I'm one of those people that thinks that RPG rules should form the basis on which the rest of the game world is modeled. Game mechanics really set the tone and feel of a game, since they determine the plausibility and consequences of character actions.

Now, I like the SR4 rules. This isn't me griping about SR4. It's not like D&D4, which despite nearly 40 years of richly storied history has suddenly decided that innately teleporting elves should be a thing.

My issue is that I think the SR4 rules don't really represent

SHADOWRUN

in the same way that SR3 did.

I have a dilemma, though. There are parts of SR3 that I think are kind of bad. Things that SR4 has improved upon. If I didn't like these parts, I'd just go back to SR3 and pretend that FASA was still in business.

Examples (in spoiler text):


So this is causing me some distress with the game I really want to play and run. Do I ditch the SR4 setting and go back to playing in 2060, with SR3 (probably drawing some glares from my group)? Do I press ahead with SR4 and cross my fingers and just hope-hope-hope-hope that SR5 is gloriously Shadowrunny, whenever (or if ever) it gets developed?

Or do I pressgang the SR3 core mechanic into service for the SR4 setting, adapt the hell out of the Matrix and Magic sections, and try to pretend that my group doesn't think I'm a lunatic?

SR3 does have some issues (SR4 does too). And you're right, the mechanics define the world, and what is acceptable behavior. Because you're with a group, you will all need to come to a consensus. I cannot play with SR4 games unless I'm drunk. The mechanics are too loose and limited, and I get frustrated. I know people who can't play SR3, the rules require too much math. So that's your first issue.

If you're trying to do SR3, I recommend checking out the SR3R mechanics. It's a work in progress. They've reworked some stuff (including the matrix), have wrapped in some SR4 rules, and have clarified other things. I've been running an online SR3R game for a while, and it's worked nicely. Speaking of which, I need to post my 'house rules' for archiving there, since they were quite successful.

I disliked 4th edition at first because It was the most dramatic change to the Shadowrun rules. But now that I understand the Game Mechanics better, I don't ever want to go back. I have love and respect for 3rd edition, because without it, there wouldn't be a 4th, but....The Biggest problem for me is Variable Target numbers, especially in combat, they make things completely unbalanced. If you take any damage in SR3, your character is screwed, because having a +1 modifier to TN is a pain and anything more then +2 can be devastating. Having a TN of 5 vs a TN of 6, instead of making an action a little harder, makes it twice as hard, whereas a TN of 6 to TN of 7 is no more difficult. Variable Target numbers also make the chance of low skilled goon with a SMG on Full Auto, being able to do massive amounts of damage on a lucky roll, and your character is SOL if you used up your combat pool already. 3rd edition Matrix rules are a Nightmare, 3rd ed. Vehicle rules are even worse. When I used to run 3rd Edition, one of my Troll PC's took down a helicopter with a Dikote Shuriken. GMing 4th edition is SOOO much easier, I can have PC's and NPC's buy hits for tests that would be normally simple, drastically reducing dice rolling and speeding up game play. I don't have to keep track of every single NPC's combat pool. Hackers have more to do and the other players aren't waiting hours while the GM and Decker are playing out a Matrix Scene. Combat pool, while nice is very hard to realistically keep track of, especially with characters that have more then 3 initiative turns, I don't think a single game of 3rd has ever been played where a PC has not used more combat pool dice then they were supposed too. 4th edition has it's negative qualities as well (Emo-toys and War!) , but I feel that it has drastically improved the Shadowrun game mechanics.

Just a sidenote: Unwired has the rules for nexi, which allow for significantly larger numbers of users.

Practice safe Matrix Surfing, and clean that dataport with an alcohol wipe first!

While it hasn't caught up majorly yet, I encouraged my group to go with physical connections at times. For one thing, all it takes is one hoophole group of Gangers to drive past with a high-end (And stolen) signal jammer to turn that epic hack into a really bad case of Dumpshock.

Then there was hacking Lone Star from the back of a squad car that was used as a plan once. Too bad that was the only part of the plan that went properly.

Two things:

1) Paragraphs.

2) This is not a gripe thread about any particular edition. Shadowrun 4 just isn't a Shadowrunny game. It's an action movie game. I'd run a Die Hard or Aliens game with it any day.

Now for the point-by-point.



Variable Target Numbers are very powerful things, since you get to play with the success curve by setting the difficulty for each die as well as the threshold difficulty. It also, surprisingly, involves less math and fewer dice.

SR4 has more calculation involved in figuring dice pools, and dice pools 2 to 3 times larger than SR3 -- this is the effect of needing 3-4 dice per expected success in every situation. The basic threshold of success (1 hit) in SR4 requires about 12 dice to virtually guarantee success (less than 1% failure). The basic threshold of success in SR3 (TN 2, 1 success) requires 3 dice for similar odds.

If you want to push that up to "average" difficulty, it's 17 dice (2 hits) for SR4, and 7 dice for SR3 -- that's for TN 4, 1 success.

If you want to push the difficulty up to "hard," you need 26 dice in SR3 to get less than 1% failure on a TN 6. This is about the same number of dice you need to get less than 1% failure on a test requiring 4 hits in SR4 (27 dice needed).

And yes, a lucky goon with an SMG can do horrible things. This leads us back to the "SR4 simulates action movies, not Shadowrun" point. Shadowrun is a place where people do terrible and illegal things and can end up on a DocWagon stretcher at the drop of a hat. SR4 is a place where people can take a sniper shot to the chest, run away, and take a couple days off and be fine. The difference between Healthy and Almost Dead in Shadowrun is huge. Taking damage is awful. The difference between Healthy and Almost Dead in SR4 is tiny -- it's a difference of about 1 hit on a test.



Agreed, which is why I like parts of SR4. I just don't think the core mechanic of SR4 simulates Shadowrun very well.



The need to reduce dice rolling is itself a problem.

Also, Combat Pool is easy if you have one of those 36 dice cubes. You just drop the right number of dice on each NPC's index card.



Hackers have too much to do. Since everything is wireless, the logical treatment is that hackers can do almost anything they want given enough time. If your team wants to steal an Ares Citymaster, for example, the hacker can find the vehicle's node, hack in, fight the rigger, and then command the vehicle's autopilot to cruise around to where he wants.

If they want to break into a warehouse and steal a crate, for example, the hacker can hack into the warehouse nodes, control a forklift drone to go pick up the crate, and load it onto a hacked van which he then commands to drive to his house in the suburbs, while commanding all the on-site security drones and a nearby low-flying Knight Errant helicopter to start shooting at the rest of the site's security to cover the escape.

I'm not saying these things have particularly high odds of success, but I am saying that the hacker has the capacity to take up a lot more time if he wants.



Yes, there has. You give the player a small cup. In that cup go the Combat Pool dice. Dice come out of the cup when they are used, and only go back into the cup at the beginning of the next turn. It's not rocket science.



It hasn't improved the Shadowrun game mechanics, it's created a new kind of game entirely.

I'm aware of nexi, but 18 30 is still a low number, by about 10,000.


EDIT: I looked up the actual number, and there's a stock model for 30 personae, for 15,000 .

I'll admit that 10,000 isn't a fair number to expect. More realistically, imagine going into an AR-enhanced nightclub. The public access node that everyone uses to order drinks, request songs, and find the bathrooms can maybe manage to pass information to 30 people at a time. Not the hundreds that are in the club. If the club wants to cater to 300 people, it needs 10 30-persona nexi, for 150,000 . That seems high.

I sometimes do think about the two often, and about things I like from each edition. Indeed, I thought the SR3A rules that I've read so far are pretty damn nice.

I don't necessarily think SR4 is the Action Movie game. If anything, I could do more crazy Action Movie stuff in SR3. For the example; the Defense roll/Counterattack. With a high Combat Pool and a high Skill(and maybe a reach weapon), you basically re-enacted any crazy action movie where a million mooks come at you and you cut them all down. I haven't figured out a way to do that with SR4 RAW-without, well, adding the Defense Turnaround rule in(or whatever it was called.) There is a Counterattack option but it wasn't nearly as crazy.

If anything, I had a *much* easier time doing crazy stuff in SR3...well, before injuries came into play and the TN shot up. In SR4, I've had characters with scary amounts of skill and attribute with outside modifiers(depending-friends helping, etc), that still practically failed due to, well, the fact that the die-per-success ratio is higher. WIth the average 3 dice per 1 success rule in SR4, to succeed *awesomely* at something even simple, you need a 12-15 die pool. For an example, a short-range, smartlinked shot. 2 dice for the smartlink, 7 Agility, 5 Pistols(maybe even with a spec). In SR3, I could succeed fantastically at the same thing(short-range, smartlinked shot, no injuries in both situations) with a much lower score-Pistols 3, chuck 3 dice in a combat pool and I can likely roll many 2+'s on those 6 dice(well, luck of course can screw you or be with you in either situation.)

Being able to shave down that target number can lead to immense successes(Reach weapons to cut down melee modifiers, the fact melee weapos, IMO, could be much scarier then). It could be easier to get hurt as well, which may take away from it(though John McLaine did get his butt kicked pretty badly, he just came back from it and kicked ass.) (Edit: this could well be a Your Game May Vary thing. I noticed in SR3 we had more people that took large wounds in one go, but SR4 seems to have more nickle-and-diming.)

How have your experiences lead you toward how SR4 is more of the ''Action/Die Hard'' type of game?

But this is more of an opinion and not fact. I feel that Shadowrun 4 is vastly superior in Content and Mechanics to SR3. And yet, the feel is the same to me. They are both Shadowrun. SR3 allowed more crazy, over the top crap than does SR4, in my opinion.



Have to disagree here. I RARELY took damage in SR3 with the characters that I played. In SR4, I take damage often. To me, SR3 played more like Action Movies than SR4 Does. I have never seen anyone in SR4 take a Sniper shot to the chest and run away... It happened Frequently (to the character I played at least) in SR3.

Different Experiences, I guess.



There is A LOT Less Dice rolling in SR4 for me. The various Pools of Previous Editions, as well as the Crazy amounts of Karma Pools available resulted in a LOT of dice rolling.



As with any Edition. Overall, however, the Matrix Rules, and Hackers and general, flow better, quicker, and move in time with normal actions.



And yet he said that the rolls included more pool dice than they should have. After all, you can only include as many pool dice as you had skill, and it was easy to add more if you did not pay attention to what was going on.



And again, I disagree... Opinion is not Fact.

Well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Everything I said, outside the dice statistics, was my opinion. Saying it's my opinion is a vacuous indictment.

Ah well... when i started my current group for SR4, i think 2 years ago or something, i made a post pretty much similar to this one.

I hold the old system in higher regard (I still have fun with fourth, no question). But the older one just feels better, grittier. You mess your characters up by having cyberware. Danger lurks everywhere. You need to know what you are doing and every punk can kill you.

The fourth is WAY more safe and clean. Just look at edge, implantation, drawbacks of cyberware, damage staging. And yeah: in fourth you can solve problems just be throwing a high number of dice at it. No matter where they came from. You don't need to eye the modifiers that hard.

For example: Combat -

SR3: You are chasing a running dude through tough terrain. Hm, better you stay still for a while to drop the TN under 6, or you have a problem.
SR4: You are chasing a running dude through tough terrain. Eh, whatever, if i throw 13 or 11 dice. Not that big difference.

There are other thing.

OH... AND MAGIC IS TOTAL WHACK, YO. No one is fucking safe. In SR3 a will of 6 will at least make it HARD to control your mind.

But of course i give that SR3 was an overcomplicated mess sometimes too: Did we really need a maneuvre score and three seperate encoded channels and that crap for rigger?

I just say: split quickness and Intelligence like in SR4, cut a lot matrix and rigger rules... and play SR3.25 *g*

Erm, we like SR3 for this.

Knowing your 2-million Nuyen vatjob can buy it as easy as a blind mage if you're dumb, unlucky or plain stupid is a fast way to get players thinking.
The INT/combat pool supergenius thing is a trifle annoying though, but eh, compared to SR4 Magic "I'll eat your SOUL" it's a small thing.



-Tir

I said it to point out that not everyone agrees with you, so getting a consensus would be rather difficult... Not trying to attack you, man...
In my OPINION ('m pretty sure I said that before), SR4A is a superior product, hands down...

I agree with the OP to a degree - my experience from the game differs drastically, but I still like variable TNs, the fewer attributes of SR3, the Power/damage system of weapons and spells, and many other things.

I prefer 4ths matrix, and the content updates that bring the game more in line with the way the world developed over the past 10 years - out of the 80s, into the 21st century .

Some things are nearly the same: You can play magicrun in SR3 AND SR4, if anything, that got worse. (Although the available manatech makes sneaking MUCH harder for mages.)

Many of SR3s rules were overcomplicated and messy (rigging, matrix, etc.) but you could do perfectly fine without worrying too much about the finer points. The only problem is: I don't have a group for SR3 anymore .

Does anyone have a link to SR3R, which was mentioned, earlier?

http://www.sr3r.net/forum/

SR1, SR2, SR3 were a little more math intensive, if you call looking up two or three numbers on a chart and adding them up, "intensive". I think it did a great job of weeding out the lazy and stupid. The biggest gripe of course was the different mechanics for magic/vehicles/physical/matrix. That was the only real pain.

I don't know too many players that could take a sniper round to the chest and walk it off, unless they were in Military armour. You at least had a moderate or serious wound. Especially if the sniper had any skill and threat rating. Successes have to be cancelled before damage is staged down.

The real breaking point for me was when Stackpole left Shadowrun. That was the last producer that had the real essence of Shadowrun.

Well, designing PCs was ALWAYS complicated, but GMing for SR3 was pretty simple (in the meat world) because all you really needed was just a few stats. Skills could easily be ad-libbed within those limits, because they could not be higher. It got complicated when your runners said "but we want to scavenge the implants off those guys, so what did they have?" Other things were of course rather annoying, but even having to add a stat in SR4 makes things more complicated by default.

Power does not rise, and generally D was the limit in all our games. So... a hit with a sniper rifle was 14D, no matter how you looked at it. You then resisted that damage. But maybe that was not the way to do it, it's a long way since I actually looked in the book.

We played SR2 to be honest. We always did staging, up and down. Extra dice could put you into overflow. Each two successes over D added 1 box of overflow. It could have been a rule we carried over from SR1, but it really made dying something serious. I cannot find anything in sr2 that says you cannot exceed D. I think that was SR3 maybe?

It was... I don't even remember, I think either an optional or a house rule, because a lethal wound is a lethal wound. Or staging up was optional in SR3, anyway, I believe it was rather common to cut it off at D, but my view may be limited.

Staging past D adds +2 to power (by default).

But only for Close-Combat, not for Shooty Stuff, right?
For Shooty Stuff it just adds Net Hits that make Evading/Resisting harder, if i remember that correctly . .
Also:

Quoted to quote this quote
bwahahahahaahahaha ^^

Extra stages added to power in ranged, too. The section about staging beyond Deadly was just after Melee but not part of it.

Yep, Bad Guy with skills + Deadly Damage really sucked if you were on the receiving end.

Then again, a player of mine took his Elf Street Sam, a heavy pistol, and took out a fully armored troll (who was hardened / cybered up the best I could make) in a single pass.

I didn't believe it and we both went over the rules. Everything he did was legit, RAW.

It can certainly happen. Against a well-armored troll you have to get a lot of successes on the attack, though, unless you have some major weaponry.

At point blank with smartgun all you had to do was win init and the other guy was in for it... not like now.

In SR4, the smartlink should about 6-8 dice, at least .

Ok. I just looked at the core combat mechanic, and found out that, for basically EVER, we've been doing it all WRONG.

It really is compare successes of attacker vs defender (dodge+damage resistance, but only base power vs armour), and then stage up or down, where a tie is base damage of the weapon. That's really fracking lethal.

Now I like our apparent house-rule a bit better, because it separates arriving damage and damage resistance, but... damn.

Not under SR3 Rules, usually . . Not with the Way Armor works O.o
Even if you get your HPist to D-Damage and then have extra Net Hits, the Troll is looking at a TN of 4 to 6 with a Body of 10 to 16 . . And this is, of course, after trying to Dodge with the combat pool.

At this point we're talking about the extreme and fairly exclusive case of a troll with high Body, augmentation, and good armor. Even then, APDS rounds and burst fire flatten out their survivability. Start at 11S and -half Ballistic, base, and you're looking at probably Deadly damage with an 8+ TN. Even at 16 Body, the likely result is still a Serious or Deadly wound.

Compare to SR4's augmented Troll in Security Armor, who is rolling 25 dice against a heavy pistol or assault rifle. They're soaking 8 damage, which means 3 net hits on the pistol shot is still a total wash.

So you load APDS and use burst fire with your assault rifle. That gets the troll 20 dice versus 9 base damage. Throw in a few net hits, and the Troll is only taking 5 damage or so. But he's also got 15 or more points on his damage track. And he's only losing one die from his pools.

This also leads straight into the SR4 quagmire of most characters being better off taking physical damage rather than stun, since most Stun tracks cap at 11 and Physical tracks can march right on towards 20. The system pretty well falls apart there, leading to any group of people that understand cause and effect to gear exclusively to deal Stun damage.