I'm not quite sure, Synner, that any of the arguments you make aren't equally valid or more valid reasions for switching SR to d20. That's simpler, people know the system, and it doesn't have to impact the setting hugely. Seriously--why not SR d20? It used to be a joke in very large part because everyone knew how different the SR system was and what a radical change it would be. This change looks nearly as radical.

Of course, entertainment providers can't, in general, provide their customers with what they think they want, because when it comes down to it, their customers don't really know what they want, and also, if you only cater to existing customers, your content may not appeal to anyone who isn't already a customer. But these providers also have to take a good, hard look at who their fan base is, because those are the people who supply them with guaranteed sales. Maybe you're saying that the SR fan base is now so small compared to the RPG industry as a whole that they can be completely neglected, and that it's better launching a new RPG than caring about the existing fan base. Maybe that's true; I don't know what the sales rank of SR is compared to other games. My local store has SR in the top ten or fifteen when it comes to shelf space devoted, but maybe they're just diehard fans.

In any case, the problem with not paying some attention to existing fans is that an established product already has a niche there. SR4 doesn't have to compete in the marketplace with SR3 unless SR4 abandons SR3's niche. There aren't that many fairly realistic mid-future settings; there aren't that many with strong elements of tech and magic; there aren't that many where the mechanics aren't as fundamentally inane as d20. If SR4 doesn't stray too far from SR3, you get a lot of people coming along for the ride.

So, that's the challenge: make things new enough so you increase your base of potential customers, but not so different as to drive away the existing ones. I only sort-of agree with Critias here. I do love Shadowrun (I have essentially every SR2 and SR3 book sold, plus a few SR1 ones), and I will therefore buy SR4. But I may not buy any other FanPro product ever again after that, because SR4 may not resemble the game that I love, and I may not love it on its own merits either. It's far too early to tell, of course. My point is just that it's not as simple as, "Hey, we keep all our existing fans for free, and we get access to a whole new set of customers too!"

Finally, a quibble: the announcement did not only deal with the fixed TN. It dealt with pool dice, too (saying that something that does not appear to be a pool at all by SR3 definitions is now called a pool, and implying that there is no replacement for what SR3 called a pool). By omission saying "each 5 or 6 rolled is considered a hit", it implies by omission that there is no rule of 6. And between variable TN, rule of 6, and pool, that's actually most of the SR3 dice system right there.

Maybe there will be as many different ways to use dice in SR4 as in SR3 that go beyond the core system (good grief, I hope not!), but if not, I'd say we've either got a pretty good preliminary picture, or the initial announcement could have been worded to stress that there are some completely fundamental things that look more like SR3 concepts that have been explicitly done away with, which are not mentioned here. ("Other rules now serve the function of the old dice pools--stay tuned for more details!")

Perhaps this couldn't be done because the rules hadn't actually been finalized to that point yet. Well, if not, here's some feedback indicating that some of us would like such other rules!

I'm going to agree with Ellery here. I love Shadowrun, and for that reason I'm buying the SR4 core book. I love Shadowrun, and that's why if SR4 is a significant disimprovement I am not buying any other fourth edition books. I'm willing to give the system a chance on its own merits (though not, mind you, to refrain from speaking my concerns based on the limited information we have currently), but it's exactly that love of a system that requires me to not support anything that is, in my opinion, bad for the game.

Which is a distinction, really. I respect a lot of the people who work with FanPro, but that's not where my loyalty lies. I will drop FanPro in a second if Shadowrun becomes the worse for it.

~J

Heh, I don't know who this Ellery is, but in the four days s/he's been here s/he's brought up more bery solid points and far more eloquently than I have since I joined. I bow to your superior wisdom and skills Ellery, and hope we see more of your posts in the future.

Ellery is actually a sophisticated artificial intelligence programmed with Shadowrun knowledge. At least, that's the popular theory.

I've got a sneaking suspicion…

~J

She's also a horrible, dark, demigoddess. Praise be to Ellerlolth !!

And, guys? Playtesters, developers? Don't mistake our (half-shaped, admittedly thus far ill-informed) distaste for radical and sudden change as disliking for you. I know I, at least, make it undeniably clear to people I dislike, or am simply moderately angry at, when that is the case. No one's hurling insults at you guys, though I can understand how you might take our suspicion of the new game as some sort of insult to you, personally. Please stop doing so, however human it might be. No one here is accusing you guys of being in it for the money, no one is spitting at you, no one has so far even mentioned napalm and Gencon in the same breath. We know you guys dig the game, we know you guys want it to be a hit, and we know you guys know what you're talking about.

But we also know that orders are orders, and you might not have had a giant say in how things are/will be going down. We don't trust the nameless, faceless, "them." The cold hearted company that dares fiddle with our beloved game, as an entity unto itself, is the target of our distrust and suspicion. Not you guys as people, not Rob, not freelancers or playtesters or anyone personally. We're frightened by what little we know, and we have to post somewhere, sometime, to express that concern. You guys are taking the time to read it, which is cool, but are investing the energy to be insulted by it (which isn't).

It's not like we hate anybody, or distrust anybody. It's change itself that's got us spooked and tense. The process, not the people. Don't take us so personally.

Fixed TN of 5 !?!

I suggested exactly that a in a thread during the first few days of the SR4 forum.

Got. To. Find. The thread... and BRAG!!!

Arg, I can't for the life of me remember the thread.

This proves my long held belief that I'm smarter than everyone else, though. If you'll excuse, I will go ask my little sister to poke some fun at me to bring my ego down to size.

i think the maybe-sayers have been pretty fair about it, so far. we've largely stuck to the info available, without extrapolating too wildly. at worst, assumptions have been made that are reasonable based on what's been presented, though not necessarily reasonable based on the existing playtesting rules. the clostest any of us have come to saying "i'm not buying SR4 because of X" is my assertion that i'm dropping the game if it sucks--and that's a decision that won't be made until i actually have the book.

as much as i like and respect Synner and Goodman, i'm not really willing to accept as proof their assertion that SR4 will be good (though i accept it as strongly supporting evidence). Rob Boyle could drop by my house and tell me it's all going to be cool, and i wouldn't take it at face value. i don't disregard what you guys are saying; in fact, it's a large part of why i'm not pitching my tent in the "SR4 is going to suck" camp--that, and the fact that i am very much pleased with what FanPro has put out. but the recent FAQs have kept me out of the "SR4 is going to rock" camp. the information they present is, at best, jarring, and worrying at worst. i like SR a lot, so i'm not going to sit around in the "wait and see" camp. i therefore find myself in the "discuss with much agitation, based on what i know, and wait impatiently for more" camp.

Most of what Synner says makes sense (even if I don't necessarily fully agree with all of it), and much of what I wrote should have been proofread given how many peculiar grammatical errors I made. But one thing caught me off guard:

Synner and I had a nice conversation via PM. He answered a lot of the questions I had. And even though I still don't like the direction they are going, he did a great job of at least letting me know why they are going in said direction. I understand the genesis of their decision now (even though I still think a properly done ad campaign for SR3 revised would have had the same effect).

So Shadow has officially moved to the waiting watching hoping camp. I still don't know if I will buy it, but at least I won't burn it in effigy. I still lament the loss of a great game system. SR had, imho, the best rules going, and I will wish till the day I die some one could have done something with them instead of abandoning them.

For reference, and before I really do sign off, the explanation I offered Shadow is personal and unsubstaniated and boils down to the one I posted above in reply to Ellery.

And btw Ellery, you'll note I never proposed anything of the sort. I don't think SR is the game to do it either (barring a movie, hit computer game or some such). I actually fieled the opposite possibility - ie. that the target audience might be "the wider RPG audience" who percieve SR3 "as a complex ruleset to master" and hence require a system that at least seems different.

Ah, okay, that makes slightly more sense. Although I'd think that the barrier to SR was not that the rules are complex to master, but rather complex to even get started with. Is it really that big a barrier if people can get into a game quickly and then get better and better with practice? That works for FPS games--it can take years to hone one's skill there. It works for chess and checkers, too. Tic-tac-toe is easy to master, but I don't see people playing that too often....

So, anyway, I think entry barrier is the bigger deal than time-to-mastery.

Even a physad only throws eighteen. If a beginner is throwing twenty dice on an attack, they've got some significant natural min-maxing skills.

Honestly, "you have got to be kidding me" is my reaction to your complaint on too many dice. It seriously takes you a meaningful amount of time?

~J

what... how is this a debate for 2-3 weeks ago? the FAQ that we're debating only came out three days ago, are we supposed to have pre-discussed it, or something? is the time limit for discussing new elements of SR4 negative fourteen days, now?

I am pretty sure cyber enhancements don't stack with magic enhancements. At least when it comes to pumping up your initiative.

Enhanced articulation doesn't really improve skills so much as it makes them easier to perform, so they would stack. It's a different kind of enhancement. But say cyber limbs with 4 points of strength wouldn't stack with an adept getting impv str 4 points.

hm. interesting argument. in the case of the adept power, though, it specifically forbids enhancements from any other source, so i don't think that'd fly. i'm not sure about spells.

Yeah, but neither does adept attribute enhancement stack with bone lacing or muscle replacement/augmentation/toner, all of which are arguably "boosting", rather than "replacing", physical abilities.

I specifically said Cyber, not Bioware. So no for shame for me. .

Nor can I find any such thing, having just gotten done searching through the errata and FAQs (while Fortune beat me to the posting).

that is exactly what i want. a game that's easy to learn, and hard to master.

Stop...

How is SR3 hard to learn? You use the rules in the Core book. Granted, they could be easier, and in certain cases *cough*decking*cough* should be, but...

Everything else. Every rule book, every supplemental rule, metamagic, adept power, tech, task, timeline event... Is by it's very nature "advanced."

You don't need MitS to use magic (and may generally be better off never reading it for your sanity's sake alone). Nor do you need R3, M&M, CC, the metamagics in T:AL, SOTA63/64, SURGE from YotC, etc. to learn to play SR.

It's only once you play long enough, and are willing to do so, that you might want to have 20 metamagical abilities, delta cyberware, firearms construction rules, host design rules, or even the advanced melee and martial arts rules in CC that SR did without for several years to no one's exact detriment.

Meanwhile, Synner... What has come over you? First you argue the CP is irrelevant for what seems like a player/GM problem, and second that Critias has asked you twice to see it from our perspective, and you don't seem to want to because you don't have to. All we know is this:

1. There is a fixed TN system where a skill test requires throwing more dice (which make Jérémie's argument irrelevant and contrary to his own position)

2. There is no ComP, HP, SP, CtrlP. No word on KP or the pools which, and DE I'm sorry if pool calculation is so complex, but... pools which are for advanced level games (as those pools are all introduced in supplements).

Given those two facts, and those two facts alone, the knowledge that there is no CP combined with your legal responsibilities and potential liabilities not to tell us fuck-all, has led to one insurmountable fact:

We are going to voice our opinions about what FanPro should do, and speculate on what they migth do.

Personally, I think making CP and advanced optional rule hurts SR. It is one of the defining mechanics of SR that makes it worth playing. If I wanted "simple" (IOW, "dumb") I'd have found another game to play by now. It's only been, what, a little over a decade?

We are also going to speculate on what FanPro might do and should do, because you are under a legal responsibility not to tell us what they will do. If anyone here is whining, it's those playtesters who bitch about their NDAs and then assert that we're wrong for offering speculation and conjecture, neither of which mean a damn thing when it comes to the actual game itself.

Now, then... I'm off. I'm being hypocritical posting here, but silence would have turned me purple.

you wouldn't like him when he's purple.

SR3 can be difficult to learn. i didn't have a problem learning it, you didn't, most of of the people on this board didn't--but we're not representative of the majority of people who've looked at SR. the majority, or at least a significant portion of the set of people who've looked at SR, have said "these are too complex" and put them down. i'm not of the opinion that we should make SR accessible to idiots, but i do think it should be more accessible to more gamers.

about trusting the playtesters/devs, here's the issue. yes, we trust your intentions for SR4--we, or at least i, believe that you want SR4 to be fun, interesting, and recognizable. what's less certain is the end result--whether or not your intentions will be translated into reality. FanPro has come through in the past, sure, and put out some great books. but this isn't just another book; this is... well, hell, it's a new edition, and by all accounts it's going to be massive change from what's come before. it's new, and things which are new are inherently easier to screw up.

I think the word difference you're looking for is complex versus obfuscated. The SR rules are inherently complex, in that they are based on several inherently different "core" mechanics woven together (Success Tests, Opposed Tests, Open Tests, "Other" Tests like those for initiative, rigger rules, decker rules, etc etc). The D&D tournament rules, as you describe them are obfuscated: they started out simple, but have had layer after layer added onto them to the point that the whole is complex, even if the core is simple.

(Edit): And honestly I don't have a problem slowing down the game with actual dice-rolling, so long as it's *fun* dice-rolling. Throwing 20 or more dice at a single test is fun for me, though I may be biased because I use those mini-d6s from the Star Wars TCG game; 20 dice is like one handfull.

Here's the problem that I'm having. People here are saying that Shadowrun is too complicated for people to easily assimilate, therefore it won't attract new players like D&D3 does. Am I right so far?

Well, WotC is releasing D&D for Dummies, indicating that their game is still too complicated for some of their targeted audience. It would appear that no matter how simplistic you make a system, there's going to be lots and lots of people who will find it "too complicated".

I'm another Shadowrun old-timer, who started playing in '89. I'd hate to see the game I love get oversimplified to appeal to a wider audience, because there's no lower limit to how oversimplified it could get. I'm in the "wait and see" camp; I'm going to give the game a fair try before I pass judgement. However, who can blame us for getting seriously nervous over this new direction?

Oh, BTW-- Synner, DE, is it within your NDAs to tell us who did the primary writing on SR3? There are some writers I have the utmost respect and faith for-- for example, if I knew Jay had done a lot of the writing, I'd feel a whole lot less nervous.

In general, it's preferable to edit new responses into a post rather than to double-, triple-, quadruple-, or quintuple-post.