Recently, I've been thinking about Shadowrun more often, and I've been trying to work out a "Shadowrun Lite" rules set to use to sort of ease new players into it, and ease myself into running it (Not much experience running the game, and none running it in 4e). As part of that, the introductory stuff I'll be working with will be lighter on most everything - no full Magicians, spirits, Technomancers, etc.

Another thing I'm trying out for this is using alternatives to IPs. I'm starting with basically new-to-tabletop-players here, so there are a couple of reasons I'm hesitant to use the existing IP rules - some are ease-of-play, some more personal-desire/personal-opinion.

In place of IPs, I'm hoping to use a pool of charges. Characters with implants, etc. that gives them these can:

* Use one to perform an additional Free action during their turn.
* Use two to perform an additional Simple, likewise.
* Use three to perform an additional Complex, likewise.
* Use one or more, at any time, before rolling, to add automatic hits to a Reaction or Agility-based test.

The pool refreshes at the beginning of each turn. My thought had been that anything that adds IPs would instead give you the same number of Swift actions. But obviously they aren't as valuable (I'm not 100% certain yet on how the bonus hits look in terms of power/value - they'd obviously be much better if you could use them after you rolled.) as acting additional times, so they probably shouldn't cost as much[1]

So, to try and summarize an overlong introduction:

* Imagine that, instead of +REA and additional IPs, Wired Reflexes grant +REA and (Rating) charges from the pool, as above. What cost would you assign to them?
* Would it be better to make the pool (1+Rating), as a single additional Free action wouldn't be that exciting? (Not that you ever really see Wired I on runners...).
* Given the relative rarity (in gunplay, at least) of Complex Actions for combat characters (unless they're using a melee weapon), should something else be offered in exchange for 3 charges to incentivize going for Rating 3 implants?

In terms of overall goals, I'm mostly looking for them to be useful enough for the cost that characters are interested but not so much so that they feel compelled to take them. If I end up using Adepts, I'll probably use the discussion here as a basis for recosting Improved Reflexes to match.

Thanks for your time,
5i


1 I had considered the option of keeping costs substantial to make them rarer and drive down their attraction to combatants, but it seemed like too much to make them both less powerful and costly for their power - I want them to be interesting-but-not-vital, not awful.

That's interesting, but did you address the problem of sequence? In earlier versions of SR, you got to act 3 times before the other guy moved (or vice versa), and that could be a problem. At first blush, it seems like someone could get a silly number of lumped actions here, too?

Free Actions can be pretty useful, so I wouldn't give them away like candy.

If you want to drop IPs, perhaps replace additional IPs as optional rerolls. The player can choose to reroll a test, taking the new result, even if it's worse. They can reroll as many times as they have bonus IPs. They can save their IPs to reroll defence or resistance if they choose to, but any that remain unused by their next turn are lost.

Mandatory linkage to the one thing of any value I've done.

Yeah, that's one of the things I'm worried about. Currently, the idea is that you don't subdivide the round, so the character could get off his spare actions alongside a full complement of normal actions, which is worrisome.

Just to be clear, my original though was that you'd be limited to the same number of "charges" in the pool as you would additional IPs in the standard system (i.e. no more than 3 Charges per turn per person, maybe more in VR where I think you can get up to 5 IPs - don't know if that would require being a Techno, though.)

I wouldn't let people further subdivide the "bought" Complex into two Simples, so off the top of my head the worst you're going to see +1 shot or burst with a typical ranged weapon (Wired 2+ using 2 charges for a spare Simple) or two swipes in melee (Wired 3 using all 3 charges for a spare Complex.)

The absolute doomsday scenario would be two full-auto bursts (Wired 3 req'd) in the same Action Phase - Recoil accumulates by Phase, I think? I don't know if that'd be enough to compensate for a combat-focused character's dice pools and gun modifications, though...

With the Free Actions, my top-of-the-head possibilities list seemed mostly on the side of things that would be neat but situationally useful, but I'd forgotten Call a Shot. That possibility certainly makes the Free actions more formidable.



This might be a good replacement for the auto-hits option, because a reroll would magnify an existing large dice pool rather than providing a flat bonus.

Don't forget Take Aim (inc. optics to negate range penalties), Quick Draw, etc., given the right Martial Arts or Powers.

Ha, it's starting to sound like Combat Pool redux, though.

Synergistic benefits aren't necessarily terrible, of course - if anything I'm inclined to want to think that anything that makes people use the charge pool for interesting character-specific benefits related to their other qualities instead of just attacking more often is a bonus. With a small pool, they'd have to choose between using it for the Free action benefits and using it for additional attack actions - so they could shoot twice at +2 each time, or shoot three times with no benefits.

Do you think the potential for front-loading actions is dangerous enough to scrap the idea altogether? Or is it just dangerous enough to merit charging standard prices for relevant 'ware and abilities even though the overall actions-per-round will be less?



That's perfect - I can claim that I'm augmenting my 1980s cyberpunk with some "retro" rules as a stylistic element.

Wired reflexes from the book are massively overpriced. You need to come in with more for less to actually be good.

@OP: TBH, I think you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot with this whole concept. What you're describing is radically different from RAW, and IMO won't really help you "ease into" running SR4 (your stated goal). My advice is to run a couple of one-shots where the only characters allowed are street samurai. Get to grips with the standard combat rules, without worrying about magic, socialization, or the Matrix. Then run a scenario or two for magicians, to get your feet wet with the magic rules. Then do the same for social interaction and hacking. Take it one system at a time; trying to rewrite a major part of the core like initiative will get you something that, as I said, isn't really Shadowrun and won't get you any closer to being able to run Shadowrun confidently.

If Wires are overpriced, why do people use them? Me, I like having IPs.

I think I've read that thread before...In fact I might have read it back when I was last looking at SR; around the time when the germ of this idea formed. Thanks.



Is this "Wired Reflexes specifically" or "IP adders in general"? My most recent experience was on the Adept side of the equation, where early-game resources are pretty slim if you don't add 'ware (which I generally don't) so my perspective may be skewed on cost-benefit. My scheme was to see what people suggested as a cost for the 'ware side, then moderate the magical side to be similar in terms of investment.



That's a fair assessment, and some good advice - and it's certainly how I would do it if I were running the game with my old play group. But here my goal is less "running SR4" and more finding a way to run "mostly-Shadowrun" with my essentially-non-gaming friends. Some of the scalebacks are likely going to be permanent, so even if I never reach full system mastery this way it's not necessarily a loss - the player group probably wouldn't be up for that game anyway. Playing the game at all is taking precedence over playing the game with all the systems intact. Would you say that IPs are such an integral part of the game that I'd be better off not running SR if I don't want to use them as-written?

It's not that it would ruin the game, but how much easier is the 'lite' version, anyway? You're still rolling Init and taking turns, and as you say, the number of actions is about the same.

Wired reflexes in particular - level I is priced okay(ish) but II and III are just stupid.

If you use synaptic boosters as your price baseline, but remember they are effectively 'invisble' to detection, and attract a substatial price premium because of this, so you need to discount if you make it cyber not bioware.

Totally worth it, because you're dead.

Hmm. I had seen it as substantially fewer actions. On the level of half-or-less[1] compared to someone with the omnipresent Rating 2 IP adders that are practically standard issue on combat characters. Also as a result of reducing the effective value of the adders and therefore making them less ubiquitous. As you say, under the core system they're practically a necessity. So I wanted to make them less drastic in effect, avoid having a staged-out combat turn. I went with a pool because I can easily physicalize it for players to get a better feel for the options available (i.e. "Each turn you get (rating) tokens. This index card tells you how many tokens it costs to do x,y, or z...") and because it seemed like a good way to restrict how much it can do on a turn-by-turn basis...

I might be wrong-headed in this, however.


[1]: For example, a character with a "pool" of two can shoot three times a round...whereas a character with WRII can shoot six (two times each IP, three times a round)...Even a character with a pool of three can only shoot three times or melee twice, compared to a character with 4 IPs doing 8 simple or 4 complex actions...

Well, the wired-up enhanced reflexes are such a staple of the genre that anyone with a passing familiarity with cyberpunk is going to get the idea. That being so, I don't worry about reflex boosters being 'ubiquitous' on combat characters. That's the setting--combat is DANGEROUS, if you're not jazzed up and riding the bleeding edge of capability in some way, you're liable to end up with your hoop shot off--so professionals augment.

From a less fluffy perspective, I've run con games where none of the people had played Shadowrun before, and some had never done a pencil and paper RPG before. Explaining initiative and running them through combat with characters having a different number of actions always worked fine. Running combat is WAY more straightforward than teaching non-roleplayers how to do legwork, for example.

Initiative enhancers and extra actions are definitely integral; initiative passes per se are iffier. If you're trying to simplify initiative, I don't think you're succeeding. YMMV, obviously, but your pool system strikes me as being actually more complex in terms of things to think about. Instead of "I get X turns per round" I have to do long division in my head: I can take p free actions, or p/2 simple actions, or p/3 complex actions, not to mention all the possible permutations. Frankly I'm having a hard time seeing how to simplify initiative without scrapping extra actions entirely, and then you might as well be playing d20 Cyberpunk. This is something I'll have to give more thought to.

Overpriced, how, exactly? I'm guessing you're talking essence costs?

From my perspective, WR II is the best buy in the game. With WR III, you're getting (far) diminishing returns; WR I, on the other hand, is a waste of money and a third of your essence: just take Cram if you want an extra IP. WR II is a nice sweet spot - and yes, IPs are important enough to give up half of your essence capacity. There is no better use of half of your essence than to get + 2 Ip, + 2 reaction.

Unless you want to go with MBW II, which is way better than WR II. Not every gm lets you take restricted gear, however, and there's nothing stopping you from ripping out your WR II and installing MBW II when you get some nuyen.

I don't know if this got across, but it's not that you have a pool which replaces normal SR actions-per-phase and then these add to that pool. You have your standard SR turn, and characters with IP-based ware or Powers or combat drugs also have this secondary pool that lets them either take a limited number of extra actions or add hits to relevant rolls. The pool is from 1-3 (maybe 2-4) and things cost 1-3 - I didn't think that would be too complex. You can take either a spare simple or spare complex, and possibly one additional free actions, or a bunch of spare free actions.

I thought the spendable pool would give a little more customization while still limiting the number of actions. A more straightforward method would be:

WRI: You may take an additional free action each turn; +1 REA
WRII: You may take an additional free or simple action each turn; +2 REA
WRIII: You may take an additional free, simple, or complex action each turn; +3 REA

This removes "buying hits" aspect - which I think reduces the value of WRI (Unless you've got something that needs a Free) and WRIII (Because unless you're going full-auto or melee you're not going to get much else done with that Complex than you would with the Simple). I also thought buying hits gave a secondary option for people that wanted the wired reflexes as a character thing but didn't want to manage multiple actions each turn (because they could just blow the pool on a defense roll or whatever.)

I had considered only having WR boost dice pools (no extra actions) but I do think that having a few extra actions - just not as many as the core system - is worthwhile. Plus, dice pools are big enough already, and WR are well entrenched enough in the fluff that they ought to have a distinct mechanic associated with them (just possibly not one as powerful and ponderous as whole multiple turns)

Leave the system alone. If your goal is to teach new players, then keep the game as Core as possible. Keep your first games combat lite to lessen the need for IP boosters, or encourage everyone to get them if you want mainly combat.

Don't introduce house rules until you and your players are confident that the Core rules are broken or insufficient.