A full reboot?
As someone who kinda walked away when 4th came out, here are my opinions:

Change:
The Matrix (both the fluff and the rules): The game was written in the 80s, when a BBS was exciting internet. It should be all pervasive, ultra light weight, wireless, and a day to day requirement of life. Food, water, internet. You shouldn't be able to get a fragging cup of coffee without matrix access.

SURGE: Less catgirls.

Magic: Remove some of the science from it. I think science and magic should be 2 polar forces, that don't get along. Magic is still fragging powerful, but more of an art form.

Useless national governments: Im aware that a HUGE part of the population was wiped out, which would crash global economies and cause things like the fractured map current SR has. But Id like to see more of a struggle between the handful of fully functional world governments and the Megacorps. IRS covert operation teams with forensic accountants in tow?


Keep:
Pretty much everything else. I liked Sr3, even with its quarks.

But Catgirls are proof that the Ghost love us and want us to be happy!

Don't remember if anyone mentioned it before, but scanners and SINs need to be fixed too. Make a Rating 6 SIN a reliable investment and make cyberware usable.

Also make SINs cost more to buy. 6 grand is pennies.
(I'm thinking more like 30k)

Pennies to Shadowrunners... Even a Rating 1 SIN is out of reach of almost everyone else...

1k? I have enough money right now, IRL, that if I wanted to, I could afford a R6 SIN. Three or four of them, even.

I think essence is awesome as fluff. Without it mods are pure positive, essence adds and keeps in the maybe you shouldn't mod debate. Essence, soul, mental connection to your bodily integrity whatever you want to call it, it lets there be a debate in the game world about cyber no matter how long cyber is around. It goes beyond mere medical problems and can enter into a moral and religious area much easier. When it is just pure humanity nuts, it relegates the debate to just another humanis policlub. With essence the debate over whether or not someone should take mods can be part of any group of people, not just prejudiced weirdos.

I wouldn't want everyone to be mages either, it just makes everyone to much the same IMO. Though I do think magic needs to be balanced better. And before the people jump into to say it is balanced as long as you know and use the rules I'll say that is actually why it is unbalanced. Balance should be the default setting knowing the rules should be there to help you add extra challenge not to bring people in line by making sure they have enough penalty dice so they don't walk over the opposition.

I'd keep most of the material from SR 1-3, but I'd make it more consistent.

SR changes so much material, that I'd not even want to keep more than the overall ideas and material.

Really just tidy it up.

NAN ??
They keep changing things about it, so who knows what might be uncovered in the future ??

Essense ??
Ignoring the call from combat fetishists, why's it there and how else to do its job.


Magic too powerful ??
Live with it. It's manipulating arcane energies and has no parallel in the mundane world. It's like complaining guns kill too quickly, so the whole system has to be rewritten to make them less effective.

Take away the magic/tech balance and what makes Shadowrun special suffers.
Take away the NAN and what makes SR special suffers.

SR and CP202020 are the future, seen through the lens of the 80s - do anything else and the game suffers.
Note that no other company has a niche cyberpunk game - because when you take away the niche speciality of the game, it just becomes a not-very-special near future science fiction game.

So any "reboot" needs to capture the specialness and work with it, in the same way that SR 1 was different from all the other cyberpunk games that were in the market [and almost every company had one - GURPS, HERO, ICE, for instance].

I would emphasize the tottering governments, vying megacorps, fractured information databases, and overall Wild West feel. I think Shadowrun has gotten too mired in the concept of an information/surveillance society, to the point that there is a major disconnect between the game world and many of the options offered to PCs - heavy weapons, highly distinctive character types such as trolls and changelings, etc.

You have a world where you need fake ID just to ride the subway, but the Halloweeners are still a downtown gang. Keep high security zones, and some unwritten rules that most shadowrunners follow - but downgrade the paranoia, at least to the point that options offered in the rulebooks don't get characters killed in the first session.

Yes, - this particular thing I posted does seem like a modernised version of Earthdawn - minus horrors/demons, or whatever they are properly called. Well... some radical changes work without destroying the feel of the game, others don't. Modern Magic World would end up a different game .

SR3 still had a Create Food spell, now wouldn't that be nice if everyone was magical and learned that spell?



It's true that to get ANY sort of pink mohawk out of the game anymore you really need to forget all the surveillance stuff, OR make disguises more effective.

When I read into the material, for instance, I thought Latex Masks were multiple use smart disguise machines. Then I found out that I just have to blow 500nY to go the mall without people recognizing me, which is just dumb.
There should be a cheap way of basically looking like someone else, other than being an adept, or else the game just doesn't work anymore. There are SO many instances of surveillance that not getting caught in a city is basically impossible. As a GM I basically have to handwave that stuff, or any non pure-mirrorshades campaign won't ever work.



See, that's exactly the problem with essence: It's an esoteric pseudo-metaphysical bullshit excuse for a balance mechanism. You don't have to go all trans-humanist in order to see that quite obviously outside of the biological ramifications there is nothing amoral about putting chrome in your body. These things are prosthetics, after all, basically modern crutches, that just happen to make you better at certain things.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with letting chrome and magic not mix well, because it's a consistent element that magic is only controlled/bound by organic matter. However, this should also mean that Bioware doesn't actually cost magic loss, and any geneware/cloned organs etc. especially don't.

Man, when did this become the 5th Edition thread? Must be clicking on the wrong links...

Gonna cover a whole bunch of topics here but don't want to play quote tree, so bear with me.

First off, adepts / mages / magic in general:

Magic's balance is time. Yes, given playtime and karma expenditure, mages can get pretty powerful, pretty fast. However - all of their stuff costs time, money, and karma. While you're out there unlocking the secrets of time and space (which are a mystery to me) your buddies are actually out there making contacts, buying gear, getting nicer houses...by the time our hypothetical "I can do anything!!" mage gets to that point, chances are that the game has either ended or everyone is up to their pointy ears in world politics, and the playing field is even.

Further emphasized by our "adept" situation - adepts are just characters highly capable in one area, finely capable in another, and from there, start to slope downwards sharply. As much as I've complained about the cheesiness of concepts like "adept hacker" (dunno why this one in particular sticks in my craw, but it does) it's still just one area of a much larger game that they're really good at. Have that adept fire a gun. Have him drive. Have him try to do something outside of his highly specialized skill range. Oops! He isn't much use now, is he? Congratulations on being really good at your one schtick.

This is the problem with so-called "white room" playtesting; yes, it simulates a perfect environment in which there is no outside influence to your scenario. It's highly useful in ensuring that rules work seamlessly. But it's also a perfect environment - what if karma distribution doesn't perfectly follow the recommended guidelines? What if someone's have a shit die night? It happens, and it's something outside of the scope of the white room.

Frank Trollman is opinionated, and that's the nice way to put it. He's also a polarizing figure - again, which is the nice way to put it. We should try to keep the cross-forum mudslinging to a minimum though, don'tcha think? I'm intrigued by his Cyberpunk Heartbreaker idea. I think he's got some great ideas for it, and I think he has some ideas that are there solely because they're sticking points for him with Shadowrun. I'm especially excited to see that he wants to see a return to concepts like street preacher, gonzo journalist, and rocker / sim-star; something that for, whatever reason, current editorial chooses to ignore from previous editions of Shadowrun. Shame, that.

Finally: catgirls were in this stupid game from 1e, or you're sticking your head in the sand when it comes to the Shirow influence. It's just that now you can say "it's magic!" instead of "it's cyber-ware / body modification!". Just another example of something people blow way out of proportion because it "affects" their game.

Okay, finished and then read this -


But it's still something that Mother Nature never intended for you to have. I'm willing to accept the concept that because it's tailor-made it's less invasive to your body - that makes sense - but it's still an engineered organism being introduced to a holistic whole. Look at organ recipients nowadays, and read up on how much medication and maintenance they need to take simply to ensure that their body doesn't reject their new body part.

Words words words.

Hear hear!

Used to be that I bought into the whole surveillance and "realism" crap. But roleplaying is about escapism, and I don't want to play Toe-The-Line. I'd like to keep somewhat-modern computer technology, but with convenient explanations why the surveillance society (which IRL is already more advanced than in early SR, it seems) has gone away.

Data balkanization is an explanation, but it feels a bit weak. Weak states that just give up on low-security zones, because they know they don't have the resources to compel conformity, maybe. Effective camera jammers, clothes that make you blurry on cameras, easy cosmetic surgery, maybe.

Maybe a social withdrawal from living "in the network". Large groups of Urban Primitives who resent surveillance, and will smash any camera in a public area within days of it getting placed there. A (part of) culture that turned away from living on social networking sites after the crash, and embraced a Magic Instead Of Tech lifestyle instead.

While sararimen huddle inside corporate enclaves with total surveillance and stifling conformity, on the streets it's quite different. Pink mohawks and radical biomodification doesn't make you a freak, it makes you a fashion victim. Even some of the sararimen sneak out on weekends and switch on their glow-tattoos, and visit the world outside for some thrills.

When the corporations and governments left most of the people in the cold, dispossessed and disenfranchised, those people also stopped toeing the line of looking and behaving respectable. In that colorful mix, it's actually quite doable for a shadowrunner to blend in.

---

Anyway, that's more the kind of SR I'd like to be playing. Dystopia, but with it's own particular charms.

And don't forget a good portion of Corp security budgets are making sure sousvelliance doesn't get too effective....

Another linked problem: how can you have a SINless masses in a surveillance society? The powers in charge should be begging the SINless to register. They put the system in place, why would they kick people out now?

This is Shadowrun philosophy (I may or may not agree with it, that's beside the point). Organ recipients need to take immune suppressant medication, that's obvious, but already you can put metal splints or artificial joints into your body which are not rejected. The materials of choice here are titanium and certain ceramics. Also, once you take them, it's quite irrelevant how many implants you have, I believe.
This is also a strictly chemical/technical problem - if you treat the surface of the implant so that the immune system doesn't recognize it, then they won't be rejected. Likewise bioware (at least cultured bioware) shouldn't trigger an immune response at all.

So really, there is no non-philosophical reason why you shouldn't be able to replace your entire body (apart from the technical difficulties involved in the process, of course). It's game philosophy, that's all, and as such, of course game designers can write whatever they like. But I don't have to like what they like.

The trouble with this holistic view of the body is that it takes a semi-real-world perspective and puts it into a game which should be free from real-world bias. I don't want real religion in my games. A game author has it easy: if he says that god(s) exist in his game, then that's fine, and they exist because they have an ingame effect. But I would object to any definite statements that include real-world religions in games.

So, you may call it a personal preference, but I think essence is a poor excuse for a game balance mechanic. You might as well call it "implant power", and simply grade implants from there, and limit the total number you can have.

The other aspect that is a recurring theme in SR I actually have fewer problems with: Cyberpsychosis. The problem with ware might be that it's highly functional, but doesn't actually care about all the little things the brain would like to get as feedback. For instance, if you have a perfectly controlled synthacardium, you might not get all erratic effects of when your brain makes your heartrate go haywire for whatever reasons - you are nervous, you are preparing to ask your love interest out for the first time, etc. At that point you might really start feeling a bit like a machine. (Of course nothing says that you can't like that feeling, either. )

So cyber-alienation is actually a "better" concept, and linking the effects of cyberware with the effects of DNI overload would produce a better balance mechanic. That would also make a few, in my opinion rather weak implants, a bit more attractive: For instance the bone lacings. Huge essence cost, comparatively small in-game effect. Completely dumb (i.e. non-smart) implant, so it should have very little impact on the overall "balance" equation.

There is another aspect one might use: Instead of giving an essence cost, just assign a % value, or how much is being replaced of the human body. And then you can easily say that due to the problems with cheaply constructed normal ware, there are adverse effects - cyberpollution of the blood, for instance. That's completely free of esoterics. Magic requires that a very large percentage of the human body is untouched, due to the problems with inorganic matter. Hence, every 3-5% replacement will cause a point of magic loss.
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That's because it's someone elses organs. People don't typically have to take medication to keep their body from rejecting a filling in their teeth. Yeah, it does happen, I have a coworker who needed to have a bunch of stainless steel pins removed from his bones after his body started reacting to them, but it's quite unusual.

And I think that Frank does have a lot of good ideas in what makes games work or suck, and he, unlike the current management, actually gives a shit about something other than the money. But not all his ideas are as good as he thinks and he can be 'a tad bit difficult' to work with. It still worth looking at what he's thinking about.

SR has a bunch of mechanics that kind of suck, a core point of view that essentially only makes ANY sense if you are old enough to remember the Time magazine articles in the 80s on how Japan was going to buy up the US, and other parts of the background that are just too stupid for words. There really isn't any reason for SR to be trying to worship TRON, it never worked well and it just gets stupider every year. So there are certainly some options for change it someone wanted to do a reboot.

You damn kids

Even standard: that's what they use Type O implants for.

You forget that Hispanics (and azantlan) were origiginally considered part of the NAN. Shadows of North America does a good spin on how the NAN dealt with this population issue. Also keep in mind that much of the land the NAN occupies has a significantly lower population density than the rest of the old USA.

Not everyone is so lucky. I could not afford a Rating 1 Fake SIN. Family precludes such "Luxuries."

403



Know what bugs me about this?

Type-O is a reference to "type O blood" which is the universal donor blood type.

A person who is Type O cannot receive a blood transfusion of anything other than Type O blood.

The bioware quality makes it so that a Type-O is both universal donor and universal recipient, which is wrong.

No, in game this si not the case.
In game, Type-O refers to Patient-0 who had the name Owen.
He was the perfect donor and recipient. And all Type-O-Bioware is made on his genetic base code . .

Nothing is said about universal recipient. It doesn't matter because no one receives someone else's organs anymore. It's either Type 0 bioware (universal donnor), cultured bioware or cloned plain organs (protein-matched).

"Bioware costs half essence"

Sounds like universal recipient to me.

Double post.

No, it's because standard bioware is cultured from him. Actually, the Type O quality does bring a recipient restriction: the character cannot accept second-hand bioware.

Type 0 is an extremely restricted recipient. It just so happens that the only bioware he can accept is the one sold everywhere in the world.

ah, right, i forgot about the 2nd hand ware restriction . .
but seeing how you don't need to pay more than standard grade for delta grade bio, who cares?

Beg your pardon?

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /wp-content/uploads/2007/03/damn-kids-kitty.jpg on this server.
Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) mod_jk/1.2.25 mod_python/3.3.1 Python/2.5.2 PHP/5.2.4-2ubuntu5.14 with Suhosin-Patch mod_ssl/2.2.8 OpenSSL/0.9.8g mod_perl/2.0.3 Perl/v5.8.8 Server at www.myconfinedspace.com Port 80

Strange, I can acces the link just fine.
Anyway, I changed the link to another picture.

Stahlseele got it. But 403 is "access forbidden."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_403

From :



That's not what I propose, you are refering to some kind of super-saïan mode (from Dragon Ball Z), where adepts can modulate their powers and have extra power points with a complex action.

It's not a matter of altering power, making them more powerfull (hence "power's cost x 2"), it's a matter of having a character less rigid (hence "you choose your power on-the-fly, but not instantly, and you have to sleep/fall asleep").

Augs can change their implants, even get back lost arms via genetech, they are a lot more flexible and powerfull than adepts at the moment. They can have modular proestetics.
I beleive that should be the opposite, because after all adept are one-thing-specialists-with-no-flexibility when augs are more-things-specialists-that-can-change.

Adepts should be able, if they want, to be heavy generalists. And if they are less powerfull than Augs given a specialisation domain, they should be more flexible. They are not to be doomed with their choices at character creation.

A magic 6 physical adept with that power would have 3 current points of power he choose according to the situation he prepared 12 hours before, that's not overpowered/underpowered, that's suited.
That would make them actually choose skills instead of having dodge 6/combat skills 6 and run for initiation only with their karma (a 6 skill is 1.5 power points or 3 power points if it's a combat skill so they would need to chooose skills).

That would prevent them having to be implanted, since a 0.01 loss of essence would make them loose a whole 0.5 on the 3 they can use (tigther range of powers mean more important essence).

Also people think that can sleep or fall asleep at demand when it's not the case. Try to meditate 12 hours / sleep 12 hours a day at will in the purpose of changing twice that day your Magic 6 powers without becoming a drug addict (0.01 essence loss), and extremly hungry and thirsty.

That comes from an idea I had for SR1, it's not something I though instantly and randomly.

Okay. Why this power be accessible to, for exemple, only the adepts with Mentor Spirit Chameleon ?

What about special power/cost 0 for each mentor spirit ?

It all sounds rather clunky. If you want your adepts to be generalists, let them take wide-effect powers and just a lot of skills and attributes. Basically the same way that everyone else uses to be a generalist.

I think adept powers should do something special as much as possible. Some of their powers shouldn't be duplicable with tech. Some things tech should do more efficiently, but not quite so many things as currently the case. Ideally, augmented adepts are a viable character choice, but not always better than pure adepts.

The adept approach to flexibility could be in things like environmental options: like adapting to heat or cold quite easily, surviving in harsh places without heavy gear. Maybe even some sort of hazmat protection power, or cost-effective protection from elemental attacks. An adept's strength should be that he's lightweight, not so dependent on equipment as other roles.

Yes, thank you. I know it's not what you proposed, and I'm well aware of what I'm referring to. I'm suggesting it as a method for an adept to be made that's still something of a generalist, but that can customize his powers to suit the task at hand. By buying 1 rank in quite a few powers, and then boosting them as needed, you can create a functional adept that's got his magical powers quite spread out, but is then able to actually be a competent character with a reasonable number of dice, when the situation calls for it. What's more, it's perfectly rules legal, and as such doesn't require a reboot to happen -- nor does it require the doubling of all an adept's already criminally overpriced powers, as a way of making them (somehow) better.


No, it is underpowered. It's very, very, underpowered, and it would be terribly underpowered even if they didn't have to prepare it half a day in advance.

Fully half of that Magic 6 adept's powers would be eaten by just a single Improved Ability (any combat skill). A Magic 6 adept could not max out their initiative with your system, and if they had any extra IP powers, they'd be absolutely crippled in every other facet of everything, ever, that they wanted to do until their next crazy meditation session.

What you propose is taking a character type that is already bogged down with overpriced powers and absolutely hamstringing them.

What I suggest, instead -- a completely rules-legal metamagic that already exists -- is a way for an adept to be a generalist (by having quite a few powers with 1 or 2 ranks in them), and then letting that generalist absolutely shine when he needs to, by suddenly ramping up combat powers in a combat scene, stealth powers during an infiltration, social powers prior to sitting down for a meet, etc, etc. If you want a more flexible adept, I'm just trying to let you know that there's absolutely a way to do that already.

When unboosted, such an adept will be a second or third-tier at everything he does, and when he has a complex action to boost, first tier. Your "fix," instead, ensures that they will be fourth tier at everything, ever, and when they're able to boost themselves and sleep for half a day and pick just the right powers, something like maybe almost third tier.

This

Agreed. But here are my removal suggestions anyways:

- SURGE

That is all.

SURGE is one of those things that I both like (there's some neat stuff you can do) and don't like (there's some outright inane and insane things you can do).

While I understand that people don't want their catgirls in their game, I like the fact that in canon there's a catgirl stripper ninja.

If I were to edit/alter/remove SURGE I'd end up with a system that wouldn't allow for catgirls and I'd lose that Rule of Cool factor, but I'd do it in the name of having player choices that make sense (if people want to be catgirls, they can already do it with cyber and bio anyway) without ruining the immersion.

There is a real world, happens today, werewolf syndrome, so some SURGE isn't unwarranted. But some of it is clearly not right, like Astral Hazing, Beak, Granite Shell, or Chameleon Skin. Notably I've used chameleon skin, but it was on a drake and the idea was that it was primarily for his dracoform, not the metahuman. So even there I can see some potential for some of them.

I think what needs to happen is put a clear dividing line between the "acceptable for players" and "acceptable for critters" SURGE metagenetic qualities. Some players (e.g. playing a naga) could conceivably have access to both, but only under GM supervision. "Full Body Hair" makes no sense on a Naga, but Chameleon Skin or Dermal Plating might.

I agree with Draco18 on this, but I would add the following: If you want to use SURGE, you HAVE TO HAVE A THEME FOR IT!

None of this: "Yeah, that's cool!!! [Butthead Impression] Yeah! Yeah! That's Cool! [/Butthead Impression]

No that is what is right with essence. Without that it is a mere trans-humanization story, and eclipse phase is that way. -->

Essence adds another layer to the trans-humanization story and I think that is a good thing.

It'd be tidier if SURGE properties and their surgical/bioware equivalents used clearly similar rules and similar cost models. Compare to how adept powers and augmentations do a lot of similar things.

Yes, that also.

I dunno. I really can't think of anything I'd miss by cutting out SURGE completely, but I can relate to the (s)urge to fix it also. See what I did there?

The only problem I have with SURGE is people abusing it for powergaming purposes. But that's the same complaint I have with, sorry, adept hackers.

But seriously folks, SURGE gave us nothing we couldn't already accomplish with cyber or biosculpting. You could make an argument with Nartaki, but considering they've been retcon'd into a humanity subtype, they might not count any more.

IE, if you have a problem with anime animal people in your Shadowrun - Masamune Shirow would have a word with you.

Oh agreed.

I don't hate the idea of SURGE in principle. More goblinization, more funky weird-looking people on the streets, I'm down with that.

But the rule implementation just looks clunky, and I generally only see it used by people trying to raise Attribute limits or take Glamour.

I like the "must have Theme" idea, too.

You know, I agree with it on principle as well, gaming wise.

But see, and I'm going to sound wishy-washy here for a second, they have made it clear that sometimes, random mutations happen. Not just, "oh, now you're randomly a lizard-person!" but like...a human, with elf ears. Just the magic being weird. And I think that's part of why I like SURGE so much; it's just magic being weird.

I forgot to mention that my wife's new character is a changeling - ex-human mob princess that got SURGEd into an ork. I let her take human poseur too, since her character so badly wants to be human again.

HERETIC!

Now, being serious. I don't have issues with SURGE, I do have issues with SURGE when you take those glamourous, magical hazing elves whose only "negative quality" is that they "glow in the dark".

Glamour kinda needs to go die in an ally somewhere, honestly. :\

Agreed.
And while I get it that SURGE is magical, it is 95% of the time a physical thing. Glamour, that negative quality that makes you "creepy" are the exceptions to stuff that gives you a beak, extra arms, insectoid eyes, dermal plating, etc...

Advanced Metamagic vs a 5BP Mentor Spirit is overkill, of course !
You're comparing my initiate grade 0 magic 6 with an initiate 2 magic 7 and loads of karma...

Of course a power like this that would cost Mentor Spirit 5BP is underpowered to a power that cost bazillion of karma !

So... If it's problem of time, make it an automatic action then. Or even a state of perpetual change.

3 points of power (or 3.5 + any 2 meta to have the same adept) at any moment, any time, without even taking an action.

Still underpowered ?

This is highly highly overpowered : 1st round, "my" adept have somehow automatic intiative over the canonic one (with combat sense 7 on-the-fly). Canonic does full defence on his first IP and take his complex action on his second (Canonic got 2 IP, mine 1, since canonic is supposed to be rating 1 everywhere and mine don't care). When canonic got infused to 3rd IP, mine take 5 level of combat senses + counterattack. Then kick back to 7 level of mystical armor if he's hit OR if he got his parade, drop combat sense to counterattack + 1 IP (4 PP but let's say the two are warrior way, will we) then kick canonic's rear.
Then 1st IP, somehow initiative again via combat sense 7, rince and repeat.

And that is only for combat, for 5 BP, with an happy Chameleon. An "on the fly" adept can also hack/rig/face/craft/whatever whenever he wants.

So see that's not really the cost x 2 the problem. The problem is the time and the numbers of actions you put in. And, with "an on-the-fly state", this is highly overpowered. The cost of the power : "give me that for 5BP", too + any power depending on the situation. The canonic adept don't use everytime 7PP at the same moment.

Going to the power road is easy/tempting when writting rules. I said I'm not going to the power road, I'm going to the ultra-flexible road.

So if it's just a problem of time, nerf the time to any action. At least "on-the-fly-state" makes fun kung-fu fights but I don't see this costing 5BP

"On-the-fly" makes sense for a name of power of Chameleon btw. And, let's abuse that system, if you do want back your 7PP, you just have to disagree with him after meditation