Heh.

Technically, I count as pansexual. It's not really as dirty as it sounds.

Back on topic, I don't mind large dice pools. Fistfuls-of-dice games can be a lot of fun. Limits, however, bother me. If you're going to allow huge dice pools, then tell players they can't use them effectively, that ruins the fun. Really, dice pool inflation isn't a problem by itself. It's when the rest of the system breaks while allowing those huge dice pools that you have a problem. You're better off designing a system that either doesn't break under those dice pools, or directly cap them (like I do, and how Missions copied my rule).

I'm going to give it a chance in actual play to see how it works, but I'm not overly optimistic about it.

I'm open-minded at this subject, but I couldn't watch shemale porn anyway. I'd feel dirty looking at that



As I player, I buy option A anyday over option B. Even without Equipment/Edge modifing limits.

While under limit, each die adds 0,33 success average. So if limit=4, that's 12 dices. Over 12 dices, I get very disminished returns. But I can decide whether I push my skill or use it as a limit.

With a hard cap, no limit, you could go way over 4 in successes. That's were I find the possibility to spend edge to take full advantage of it nicely found. I'm entousiast at that aspect of the system.

Hey all,

I'm kind of new to the forum, although I have been part of others in the past.

I don't want to drag up an earlier part of this conversation, but I wanted to weigh in on the concept of limits on skills portion of the thread. I am a big fan of skills having more importance than the associated attribute so I have come up with different ideas in the past and felt I would share them with you guys in case there was something you liked.

1) My players and I have tried to use a rule that limits the number of hits a skill test can achieve (Max Hits = Skill Rank +1), and from experience, it just didn't work for us. The main reason is everyone kept forgetting about the limit, including myself as the GM. If you and your players are confident you would remember, then my point is moot, but I thought I would share that. Personally I don't like this one, as I am a firm believer in the GM moto: "nothing is impossible, just highly improbable" and I think a player should always have a chance, no matter how small, to succeed. This is also why I like the optional rule of 6 for all rolls and not just rolls with Edge.

2) A different way I came up with to incorporate skills as a limit, but never had a chance to actually try, was to dictate that no skill test may have anymore attribute dice added to the dice pool than the skill rating. (Example: a character with Pistols of 3 and Agility 5 would only have a dice pool of 6 because his Pistols skills of 3 would only allow 3 of the 5 Agility Dice to be added to the test). Defaulting would allow only 1 die. --- This concept has its merits, but also its flaws. Some will notice that it is similar to early SR where the use of combat pool was limited to skill rating.

3) An idea I've recently had is to go back to something similar to the rule of 1s from SR1, SR2, & SR3. If a player rolls a number of 1s greater than his skill rating then he glitches (rather than half the dice as per SR4A & SR5). This puts extreme importance on the skill and prevents low skill players from adding too many dice to their pool from other sources out of fear of glitching. A GM would probably want to allow a player to control the number of Attribute Dice he adds to the pool so as not to be rolling a massive amount of dice to a default skill test.

4) an alternate version of #3 could have a number of 1s equal to the skill just being an automatic failure.

If anyone wants to try these ideas, go for it; and please let me know how it goes. However, if you wish to critique them, please be constructive.

Thank you.

B.S.

*SIGH* Essence figures into the social limit, good to see that Magicrun is alive and well into the new edition.

Jesus people, Cyberware has been around 50+ years in the game world, people will have gotten over it by now.

I don't know. I'm cool with this idea. As a person gives up essence, he becomes much more machine (or perhaps animal). And social interactions with dogs and toasters doesn't work very well.

That being said, I also don't think Mages are benefiting from this, either. They have to invest ALOT of karma into magic already, and I know most players that I have run for hated being Magic because of the karma drain. Especially when their cyberbuddies had an abundance of karma for skills/attributes and managed all those great abilities with nuyen.

Of course this is only my opinion and doesn't really amount to much in the great Ghost Dance of life.

Honestly i'm not really going to have this debate, because essentially what's done is done and there's now f-all reason for me to buy the new eddition, because they iinsist on forcing me to play my preffered "side" of shadowrun a certain way, and impose some fairly arbitrary across the board penalties on it. Unless they've significantly reworked and buffed the cyberware (which i highly doubt) essentially from 4th to 5th cyberware will have just gotten a not insignificant debuff.

Or put another way, under previous editions I could find huge amounts of high essence gear that would have absolutely zero visibility outside of an astral scan or a cyberware scanner. Now "for some reason" such a low-profile sam will be inhumanized and find it harder to talk to people, likewise the concept of the cyber-face is nerfed from jump in favor of more pornomancers(slang term for a very socially focused adept). It gets even more odd when you think about it this way, two highly cybered people, both members of a trendy seattle transhumanist club or the same cyberware of the month club can't get over how inhuman each other are as they talk amongst themselves, they must commiserate on their inability of people to understand them like some World of Darkness exiles.

Also mages having to invest Kharma to do what they do, oh noes, those poor babies, having to spend Kharma to be able to rend reality asunder at will.

Also while i'm on the subject of things that make me extremely uneasy. The glitches example seems to indicate that the astral to physical barrier on spell casting is going away. Ewwww. I'm hoping it's just bad phrasing.

What makes you think it has anything at all to do with how visible cyberware is, as opposed to how dehumanizing it is on the inside? Someone doesn't have to be visibly weak or sickly to have a low/moderate Strength or Body score factor into their Physical Limit, so why are you assuming it requires visible augmentation for Essence to factor into someone's Social Limit?

And what exactly makes you think it's such a major factor in Social Limit that it's worth skipping an edition over, anyways?

What makes you think being able to see things that ain't there doesn't make you inhuman as frag as well?
for every point of essence you lose, you gain a malus.
for every point of magics you should gain a malus too.

Yes, this is the way I was looking at it too.

Lurker, I'm sure you have your reasons for disliking this aspect of the game, but don't hate the new system before you have even tried it. We all have different preconceptions of how SR should be. Myself, I think the new age of SR is nothing but a bunch of kids walking around the mall with cellphones and guns. the cyberpunk grit is gone. I don't hate SR4 or SR5 because of it, I just take the new rules and go back to the dawn of 2050something. If you don't like the essence/social rules, don't use it. No one is holding an Ares Predator to your head and forcing you to use it. It is possible, however, that you may like every other aspect of the game despite this. Just don't quit until you've given it the ol' Redmond Barrens try.

I disagree. The massive investment of karma is costly enough, not to mention the drain of doing anything with those abilities. On the other hand, nuyen is easier to come by, and a cyber-runner gets all the perks much easier (and earlier) than mages, but suffer little penalty. In fact, they still get all that great karma for skill and attribute improvement.

And that is the problem: Cyberware takes a bite out of your "soul", thereby making the recipient more inhuman. Until now that has been only fluff until hitting zero, now it gets some rules backup. I like it.

Of course there is the problem with "social" cyberware, it would kinda blow if you install a False Front and end up being less successful in Disguise tests...but somehow I have the hope that this problem is too obvious to miss even for Hardy and accordingly will be taken care of. Just make certain cyber increase the Social Limit (like weapon mods do for Accuracy), problem solved

You are aware this has been around since 1E, are you? SR4 just cut your social skill pools instead. SR1 through 3 added to the target number. This doesn't make SR5 more or less Magicrun than any other edition (other things might, but not this). Also, barring you know the formula and want to skirt the line of your NDA, assumptions on the impact of this are wild guesses at best.


I can't see this working well because it makes small skills nearly unusable and, to be honest, slapstickrun. You have a 33% chance to glitch at skill 1, regardless of your attribute. Generally, everything that shrinks pools in the current system brings you closer to a glitch-heavy, three sooges version of Shadowrun. So I can't really see this go well. Your first idea, with skill as a limit, is interesting though, and might be a working way to introduce success limits into SR4 that punishes attribute-focused advancement appropriately while not resorting to SR4A's atrocious attribute cost, and thus making adepts nearly unplayable.


Where do you even take that from.


Wrong, cyberware-induced mali have always been a part of Shadowrun, they have just usually been used rarely.

feel free to do so

and why does being able to speak with your imaginary friends and have them do stuff for you not make you less human?

If you use it, I hope it works. Like I said my group, more often then not, forgot about the limit and it ended up just being dropped for lack of use.



Like I said, it has its flaws.

Me as a GM, I would be ok with that. Back when I played SR3, and players added combat pool, my house rule was that you rolled the skill dice using different colour dice and if these off-colour skill dice all came up 1s, you botched. So that is something that could be added to that option.

What imaginary friends? They are real. And in game terms, as I've always understood it (of course our perceptions of the game may be different), improvements to magic are a spiritually-non-invasive augmentation; where as cyberware is digging out that spirituality and replacing it with black.

Magical improvement is like enhancing your garden with flowers and shrubbery, and cyberware is like an oil spill in your front yard.

However, I could see the concept of an equivalent penalty when a magician loses a point of magic for some awful reason. To a mage, this is just as bad as having part of your soul ripped out and could easily cause social problems.

SR 3 and 4 based social penalties for cyberware on how unfitting or threatening it looks. One obvious arm is worse than two synthetic ones, the 3rd Ed BBB even told GMs to ignore Datajacks because they are totally common. SR 5 on the other hand seems to care about Essence, not looks. No matter how invisible the implants are, the humanity loss (as CP 2020 would call it) makes you less compatible with humanity.

I want to point out this is HUGELY campaign dependent, unless they've dramatically altered the rule set for mission awards in 5e. I've had campaigns where we make million nuyen mission payouts and get only 2-3 karma, but I've also had games where we get 10 karma and 10,000 nuyen. Different campaign/reward styles will favor one character archtype over another, but in theory there should be a moderate point where the two are balanced. This means you absolutely should not have penalties for type of progression, and none for another. Otherwise, when you play at that balanced point, the one that gets the penalties is inherently weaker.

Because magic does not diminish the connection between your being and this plane of existence, i.e. reduce Essence.

Or for metagaming reasons, because that is not an area where mages require a nerf.

This is true. Reward balance will affect these things greatly. I've always been a fan of the Cash for Karma and Karma for Cash rules. It helped out Karma hungry mages in a nuyen heavy campaign, and it helped nuyen hungry cybers in a karma heavy campaign. However, I have never known a cybergoon to bock at karma for skill improvement.

If you're looking at metagaming reasons, this is a place where adepts need the nerf more than cybered characters do.

If you're looking at an in-game reason, it doesn't diminish the connection between your being and this plane of existence, but it DOES diminish your connection with the rest of humanity. A high magic character sees and interacts with the world in a completely different way than a Mundane does. It makes at least as much sense to implement a penalty there as it does to implement a penalty for losing essence.

The problem is too many people have it firmly ingrained in their heads that magic == better

These people aren't wrong.

And that's a problem.
Magic. Should. Not. Be. Better.
It should be an equal choice.
So if they ain't giving cyber a boost, magic needs a nerf for balanced gameplay.

I don't think, that's true at all.
Characters are not made equal, and it's difficult to quantify 'power'. I'd even go so far to say that it's a futile attempt to compare a samurai with a mage.
What one person perceives as MagicRun is not necessarily the whole truth.
Personally, the biggest powergamers I've met invariably played cybered characters.

IMO, it's basically a question of bias, and personal preferences.

OK, humor me for a bit here:
1.) Tell me something a samurai can do that a mage/adept can not do as well.
2.) Tell me something a mage/adept can do that a samurai can not do as well.

No humoring, since it isn't important. You want to do something, you chose the character class that can do it. It's that easy. If multiple choices help you achieve your concept, you'll take the one you like best.
It has nothing at all to do with power.
Sure, there are individuals who'll go at it with an optimizer's eye, but as I stated: Most of those I've met went the Cyber/Bioware route.

Cyberware/magic, actually. Unless I forgot something remarkably horrible, cybered adepts were the worst. Or homebrew things like vampire elves or playable free spirits, but that's just random madness.

And this attitude represents everything that's wrong with the current design.




Most powergamers are either 1) Not as good as they think they are or 2) Realize how easy it is to break the game and instead restrain themselves to optimizing suboptimal concepts for their entertainment.

Don't know why you bother asking this. You know the answer. I know the answer. They know the answer. But it's going to get ignored because magic is supposed to be better. Except when they want to argue it's completely balanced. Fuck I hate people.

The thing is: Balance isn't necessary.
This is not Battlefield, or WoW or any other kind of game where you engage in Player vs. Player combat.

It's a collaborative experience. If you're butthurt about the mage being 'better' (and I still maintain, that he's only different), play Cyberpunk or any other kind of campaign where there are no mages. It's really that easy.

Whooo but you are a bitter one indeed O.o
you fit in here quite nicely. i like you already ^^

See this is avoiding the issue. Sure you can say it doesn't matter and ignore it. Or you can address it. It actually is possible to implement magic in such a way that it is not overpowered, you just have to accept that magical != limitless.

You can still have Magic be better than normal people, but a big trope in the game is that cyber/bio is an alternate progression path to Magic. It should provide the same potential level of development that magic does. I don't care if Mages can summon spirits and cybered people can't. That's only reasonable. No, what bothers me is when the magic guy has access to do just about everything and have all sorts of unique effects, while cybered guys are forced to be much more specialized, and the unique effects that cyber grants are practically nonexistant.

Of course, that's just what we already have in SR4. In SR5 we're taking that, buffing adepts, giving mages some new toys, and adding a new penalty to cyber. It's theoretically still possible to get a balanced game out of that, but only if there are massive as-of-yet unhinted buffs to cyberware, and a lot of new limits on magic we haven't heard anything about.

Because the case that's made is that cyberware dehumanizes you just because, you know it's cyberware, which raises the question, do any of the metatypes have an automatic adjustment to their social limit to recognize that they've been dehumanized? Is a strength 8 troll more dehumanized then a strength 8 human who gets their strength from ware? For some reason it does.

Basically what this is essentially saying is there is only ONE TRUE WAY to interpret the way a person views their cyber modifications, so much so that it actually colors their internal world view when dealing with other people. That's bullshit, because int his game where you can play a variety of people from a variety of walks of life and views and beliefs, so much so that for example it can support the Church of Elvis as a valid magical tradition the idea of a person not believing their ware dehumanizes them is rules ingrained verboten.

As to why i'm proably skipping the edition, because so far nothing has been floated that I've looked at and said "Yes that is straight up something the game needed badly." And many things have been changed that i'm kind of "meh" about, and a few things have been put forth, like this, that i'm actually strongly negative on, because they look on their face like a straight up bad idea.

Basically i'm going to try and keep an open mind, but when I see crap like this I have the thought process of "This is something I'm going to have to put up with in missions, and hosuerule if i ever run home campaign." And once we cross that threshhold it's very hard for me to pick up and run the game and evangelize it for others.

Right, so when we're talking about someone playing cybered characters we're all a bunch of minmaxers, when we're talking about changing how magic is balanced balance isn't important and it's not that sort of game right? That's basically your argument?

The most powerful adepts are those with some cyber added. If cyberware indeed gets nerfed to hell, as you fear, that problem would obviously be solved, so what exactly are you complaining about?


Then you would also have to introduce ESS loss or social penalties based on how fat the character's credstick is. The stark divide between haves and have-nots is a core tenet of cyberpunk, therefore having a bit more than nothing clearly distances the character from 99% of mankind.

It really, really, doesn't sound like that is the case.

I just think it's a shame how folks are latching onto a few lines from these previews, and then what-iffing them into the ground, reading them in the least charitable manner, replying to others who have done the same, and whipping themselves into a frenzy of negativity and derision before even seeing the final product. I don't know if the fault lies with the internet in general, human nature, previews, or the crowd in question, but it's...well, it's just a fucking shame, is all.

A lot of time and a lot of work and a lot of fighting and a lot of compromising went into this product, and it sucks that so many people are, for whatever reason, so clearly making up their minds about it before they really know how it all falls together.

So when can we expect to see the formula for the Physical, Mental, and Social Limits?

@Critias:
Because it does not sound as if it were falling together at all . .
It does sound as if it all is falling apart.

You misunderstand. I am saying, that in my opinion, there is no issue. The issue is made up. As thus I am neither avoiding, nor ignoring it. I am debating its very existence.
Sure, all the fields of cyber and magic and gear should be balanced. Inside the respective field and interacting with the rules necessary for this. But as long as the default Shadowrun setting doesn't pit player characters against each other, it does not need to be 'fair' (which is a highly subjective term anyways).


Uh. No. It isn't an alternative at all, because not everyone is magically active. You get it, you're lucky.
Of course, anyone can chose to create a magically active character, but tropes work in the universe, not in the rules. People cyber up to compete in a world full of cybered up and magical characters, but that does not at all mean that it is a similar, or even comparable progression.

It's cool if you see it that way, but it doesn't mean that it needs to be this way for everyone.

I don't know how the Social Limit works, but the essence or lack of essence would only be one factor.
So the social adept Face has a one or two higher limit then the cyber Face.
I'm sure there will be cyberware that will increase the social limit.

That said, I always thought there was too much ragging on cyberware in Shadowrun, a cyberpunk game.
At least in IMHO.

I mean think about it.
Who wouldn't get a data jack (the Awaken aside).

Who wouldn't get cybereyes?
Never have to find your glasses.
Perfect vision, see in the dark, never need shades again, never need swim goggles, take a picture at will, and see the current time and baseball scores at will without moving a muscle.

So everyone who could afford it would likely have a data jack and cybereyes too (since they have the display link).
Add in all the pilots, police, soldiers, and fireman would usually have augmented too (Mostly likely from military service.)
So why then would an obvious cyberarm be that scary?
And we are over 20 years further along so the vast majority of people alive have been dealing with cyberware all their lives.

Add in the reasons to not used cyberware seemed kind of forced.
They can "magically" force grow cloned body parts in weeks or slap in an "O" universal donor transplant, both of which would be way more expensive to create and store than a mass produced cyber replacement. So expensive that there is a thriving black market for human parts...

Unless you were awaken, why wouldn't you have them put in a cyberarm and be done with it?
One office visit and you get given a chip on physical therapy and you are out of there.
Frankly getting an arm transplant is way more creepy to me than having a cyberarm installed.
I mean it used to belong to some one else and you have no idea of where it came from.


I understand why they need to balance this and the whole Essence is self system works for the Awaken 6th World.
Still I like the cyberpsychosis method used in Cyberpunk at least for role playing potential.

Speaking of balance, it seems everyone want's to play an Awaken character.

In my game I offer a 50 thousand nuyen bonus to not play an Awaken character.

I would take that... Awakened Characters make up only about 25% of my concepts, if that.

you'd be paying me constantly.
i hate magic characters <.<

And only about half mine.

I've done a rigger/hacker twice, an eGhost once (sadly never actually got to play him), drake twice (two completely different builds), and...I feel like I'm missing one.

It's not about porn, at least in my case. I'd be straight if I weren't dating trans women as well as cis ones.

Anyways, there's too many posts on social limits, so I'll sum up: It really doesn't make sense that socialware and common cyber should create a social limit, but whopping amounts of magic and regularly staring into What Man Was Not Meant to Know doesn't. Large amounts of magic should dehumanize you, just like large amounts of obvious cyber. Really, that'd do more to nerf the pornomancer than applying yet another arbitrary and easily-ignored limit.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't even have a problem with Magic ratings higher than 6 giving a penalty to the social limit, as a kind of initiation tax. Bargaining with the dark forces and stuff, disconnect from the puny flatscans

It's just the categorical vehemence and insistence of a need for balance that rubs me the wrong way.

And yet you in the same post make the claim that magic is better and that's perfectly okay. You can't have it both ways. You either say it's made up (and thus need to show that the two are in fact balanced), or admit it's a problem, and it will cause issues at many tables.



So you're saying your characters never run up against other humanoids? Holy shit you're playing a totally different version of shadowrun than I do.




If this is the case the only reason to play a cyber/bio character in game is because you consciously decide you want to be weaker. That's all kinds of bullshit and I can't believe it's actually being presented as a rational argument.

Let me sum it up for you, Seerow and give you back your 'bullshit' ad hominem: Reading comprehension is important.
I said: "Magic is different." and "Power is difficult to quantify" not "Magic is better."

I say: The issue is made up, and therefore there is no need to balance cyberware and magic. I don't understand why you insist on me making an argument for the balancing of the two if I state that there is no necessity for balance at all.
You can wail and gnash your teeth if you want, but the fact of the matter is, the default setting is not "Create a character. Kick other player's characters in the face".
If it was, then yes, balance would be a necessity, as in every competitive PvP setting. But it isn't. It's a roleplaying game, not StarCraft.

Furthermore, don't be ridiculous. Of course my player's characters face off against other humanoids. If you want to construct strawmen, don't use those that go up in flames if you point a looking glass in their general direction.
I'm saying: There is no need to be fair!
The world is unfair. If I decide to place my player's characters against Harlequin or a Great dragon, they'll be dead. I'm not that kind of dick, but if you face off against an NPC, all bets are off. I could throw a cyberzombie against a newbie team. Official adventures do that. I could throw a bug shaman against an experienced team. They'll either get creative, or they die. I'm not saying that I don't leave an opening for the players to exploit, but there is no actual need to make sure that the NPC has a challenge level appropriate to the party's median experience points. If you want that, go play D&D, where you get experience for beating traps.

Finally: People don't usually consciously decide to play weaker. The conscious decision is "I could play that. That sounds like fun." You're making an optimizer's argument in a roleplaying world. There are all kinds of shades between optimizers and 'true roleplayers'. Don't pretend that there is one particular type of player. And dispense with the shit-throwing, please.

Your argument has consistently been "I don't care about balance.

You say that power levels are difficult to quantify. Let's go back to square one.

-Magic can do whatever not magic can do
-Magic can do more things not-magic cannot do.
-Magic can do things that not-magic can do better than the not-magic people can do them.

You are trying to argue this doesn't matter because you can't quantify power. I am saying if the magic guy does literally all the same things, and then some, you have a problem. You can't actually handwave that away. You can ignore that at your table if you want to, but it doesn't mean the game is balanced, it means that your table doesn't care about balance.

This does not mean that balance isn't a problem. It does not mean the game is designed well. Saying "the game's unfair, deal with it" is the worst sort of cop out. I call your argument bullshit, because that's what the whole thing boils down to.



Or consider it this way. If you sat down to play, and one player said "Hey, I had a specific concept I wanted to run, but I needed 600bp to flesh it out properly. I'm going to run that, hope you don't mind", would you let that fly at your table? Would the other players at the table be okay playing along side another character that was so much obviously better than them all around? If that would actually fly at your table, congratulations, you have a perfect group. For the rest of us? Balance is a concern to at least some degree or another, and for many people, Magic being the end-all be-all solution for almost everything is an issue.