I had a big long involved post, but I realize that it's not worth it. Here's the short version.

First, I recognized the reference to Auschwitz. I didn't catch the reference to SR4, because the context wasn't clear. The context appeared to be Nazis - Authors - SR5 and everyone thinks SR5 is shitty. (That last part is either exaggerated hyperbole or intended to be exclusionary to SR5 fans. Possibly both. I can't tell.)

Second, apple basically repeated the original sentiment that he intended to call the authors and Jason Hardy Nazis, which means to me that he thinks anyone who supports SR5 is supporting Nazis. I concede the second half may not be what he meant, but that's what comes across. Ergo my reaction. If you can't see why that's offensive and actively hostile, you've collectively made my original point for me.

Third, I completely agree that passage in WAR! was insensitive and indefensible. But taking that brush and painting all of SR5 with it isn't welcoming to SR5 fans. (Especially since it's an SR4 product an SR5 fan may be ignorant of and irrelevant to.) And it certainly can't be called welcoming to the authors of SR5, when they likely had had nothing to do with the passage in question, regardless of the line developer's culpability; which was not in the post I reacted to.

I do apologize for missing the reference to WAR!/SR4. I should have, but I didn't. That said, it's irrelevant to the point as apple has repeated and confirmed his intent to be offensive.

Is it a fair judgement? I don't know. I do know that it's still offensive to me, and I wasn't even the intended target as an SR5 fan. (I'm certainly not a contributing author, I can't write worth a crap.) The later clarification of intent and missed context does nothing to ameliorate that feeling.

-Temperance

Speaking only for myself the problems I have had are mainly editorial in nature. Even ghost jew murder for fun and profit - the Shadowrun setting is dystopian and should be filled with dark things - I have no problem with authors submitting things like that but the editors are there to draw the line.

so it boils down to :

SR2/3 - we likey mostly but needs tweaks

SR4/4.5 okay, fixed some stuff, broke some stuff... we can live with it as long as the next one improves it we'll all buy it and carry on

SR5 - a whole lot of expectation that wasn't delivered on, added to the fact that there's a whole lot of old content across other versions that we either cannot or do not want to live without
(Man and Machine, looking at you!)

and thus our loyalties are torn across different forums ..

new forums for new stuff and an optimistic look at what can be salvaged

DS - where we mourn the loss of potential and endlessly torment ourselves over discussions that will be circlejerked ad infinitum, ad nausem about the old rule sets that actually are never going to change because the new edition is all that matters now.

well, as I said before and as others have said, DS is here if we need it for old stuff, or until such time as 5th is retconned to bring us all into one fold.

We do indeed live in interesting times

"Insensitive", right. "Insensitive" as posting images of butchered pigs on twitter with a hashtag relating to the recent cop slayings in NYC would be. I don't think "insensitive" is the correct word here, Temperance.


Except that he didn't. You just really want to read that into his post.

Maybe consider just how welcoming people who find these passages from War! merely "insensitive" are to anyone who actually is offended by those passages, and the image of the community you want to represent it paints.


Pointing out offensiveness that is hard to forgive is offensive to you? Seriously?

*looks up from tinkering with yet another bizarre concept character that makes the 4E rules weep*

O hay guys, wuts goin on in this threa...

...

Oh. Oh.

I'll uh... I'll get back to my mecha laser gnome.

*closes the door awkwardly*

~Umi

As I said, the passage in WAR is indefensible. Obviously, you only read the insensitive part and stopped reading. I used insensitive as a understatement to underscore the "indefensible" part of my original statement. Ya know, the part you failed to quote in an effort to make me look bad.

Quoting only half of something in an effort to make someone look bad is damn rude. So again, I stand by my original thesis. This is not a welcoming forum.



Really? That's the tack you're taking? Allow me to elaborate and start by requoting what I took offense to.



Let's paraphrase that, so you know exactly how I parsed it: Nazi authors and SR5 happened (and as a result) We are all sad to see SR is shit.

Now we break it down:

1) "Nazi authors" is accurate by apple's admission. No interpretation needed there.
2) SR5 happened. Apple thinks this is a bad thing for the SR universe. This is not a large leap.
3) It's also not a large leap to think A & B caused C.
4) The only thing I can guarantee that commonly goes down a toilet is piss and shit. Since I don't usually see someone calling something piss, shit is the likely interpretation.
5) Also remember, I admitted to not catching the reference to WAR! Something a person new to the hobby and SR5 in particular might be ignorant.

If I was new to Shadowrun, ignorant of WAR!/SR4, and my only exposure was SR5, I venture into a forum that appears to have fans of Shadowrun. I see an insult leveled at authors without any provided context as to why and I see an insult leveled at something I like.

Yes, that's offensive, and I don't need to read very far into it to see it. That apple later admits the Nazi intent? No, that's not welcoming. It doesn't matter how you attempt to justify that.

Now, let's address my conclusion. Apple appeared to say Nazi authors and SR5 caused SR to be shit. My logic: If I support SR5, I support all the workers who contributed to SR5. If not explicitly, I do so tacitly. If Nazi authors worked on SR5, I support those authors. Ergo, If I support SR5, I am supporting Nazi authors.

So yes, I think my interpretation is pretty reasonable, given the obvious context provided in that post.



What the fuck? Are you accusing me of being a Nazi apologist by proxy and that I think the section in WAR is even remotely okay? I'm gay, a queer, a homosexual, a faggot. I'm a (distant) member of one of the other groups the Nazis liked to kill. The last thing I would ever support are Nazis in any way, shape, or form. I'm not Jewish, true. And correspondingly, I confess don't have as deep as an understanding as if I were Jewish. I can only look at what they did and be horrified. I am not defending that passage in WAR! Nor am I trying to; directly or proxy. There are better things to waste my time on.

I should like to point out my statement was not "merely insensitive", I said it's "insensitive and indefensible." A half truth is a lie. Don't lie to me about what I said when there's a record of it.

I can (and do) consider what apple said was offensive AND I consider that section of WAR! offensive. These are not mutually exclusive ideas. Just because I think apple is being unwelcoming does NOT mean I think that piece is WAR! is welcoming. To be absolutely clear: There is nothing in that passage in WAR! that is defensible or acceptable. Period. End of discussion.

I really have no more to say on the matter. I can only hope my disgust regarding that passage is a bit more clear.



You might as well be asking when I stopped beating my wife. No, you don't get to blame me for your strawman.

-Temperance

Yeah...

Could we stop obsessing over who offended whom by being offended by something somebody else said about something supposedly offensive somebody else altogether may or may not have said or done more than a year ago?

Move that conversation to PM and don't derail the thread any further, otherwise it will get locked and we'll review your postings.

Irony

Ok so a little tongue in cheek, a little calling people out. This includes hermit. Here's a general rule of thumb for you guys:
If you think you may be diving into an argument that has become more "an argument" less "a discussion", step away from the computer from five minutes and rethink it for a second. I find it more disconcerting than I can say that the thread about the issues with DS's tone and content eventually devolved into another pointless argument about SR4/5 and the authors.
And Nazis.

Sorry I was a couple days late, it's been a busy week. But I felt this needed pointing out.

Agreed. Ditto. What he said.

Long post and answer, but then I saw the request of Grinder.

SYL

I appreciate the reminder. I'm normally a lot more even tempered, as can be verified by my post history. This time it touched a nerve and I ... chose poorly and overreacted. Mea culpa.

I apologize to the thread for exacerbating the issue and continuing long past the point of discussion.

-Temperance

To briefly return to initial topic, let me throw in my two kopecks. Frankly, with Shadowrun in its current state, I just don't really care. The Fifth Edition is horrible head to toe. In its crunch, which can only be explained in gamist terms, and, despite the lying promises Cratias gave me, is not explained for a simulationist in any believable way. And in its fluff, where we get one more plague of possession spirits (except this time around with a bit of a technological taste!), dragons acting against everythi... oh, you've heard my argumentation on the subject a dozen times already, haven't you? I won't repeat myself, then.

The way CGL does things, the way the books are edited, the rules written and the fluff researched before writing new stuff, I just see as disrespect towards the fans. "We'll do whatever the fuck we want, and you'll all eat it up, peasants, and pay us for it, too".
I'm not interested in an arrangement like that, so while I do flip through the 5e books in the off chance there's something of worth in them, they don't hold any real interest for me.
Neither am I overly interested in talking with the people who not only don't do research for their writing (and claim it unnecessary), but can't even keep the names of the characters they're writing about in mind, and yet are allowed to establish the canon of a universe tens of years old.
Discussing old editions by now is essentially repeating the old argumentation at each other again and again, both sides knowing they're not going to persuade anyone.
So yeah, I'd say I'm rather apathetic about the current state of Shadowrun, and by the forum's activity I'd say it's not me alone.
Were there good new books to discuss, nothing would stop a discussion, Cain's particularities or not. Now that there aren't, nothing can really spark one.

That's all there is to it.

What's a Kopeck? And do they do Laundry? I mean really, if you are throwing them away, I might as well get one.

According to wikipedia a kopek is either 1/100th of a Russian Ruble or an Irish rock band. I'm leaning towards the band definition.

Dumpshock can be an exhausting place. When I was a SR freelancer, I came here very regularly to get feedback on pieces I had worked on. Most of the time, the feedback was valuable and the discussion relatively calm; which I can tell you many of the freelancers really appreciated. But the discussions around here did start going downhill, fortunately for me about the time I stopped freelancing. Discussions got caught in the weeds, spawning threads dozens of pages long bickering over a particular rules interpretation or mechanical exploit. I don't really find those discussions to be fun and Shadowrun (and tabletop gaming in general) are about fun for me, so there was less reason for me to visit here.

Then combine that with my almost total lack of interest in the current state of Shadowrun. If it weren't for Harebrained Schemes' fantastic Shadowrun Returns game, I probably wouldn't have any interest in the Sixth World at all anymore. Which is a bit painful for me to admit given how much time I invested in this game and how many good memories I have tied to it.

To be fair regarding dozen page threads about rules interpretations and mechanics, a lot of that is directly attributeable to the ambiguous nature of a lot of the rules in later 4E books and continuing on into 5E.

Now, I recognize that's a problem outside of the hands of both players and freelancers alike, but when rules are unclear, the community is going to try to make sense of them as best they can, and the harder that is for them to do, the more fighting you see playing out over the issue. There are still topics I just avoid like the plague from 4E, because the rules are just so awful and spark so much controversy. And I can't really fauly people for disagreeing - the rules simply are too ambiguous to possible decide either way. And that means the only options are to pick a side, or to pretend that section of the rules doesn't exist - which often means avoiding in-game situations that really should be easy to handle.

If Dumpshock has gone downhill, I think a large part of that is because Shadowrun itself has gone downhill. If the community is discontent and negative where before it was relatively serene and positive, you have to ask what happened to bring about that change. It's hard to have constructive discussions about a broken system which simply doesn't work in many cases, and it's hard to stay positive when things seem to be getting worse and no one seems to be listening to your concerns.

Honestly? I think Dumpshock is dying. And I think it's because the climate and environment it relies upon to survive has degraded. I think Shadowrun itself is dying - at least in the form of an active PnP tabletop game.

Before, your average joe came to Dumpshock to discuss the complicated and interesting ways in which the various rules and mechanics of Shadowrun interacted - but with mechanical fidelity eroding away, and new books coming out with incomplete, contradictory, astoundingly ambiguous, and simply untested rules that show no sign of being fixed many months down the line, that sort of discussion is now impossible.

Before, freelancers came to Dumpshock to get feedback on various ideas, and that feedback used to end up having a visible and substantial impact on the game - but since that time, we've seen many cases of freelancers gathering feedback and making changes or recommendations, only to have their work be completely ignored or edited beyond recognition. Collected errata go unreleased; submitted rules get altered seemingly at random with no regard for logic, intent, or balance; quality fiction and art gets gutted to be replaced by space-wasting layout choices; the list goes on.

Ultimately it feels like both freelancers and the playerbase alike are fed up with not being listened to and being forced to work with a poorly made system, and I think we're seeing the slow decline of both the community and the playerbase at large. Depending what happens in the future, both could make a comeback - but I think I speak for many when I say I don't think that has a good chance of happening until someone else is in charge of production and publishing.

~Umi

You know, I'm sad to her this. You were my favorite SR writer of the SR4 run, the Hong Kong section you did is amazing.

But really, I think many of the really good Shadowrun writers were lost, and the newer ones aren't nearly at the same level.

Here's what. You could ask St.George to do laundry, I guess, but he seems a bit preoccupied with the serpent.

Thank you. The Hong Kong piece of Runner Havens was a ton of work (somewhere I have a photo of the stack of research books I had on my desk while writing it), but I loved every minute of it. So I'm glad to hear other people enjoy it too.

I don't know many of the current Shadowrun writers. And I will be the first to admit that I have been less than impressed with many of the Fifth Edition books I've read through. However, the current writers I do know are great and I wish the timing had been different and I had a chance to work with them. I've known Russell Zimmerman (Critias) since my Shadowland.org days, before I posted to Dumpshock and before either one of us were Shadowrun freelancers. His writing is fantastic and man, do I wish he had been in some of the freelancer brainstorm sessions we used to have.

I think the problem is management. The Shadowrun Returns Anthology is some great reading, for example. And some of the new freelancers wrote stories in that. I don't think CGL knows how to properly manage their freelancers or their product, so the end products come up looking pretty shoddy. It's a damn shame.



Shadowrun has gotten very unwieldy, this is true. It's almost comical when I compare Shadowrun's mechanics to the mechanics of the two game systems I am playing right now, WotC's Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition and Monte Cook Games' Cypher System (in Numenera). Shadowrun's mechanics and character creation have lost me potential players; I've had people get fed up with how long it takes to make a character in Shadowrun and decide they would rather play something else (totally true story). I can't really blame them, it is a bit ridiculous. I don't think that started with Shadowrun's Fourth Edition, but it has gotten worse with each edition as the game tries to tackle more and more. The current state of tabletop gaming is to have mechanics that are more streamlined, simple to play at a table, and with wiggle room for GMs to improvise. Shadowrun is not moving in that direction.



Agreed. I used to come to Dumpshock to see how my material was being interpreted and if there were any problems with it that myself and the other freelancers had missed. My favorite example being ward anchoring discussions from my material in Street Magic. Those discussions were valuable and civil and there were definitely some details I had missed, but could be easily fixed with some errata. But back then, I knew the line developer was also reading these threads and I knew he wanted to fix those mistakes where they were discovered. There was no real disconnect in the production team; though I can't say the same for management. I frequently had issues with management; both at CGL and at FanPro before them.



Agreed and that largely explains why I've moved on to other games. Shadowrun still has hope; I think the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter showed that it still has a following, even if a lot of those people aren't actively playing the tabletop RPG anymore. But for the tabletop RPG to really make a comeback, it needs to do something brave and different, it can't just keep chugging along its status quo. And I don't think the current publisher is inclined to do that.

So no Laundry? Damn.

If you have your wireless bonus on for your clothing they shouldn't need laundering.

Why would you want players who can't even make a character? I mean, come on, it takes half a hundred of pages read even if you know zilch about the system.

I think what's happening is so complex that most of the things people are observing are true to some degree and all of them are playing some role. Unfortunately that also makes it hard to put your finger on one thing and say "this right here is killing Dumpshock" or "this right here is killing SR".

In the bigger picture you have to account for things like the decline in the popularity of cyberpunk as a genre. It's just not the 1980s anymore, and to be frank most people don't miss all the silly shit that came with 80s cyberpunk. I have never seen a rocker character at my table and I'm okay with that.

There are also changes in the larger RGP industry. As DE mentioned the trend in PnP RPGs is toward "rules light" systems. SR has never been rules light, but SR4 was the biggest step the line ever took in that direction. Now we have the return of SR1-3 initiative and a character creation system that uses both priority and karma build, because fuck yeah!! 1980's!! (see above). Not to mention a laundry lists of ridiculous wireless bonuses to keep track of. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a huge fan of "rules light"; I think more complex rules have their place. I actually like some of the complexity of SR, but I'm also a fan of streamlined core mechanics and rules that fit together and work. One of the earliest reviews of SR5 was by the guy at Look, Robot who likened SR to a dinosaur. He's totally biased, but he's also right.

There is the fact that as a community we are all getting older. Most of us have jobs and kids, and we just don't have the time to play games all day. I know that personally one of the reasons I can't get into SR5 is because I don't have time to ferret out all the issues and house rule a workable system. I can run SR4 (and probably SR3) from memory and fix their issues on the fly. Similarly most of us don't have time to discuss the game in an internet forum all day, and as has been said, most of the SR4 rule debates have been done to death (and then some).

Consider also that when many of us were youngsters entering the RPG market, SR was something new and different. New players today have a wide range of games from all different genre's to choose from. They are also accustomed to a certain degree if online support that didn't exist for SR until things like the Deep Resonance, SR web ring and SR Archive were created by the fan base. What I mean is that players today have a different experience and a different relationship with their games. I'm sure SR5 is selling, but the question in my mind is whether SR5 as a product is even capable of generating and sustaining a fan base in today's RPG market like we use to have- a fan base that is even interested in creating something like Dumpshock. Along the same lines, I also question whether having an official forum promotes the kind of open discussion (and criticism) that is needed to fix SR5s many issues.

And then there are all the issues with CGL and the current edition, including (in order of importance): editing, rules design, writing, play testing, layout, support. This has all be said elsewhere so I won't rehash it except to say that I don't think you can understate the impact this is having on the community. It is definitely a factor for me and many others.

The final thing I would say is contributing to DS's decline is the climate that has developed here, which many find negative, abrasive, unwelcoming or downright hostile. For sure there is a drought of the kind of productive discussion and creative collaboration that you used to see here. Its both a cause and an effect of loosing the participation of a larger core of the development team and freelancer pool. This change can rightly be attributed to some of the many factors I mentioned above, but not entirely. I would point out that of all the factors contributing to the decline of DS, this is probably the only that we can actually change to any significant degree. But only if we, as a community, decide to do something about it.

So, in summary: damn kids get off my lawn and while you're at it stop being so negative (see the irony there?) :

That is incredibly elitist to say, and I am sick of hearing it,
because it implies that people who get frustrated with being required to read 50 pages, plus the basic rules, plus the equipment chapter as a whole (which all in all probably will not be enough to not need help the first time around) are people who are unworthy of being played with.

I do not choose the people I game with based on who is the best at knowing the rules, or game-mastery, or at making a character, but who is a good role-player, and pleasant company.

The complexity of the system becomes the limiting factor here.
If the players feel a system is needlessly complex, it is not the players who are at a loss, but the system, for it will not be played.
At the end, all that matters is whether the setting is a good background for a good story, whether or not the rules hinder the telling of a good story.

This kind of elitism is one of the weirdest trends in the RPG community in my opinion.
It would not surprise me if this does not only drive people away from SR, but from the hobby in general.

'You think character generation is too frustrating? Well that is your fault. Who wants to play with you anyway?'
Who likes to hear that?

I did not say can't. The players are all capable of making a character. And each one of them is an experienced tabletop RPG player coming from other games. But the process of making Shadowrun characters is extremely fiddly and time-consuming compared to other popular games out there. And there isn't even really any sense of payoff from that extra effort.

Also, I second everything Bertramn said.

I agree that Shadowrun is needlessly crunchy. But while I was playing both D&D5 and Numenera I found that the systems weren't crunchy enough to make my character feel really unique.

There are a lot of overlapping roles in Shadowrun. Like the Adept and Street Sam both fill the role of physical combatant. And while Adept Powers and Ware do share the same benefits, they both come with different costs. But of course the biggest problem is that Adepts can get chrome which does throw some balancing out the window. But still, there they can fill the same role, but they won't be the same both in mechanics and flavor.

Like you need to get into a open window on a second story. The adept can run up the wall, while the street sam can use his hydraulic jacks to jump up to it, or whatever.

In Numenera it can be described like that too. But it doesn't really feel any different since you'll still be rolling your d20, -level if you're skilled, -level if you got some gear to help, -level if you want to spend some effort. Super awesome since it resolves so quickly. But it starts to feel a bit same-ie.

In Shadowrun, your adept needed to buy the wall run power, needs some good str and the running skill. A window on the second floor would probably be some 4 meters up, so they need to get 4 hits on the test, which is pretty difficult or at least require a significant resource investment to do this one thing.

Then you got the Street Sam doing the same thing. They do a jump test with their hydraulic jacks. So the max a normal person can jump is 1.5x their height. Say our Street Sam is human, 2 meters tall, that's 3 meters without the jacks. Just one meter short from being able to reach that window. Each rating of a jack adds 20% to the max jump distance. We just need 1/3 more distance, so a rating 2 jack is all we need. The Sam makes gymnastic + agi test, each hit counts as a half meter in vertical distance, so is also a threshold 4 test, since he only needs to go up by 2 meters from his natural height of 2 meters.

And while the example in Shadowrun were WAY more complicated than doing it in Numenera. There is something about the crunchiness. It adds some drama, adds more strategy and tactics, and more meaningful choices. In Numenera, you can just say you walk through the wall, or travel through time to before the building was made and walk in and then travel through time again. This isn't to say Numenera is bad, because I love it. But its not the same reason I love how crunchy Shadowrun is.

Despite that Sams and Adepts share a lot of the same roles, they also go about it differently enough to make the characters feel really different when approaching the same task. Which can make player's characters feel more unique.

IMHO there are several factors which make SR very complicated for new players:

- Complicated equipment lists for Hackers, Riggers and Streetsams

- Bad archetypes

- Missing a good missing intro adventure (which really takes players and gamemaster step by step through an entire run) in the basic book.

- Missing a basic runner setting in the basic book.

- Missing better examples, not only for one specific rule, for for an entire scene.

- Missing basic help for players and Gamemaster in "the first 10 steps, what should I do, what do in need to do ingame"

- cumbersome rules in many instances (compared to what many other RPGs have today)

SYL

No, it doesn´t.

It add massive rule blocking the way. There is no drama and no choice if a new gamemaste (and many old ones too) have to check the rule system for several minutes. Because it is not only the jumping test, but dozen of other tests as well. This is something a lot of people forget who advocate for crunchy rules: the entire rule system, from attribute tests to skill testes to infiltration, magic, drone modification, program scribing, enchanting, katana killing, wallrunning adepts and thousands of different things, would be crunchy and complicated, not only one specific part. Especially in SR, which doesn´t have not only normal rule areas like attribute, skill, close combat, ranged combat, but also magic, magic item creation, alternate dimension, rigger, matrix, gear building and modification etc. And with that your rule system explodes. On the contrary: it *kills* every drama, every cool idea, every player/setting interaction, because ... "on page 285 there is a rule which does not allow that or which required you to do the next 3 steps".

It was part of SR3 - and even some of the main authors mentioned that they don´t use this kind of rule detail in their private game.

SYL

Shadowrun has always been a mechanics-heavy game. This is no more of a bad thing than blueberry pie being a blueberry-heavy dessert. If you don't like rules-heavy, that's okay--don't play Shadowrun, or pick up a port to some more rules-light system (the beautiful thing about rules-light is they are so very easy to port to). I've heard of plenty of people who play Shadowrun on a d100 or d20 system, and it works for them.

Speaking for myself, and I imagine a lot of other SR fans, I like mechanics-heavy. This is a huge part of why I didn't transition over to SR4. And the fact that SR5 seems to be transitioning back seems to suggest that CGL recognizes this as well.

If the point is though that it's hard for new players to start, and more guidance on that would be helpful, I can get behind that. Maybe that's something that Dumpshock can put together; Dumpshock's Guide to Playing Shadowrun. Certainly, getting from 0 to Table can be a little intimidating with crunch-heavy games (be it Shadowrun, Axies & Allies, or Kerbal Space Program), so a tutorial usually is a good fix.

I also think Method's comments really hit a note. While SR5 is coming closer to what I'm looking for, I already have SR3. I own all the books, I know the rules. What motivation do I have to change over? They have a very high bar to meet to get my business. But then, in order to meet that bar, they need to offer something new (and something buyers are still interested in). How far afield do they have to go to provide that? Among the big RPGs, Shadowrun is rather unique in that it's the only setting that's really tied to a short-lifespan genre like that (meanwhile, fantasy and vampires have both been around for ages). I do feel like Eclipse Phase did break out of this box, by taking a new, yet somewhat familiar direction. Should Shadowrun be that aggressive as well?

What are you arguing for?

You basically got two extremes. Super crunchy, requiring a lot of rules and math. And super abstracted which makes every test the same thing.

Like in Numenera, say we got a Glave (Street Sam equivalent). We want to do that same second story window jump. Maybe it's a level 6 task. Which means only a roll of 18 or higher will succeed. This means your Joe Average is probably going to fail at the test. But our Glave has hydraulic jacks (jumping asset) and is skilled at jumping. Which lowers the level to 4. Now the Glave has to roll 12 or better, so about a 40% chance to succeed. Odds are the Glave will spend some effort lowering the level by 1 more, so will need a 9 or better which is a 55% chance of success.

In the Shadowrun example, that Street Sam has almost a 100% chance of making it (especially with the use of edge), since he only needs to make a threshold 4 test and will probably be rolling some 15 dice (8 agi + 5 athletics + 2 hydraulic jacks) on the test.

There are some upsides and downsides. in Numenera Joe Average who has a 15% chance of success, while in Shadowrun has a 0% chance of success. Does that sound like a good idea or a bad idea? I don't know. Since most games aren't designed around boring normal people, I don't think these edge cases of what normal people can do is particularly helpful, so I'm not sure why I brought it up. But still a point that can be discussed.

Anyway, while I agree that Shadowrun's crunch is a barrier, I really wouldn't be Shadowrun without it. Since, it'd turn Adepts and Sams, Technomancers and Deckers, Mages and Shamans (though this may have already happened), etc into the same archetype. What makes Shadowrun interesting is that there are no classes. Just roles and different ways to fill those roles with archetypes. If you eliminate the crunch then it'll force Shadowrun into classes to really try and force differences in character choices. Which isn't a bad philosophy of game design, but I don't think its what makes Shadowrun, Shadowrun.

No, because EP have certainly some Cyberpunk/Shadowrun Elements in it, itis more of a SF/Horror Game, more like Transhuman meets Ctuuluh. Taking away the basic cyberpunk/fantasy-aspect would end like DnD4.

And to be honest: I do not feel that SR was always be a very rule/mechanic system . I own a SR1 basic book and compared to the basic book of SR3 and 5 it was an almost weightless light system (except matrix). I do not remember SR2 being as rules heavy as SR3 (lets just say ... "internal connection map for your cyberware"). And as it was said earlier: the general direction goes "light" and the general player base of SR gets older with less time.

SYL

I just take your own examploe

Then you got the Street Sam doing the same thing. They do a jump test with their hydraulic jacks. So the max a normal person can jump is 1.5x their height. Say our Street Sam is human, 2 meters tall, that's 3 meters without the jacks. Just one meter short from being able to reach that window. Each rating of a jack adds 20% to the max jump distance. We just need 1/3 more distance, so a rating 2 jack is all we need. The Sam makes gymnastic + agi test, each hit counts as a half meter in vertical distance, so is also a threshold 4 test, since he only needs to go up by 2 meters from his natural height of 2 meters.

In the end, it is just a jumping test. Other RPGs do that in 2 lines. Image just that for *every* other part of the *entire* SR rule system in every sub-system (magic item creatoin, high speed chases, seduction, firing a rocket launcher etc).




That is absolutely true - and for me, a class less, level less system, which includes high tech and magic is THE most defining cornerstone of what makes or breaks a SR rule sytem for me. I suppose I could live with a lot of other changes, from D10 to D100, from Edge or Karma, from high prices to low prices ... but I could never learn to play SR with classes or levels. It would be an atrocity.

SYL

I do think so,
and it is what they did somewhat half-assedly in fourth edition.

I use the word half-assed because the break was everything but clean.
Everything now is the same, but different, in a bad way.
The cyberpunk is still there technically, but it seems out of place,
amidst elements of transhumanism and a cleaner vision of the future.
Somehow the matrix has changed extremely for example,
while cyberware has not become any more essence-friendly or more effective.

My theory for this disconnect is that the timeleap they made from one edition to the next,
was too small. Just 5 to 6 years.
If they wanted to change the setting, they really should have made a greater leap,
of say: 40 years.
This would have allowed to change the power levels of matrix, magic and cybertech,
as well as all of the rest of the setting, without it seeming strange within the universe.

Sure, it would have been a different game in a way, but that is no different from what it is now.
One of the things that frustrate me the most at the moment in the Shadowrun meta,
is that Wired Reflexes have not gotten any better really, for 25 years.

At the moment they seem to be wanting their cake, while they ate it 10 years ago.
Bringing Decks back is awesome, but what the hell? It does not really make sense in the universe.

Its not a simple jump test though. That's the whole point of needing rules to clarify what the threshold should be. Else it's just the GM looking at the players dice pools and thinking to themselves, "well, I want this to be challenging. They're rolling 15 dice, so why not make it threshold 5." Which may or may not be fair for the player, whom would be slightly punished because the GM understand the opportunity cost of being good at jumping buy crap at other things. Or they under shoot it and now it's a threshold 3 test and everyone can make it, making the Street Sam less special.


But classes are implemented into more abstract games to offer player choice. Or else you'll end up in the homogeneous state that was SR4. Where everyone could be pretty good at everything which starts to defeat the point of playing a team game. That's what makes SR5 nice, is since there is a larger opportunity cost to specialize in your role, you need others to offset your weaknesses.

The Street Sam can't afford the best augs and a deck to defend himself over the Matrix. So he needs a decker. The Sam can't protect himself from magic, since his essence and max magic (if he was awaken) would get eaten by the augs. So he needs a mage to counterspell and handle awaken threats.

The Decker needs someone to protect his meat body while hacking the gipsons. So the Decker needs a Street Sam or Adept. And still needs a mage to handle awaken threats like when a spirit manifests right behind them.

The mage is still the more broken archetype, since they don't need the Decker to protect their magic gear or really needs the Street Sam since they can cast combat spells pretty effectively. But at the very least now in SR5, drain is kind of tougher and direct spells aren't one shot wonder fests. But Shadowrun has always had the problem of awaken characters being too damn strong. But at the very least, they're not so strong now that they're a no brainer all the time like in every previous edition.

For the record, while I enjoy the hell out of Numenera, I'm not really advocating that any form of Shadowrun be as mechanically-light as the Cypher System. Still, on the sliding scale of mechanical complexity, Shadowrun has a lot of room to slide towards being more streamlined while still remaining dramatic and flavorful. D&D5E, for instance, is considerably streamlined, but not as mechanically-light as Cypher System.

No. They are an archaic concept from the 1970s, nothing more. They can be useful if your vision of the game is only based on archetypes (like the Feng Shui Hong Kong Martial Arts Role Playing System with classes like Sorcerer, Ninja or Ex Special Forces).



You mean SR1234 and 5? Because a class less and level less system is pretty much the cornerstone of every edition of SR so far. Except for mundane/adept/aspect magic/ magic/TM, which is as close as you get to a "class system" in SR. I know it is a very often used "accusation" of SR4 that "everyone can do everything". Well, that is true if your gamemaster never challenges you. The moment high level spells, matrix attacks or full auto bursts are in the game, you want specialized sams with soaking pools 30+, hackers with military links and programs (because your rating 6 agent with rating 6 programs does not work really very well against military nodes and enemy hackers with 20+ dices) and you want mages to protect you from high level spirits attack, which in turns are slaughtered by SNS FA fire from the rigger drones. Specialization is still very necessary in SR4, but yes, simple, basic things like hacking a school terminal, fighting against a weak ganger or breakig a rating 2 maglock is quite easy for everyone.



I am note quite sure if that is really covered both in SR3 or SR5. At least in SR3 it was possible after a certain point because nuyen costs exploded so a Kraftwerk from Renraku, some cracked programs and the little Karma you need for computer 6 was definately an option (after all, computer included everything necessary).



No, actually SR had always the issue, that cyberware was too rule intensive, too expensive (remember the non optional surgery costs in SR3 or the ridiculous idea of making an internal networking plan for your connected cyberware?) and simply not cool enough. You see, my mage can simply fly (levitate) with a rule perhaps one small sentence long and almost unlimted possibility. Your street sam have to remember multiple sentences (your own example, sacrifice a lot of nuyen and essence (because jacks only work in cyberlegs IIRC) for a unimpressive bonus in jumping. Ever watched Ghost in the Shell? Cyberleg-using characters there could jump/fall 30 meters. That is how you make cyberware cool. Not with "add 20% istance" but with "add 10 meters". Not with "1 dice against toxic attack, but with full immunity".

SYL

I understand the appeal of a rigid rule-set.
The more rules there are,
the clearer it is what you can do,
and what you are expected to do.

The more detailed the rules are too,
the easier it is, to picture what happens,
because the description has not to be delivered by the GM,
or the player, because it is already written in the book.

This is a continuous line, which ranges from daydreaming on one side,
to playing a computer-game, on the other.

The RPG industry has changed nowadays. Players want games where they can make characters quickly, and get to playing-- no more Monday Night Character Lab sessions.

And for the most part, the industry has responded. White Wolf deliberately cribbed off the original Shadowrun system, and make character creation much easier. FATE brags they can create characters in minutes. Even D&D 5e is much easier: getting attributes takes a minute or two, hit points are fixed at first level, and then you just pick a class and race. They have equipment packages, so you never need to pour over shopping lists ever again. You can get all that information in about 10-15 pages of reading, so flipping through 50-100 is not normal anymore.



In the end, though, it's really an art form. And there's no guarantees where dice are involved-- you can have the brawny fighter critically fail a Lift Gates check, only to have the wimpy mage succeed, regardless of where you set the difficulty at.

But what would help is if the system has realistic difficulty numbers. Is 3 successes really challenging for the average character? That depends on the average character in your game. If there's a high degree of inconsistency among characters, it's really hard to generate that level. And to do that, it *really* helps to have clear and transparent rules. For example, even if you have enough dice or modifiers, what happens if suddenly someone pops a hidden or overlooked rule on you? The the challenging test might become too easy for one person, but the super anime jumper now can't do it at all?

I like rules systems that are crunchier than the norm, but you can have crunchy and clear. You can have a one-line description of rules like jumping, and be perfectly easy to follow, and still have mathematical rigor.

Also D&D (i know mainly 2nd edition) is an insane hodgepodge,
of an extremely easy rule-set on one hand,
and 50-100 tables per book, and pages upon pages of rules for every character class.

I love it though,
being DM is a breeze.

Yes, but DnD is not as frontloaden in the beginning as SR. In DnD, you pick your class, choose your attributes (explained in full during the creation), choose some skills, some feats from a small list in the basic book add the basic equipment pack for your class ... and that is your level 1 characters. Bonus time if you are a spellcaster and need to choose usually 2-4 spells.

In SR you are not level 1. You need to be able to defend against bullets, magic, matrix attacks, gas attacks, social manipulation and killer robots from the very first second - and every one of these attacks can be a trap, distraction or the real thing.

SYL

There is nothing elitist in requiring that someone who wants to play a game knows its rules. Nobody's asking for a gold-plated Core Book with fist-sized diamonds. Anyone and everyone who can read (and everyone can read, we're in 2014 here) can spend a couple hours of their time reading.

It doesn't "imply", it says so outright.

The complexity of the traffic laws becomes the limiting factor here.
If the drivers feel them needlessly complex, it's not them who are at a loss, but the road system.
At the end, all that matters is whether you get from point A to point B, whether or not the traffic laws hinder your journey.
Demanding a driver's license is one of the weirdest trends among the drivers in my opinion.
It would not surprise me if this does not only drive people away from Ford cars, but from driving cars in general.

Okay, watch the logic now. PnP RPGs are an engaged hobby, where you're supposed to arrive on schedule on your most likely off day to spend a few hours with the other players, adhering all the while to pretty strict social conventions. This can be going on for months if not years. What kind of player commitment does the unwillingness or inability to spend a couple of hours reading the rules demonstrate? If the player's interested in playing so little, why would anyone want to bother, and why spare the feelings of a loafer for whom reading a tenth of a book is a problem?

I'm not saying every RPG should be rules heavy, nor that your Shadowrun should be rules heavy, for that matter, too. Once everyone knows the rules, it's easy to make an informed decision on which subsystems to change, or which ones not to use, if they appear to drag the game along. If you want granularity and detailed representation of what's happening, you can use the rules as written, plus optional rules from the splats, etcetera. If you want sleeker gameplay, nobody's stopping you from throwing away subsystems until your SR turns into a freeform with dice resolution or even without it at all. But you can't decide what you want from the rules unless you know them first.

Inability and unwillingness are hardly distinguishable when they produce the same results.

No, actually, it isn't. What is necessary for making a character is determining his attributes, dropping points into half a dozen skills, add half a dozen implants/spells/adept powers, throw in a commlink, a gun, a vehicle and a lifestyle. Bam you're done. Half an hour spent tops if you know the system.
Fiddlyness arrives when you don't want just an Ares Alpha, but a personalized Ares Alpha with modifications for its addons; not just a Harley-Davidson Scorpion, but a overmodded Scorpion outfitted with mounted personalized Ares Alphas with modifications for their addons; not a human street sammy, but an awakened infected changeling who's into hacking a lot. But if you do not feel this extra effort is worthwhile, why exactly would you even bother? What's the worst that could happen, losing a couple of precious dice from your dice pools? So what, who cares if the rest of your group does chargen the same way?

Good for them. If they want to play generic characters without giving thought to their particular abilities, personality traits and social dynamics, which can be created in three clicks, they can play anything from MMOs to jRPGS to Bioware games.

Yes, because rolling a die to determine HP will literally kill you and ship your remains to parents in small packages for ten years for Christmas.
Somehow it doesn't, say, in Pathfinder, but we all know it's geared towards these stupid grognards.

A couple of days ago I happened to open DnD5e DMG on the chapter on magical items...

I do not intend to press the point about elitism any more than I have, since you prove my point with so much more bravado than I ever could.

If you let me take your metaphor of the traffic system, although I find such things exceedingly silly:
Where do you want to drive a hundred kilometres, on a narrow road with lots of traffic lights and potholes, or on the german Autobahn?

And since you mix your metaphors, I will add another:
Which car do you want to drive in? A car you can just drive off in, or a car you have to assemble from scratch? Especially if you are not a mechanic.

My point was:
The system may not be played, but the group will go on.
That is bad for the system, since it is designed to be played.

Elitism is requiring something hard to acquire as a prerequisite for your games.
Two hours of time to read a book are generally available: everyone in the world gets around eight such periods daily, inability or unwillingness to commit these two hours spells out either lack of commitment or mental retardation.

A German Autobahn will have its lines marked, its turns labeled, and its traffic police after you with prejudice. And that's why it is enjoyable to ride: everyone knows the rules and follows them, not drives in zigzags on the opposite lane.

What an incredibly counter-intuitive thing to try and prove.

Fatum, I am not going to try to convince you to my way of thinking. But I do honestly believe that Shadowrun's overly complicated mechanics and character creation frequently hold the game back from adoption. And that's not even going into the complexity of the setting and its decades of metaplot backstory. I'm coming from the perspective of an experienced Shadowrun player and someone who wrote for the game and I know how time-consuming it can be to make characters for, build encounters for, and actually play.

Yes, if the players can't or are unwilling to spend the time to make characters for Shadowrun because it's a slog compared to another game, the end result is the same: not playing Shadowrun. There's no lack of fascinating and fun tabletop RPGs out there, so if another great one attracts the players by letting them jump right in and attracts me as a GM because it's easy to run and allows me the freedom to improvise on the fly, then that is probably where I'll go.

I have said all I have to say on this, Fatum,
and you seem not to have anything to add anymore.

Aquila non capit muscas.

D&D 5e has the advantage of a fresh start. There's only 3 rulebooks out to date, the PHB, the DMG, and the Monster Manual. Since you only need the PHB to create a character, it's pretty easy to go through all the options you ever need to worry about. If you want it even easier, there's a free Basic rulebook that describes a few core classes and races, plus the main rules. You can create a perfectly strong character with only the stripped-down rules.



True enough, but even crunchier systems have made it easier to create a character.

And honestly, I'm having trouble thinking of many systems that are crunchier than Shadowrun these days. From what I can tell, after D&D and Pathfinder, the next most popular games are the new Star Wars, Savage Worlds, White Wolf, and Dark Heresy. I don't know Dark Heresy, but a quick skim looks like it's somewhat lighter than SR5-- maybe not by much, though.


There is a huge difference between being able to skim a player's guide and start planing in a few minutes, and needing to read a 500+ page rulebook to grasp the basics.


Honestly, I'd rather spend forever picking out a character's personality traits and social dynamics than crunching numbers.

You don't start with magic items in D&D5, though. And even when you get to higher levels, they're rare-- I ran a character to 11th level, and only had one useful magic item.

And sometimes, even those items aren't as useful as they could be. I'm tempted to give my players the jar of everlasting mayonnaise to see what happens....

Just to be fair, with a rating 6 cyber jack, you'll be able to jump 6.6 meters in to the air for a 2 meter tall person, which is almost enough to jump up to a 3rd story building. It requires about 9 successes, which is pretty nuts, but possible with a liberal use of edge. So come on, how awesome is that shit.

Anyway, on the topic of class/classless. The reason why Shadowrun has archetypes is because there are some gear/stats/skills/etc combos that clearly synergize with each other. The problem with SR4 is that it was too easy to cheese the system to make yourself immune to different aspects of the game. The Matrix being the biggest offender. As if skinlinking wasn't enough of a problem, it was too easy to toss nuyen at the Matrix to not even need a dedicated hacker. You just need your rating 6 agent, with rating 6 programs, on your system 6, response 6, firewall 6 commlink. Why need skills or attributes when nuyen can solve all your problems? Then you get Emotitoys and just get a bunch of gear to make being a dedicated face pointless or completely unbalanced. That's the problem with SR4, is that almost all problems could be solved with just spending more nuyen to the point where you get more successes than the opposition has dice, or that everyone can do everything so there is no point in specializing.

This is why classes exist in other game systems to prevent this much level of stepping on each other's toes.

SR5 solves the team of generalists problem by making players need to dedicate a significant amount of resources to specialize in that role. Which makes it hard for them to branch out into other roles, especially at chargen. Not impossible, just difficult.