Not entirely, though. It does come close, but still lacks in some areas. *shrug*
Not a fan of GURPS myself, though.. *shrug*

Augmentation:
Would like to see the distinction between Cyberware and Bioware removed, and move all augmentation into a single 'Bionics' catagory. Genetech and nanowear can still retain thier own rules, but two different listings for augmentations that are basically the same function seems unnecisary. Or, put in a greater distinction between Cyberwear and Biowear, like different side-effects for if a majority of your essence loss is from Bio or Cyber.

Cyborgs:
Would really like to see cyborgs as playable characters.

Weapons and ammunition:
needs alot of work, updating weapons for modern-day design (inclusion of designated marksman rifles and squad-automatic weapon roles).
Flchette ammunition does not actually work like how it's described in the book, always bugged me.
Would also like to see shotgun ammo revamped to make them stand out a bit more.

Armor:
I'm wondering if the game really needs two different types of armor. the conventional wisdom of 'Impact is usually lower than Ballistic' probably isn't true even half of the time, and most weapons that target impact armor have +armor mods applied to them (HP rounds, Flchette, Gel rounds, ect.) anyway. seems like an easy thing to cut out that wouldn't affect gameplay (just give melee weapons an additional -armor bonus to offset).

More distinct categories sound nice. As for lumping them together, there's a mechanical difference...

Well basic rules are there in Augmentation, and there's a fan supplement in my signature if those don't quite work.

Battle rifles are in War! and later supplements, and MGs are all over the place.

Considering the presence of magic, a corporate R&D department (coughArescough) could probably try to work out combining the armor technology with an Initiate enchanter to work something out. It's gonna be expensive as all hell to produce and even more so to acquire after production, but it is theoretically possible.

Yes, but how well does it integrate into your standard campaign? Considering the rarity (and the GM headaches) that even "just" mil-spec heavy armor causes, the power bloat that that sort of hardware brings...making something crazy like full-on Iron Man or Metroid armor possible, much less making it normal? That's the sort of thing that ramps up a setting, and is a bell that's very hard to un-ring.

When the default isn't "armor jacket and a heavy pistol" any more, and is instead "flying powered armor and gyrojet gatling guns" or something...are you still really playing Shadowrun? How often to GMs and players even include the existing super-high-tech stuff that the setting offers, like Jarheads and Cyberzombies, without threatening the balance of power something fierce?

Who said anything about normal? I said it'd be pretty danged expensive, and with how rare Initiate enchanters of any real power are, such a thing would be unlikely to decrease in price for several decades (possibly even a century).

They don't, because when you've rolled out the military armor and heavy weapons, you're not playing a street-level game of plausible deniability and surviving on the margins of society, you're playing Fallout.

Who ever said it should be made standard, Critias?

There are plenty of things that exist in Shadowrun that are not standard. There are entire books worth of gear that don't get used regularly, but the fact that there is an option for people to use that gear if they so choose is a good thing. The average Shadowun might not include laser rifles and artillery fire, but I for one am immensely pleased that the rules for such things actually exist, even if they are so expensive, hard to get, and unsubtle as to make them unsuitable for campaigns that aren't ultra pink mohawk or military centric.

Edit: Sniped by All4.

~Umi

And imagine the run that turns out to actually be the 'weapons test' for the "Metroid armor"

!! armour foci in 5th !!

And the idea that using milspectech is wrong is why milspectech books are sold for a buck

I mean, sure, this kind of gear isn't meant to be easily accessible, but the stats are in and that means that these toys are intended to be used more than a gamemaster plot device. If the idea was that 'once you look into the barrel of a military gun, you're dead', there would be no stats, no costs to buy and ratings. These toys would be off the table. But they are in. Assault cannons in corebook, military armor in Arseanal, in-depth rules on cyborgs and cyberzombies in Augmentation and so on - these are basic books. Did the people who wrote these books really expected players would look at them and don't touch, like those biometric guns in Tir na Nog with a tag 'hey, chummer, that's not for you. Sucker!'?

Of course, there should be restraint in using them, if every ganger starts running with an 50F gun, that's pretty sure wrong, but every game that goes for some time will have power creep. My ork streetsam started with biker racer armor, but some time in the adventure he could afford military armor. He just looted it from an out-of-the-book npc. Took some money and effort to repair it, but he got it. And then the question rises: if every game sooner or later comes to the cool toys, why make the players suffer the time to get them? If we've played a campaign for a year and our characters became rather well-equipped, but we've started a new one and our new characters are again scrambling for some spare rounds for the only Predator the team possesses, where's the fun? We've done it once, we came all the way from the bottom to top, why should we do it again?

The possible way to avoid this problem is to limit the power creep. Keep the game low-level and issue the big toys with great care. But there's no fun playing delivery boys in the world of such rich metaplot.
Maybe power tiers can solve the issue.

The metroid armor looks exactly like i pictured heavy milspec armor.
@MilSpec Stuff: Sometimes i wonder why there are stats for Aircraft carriers, strategic nuclear subs and stealth bombers? Floor plans of these would have been much more intreresting.

I honestly don't think Shadowrun suffers a terrible amount of power creep, because the setting is sort of self-limiting or self-policing. The more of a threat you become, the more likely you are to get taken down.

No matter how powerful you get, you're only a handful of shadowrunners against corporations that span the globe. Take the absolute most powerful gear available, slap it on the most professional team of perfectly optimized runners possible, and yeah, you'll make some damn big waves, but in the end the megas will sink you. You're only a medium size fish in a sea of great white sharks, after all.

It also helps immensely that unlike an online multiplayer game, there's no bleedover effects from what power creep there is. If you and your table are happy playing street level campaigns, then what difference does it make if Joe Chummer and his pals are playing ultra crazy psycho funtime explodo-tastic demi-god extravaganza campaigns? There's no competition between your tables, no overlap in how each group chooses to play and at what power levels. It's not like you're getting spawn camped by some jackass with a maximum level unlockable weapon, ya know?

~Umi

This! So very many times this! Too often you hear people griping about the really big stuff just because they don't want it in their games. Real simple solution: Be very clear on what 'power level' characters you're wanting in your game, but be flexible and respect that not everyone is comfortable with ultra-low-powered stuff.

I read "Ultra-Low-Powered" and imagined a Black Trenchcoat MacGyver campaign.

"You make your way through the crowds and into a rundown laundromat. The old man at the counter seems lost in his newspaper, but you know better. He turns a page, coughs, and glances at your party as if to say, "What are you waiting for? It's unlocked." Of course you already noticed the rear door was ever so slightly ajar, already smelled the smoke from Hamza's hookah wafting from the back. If not for his reputation as the best fixer in Baghdad, you'd think anyone who'd set up shop in a public laundromat with no physical security to speak of would have to be an amateur. But you wouldn't be here if he wasn't good, now would you?"

"The door swings open with a gentle push. Hamza is lounging on an antique divan, puffing contentedly. He gazes at you lazily, slides a paper envelope across the low table, and returns his attention to his pipe. The envelope contains a name, a date, two street addresses, and a commcode, all in cypher. Tucked into the bottom fold are two linked paper clips. On the floor by the door is a plastic convenience store bag, which you take. Inside is a bottle of sulphuric acid, rosary beads, a rubber glove, an antique alarm clock, moth balls, and a stalk of celery."

"As you split up and disappear into the side alleys a moment later, you each reflect on the task before you. You've never abducted a pope before. But like old Farmer Anderson used to say back in Wyoming, it takes a horse thief to make some men truly see God. And you're all itching to get back in the saddle."

~Umi

"Black Trenchcoat" is just woefully low on actual enjoyment. If there is little actual combat and action, then the game becomes dull, boring and bland very very quickly. No point in even playing past the first five minutes of a game with that 'style', IMO. Might as well meander on over to the video games and start playing that. You'll have more fun.

Even if you want tanks and anti-ship cruise missiles in your games, do you really need stats for them? I mean, regardless of the amount of Karma gathered, you're not resisting a 46P cruise missile. Neither are you taking on an aircraft carrier, at least using its vehicle stats for a fair face-to-face fight.

I think Umidori really covered this for me.

One of the secrets to a good story is adjusting tension, and the equipment you have is part of that. My street-level group have had to complete runs with pvc pipe shotguns and light pistols. Next week they're piloting a Thunderbird loaded down with mil-spec rockets, evading KE helicopters. Changing it up keeps it fresh. Absolutely, the thunderbird (and the pvc shotgun) have no place in the core book, which establishes your 'baseline' game. But they should be in supplements, both for my players to use when I toss them into a totally new situation and watch them scramble, and for when I as the GM deploy them against my PCs. It's fun for those of us who do like to shake things up, and no harm to the people who don't want to use them.

On the second blossoming topic ... black trenchcoat is lots of fun, even if it requires some thought. Pink mohawk is also lots of fun. That's always been the spectrum of Shadowrun, and most people fall somewhere on that spectrum. Black trenchcoat requires more support and rules, because it's based on complex systems, so I expect that sort of material will continue to dominate the books. The only issue is when the systems and organizations in SR become TOO effective (see: Lone Star book), making extreme black trenchcoat the only option. As above, books should support all our styles of play.

I'll disagree here. My players seem to enjoy Shadowrun, even if we go four or five sessions with no combat and no action. They're interested in the NPCs I make, solving puzzles, and exploring who the characters are. They're willing to take the non-combat approach to most challenges, and seeing what the world is like.

Hell, one series of sessions went something like '1: Sneak into a place being closed off for urban brawl. (20 minutes) 2: Deal with blood spirit and destroy ritual to summon more. (1 hour) 3: Go into ghoul warrens and interact with ghouls, learning about them and getting the grand tour while making contacts among them (2.5 sessions), 4: Deal with a threat to the ghoul warrens and flee back to the warrens to survive (30 minutes), 5: Interact with the ghouls, and gather information that will help later down the line (2 sessions).

That seems to be par for the course. They'll get brief spurts of action, then drawn out periods of roleplay. This has allowed me to introduce all sorts of locations and NPCs to the group, and they seem to like it -- from riverboat casinos in Europe to Chinese classical steampunk in Vancouver, to watching a Amerindian sentai program in British Columbia done as a take-off of the X-Men while relaxing in an Elvis-themed restaurant in the northern Rockies (actual place!) before heading to Devil's Gate. If you make the setting come to life for the characters, you don't need a lot of action and combat -- you can save those for when the adventure actually warrants it.

I'm happy we don't play in the same games.

For some people, but not everyone.

Umidori, stop killing all my new characters. Jerk.

Indeed... I love Black Trenchcoat... but I can also enjoy a Pink Mohawk game. However, not generally with the same character.

Normal? No but some actual rules for building something like that even if it's "state of the art good luck pal you'll never see it", it gives players a carrot at the end of the stick. The average street sam starts out with his spurs his gun and some chrome, his goals is the biggest gun, the sharpest sword and the heaviest of delta chrome. He might never achieve it, but it's something he can look at and go "I want that!"
Proper power armour is that for a rigger, imho.

Puzzles? Eww. Break out the espresso and NoDoze.

So...you're a roll player. Gotcha.

Come on, guys, this never ends well. As a fellow user, can I please ask you guys to just stop? Before it gets ugly again?

Quite an assumption you've got going there just because someone doesn't enjoy convoluted puzzles and other such stuff. You don't have to eschew combat and action to be a "role player", nor do you have to only enjoy Soap Opera games or Investigative games to be that.



Done now, just had to make that response to the BS spouted.

Yes, you're right. Let's stop this, cancel that fifth edition and stick to the fourth.

I could get behind that.

Well how do you know. Maybe something good will actually happen. There's always hope as long as you're alive.

Point was:

"Combat" is not the end-all be-all of a role playing game. "Combat" is roll intensive and (some) people (seem to) enjoy rolling piles of dice, and without that, they are not having "fun."

It is the most heart-pumping, adrenaline-inducing and exciting aspect though.

Not for all players. Some players (esp. female ones) seem to enjoy actual role-playing way more than just killing stuff.

OF course, there's nothing wrong with that, either.

Treu story: several years back (10, maybe?), I was still part of a university RPG-and-other-games club. I joined a 3.5E Ravenloft game, run by a very "rolE play" sort of guy. And he did, respectfully, express concern that I might not enjoy the sort of game he was likely to run ... focussing, as you just have, on whether or not there would be much combat.

My answer to him, was: "REally for me, it's liek this: if I have a character sheet in front of me, that is by and large a listing of capabilities and modifiers to die rolls ...? It doesn't have to be combat, but I'd like to have a reason to actually look at that sheet, and use something from it, on a semiregular basis. Even if it's just a skill roll, if I drop some dice once or twice a session, and the story is fun, I'll be a happy gamer."

...

Several months later, at the close of the academic year (and thus, that short campaign), he went out of his way to thank me for joining the game and contributing as much to it as I had. And I, meanwhile, had an absolute BLAST of a time. One of the best games I've been part of, ever. And yes, I had reason to drop dice a coupel times during each weekly session - knowledge checks for "what do I know about ___", perception checks, morale checks (hey, it was Ravenloft, lolol), and so on.

Plenty of dice-rolling. Combat ... not so much. (Did I mention, Ravenloft ...?)


EDIT TO ADD: What Fisk said.

Like I said, it's mainly that the idea of "several sessions go by with no dice rolls" that I find incredibly dull and boring (and while I can't remember which threads off the top of my head, I've seen such posts on these forums). I mean, come on, what's the point in having a sheet if it's never used?

Puzzles are mainly not fun for me because it feels like being back in school...and I hated school.

In our group, the girls are usually the ones trying to go the kick ass route while others try to do things smoothly. Still fun, though.

You can have puzzles without eschewing dice.

XCrawl had one I could point to as an example, just because I remember it.

Essentially the party had to stand in certain places (obvious trap doors) and then answer trivia questions. Largely speaking as players we didn't know the answers but if we did we were free to answer. If not, our characters had knowledge skills, we'd roll dice, the GM would spout off whatever answer (fake/real) the character would have come up with, and then the result of that action happened.

No armor, no cybernetics, no firearms... Ultra-low-powered doesn't mean not badass.

And not a swiss army knife or duct tape to be seen!

Strangely, not for me. For me, social confrontation, where you know you can't 'win' by combat, tends to create the heart-pumping tension. It triggers the fight-or-flight instinct, and neither is actually a possible action, leaving your mind fluttering between a variety of options to try to resolve the situation and come out ahead.

Who says the sheet doesn't get used? It has a list of your capabilities and resources, what you 'bring to the table' so to speak. You might get the odd dice roll, even without combat. Social awareness tests, cold reading, persuasion checks, and the like. Perception tests are also a big one - noticing things which may be overlooked, seeing who is coming in and out of the social scene, etc.

No, the most heart-pumping, adrenaline-inducing, exciting aspect is when you're trapped, you can hear the monster approaching, you don't know anything about it except that your guns seem to have no effect.

Combat, especially for games with low game-complexity, oftentimes come down to "oh, it's my turn again? I try to hit that one. Three successes. Okay GM, now you roll, while I go back to my laptop." I don't know how anyone can find that exciting, and I truly hope that SR5 either reduces the combat mechanics to the point that my players don't have time to go back to their laptops, or makes them complex enough that they are thinking about their next move as soon as their last is over.

Hmm. For one of the games I designed, combat is done as such: Describe what you're doing, describe your intent. Die roll. Depending on degree of success / failure, you get to describe the outcome, or it gets taken out of your hands and someone else describes what goes on from there. The tension comes from trying to keep the narrative out of the game master's hands, so you can control the flow and pace of the game. So far, I've had nobody who's played complain about the engine. You want to control the flow, so you can decide which attributes to use to get things done - playing to your strengths, while the game master can try to control the narration to play to your weaknesses.

Yeah, me too... As I will not have the funds, nor the desire, to purchase a whole new set of Shadowrun Books.

Same here, especially nto doubling up and buying the HeroLab equivalents, too.

Yep, so 4A is it for me... not bad, though, as I think 4A is just about what I want in Shadowrun. *shrug*

Eh, heart-pumping, adrenaline-inducing combat, in a tabletop system where seconds in-game are measured in minutes of dice rolling? Nah.

Play a bit of paintball instead. Mechanics are for conflict resolution, but the narrative that presents those conflicts and the character interactions that forward them are the whole point.

Different styles of play exist. We got that. Points have been made, opinions on this topic are clear. Now move on.

I would like some information on the invasiveness of various paracritters. These days there are feral cats and pigs everywhere in Australia (not to mention cane toads), ferns and snakes in the everglades etc. So by the 2070's which species have escaped (from zoo's or from guarding facilities or from being pets) and gone native.

Are you implying that MacGyver is not badass?

~Umi