I always built both mechanically and story wise. It has to fit both ways.

For example, I have a concept of a strong, tough martial artist fellow who moonlights as a face as well-a combat face if you will. He's used in situations where it might be dangerous to send a face by themselves, but also not the best idea to send a bodyguard. He's also used for some dirty work that might involve getting in and performing a good ol' fashioned neck snap. So I build him like this-I give him stats that fit him, and skills that fit him, and then I go over his ware-he gets stuff that makes him stronger and faster, and stuff that helps his face side as well. I don't particularly think that's system mastery, that's 'Building to a concept.' Now, I like a little number crunching. Of course I might look over some skills or ware and think 'hmm, I could trade this for this, it wouldn't be out of character, and net a bonus.' But I don't think that's excessive. I think you'll find people who like building tighter things in ANY game, even very light rules games. Now this isn't to say I don't think 4e is without it's flaws, it definitely has some.

I mean mechanical bonus gear has existed since the dawn of time. A Smartlink, for example, always gave you a bonus to shooting. Reflex Enhancements always gave you a bonus to Initiative. Of course, now, I will freely say I *loved* the design of the 1e/2e books. Like, a lot. I loved how they talked about all the gear and compared it. It made me feel like my character would be shopping for stuff. And even those guys in the books said things like 'give yourself a damn good edge when you can get it.' They wanted powerful toys too. I do like those old books a lot no matter how I look at it.

The problem comes when it starts to become effectively impossible for someone who is -not- min/maxed to the very bleeding edge to reliably do anything. Although that is, in my opinion, the result of jacking up system-wide difficulty on the expectation that the players will munchkin.

Ravenmuse, I agree with all the rest of your post, especially the bit about themes, which I think was a major turn off for me with SR4, compared to SR1/2.

However ...



This line is, frankly, insulting. Speaking for myself, I enjoy SR3 for the same reason I enjoy puzzles, or playing Civ4, or building machines in Minecraft, or playing chess. The rules are relatively simple, but the possible variations on play and ramifications are significant. I loved that moment of "well, if I spend five of my combat pool, I should be able to stage this damage up to a D and keep that guy out of the fight ... but if the guy over there shoots at me, I'll be hosed ..." This, for me, is tremendously fun. While I'd like to have people to enjoy this fun with, I frankly do not care if you specifically happen to be one of those people 'in the know' or not.

I do respect that SR3 was slow to run combat. SR4 did a little to speed that up, but it lost a major aspect of the game I enjoyed (the other being the themes and color you already touched on). As I've said previously, if SR5 was mechanics-light, I'd probably be interested, because then I can enjoy the color of the game. I'm not against simpler mechanics. But if you're going to do simple, do simple. Don't stop in the middle of the road, where you're not simple, but don't provide the 'puzzle fun' gamers like me enjoy.

Regarding the equipment creep ... I'd agree that having pieces of equipment whose sole purpose is to add a '+1' somewhere suck. I'm not against having lots of equipment, but it needs to either add something to the fun of gameplay, or add something to the color of the world. "+1 pistol" does neither.

Actually, that was something my wife hated about 3E and earlier. She doesn't want to have to do resource management when she plays. She doesn't even like looking at the gear section, because she's terrible at mechanics. She wants to be able to look at her sheet, and immediately know what she can do. She doesn't want charts, she doesn't want to go through equipment lists, looking for 'what suits her best', and she doesn't want to have to look at a slew of moving parts just to figure out what she's playing.

She'd rather go, 'I do this'. I say, 'roll x + y (with an optional -2/+2 adjustment), roll, go 'X hits', and that's it. I don't think Shadowrun will ever get that simple, but I can see where some people want an inclusive system, not an exclusive system. An RPG where people who've never played RPGs before, or who suck at math, or who can't keep rules in their heads, can come in, sit down, and enjoy themselves without needing to go over the combat rules for 5 minutes every time it's their turn.

How to Notgear (Nonexistent Sidebar)

If gear and resource management is too much for you, do the following:
Add +2 to your primary skill or skill group as a "gear bonus"
Arrange +5 worth of "gear bonus," no more than +2 to any one skill or skill group, to your secondary skills
Add +1 to your primary and secondary attributes as an "augmentation" bonus for 1 point of essence. You may spend essence up to three times.

---

Roughly speaking that should come out to "approximately" equivalent power in about 90 seconds. Note: I didn't balance test at all and numbers might benefit from some tweaking, I was just making an approximation.

I don't know if a setting as complex and nuanced as Shadowrun really invites newbie RPGers anyway.

But I also enjoyed the die pool mechanics of SR previous editions. It added some 'tactical-like' thinking to throwing buckets of D6s around.

Well, even back in the old days-I know in Shadowrun 2e, there could be a fairly decent sized difference between two of the same characters-one who was optimized, and one who wasn't. I mean take..say, Sam A and Sam B. If Sam A was made optimally for his job(let's say for the sake of the discussion it's a 'classic same'-guns, swords, stealth, some driving and street etiquette, and cyberware/bioware that helped with all of this-they did have Bioware in the old days), but Sam B went 'jack of all trades.' Sam A would certainly be more optimized in 'Samming Stuff' than Sam B, with the latter having some extra knowledge in a few more skills. In a straight up fight, or stealth situation Sam A would essentially, barring some REALLY poor rolls(and some really good ones on Sam B's side), overtake Sam B. Sam B would have, say, some extra etiquette, computer, and fixit skills to help out, though. But it was up to the GM to make situations for that. If the GM kept throwing combat, combat, combat at the team, then yeah, Sam A would just overtake him wherever.

Of course you could take this and make it equivalent to about any other class. If one mage is specialized for Summoning and one for Spellcasting, if the GM keeps putting in situations that hoses Mage A's elementals and spirits, Mage B is going to look a lot better.

As a GM, I always try to make sure I put in situations to let every character have their moment with their specialty. I also make sure to give situations for the non-optimized to have their moment as well-they may be able to do something that the optimized person can't(I found-in my own experience-the entire 'optimized vs. non-optimized' situations crops up when the non optimized ends up spreading things thinner-which I also find gives them other skills that the optimized person often doesn't end up with.)

Without going too far off topic, 4e wasn't made for "us", 4e was an attempt to bring in new blood and basically bridge the gap between a younger group of gamers that normally played things like Magic The Gathering and World Of Warcraft, hence so many of the similarities in the game mechanics but you're right, it did alienate many old players because the game line didn't get to fully realize itself. From what I understand through the gossip trains this is due to the economy hitting the company hard. There were many layoffs and staff changes throughout and the 4e line suffered because of that. They tried to do a quick reboot with Essentials but that failed as well due to it's oversimplified design.

I'm pretty much the target audience on this because I'm a big fan of 3.5 and I *REALLY* hated the idea of 4e, but even I'll admit it wasn't too bad, it just brought back way too many memories of playing WoW.

To wrap this back around to SR, the reason (IMHO) that 4e ultimately fell is because there were no tie-in lines. There was a weak miniatures presence, but beyond that the tangible merchandise was pretty slim and the line fell before they were able to fix that. This is why I think SR is getting a 5th edition with all the additional products that have been mentioned. There really isn't money in releasing game books, the money is in the extras, but you also have to find an audience for those extras. I know I'm not one, I don't care much for miniatures games or board games beyond every once in awhile and I'm not even that excited for the MMORPG after giving a few years to WoW, but they may need it to survive.

Sorry if that went way OT.

No disrespect meant! And I will admit that I painted with a very large brush there.

And reading what both you and binary have written, you agree with what my intention was - system mastery for system mastery's sake isn't fun for people who don't enjoy coming to a table min-maxed on a ton of +1s. Like when I played the Scramble this year at Gencon and ended up walking away from the tabletop portion to talk to Bull and Redjack because my team was too focused on how many bonuses they could get by throwing down tac nets and shotgun spreads and the like.

4th edition already IS a pretty simple system - it's just that there is some cruft in there solely for legacy reasons that hurts the game in the long run (which, for example, 4e D&D attempted to fix and got their hands slapped because people Re obsessively attached to that legacy cruft of +1s and system mastery).

Real, honest apologies if I offended.

The worst part is that it isn't the first time WotC tried that with the D&D line. Back in early 3e, they tried to spin off Dragonlance 5th Age as a simplified game with cards for abilities(The SAGA System), and it flopped spectacularly as well.




That's probably part of it. The last SR videogame being such a pile of drek made it the opposite of a good tie-in, something that actually discouraged people from wanting to know more. I don't enjoy SR4 myself because a lot of the directions that were chosen in its development (simplification of mages/shamans, wireless matrix, etc) really hurt my immersion in the game world as a veteran GM and player. For something so rules-heavy and complex, that immersion is critical to making people want to play the game. Especially on the GM front, because this isn't a game where you can throw together a few notes and a copy of the Monster Manual to wing it and still get a satisfying challenge.

4e did flop, but even though I didn't care for it, I still think it didn't flop because of what it was, it flopped because it didn't get to fully realize. I lived in a fairly remote area when it launched and attended two different gaming store's weekly WoTC events (For the love of me I can't remember what they were called), and they were extremely well attended. I was on the older scale of people there but there were at least a dozen if not more players there each week. Many of these were in the 16-22 range and were MtG players that wanted to try a new game. I don't think that my experience with this was unique.



I've not touched the XBox game so I don't know anything about it (my husband banned it from our home), but I've heard enough to see what it did to the fandom. I have only played 3e and 4e and I will say that I enjoy playing 4e much more. I'm a typical min/max player but I also am big into ROLE playing and I find a great deal of 4e material to be redundant and useless. It seems like new books are a lot of focused fiction that doesn't hold much bearing in the cannon or just a rehash on the same gear stats. I'd really like to see more relevant information in the form of setting and equipment that varied on a large scale rather than a small one. In that sense I really enjoy the earlier editions, it felt like there was much more information available that made relevant sense in game.

A personal peeve of mine is the minuscule clothing options and the complete lack of optimization available for such a thing. There is so much that could be done with it but alas we just toss on our armored jackets and go.

Well, one of the first RPGs my wife was ever introduced to was 1E Shadowrun. She loves the setting, but the mechanics are just too much for her. A complex and nuanced setting doesn't need complex mechanics (speaking from experience). The thing is, I feel Edge covered the dice pool system perfectly - it was a limited resource, but gave you the kick you needed if you felt desperate enough to need a boost. The dice pools themselves (stat+skill) covers pretty much anything you need -- or, look at it this way, in earlier editions, you just rolled skill. Now, your attribute adds to this, becoming something akin to a 'pool' that doesn't need refreshing.

Won't happen. Paizo could only do what they did with Pathfinder because of the d20 systems license that WotC set in place to allow other publishers to expand on their game.

I wish for an SR4 book buyback system...

That's why they had to bring the old crew, push a half-baked .5 edition, and then drop it altogether.

It's more like it made all the classes bland and uninteresting to play, and instead of focusing on original abilities that'd make them unique it chose the combat system with dozens of status effects and maneuvers that make absolutely no sense.

In doesn't take a genius to notice that there is positive change and negative one. Using the natural animosity to change as a proof that every change is positive is a very weak argument.

Again, the question is not whether the system should be streamlined - it obviously should, or at least some comprehensive rules should be written instead of the horror 4e has for quite a few subsystems. Existing simplified versions prove nothing - for all it's worth, I can create Shadowrun Diceless in a single sentence ("Let GM be the final arbiter what the characters should be able to do; if you have a conflict you need to resolve, play rock-paper-scissors until the GM wins twice or the player wins once"). The existence of simple variations says nothing when it comes to what rules subsystems should be changed in which way.

It's the very first page after the usual "what is roleplaying" bit. How can it be hard to find or to read?

With the same ranges for each category? Glorious. I'm sure it'll be fun to play a game where light pistols have the same range gaps as sniper rifles.
Let's look instead at FFG DH system family. Each individual weapon has its effective range in its stats there, and it works okay.

Because heavy rain is as difficult to see through as a thermal smoke grenade.

That line is indeed quite, well, far from being polite of fair. You take upon yourself to determine others' intentions and beliefs without any kind of solid basis for your argument.
If you want to play with newbie players, there are rules-light systems, quick-start rules and the rest of the usual tools. Dumbing down rulesets isn't bad because it somehow makes the people who're capable of reading thirty pages of the core book less elite, it's bad because it removes the simulation of detail from the game. See the example above: sure, both rain and thermal smoke grenade are visibility modifiers, but arguing that both should give the same penalty is removing a layer of detail from the game for no reason at all (except maybe for the benefit of the people too lazy to look the visibility modifiers up; but that isn't a problem for them because they can just agree to use a plain modifier for all cases).

There is a certain difference between "I get that generic implant that gives me +1 IP" and "I get wired reflexes". Because the latter comes with fluff, and that is half the immersion.

And why exactly don't you skip the intricacies you don't like and let the others decide whether they want them in their games on their own? It's not like even SR4 is a system bloated enough for anyone with a free evening not to be able to decide which part of it he likes.

Again back to my previous point: there's "heavy pistol 5P / -1 AP" and then there's Ares Predator or Ruger Super Warhawk. Guess which one is iconic and interesting to have on your charsheet?

Maybe that's because I'm trying to take a sober view of things, pointing out both the achievements and the failures for anyone, instead of using "poo-pooing anything" as a point of an argument?

System mastery as roleplaying mastery was introduced by Gary Gygax. See his book aptly named "Roleplaying mastery".

Right. Complex mechanics totally prohibits you from considering any of that.

Well, if you look at the Core, very little there requires more than three or four successes. Which does not require min-maxing at all, just some focus on the stuff you're hoping to do.
Sure, if the players optimize, GM's gotta hand them tougher challenges, what fun is there otherwise?


Right, but how many of them joined the hobby and kept buying books instead of just returning to CCGs/videogames/what have you? And would that number have not joined had the 4e not been dumbed down for them?

Which is fine. Many people like D&D, but I can't stand it. So I play another game.

The problem I've hit (and some former friends exemplified it most extremely) is this sense that if you enjoy numbers, you're wrong, that if your game involves math, it is wrong.

I play SR3. I love it. I also play a game where instead of dice, we draw cards and the highest wins, or you have to guess which number the GM is thinking of, or whatever. I love that one as well. My wife (and yours too, I imagine) would enjoy one, but not the other. There is space for both types of games

That said, as a gamer, I can find several dozen games which are quick, fun games with practically no mechanics; where I can look at a line or a sheet or a concept and say "I understand my character!" However, I have found one game which offers the lovely complexity and numbers of Shadowrun (that game is Shadowrun). I recognize 'people who have fun with numbers' may be a niche market. That's fine. But we're still here. And no one seems to be marketing to us. I'd like it if SR5 was a 'drop a character sheet and go' game, because sometimes I drink beer at game nights and can't do math. But I'd really like it if SR5 was a 'here is a granular combat mechanic, and a beautiful and nuanced cyberpunk world', because that just doesn't exist on the market.




None taken. Reading your comments, I recognize you've been running into a very different crowd from me. I've yet to play with a Shadowrun player who says "this is totally out of character, but it gives me a bonus, so I'll take it". I guess I'm blessed I've run into that with D&D and it killed the campaign. I agree if we could set up a system where someone who plays a character or who just wants to jump in and go was on even footing with someone who canvases the books for every possible bonus and multiplier, that would be awesome. I love doing the numbers, but if I'm grouped with someone who doesn't, and that player is now a liability, that's not fun for either of us. I'm not sure if that's possible, though. Any mechanical system which confers bonuses for certain player decisions will reward people who read the rules, and play to those decisions. The more decisions, the greater the burden placed on the player.

I liked D&D4E as a game designer. It was so easy to create and balance new abilities, effects, monsters, and traps.

The downside of that was that everything was basically the same.

I have an addition to my wish list.
Clarify what Mystics are and aren't, give some spells more distinct description/more limits for certain (manipulation) spells, put extensive information about magical countermeasures and how to use it in BBB. Put thr spirits description together with summoning... Then magic is pretty much perfect I'd say

More example opposition and quick grunt making rules would be nice to.

That was my experience playing it, as well. None of the classes felt different in any important way because everyone's abilities were so samey. Part of why magic in SR4 wasn't that interesting to me anymore, either.

Since some people apparently think that the "mind control" spells in SR can be used to make opponents kill themselves, adding one sentence to explicitly say otherwise could be called for. Personally, I don't think it should be necessary since no other game allows such shenanigans, but apparently people rules lawyer and weasel into claiming they can without it being there.

Frankly, commanding people to kill themselves is the least of the problems with mind control spells. I wish there was something that could protect you, instead of a secondary attribute roll vs a primary attribute + primary skill roll.

Quite.
And when I tried to break the mold and do something different, it either worked poorly or the players complained it was over-powered.*

*Notable example: a named NPC which from the original source material was a 21st level character (psion/rogue) facing off against a party of 4 to 6 14th level characters. One of the powers I gave this NPC was an attack which turned him invisible. I.e. the perfect backstab ability. A little over-powered, but in line with daily powers of high level monsters. He had other ways to become invisible as well (I mean, we're talking a rogue here) and used that power after attacking a PC while invisible, then using his move action to Not Be In That Space. Everyone at the table cried foul.

The PCs on the other hand had a "teleport the party 20 squares" ability which was used almost constantly as a "this fight will not favor us: GFTO" because most of the rooms and passages in the dungeon were only 10 or 15 squares wide. "50 foot (10 squares) bowl shaped room with the floor coated in oil? 20 square teleport."

On the other hand, one of the more fun battles we had were when a bunch of flying monkies would swoop in and steal a magic item, and then GTFO. I'd based their speed on the original source material, forgetting how far PCs could move in a turn. Miraculously, they managed to not lose any of their stuff.



Secondary? Don't you mean "tertiary"?

Secondary implies that you use it for some of your active skills, and I cannot fathom any non-mage character who needs Willpower for anything.

1) Faster combat. Combat drags on and that really kills the story. Not just that, it makes our GM try to avoid it at all costs becuase he knows it can take 2-3 hours to resolve a running firefight. I know it can also be over in 15-20 minutes if everything runs smoothly, and thats what I'd prefer the norm be. D&D 4th should be the goal here. Yes, it sucked in a lot of ways, but the ability to resolve combat quickly (4 encounters with lots of RP in between in 2 hours the first time I ran it made me overlook a lot of it's flaws) would be a great addition. From the sound of it, the 'darker and grittier' combat system aims to make combat deadlier, which will keep it a dangerous proposition for runners while making it easier to kill people, which thus speeds up combat.

2) Return of the Customization: I loved the Cannon Companion and how it not only let you modify guns but build them from the ground up. I loved the old cyberdeck work sheets. I don't want the return of the complicated as hell decking and other variables, but allowing a dedicated player to customize gear on that level always makes them feel more...theirs. A system that allows that level of internal customization (i.e. optional complicated math systems for players to mess with between sessions) that still retained the level of straightforwardness of the current system (i.e. I can look at a single 'bottom line' for most gear and know what modifiers it applies) would be great.

3) Some level of backwards compatibility: I'll be blunt, I hate the 'updating' required by new editions. It always feels like I'm being sucker punched when I buy a new book to get rules for gear that was in a previous edition. It feels worse when I want to give a character something that was in a previous edition that I know will come out eventually, but isn't out yet. I understand that it's necessary to update rules and close loopholes, and SR has waited long enough between editions that I don't feel like I'm being gouged for cash, but allowing some stuff to be 'grandfathered in' would be nice. An example here were the temporary rules for first ed charms in the Exalted 2nd Ed storytellers Guide. Let us have the options provided by the old stuff till you get around to updating it.

4) Same or (increased) level of electronic publishing: I love that you can get the pdfs way before the books, and since I got a tablet, I've switched to buying all my SR books via e-publishing. Please don't stop this.

Well, people use it to try and avoid, you know, death by mages. So most people I know drop at least a couple of points in it.

And yet, most of my PC's have at least a 4 Wilpower, as it is the ONLY way to resist Mental for a mundane, short of the Magic Resistance PQ. If you are complaining about not being able to resist Mental Spells and your stat is a 2, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

I don't generally, put a 4 in Willpower, but I do usually have at least a 3 (if not 3 then I go for 5). Even numbers on Body or Willpower makes me cry.

Hence my wish that there'd be some expensive talismans that'd grant bonus on Willpower to resist magic or whatever.

Nah, magic should be that "great unknown" for mundanes and it should scare them. If a mundane is given ability to resist magic like a heavily armored troll soaks up bullets, it loses that.

Mundanes do resist magic.

Just not very well...

One minor thing I would like is for weapon and magic ratings to be standardized. No more "special chambering +2 recoil comp" for the Ares Alpha but no other gun, for example. All weapons of a class should be built off of a template and priced accordingly with no special features unavailable normally. The same goes for magic - all spells should have drain modifiers relative to their class, just like they would if they used the in-game spell creation system.

"No more special tricks" is just killing the whole gear chapter altogether. You might as well throw it out and replace it with a table of standard stats and accessories. Which will, in turn, kill the iconics like the Alpha.

Bad thing is, there have been people trying to clamor for just that. Honestly, there should be more differentiation between different weapons and other equipment, rather than less.

Oh, one more thing for my wish list: I'd love a general price list for different types of runs, so people who have never purchased a Missions or adventure can understand roughly what any given run would pay, just with the main rulebook. If you've never played or run Shadowrun before, you should have some basic understanding that 'runners get hired for job, job involves this level of complexity, and the group will get paid roughly this much', then tailor it to their campaign needs.

I was pretty sure World of Darkness allowed it - you could blow Willpower to fight it, but eventually you'd run out. GURPS Japan made it fairly risky in fact - you didn't need mind control spells, but under certain circumstances, you could drive someone to suicide. Same with 7th Sea's court rules and social combat.

All that being said? I'd definitely allow it in Shadowrun.

I agree wholeheartedly. Different guns should differ in meaningful ways, not just "this and that addon by default, +-10% clip size, and maybe a couple points of RC".

Also, a lot more GM guidelines are needed. Karma rewards per run/per session and nuyen rewards for typical runs are the topics most often mentioned on the boards.

As for special tricks in weapons? If such exists, also explain how you can build it into other weapons - because if Gun A can have it, then Gun Z should be able to have something similar - especially if you make a custom weapon.

We need to see a return of the firearm creation and vehicle creation rules, as well.

Not really. There are bunches of unique guns in RL. How are you building Ares FMG collapsing ability into other SMGs without rebuilding them to be an Ares FMG? Same goes for AK-107 with its balanced automatics and so on.

Armor needs the same going over. The answer should not be 'Form Fitting with an Armored Jacket over it' in all situations.

I agree on this one, but the past few times taht such numbers have been floated (Admitedly in expansions, not core books), there was uproar over what some felt was lowballing.

"How much does a Shadowurn pay?" is one of the most problematic areas of the game, due to the playerbase segments, rathe rthan teh rules.

Which is *weird*, but there ya go.

On the other hand, you have 99% of runners equipped with Ares Predator/Alpha or Ruger Thunderbolt, and tossing Stunbolt/ball at every corpsec goon they find. There is very little variation between stat sheets I've seen since SR2 unless someone wanted to try a gimmick build or intentionally gimp themselves.

Also, agreed on armor: either cut FFBA entirely or change the stacking rules so things don't get crazy.

That's why you have to balance things so that'd they stay different but all more or less equally effective. That's the art of game design, not "light pistol does 4P, heavy pistol does 5P, let's move on to implants".

Also, agreed on FFBA - it either have to go, get some penalties for its benefits, or get changed stacking rules. As it is, it's just the best armor in the system, hands down.
I ban it :3

I houserule it to much lower effectiveness in my games. Makes no sense that something you can comfortably wear -under- clothes has better armor ratings than a more obviously armored jacket, without costing exponentially more to account for better armor materials.

I like FFBA-it makes sense that something like that would exist and have been developed. Armor has come a long way as it is, so I'd assume it would continue.

I'd increase the price, however, if I was doing a change to it. Show people that this is 'top of the line, really awesome and discreet armor' by tossing a hefty tag on it. That makes sense to me-I can easily see, for example, that ritzy combat face idea shelling out some hefty nuyen for something that's well-protective and discreet at the same time. that'll fit right under his fine suit.

Its not. In fact, I very rarely wear an armored Jacket even now.

There already form-fitting body armour suits in RL, yes. The problem with SR version is that FFBA is the only exception to armour stacking rules, which makes it strictly the best armour in the game, and thus must-have non-alternatively. Which is bad game design.

Never ever used an Ares Alpha, or Ruger Thunderbolt. And a very large number of my mages have never seen the formula for a Combat Spell, let alone Stunball or Stunbolt. *shrug*

Not having the above IS NOT GIMPING, and I take a large dose of offense at that statement.

And crazy stacking rules are only crazy if you allow them to get that way. I have yet to see any armor above 15 unless it was a Milspec suit (with those being pretty rare at our table - they are crazy obvious, after all). Most of the armor at our table is around the 8-12 range. *shrug*