Which goes to show that different play styles generate different experiences.

I'd argue that the layout of 4e/4.5 was a huge improvement over the FASA editions. They had serious issues in that department. The writing quality was also much better, at least in regards to rules presentation. That was much more cleaned up.

Fluff, I'd do a hand waggle on. Some of the writing was absolutely excellent, like the first half of Runner Havens. There, the difference is so stark, they should have named it Target: Hong Kong; Hong Kong is so much better than the rest of the book, the other parts seem like an afterthought.


Yes, and we've established that your table is unusual, and perhaps even apocryphal. You're relating one view point of one group, where we're discussing hundreds of groups, run by many different GM's under different conditions, and combines experiences from open play and home events. If many people are relating that they have the Pizza problem, and you do not, it may be worth considering that your experience is not the norm.

Again, let me reiterate that its all in the eye of the beholder before continuing.

I'll even give you the layout is an improvement, but if you cant get basic grammar and spelling correct, no your not better. FASA could at least grasp that basic concept.




Bug City. Universal Brotherhood. Harlequin's back. Super Tuesday. Renraku Arcology Shutdown. Dunkelzahn's Will(a product that has kept on giving for a long time). Plot lines that have endured 20 years, history that dates back to the last cycle. VS part of one book you mentoned(I'm sure you have more in mind). Again, compare various plots to the, in my opinion, recycled current plot of head cases( a technological version of Universal Brotherhood Bug possession....).

Again, mileage may vary.

And yet I have experienced those particular POV's from many different people and groups over the years (so, no, I am not relating one POV from a single group). Why do you assume I am only speaking about my Current Group? I have gamed with Hundreds of players and dozens of groups (different GM's, Home & Conventions, Yadda, Yadda) over the years - I am not sure why you always make the assumption that only my last group is a quality one. You tend to game with those of similar preferences more often than not, so it is not a surprise if the experiences gained from those individuals/groups follow a certain track. *shrug*

It wasn't until after 4.5 that the quality started to go downhill. 4.0 was well done, 4.5 had some good writing, but after that? No, it started to fall apart after the Great Freelancer Scandal and the loss of some really amazing writers.



Some of those were 2e, but it doesn't disprove my point. Some of the writing for 4/4.5 was very good. Other parts, not so much-- the second half of Runner Havens was so bland and generic, you could file off Seattle's name and put in any other city. But in the BBB's, the rules text was clearer and more understandable than any other edition. The rules were presented in such a way, they were much easier to follow, even though the rules themselves weren't any less complex than before.

4.5 had a couple campaign tracks: Dawn of the Artifacts and Ghost Cartels. DotA was bad because it was essentially a Mary Sue adventure-- the PC's were there to support the super-NPC. Ghost Cartels could have been good, but it suffered from a lack of direction and focus. It was pretty incomprehensible.



Don't make assumptions about who I game with. Most of my 4.0-onward experience is Missions or open play, so I've also gamed with hundreds of players over the years. I had two home games as well. And no, I don't assume that your last group was a quality one. I'm honestly not sure what to think of them, other than that we only hear your side of the story, so there could be a lot more going on than you're mentioning.

But anyway, the point is that you're about the only person who hasn't reported the Pizza Problem with 4e/4.5. That not only goes against my experience, and the hundreds of players I've gamed with; but also everyone else here, and the hundreds of people they've gamed with. It could be that you're the outlier, or that your perspective is different, or any one of a number of things. But I think we can safely conclude that your experience is not the norm.

Continue that conversation via PM, Caine & Tymeaus Jalynsfein.

What is the Pizza Problem?

And a thing I am wondering about:
Have there been rules for enchanting in third, like there are in fifth edition?
Anything close to casting a prepared spell from an object like it is possible now?

The Pizza Problem:
Decker goes into MAtrix, GM tells the rest of the Players to go get food while he does what is basically a single person dungeon run with the Player.

As for Spells:
Yes, there were Anchors.

... which sucked - by RAW - due to reasons like

1. having a dual natured state even before the trigger condition was met ... which had serious ramifications as far as safety of the anchor and its transportability were concerned.
2. having non-trivial karma costs that had to be paid over and over again when re-arming the associated anchoring focus.

Amchoring and anchoring foci were one of the cases in SR3 where the original design intend was lost and turned into something pretty much useless during the playtest and editing phase of Magic in the Shadows ... at least that's what I gathered from a private e-mail corrospondence with Stephen Kenson some time later.
However, if that hadn't happened it would most likely have turned out as something over-powered instead.

But it was there
Like light and hold out pistols and . . no, i can't keep a straight face either ^^

And yes, in SR, magic has exactly two states: It's either Useless or OP

Earlier versions of Anchoring were overpowered.

There were a few reasons for this, but they all boil down to the fact that Anchoring didn't cost anything. First of all, prior to 3e, you didn't learn metamagics as you initiated. Instead, there was Grade 0: on your first initiation, you learned every single metamagic at once. Grade 1 and future initiations just raised your Magic. What this meant was that every single initiate knew Anchoring, so people used it frequently.

The second problem was that there weren't any cash costs to create an Anchor. You could use costly items as a base, but why bother? The rules made it so you could Anchor a Heal spell to a vial of colored water, making a healing potion. And thematically, that works-- but as a result, there was no reason to attach the Anchor to an expensive medication.

But the biggest problem by far was Drain. I can't remember if it was 1e or 2e, but one of the editions had it so the Drain come at the time you set the spell. That meant if you didn't knock yourself out placing the spell, you could use it later, Drain free. When combined with the previous two issues, it was basically free to run around with bandoliers loaded with Hellblasts, all with zero Drain. There was no limit to the number of anchored spells you could carry, and no costly components to limit it either.

There was one more problem, and that was sustaining. Anchoring automatically sustained a spell for you for a set period. However, they didn't count as active foci, so you had none of the costs or risks associated with spell locks. For a combat buff, this was more than enough.

Remember, Anchoring was the replacement for 2e's Spell Locks, which were straight-up magic items.

I miss them actually, as they were really powerful, but balanced against being constantly dual natured in a world where grounding spells from the Astral was a thing. I saw more than one group of runners get detonated by a manaball dropped on their mage's power focus from the Astral.

Kinda? Quickening was a metamagic since 1e, and that's more of a replacement for spell locks. And they were extremely powerful, since they could sustain any spell, regardless of force. They did have major drawbacks, as you pointed out.

Quickening was much safer than spell locks or sustaining foci, because you couldn't ground through them, and if you did it right quickened spells were really hard to get rid of. If you knew tattoo quickening, your sustained spells were almost impossible to destroy.

Anchoring could be very useful for sustaining spells, and it was frequently used as such. But the more useful part (beyond being drain free) was the ability to set a trigger. Linking it to a detection spell got complex at times, but if you worded your trigger carefully, you could have a string of spells all pop up at once. So, you could set off multiple buff spells, carpet-bomb an enemy with Hellblasts, or any other trick you care to name.

Always liked tattoo magic. Has a lot of flavor attached to it, in my opinion.

My 5 Nuyen:)

Firstly, avoiding the number-crunching, when people had a few turns of SR3, it just played faster.

Variable TN's allowed the GM (Me, invariably) to set the scene and encourage the player to actually READ the core mechanics. (Ie: moving while firing vs staying prone vs burst-fire vs suppression, after the players went through this, it made a lot more sense for them to play smarter)

Dice Pools - these forced players to be smart, but also to gamble. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn't. We're rolling dice, make it count:)

Fluff - everything dripped edgy 80's, you knew the elves looked like Bowie and Laura Brannigan, and the suits looked like evil versions of Miami Vice. Synths wailed, guitars were wielded and the trolls added the percussion when needed.

Imagery: The 2nd Ed stuff had gang-chic down pat, but SR3 exploded that into Corps, suits, music, matrix, runners (Trenchcoat Vs Pink Mohawk) vehicles, guns... The iconic Uzi III became a poor-man's must-have, while the herd rushed towards the Predator II and the, GASP, Ares Alpha. Everything was sharp-edged and expensive, so you gotta run for your dough.

Magic! I will admit, MagicRun 3 did make those karma sinks uber-powerful, but even if everyone was playing a magic-user (that happened twice) things got really bad if you didn't have a good mix of skills. Players tended to become teams out of necessity.

Flexibility! Sammy/Decker. Rigger Face, Magic muscle... If you were willing to stretch beyond, "My dorf has a big gun anna big axe and likes to fight" you could really have some fun, memorable and quite playable freaks of nature.

Traditions! Not just magic, but even the deckers had them. Hot Vs Cold, Okatau (freaks) and the emerging Technomancers (if you played them that way - matrix spike babies?) these went beyond number-crunch and became choices that drove the gameplay and the team. Lone Star Vs Knight, Corp Vs Corp (Fuchi! Fuchi! Fuchi! for all your computer needs!) Faction Vs Faction, Gang vs Gang. The flavour was there, they weren't mooks, there were the Halloweeners, the Red Samurai, the Star.

Totems - I will address this one separately. Yes, the UMC was greeted at the table with, uh, "Burn this heresy!" by the players. This is AFTER I spent maybe a month trying to get them to have a go at 4th. Totems (the the accompanying mask) made for awesome roleplaying, and for great gags (ie: Perception roll by the security guard to see if the guy's head next to you turned into an eagle after that force 6 spell was cast) UMC Make-your-own traditions reek "we couldn't playtest this right, so it's up to the GM to rule on the RAW" - Hell, even the toaster totem made more sense.

Dice!
If you were rolling 20 dice in SR3, you had a damn good reason to be using up those pools. Not, "I need this to shoot my pistol". I seem to remember one of the supposed advantages to SR4 was that you'd not have to roll so many/so much. Ha Friggin Ha.

Quality: Even the poorer splatbooks had huge gems in them. Even the adventures that were painful (Predator and Prey?) could be redeemed and reused. The core book FELT like a bible. The "essentials" (Matrix, MItS, Rigger, CC) had enough juice in the that it felt like they should have been included in the main "Core". The most recent versions we've leafed through felt like printed pdf booklets, not "cornerstone of a game system". Heh, even the partials of Shadows of Latin America are tidy and tie together. (Sometimes better than Cyberpirates)

Passion! It's hard to feel bad when your 24-dice rolling vatjob bites it. It's another thing altogether when Biff - ganger made good - dies with gun smoking after covering the retreat of the team, 'cause that how he'd roll. How many here have the same attachment to your SR3 characters? How many have that with thier 4th, 4.5th and 5th?


-Enough of me,

-Tir!

Can't argue, I've translated Murphy (Golden Gloves boxer who goblinized into a Troll and lost his shot at the profession) and Wraith (my Decker, 'nuff said) into 4e and 5e because the characters are too much fun to give up.

The main characters that I played in SR3 and SR4/4A generated a lot of passion for me. There were the ones that were one offs, to be sure, but I generally stick to a couple of core concepts throughout an Edition. In SR3, it was Spike, A Troll Ganger turned professional shadowrunner. He was the tank of the group and was tons of fun to play. In SR4, it was Spike (Conversion from 3rd Edition), Dharkoni (Oni Ninja Adept), Nexus (The Cyberlogician), Jenks (The Black Magician Occult Investigator), and Tyr Andronikov (Russian Unaugmented, Unawakened, Un Emerged Mercenary) that were/are my most memorable characters. I would throw in Ananasi (Surged III Spider Changeling) as well, but I don't get to play him all that often. So, pretty decent levels of attachment to my characters. Still struggling with SR5 and the attachment thing. I love the character (Burned Aegis Cognito Operative), but the system is just frustrating me a lot right now, so it is harder to invest.