I've read a couple posts on shadowrunsixthworld.com, but that's the extent to which I've followed 6E. Anytime somebody mentions "streamlining" in the context of TTRPGs, I get the willies.

Not looking like something I'll enjoy more than 5th (which I didn't) so far, but I'll not condemn it before I've actually seen it.

i've yet to see anything that persuades me it is going to be an upgrade that i'll ultimately want to make. i'm not so disappointed that i'm not going to buy the core book to get a better look, but i'm also not excited.

that isn't to say that you won't like the changes they make, of course.

you may find this useful:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZPN1-6x...CQI8s5rJU/edit#

it isn't 6e at a glance by any means, but it should help you catch up on what we've been able to glean from the various previews and such.

Same writers and lead as 5e, same lack of playtests outside the studio and lack of feedback, so most likely the same set of problems 5e has only in a new shell.

Hot take? Feeling cold here, and no anticipation at all for the new edition.

Without the full core rules out as yet?
I'll say based on reviews of previous versions, some of which I agree with......
Combat was a bit too complex and time consuming in 4e and 5e. Matrix actions from 4e, the same. They have addressed that in the upcoming edition.
I can't say for sure now, without the full rules but Sixth World feels like update of 5e more than anything else.

I'd like to update my hot take further downwards now that the QSR is out and CGL's 'editors' failed at proofing so hard that multiple spell cards have the wrong spell text.

This got through both editing before sending to the printers -and- reading the print proofs before okaying them for production.

Business as usual, then.

They released so many versions of the Core Rulebook for 5e. I don't think they mean to do that again.
A release cycle like that can be meant to preview a change in editing policy.

What is 'meant' to be or not the Quick Start release is awful for it's errors and odds are they are going to show up elsewhere too.

And yet they still never managed to correct basic proofreading mistakes like page references we pointed out within 24 hours of the release of the PDF, seven years ago.

The same sort of amateur editing mistake that the SR6 Quickstart is rife with.

Soft buy for me. If your expecting better rigger rules you will be disappointed. Everything else is either a neutral or a positive over 5e for me. But I liked 2e, 3e and 4e better than 5e soo.

So riggers are even more fucked in 6 than in 5?

Hermit, just embrace the nostalgic truth that is 3rd edition or even 4th if that's your poison. Retro is IN with a lot of RPGs right now, even with the ones with good new editions as people are playing across the board.

yeah, i'm seeing nothing so far that would make me want to move to 6th edition.

the real problem will be for people that have gaming groups that want the latest edition, because they believe it will actually be better.

It's what I've been doing ever since the playtest for 5th ended. 4th because most of my people prefer it, though personally 3 was the shit, rigger wise. MIJI was so much cooler than EMPing, hacking, or starting with 5th, "bricking" drones without any chance to defend (which then theatrically explode and after that find a safe spot to tough down and do so, on autogyro and without any active guidance).

And yet I haven't heard of a modern retro game that is as good as the old versions. The people they let design games assume "retro" means "ignore basic game design and don't let players do anything interesting" or "just don't have any real rules."

I mean that things like AD&D 2e, Deadlands Classic and so on are proving to be popular and look at the resurgence of CP2020 even with RED on the horizon. People are getting back into the 90s stuff (and earlier) even as good modern games also take off.

Can't beat the classics, eh?

Seemingly not. I suppose a saturation of Streamlined and Abstract in the market have had some people looking for "Gritty / Crunchy" and finding the stuff that many of us cut our teeth on 20+ years ago.

Probably mentioned before, but one relatively recent entrant that I've come to really like and respect is Hackmaster 5.

They hit the right balance: crunchy chargen, because you're precalculating all the things that you'll need during play, resulting in very smooth in-game action.

Plus it's brutal, it's old-school, and there are no gloves to come off.

To me it seems that the 90's meant people for the most part only played AD&D, or played a combination of other systems.
And the non-AD&D crowd liked to experiment with mixing the rules of various games to create one complete system. Many of those games were very class driven with little attention to much else, or most of the ruleset was combat and little else.
I myself prefer a complex ruleset to home rule rather than a simple ruleset to add to. In AD&D 2nd Edition we would do things like allow muliple attacks that happened in the second round to be changed to extra movement. Which when I think about it, looks a little like the Major/Minor actions in Sixth World.

Almost like they were simple and complex actions. A new name does not a new mechanic make.

Most of the stuff I saw being done in the 90s was a move away from Class systems with Archetypes becoming the norm. Combat has always eaten up space because of all the things in an RPG it's the one with most immediate consequence rolls but the focus on many of the games, Shadowrun being a classic example, had moved away from the fighting and everything that is being done outside the combat. Good example being in SR3 where combat is a fair presence in the main book but outside of that, almost nothing.

By the quickstart yes, but they admit the rules aren't complete enough to include a rigger in the quick start (seportate download for the pregen rigger from the quickstart and not recommended for play) . There is a very familiar maneuver score ish chart and then there isnt really even enough rules to use the drones. I dont know why they even bothered to include the section. So I suspect the full rules will be no worse than 5e but for right now riggers are fucked.

The Beginners box always seemed more like a proof of concept, like something sent to a publisher before the main product comes out than a beginner's starter set.
I might get one for the dice this time. I hear those dice are hard to find.

Fuck off.

It's being sold as a complete product. If they were giving it out free, as say, Pegasus is doing with the German version, I could see claiming it was an intentionally incomplete thing. They aren't, and it is a pile of editing problems and half-finished mechanics so badly botched that even CGL says Riggers aren't functional.

I see it more as a scam honestly. This is promotional material, not a complete, marketable product.

I bought the Shadowrun: Sixth World Beginner Box yesterday and are not impressed to far.

Shadowrun is the posterboy for "Great setting, horrible rules" and it doesn't look like it is changing with this edition.

My hopes were that they'd put of very strong focus on "out-of-action" complexity for the people who likes crunch and "in-action" simplicity for accommodate fast action for everyone at the table.

Nothing kills the mood more then combat, where you constantly have to stop and look up rules for specific instances in the rules book. You can fix this by placing the complexity outside of the action.

But the way that Edge works in 6th makes it look like another bookkeeping games - how much do you have, how much can you spend, what effects do you get from it etc....decisions can take a long time and bog down the game.

So...

I'll look into it tonight and analyse it further. Not psyched though.

(I'm thinking of matching Interface Zero 2.0 with Savage Worlds Fantasy instead for a more fast-paced game).

The entire idea of making you pay for the quickstart rules - essentially, promotional material for the product they want you to buy in August - is ludicrous. I'm even more surprised you actually follow suit. Just download Pegasus' stuff and run it through google translate; what you get won't be more garbled and nonsensical than a typical CGL product anyway.

Out of action meaning the modifiers are more static while being applied to say, the qualities of equipment and having little if any situational modifiers?
If that's what you mean then I agree somewhat. What are your specifics to out of action?

Or, has anyone in the past before it was discontinued thought of Android: Netrunner usable for some matrix actions?

... the CCG?

Fine. It was a good game too and makes you wonder why it really got discontinued.

The IP danced too close to CP2020/2077/Red, I'd wager.

Personally, I'd rather use the on-board Matrix rules (any edition really) than resolve the run via Netrunner. All incompatibility issues aside, a game of netrunner takes about an hour. Even in SR2, running a Matrix system rarely took that long. Plus, a netrunner game is about more than one hack. I guess it could be done by playing netrunner on the side, but building approriate decks, dealing with world compatibility, and setting the game up would be way too much effort for a minimal improvement. If you can invest that much time in the alternative mechanism,. just invest the same time to learn, understand and practice the damn rules.

I'll take that bet (and your money ).
FFG had to discontinue A:N for different reasons, and Pondsmith as well as CDPR members have gone on record that they regret its discontinuation.

The core values of both Android: Netrunner and Shadowrun were very simular. Both pit Deckers, Hackers against Corporations, Using Decks, Consoles.
I wonder if unofficially the simularities thus the overlaping support base is what killed it?

Nope, that's all mostly stuff pulled into the genre from Gibson.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/.../8/jacking-out/

Netrunner went away because FFG's licensing from WotC was ending, and they didn't or couldn't renew it.

And nobody else wanted it? There is often at least talk of a passing the licence to another holder. Didn't happen in this case. Even with all the good reviews and sales, the decision to drop it was relatively sudden, if I'm correct that is.

FFG doesn't own the license. The actual owner may have decided not to let them renew, or wanted too much money. I'd assume from the sudden drop that they had expected to renew, and either negotiations broke down or it became financially unfeasible as that was after they lost the Warhammer license as well, which was a financial hit to the company.

In short, IP in the tradgames business is a lot more complex than 'but the fans want it'.

Got to agree.

Read through the Core Rule Book last night (hot from the USAS) and here are some of my thoughts in my usual hose-of-consciousness monologue...
(Please remember that I am a 3rd Ed dinosaur and despise 4th ed.)

1: is it getting more GrimDark in here, or is it just me? Frankly, I've seen (colour and layout) more cheery 40K handbooks - where's the serious weirdness that you know you've got to accept as normal? Thisis made worse because I was just going through the art from 2nd edition and it still impacts like a brick to the face today.
2: Corps are actually scarier than they were before - this is good, and frankly, unexpected.
3: Hilariously, "Consequences" are stressed. So yeah, if your GM played SR like it was Wolfenstien with punks and lightning, this might be new to you. If you had half a good GM and a story you wanted to follow this is a bit..."water is wet".
4: Priority Generation. Ok, I can tweak this. It's not sum-to-10.
5: Edges and flaws. Oh god oh god oh god. So much DO NOT WANT in the flaws. Although I do applaud the "Distinctive" Flaw - you just don't have a neon Mohawk, it's 5 feet high, glows in the dark and you're a surged lizardman with an equally-multicoloured head frill. THAT is distinctive.
6: Edge. i hate it. The GM likes it, he's running the game, so I'll play it.
7: Skills + attributes vs opposed rolls - nothing new here, Spend edge for new and exciting effects...spend 5 edge (max allowed) to "Make it up because we're too lazy to think of something beyond awesome that your players will do"....
8: Attributes! Skills! No caps!
9: Cannot raise an attribute or skill +4 from the base amount because rules.
10: Skill maximum is 9, or maybe 10. Hell, take a karma hole positive edge and you're unlimited! Wait, wasn't there "no cap" to these things...?
11: Karma. Oh holy dunky, there be karma whales ahead, c'p't'in!
.....This whole thing is really beginning to read like someone's conversion attempts at a portable mobile Shadowrunning game.
12: Unless there's cash-for-karma, seriously forget about upgrading skills or abilities. Let it go, it's gone. And I ran mage adepts in 3rd.
13: Adepts. Oh god, what did you do, WHAT DID YOU DO!?
14: Mage-adepts, sorry, Mystic Adepts. Never have I seen a "class" or concept so hosed.
15: Riggers. See 14.
16: Magic. Well, Magicrun is now dead. Spells are 5 Karma to get - flat rate.
17: Toys - I'll be honest, the good stuff like the bang bang and vroom vroom are pretty thin on the ground, but there are some decent illustrations and the fluff is neat.
18: God I miss Shadowtalk
19: The two small stories are quite serviceable, which is great.
20: Oh my - talk about a trip down memory lane for the accompanying illustrations for the first story. I think more time was spent fitting those little flourishes in then anything else in game.

But - we've not played it yet, and that's where the meat is going to be found.
See you Sunday, chummers.

Tiralee,
Out.

How many pages?

Pages? 320ish? One sec.

Ok, ~ 310 of meat(book) , and the rest is index and character sheets.

So it's a solid lump - and that does hark back to the SR3 corebook of fun.

wait, seriously?

after all that talking about how they were giving themselves a hard 300 page limit to push themselves to streamline, blah blah blah... they couldn't even count how many pages they had? really?

....

i gotta say, i didn't have high hopes for an actual streamlined edition of shadowrun in the first place. given the decision to just not bother worrying about any of the lessons they learned over the previous 2 editions and instead rewriting substantial portions of the rules with inadequate playtesting and a questionable willingness on the part of management to actually pay any attention to the feedback they do receive from that limited amount of playtesting, that was pretty much never going to happen, but... i didn't think they'd be so boastful of how their limited page count was pushing them to new heights of creativity and then fall flat on their face and fail miserably at hitting that page count (claiming the goal had been 310 pages all along, sure, but actually promising they had done something when they must have already had the proofs back or at the very least been able to look at the files they had sent to the printer and should have known they hadn't reached it, that's a whole new level of not caring...)

well, this definitely makes me glad i'm not springing for the dead tree version. i might even wait a bit to see if the core book goes on sale before i buy it. if they don't care enough to even pretend like they're making an effort, my low expectations for this edition may have actually been too high.

All that stuck with me from the posted dev discussion was the number 250, and I could think was to ask "how".

Well, there are a lot of pictures, so maybe 250 of words?

I don't know, it seemed lighter then SR3Core...but as I'm more used to dead-tree Pathfinder slabs now, it seemed...accessible?

They mention opposing forces, and their stats and skills and things, so you can use it out of the box to run simple stuff without having to look up a the racism factor of a Hive-infested CAS guardsman, but the tables of bang-bang (reading it again) seem a LOT lighter then I remember them being, but I'm also likely remembering the fun of the old splatbooks there.


Tr, out

The last numbered page in my book is 309. There are a few other pages, but those are tables and a character sheet. But page 1-5 are the table of contents, and page 303-309 are the index. So, it is over 300 pages, but only if you're being technical. They aren't pages that you'll be reading except when you're looking something up.

Because of the way books are printed, a 300 pages target made little sense. Pages are printed as 4x4 or 8x8 plates. If the printer only work with 32-pages plates, the book was going to be printed and, more importantly, billed to the publisher for either 288 pages (nine plates) or 320 pages (ten plates) no matter what (while a 16 pages plate would have allowed to print 304 pages).

I think they were just targeting either pages of rules or possible rules + story. Because you can always add in a few double page spreads of art to fill extra pages. Plus, ads for future CGL products.