Well, with all the furor of things surrounding the ongoing 6e trainwreck, I've been asked by some folks to run SR for them again. I am super excited, but looking at my house rules I think there's some room for improvement.

So, chummers, hit me up! What house rules do -you- consider good for SR3?

Etiquette is only available as specializations, and Street cred is usually completely ignored on Etiquette rolls. Street cred (and notoriety) is basically ignored in favor of roleplaying.

There are no reusable karma points. You can reroll failures as per the rules, but it will cost you a point every time.

Bioware costs regular essence just as cyberware, and you have a total of 6 points of Essence to spend. Upside: Bioware is also available in alpha, beta and gamma versions. Suprathyroid gland, Enhanced articulation, Mnemonic Enhancer do not exist. Same with Gas Vent 3 and smartlink 2. And we generally agree that if the PCs can get it, the opposition can as well, so sniper rifles are also out.

Credsticks/fake SINS: they work. Your lifestyle defines where they work without problems. It is assumed that characters burn through fake SINs fairly regularly, but the cost is part of the price of your lifestyle. Don't go hiking in a law level A+ neighborhood with a D-level fake SIN though.

Ammo comes in two types: Regular and gel. And then there's Big D's Temper Rounds (see below)

Light pistols have their Power reduced by one, but Damage increased, so a 6L in the rulebook becomes a 5M. Plus, it has -1 recoil and +1 concealability.

According to RAW (as we have understood them), neither spirits (above F4) or vehicles take damage from gunfire, but luckily Big D's temper Rounds are fairly easy to get, and they work against spirits. As for vehicles, the rule of cool > vehicle armor.

Lifestyle: characters simply have the material wealth that corresponds to their lifestyle, as well as the ability to define (within reason) contacts that suit their lifestyle on the go. Of course my celebrity bodyguard knows the two primary personal trainers in the exclusive gym on the third floor of the building he lives in well enough to call them by their first name. We only keep track of major purchases like weapons and cyberware - and cars. Speaking of: Cars cost 50% of the listed prices.

Attributes: The sum of unmodified attributes have a hard cap at 30.

The Matrix: We never managed to learn the rules, so we just make do without, and by hiring NPC deckers when we really need them. My detective is very good at basic information gathering and for that we use the rules from the Matrix supplement. We have experimented with a general roll for the NPC decker (Skill vs. system security) at the start of a run, where we find out how many successes he has. If (for instance) we need to ride an elevator to the 7th floor but lack the proper ID card to make that happen, we can burn one succes. The thing is, the players don't know how many successes the NPC decker have to spend.

Magic: we don't use it much. Invisibility only works within the range defined by its force, so if you are outside of that range, you see the sneaky bastard just fine.

Also, and this is more of a 'vibe' thing: The world works. People go to work, and send their kids to school. Sure, there are bad places outside of the city proper, and even some streets where you shouldn't go within the city, but, generally speaking, people live and love and work and go out at night to drink. Yes, there is crime, and racism, and poverty and annoying gangs that you don't want to mess with, but as long as you don't actively step on some ganger's toes, they'll mostly leave ordinary people to their business. So my samurai doesn't strut about with his Panther (aka Kitty Bang-Bang) on the streets (even though I keep telling my GM that she gets so SAD, when I leave her home alone!). Except for itty-bitty parts of the Barrens, Seattle is not a war zone. If you drive a military vehicle, or carry an assault rifle around outside of the Barrens, you WILL be stopped. Or just shot to bits. Your Shadowrun may vary, of course, but we prefer a blend of 80's action movie/film noir with a dash of mohawks over the metaplot/wargame from late 3rd ed. onwards. It works for us.

Good luck with your campaign! I can strongly recommend running the published adventures in chronological order, it's great fun.

Getting ready to gamemaster a SR3 game for my gaming group in a few weeks and refreshing myself on the rules after not having played or gamemastered in a decade.

Kinda using a hybrid of the decking rules from SR3 and the quick decking rules from Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book. Deck ratings and programs will matter/set TN's but will use the simplified rolling of MJLB.

Trying to decide what to do with Barrier Rating if anything.

Vehicles/Drones with get to roll their Armor rating as a complementary test to damage resistance to help cut back on the epic killer cost of replacing destroyed cars/drones (I just yesterday had a player immediately hot-potato-drop his initial drone rigger character for a physad gunfighter right after he found out about Street Index and how much it would cost to replace a destroyed drone).

Light and Heavy Pistols have a Under-barrel (small) mount, capable of mounting either a laser sight, tactical light, external smartlink, barrel weight. Extended clips, for double the cost you can buy an extended clip that increases the weapons ammo count by +50% and reduces Concealment rating by 1.

Magically, I give Aspected magicians a few more Initiation/Metamagic options:
-Astral Projection: as an Initiation/Metamagic Ability. Aspected Magicians can normally only Astrally Perceive, they can learn full astral projection as a metamagic power.
-Limited Conjuring: Sorcery Adepts gain access to Conjuring Skill/Abilities but can summon Watcher Spirits ONLY! They can NEVER summon anything more powerful than that.
-Limited Sorcery: Conjuring Adepts gain access to Sorcery Skills/Abilities but can ONLY cast spells that get a Totem bonus for Shamans, or spells related to a single one of the 4 elements for Mages (they must choose a single Element and cannot change that Element once chosen).
I also allow Pysical Adepts with the Mystic Armor power to take a Metamagic power that temporarily boosts it from Impact to Ballistic (via a Boosted Attribute type Magic Test/Roll)

Not going to lie, I do not have any definitive House Rules for SR3 really. If there is a decker running alongside a team when they are doing stuff I run the initiative for actions on the same track but that's about it. I use the MRJLBB Rigger / vehicle rules as they run cleaner than the core book but otherwise I run as is / GM call in a given moment. More important I think than House Rules for SR3 is taking time to do some simple prep work. If you've got a mage or a Shaman have a few notes on hand for how their stuff works and make sure the player knows their character options (and do them a cheat sheet), same for Deckers too, If there's a Decker then have some networks and grids put together and again give them a Matrix cheat sheet and get them used to their rules. Riggers too, maybe ease into the EW options and customization of Drones and stuff. It is also worth remembering that in many cases Runners will try and grab pay-data or gear they can use or fence on the side of their agreed payday, let them. Encourage a bargaining attitude at (most) meets and bring options to the table, Rigger lost a Drone last time out? maybe the Johnson can provide one instead of some of the Nuyen (as MR J's advises), let them bargain for gear and goods as well as cred.

I lied about the house rules: I make sure everyone has three solid Contacts that helps them logically be who they are in the Shadows. Everyone shares a Fixer as an extra for free. I also run lifestyles similar to mentioned above, what you pay for the lifestyle includes certain amenities and services and if the Lifestyle mentions a vehicle then a basic vehicle of type is supplied (although attached to the SIN the Lifestyle may or may not run under, unlicensed vehicles are their own problem). The Lifestyle is either a Genuine SIN or a Fake SIN that I give at Rating 4 for anything less than High and rating 5 for High, given that most SIN readers for the vast majority of Day to Day requirements tend to run at Rating 2 - 3 this tends to be more than sufficient but still carries a modicum of risk.

Main one I have used since 1E is an alteration to Initiative/Reaction. Which eery roup I ran for decades liked better (well, except for that one 1E Street Sam player that cried he couldn't kill everything before everyone else and laugh at their reactions )

All Initiative is 1d6+Reaction
Un-modified has a second Pass by subtracting 10 from their Initiative total as per normal

Wired Reflexes and Improved Reflexes Adept power add +1 to Reaction per level and lower the subtracting number by 2 per level.
Eg. Street Sam with Q5, I5 and Wire level 2 would have a Reaction of 7 [Avg of Q+I=5 +2] and to get a second Pass would subtract 6 from their Initiative Total (10 normal minus 2 per rank=6). Seems low, but both ways you have an average of 2 passes and a max of 3 (old max roll of 27 for Initiative (27-17-7) and max roll of 13 new (13-7-1). Just means his second pass will be about the same time most others are getting their first.

This has kept the rounds very interspersed with everyone at the table and fixed the 1E problem of the fast characters having killed everything first an the 2E and 3E "fixes" to that by having everyone have a pass before a second one. This way, the fast stay fast and everyone else still has a chance to participate.

This is just a quick "off the top of my head/I only remember because I ran it for 20+years. There are a couple of other bits to it, but I'd have to dig up my old game notes for anything else. It's a modification on one of the old pre-TSS collections. Which reminds me...I miss the old TSS. *sigh*

Initiative counts down by 8
Karma pool caps at 6
Use the quick decking rules from mr j, cyber deck costs doubled because programs are gone
That’s what I can remember but there are 3 more...

Initiative is at the same time a very fun part of SR and the part most in need of a house rule.
I have to try this one. Thank you.

Edit: Forgot our solution to the initiative problem, Lowest init states their actions first, highest roller states their actions last.
It works because now the sammy (or the mage high on foci) can now plan what to do while everyone around them are like snails eating peanut butter...

Not many houserules here, and they were mostly to "make things work"

- If you're taking contacts that can get you good stuff (ie: Connected 1 or 2) then they are contacts you have to buy and make them good (Level 2, minimum) BUT you don't get the reduction in TN for having the higher rating (Ie: level 2 = level 1 contact) because they can get you sweet candy. Otherwise you make a connected fixer at 3 and then it's a shopping mart.

- Cash-for-karma. Now, this is likely a gameplay thing, but my players are amoral deathdealers who have their own quirks, and they all roleplay these at different times. So if I was to award them 1-3 karma for finishing a game that took them, in game, months, of hard effort and skill then I'd fail as a GM (it's got to be fun)
So, cash-for-karma. Either 2500 per karma OR roll 3d6 x 100 nuyen for each. And you have to roll. Each. One.

This is great because it makes people really work at that karma ("why are we doing this, it feels like work") and it gives them enough time to work out why the gods love them.

- Downtime learning skills, I made certain that my players could, by spending a LOT of money, speed up acquisition of skills with good rolls (willpower to learn longer, that sort of thing. I based them on the initiation ruling for magic users, aesthetic? I think?) and the players went with it pretty well. And got poor really fast.

-Enforce things like street value and availability, they do work.
- Enforce random crap in the world, like your runners being mobbed by Hare Krishnas in Sea-Tac while trying to smuggle themselves into the Tir.
- Enforce Police ratings! Drone patrols, astral flybys, all part of Lonestar's presence.
- Enforce Gang vs Gang violence
- Enforce all that weird colour stuff that makes it cyberpunk in the Awakened world - have the meet at a stripclub staffed by Satyrs, Minotaur ladies, luscious Orks and Dwarves in BDSM gear. Have a loud buck's night suddenly spill over into a fight that rolls into your room, then, after escorting the drunk out, have your players roll to find essential info is now missing and that party was just an illusion that tipped well....

...And have a good time doing it

-Tir

We changed the soak rules slightly.
In the book - you roll to attack, they roll to soak, then you stage.
We do it - you roll to attack, stage up to D, then every two successes past D increases the power by one - then they roll to soak and stage it down.
It's a very minor change, but it tends to mean that if you can get one success at least, and have a karma to buy a success, you know you're not taking a D. It stops fatalities being quite so common - until you start talking really heavy weapons.
Works to keep the players alive unless they're being really dumb, but also gives your bad guy NPCs a way to crawl into their escape tunnel with serious wounds and live to fight another day.

These are mostly for 2E, but they fit well enough into 3E. I've torn down huge sections of the game, made a lot of balance changes (to rules and equipment), and added a number of new mechanics including a complete rebuild of decking.

Master House Rules & Lore packet (rules start on page 55): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-GV0IfKz...N0IwT2dhLVhWR0U

Complete Matrix Rules & Lore teardown & rebuild: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-GV0IfKz...d04tS3dIOFBFMk0

Magic House Rules: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1t7g69HhV3...HnW5aqs5O8__pVq

Rebalanced Equipment: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-GV0IfKz...X0FuTkNlRkpxS3M

Play SR4. If you want a more SR5 feel, modify as follows:

- Commlinks are now forbidden to run hacking programs (though common programs run just fine by 4E rules), and neiter accept hot sim sim modules. They're back to where PocSecs were in 1-3. good for legal Matrix stuff, bad for hacking. Maybe allow Commlinks to be jailbreaked for the Sim Module but certainly not for hacking programs.
- SkinLink now is a mod with capacity on your commlink. Each skinlinked item takes up one skinlink slot, t a maximum of 6. This includes cyberware if you want forced combat hacking and an all-awakened X-Men show like in 5E, or cyberware is exempt due to DNI connections if you're more of the common sense type.
- Cyberdecks are back. They are statted like Commlinks, have Cyberdeck OS' that alow the running of hacking programs, scale from 3 to 10 in all attributes, and cost commlink component price times ten. Cyberdecks can hack everything, but receive a -2 malus against anything slaved to an RCC.
- RCC are back. They are like cyberdecks, but can't use hacking programs except all EW related and defensive (ECCM, Decrypt, Sniffer, Armor, might need tweaking). They also can slave up to DR*4 drones, and are allowed to hack drones, but no other nodes. This is intended to make them more like rigger decks in 3E. They cost component cost*5.
- If a device's Matrix monitor fills up completely, it needs to be repaired, a reset doesn't work anymore. It neither explodes nor spontaneously combusts, but the firmware is screwed, since cyberdecks use more aggressive attack programs now, more similar to the Grey Ice of yore. A drone or vehicle that is bricked while moving crashes and is lost.
- There are no substantial new cyberware to adapt, and the cerebrellum booster can just be used as is. The Datajack Plus offers 3 free slots (6 with ergonomic) to run programs that do not affect commlink/deck/RCC load.

You can just adapt weapons and vehicle stats as you go from SR5, there's charts to do this, but going by rule of thumb should be okay. It'S the CGL design philosophy anyway. I wouldn'T change magic too much, but if you want the crazy shit in (death magic, old god mentors, blood crystal limbs) you may need to adapt on the fly. I never cared much for these things,s o I'mm the wrong person to ask for adaptions there, I'm afraid.

I really don't care for SR4. I'm running a punk-heavy 2050's game, and frankly a lot of the worldbuilding (and thus rules-as-physics) assumptions of SR4 don't really do it for me.

Thanks everyone for your posts!

Interesting to see that a few of my old house rules are similar, such as damage staging before soak and improved initiative counts. I'm definitely leaning towards using the MJLBB rigging/decking rules for simplicity's sake, as my party decker is a new player and not hugely invested in crunch.

Must've read over your request, sorry. As for SR3, little house rules are needed, but stick with the decking from Matrix.

Stick with proper Decking, MRJLBB offered too much of a hand wave / second tier decker approach IMHO. There's nothing wrong with decking as written, maybe dont use all the options in Matrix for actions and things to keep matters simple for the new player, but the core of the rules works fine with a simple cheat sheet.

We tried Vagabond Elfs "Streamlined Decking system" a few times before my latest SR burnout.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=37578

It did not get more than a few runs, but we liked it.