Taken from the description of SR4:

Shadowrun, Fourth Edition®
Stock #: FPR 26000
The Shadows Have Evolved.

The year is 2070. The world is not only Awakened ­it’s wired. Cyber and bioware implants make your meat body better-than-flesh, while the wireless Matrix enhances your perceptions with hyper-real senses. Deals are made in steel and lead more often than gold or nuyen; success and failure live only a razor’s edge apart. Creatures of myth and legend walk the streets, while the arcane skills of spellslingers are in high demand. Above it all, monolithic megacorps bleed the world dry, sabotaging each other in covert cutthroat competition as they go to war over the bottom line.

You’re a shadowrunner, a street operative, scratching out a living on the mean sprawl streets. You may be human, elf, dwarf, ork or troll. From lethal street samurai to well-connected info brokers, spell-slinging mages or code-cracking hackers. No matter what, you’re a professional ­corporate pawn or “deniable asset,” you get the job done.

Shadowrun, Fourth Edition offers a completely new rules system that is simple, integrated and accessible. The state-of-the-art has also been advanced, introducing a new level of augmented reality, new gear, new magical discoveries, and more.

This hardcover rulebook contains all the rules gamemasters and players need to create characters and ongoing adventures set in the popular Shadowrun universe. Note that the Shadowrun, Fourth Edition will replace the Shadowrun, Third Edition rules set. Source material from previous editions will still be compatible.

Releasing August 2005

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Ok. I am just as hyped as the next person but it looks like yet again, Adepts will get no love from the developers.

In SR3, minus fluff powers they use for book filler, there are less than 5 pages worth of Adept information or game mechanics. This includes every publicated book in SR3. At one point in time, Otaku had more information and rules in the system.

Then myself and others begin developing a fanbook for Adepts, simply called the Adept Sourcebook. We get tons of hype generated and we even get into conversation with Rob and others about the book in hopes of actually getting NEW and IMPROVED content published. Yet, we get a proposal back from Fanpro that states we would have to drop almost our entire book and just submit some fluff and random powers. Needless to say I left the sourcebook project at that time and actually had quit reading these forums as well. Shortly after, SotA 2064 comes out and I see all the powers we worked on in the sourcebook minus the real guts of our material. Joy.

Then bored I find SR4 is in the works and I went bonkers trying to find any info I could, like most of you. Yet, while most of what I have seen intrigues me, the fact that Adepts aren't even hinted on the back cover eludes to the upcoming 10 or fewer pages that Adepts will receive in the Magic section of the book. Joy.

I can only pray someone developing or playtesting reads this. I know that Adepts might be pretty simplified already and its your aim to streamline the rules but you guys have to understand that a lot of your fans really enjoy playing Adepts and there is next to nothing about them.

Thanks

First of all, let me say that I think that you're reading far too much into a PR release that's almost all fluff.

However, it sounds to me like what you're asking for is basically more power creep, and that's really bad for the game.

Yes, every archetype should have different and interesting powers... But a lot of people who play adepts seem to think that adepts getting "enough love" means there should be a power to do anything else someone can do through mundane or cyber means - only better.

One of the few things I still look forward to with SR4 is the blank slate when the main book comes out, and the flood of unnecessary supplements hasn't arrived yet.

Superbum - For the record what you've posted is incorrect, misleading and misrepresenting what happened. The Adepters original proposal (for an Adept book) was clearly and flatly turned down. It implied revising the whole way Adepts worked and were powered from the ground up and did so with yet another unique mechanical framework - something FanPro wasn't apparently interested in. What was said at the time was that FanPro was thinking of including an Adept chapter in SOTA64 and they'd be interested in getting a proposal for that. The latter proposal went through mostly as pitched and, for better or worse, was approved over several other proposals I might add. Furthermore you participated in various discussions involving the second proposal after the first had been shot down.

But getting to your other point. I find it unlikely Adepts will get more space in SR4 than they have had in previous edition's base books given the amount of stuff that needs to be crammed into this one. How much stuff will appear in an eventual Magic book is still completely up in the air though.

I am far from a power gamer, friend, and I am not asking for more powers or abilities. I am actually upset over all the stupid powers they add to books in an effort to give Adepts "content".

I just find it dumb that you can explain the rules for an archetype in 1 short paragraph and consider it complete.

as much as i think adepts need more stuff, i think a list of powers about the same length as that in SR3 will work fine. i think the list should be changed, though; the SR3 list cubbyholes adepts into physical adepts; replacing some of the powers on that list with some of those from MitS and SotA:64 would be great.

So you don't want more powers or abilities, but you want more rules? Perverse and contrary.

Well, it'd be kind of silly to try and recubbyhole them. They've been let outta the box, for better or worse they're staying.

I'm fine with the actual quantity of powers and rules for adepts.

They could get more fluff and background, but that's nothing specific for adepts - that's something I'm thinking about all the magic traditions.

Right. Well, the clarification and game mechanics for what Adepts do are called "powers and abilities." I mean, it's a little misleading that way, I guess, but there you have it. The lists of their powers and abilities are how you define and clarify what they can do, using game mechanics.

Well, that was easy. Glad I could help. My work here is done.

I never had the impression that adepts have too less powers to chose from. They can be as powerful and versatile as a good street sam (comparisions with mages, deckers and riggers are a no-go). And since sota:2064 they can be good at all field, adding lot more fields to chose from. They're far away from becoming a one-trick-pony... ANd i heavyly doubt that this will change with 4th edition.

All i can say: more power to the mundanes!

superbum, maybe if you explained what the hell you mean by "mechanics, but not new powers", you wouldn't get so much flak. since, as it stands, adept mechanics are defined by a list of powers.

I think Seiler and I have to apologize for subjecting you to Alex and Gem

~J

Deckers are decent people?

I read the stuff from that "Adept sourcebook" project on the web... ugh. It was enormous... my eyes glazed over before I had even skimmed 1/3 of it. Sort of like reading the rules parts of rigger 3.

Theres the lists of vehicles, and some interesting fluff parts... but yea the way to enjoy the book is to just pretend you didn't see any pages containing the word "flux".

What I would hope to see in sr4 for adepts is a few more core book powers and to have some of the powers that suck such that almost nobody ever uses them (attribute boost, combat sense) pumped up such that they are actually good.

May not have been the same one? They tried to get it published and were rejected and somone posted a link to a html or pdf version of the what they had done maybe a year and a half ago. Had some sort of system with adeptness split up into various higher level powers that let you get access to lower level powers... Pillars? Ehh can't remember enough of it to describe.

Sounds similar, but I don't recall it ever being leaked in public. Do you still have a copy, or a link?

No, I think I linked to it from a post here on dumpshock from somebody upset about it being rejected. Quite possible that it was a different proposal though, it is reasonable to expect some of them may have been similar enough to sound the same in the extreemly hazy memory I have of the thing.

I thought it must have been the same one because they actually obviously did a significant amount of work (it was a whole book of material), most such projects produce far less than that, and I vaguely followed the whole thing from its inception so the timeframe seemed right to me but perhaps it's just coincidence.

They're not free rides, but they're not difficult to maintain unless your GM is going out of his or her way to target them, and plausibility be damned.

~J

Must have been then, Pillars was the most distinctive thing I could remember.

It might have made a good roleplaying game about adepts, but was just heading down the path of completely different rulesets for each class in shadowrun.

Yep, and I argued against it tooth-and-nail! I thought the concept was good, but in my opinion it wasn't a good idea for Shadowrun.

Unfortunately, for unrelated personal reasons, I had to drop out of the project just before Synner began collating the data for the eventual submission for SotA 64.

Yes, you guys are talking about the correct book. I think I might have some of the files on my computer still but I am unsure if the group signed anything after I left the group because they did use some of the material in SotA 2064 (almost that whole Adept chapter came from the project), so I am currently unsure of what of the project is considered Fanprp property (besides the obvious stuff).

Long time no see Superbum!

I think the Yahoo Group still exists, and that should have everything still in it. I know that the private forum(s) are still around, if you want to check them out again.

i like that basic concept, honestly. they way i'd do it is, i'd give each Way (since everybody's familiar with the concept) a list of 10-20 powers that they get, say, a 25% discount on. if you wanted to get really detailed, you could even put in a list of powers that are particularly antithetical to a given Way, which cost 25% more. that would make adepts similar to shamans--they're not restricted from doing anything, but they do have strong points and weak points.

while i agree that there are some fairly unclear and bass-ackwards rules concerning adepts, i'm not sure i see what you're talking about. what should adepts be defined by, if not their powers? to me, their powers are--or should be--what makes them special; everything else should be secondary to, and supportive of, those powers.