Okay...I've been playing or GMing shadowrun on and off ever since high school. And there are *still* things that I do wrong and rules mistakes that I make. It really really annoys me that even after all this time I just can't get everything right.

Recently I realized that somewhere down the road I had forgotten about the TN penalties layered armor gives you on QUI linked skills. (I had only remembered how it reduces combat pool.) An important rule, but since it's only mentioned on one particular page in SR3 and is never cross referenced it's understandable how I forgot about it and was never reminded. Nevertheless, it makes me feel like a moron since that allowed the game to be less balanced than it should have been for a long time.

It always seems like there's always something that I forget about and do wrong that I find out about long after the fact and that therefore I've been doing shadowrun wrong the whole time. How depressing.

My brain is weak.

Man, EVERYONE forgets rules. Sometimes even really critical rules. Who cares? As long as the game flows well, and the players have fun, that's the ONLY thing that matters.

The game wouldn't be 'less balanced' as long as your ruling works the same way for everyone, PC and NPC alike.

SR book organization has always been somewhat questionable to me.
I often wonder if the way that the books are organized are the best set-up for the rules or not.

I'm dead certain they're not. Rules for encumberance penalties and excessive armor penalties are buried in the equipment section, while the rest of movement is detailed in Combat. The Adept rules are smashed in between rules for astral projection ans spellcasting--neither of whic the adept can participate in. Vehicle Perception is detailed in the Vehicle section while (meta)human Perception is detailed in the GM's chapter, which comes after the Magic section but before the Equipment section. Rules for elementals and spirits are handled in the same chapter as dragons, but actually conjuring them is talked about in Magic. The Racism table is located in the Skills section, but the stats for contacts and dealing with them is near the end of the book, closer to the chapter on Spirits and Dragons than the Skills section.

Anyway, don't worry about forgetting several rules; even the best people do it from time to time.

Eyeless.
I completely agree.
I was mearly trying to be considerate as I know there are some around this board who do work on aspects of SR sourcebooks time to time in some submissions and I didn't want to offend anyones hard work because of editors.

Heh, I guess I'm just jaded from a few of the regulars routinely bashing several sections of the SR book.

I really like the SR system; the rules for variable success as a basic mechanic are just too cool. I also think that the majority of the rules, particularly for mgic, cyberware, ranged combat and the Matrix are particularly well put-together. Still, you have to admit there are a number of glaring faults in the way the rulebook is put together. I have a couple of issues with the SR rules as they are laid out and implemented, though I do appreciate that such a task is remarkably difficult and have a healthy amount of respect for those who have to pull something like this together on time and under budget.

It could be worse...

Wow. That's even worse than Fringeworthy.

(For reference, Fringeworthy has something like twenty distinct attributes, and a decent chunk of the core rules list items and their costs while the chargen rules say "assume the players have access to anything they want to start out with". Oh, and stat generation is 4d6-4, but no conditions are given for stats of 0)

~J

Thanks for lending some perspective, guys.

I started reading that review and thought "Oh my god, it's the Eye of Argon of RPGs." When the reviewer actually referenced the Eye of Argon I fell off my chair. Great read, thanks.

To be fair, Zeus did have that whole Ganymede thing going, so the reviewers at least got something wrong that the game got right. Sorta. maybe a bit.

Can we kill them now?

~J