I mostly played Shadowrun 3 and I want to start a game with this system BUT, the Matrix part seem sooooo much trouble to learn and play. I've read that 4th, even 5th, kind of got it better.

Question : Could it be hard to downgrade stuff like the Matrix to the 3th edition ?

Another question, not linked to the matrix : What do you think about the rule, in 4th, that put a maximum dice pool depending on the weapon used ?

Another question, same thing : Are 3th pre-generated adventure/campaign, like Wake of the Comet or Survival of the Fittest (and Brainscan, Renraku, etc.) worth it ?

Another question (this one final hehe) : I heard many good things about Season 3 and 4 of Shadowrun Missions. Could they be difficult to downgrade to 3rd ?

Thanks a lot !

EDIT : Sigh, I've joined Dumpshock in 2002 ... I'm so sad that I didn't get to talk or take time here in the community. I'm sadder that I couldn't play much Shadowrun these last years too ...

Sending all other player to get a pizza is not that hard



That is SR5 and that is not a very good rule.



Brainscan, They shoot the wild horses, Year of the comet are usually considered not really to be the highlight of SR.

Renraku is very good, Survival is ok



No, but you will need to handwaive/improvise some things.

SYL

There is a quick version in Mr Johnson's Black book but I prefer to just use a single Node/Host (whatever they call it in 3e) and just up the difficulty of the system a bit. Its been years since I ran 3e/VR2.0 though so you'll have to play around with it.



Depends, I personally hate the way Shadowrun adventures are written (ie the style) except for Ghost Cartels which I still dont like but it was an improvement. However even the badly written old adventures have some pretty decent ideas buried in way to much text. Mercurial (1e) for example is terribly written but the basic idea is fantastic. Then there are are the classic great ones like Harliquin and Missing Blood (part of Universal Brotherhood) that are at least decently written and in some cases actually good.

@Tete : Do you imply that the adventures are too much linear, binding players all into the bandwagon ? For the matrix, I gonna look at the info in Mr JBB and see what I can do to have a fast hacking and maybe a slower one via PBP (that way, we play live, but I reserve all the harder hacking outside of the live playing).

Its not just a problem a problem of linear, its a problem of 1 dimensional goals and motivations, but most importantly brilliant back stories in some cases that NEVER COME OUT in the adventure.