After on night of sleep, SR 4 sounds like dream becoming real. But what will happen to our old, beloved characters? It was easy to convert a character from 1st Ed. to 2nd. From 2nd to 3rd was a bit harder due to some changed skills and the new knowledge skills. But it looks like we’re facing a huge change now. Sounding like “create your character anew, spend your karma again and perhaps he’ll be a little bit like the old one was”. Thus far there’s no problem one couldn’t possibly mange. But what about the time jump? Five years can be a long time for a shadowrunner. What did he do during this time? Obviously not much for he gained no karma. But how did he pay his lifestyle in these years when he wasn’t working?
Will we be able to take our characters with us to the year 2070?

Yes, I'd love to hear something on that too, since it's my biggest worry about those streamlined rules. Especially with Rigers and Deckers, that'd be something really in need of answering.

And I do hope we'll get a MASSIVE module covering these 4 years. Maybe a triology of modules. Would pay for FanPro (gamery buying the module) and fans alike, as we'd have a smoother transistion from SR3's to SR4's world

Don´t play your character stricly in the timeline?

My mage, for example, jumps between 2057 and 2065 ... I play in several groups (because of my work) but not regulary. In SR4 I will jump between 2050 and 2075 with the same character (who will be still the same age)

SYL

You didnt ask the question there ...

Well, what did the character (of course only if you want to define it)? Perhaps just the same thing as everyone else: hiding, crying and trying to survive?

Its the same with the Renracu arcology, Super Tuesday, Bug City, Denver etc ... you can play strictly in one timeline or you can just adapt the character each time. In my case, I didn´t define a birthday but a "run-age" somewhere in the middles-twentys, so whenever he is playing Harlequin-1 or System Failure, he will be something between 21 and 29 ...

SYL

Oh my gosh, this'll be the first time I'll have to convert characters to a new edition... I'm so excited!

On one hand I somehow hope they don't go too far overboard with changing the system, in order to keep old characters convertible, on the other hand a thorough streamlining ought to do good. I think my opinion comes down to "ignore compatibility, revamping the system has priority". Players will still be able to somehow reconstruct their favorite characters. It's a game, not a stock exchange - we don't have to be that exact.

Yeah, i really want to know how they explain the 5-year-gap and come over with logical conversion rules.

I hope they ignore compatibility. I haven´t been able to think about anything else than this new edition sence last night. They better make it good, now that they´ve managed to drive up my expectations with opening such great possabilities. I mean, they can now make it so your either techno inhanced, magic inhanced, both or neither. All the wierd special cases could be gone, you´d just decide which "realm" (techno, real and magic) you would like to have access to, and then decide what you would like to be good at (fighting, sneaking, driving, hacking...). Simple and oh so sweet!

My campain will continue with renewed strength and ride out the storm with this system crash thing. I will make sure it really takes the wind out of the players. When it´s done they will make new characters, with the option to make them 5 years older versions of their old characters, with a karma bonus to reflect the experience. All new characters would also get the bonus.

ThreeGee: Make them burnouts with a lot of useless ware and gadgets. Make it so they have picked up the slack in the 5-year gap. Take them in a new direction. Play them with a lot of cynicism.

I suspect the gap is to allow for the massive upheval in technology that will allow them to make vast changes to how things work and the rules, while still keeping the same game world.

As my current campaign has just reached 2061 and my players are about to be involuntarily involved in the probe race it doesn't bother too much, I've got lots of time to play with.

Five years is a long time for runners to keep living, so I don't think direct conversion rules will be a big feature, but there will be guidelines for bringing beloved characters into the current system). Deckers are defintely not going to be able to make a straight conversion, but I don't think the setup of SR 4 is going to leave them completely out in the cold. There is going to be some interesting backstory as to how they change over during the 'Time of Troubles' to be current with 'modern' decking technology.

Apple, we seem o read different things into this ... to me, it looks like they plan to overlay Matrix and physical world. Now, if this will be different from what we now know as Matrix, or whether it will BE the new Matrix isn't known, but in the lattter ccase, it won't be anything like the Matrix

Here's hoping we at least get a page or two with some suggested/optional conversaion and/or timeline manipulation rules. I guess we could work something out based on the "one job a month" principle combined with the "average pay" chart from whatever book that was in (though it's universaly considered to pay less than is reasonable)... But I, for one, would like to be able to still feel like my character's been doing something for the five years or so of fill-in-the-blank time that we're gonna get.

But, ah well. We'll shake our fists at that bridge when we get to it.

well the two longest running characters turned qasi NPC's that my on and off campaign has had will be approching 47 years old for the troll and a antiquated 64 for the human Desert Wars vet . I expect that the two of them will probably fade into retirement giving up the work they began doing as fixers traveling to some small caribbian island nation with no extrateritoriality agreements (possibly because they bought it) and sipping margaritas and trying to figure out if it is possible to tan a full conversion cybernetic body. Between the two of them they've ammased over 15 million over the course of their carriers at least 10 mill of that was working as fixers for up and coming runners.

Im more concerned about the raw math of it all. I was there for the AD&D to 3.0 conversion, and that was ugly enough. From the sounds of it, this could be just as nasty. But, hey, with all the new toys, come new and wonderous ways to abuse the ever loving hell outta them.

There has been nothing mentioned about changing the character creation rules, or even the gear rules. Converting a character may have more to do with reordering/recompiling skills and making sure your Karma spent is correct.

I don't think you need to fear the gruelling maths until we have more concrete information.

Since when did geeks fear math, anyway?

Well, as of SR3 the Matrix is an integral part of the *inner working* of the world. Cyberdecks are still outnumbered by plain old terminals.

If you read the press release, Rob used the words "augmented reality" instead of the abused "virtual reality". This is a concept that is getting a lot of traction today and can even be traced to mobile technologies (you have a cellphone, hence you augmented the reality of me talking to you wherever you are).

There are books, both scientific and fiction, that deal with these issues. A good example is Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, where info and hyperlinks are overlaid in the field of vision when a character looks at someone/something. This also implies constant connectivity and unconscious awareness of "the matrix" 24/7.

Read the book, it's free and short, and it's full of interesting ideas

> Shadowrun will stay shadowrun, even with big change in the rules... If it's no simple to convert character, so create new without all karma things. Take the same cyberware, and so on, make your adjustment. Even it's not exactly the same you can make it look a little like.

About the Jump... well. The actual timeline is 64. But frankly more than 90% players I know don't play in 64 yet... And in fact I think you will able to continue to play before 65 with the new rules if you want. Rules are not background... And even, what happened if you play in 64 now ? Then you will play the system failure period which maybe give advert on what will happened during 5 years. The SR4 book will also give a summary. So you know the starting point, the finnish point and some information inside. So you are free to make your own event happened between 2065 and 2070. And if you play before 65 now, then when you will arrive to 2065, expansion book will surely released and give more information on this 5 years period.

In my case it's a good thing (maybe a way to continue to play a cyberpunk game with shadowrun feeling rather than a post apo game with SysFail issues ?). Anyway, I see it as the occasion to play a new generation of shadowrunner. Your character was a legend ? Ok but now he's "has been" and let the place to new generation. So, some of my actual character will become NPC (with a really good background ^^ ). An other plan I have is to create a new younger character for the end of SR3 who become a veteran for SR4. It's also a way for some character to make a break or to do things they always delay... And, one more time, I'm impatient to create the next generation of shadowrunner.
> Daegann

Well, I am kind of the same ... I'm pretty attached to my Redneck Mointain Man Sam and my depressive, fashion-conscious, cynical Rigger. It took me years to get these characters where they are now, I spent a lot of time detailing background and stuff, and I would hate to waste that because *someone* decides to force this "new era, make new characters" thing onto me.

Fortunately, neither character is big on savings, so there's little worry there. But if the rules force me to restart them, then I'll be mighty pissed.

The characters in my current campaign are all 15-16. So this actually couldn't come at a better time for me. They'll just emerge on the other side of 2070, older and probably fairly embittered.

Heck, I just started/am starting a campaign with super high-power badass munchkins in their prime. I figure if they survive to August I can rake them over the caols for 5 years until I apply the SR4 rules.

An easy way to get characters across the time gap is to say, "Five years go by. Some old contacts fade, some new contacts are made. Those five years are worth x karma and y nuyen. How do you want to spend it?"

Actually, as for the gap, I see it as a great opportunity for an enterprising Master. He's led a campaing for some time, and uses SF as an important and in-crescendo background to the final runs of his campaign. He ties some stories, solves some puzzles, completes the arc, while his player solve their own agendas and get involved in a great story for a Grand Finale.

And then, he sais something like: "since then, things have changed. The next two months you guys spend it under cover, safe from Lone Star, who're behind you because of that final shoot-out in the graveyard. The world stumbles as that happens, because massive changes are affecting the world, now that it tries to regain balance after loosing that who sustained it: the Matrix".

And he goes on describing for a little while what has happened during all those five years. Some runs can be described, to set some new issues for future runs, like: "it was in 1068 when you got into that hell of a run. It seemed simple, just an in-and-out. Easy. But no. They were waiting for you guys. You grabbed the sample, but found that your way out was blocked by Major Eddy Burns from Lone Star. Scaping from him was tough, very tough, and Michelle, your love, was caught in the cross-fire. Living after that has been dark, very dark. Nothing motivates you, you seem lost in a world that stumbles without a light. Drek hit the fan, and you were just in front of it."

And then, finally, 2070. Where the master has to lay the last pieces and introduce the new arc of the story. The new chapter, as it were. "Work has been scaping from you guys lately. The new generations, better adapted to the new world that has arrived, take verything, and you fade away as legends of a seemingly-distant past. But then, in the alley, a face from the past strikes you. You just get a glimpse of her, but its more than enough. You run back there, but the alley is empty. Like a ghost, Michelle is no-where to be found, like if she were a mere vision of your tired eyes. Where could she have gone? You know you've seen her, and, in the air, the faint air of her perfume still hangs among the devil-rats lunch in quick putrefaction."

That's the starting point of a new story, where the shadows from the past come back again to the present, in a startling new way. Could Michelle have been allied with Major Burns all the time? Or maybe, one of their old-time enemies is playing with the characters using ilusion magic.

So, do you really think this time can't be a great opportunity in its own right?

Lone Star is, indeed, another good option. Easy to justify, and allows for a new story arc to begin as they try to find out why Lone Star has freed them now, or why does the Star want their skills now. Still, Deckers that were apart from the Matrix are not only "outdated" by the new technology: they'll probably find it hard to understand it, and have surely lost their edge forever. It still could be an interesting story/drama to play a decker that has lost the Matrix and has to turn into a sammie for a living, and all that it implies, but surely not many players will be up to it.

As for a character that hasn't been in a campaign. Easy. Nothing needed to be justified. Runs aren't tied between them, so there is no need of a continuity in games. You can build his story so it covers those five years, with new twist to his personality and background, or you can say that he just used part of his nuyen on a needed vacation. Living in the shadows is both dangerous and stressing, so most runners need to leave them sooner or later. Maybe he's run out of money and needs to return in order to make a living from what he knows. Maybe he's an adrenaline junkie, and can no longer stay away from the thrills. Or maybe a friend called him for a favor long time owed. Reasons for it to return are infinite, and since it won't probably affect the game in question, you can make them up as detailed as you want. Just an update on the stats, and everything ready to play the character again, maybe turned a bit into a new direction in which you are interested in exploring, but still the same character for all it's worth.

I suppose that things are going to be pretty harsh for existing characters, because in most cases, I can't imagine very many of my characters still being running (or alive) after five years. Any campaigns I'm invovled in, I'd say either keep playing with them under the old rules for as long as they can make it in the intervening five years, or move to wrap up the campaign, and start with new characters under 4th.

Well, I talked to my players and we've got plans to get our runners into nice cozy retirements before SR4 hits the shelf (provided we live).

As for the idea of the decker who's lost the matrix, that is just awesome! Like the burnout mage forever devoid of the powers he took for granted so long.

I don't understand that concept. Assuming that the Computer skill is still used for dealing with the new Matrix, I don't see why anyone would 'burn out' automatically from the change. People today can adapt to changing technology with a little effort and retraining (ie. learning a new programming language, etc.). I see this as likely being the same type of thing.

Yeah. Most Deckers are so paranoid about staying up with the cutting edge anyways (hell, even just regular computer geeks today) that I think they'd be fairly likely, as a group, to keep up with the changing trends.

Sure they'll be able... if they're around. But the idea for the character was for some decker who had been in jail those five years, thus, quite away from the Matrix. He'd go out of jail and say, "hey, I'm going to jack in to see who's still around". And then he finds that all he has known and love has changed forever.

He'd need time to learn to navigate in a world where Nodes aren't that important precissely. He'd need to lear all the new programming languajes. And all the new techniques ICE use. And all the new programs that exist, how they function, and how to improve them.

He'd have to catch up with SOTA starting waaaay back, and he'd surely keep with him most of the old habits he had. He'd never be able to really become the nova hot decker he was once. What's left for him? Accepting to become a mid-level hacker? To know that all those younglings around him are better than he will be? To know that he was way better than all of them, but the glory days are bound not to return?... Or to throw it all down the drain and change lifestyle, turning his back to all he has loved for so long.

Anyway, it's just one of the possibilities for such characters. Surely many others will be able to really make the change, more or less. Still, I really doubt that so many of them will, after being five years away from the Matrix.

Who says it is 5 years away from the Matrix for everyone though. It is a jump of 5 years, in which time (I assume), the Wireless Initiative becomes standardized and all-pervasive in the manner of the old Matrix. That isn't to say that computers and networking would not exist at all in the mean time.

The dude in jail would have almost as many problems if he went in in '56 and got out in '61, when it comes to keeping, or catching up with the SOTA.

Very good point Fortune, and since I read the dev blog at the SRmain site I am changing my formerly optomistic opinion on the (potential) ease of conversion to one that more closely matches FrostNSO's:

*ponder* Sounds like a Convention game to me.

"Legacy Tech."
The DLs. The hottest matrix wizards in 2061. That was untill the Star got lucky, and nailed your meat while you where AFK. Lucky for you, they didnt dissapear you, just a 20 year federal sentance. 10 years and lots of good behavor later, your back on the streets of the 3rd world. The 3rd world of the matrix.

The group I currently play in is still stuck before Dunkelzahn's death and it's unlikely we'll be catching up with the published timeline. A friend came up with the idea that we could play the kids of our present characters in the 2070's. I kind of like the idea, I've been thinking of the possibilities how, when and why my characters would end up having kids. Do they know about them? Does the kid resemble it's parent in behaviour? And the classic for the males, is it _really_ my kid? That sort of stuff.

A "low-tech" bunch of youngsters - Shadowrun the Next Generation

Yeh.

My group is 80% elves and 20% dwarf. They won't age significantly in 10 years. All they need to do is catch up to SOTA tech.

And no way I'll waste my character and make her burnt out just because SR4 is supposed to be played with new characters, whether we like it or not.