For under 5000Y:

Lined Coat 6/4
Ballstic Mask +2/+1
FFBA Full 6/2
Helmet +1/+2
PPP Set (no helmet) +2/+4
Snake Mesh Socks (+0/+2 at lower legs and feet only)
17/13

All easy to get, low-cost gear that would realistically be worn together.

the word is 'could', not 'would'

Thank You...

So you would allow the simultaneous wearing of the Full FFBA Hood, the Ballistic Mask and the Helmet at your table? See, we do not, because that is just silly. *shrug* And besides, What you have listed is an effective 14/14 for Encumbrance (your totals are wrong, it is 17/15). So, anyone without a 7+ Body is encumbered.

As for the Snake Mesh Socks... Not happening at our table. They will work great for Snakes. Not so much for anything else. *shrug*

FFBA, ballistic mask and helmet all stack by the rules (at least there are no rules saying they don't).

My point was to make an example of how ridiculous the armor system in SR4 can quickly become. None of that gear is above availability 12.

By the RAW, Snake Mesh Socks add +2 impact armor to legs and feet, period.

Good thing that a) there is still a GM who lets the system become that ridiculous and b) there is no target zone system in place
But yeah. I'd like the armor system overhauled as well and I hope that is what 'grittier and deadlier' means.

Minor? That would keep me out before even seeing the books. Hands down.

Yes, they all stack by RAW. That is why you have a GM... to adjudicate such sillyness.
Who cares if the Availability is ABOVE 12. None of that matters with adjudication of what should go together. Besides, are you penalizing those who wear such silliness with the encumbrance of 14/14? If you are not, then you are letting them get away with it. If you are allowing 3 "Helmet-like" armors to be worn together, no wonder you are having issues.

As for the Snake Socks, Who cares what the RAW is. We do not allow them to apply to anything other than Snake Bites. See how easy that is. A little common sense gets you a long ways. *shrug*

Where are you getting 3 helmet-like armors? Helmet I get, Ballstic Mask is face-only, and the FFBA full suit would be more like a ski mask.

This does go to show though how such different tables can be and there isn't a right way. Our table uses FFBA, PPP, Snake Mesh Socks and all of that by RAW, we DON'T use availability at chargen even, using a 'Pick stuff that makes sense for your character rule', and our games are awesome fun and everyone gets a chance to shine, in and out of combat depending on what they do. They are a cut above average power, yes(not uber or anything). But I also think we might be different in that a lot of us have played together for years already and are best friends, which sorta puts a higher level of trust around that we all know each other so well and what we're doing. We make up stuff that 'sounds like it'll work.''

I admit I don't count my blessings enough to have such a chill gaming group that worrying about banning items and the like is something we don't need to do-but I can understand why other tables would do it.(I admit-even we might be a bit wary if a known munchkin whom we don't know well wanted to join our group and we might, in that case, want to tighten down the hatches.) I know some tables that prefer to play 300 BP street rats and others that like to play 650 BP elites. I guess in books I like when there is stuff that can be used in higher-and lower-power games.

Yes, all helmet like. All cover the Head/Face. And since they do not have hit locations in Shadowrun, all apply whether or not you are shot in the back of the head or the Face, and therefore all act like a Helmet. *shrug*
Regardless, their Encumbrance adds up.

Personally, I'd like to see "must-have" items increased in price, or adjusted to no longer be "must-have".

The worst offender in my book is:
-Emotionsoft/toy: Either everyone has it, or no one. Not having it while facing someone who does puts you at a major disadvantage.

Followed by:
-FFBA: I'm fine with wearing it under regular (or lightly armed) clothing, but when SWAT+FFBA becomes better than Milspec, it gets stupid.
-Smartlink: It's essentially a free +2 DP bonus that you'd be stupid not to take. I wish they would distinguish between implanted smartlink and smartlink goggles. Which brings me to...
-Visual/audio enhancements: Nowadays, Cybereyes and Ears are rarely seen in game anymore, since all the relevant upgrades are available as cheap external devices.
-"Best in category" items: Most item types, especially weapons, have one clear "best" item. I wish they would include viable sidegrades, but as it stands, the Ares Alpha is the best Assault Rifle (2pts of free RC), the Morrisey Elan is the best holdout (free plastic upgrade), the AA is the best shotgun (FA, GV and R availability. Did I mention that GV are usually not available for shotguns?)
-Betel: 5 extra BP at chargen, +1 to all perception checks, all for the measly price of 1 Nuyen per dose and 1 notoriety.

I'm fine with certain items being necessary, e.g. comlinks, lifestyles and fake sins, but the list of essential items should be kept small.




Add a machete, and the character starts to look like a comic book villain.

Hockey Stick.
Casey Jones.
Or CanRay.
*runs like hell*

Agreed in full, here.

Anytime that there's a best option, full stop, there are issues. Benefits that have a counterbalance? That's fine as long as the tradeoff is fair. (+3 Power but your gun has 1 less ammo capacity? Not happening. One more power, half ammo? Likely!)

Things that are too good need to be scaled back while things that are too weak need to be boosted. What thos ethings are, and how much reduction/increase there should be, well, those are matters of discussion.

And now for something more fundamental and controversial: Shadowrun needs hit locations with separate armor values. The idea of "one character, one armor value" is not bad at face value, but in practice you can spend more time trying to work around the insanity the system creates, than it actually saves.
This is not AoE where you purchase a "helmet" upgrade for your troops and the effect is +2 armor in their stat display. This is a roleplaying game, where you are supposed to play a character who is now wearing a helmet, a real helmet and not a piece of handwavium named "helmet" for the lack of a better name with some abstract stat bonus. So what does the GM do if you wear a helmet and besides that only standard battledress? Make opponents take Called Shots to hit anywhere but your head? Tell you to screw immersion and just accept your magic helmet?

The question is just how to make it work, but other RPGs show that it can be done without complexity bloat. My favourite example is Dark Heresy...I am not advocating a switch to D100 and can't even speak for the game in general, but their idea for hit zones is great: The attack roll is a standard roll-under D100 system, then you reverse the order of the dice and that is the hit location. Say you rolled a 50 on your attack roll, if that is enough to hit you reverse the dice and look up what hit location a 05 is (IIRC 10 and under is a headshot, congratulations).


Oh, and, bringing back SOME of the more complex interactions between cyberware would be nice. Implanting a Datajack in a Cyberlimb should make no difference to the Essence cost, since it still needs to be wired to the nervous system; Bone Lacing should cost less if half your limbs are cyber; and so on.

Hit Locations being added == Deal Breaker

The problem with hit locations becomes creating armour values by location, health by location, and then creating a smooth system for determining where people get hit. Then you need to take cover into account on top of this, and positioning. If you're firing from a higher angle, there's more chance you'll hit the head/shoulders/arms, than the torso/legs. Then you need to start taking into account things like damage/destruction of hit location. If you shoot someone in the arm and they're dropped into the deep overflow, is the arm damaged, or destroyed? Can it be healed normally, or is it effectively 'gone'? Then you need to start considering people who will begin to routinely do 'head shots'.

That being said, I liked Top Secret S.I.'s hit location system. You rolled D%, and the 10s place was hit location (0-9), and the 1's place was damage if you were unarmed (0-9). If you rolled doubles, it was a critical hit to the location, resulting in immediate 'death' for the location. Your skill rank (1-6) indicated how far you could 'bump' the hit location to be closer to where you want. It was actually fairly fluid, but obviously can't work for Shadowrun (since SR uses a successes-based system, and doesn't use d%).



I agree, a datajack in a cyberlimb shouldn't have an essence cost -- the cyberlimb's already attached to the nervous system -- you aren't making 'more attachment'. The amount of additional implantation would be so miniscule as to be irrelevant. It's why I'm glad cybereyes and cyberears give a certain amount of freebies on essence. I can see where you're coming from in reference to bone lacing (and I think the same should apply to things like muscle augmentation, too).

Hmm. Going with this theory, it would be interesting to see 'by limb' packages and 'total body' packages, where you can pick a part of your body and decide what to do with it - much like how 'headware' exists as a category. In fact, 'build your own' cyberware could be... interesting. Pick what kind of augmentation you want, pick body location which would make sense, then determine essence cost.

For example, brain augmentations which connect with the eyes and ears to give superior balance (For balance checks and similar), or to heighten awareness and response time (+1 IP). Then you could make 'brand name' cybernetics, which are available from certain corporations, but not others.

Just a thought.

My Wishlist, so far...

1) Quick Combat - I'm tired of spending hours slogging through fights.

2) Quick Hacking - Focus it on simple actions that can be done piecemeal. Hacking a single device should be about as quick as picking a locked door, or busting one down with brute force. Hacking is currently too all-or-nothing, requiring a lot of time and effort and typically resulting in either total control or utter failure. Simply put (and forgive the pun), the system is too binary.

Hacking should be a utility skill. A hacker should be able to do lots of small things that on their own are useful, but not game breaking. Need to bypass a specific security camera? You should be able to temporarily disable or spoof that individual camera by itself, rather than have to take control of an entire security system. Want to force an enemy's gun to eject the ammo? You shouldn't have to conquer their entire PAN to do so.

Make it abstract. Make it a little unrealistic if you have to. But make it fast and fun.

3) Sidegrades, Not Upgrades - Be it magic, toys, weapons, or 'ware, nothing should be obviously superior compared to other objects of its kind. You shouldn't end up with "problem items" like Stick-N-Shock, Tacnets, and Form Fitting Body Armor, just to name some of the better known ones. Every benefit needs to be matched with some detriment, and vice-versa.

4) Rebalanced Metatypes / Metavariants / Et Cetera - Many people agree, when you crunch the numbers Orks have huge bonuses for their low costs, while many other character "race" options are just badly underpowered or flat-out overpriced. Certain choices are just so sub-optimal or ineffecient as to make it very hard to justify ever playing them. This imbalance often makes it feel like the system punishes those who wish to play certain exotic or unusual character types, and no one should EVER feel like they can't play the type of character they want to play without being unfairly restricted or penalized.

5) Reworked Skills - The current system works, but there are rough patches and weird overlaps. Weapons divide into different skills oddly, technical skills are often too narrow or redundant, there are too many magical skills to juggle, et cetera.

6) More Non-Lethal Options - There are just too few ways to inflict stun damage.

~Umi

How about Optional Hit Locations?

Optional, fine, but only optional.

Not sure I like the idea of optional hit locations. Then, the armor rules need changing to be taken into account, then health in total vs. that of the body part, then the cover rules etc. Seems to snowball into a ton of things that need to be tacked on. Either make the rules integrate the idea of hit locations, or don't. Personally, I like the idea of hit locations.

I'd say, there should be a minimum of optional rules. Don't try to be everything to everybody, or it'll turn into D&D Next.

Going by the what's been mentioned by now, any change at all, as well as no change at all, are both deal breakers. This means that whatever they do, it's a deal breaker to someone.

Well, hit locations do nothing positive for a game. All they do is add completely unnecessary complexity.

It adds some level of realism, and it can mean more tactical decisions. The main concern is, of course, whether it's even possible to do relatively seamlessly.

Here's a diagram of what really should be, IMO.

Game<---------------------|-------------------->Realism

If I want 'realism' I'll take a step out my front door.

I wouldn't quite go that far. I want my games to be fairly realistic in flavour and setting, but I want my mechanics to be smooth and fluid. I like my internal consistency and setting that makes sense, and I like my cause-effect to be fairly realistic as well.

It's one reason I can't run pink-mohawk Shadowrun. I can't comprehend a way to realistically let the players kick down the door, guns blazing, and not expect to be ripped to shreds shortly afterwards. But that's my hangup.

I used to have a six-sider that had a head, a torso, and each arm and each leg on its faces. If I absolutely had to know where the shot hit, I rolled it. It's so worn down now it's hard to read, but I can always jot down a quick table and use a regular six-sider if I need to.

I always liked the GURPS hit-location scheme. Seemed to produce good results, and we always felt awesome when you rolled that 3.

Now, this I can get behind. Even though we use stuff like FFBA and everything and it doesn't unbalance the game, I don't necessarily think it's the best way to go about it.

How I'd handle some of this stuff...FFBA, I'd again, leave it effective(Maybe 3/0, 4/1, 5/2 depending), but again, crank up the price actually dramatically on it. Picturing it like Hollywood Armor. This is what George Clooney II would buy to go to the Oscars which were threatened by some gang who really didn't like the movies that year. A well-off character, yes, could probably afford it at the start(maybe jack Availability up for people who play with that rule or put a note on the Level 3 like 'GM Discretion at chargen' like Adapsin has. I think Level 1 should be okay.). A combo of this might help out with that whole 'Must...Have' feel. It'll still be good, and it should be(while I'm pretty firmly pink mohawk and love things like changelings, I do have SOME 'realistic' thoughts as well in the game, and it simply makes sense to me they'd develop better and more discreet armor over time. In other words while I can easily roll with pink mohawk, and prefer it, I don't have a problem picturing things like 'technology getting better over the years'.)

(Note: I do not have a problem with armor layering to a reasonable extent. IMO, FFBA under armor just plain makes sense. Which is why I'd crank up the price on it considerably. If I were to try to cut down armor layering but still keep it making sense, I might lower the effectiveness of armor by, say, -2/-1; so take the layered armor's total and knock -2/-1 off of that. So in the above example, George Clooney 2 might wear some...Armored Tux at 5/3 and a full FFBA for 5/2, but instead of 10/5 he'd run on 8/4.)

Smartlink I'd go back to differing the goggles and the implanted one is all.

Eye mods? This is another one of those situations where it's plain sensible to have them. Maybe do the same here as with smartlinks? Have the non-implanted versions nice, but not quite as good as the implanted ones.

Now the 'Best In Slot' syndrome...I honestly don't feel that as much, since I always liked tweaking out my own weapons. Get an inexpensive assault rifle and pimp it with the works-it's always been great fun(I have a sam right now whose essentially got a high armoring skill and he loves doing this stuff.) That being said, I can maybe see some sorta thing here. What I'd do-and keep in mind I'm more of the type that's 'Don't take away from people, ADD to the fun' is make building your own stuff more appealing. This however has it's own drawback for people who prefer a more pick up and play style, though, I admit. I'd love to find a happy medium with this one.

All in all, I'd love for there to be more good choice in the game instead of 'just pick this', because I love toys and gear I admit. But at the same time I don't want to see a ton of stuff nerfed to hell and back, especially stuff that makes sense that would be in the game. I think some simple changes would help though.

An interesting result of the way cybereyes and eye "gear" work, is that mostly mages want the cybereyes while everyone else gets the contacts/glasses. Good or bad?

Sorry for taking this snippet out of context of the larger post, but I dunno, man.

The AA packs some power, sure. But it's also the most expensive and least available shotty, with a base cost of 8,000 nuyen and 18R availability. So that's Restricted Gear to get one at start (the only shotgun in the game which needs it), and modding it is gonna be expensive. I also don't know why you mentioned it being only R availability, as there are no F availability shotguns. The FA firing is something of a double-edged sword, as shotguns suffer doubled uncompensated recoil, so even with further mods to help stabilize, you're losing a whole lot of dice to fire the damn thing. The unique gas-vent is nice, but only really valuable if you do plan on firing in FA, as BF can easily be compensated for with other cheap recoil mods. To be honest, the nicest thing about the weapon is the one thing you didn't mention - half ammo usage with suppressing fire. And since suppression doesn't impose recoil modifiers? Well, you don't actually need that gas-vent, now do you?

One other thing to note is the drum magazine, but that kind of depends on interpretation. Drum magazines are normally available for SMGs and assault rifles, at a cost of increased concealability. An inbuilt drum magazine on a shotgun ought to increase the concealability modifier compared to a standard shotgun with an internal magazine or removeable clip. Spare drums to reload with should also suffer a similar concealability modifier, being as they are larger than a standard clip. But that's something which isn't made clear via RAW, and will likely be argued over by GMs.

Compare to a Shiawase Arms Riot Guard (GH2, p. 24), modified for FA firing, given an additional clip, and with any of the 1 RC mods or accessories added onto its in-built 1 RC (presumably a folding stock, although the listing doesn't indicate one except via the RC stat). You end up with 2 less rounds of ammo split between two clips, identical concealability (dependant on how you rule the AA's drum magazine), identical RC, a price tag 3000 nuyen smaller, a char-gen friendly availability, free melee hardening and reduced weight, and even the in-world setting advantage of a police or security level weapon rather than an infamous military grade one. All you lose out on is 3 mod slots.

~Umi

You and I are going to disagree on this, so I'm not really interested in continuing it. What shadowjackal said is true though - it did bring in tons of new blood. Which you helpfully dismissed with, "they're just going to go back to their video games and card games!" and is kind of insulting to the folks that anecdotally, I know have gone deeper into the hobby.

The current belief regarding the changeover from 4e D&D and Next is essentially what shadowjackal said, by the way; they lost folks, 4e wasn't the OMG SALES BLOCKBUSTER Hasbro wanted, and Mearls has gone far, far off the deep end.


So, you're being a little dismissive here. Which you also do...


Here.


And here.

Which is cool, but not really.

The examples I linked to are examples of how you can simplify Shadowrun without losing the stuff that's important: the themes, the archetypes, the games you can run. There's a lot more than a simple RPS system here - and frankly, this goes back to what I was saying before about a certain consensus of gamers who feel a certain way about simplified or streamlined systems: "they're dumb, and shallow, and for newbies."

My linked examples are for a sole purpose - to demonstrate what others have done, and show what could help improve Shadowrun in the long run.


It doesn't go far enough. It doesn't really delve into the why's and who's and the roleplaying aspect of the game. It goes into the most basic running skeleton - yeah, you're going to be hired by a corporation, work for a Johnson, deal with fixers - but doesn't talk about why your character would do this. Hell, it barely even covers the archetypes properly, or the themes of the game. It just feels cursory, and needs to be expanded upon and discussed further.





This is where you and I differ, and I'm afraid will never agree on.

I simply do not give two tosses about simulation in a game where fantasy elves, dwarves, orks and trolls, mix it up with regular humans while surfing the internet and drinking coffee. At that point? Realism / simulation has gone out the window.

My whole goal when it comes to utilizing a ruleset is, "does it make this game easy and fun to run?" A secondary concern is, "do I need to keep track of a million little modifiers and consult a bunch of tables to simply adjucate anything my players toss at me?"

Having to worry about multiple range tables for different guns is annoying to me, as is keeping track of the million little modifiers smoke, rain, car exhaust, or whatever scenario you care to throw at me can come up. This is not an important aspect of the game for me. It is for you though! And that's fine - just don't be surprised that we don't see eye to eye on this.

Considering that this topic is, "what do YOU want from Shadowrun 5e," I thought it was okay to share how I'd like to see the game turn. Because the above is what I would like to see.


Oh, okay, never mind then.

Tell me why the Ares Predator or the Super Warhawk are important and sacrosant, beyond name recognition and canon legacy. And then I'll agree with you on this.

All we're talking here is skin and bones. I'm not afraid to change skin ("Heavy Pistol" = "Ares Predator") without changing bones. It's a lesson learned from 4e D&D, and it was a good lesson to learn, IMHO.


This does nothing to mitigate my perception that you're being hypocritical, but that's all right, I'll drop it.


Please don't take this the wrong way, but this is the weirdest thing to think.

You want new blood in your game, because that's the only way to survive. Continue to make it arcane and have a barrier to entry, and you get D&DNext.

Seriously, you guys? Can't you just leave the pissing match in PM's? At least that way the rest of us don't have to watch you measure your hate boners.

On topic:
I'd love to see combat be more lethal. Hit locations (random or otherwise) would be a boon to the system, as would subsystem damage.
Make hacking as intuitive as combat. Make melee combat a risky, but rewarding endeavor. I could go either way on the mage/shaman divide, since I didn't arrive in SR until 4e, which brings me to my next point.
A fraggin' timeline. Not some shenanigans involving the corps, because without knowing the canon, that's all pointless. What IS Dunkelzahn's will? What are Immortal Elves? Drakes?
Shadowtalk is nice, but I shouldn't have to read callbacks and references and then tell my players I have half a clue what's going on in this world.
Make Legwork intuitive. Player's Resources (Contact Rating, Knowledge Skills) vs. Security Rating.
Increase the divide between AR and VR. Don't just make VR "AR, but better and slightly droolier". Remote VR hacking is silly, since it would either require hacking every node between you and your target (no way that could go wrong); a datajack could still have a place, if VR hacking were both on-site and brute force. If you have time to set up a fake account with all of the associated benefits, it's better to have an AR hacker slip in and out. If you have to brute-force it, call in a decker, and pray your gunner can keep corpsec off him long enough to retrieve your target.
If the timeline is moved on, make mages and adepts more common; also, give mundanes more magic resistance. Yes, magic is scary and special and dangerous. Doesn't mean that wizards should make runs simple.
Honestly, most weapons SHOULD be pretty similar within a category. Any unique or awesome weapons should be at the bleeding edge, and ridiculously difficult to get. Yes, that gun will be more accurate, but more prone to malfunction. This other one, though, is cheap, and almost unbreakable, but its accuracy is....lacking, to say the least.
Encumbrance rules: Wanted. Give items a Bulk rating (could wrap into Concealment) instead of a weight. Give clothing items (and armor accessories) Bulk Reduction (or a Concealment bonus) so that wearers can make better use of their gear (and carry it more efficiently).

This is my current 5e Christmas List.
By all means, let me know your opinion. If you're halfway civil and aren't waving an edition flag, I'd be glad to discuss it.

What I'd like to see is, in the combat chapter, a section on easy ways to make combat more AND less lethal that are more in depth than the tiny charts they have now. Our table goes with the middle-ground approach, for example. It'd be great if they could have some pretty clean, not too crazy rules on how to adjust your game fairly simply for this. The hit box rule could be a great optional one, for example. I mean the past few expansions they gave some very basic ways to do it, but I'd say try to get it both a BIT more in depth, but still not too convoluted. Hit boxes would I think go a decent way into potentially making combat more lethal. Including the armor degradation rules in the core could also help with that.

As for less lethal options, they could perhaps say that armor layering is easier, or somehow get being able to cut down damage with a defensive roll easier.

Half of your sentence is missing ^^
@Hacking every node: This is not true, like today, your data packets are routed from you to the target system.

1. Armor by location is precisely what I want, because it solves the headaches of somebody running around with no armor but a helmet.
2. Health by location would be unnecessary for natural limbs, because getting shot in your flesh and blood leg certainly leg does affect your whole body. At most you'd need a system that renders a limb useless if it takes X damage in a single shot, if that happens to the head the victim goes unconscious.
3. Cyberarms and -legs with their own CMs, why not actually? The extra bookkeeping (compared to what cyberlimbs always bring) does not sound prohibitive, and the extra CMs would be balanced by the fact that Armor in your left arm no longer protects the whole body...

So what it boils down to is creating an easy system for determining hit locations. And it should fit the rest of the system, "roll a D20 for each attack and check the Hit Locations Table" would obviously work but break with the rest of the system too much.



I meant that putting a Datajack (or Commlink) into a limb should not change the 'jack's Essence cost. The cost comes from the necessary wiring, an that needs to be done no matter where it gets installed.

Going back to the idea of a 'dual-statted, high-complexity/low-complexity' game, where people can use either set of mechanics and play in the same game ...

What if you set it up so your low-complexity player has a small list of skills that she is especially good at. She gets bonuses to the point that she is basically a specialist, so her sheet says "this is what you're good at - and that's it".

Then the high-complexity character gets to run things basically as they are now, but with the system set up to make it easier to excel in a broad range of synergistic areas. However, your high-complexity character isn't likely to be quite as good as the low-complexity character in the field of her choice.

You can choose one path or the other (but not both).

This means that the high-complexity player can still play with those numbers and have a useful character. In fact, knowing these sorts of players, he can probably *still* make the system sing for him enough to compete with the low-complexity character (the system just doesn't make it easy). The low-complexity character takes a 'penalty' for doing things the easy way, but it's one that gives other people a space to shine, without making things not fun for said player.

It also means that when you're running large groups, the system supports you. Large groups need specialists, not generalists, and faster gameplay. So force everyone to play the low-complexity rules.

Thoughts?

First off: I disagree with your whole posting, but it's certainly a valid wish.
I just hope it gets disregarded as a whole.
Some of the things I really like about SR (and have always liked) is the lack of hit locations. If I want that, I play BattleTech. Everything else can be done by liberal application of brain.

Also, no, essence cost for a jack and / or similar ware _should_ be 0 when installed into a cyberlimb. The limb already has DNI. You don't need any more wiring. (Yes, I realize, it's a fluff reason which stands against your fluff reason, but it also works well mechanically, IMO)

Datajacks in Cyberlimbs do not have an Essence Cost (They take up Capacity of 1 instead). I am curious as to why you (or anyone, actually) think they do.

Because for a Datajack or anything else that needs to have a DNI-Connetion to work in a Cyber-Limb, you have to install a second DNI which then takes up essence, as it has to be wired into your CNS to propperly work, because these devices function differently and can't hitchhike on the DNI to the limb. Else, every time you give a command via the Datajack, your Arm moves for example.
At least, that's how it was and explained in SR3.

Nah. You can just use the databus of the cyberarm DNI connection
See? Fluff reason trumps fluff reason. Both are equally valid.

Except that that is not how it works in SR4A. *shrug*

I see where your scepticism is coming from when you're equating hit locations and Battletech...Torso bombs for the win



Well, my fluff reason is that the limb only has the DNI wiring required for its function, but not much more. Controlling a spur is not "much more", but Simsense via a Datajack is.

Don't get me wrong, I love BattleTech

I propose that we agree to disagree on the matter of DNI. It's all in the fluff and doesn't matter a lot, after all. My line of thinking is that you've payed a lot of essence for the limb, so it should have some perks. Because I like having people run around with cyberarms. Very iconic

Any update to the system has got to address at least the following issues that were introduced in SR4:

1) Cyberware is too easily replaced with non-cyberware equivalents. It's often easier and cheaper (and costs less essence) to have skinlink contact lenses with thermo and full visual display and full smartlink than it is to have cybereyes, and spatial recognizer earbuds with filters and recording capability hooked up to your inifinite-storage commlink than cyberears.

2) Smartlinks are too weak.

3) AR hacking at VR speeds with no significant shortcomings.

4) Wireless hacking in general -- it tends to be either a headache or impotent.

5) Capabilities of computer systems -- computers in SR4 appear designed specifically to be hacked and defend against hacking. Actual work seems to have barely gotten a thought. There's no way a node could handle an office environment or connect to passersby and generate AR content without breaching active user and program limits. This means that a regular office would need dozens of nodes (probably all named stuff like O1F2WGP_XL7_3415) and be fairly impenetrable in the same way hiding your spare door key in a fake rock stored in a pile of hundreds of fake rocks each with fake keys would make your house pretty secure.

I'm glad you see that the supposed new fan base did not not bring enough money in to keep the edition around.
Let's leave D&D discussion at this, nothing good ever comes of it.

I like how you simply drop the arguments you can't counter.
Each tool has its use. You want a system that allows you to run a game ten minutes after making that decision, or one that doesn't require reading a full book worth of rules, etc - all in all, any one good for the first games introducting someone to the hobby, you take a rules-light system or a diceless one. Why you think Shadowrun should be one, when it has a tradition of being exactly the opposite, is beyond me. It's like saying we don't need electronic microscopes because they take a long time to set up, and a simple lens magnifies things, too.

None of these depend on the rulesystem at all.

Because no sane person with a runner's skill is going to be a runner unless under some very specific set of circumstances. It does explain what you initially wanted of it before moving the goal posts, though: that the runners are not the cavalry.

Apparently we're not agreeing on this one, yes. My take is that we're having the same coffee whether it's a human or an ork drinking it. The world works by the same general laws, it's just some of the circumstances that are changed. Same goes for magical medieval settings as well.

Name recognition and canon legacy are reason enough. For implants, it goes deeper, of course, because for them fluff descriptions are the thing allowing you to imagine what having that implant feels like.

"The Blizzard's fan base has demands different from those of the roleplayers" and "Blizzard's games prove people are willing to go to any length to advance their character" combined make me hypocritical? That's nice to know.


Why do you equate players new to Shadowrun to players new to the hobby at large?

Something that most people fail to realize the future is closer then we think. A fully wireless world WiMax ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX ) will be Fully realized in a very shot time, Limb replacement (cyber-Ware) and Stem Cell research (Bio-ware) there was even another dumpshock post about future muscle replacement. If anything SR needs to Step up to keep ahead of reality

Because that's not cyberpunk. SR is, or at least should be, a mainly cyberpunk game, along with the fantasy elements that made it unique. If I want to play a modern scifi game or something, I'd play it/buy it.

And you are fooling yourself if you think we are gonna see a wireless world in our lifetimes. Not while someone can make money off of slowly upgrading areas outside of major metropolitan areas (read: most of the world).

It's beside the point anyway. SR was never meant to be a real world in the future with elves simulator. It was based on a specific idea of what the future would be, and should stick to that. At least, IMO. Of course whoever owns the license gets to make that call. I can't say what sales looked like in previous editions vs now, and I'm not even sure those numbers would mean anything with the way the industry has been lately.

All I can say is that I, personally, will not be purchasing any of the RPG material if it sticks to what 4E has already been doing, because I'm not interested in it. Fluff wise, or crunch wise.

Hmm. I'd say Shadowrun's moved closer to near-future science fiction and is moving away from pure cyberpunk. (post-cyberpunk, in fact) I disagree that Shadowrun has to 'stick with' anything. The modern world is evolving, and Shadowrun is stronger for evolving with it. If it tried to cling hard and fast to 'cyberpunk', it'd go the way of the Cyberpunk RPG - which basically fell into irrelevancy.

I like Shadowrun specifically because it is a living, evolving game. As we develop in the present, it develops. As some things fall by the wayside, it discards those as well. This keeps Shadowrun relevant, and easy to connect with. If it didn't, if it stuck with things like Cyberpunk did, I'd start getting the same disconnect: "I can do this now, how come I can't do this in the game?"

As for wireless... it'll get there, a bit at a time. In Shadowrun, it got a boost, because a specific megacorp jumped in and made it happen while everyone else was still recovering from Crash 2.0. I don't think we're going to need that kind of kick in the pants, but I think we're moving in that direction.