justify it within the setting of the game. But that does not mean I think it would be a good addition to the game (specifically, anything overpowered might not be much fun for the other players, and might also hurt the difficulty curve of the game severely)


I also think that this seems like far too much. If I wanted to encourage contacts and charisma, i would probably give people something like [charisma + 3] contact points to be devided on at least 2 contacts. That will give some much more realistic contacts (6/6 implies the local mafia or yakuza boss is your brother on good terms or something along those lines). If memory serves there is an optional rule to give charisma as free contact points? that still seems within reason, what you are suggesting is pretty much double that!



That is the pretty much game as suggested by the core books.


Carefull with this! You may not like the hard caps on non-magic characters, but removing the limits is pretty wild.
If you are afraid your runners will eventually cap their most important aspects and be left hungry for more. Make some really epic quest/ritual/whatever that will allow them to raise one attribute by a single point, this should be a kind of ultimate challenge for the player and his character, and require alot of help from the team. But don't do such things untill you are far into the game and the player knows his character well, also, only allow each character to do this once.
At least that is what i would do if my players start disliking the limits too much. But again, not untill far into that game, around the time where the "magic" characters start to become alot more powerfull than their non-magic fellows.


In my oppinion, one way to make the game easier on new players is to keep ammunition in the realms of handwavium untill they have a bit of experience. Once they have that however, they better be on top of their ammo. Jamming weapons seems a reasonable way to punish the lack of "ammo-tracking". Another way would be for the opposition to seem to get a grip of themselves and get a bit more coordinated (that is, as a GM, one might heal them a bit, if you know your player cheated with the ammo)


Those was not so much house rules as descisions for wether to follow the rules or not. I think you need to be very critical with what you allow as to not cause imbalance between your players, but i agree that if something fits the game well but isnt allowed per the rules, its often a good idea to allow it or make it happen.

These are system breaking house rules. Why, as a person GMing his first game, would you introduce rules like these? Also, do you know how recoil work? Do you know how Dwarves work? Dwarves receive a strength BONUS, as they are VERY strong. Why are they not given your magical arbitrary bonus for recoil? If anything, they are short, and a low center of gravity would give them a BONUS.

Your rules will do nothing more than ensure that everyone takes a orc or troll to take advantage of higher attributes.

See, you get a troll with no racial maximums, then his social attributes and mental ones take no hit.

Trolls become a tall human, with super high physical attributes, and the ability to have the same type of social stats as an elf.

Why take the elf? Why take the human? The bonus +1 edge is no longer an issue since you have no racial maximums.

Everyone in your game is better off being troll combat mages with heal, improved reflexes, and strengths of 10, and heavy machine guns.

You should just play the game first, then if you want to introduce a bunch of really dumb rules, go ahead, but at least know how your rules will effect the game, by actually KNOWING the game in the first place.

Allow unlimited stats to erase racial penalties, but then harp on players over tracking ammo? Wow, just wow.

As others have said, a free 6/6 contact is extremely powerful. There is a danger of a "team" of elves who just use all their contacts to do everything for them. Personally I'd rather leave charisma out of the equation and just give two free 2/2 contacts at character creation similar to how SR3 did it.


Like others have said, if any race should get a recoil bonus due to fluff, it should be the dwarf, not the troll, due to the lower center of gravity. I'd caution to just not opening this can of worms in the first place as once you start making rules to be "realistic" in light of fluff, there is no end to the modifications that are "justifiable."


If the player elects to go play on the freeway of his own free will, he deserves what's coming to him. However, this just screams of petty GM. Burning a single Edge should apply to the entire scene or scenario that lead to the character burning edge and, in addition, get the character out of any continuing peril. If the character goes up in an explosion, he need not burn an additional edge because the GM is being spiteful and has Doc Wagon declare him dead (and make sure he is) because they don't want to eat the medical costs of another sinless shmuck caught in the blast.


If keeping track of ammo is important to you, having a bottomless kevlar bag of ammo is kinda weird; any more than three or four extra clips would put a serious crimp on any activities a runner might try. Rather than playing Accounting: Ammo Edition, a good compromise is to have players keep track of the amount of ammo they have currently in their gun, rather than how much they have in total. This forces reloads and tactical thinking without the accounting mini-game. That said, enforcing the limitations on just where exactly the street sammie has put his 300 rounds of Ex-Ex, 60 rounds of APDS, and 200 rounds of SnS for each of his five different guns can lead to forcing strategical thinking as suddenly the sammie can't count on having ammo on the way out, if he blazed his way in by shooting everything that moved.

When we use house rules, they tend to be very small tweaks; more often, they're actually just consistent interpretations of ambiguity in the existing rules.

For example, sometimes we say that the max avail at chargen is 10R instead of 12F, when we want to dial things back a tad. Or that all taser weapons do their fixed damage. *shrug* But we only make (tiny) changes after having tried it the 'right way' more than once.

I have to jump in on this. It's a contact with rating equal to Charisma! Not a free 6/6 contact, it's a free contact with a cost equal to the "free contacts points" optional rule, but at a set rating (eg no 2/4s and 4/2s for a CHA 3 character).

This is a great idea. I find sticking to the 1/2 dozen or so worst offenders is the best.

I prefer the rather common house rule, that you gain CHA x2 free build points to put into Contacts only (kinda like the free build points for Knowledge Skills derived from INT/LOG).

Bye
Thanee

I understand what he said. My point is considering the power of a 6/6 contact, making an elf and dropping 3 points into charisma is of little additional cost unless the playing group completely marginalizes social conflict and interaction.

This rule, taken to one of it's silliest extremes, produces a team entirely of elven runners. For any and all runs that this team takes, they would ask their contacts to go send some goons to do what the PC's were hired for. Meanwhile, the PC's are sitting on their butt doing nothing, all session long.

I think I should clarify a few things.

Attribute Max- I allow people to exceed the Racial and Augmented max for characters at their own discretion keeping in mind that, like overclocking a computer, doing it has serious consequences. IE: Bob is a Human who has a Reaction of 6 but has augmented it to 9, his max. But he jumps into a car for a high speed chase and wants an extra edge so he adds more to the equation and bumps his Reaction up to 11. His head was not designed to handle that and as a GM I would rule that he could maintain that only by taking a box of stun damage per minute that the overclocking was active and if he REPEATEDLY does it then he could start suffering permanent attribute penalties or end up with a psychological disorder. The body simply isnt meant to take that kind of punishment and I allow players to temporarily overclock characters, I make sure there's a serious cost to it so it isnt abused.

Dwaf/Troll- I'm not penalizing Dwarf characters. If they have a body of 5 or higher, they get the bonus as well. Orcs and Trolls get an automatic bonus for sheer size and weight.

Edge- Edge as I read it in core enabled the character to DO some amazing things. I was thinking of allowing it to be used (Granted I'll probably change it to 2 edge points instead of 1) to physically change the world. IE: A cache of ammunition explodes several feet away from him a character. Normally deadly, the player burns 2 edge and as the explosion goes off, a metal crate hits the player and shields him from most of the blast, throwing him back into a wall. He has a shattered arm and leg, broken ribs, punctured ear drums, and is temporarily blinded as well as having only 2 boxes of physical damage left but he is alive.

I know I set out some already spelled out rules, but these are things I've seen as a player that sometimes NEED to be spelled out. IE: With the karma awards, it helps let people know that going "bodycount" is not going to be very rewarding.

See: Red Lining, Augmentation.



Well, duh.



Ouch. Expensive. And for little end result compared to RAW, as well. Burning two edge to not-die is not a good deal. If you want to limit its use, make it once-per-character and then don't fuck them over.



...how do you think it works by RAW? Your example (other than being left bleeding with a broken leg*) is exactly what would happen by RAW.

*Good luck getting anywhere alive, chummer. What'd you burn that edge and get, anyway?

Again, these rule changes are not really necessary. There are smaller fixes that work better for things that are actually kind of fiddly.

Eh, YMMV.

I would say that you being a first time GM of Shadowrun. I think you just need to play a session and then see what you need to change. You don't need these rule changes if you, as a GM, stay vigilant and help your players stay on the up and up with their PC's

Yeah, a 6/6 contact is too much. I would use the optional contact rules that are official or I liked the CHA x 2 in contact points thing as well.

There's already a rule for Str-based recoil comp, right? Starting a Strength 6 for 1 RC. Given that Strength already does less than other stats, doubling up the power of Body seems far worse.

Sheer size and weight of a troll have nothing to do with recoil. Recoil is a function of the blow back of gas when a semi automatic weapon is fired.

being heavy all over your body will have very little impact on barrel climb from a rifle. The size of a weight, unless it is on the barrel, which they have rules for that, do not matter.

That troll with a 6 str and the dwarf with a 6 str will have the same effect on recoil.

Your over clocking example makes no sense either. Are you saying that you can now only temporarily boost attributes past racial max? Is ths like through magic ,and cyber with an off/on switch?

You will then create some extra side rule to go with over boosted attributes? Wow dude. You added some dumb house rules and then added more book keeping to go with it? All this is okay, just as long as your group tracks their ammo, or fear the wrath of the jamming gods.

Remember, you asked for feedback on these rules. My feedback, FWIW: dumb, dumber and really freaking stupid. Don't be offended, as you wanted feedback. I am harsh in these responses, but you asked, and I feel like, as a GM, I need to save your group from a crapatuclar RPG game, as these rules suck. They suck badly.

I suggest that you play a few games as close to RAW as possible and then you and your players can decide on some house rules.

I have to say, currently playing in a somewhat fast-and-loose game of SR right now, most of these rules are pretty great. Dumpshock is missing a premise that Socinus hasn't stated.

The player's aren't there to powergame. They're there to have fun, and if everyone realizes this, relaxes off of the rules-lawyery and gm-wankery slightly, starts working together - then the characters really start to develop interplay, social relationships, and commit crimes for a living. The things that make SR great, core things - instead of bothering to wonder how much bonus social dice you're going to get from whatever-the-fuck your street cred rating is now.

That being said: My opinion.

Body and Recoil: Like it. Puts more emphasis on Character's handling their weapons, and less on their Gear and how twinked out it is. However. Orks are -already- good enough, and don't need more benefits, nor do dwarves need more penalties. Personal balance opinion: Body's already good, would use Arsenal's Str-for-recoil rule, and bump the levels it kicks in down by 3-4 points across the boards. Clarification: Orks and trolls are -already good- and you're -making them better-, which drags down everyone else by a notch.

SR Vehicle Damage: Yeah, if someone tried the I'm Rubber You're Glue Doberman(Doberman+ram plate. Its low body, high armor and speed means it bounces off of everything), the response from the GM i'd expect would be something along the lines of 'Do you know what happens when a truck hits a small dog? Yeah. Crunch. Sorry.'

Burning Edge: A-okay. That's how its supposed to work. How do you handle Burning Permanent Edge for an automatic critical success?

Trivial Shit Doesn't Need Rolls: Pretty sure this is in the book, too. Fine by me

Availability: God, sometimes I do wish people were so flexible about availability. Some of the things dont make sense, and restricted gear doesn't cut it for everything. RG for Move-by-wire, milspec armor - okay, hell yes, justified. RG for a top of the line civilian processor chip - response 6 is availability 16, fuck, doesn't Shadowrun have Newegg by now? Other random annoyances, like you can get high explosive grenades, but not emp grenades?

Ditto Quality limits. If you have a cool concept, that -isn't incredibly broken or powergamey- i'd rather see it played than something that is within the rules, and min-maxed to hell and back. A GM who will work with you on that is a godsend who want to do something neat. You know, something like 'Well, this character goblinized randomly, but still has an edge of 7, via Lucky, cuz she used to be human. Can I take it past the quality limit if I balance Lucky out with an equal number of negative qualities?' as opposed to. 'Well. Shit. that idea got shot down. Oh well, I guess i'll use restricted gear, born rich, and cheese in debt to roll a cyborg.'

Attribute Max Increase: Personal Opinion: That is absurd, gamebreaking, and exactly what Edge is for - if i'm reading it right and you can artificially redline implants and cyberware. That kind of leads the Adepts hanging, ruleswise, but also makes the sammies a bit more competitive. Personal Balance Opinion: Would apply Cyberlimb Redlining(possibly with the Overdrive Edge Test) to -any- cyberware, but no bioware. You can push yourself - at the cost of burning out. I would also consider allowing players to buy their attributes up to their augmented maximum via karma(only) - if they really want to pay out for it, why not?(Especially in the case of Intuition-tradition mages, who get int6/will6 and....and that's it. They'll never get more than 12 dice on drain, barring some foci or buying expensive Focused Concentration qualities.)

Free Contact: If you toss out that table in the book that says 'my rating 6 contact can swing me half a million in free shit, neener neener neener', and instead think 'okay, you(player) want me(contact) to do something for you. Roll connections+xto see how he does it'. Personal opinion: I'd use the 'free contact points = 2x karma' houserule, and limit it to connections/loyalty 3/3, 4 if you've got a good reason - if you want people in high places, you should pay for it with points. This option is also a little more flexible, because it opens up options like 'Hm. Free contacts? My lawyer, my accountant, my money launderer, and my dad.' as opposed to 'hm. Free 5/5? middle manager at evo *shrug*'. But it does alleviate the 'okay, i'm almost done chargenning, now do I want to be effective in my role or do i want to add some depth' problem.

Ammunition and Rules familiarity: If a GM asks their players 'well, you did spend 5 nuyen each to buy Spare Clips(Seriously. 5bux in the firearms section) for all those bullets, for all those guns, right? Guys?' just adds kind of annoying, tedious bookwork to the game. Keeping track of your bullets, and being passingly familiar with the rules for your character is common courtesy at any game table. Encyclopedic knowledge of obscure rules shouldn't be required, but when a player has intimate knowledge of the rules and can explain it clearly, consisely, and come up with snappy answers, it contributes so much to the flow of the game - Same for the GM - being able to bullshit their way through an odd situation without bookdelving is great.

Its probably just me, having not experienced rules-lawyery second and third edition, the horrendously long pizza-run decking sections, or even firsts 'you have to roll individually for each bullet in a burst' rule and other nitpicky-rules-shenanigans, but I think there's a bit of an Edition Disconnect between older players and newer players. 4th at times seems more geared towards more cinematic, visual, speedy sessions than I had heard about the game - and its nice if you and your group can embrace that. Its even better if you realize that character optimization and good roleplaying aren't mutually exclusive. Just my two cents.

Socinus, i like your style, and I bet you run a great table. I have to admit, i'm quite curious what your players think of your games - if any of them have dumpshock accounts, it'd be nice if they could share first-hand experience - whether its good, bad, different - for the way you run your game.

Civilian processor? Where did you read it was civilian?
HE grenades couldn't kill my niece in her pajamas.

There's a sidebar in unwired, somewhere, detailing systems with device stats above 6 - and that its bleeding edge milspec stuff that could very well be the target of a shadowrun itself. Besides, beta-grade cyberware is device rating 5 out the door, and anyone who's a citizen with hospital access can get that. Upgrading a device to response 6 isn't that much of a stretch. Expensive, worth more than a month's rent for a regular dude, sure.

A comparable real-world example would be those fancy new six-core intel processors that cost over a grand each.

Say what you will about grenades. I've found they're rather effective with airburst links. Like any other weapon, from warhawks to longbursting assault rifles, they're best with a high dice pool, the right specialization, and a smartlink.....but their effectiveness also depends on Anniversary vs NonAnniversary, so there's that.