The full text of the latest official update:

Wow, this is... a really promising update.

you think?
Now they're not only getting rid of the "decker", they're tossing the "rigger" into the same pit?
Ok, getting a sinlge consistent ruleset for all things electronic is good, but combining everything technichal into the term hacker is just horrid.

HAXORIN SI ILLEGAL!!1!!!

I´m not sure I like giving everything the name hacker. But the positive things that can come from making protocols, technology, and game mechanics behind everything technological the same, far outweighs that little problem. Everything seems to be in order and progressing towards the vision I had of this project when I first heard of it.

You know, they could just fix the game-mechanic without changing the name(s).

To be honest, I'm actually completely ambivalent on the name thing. But the rules changes are good if they make it work smoother.

All I can say is

Yep, that's certainly one of the good changes.

There's got to be someone out there who'll cry in outrage about it.

Or maybe not.

Great to know open test to be gone. That's good. Also, I won't shed a tear over the loss of the priorities building system, and I am glad you'll take the time and publish a conversion guide. But.

But the whole combining of deckers and riggers into this new "hacker" stinks, at least as far as I am concerned. Now, I see only two ways of how FanPro can do this:

1. Make decking ("hacking") require a similar piece of cyberware which, like a VCR, will be required for deep hacking (and grant boni like with the VCR) - making archetypes like the combat decker obsolete (aside from wired 2 and smartlink and whatnot, he'd need to invest 2 to 5 essence into a 'Matrix Control Rig').

2. Make rigging require nothing but a datajack, taking out thereaction boni the VCR granted and make the rigger extremely obsolete, basically making the rigger a sammy who happens to have a couple of vehicles he can control, but possessing no special ability to speak of. This would also make 3rd Ed riggers unconvertable without giving them a essence 2 to 5 'useless cyberware' implant. Now, since riggers aren't the most played characters, this may not bother most people here. But since I have played riggers ever since I started playing, it DOES bother me.

Now, we don't know whether they'll require some kind of 'Matrix Control Rig' instead of the cyberdeck, or whether it will all be solved with a datajack and one in 10 people being an Otaku in 2070. But however it is handled, it does bash either the archetypes formerly known as combat deckers (combat hackers, now?) or those formerly known as riggers pretty badly. As a player of such a character, I can't say I'm too pleased with the prospect to kick it into the can or play a burnt out, useless character.

And for the record, ANYTHING but the term 'hacker' would have been better. This evokes images of nerdy kids or college people who spend way too much time indoors, not agents-for-hire.

Even if they kept the VCR the one your character has should be useless anyway by 2070.

Well, so long as there still IS a VCR-comparable implant to replace it with, it could be alright (though I'd like to see how the conversion guide will handle this, other than saying 'rigers and deckers better have saved a heap of money').

My point was more that it just wouldn't be needed anymore because some Otaku Adept l33t hacker power had replaced it, and making every sam with wired able to drive a vehicle damn fast, as opposed to today, where jacking into a vehilce won't give them too many boni apart from that +1 Reaction for DNI control.

Now, Demonseed has said something somewhat contradictory to this comment, making me wonder what the hell this is all about. He said there will be 'riggers' (at least in name) somewhere in SR4. Go figure. That kind of contradicts what Rob said, doesn't it?

I for one actually liked the priority character creation system, and am sorry to see it go.

It's not too bad, but given how much more flexible the point buy system is, it's understandable why they decided to drop the priority system.

Hermit: I´m sure you can work it out with your GM so that your character can get whatever it is that replaces the VCR, whether it´s some otaku adept thing (If that becomes the only way, it better be available to existing characters), more skill or some new 'ware. There will be vehicle oriented characters in the new edition.

I like the Priority Character Generation....guess that will be my first alteration to SR4. Nothing against Point Buy, I just prefer the Priority. I guess it's because I have a large number of players who do very little in the way of Character Development at Character Generation, and asking them to use Point buy is to stressful on their fragile minds. Also the point buy can be exploited to easily (I have a problem with that too....maybe I just need a new group...hmph).

Other than that it all sounds good. Sure losing the "Decker"/ "Rigger" term to "Hacker" (...hacker of all things I mean I don't know, they could have made something totally new to represent the totally new Matrix...Hacker?....hmph) is not good, but it is something I can live with. Having them all under one banner is fine.

The way I see it, Hacker VS combat decker, vehicle rigger etc. will be in SR4 like the distinction between Quarterback, running back, offensive lineman... Sure, they are not all the same thing, but they're all football players. They all play with the same rules.

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I join in the mourning for the priority system. We will game on without you, but you will not be forgotten, old friend. *sniff*

I hope the pointbuy system will be fine tuned, though. I don't really like the current one.

Priority system was an abomination and resulted in some very very odd characters. We all use point buy and have since it's creation.

To counter hermit's 2 choices:

3) Split up the monolithic 2-5 essence VCR up and spread the myriad bonuses between different modular components. The TN bonus for controlling vehicles, for instance, would be a seperate piece of 'ware from the thing that increases your mental initiative while in simsense. In turn, the Response Increase part of the deck will be made into a piece of cyberware like it always should have been; it's stupid that they were ever handled differently with regards to initiative in the first place. This piece of common 'ware--let's call it the Encephalon, for argument's sake, as that's what the Encephalon always should have been, rather than the cheap POS it is now or the damn powerful POS it was in 2e--will further blur the line between deckers and riggers.

Every twinked-out character I've seen on this forum has been built with point-buy. Granted, priority was wierd, but it was nice and simple for a newbie player to get to grips with.

Well, I gotta say I'm gonna miss Priority system's close cousin even more : Sum to 10. That's what I used the most.

Point-buy's really not that much harder to explain than priority. In fact, I found point-buy to be *easier* to grasp right away. Point buy was easy to explain because it was a sequence: two points per Attribute, then one point per skill, then a small list of extras to spend points on a different race, resources, Magic, etc. Priority tried to introduce all the "extras" (Magic, Resources, etc) at the same time as the basic stuff (attributes and skills), which was a bit more confusing. IMO.

I can wrap my head around points-based, though I will confess to missing Priority. It was quicker, at least for me, and you could just drag and drop and have a play-worthy character in no time.

Although I just know one of my players is going to think this means we'll get shapeshifters in the main book, since point-based is the easiest way to make them. Sigh.

What was so wrong with BeCKS? (I never had a chance to use it.)

Honestly? Not much; it's actually a good solid system. It does have a tendency to encourage--even overencourage--generalists, much like the karma rules do now with their steeply increasing improvement costs. It's also very complicated to explain and more complicated to do; I'd never even try it without the NSRCG to do the math for me, and I'm a self-confessed math geek.

But the problem with BeCKS you mention isn't a problem with the concept. It's a problem with the cost of being Otaku. That's (1) easily fixable and (2) completely unrelated to my post, which is about removing the forced specialization in character creation that doesn't exist in game.

Only a moron would build with points and not take everything at 6. It's artificial, it's boring, it's unrealistic, and it needs to go.

[edit]

That's not to say I disagree with your criticism of the steep karma costs for extreme skills— because, well, I don't. But the disparity needs to go, and progressive costs for high level skills aren't in concept necessarily bad.

I find that its those random biotech/athletics/electronics tests that really save your character's ass when the shit hits the fan...

[Edit] and praise the gods of happy dice!! open tests are no more... may they rot in hell...

Ditto. Sure, I could make a twinked-out trog who can crush ferrocrete blocks with his pinky finger, but I'd prefer to make a character with actual character.

I think it's really really hard to role play someone with high attributes, (you'll never think of things as well as a character with a really high INT, so you can't even RP that) but at the same time if you have the ability to give yourself 6s across the board it's also very hard to resist that temptation. I mean, you sit down, you start to think about combat pool, and it becomes very painful to rachet down from a 6 to a 5 to a 4. I think it's just the way the mind works.

I mean, I've seen guys running around with WIL 9 PCs where the PCs would, like, flee in terror during dangerous situations, or INT 6 where the PCs would have moronic strategies, so what can you say?

If you wanted to crack down on that kind of aggrandizement, you could make attributes at levels above 3 get increasingly expensive, but at the same time that would also possibly result in less flexibility during character creation.

I don't know what the solution is.

Becks probably isn't a good system for the basic book. It is a lot more math and bookkeeping than you want in the basic system.

Personally I think they are right to switch to the point system as the basic one. I find it to be the easiest and quickest to use. It is also a very standard system across rpg's, thus lowering the bar for new players.

Becks would be a great advanced system for some later book... but it already is a good advanced system without being in any book.

It's a point-based system, but it's not the point system in the current Shadowrun Companion. Concerns about taking everything at 6 are being addressed.

Awesome. Consider me more prepared to throw up my arms and start the party.

Hmm, do I smell a return of the old Mechawarrior style of purchasing skill?

From what I'm reading the new SR4 info all seems pretty good. I'm still not over the moon at the term 'hacker' but then 'what's in a name'? I really like having a point based character system and it's good to hear from Patrick that all attributes at 6 characters are being addressed. Online conversion guide - good idea!

Having a coherent system for hackers, riggers and (I presume from what I'm hearing) Electronic Warfare is the best idea since sliced bread!

No tears for the demise of the open test here either.

I'm looking forward to the next snippet of info.

You have a point there Kagetenshi. Like I said I'm not over the moon about it, and I won't be using it in my games but as Patrick seems to froth at the mouth over the subject, I don't want to make a big deal over it.

That's hardly true, I just don't like the idea of most of the specific changes I've heard thus far.

Either that or I'm getting crotchety in my old age

I really can't understand the hacker change, though. Companies spend a lot of money and effort branding themselves, and here FanPro is debranding large chunks of the game. It boggles the mind.

~J

i dont know why but i have allways prefered the priority system over any form of point based system. it just seems that point system foster min/maxers rather then character concepts. but thats just my take on it.

as for folding the decker and the rigger into one mobile platform for allthings technical, i dont have a problem with that. it will be interesting to see how a run on a CCSS equiped corp facility will be when it comes into play tho

maybe: send in the spider drone to create a wiretap on the CCSS, try to stay undetected by the sec hacker (hmm, what would be better term be?) while you open doors and tell drones and cameras to look the other way. and then all hell breaks loose you can make that automated gun-turret do a 180 and fire back at the guards all this while staying mobile until the sec hacker finds the drone access point of yours and fries it...

I'm delighted to see points replacing priority as the primary chargen choice. Priority was okay, I guess, but (especially in SR3) it suffered from one major drawback - why would you ever play a mundane human? Once you put Magic at E, the next lowest available priority is D - which is the minimum for Dwarf/Ork.