Probably already been scooped in one of the SR5 threads that I stopped reading a while back, but in case I haven't been, there's this blog entry that discusses design philosophy. Enjoy.

Yes. Here's the discussion.

And I was right, it was a thread I'd given up on long ago because of all the (to my perceptions) stupid infighting.

I'm curious if these mission statements are meant for setting or rules? Would love to see the idea of opposing the authorities being incorporated in the game mechanic.

Why would that need a Mechanic?

Opposing the Authorities as a skill.
Opposedness as a character stat, like Street Cred and Notoriety.
Think about it, it will be glorious!

One of the things I love about Shadowrun is that the rules give the broadest set of possibilities. If you need to do something in the game with the help of dice, good chance is that there's a specific rule for this.
But speaking on the principle, I think it's good when the game mechanic supports the fluff. For example, it is stated that implants cost you your soul, and game mechanic has Essence to back it up. If there was no Essence, then the idea of paying with bits of our soul for cyberware would be a bit hollow. It's my opinion, of course, and I'm not insisting on it

Overall, the design statements sound good, if a bit vague. I'm glad they are keeping fixed TN.

There are already a lot of skills for such.
Any Combat Skill, Most Influence Skills, etc.

I'm generally not keen on the Attribute + Skill vs fixed TN system. With Attribute on approximately the same scale as Skill, it makes having good Attributes many times better than having good Skills. It also means that a heavily augmented person with weak skills is mechanically similar* to the most skilled person in the world with average characteristics. I don't find it to hold up under the theme well.

A variable TN system allows for a great deal of flexibility in terms of success rolls without being comparatively complex. Meanwhile relying solely on dice pool modifiers tends to only give mechanically weak adjustments to difficulty unless they're very large or applied to a very small dice pool. Since every 3-4 dice are expected to generate success, there's no way to threaten the best with failure while still giving the mediocre or worst a shot.

I'm sadly expecting another system that requires rolling dozens of dice again and again and again to accomplish a basic task.

*Edit: I should say "mechanically superior" there, since high attributes apply to all skills under them.

Bah, that's like saying you don't need Mechanic skills because there's already Hardware.
Fluff should be reflected in crunch. If you're fighting the authority, inevitably you should have the according skills!

"Make a 'Fight the Power' roll... okay, you successfully call the Lone Star beat cop a pig. He tazes you."

I'm all for rolling more dice if it means that I don't need to try and roll 15 on a d6.
Also your complaint can easily be rectified by tweaking numbers Epicedion. For example you could let skill ratings go up to 20?
or you could lower the max attributes, either way increases the decrepency.
Numbers are easy to tweak, systems are not.

"Make a 'Fight the Power' roll... okay, you get up".
And so on. See? It's really glorious.

Wait. You're serious?

Well there was a sort of elegance to the idea that Attributes provided a soft limitation on your skills (expressed cost-wise) as well as providing resistances versus damage and magic, and bonuses (in the form of combat/spell/etc pools), but not contributing directly to skill use unless you default all the way to the attribute (at huge penalties). The idea that they're just a passive (and huge) bonus to all checks puts an enormous focus on their importance, and gets really weird when you consider that some attributes are super-easy to get augmented and others are practically impossible.

The d6 variable target number system of course wasn't close to perfect -- it had scaling issues from the reroll-and-add rule of 6, target numbers of 7, 13, etc were statistically equivalent to the multiple of 6 just under them, and so on.

Me? No, of course not.
But it's a fun idea to play with.

I didn't think so, but sometimes things can come across a little weird. This was one of them.

Whew.

Similarly you had people back then who didn't like how little attributes did, I personally like it because it's intuitive and easy to learn (x+y, rather then "refer to table 3") you do bring up a good point with augments though.

Intuitive and easy to learn, sure, though just rolling Skill in dice (sometimes plus pool) isn't rocket surgery.

Yeah, i also don't like how little skills do. I tried to give +2DP per skill rank, but this failed because of Magic/Ranged defense tests, which frequently are attribute only.

Do I know you?

You can fix the double-skill-dice by setting the Attribute contribution to zero, but then certain Attributes do practically nothing.

Though I remembered another issue with it, which is the Untrained Troll No One Can Beat In a Foot Race Or Climbing A Wall Or Whatever problem.




Probably not. It's not a common phrase, but it's a funny one.

So, what skills (be specific here) would you create for "Fightin' the Man"?
Be creative and give me something that does not already exist.

Sticking it.
Communist Propaganda.
Tagging.
Fighting the Oppressive Cis-Culture.

The list goes on!

Sounds like a lot of Knowledge Skills to me, which are already a part of the game. Resulting actions of which can already be modeled actively with current Active skills. *shrug*

Occupying (specialisation on location, e.g. Occupying (Seattle Center), Occupying (fine New York boutiques), Occupying (extraterritorial property).)

Why does that need to be a Skill, exactly? Presence alone does that.

Anyway, I'm curious for details, should they eventually emerge. Though, heroes? I can't say I like that word in connection with Shadowrun.

Body represents your presence but the skill shows how well you can chain yourself to things.

But should the skill really be body based? Charisma would better reflect the medial impact you're really after ...

I know what you mean... what I tried doing when 'playtesting' my own with skills going from 1-12 at the same karma costs as knowledge skills now. I ran into the same issue.


What I ended up doing was turning the 'dodge' skill around. I defended against all attacks with Dodge (+ melee). And added reaction as full defense.

This actually worked pretty well. Especially when altering a lot of the gear which provides bonuses to reaction to provide a skill modifier to dodge instead. (IE: wired reflexes... +1 2... to defense instead of to reaction).

Yeah, but what did you do about magic?

Use Counterspelling, which just got stronger too?

If you have access to counterspelling. If not, your mage is free to mind-rape everything.

And this is different how? You're still relying on the same tools to counter magic: noticing it (6-Force threshold), shooting the mage first and have someone with counterspelling against opposition with magicians. It's not like 2xSkill+Attribute+Focus+Spec vs Attribute is going to make a big difference. It's merely 1-6/7 extra dice against your already meager pool.

This is going to sound obtuse, and I'll expand later on it (when I'm not running out the door), but the short answer is, "when you want your fiction to be influenced by your mechanics."

Look at storygames like Apocalypse World / Dungeon World / Monsterhearts, Sorceror by Ron Edwards, or Mouseguard. The way the rules are structured, when you roll for X, Y fictional element happens. It's kind of a neat way to generate outcomes without pre-planning.


When you want to Fight the Man, roll +Punk:

On -6, the Man resists your fightin' (and probably jails you)
On 7-9, you throw a garbage can through a window, but you get hit by pepper spray
On 10+, you overthrow the system and institute a Neo-Anarchist paradise.

What? No, PHYSICAL PRESENCE (you know, actually being there to control the space) is what I am talking about. There is no skill needed to occupy a space. Controlling the space is either an Influence skill or a Combat skill, dependant upon how you intend to occupy the space. *shakes head*

Chaining yourself requires no skill at all. *shakes head*

Yeah, that's really more of a Quality.



Maybe some sort of Reverse Escape Artist type skill, to make it harder for someone else to remove you from restraints.

Ummm... Just hit them as they try to unchain you.
That should make it more difficult.

Sounds like a special social skill, then. Chaintimidation, maybe. This will need some development.

Intimidation would work... *shakes head*

Whoa there, lay off the Chainterrogation.

I am slightly more optimistic for 5th than I was prior to reading the blog. My complaints with 4th have been not enough grit and cyberpunk (in my opinion, only). They state these as goals, so I will reserve judgement and be less pessimistic.

But yeah, I agree with the concern on the "Heroes" part, I like my Shadowrun heroes to be very, very much anti-heroes.

I guess I'm still curious as to what they intend on changing. They said they mostly liked 4th edition, so I doubt they'll make changes to the existing Attribute+Skill dicepile. When I think of a 'new edition' I think about a fundamental change in gameplay, and it doesn't seem like they intend on changing anything too drastically (granted, we have very little info to go on). If they only intend on cleaning up 4A, doest it really need a whole new edition? Couldn't it just be 4B? Kinda seems to me like they're only putting out 5e because WotC is working on a new DnD....

...which, by the way, I hope they take a cue from and do an open playtest for 5e Shadowrun.

Personally, I like to read design goals for things, then disregard entirely whatever they've said. Whatever buzzwords the designers put out are meaningless, IMO.
I tend to reserve judgment until I've looked at systems, though (or had word from someone I trust to be reliable, who has). Even if designers used some buzzwords I disagree with. In RPGs, flavor is always mutable, but changing large mechanical parts of the system tends to induce imbalance to such a degree that it might very well be better to just hack another system to fit the world (FATE, GURPS, Cortex, Savage Worlds, etc. There are plenty of generic or semi-generic systems out there that can work for anything.)


Ugh, no.
The idea sounds good (They'll listen to my brilliant ideas, and it will be the perfect game for me), until you realize that by pure statistics, they're more likely to listen to the more vocal group of idiots out there, or perhaps just use hardcore fanboys as a shield for not having to listen to people who criticize the system.

Or if bad comes to worse, they might even listen to DS

I'm quite against an open playtest. For one, this would need ressources to handle the company does not in the least have. They cannot even pay one editor, how are they supposed to pay for the infrastructure to handle an open betatest like DD5 or FFG's Only War?


They you're rather alone. Shadowrun editions, with the exception of 4, were focused on evolving, not trearing down, the current system.

That may not be so bad, as long as they don't just listen to the vocal minority with strong opinions.

...which doesn't include me, no sir

"Open play tests" is marketing speak for, "we are great, aren't we?"