See my previous post about my opinion on how karma is awarded. That run the Johnson gave you may well be three, four, five, or even more separate adventures that all award karma.

45-48 Karma would be between 1 and 3 sessions if you award karma in a way that actually makes sense.

Johnson hires you to extract someone. You do a run for information acquisition (decker hacks their files, face infiltrates their circle of friends, B&E specialist plants a few bugs in areas the target will likely frequent, mage takes an astral look and maybe uses a few detection spells, street sam helps one of the above out) and that is an adventure. It might only take twenty minutes of game time to play but it is still an active quest with a defined beginning, middle, and end and with risks and rewards i.e. an adventure. Then you have a resource acquisition/setup run where you have figured out your extraction plan and are now putting all of the pieces into place (jacking the needed vehicles, pre-hacking the appropriate systems, acquiring the needed passkeys, binding the needed spirits, etc.) - again you are talking about twenty minutes of table time. Then you have the extraction itself, which will probably take twice as long or so and inevitably run into the needed complications. Then comes the cleanup run where the team sanitizes their trail, which is another run.

Two hours of game time and 20 or so karma. And of course you jack nuyen payouts through the roof.

In my writing, if I doled out karma like that to my two lead characters individually they'd be as powerful as Frosty or Lugh Surehand, and it's only been about 18 months in the passage of time.

And at the rate you proposed, Emperor Tippy, after finishing up the Seattle saga (another 24 months worth of story time) they'd probably be more powerful than Harlequin. Hell, at that point they'd be able to go back to Denver and bitch slap Ghostwalker for effectively chasing them out in the first place. If you've read "Lightning In Denver" in Stormfront, then you know what the real Harlequin did to Ghostwalker by himself; now imagine that doubled and in concert...

Okay but then it isn't that nuyen payout are too small compared to Karma ones. Is that you are effectively "houseruling" karma payout and complaining that Nuyen payouts in the book dont match your ruling?

I agree with your other point btw, the one that what cyber gives you pales in comparison with magic abilities give you. In 5th edition, most specialized cyber (roller feet, climbing claws etc) only give you a +2 or a +2 to limits which is underwhelming/not that useful while the mage gains all sorts of abilities not related to "+2 dice to the dice bucket"




I mean i dont see it as wrong per say that in 12 months you are half a frosty. But i also a believer that a year is the maximum that a campaign should last.




Now i just want to see 2 random shadowrunner beating the shit of Harlequin with baseball bats.....spiked baseball bats.

Sounds like you're more of a purist than our group. "Standard" mages have that limitation, but can use magic that affects the physical world and the metaplanes (save the new technomantic ones, which they can't access). Technomancers aren't bound by that limitation, but then they can't do the magic the "standard" mages can, instead being confined to the digital world and the new technomantic metaplanes. Pick which side of the divide you want to be on.

The rules are not holy writ, and we didn't sign a contract in blood to follow them without question. If we think of things that work better than in canon, we house-rule it.

It actually has nothing to do with purism.

My challenge, as GM, is to present a virtual world in word pictures. This is a hell of a lot easier if the underlying rules of that world, the metaphysics, are clean and clear and consistent. That way the players don't complain to me about plotdevicium, unobtainium and the plotrain. That way everybody knows what game is being played. It reduces arguments and butthurt all round.

If it makes you feel better, you can call me lazy.

This right here is really the reason we want rules for these games in the first place. Consistency. And the more rooted in our reality a game world is, the more consistent the underlying rules need to be regarding things that we know and see in our real world. It's not laziness.

I've always found it interesting how differing the oppinions on Technomancers are. Some people love them, and others want to get rid of them alltogether. On my end, I'd simply change them somewhat, making them more like Adepts, but themed around becoming the masters of the AR hack and possibly drones, but at the cost of loosing sprites, threading, and access to full VR without regular Hacker/Decker gear. IMO you'd solve a couple of issues. 1) You'd make a distinct difference between the Hacker and the Technomancer, giving each of them a more clear specialty 2) you'd get rid of the Sprite problems, and 3) you get a toned down Technomancer, compared with 4th ed., whilst retaining a pretty cool theme for the character.

In our case, we've actually only got one player who consistently likes playing Technomancers. I had thought about proposing we do away with them just for the sake of the consistency people are advocating here, but we keep them around to keep this guy happy. He's actually our top computer hardware expert in real life (he's built the custom PCs at my house), and has proven useful and clever in how he provides Matrix support for us as a Technomancer in-game, so we worked up an explanation for them that plugged into the existing cosmology as best we could. We appear to not be the only ones who decided to use the "new type of mage, new technomantic metaplanes" approach to doing so, as I've seen several other posts on multiple SR forums from other groups using the same idea.

Some balance improvements could be made with a bit of math, and telling the customers what your assumptions are.

What does a starting dice pools look like? 12 dice, 20 dice, more or less for combat skills? Calculate out the costs of getting starting characters (at least for a few archetypes) to those dice pools, and what difficulties there were achieving them (too easy to go over, or too difficult to get there: re-figure costs or starting resources). Dice pools don't necessarily need to be equal for everyone, as long as the results after resistances still give the sample archetypes equal value (hopefully both utility and damage). Do characters have the dicepools to regularly succeed at normal difficulty tasks related to their archetype (can the ninja sneak, the bounty hunter track and fight, the mage take out spirits but have difficulty with drones, etc.)?

How much nuyen and karma are characters expected to have at various points in the game? Maybe figure that for the first upgrade you'd expect to see, campaign midpoint (and tell us how many runs that is expected to be), and at the end of the campaign. Add those resources to the starting characters from above, and re-compare them. Has some types of attacks (guns, magic, decking) gained power faster than expected opponents have gained dice to resist, and is that intentional? Has one archetype gained dice faster than others (re-figure cost of increases or resources given if so, and re-check the first step). Has one archetype gained more utility (skills, non-combat spells, or other abilities) significantly faster than other archetypes?

I don't expect everything to be equal, but getting close would be an improvement. And providing us the assumptions that got you there helps a lot for GMs re-balancing things when splat books come out or the players make different choices than expected (or certain skills or equipment turn out to be more or less useful than the devs expected). And relying on beta-testers/the community to find and fix the problems hasn't exactly worked historically. It's a game, and it won't work the same for everyone (higher and lower powered games), but an agreed-upon starting point and internal consistency are what we're paying for.

Although the obvious downsides are added time (and costs), and the possibility of looking at expected opposition in a vacuum (the street sam barely surviving an attack sounds interesting, but probably means the rest of the team are going down). Hopefully the upsides include fewer errata and reprints needed. Measure twice and cut once, or thereabouts.

Eighteen months of continously running would make them street legends. Most of the setting portrays running as something you do for a couple days every month or so. This is aligned with most runners being below middle lifestyle, as would be expected with the payout system as written.

Maybe the setting does, but not all of the published missions do. Heck, Denver's written at a pace of one run a week. If you're one incredible role player you can max out at 154 karma from the listed rewards.

The meat/magic/matrix balance needs some restoration. Right now any serious build of a mage is more or less a "I win and I'm the superest solution to the everything ever" button. Oh, with dedicated pre-planning a GM can neutralize out a mage, but in a fair and open environment...yeah. They pretty much exist to win the game in all things, better than anyone, ever.

Lets start with spirits. The type of spirits you can summon for relatively minimal drain (and a chance that is a fraction of 1% of the much bemoaned "but you might die!", and which can be easily avoided with edge) are basically full on player characters, only with the ability to effortlessly and risklessly do whatever you need done. And you can just keepem coming until you pass out, one full party equivalent later.

Its not that i oppose the idea of these spirits existing, or even the idea of magic 6+ mages existing - as part of the canon, some of these supremely powerful beings do exist. its just that I don't let the average street sam start the game capable of calling in a Firewatch team and helicopter gunship support...yet the starting mages as written pretty much get that as a given. of course, at least that firewatch team would have things that could decrease it's dicepool, and opponents with pretty strong dicepools of their own. The mage will be using his or his spirits 14 DP to skulldrag a nice 3 DP resistance pool for things like "total dominant mindrape" and "You get zero chance to see me ever, perfect infiltration."

So i would cap starting players at magic 3...enough to keep the magic doing some tricks for sure, but not enough to make the mage an "auto-win unless I GM snipe you" class. From there, you could either reduce the utility of spirits, reduce their summonability, or impose time costs that make a spirit a pre-planned thing and not a "in the clutch" thing. Perhaps you need 4-6 hours to summon a spirit..or you can do it in 30 minutes for some substantial penalties, or you can do it "on the fly" but with the caveat a F=M spirit would be close to a 50/50 chance of killing you.

-------------

Magic rant complete, I think a basic 'zeroing in" of the world would be useful. Basically, runner DPs and canon DPs start to spiral way out of whack, with the result that men and women who should be living legends and action hero film stars work for a couple grand a month while the world's best counter-terror forces struggle to keep up on budgets several orders of magnitude larger and with lifestyles several orders of magnitude more dedicated. God forbid you're just a rent-a-cop.

Spirits really need some redesign from the ground up. Why are spirits overpowered? Because immunity to normal weapons makes it too hard for non-magical attacks to affect them - so weaken the rating of that power, maybe changing it to plain armor so the adept isn't so hyper-effective (ignoring a spirit's armor with killing hands or a weapon focus). Or keep it powerful against firearms, but beef up mundane "attacks of will" so that they are actually a viable way for a mundane to affect a spirit. Also, make spirit powers less of an unequal dice contest, and tone down some other powers such as elemental aura (getting close enough to a fire elemental to whack it with a sword should be uncomfortable, but having to resist 12P damage with an AP of -6 if you hit a force: 6 fire elemental is a bit much).

I think basic combat spellcasting needs a boost - mages should have go-to, low-Drain spells that do about as much as a sammie with a pistol could do. But the culprit, balance-wise, is overcasting (and oversummoning). Either get rid of them altogether, or make them riskier and more dangerous, rather than something that can used as an everyday tactic. Mental manipulations need a higher threshold to work, and getting someone to shoot himself or his friends should be harder to do than just getting him to key you past a checkpoint.

The first thing that should happen should be to reduce the attributes down to NERPS: Nerve (Willpower+Charisma), Enlightenment (Intuition+Logic), Reflex (Agility+Reaction), Power (Strength+Body), Spirit (Essence/Magic/Resonance). Why? Because everyone loves NERPS!

That is far from the worst idea I've heard, and worth the thread necro.

My desire for a new edition would focus heavily on making it easier to run the game, and part of that is reducing the number of moving parts in the core mechanic.

Re. thread necro: I only took a quick glance and saw "2017", figured the year flipped not too long ago and went for it, but looking more closely and seeing that's it's been over a year, ya, opps!, probably lost a few fingers to decay on this one...

While my post was joking about the actual use of "NERPS" (though if it works, cool), it was also serious about the compression of attributes. I think it would be easier to 1. introduce new people to the game to keep it going, and 2. build useful characters without the NEED to min/max, thus allowing for more "concept builds" that actually work ("attitude" as it was put earlier in the thread), if there were fewer stats/skills to choose from with very niche uses (SR5's "Escape Artist"). You could roll the skills into the SR5 skill GROUPS without losing much, and that, combined with fewer attributes, could make better design easier, IMO.

On another note, I'd like to see a more concentrated pre-release development. Make a core rule book with only the intro fluff, rules, archetypes, char gen, qualities, and related stuff in it. Make a magic book with the full magic contents in it. A Rigger book, a matrix book, and a gear book, all likewise. Play test all of them, and do a simultaneous release. Let players buy the parts they need/want (core and magic, for instance). Don't make us wait a year or two to play a part of the game, make sure everything needed to play is actually present and works together, and make sure it supports all the other parts (and is edited) before you put it out.

None of this requires the level of simplification present in something like Anarchy. You can still get granular in a given rule, but it can be a specific use of a less granular skill. Example: Shooting all guns could be a simple Reflex + Firearms roll, but revolvers have a +1 to certain called shots (such as trick shots), that semi-autos don't have, as an example of how to still have granularity and specialization within the system.

Yes, reducing the number of attributes and skills and removing natural limits would help a lot. I also think most qualities are a net negative to the game. But it's more than that. SR5 has a very "do it yourself' attitude around running the game. I could use extensive collections of pre-built NPCs, locations, hosts, security setups, sensors, etc. Each of these things takes time to understand and build, yet the game mostly just provides the tools to build them from scratch.

As for products, I think you could go far with these five perennial books:

1. Core Rulebook
2. Runner's Catalog (gear, cyberware, drones, spells, etc.)
3. Runners Workshop (advanced rules, customization, etc.)
4. Threats (Details on the corps, syndicates, gangs, and security. Including lots of stat blocks, detailed locations, etc.)
5. Seattle sourcebook or boxed set

And then release a metaplot book each year with story elements, adventure seeds, and new "state of the art" crunch. Which isn't to say there isn't room for other sourcebooks. But the above five books should be built as tools, each with a specific purpose. They help make it clear which books to buy. New player? Get the core rulebook. Want more stuff? The catalog. Looking for more nuance in your character? The workshop. Gamemasters will want the Threats and Seattle books.

I think the game should focus on Seattle over other cities. It means that every adventure, plot seed, and sourcebook is applicable to every game that uses the default setting, without adaptation. Again, this makes the game easier to run.

I don't mind the current/former model of a main rulebook with the basic game, and core supplements focusing on magic/matrix/augmentations, etc. But if you're making people buy a whole set of books to get the complete game, then make the damn core supplements COMPREHENSIVE!! If you have a magic book to supplement the core book, it should be THE magic book. Don't make me have to buy a second .pdf of yet more magic stuff and scour through bits stuck in several supplements, just to get all of the magic.

SR5 is particularly bad about this. Run & Gun doesn't have personalized grips. Street Grimoir doesn't have the Norse magical tradition, or the enthralling performance or commanding voice powers. Run Faster doesn't have rules for AI's or drakes. I have core supplements but am lacking things from SR4. Look, I don't mind some new crunch that fits a book - say, a NAN book that has a couple of new spells used by NAN shamans, stats for the Sioux wildcat martial art, a rifle used by Salish border patrols, etc. But make it something that fits the setting, not something random just stuck in there. And don't put out a supplement, then put out another supplement for the same area. Maybe this is a tactic to try to get people to buy more books. If so, it backfired on me. Because I am less happy with the core supplements, I am less likely to pick up any additional products.

Yes, exactly, and we shouldn't have to wait a year or four for the one that applies to the character we want to play to come out. My idea was that splitting them into their own books from the start, page count ceases to be an issue, and they can be complete.

...my couple zloty's worth.

1. Make Perception a function of Logic and Intuition. It used to be based just on Intelligence on the pre 4e days). Ridiculous making it a skill.
2. Nuke Edge. Personally I never liked "luck" attributes as they tend make the game feel more like a video game than an RPG. In the past there was Karma Pool which would come into play to mitigate a minor "oops" but it wasn't nearly as powerful (you had one chance for a "hand of god" to save your hoop [and it exhausted all your good Karma and Karma pool] no burning Edge to live for another day, and another, and...).
3. Make knowledge skills more useful again. In the pre 4e days knowledge skills related to related active skills could compliment the skill test (like structural engineering or physics assisting with demolitions).
4. As mentioned elsewhere here, bring costs more in line for physical augmentations. Resources have basically been reduced by 55% from the pre 4e days yet a fair amount of bio and some chrome remained just as costly before the resources reduction if not even more (yeah I'll admit, I miss the "Million Nuyen Sammy" days).
5. Get rid of wireless for implanted "chrome". Ridiculous. Bad enough the poor mundane Sammy already was at a disadvantage from of magic let alone now having to worry about some Decker sequestered in an armoured van somewhere screwing nerfing his Cyberarm, Smartlink, Eyes etc.
6. I also agree about doing something with adepts and Background count as indeed it pretty much turns them into unaugmented mundanes. We just finished Missions Season 8 which is the final season in Chicago where there has been a prevalent BGC of 2 Pretty much any power that enhanced a skill test was for the most part, much useless. For a good part of the season, my adept relied on skill in sniper rifles and doing double taps with APDS just to deal with spirits as well as relied on combat drugs and minor bio augmentation. The weapon focus she spent her hard earned nuyen and karma on stayed in the sheath more often than not for a good part of the Chicago scenario as we were running into BGCs of 4 to even 6 somewhat regularly.

Quite frankly, i vehemently disagree with helping Adepts with BGC.

If the answer to Samurai is:"lol, you can't go there, flying cyberware scanner will aim sniper rifles at you!" for 90% of the world,
then the answer for ANYTING magical is a DESERVED:"lol you can't go there, you are likely to be eaten by a grue!" in the 10% rest of the world.

Honestly? It should be so much worse for them, as that is the one single balancing factor for magic . .
Technically, any major sprawl should have at least 1 to 2 BGC blanketing it. With things like Stadiums and crime sites getting worse.

You want to be magic? Fine.
You want to be magic in a known NO MAGIC HERE zone? Nope, deal with it.

Agreed... Background Count needs to go back to the days of SR4, as that paradigm made a hell of a lot more sense than what we get in SR5.
Having played many, many magically active characters over the years, BGC is not all that onerous if you PLAN for it in the first place. And You SHOULD PLAN FOR IT.

No, an entire city will not likely be blanketed with BGC (though you should encounter low levels of it pretty often in the grand scheme of things), but it should be an ever-present potential threat to the awakened.

My 2 Nuyen anyways.

Oh yes, as per the rules, it should totally be a blanket basically everywhere people live . . or where there is lots of magic. or pollution. or horrible things have happened . . so basically everywhere really.

And anyway, THAT. DOES. NOT. MATTER!
Like . . AT ALL!
Magic Types DO NOT NEED HELP against their ONE BALANCING FACTOR!

My wishlist below. Please don't send out any contracts on me because of this, I completely understand and accept that you may enjoy some things I dislike (even though you'd be wrong, obviously!). But as this discussion has been going on for 30 years now, it is probably about time to put my credstick where my heart is, so:

Get rid of the ridiculous escalation of drama, and go back to the oh-so-simple days of yore where the evil megacorps and the political entities battled it out across continents while wageslaves live out their meaningless lives and SINless buggers scramble to eke out an existence while trying to avoid getting geeked on the way to a meet with mr. Johnson. Basically rewrite history from the day Big D died. Having the horror du jour change every few years got old a LONG time ago, and is the RPG version of jumping the shark. Just admit it, of you have no more stories to tell guys, it's ok. We'll just stea... take inspiration from other games that DO have creative writers on staff.

Simplify the rules to no more than 100 pages, and do a thorough job when you proofread and playtest them. This is, judging from five editions of abject failure at this, apparently MUCH harder than it sounds, but unless someone makes this effort, I'm sticking with my 2,5 homebrew, thank you very much.

Stick to one system for all aspects of the game. I started playing Shadowrun in 1990, I think, and I have yet to experience anyone successfully play a decker or rigger in any edition of the game. By 'successfully', I mean to everyone's enjoyment and with a sort-of-firm grasp on the rules. One key reason why Matrix and, to some degree, rigging and magic has never really taken root in our group(s) is that understanding the rules and working out how to circumvent to the oversights, inconsistencies, contraditicons and gibberish basically calls for a Master's Degree in Shadowrun Rules, and adults, in my experience, don't have the time not the inclination to deal with that amount of complexity before they can sit down for 4 hours once a month to do some imaginary, yet heroic and fun, crime in the rainy streets of nighttime Seattle. We 'sort of' understand the rules of basic combat (just don't talk too much about grenades or shotuguns!), so it would be oh so cool if the mechanics of Matrix, Magic, Rigging etc. were sufficiently similar that it was possible for one player to transition over to another archetype without a 6-week introductory course. Have you SEEN the new Traveller? Aside from the tragedy that is their lack of gear pron, that system is a thing of beauty. Roll 2d6, add your skill and characteristic bonus, and if you made the target number, you succeeded.

Leave combat mastery to the street sam and kill all adepts by choking them with old SR5 errata-PDFS. Frag off you kimono-clad wannabes. You can do magic, or you can do in-your-face menace, you don't get to do both AND get your powers for zero nuyen and waltz past any security in the world looking like a sarariman with no weapon scanner able to pick up that you are effing gaming the system. And take the technomancers with you, they are an affront to honest deckers everywhere (obviously all of whom are NPCs in my world because of the implayability of... you get it), because much like the adepts, they get to eat their cake and have it too. That sort of thing should be the privilege of NPC with limitless resources and power, munchkins!

Ahhhh. /Rant OFF

Background count is a crappy, crappy way of balancing magic. Why? Because flat penalties affect generalists a lot more than they affect specialists. So background counts just encourage mages to be munchkins and adepts to be hyper-specialized killing machines or pornomancers, with bioware.

If the game sucks for sammies, then making it suck for magic types too just makes the whole game suck. So why not make the game suck less for the sammies? I mean, the whole point of this thread is to re-write what you would change about the rules. Maybe cyberware needs to be harder for scanners to detect, or cyberscanners need to be less common, or fake permits need to be easier to get. Maybe 'ware needs to drastically drop in price in some areas. Maybe a lower Essence makes it harder for magic to affect someone. Sammies don't have to suck if you are re-writing the rules.

I would say that cyberware that is legal doesn't trip scanners at all. It's the illegal things that need better rules. Take for instance Cyberspurs or hand razors. The normal people who can have these legally use high grade titanium or what not. People who need stealth or have it illegally have ceramic blades. The trade off would be that on a glitch the ceramic blades can break or if you don't like that, it costs three times as much as the "Legal" version (maybe have a Stealth rating which can go as high as 6 which removes dice from the opposition).

In-game example. Two guards (both Intelligence 3) running a security checkpoint into a building watch as a 'Runner (Rating 6 stealth cyberspurs) walks through the scanner (Rating 3). The 'Runner has a cyber right hand, which both guards notice immediately (it's not hidden at all.)

Guard 1: "Yeah he has a cyberhand."
Guard 2: "Check the scanners, see what he's got in there."
(GM rolls dice to keep the players on the edge of their seat, but knowing the player bought spurs are high enough rating that the guard has no chance of seeing them)
Guard 1: "Nothing. Poor slot must be too damn cheap to get a new hand." to the player "Move along"

Lionesque, I'm going to address your final point first. Adepts were part of this game from the very beginning. Let them stay in. The problem, IMO, is that, unlike Mundanes, there is no power cap. Get rid of unlimited advancement and get rid of overcasting. Also make resistance rolls on direct spells be on two stats rather than one. The stats are based on what the direct spell targets.

Direct Spells that target the body (Manabolt, Slay, etc, etc) Body + Willpower.Direct Spells that target the mind (Illusions, Invisibility, Fear, etc, etc) Logic (or Intuition) [whichever one is higher] + Willpower
Also add in something from SR4A (pg 207): This should be applied to ALL DIRECT SPELLS. Sure you're harder to heal, you should also be harder to attack.
--

This I agree with 100%, but I would also add in the following: Play test with AT LEAST 2 types of groups. One type would play the game they way you would envision it to be played. The second group are the beardiest, most lowdown loathsome power gamers you would EVER wish to play with! These mother-frakers are the ones who will pull out every single dirty, nasty, disgusting way to break the game while still staying to the letter of the rules. These mother-frakers are the ones who will show you where your game can be broken. You can then clean up the rules and try again.

Games Workshop didn't do this (IMO) with 8th edition WH40K and you get broken lists that stomp on everyone. They're slowly cleaning up their messes, but it's not there yet.

The canonical story is :

Someone (an immortal) probably taught them the ritual, which is blood magic and hasten the Scourge as we can see in Harlequin.

So even if some can reproduce it (and find participants willing to give their lives, or mass murder them), it still creates a lot of problems.

It's not even clear that you need to be a top notch mage to do it. Actually you don't (see 3 firsts SR novels).

I agree they need no help... and I like BGC as a balancing factor... easy to plan for and easy to deal with in my opinion.
We should go back to SR4's Version of BGC though.

For those of us that never left SR4, we're already there.

+1

SR4 BGC Examples:


So basically any street and building in the not good habitability zones.
Strangely more uncommon than:


So basically anywhere in any major city/sprawl.
Very common.


Now this is kinda uncommon. Strangely more uncommon than:


Massive brutal riot. Political Demonstrations. Yes, i expect those to be around in most bigger cities.
And due to the nature of those occassions, they should also probably span several streets/blocks/districts?


Pretty Rare and with actual location egg samples.
Renraku Arcology i'd guess.


Cermak Blast Crater. Site of Big-D's "Assassination".
Yes, you still run into those on your daily jog.

So from this, we should be getting a nice BGC of 2 blanketed over every sprawl and major city.
With some lower Areas of 1's for some reason being rarer than the 2.
And with some Spots of 3 and 4 not too uncommon in the sprawls and cities either.

My only problem with this is that you are forcing Awakened players to Min-Max their magic at the very beginning. I mean take you reply to BCG 2... that it's everywhere. If you're a mage with Magic 2, you're, for all intents and purposes, a mundane. So you've created a character with an interesting backstory and you're punished for it. Not very fun... not very fun at all.
The way to balance out mages is to either make overcasting risky enough that it might kill your character or to just get rid of it altogether. Also get rid of endless advancement. Yeah, I know the Karma cost gets more and more insane, but still, I would still get rid of endless advancement for Mages/Technomancers.

First thing SR6 needs to do is completely eliminate cyberware scanners and millimeter radar and on the fly SIN-Checks from the Game.
Cyberware-Scanners are a medical tool, nowhere outside of an ambulance or clinic.

Why? I mean, I understand that street samurai builds are tricky with these in existance, but why would it make sense for security forces to ignore the best way to detect dangerous cyberware?

In my own game I have made cyberware scanners more expensive and less common, like they were in previous editions, but hardly removed them. When the PCs had to take a commercial flight the sammie had to actually "peace-bind" his wired reflexes and other stuff so it could not easily be activated during flight.

On the fly SIN checks are common, but only very low-rating as SIN verification systems are also expensive in my game. So a fake SIN rating 1 is enough for the monorail, but not enough for the airport security check. patrol vehicle version are going to be fairly low-level too, while precinct systems are much higher.

So, I would advise something like this rather than just completely removing them.

Because the BUT MUH REALIZARMS! Argument needs to go die in a fire.
Making the playing field level for all is more important than anything.
Otherwise all cyber players should by rights demand watchers and elementals patrolling the streets randomly ascenning everybody they see.
And every building has its own security mage with a mage sight system hooked up. And every building is warded.

The SR3 way with the cyberware scanners and SIN-Checks being much more expensive and rare like only on airports is fine compared to what it has become as of SR4.

Honestly I would like to know WHY a scanner would be able to pick up illegal 'Ware INSIDE other cyberware! I mean Cyberspurs or hand razors should be have dice penalty to detect them when their inside an obvious cyberhand. Or they should be made of MAD invisible material. A cyberdeck built into your arm or leg should be all but invisible (will read as a commlink)

Also I HATE (can't highlight that enough) HATE the cost of a cyberdeck. If you're a decker and you DON'T have your Deck installed in a cyberlimb with armor, you are... not smart. The reason for this is if you lose your deck you might as well make another character. You are NOT replacing that deck ANY time soon.

SR4a had a problem with Agent Spamming, but honestly you can fix that with a rule that says only one "Combat" Agent per commlink and it can ONLY defend the commlink it's on (If the Corps can have IC, why can't you?) and one Assistant (like an Agent, but can NOT engage in cybercombat). This would also prevent the Corps from Agent Spamming as well. A Server (frag "Nexus" term to all hell and gone) can have up to 5 Agents acting like IC. This would allow Matrix runs to be fun, but not a "LOL, I push this button and all your characters die!!!" frag over.

But that was my point, it needs a middle ground, not just banning all sim checks. If you ignore magical security in the game the world becomes lopsided - my players are routinely complaining about wards everywhere, patrolling spirits and mages etc. The game does not need to be realistic, but it needs to be believable. If cyberware could hardly ever be detected, there needs to be in-game reasons for it. I agree that 4th and 5th edition MM scanners are too cheap and potentially ubiquitous, but completely removing them from the game is a bit heavy handed. SR3 and previous had a fairly good way to balance it by making the equipment expensive and rare, so you would not run into it just by going to the local stuffer shack.

Of course, it should matter than having implanted spurs/razors is far far more common than having being able to cast fireballs. I'm assuming that Lone Star etc. routinely overlook such ware, just like they would overlook some weed or some such. It's not worth the paperwork to go out and bring in every single ganger who sports some shiny ware. If they use it however, that changes things. If such checks makes illegal cyberware impossible to use the game fails.

I find that the problem goes the other way around. If you geeked a decker/hacker, you straight out have a piece of gear too much worth.

Actually, computer should be a time-consuming task (programmation - optimisation and so on) more than a ressources invsment.


the 90's model of silicon graphics computer is over, IMO.

I agree and disagree with you about computers being a time-consuming task than a resource investment. Higher end hardware is just going to work better than low end gear, but the flip side of this is you have to invest a lot of time in programming bleeding edge software to take advantage of that high end hardware.

I've been lurking for a bit, and signed up just to throw my two-cents out, as I've liked what I'd been reading in this thread. I'm not sure how good or effective at some of my musings might be, but it'd like to think some of them might be at least vaguely worthwhile.

I think one of the most important things that they could do is to get over their severe allergy to proof-reading and editing their books. They need to clearly separate their lore from the rules so you're not hunting through a giant blurb of text for the three sentences that actually tell you the rule you're looking for. This could easily be done by using a different font, italics, or even bolded characters if they want to maintain their current style. They also shouldn't be cutting corners by saying "This rule be comin' out in another book!"

One thing I feel that's kind of important and that adds to the power gap between the Awakened and the Mundanes that often goes unmentioned is that Nuyen is also used for Lifestyle, which amounts to a constant 'tax' on the primary vector of your character's progression... unless you want to be come the archetypal murderhobo.

When it comes to Attributes, and the complaints and comments I commonly see about Strength and Body being weak?

For strength? Introduce it as a requirement to peroperly use weapons. Holdouts might be usable with 1 strength, but that ruger might require 4 to properly handle the kick. Sure, you might be able to handle the kick from a single shot of that AK with 3 STR, but you're going to need 6 to handle it on full auto. Armor might end up being a tad trickier to balance in this manner. A more complex way to handle this would be to introduce some form of "Gear Burden" with varying degrees of of an encumberment. Your typical 3 STR 3 BOD person might only be able to manage that Armored Coat, A pistol, and a knife in their arsenal without suffering some loss of mobility - those coats probably weigh a lot!

Body? Well, that becomes a little easier. Make each point of body grant 1 hit point, and have it used in both the physical and stun tracks. Make Will and Strength factor in to a lesser degree, respectively (Or maybe have will as the primary for the stun track, with body secondary).

All that said, I'm not sure how important the stun-track is to people. I wouldn't mind seeing it go, just like I think it would improve game flow if armor wasn't rolled and instead provided flat damage reduction. Whether or not that bullet killed you instead of knocking you out becomes something tied more to narrative - though if you want to try and mitigate the whole 'asshole GM' factor... roll Body + Edge?

Another way to weaken Agility might be to split it into Agility and Dexterity. Lockipicking and Ranged weapons? You want Dex. Melee combat and acrobatics? Agi. (barring bows, which would use Agi. Crossbows would still use dex.) Another method for balance would be to explicitly say or enforce that attributes aren't always paired with specific skills, and provide examples. Sprinting? Str + Run. Moving through difficult terrain? Agi + Run. Marathon? Bod + Run.


Skill consolidation is one thing I'd like to see. I might be me overthinking things, but it seems like some skills only exist as some kind of 'tax' rather than an attempt to explain something about a character.

Leadership and Diplomacy could be easily rolled into one skill, though your aptitude in either could just be made as a specialization. On that same note, Impersonation could easily be rolled into Performance.

Running and Swimming, along with 'Climbing' could be rolled into Athletics. Want somebody who can't swim? Add a Negative Quality that prevents somebody from using one aspect of a skill.

Computer skill seems largely unnecessary for what amounts to the basic, intended use of most consumer tech and software that most people could intuitively figure out with little trouble. Want to have somebody inept at technology? Take a Negative Quality. Finding basic things on the matrix? [Logic]+[Intuition]. Writing a report? Throw two relevant stats together and roll on em depending on what you want to do.

Cybercombat, Electronic Warfare, and Hacking are probably the best example of skills I believe they arbitrarily separated as a 'tax'. When you get down to it, they use the same skillset. The only skill that you might make a case for keeping separate would be Hacking, which then largely comes down to the application and intent behind the skills, in which case you could consider merging it and Software.


Like many have already mentioned, I'd love to see the matrix travel at the current pace of the rest of the game. With that in mind, I think I might be on a different page than a few. I'd love to see hacking be of more practical use in combat. It's already hindered by most actions being complex actions. There's also the issue of needing several rounds of set-up, depending on how the GM might view how things work - for example, if icons slaved to a commlink become invisible until you actually get a mark on said commlink, and whether or not you can actually search for devices that have devices slaved to them (and whether or not you can specify 'Devices with an Ares Predator slaved to it'. By the time you get in position to do something, odds are the Street Sam and Mage have already solved the problem.

It might be because i'm a fan of GITS, but i'd like the ability to hack things like cyberlimbs, or edit the streams of what people might be seeing with their Cybereyes/Goggles/What have you. When it comes to bricking? Bricking a gun should be easy compared to bricking a limb or pair of eyes. Bricking a gun MIGHT ruin it, but the repairs for eyes or limbs shouldn't be very much - and the cost could be further mitigated through Lifestyle, Docwagon, or purchasable Insurance. While I'm not sure as to how it works with the lore-end of Essence, I'd like to see things like prosthetic bodies as an option - though anything that a street sam might need to do his job would probably be expensive as hell. If you had infinite money and a good deal of training, i'd imagine the end-game of a street-sam, decker, and rigger would begin to blur if they chose to diversify to bolster their weaknesses.

There was a lot of discussion about the logistics and practicality of the Matrix and how the feeble meat-based brain would make sense and work with computer code and the sheer speed advantage machines have in certain areas. There were also mentions of differing levels of matrix threats like Script Kiddies. Want to stretch your decking (and to a lesser extent, rigging) to the absolute limit? Get your brain Cyberized so it can interface with the deck better - or maybe even no longer require a deck, depending on how good it is. This could be a flat-out 'upgrade' to the Cyberskull, or something that can slot into the cyberskull (which needs a capacity increase anyways, as the 'partial' cyberskull is just flat-out better. Hell, the 'skull' should be able to slot anything that would go into your head, like cybereyes).

When they said their mission was "Everything for a Price" they really did fail in delivering that. Making the upsides and downsides of Bio, Cyber, and Magic more distinct would have been fantastic.

The advantages of Cyberware and gear associated with Riggers and Deckers? It's dirt-cheap, but it can be bricked, hacked, and fiddled with by others. It's way more obvious than bioware by default, though as a trade-off somebody who's heavily cybered becomes all but invisible on the astral, gains a resistance to detection, illusion, mana spells, and certain spells like Control Thoughts. On the flipside, health spells are just as hindered, and those spells that enhance your attributes probably won't function as well. There's also that side bonus that a ghoul or vampire being highly unlikely to bother wasting their time making you a meal... On the other end, EMPs and strong-ass magnets are going to suck. You pay for your resistance to magic by becoming more vulnerable to deckers.

Bioware? Well, magic sticks to you just as well as any other. Both the good and the bad. The majority of your augmentations are liable to go unnoticed. It's pricer than cyberware, and those pesky deckers aren't going to be hacking into you.

Magic? Needs something more than background count to reign it in. It should have something more interesting aside from a dice pool penalty... Maybe if the count somehow rubs off on them. Wander into someplace tainted by rage, and the magician is going to become more aggressive until they acclimate. There might also be materials introduced that give the awakened and spirits a hard time. Bullets loaded with special algae, or some obscure mineral that isn't as effective against a mundane, but does a whole lot more to anything awakened. Mundanes should have a way to combat magic and spirits.

As for awakened who take ware or capping mages? Maximum magic and initiations could be limited to double their essence - though that doesn't put much of a dent in the mages who take a single point or two. Ware costing double essence might be the best case, though that might be too extreme

On one point, I agree with you. It's magically enhanced cyberpunk. Realism isn't an option.

On the other hand, the game balance argument is welcome to go, as you so fulminatingly put it, die in a fire. The very concept of game balance rests upon a presumption of the equal usefulness of varied approaches in every set of circumstances - manifestly false. Screaming about how unfair it is that *insert archetype here* can't dominate *insert foe here* under *insert circumstances here* doesn't make it relevant to any given table. It's not even hard to seriously challenge a MagicRun group. Add the watchers and wards, and they'll spend most of the game whimpering about how they can never do ANYthing and how UNFAIR it is that the token rigger in the group can evade all sorts of problems to blow shit up in a Michael Bay style. Or make it all about the 'trix, and listen to the angst about how many points they spent on their spells (and none on being deck jockeys).

So, until the universe changes and game balance becomes relevant, we're stuck with, if not realism (obviously), at least verisimilitude, starting with internal consistency.

And if you cry yourself to sleep every night about the relevance of every archetype to every situation, then just make sure that the overlap of their areas of efficiency and effectiveness is small.

I'm not sure game balance is what you describe.

Game balance means that the various types of character the game is supposed to propose should face similarly relevant challenge during the overall game. Saying it is about everyone being as useful in every set of circumstances looks like a strawman.

I think everyone in shadowrun has encountered the problem the magerun problem. Watchers and wards are far from being as efficient as you suggest. Magicians can always leave the astral and cross wards as much as they want. And I'd be curious of seeing people restraining access to magically active people the same way they are restraining cybersams.

I disagree... I think that Wards, BackGround Count, Watchers, Magictech, and even Spirits are all FAR more effective counters than most people realize... and you do not even have to go crazy with them to make them effective. I might be invoking a bit of the TJ fallacy here, but having played Shadowrun since its inception, I tend to see more effective barriers to Magic than to Mundanes... Yes, Magic can be powerful, but so can Machine. I think that Shadowrun is pretty awesome at combining the two. Now, to be fair, if you push to the outer extremes you can get some crazy, stupid shenanigans with any characters, but those, by definition, are outliers. And even then, such characters have never run away with the campaigns at or tables.

Just simply using what is there to help keep magic in line works wonders... and you do not have to blanket a 'Plex in Background Count or wards... just like you do not have to blanket a 'Plex in technology to control the Street Sams. judicious application of both Magic and Technology counters is more than adequate to keep things in line. And as for the Background Count detractors... If you think using BGC to help control Magic Characters is a problem, do you also consider using Complex Technological Security Counters a problem to the Technology based characters? They serve the same purpose, and if used judiciously work much the same in application.

My two Nuyen, anyways...

@TJ:

I don't really disagree with you, there are ways to stop magic (not much watchers and wards though, I insist). But I think, as others stated, that there might be a reason why many think that these ways are much less used to gimp the magician than the sam.

The first offender might be the fact that some GMs can't be arsed enough to properly read the magic rules restraining mages while they are very happy to restrain cybersams. This looks unfair I agree.

But this first offender might come from the general fluff not insisting as much on magical defenses as it insists on defenses against sams. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not alone to feel that way.

Finally, there will always be a fundamental disadvantage of mundane vs mage. Mages can affect both mundane and mages, while mundanes, alone, will have a lot of difficulties fighting mages. You need a mage to fight a mage, while you don't need a cybersam to fight a cybersam. While this dissymetry is not in itself a problem, game balance requires that there are compensations for the cybersam toward this fact. This is why some people find it problematic that in most occasions, especially social access and day to day life, the mages have it much easier than the sams.

All this can be taken care by a good GM, I agree, but this is far from being explicit in the fluff.

I would actually like to see Shadowrun move away from the idea of hacking being something that you do in combat.

But... But... But hackers wouldn't have anything to do in combat!

In all seriousness I wouldn't be too upset at that idea. Besides, I still recall one friend's first game using the SR5 rules, and the team's decker first combat action was to send a short burst of APDS rounds at the enemy instead of any hacking action.

As it should be.
As it has been.
Untill they decided:"no, that will not do! everybody needs to contribute to COMBAT with their own special snowflake capabilities!"
Stupiud decision.
So, what next then? Can the samurai shoot a VR thing with a physical gun?

No, magicians projecting into VR to manabolt IC.

At that point Shadowrun dies a slow lingering death as players give them the gimlet eye and say, "Really?"

Like I said, the only thing I like about SR 5 is the fact that they went away from every quality being a worth a multiple of 5 and priced them mostly correct. There are some that are still wonky (can't recall anything too bad at the moment), but it is nice to see some progress.

The one thing that I can say almost everyone agrees is completely pants on the head retarded is the Wireless bonuses.

I've actually seen here, I'm not sure in which topic, some people praising SR: Anarchy because it gave the face or rigger as much action in combat than the sam.

Some people just can't stand the idea that there are combat specialist in SR. They just can't.