I consider catgirls and furries much more shadowrun than anything from Earthdawn. Given the possible bodymods in the 6th world, it would be strange if neither was present.

Surge and Ghostwalker on the other hand... ugh.

Different strokes and all that. I'm not a fan of the transhumanism angle that 4th ed brought to the game. I like my Cyberpunk more traditional in style, and I like it mixed with a heavy doze of traditional fantasy as well.

Fortunately, we can focus the game where we want, tone out the stuff we don't like, and somehow, we're still playing the same game. That's one of the things that really makes Shadowrun unique, and why it has had such a mass appeeal.

Bull

Though once an "optional race/piece of gear" becomes used in official products such as adventures, missions etc. it becomes less easy to dismiss. If T'Skrang were put in, and started to appear in sourcebooks and missions the general value of those would go down for me since I had to do more work before I could use them in my campaign.

That's why I'd keep the "official" world as presented by books and runs not as open as the options from the game books. It's better to let people add transgender catgirl furries, pixies or sentient lizardmen to existing runs than to expect them to cut them out.

I don't really have an issue with SURGE, as a concept, but I don't like how it got so catgirl and furry-focused. But, as a counterpoint, I really loved the mention in Shadows of Asia about people spontaneously SURGE-ing while bathing in the Ganges during the comet's passing. I think that was an example of how SURGE could be handled in a really neat way.

Similarly, I don't have an issue with Ghostwalker as a badass, fuedal-style dragon. I just wasn't happy with how he was introduced, which seemed heavy-handed in his favor because some of the writers just thought he was so cool. And I still hold a grudge against Ghostwalker for ruining (in my opinion!) one of my favorite sprawl settings, the Front Range Free Zone, aka Denver. I actually like the idea of a city being taken over as a dragon's domain, but I wish it hadn't been Denver.

Speaking of Shadows of Asia, aren't Obsidimen obliquely mentioned in that book? I want to say sightings around Lake Baikal in Siberia but I'm not certain of that.


P.S. I just voted WotC ... to ruin Bull's morning!

Yes, I do think there was a little hint at that in SoA.

Why Ghostwalker is stupid:

A dragon beating the crap out of a small group or a large group with no magical support or military arms: Good!
A dragon beating the crap out of a military force of third world grade: Sure!
A dragon beating the crap out of a first world or corporate military force: eh?
A dragon doing the same to six such forces at the same time: .....what?
And then sticking around to dictate terms to said forces without getting a thor shot dropped on him: Ghostwalker.

I guess the only place in the sixth world where military arms and six world tech aren't a joke compared to the all mighty Earthdawn wyrm's is Germany.

I company that doesn't treat Earthdawn as a good source for Shadowrun books and plots would be nice. Less Dragon/IEs, more cyberpunk.

*cries*

Though there is this part of me that would find it fascinating to see what WotC could do with the Shadowrun license, if they threw their (and Hasbro's) weight behind it.

Bull

[quote name='Bull' date='Apr 21 2010, 02:22 PM' post='919300']
A ouple things to add, since it was late and I was tired when I posted last night, so I should clarify...

1) Jordan, from what I know, does really love the Shadowrun universe (and Battletech

... and didn't try to shoe-horn it into d20/D&D 4e. Maybe take a few risks to go more cutting edge. That could be interesting.

Some risks like what was done with WHFRP 3.0, it has some interesting things going on with it. FFG just really pooched on laying out how to actually use the mechanics for social conflicts and other non-combat things. And pooched on Social Action cards. ((maybe to come with the new products, I noticed on a quick browsing they talk more about how to use tracks in one of the chapters of the booklet that comes with the GM screen))

Hell, I even think it'd be interesting to see what they would do if they did convert to D20/4E. It would likely be an atrocity, but it would be interesting to see what they did (and didn't do).

I haven't had the chance to look over WHFRP 3, as it's currently out of my price range. WHat I have seen looks interesting though, but I have no diea how the mechanics play or anything.

Bull

I didn't buy it either. I'm just leeching, though I did buy my own dice ($12 touch). Custom dice, every roll is, roughly, an opposed binomial die pool. Except you roll the dice for your opponent/opposing conditions as part of your pool. There are multiple different kinds of a 'good' dice and 'bad' dice that get added to the pool, very visceral connection between the dice and what's happening ingame. You tap cards to take an action, with a count down till availability for reuse of that card that varies from action to action. Track damage/stress/fatigue with cards and tokens. The mechanics are a kissing cousin from the world of boardgames, and it looks like that even more-so than it plays, but it definitely is still an RPG.

Okay, I've played SR since 2nd ed, but have never played D&D. Can someone explain what D20 is and why it'd be an atrocity?
Thanks!

There's nothing inherently wrong with D20 as a fantasy game mechanic for D&D or even D20 Modern titles and spin-offs like Spycraft. It's better than the horror that is THAC0 and the "gives you cancer" meme needs to die. Roll a 20-sided die to determine a success by adding or subtracting modifiers. If combat comes to play, use D4s, D6s, D8s, D10s, and D12s to determine damage (plus/minus modifiers).

However, switching SR to a D20 system would toss out the engine that SR has run on on for the past two decades. It completely changes how probability of success or failure are determined and what you need to play the game (a multitude of different dice rather than a brick of D6s).

Since it mostly got lost in the other thread, and is very on topic here, I'll throw out another scenario to add to the list above.

NECA - Buys the licenses from Topps to go with the rest of their WizKids purchase. Doesn't bother to buy an remaining inventory or unpublished content from Catalyst. Focuses instead on relaunching MechWarrior and reissuing Shadowrun Duels before rolling Duels over into a 'bonus feature' for the rest of their action figure line.

Wasn't there a Japanese sourcebook which pretty much contradicted most of what had been said about Japan in the English version, so was never translated and published in English?

Also, there was a Shadowrun manga at one point.

I see. While its certainly very satisfying for my troll grab a fist full of dice, it doesn't sound like D20 would be an atrocity. It kind of sounds like SR1-3 with less dice, though admittedly I've never played the system before. What am I missing?

Would this be good for the PnP RPG?

I don't think you're missing anything. People are just picky about what mechanics are assigned to what system. D20 is often viewed as the default P&P RPG system as it's Open Game License. Shadowrun as a game was designed around a (I think) proprietary system that has been tweaked and evolved over the years by the license holders but it's still recognizable from 1st to 4th edition. D20 would be such a radical shift that for many players it wouldn't feel like the same game anymore. The rules and the setting would be considered two different things rather than an integrated package.

To put it another way: Ponder all the bitching people did about the change-ups from SR3 to SR4 then multiply that animosity times 1000.

There's nothing inherently wrong with D20 but switching SR to that system would alienate an already tenuous player base.

I play both D&D and SR plus a few others and for me the mechanics of the games are part of their draw. If I only had to role a d20 to resolve combat in SR, it takes half of the suspense from the game and... what am I going to do with all those d6's?

Grexul

I would not like to see Redbrick do Shadowrun. While I like the work with have done with Earthdawn, they don't produce new material very quickly, and I would hate to see them spread any thinner than they already are.

Maybe if you squint very hard.

~J

NECA doesn't do PnP RPGs.

But they are sitting on a product line that's based on the Shadowrun IP.

D20 is very, very level and class based, and starts to fall apart when you pull it away from that. The inherent flaw with D20 is that it was designed for D&D, but marketed as a "Generic" system. WHen you start tacking on the D20 trappings to other genres and games, it really starts to have some issues. It also unbalances really easy.

The couple attempts that I've seen to have limited classes were... Weak, and generally left all teh characters feeling much the same. A few versions, such as D20 Modern, went the other route and you were expected to multiclass half dozen times. The problem there was balance. There were just some classes that were so much better to take, especially early on, that everyone had them.

You would lose a LOT switching to d20, in terms of feel and in terms of gameplay and game balance. WIth Shadowrun, you can have characters with 0 Karma and 200 Karma at the same table, and while the 200 point charatcer is obviously going to be better overall, he rarely completely outclasses the 0 point character. Especially in 4th edition, where you had short, hard caps for everything. The 200 Point character usually had a boarder skill and attribute base.

In D20, everything is based on level, inherently. It's a part of the system that I don't think you can really strip out without reworking it to the point that you're no longer playing D20 or even using the OGL. And a 10th level characteris so much better than a first level character that it's not even funny. A 1st level Street Samurai, no matter how min/maxed, is going to die against a 10th level Sec Guard. Hell, he'd probably die against a 10th level Decker, even if the Decker had no real combat skills, just because of the way the system works. (Hrmm, maybe I should see what happens sometime if you put a 1st level fighter against a 10th level mage in a straight up melee fight. I suspect the Mage still wins, just because he has enough HP and his BAB is high enough).

Anyway, yeah... YOu could do it, but it would change the tone and the dynamic of the game radically, and I suspect that the end result wouldn't "feel" much like Shadowrun. Mechanics are important to a game, the way a soundtrack is important to a movie. Replace The Dark Knights soundtrack with circus calliope music. It doesn't change the story, it doesn't change the plot, it doesn't change the acting. But I suspect it would drastically change the tone and feel of the flick.

Bull

Are we still talking hypothetically here? I've lost track. Because they're not, NECA bought WIzkids, but did not get any of the SR or BT related properties.

Just checking.

But yes, they do not do PnP games. Neither does Jordan Weisman/SMith & Tinker, or Tom Dowd (Or West End Games these days, sadly, I miss Star Wars d6). Hasn't stopped folks from voting for 'em

Bull

I'm presuming that while NECA didn't get the SR/BT licenses, they did get the patents and such behind the physical components and the copyrights to the rules which were used for MechWarrior and Shadowrun Duels. They could use the components and rules to do other games, such as adding Duels bases to their action figure line, but couldn't produce the content that's directly related to the SR/BT licenses, such as recasting the sculpts that WK has already made.

Similar thing with PocketModels. They can still make Pirates or other games based on the PocketModel concept, but they can't specifically make Star Wars PocketModels unless they get a new license with LFL.

It's my understanding that the licensing deals in place for HeroClix are different and are actually a transferrable property of WK.

Hey Bull,
Is there any possibility Smith&Tinker would license the IP and then sub it out to, say, Posthuman? Is that even allowed? (I really want my Shadowrun iPad app.)

Alright, this entirely unscientific study has yielded almost useless information. Of the 103 respondents so far, we know:

More respondents would like someone other than CGL to have the license than would like CGL to have the license.

More respondents would like CGL to have the license than any other company.

Posthuman or Smith&Tinker were the most selected alternatives to CGL (which supports my Smith&Tinker/Posthuman dream team, but then I have a major SR iPad app agenda I'm pushing...)

And with that, I'll stop posting meaningless posts just to keep this thread on the front page and let it die a natural death.

Thanks to all that voted. For the record, I voted 'Null,' but would have voted Posthuman, mostly because I'm just so darn impressed by AJ's handling of this ugly situation, because they have a novel distribution approach, and because prior to the fracas he tried to bring Tom Dowd back in.

The results aren't, I'd argue, intrinsically worthless, but I think the only useful information that could reasonably be extracted from them would have required some number of similar polls historically to compare to (one before trouble started becoming visible—before serious product delays started happening is what I'd peg it at, though since I don't follow SR4-related things there may have been other warnings that I missed). This could indicate anything from a crisis of confidence to the compelling nature of your fantasy candidates to simple DSer orneriness (it was certainly this for me—my choice was not influenced by company-internal factors, or even their external leakage).

~J

This might be a really stupid question but what is WHFRP is it the War Hammer RPG? If so you are saying that they made it to work with cards? Wow always thought that it was a regular RPG, can I highjack the thread long enough to have someone tell me what is good about this game?


EDIT: And I choose Tom just because how can you not!

Wait, really? Where the heck did I miss that news?

Hmm, FATE Shadowrun...

War Hammer Fantasy Role Play is the official name, I believe it has been since 1.0. It received a very extensive facelift for 3.0 released last year, re-constructive bone surgery levels of face rearrangement.

Dice is what is good. And the cards are kind a neat, it's well produced and the core engine of the mechanics functions well. Plus it went from crazy "forcing players to disengage and avoid conflict" nasty in the prior editions to a kinder, tamer "messing them up really bad and maybe permanently disfiguring your character" nasty. Less "whiff" (roll and nothing happens) while keeping the feeling of your character living in a world with a daily forecast of scattered shitstorms.

It was in one of the CGL speculation threads. Tom Dowd said that Adam Jury tried to recruit him back into Shadowrun recently (not sure how recently, but definitely before all this happened and/or came to light).