I hope I find here some good suggestions for a problem I am having.
Soon I want to start a campaign based on Shadowrun 2050 (so SR4A-rules in the 2050-setting with some rule modifications like returned Grounding). And now I have some problems:

1) Shadowrun 2050 is not very helpful in regards of the character generation. The prices in SR2050 are (sometimes far) higher than those of SR4. Still you only get 5.000 Nuyen/BP. Does anyone has experiences in regards how to change that? I am worrying that when I am setting the money/BP too high Sams and similar concepts get far too strong while leaving it at the 5000 Nuyen/BP-level they aren't strong enough. Or is it not a problem at all and the mony-limit is ok that way? It seems to be only a real problem with Cyber- and Bioware while Fake SINs for example are still pretty cheap compared to 2nd Edition-levels.

2) Does anyone know a good source where is listed when which piece of equipment got introduced (incl. stuff like Beta- or Deltagrade Cyberware)? The equipment-list in SR2050 is pretty short and I am already wondering about Bioware. I thought that was earliest introduced in 2052. I would like to know what the characters could get and what is really cutting edge-technology or not yet available. The same for upcomings of magic etc. - when did which sub-meta race occured and stuff (changelings didn't happen before 2063 with the YotC, right? Drakes and AIs were pretty late, too afaik).

3) Regarding (2): I am planning to not allow taking Bioware during character generation because it is so new. Yay or Nay? I have a house rule-SOTA-positive quality which they could take if they still would like to use Bioware but what would be a good availability-adjustment

4) Does anyone know if there are conversions of the old adventures to SR4-rules are available (at least something home-made that only shows adjusted ratings)?

1: Figure out the BP to nuyen ratio that would give the nuyen you could get in character creation in older editions. (That would be 1 million total)

2: Use the KISS principle. Assume that if it's in the SR2050 book and within availability, it's available. You are pretty much right on races. I'm not sure when Otaku showed up, but you can use Technomancers to represent them.

3: See number two.

4: Not a clue.

Contacts and Adventures (packaged with the GM screen for 4th non-anniversary edition, out of print, available as PDF) has rules for converting SR3 characters to SR4
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/3743...h-Ed.-%28PDF%29
http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/product...roducts_id=1692

Well, that doesn't really work because that ends up with a BP worth 20k. Since not all prices are equal to the prices in the older editions it doesn't really work out.



Otaku don't exist yet afaik and Technomancers are explicitly forbidden. And of course, if it's in SR2050 it is available. But I am sure that there was more stuff available or will be available in the market a short time after 2050 and could therefore be available to characters that have something like a SOTA-advantage. Furthermore players might ask me for certain equipment and I don't always want to say: it's only what is in this book and that's it.



So, it's a "just make it available"?




Thanks, I know that one. And I am actually talking about converting SR1 to SR4…do you remember converting SR2 to SR3 when suddenly the firearms-skill vanished and people had to put it on one weapon-type or split it up or similar stuff because just giving them all weapon skills in the firearms-skill would make them too strong?. I asked because I actually wanted to save me the work to do all conversions by myself. Why invent the wheel anew, when somebody already did?

I gotta dig up my old books now Oh darn; into the library I go! (This will probably be a comparison against original SR1 material vs SR4 material, rather than a comparison of the 2050 book, since I don't have that one yet).

Remember (and this is probably what we're running into here) in 2050 most of the stuff that people take for granted in 2070 didn't exist in 2050 (think your iPhone 5 circa 1993). Stuff is cheaper in the 2070 books only because it's mass produced 'now', while twenty years ago it was still being beta tested (or still in R&D).

So... More once I've jacked in from the library. Gotta keep your datastores secure, ya-know?

Regarding equipment ... (and I'm speaking from an SR3 perspective, but I've followed the forums, so I'm familiar with a lot of the stuff that's been coming out).

For guns, a lot of the big ones are already out, amazingly enough. Check out the Street Samurai Catalog:
http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Source:Str...Samurai_Catalog
The date on that is Winter 2050. Notice that there are lasers, but they're hugely expensive and not very effective. APDS is around.

Cyber is similar (in fact, guessing from what I've read, there's MORE cyber than SR4, since you couldn't replace it with wireless devices). Most cyberware is available, albeit, at higher prices, and with no delta-grade. (I don't recall if beta was out yet. I believe alpha was.)

Bio is just beginning. There was a nice list; most of the stuff in SR3's M&M is still around.

Nanoware exists, but is quite rudimentary.

Most of the chemicals are available (including dikoting).

Vehicles ... SR1 and SR2 are both very weak on the rigger books. I'd refer back to the SR3 rigger book and assume everything there still stands.

Magic actually got LESS powerful with SR3/SR4. Of course you have the mage/shaman split. You lost some very powerful spells though; turn to goo, flesh to stone, stuff like that. Also grounding, which you mentioned. Mages were intense. Physical adepts didn't have nearly as many powers as they got with the SOTA books in SR3. They're still basically melee weapons monsters (but monsters indeed).

Decking is ... a different creature altogether. You still used decks, and equipment to deck "naked" (although you'd never want to). Decking used a basic paradigm like your classic dungeon map. THere's the CPU, and different nodes branching off of there. Some of the nodes connected to some specific function in the real world, or a data store. Some of them were just there to bottle-neck invaders and hold IC. Getting to the CPU basically lets you own the system. (The SR3 system of decking was introduced in SR2's matrix book, but I can't recall what the date was on it).

Regarding races ... being non-human cost more and penalized you more. Being a metahuman cost as much at chargen as being a mage, and they suffered major racism. If you're rolling back to SR1, they also got a random allergy or other serious flaw. It sucked being metahuman.

I do encourage you to pick up the SR2 gear books, even if you don't plan to run a 2050 campaign again. THey're beautiful pieces of work, really add a lot of flavor, and cheap. The gear books most of all.



Mechanically, SR3 made a lot of changes which made SR2 more playable and balanced. That was one of them. The fixes of SR3 included:

Initiative - everyone goes once before high-init characters go multiple times
Grounding removed
Firearms broken into firearm categories
Etiquette categories grouped into the Etiquette skill

Having played the SR1 and SR2 editions (that didn't focus so much on release date/year) what I see in the 2050 SR4 source book includes the content released in the year 2050. FASA didn't start advancing the timeline much until SR2 was printed.

Limiting gear to what is printed in the new sourcebook would accurately reflect the SOTA advances of the year 2050.

Were Lasers ever a good weapon of choice in Shadowrun? They always sucked iirc. APDS is already listed in SR2050…But for example the Ares Alpha Combat Gun is questionable. In Fields of Fire the comments are listed from 2054 but they say "it is a couple of years around". So maybe it's hard to get.



Iirc not in the SR1-core book but it is allowed by SR2050




Shadowtech is 2052 (and SR1), but Bioware is listed in SR2050. In which book did they introduce Nanoware? Wasn't that M&M?




Not necessarily.



In SR2050 everything needed to know about magic is said and ruled (Mage/Shaman-split is used again and Grounding is in again). Powers for physical adepts can imho all be used. The powers can just develop in them, why should they be limited to the mere stuff available in the old books? I see no power which should be available just because of YotC or a different magical niveau.



The chapter about decking rules most of the stuff as far as I have seen it.



That's more a game-balancing thing. Btw. in SR2050 that stuff is ruled as well (just use SR4A-rules…the question was if there is certain stuff not yet "available" like Drakes. Subtypes should all be there.)



Did I mention that I started to play with first edition?



Yeah, I know. Grounding is back in in SR2050. The change in the initiative-system is a matter of taste (and I use my own one which is based on SLA Industries). The change in Firearms and Etiquette make everything problematic to convert (as I mentioned before).

Well, not really sure about that. For example the shadowtalk in Fields of Fire is from 2054 and it says about the Ares Alpha Combat Gun that it "has been making the rounds for a couple of years now". So it might be available in 2050 but hard to get.
I decided that for the character generation my players are just allowed what is in SR2050 (without Bioware because that is too new) and everything else they might get in play but it will be far harder because it is not yet out in the open market or only in prototype-state (with experimental flaws )

I always thought that in 2070 is everything cheaper because the game devs finally got that for a good street samurai you have to invest more than what a typical house costs and therefore it's not cost-effective for anyone to put that stuff into a human body that sees some action…And prices weren't reduced over 15 years and suddenly everything gets much cheaper? Hard to explain imho But I want the kittens to live…

Your thoughts on cyberware prices is spot on. In SR3 you could 'win' straight out of chargen by taking the $1M option and buying a lifetime Moderate or High lifestyle. But if you're a street sam, you needed that same amount of money to be competitive 'on the streets'. It didn't make sense. SR4 also rebalanced a lot of the prices against each other. You just didn't take cyberlimbs in SR1-3. THe price made it stupid. SR4 fixed that. Running SR3, I use prices much closer to those of SR4 (I didn't rework everything because, well, it would require reworking everything. But if I could, I would.)

re: nanoware - SR3 had SOME internal nanoware, but it was really useless. I don't remember anyone taking any of it. It was mostly plot hooks and stuff for NPCs. I honestly can't recall with SR2. However, other (non-implanted) uses were available, such as dikoting.

re: Races - I'm really not sure if that was game-balancing. It was obvious that the points spent for 'exceptional attribute: strength' and such was much less than the cost of being an ork, and it certainly didn't justify the allergies and racism. But I don't have any sources to prove it, so I guess it's your call.

The SOTA books added some adept powers and specified they were 'new'. I recall some of them continued to SR4. Everything in MitS would be kosher, but I'd avoid the other stuff. It added a bunch of stealth and social skills especially (facial restructuring, commanding voice, and so on).

Subraces I believe were available with the Companion (as well as pre-gimped shifters). I don't remember the story for drakes. Obviously surgelings are out.

To address your other questions:

1) Prices - Like I said, I run SR3, but I like the SR4 price re-balancing. I assume you're using SR4 mechanics with SR2 books. I think using the SR4 starting cash with SR2 prices will leave your sams and riggers flat broke. We blew through $1M like no one's business. What I'd recommend instead is using the prices from SR4, and rebaseline any gear unique to SR2 to approximate SR4 prices. Less headache that way. Or side-step it entirely by making gear payment for missions, so they never have to see the actual price tag. (The only time I've seen a PC upgrade or install new cyber after chargen was when that gear was payment. Cyber is just too expensive given the pay for missions.)

3) Most bioware had an availability which made it unavailable at chargen. The simpler stuff you could get though. The availability cap for SR2/3 is 12, so if you have the books, you can see what is and isn't available (basically nothing cultured is).

4) I tried to dual-stat Bear With Me; A Drop Bear Adventure. The truth is, they're too far apart to do easily, even when I was writing everything up from scratch. In my experience, it's easier to say "this challenge is easy, so the TN becomes X", "this is a security guard, so I'll use the security guard template", etc.

Hm ... one thing that occurs to me; I wonder how much gear you LOST going to SR4. Things like the Thunderbolt. Again it requires going back to those old books.

No, he's using SR 2050 witch is an era specific setting book for SR4(this should have been more then obvious)

For the OP, retro gear like the current day guns from Gun Haven, current day drones from This Old Drone and everythink from Eurowar Antiques are some good additions to what would be available in 2050(you might have to tweak the prices)
Edit: also lots of the stuff in Used car lot seem to be from around that point in time.

I found this by plumbing the Catalyst site.

Wiki SR Page

Awesome, thanks