I've always viewed th gangers, detectives, etc as the minor leages. The character you create at chargen has already gone through all of that and is ready to hit the big time.

If someone wants to play that 'low level' type campaign, that's their (and their gm's) call. Reduce the build points or what not and have at it.

I like playing that type of 'high level' character - it's one of the reasons I like SR. I've been roleplaying for a loong time and I'm damned tired of playing 1st level characters - been there, done that.

I'm not sure how this edge thing will pan out, but I hope it dosen't try to level the playing field between the Ganger and the Pro.

Just dumb. Like buying the magic attribute. I sure hope they've looked at every angle of that. It almost sounds like they're lowering the power of beginning level characters.

I have now concluded that Edge is a great idea. It makes me happy that I´m finaly impressed with something that is announced about SR4 . I have also seen reason in the attribute split. Damn, this was hard to swallow. But at closer inspection it looks good. Instead of me writing up a long rant, let´s just say I agree with the people who have made positive posts so far.

One request: if the game's "default setting" is being reduced to a more street-level campaign, I would really like the core book to provide at least guidelines on creating professional, experienced, teams.

The fact that you could play a pro "out of the box" was a major drawcard of SR3 to me and many of the other SR players I know. The fact that you started out as someone who could do cool things is fantastic.

It's like Exalted versus D&D. Once you've had phat, it's hard to go back. Playing a Level 1 Fighter (as I am at the moment) just feels horribly restrictive, weak, and boring.

Hopefully they go the other way and make cyberware cheaper and (to a certain degree) easier available. Please screw the ridicoulus high nuyen costs of alpha and betaware.

Remember: more power to the mundanes!

A few points

From a design standpoint it's much easier to have the base level be street (or a notch above) and have some simple rules for upgrading people to prime runner status than it is to assume all Shadowrunners are Prime Runners and then offer somewhat workable optional rules to simulate ganger level campaigns. The first scenario only requires giving more karma and extending the resource to karma table some. The second requires trying to figure out how the various archetypes and rulesets work with low level campaigns (thus not only do we have smaller build point pools but rules on how many technical skills you can have starting availablity changes etc).

Second from a purely rational standpoint it's always been frustrating to have starting characters with 1,000,000 nuyen or the equivalent magical training at the start of the career. While there are no doubt shadowrunners who likely came from background with SINs that might have access to that sort of cash for augments the normal background is poverty stricken SINless scum. For me that's meant that I've always assumed high resource characters came from a background in which they owe someone for that investment. Sure it's not currently within the rules but realistically where as a poor person without access to normal banking are you going to get that sort of nuyen. Most likely you are either a former member of a syndicate or you are some escapee from a corp cyberware trial or you are a member of some military or corp who has been put out of sanction. In the past that's always meant that I've required characters wanting high resources to have backgrounds that reflect flaws like day job, hunted, criminal record or lots of enemies.

Finally just because lots of Dumpshock people think that having a setting where gangers and rockers are sometimes the beginning shadowrunners is a stupid idea doesn't mean that they have to use those archetypes. Part of broadening the appeal is creating new options for running characters and games and I fail to see why giving an additional option that makes mundane noncybered characters more than window dressing a bad thing.

Starting SR at street level does not make sense at all for many archetypes.

A ganger razorboy is not a "starting level street sam", he's not a street sam at all. Same goes for a "rigger" with only enough resources for a basic VCR and a Ford Americar - he's a glorified cab driver.

It's possible to lower the power level - some - and still have characters recognizable as the iconic SR archetypes, but if you lower it all the way to street level, it's no longer even the same game.

No, but the street is where all these archetypes meet. It's where the ambitious ganger razorboy looking to rise through the ranks rubs shoulders with the washed-out war veteran-turned-street samurai. Where the rocker trying to gain street cred comes across the young mage who has run away from home.

At the root of the game has always been the street. Now, granted, not everyone has to play the game that way, but that was its original draw. People who fell through the cracks, shacking up in a doss in the Barrens eating soy from the tap or an occasional Aztechnology-made NukIt burger from the local Stuffer Shack. They don't plan to live that way for the rest of their lives though, which is why they are shadowrunners. But the street is what breeds them.

One thing I like about earlier versions of SR is that you can play people at different stages of their career. You can play at the street level if you want to; to get anything realistic, you probably have to use fewer points and use the build point system, and have a few house rules about what is kosher and what is not, but you can do it.

If you want to play a deadly, competent, high-tech team made up of former spec ops agents, master shamen, and the like, you can do that too by dumping a couple hundred karma on starting characters, or upping the number of build points.

If you want to play people who are a cut above street level, but still find themselves on it a lot, the normal starting characters work out pretty well.

Heck, you can even play grade schoolers and legendary badasses who make immortal elves nervous, and it works out reasonably well. There are a few glitches at those extremes, but overall, SR2/3 can competently handle a huge range in power levels. With a system like that, the developers don't need to decide, "Well, the core of SR is the street!" and tailor the game to that level. They provide the basic rules, provide inspiring stuff about how much fun it is to play a game at the street level, and let people create whatever the heck they want. And, if the mechanics are good, it'll work.

This kind of flexibility is something I really appreciate in a game system, and I very much hope that SR4 will continue the tradition.

I personally disagree with setting the base standard too low, but partly that's personal taste. I've always disliked low powered stuff overall -- I much perfer moderate to high power, although I do play some low-power with the right groups.

My main issue with setting it as a really low level: You DON'T get all the archetypes at that level. Even a barely out of training codemonkey doesn't belong on the street. There shouldn't be code-slingers etc in a really low powered campaign, because in a really low powered campaign, they don't make sense. They're a trademark of the moderate to high powered campaign -- when you're dealing with breaking into places that are wired up with electronic systems.

Yes, low powered campaigns offer other archetypes -- the nearly cyberless ganger, the rocker, whatever you want. But will those really be feasible when the power levels get up, or will they become one of the others? It's almost like the low powered campaign is a prologue.

The way it appears to me, personally, is that the Shadowrun trademark is the first 50 or so Karma in SR3 -- better than the street, but far less than the corp, etc -- and basing the rules for a street game means that straight out of the box, you aren't playing 'Shadowrun', you're still getting to Shadowrun. It's what I most dislike about D&D -- the real game, I think, starts somewhere around 5th level.. 1st - 4th are just setting up the characters and storyline.

Alrighty, first of all we've forgotten those pretty little Adepts. Those nice guys with martial arts, yanno they kick things and sometimes those things explode? Yeah, chances are they'd wipe the floor with most ordinary gangers.

But thats beside the point. Basically its fine to have a low-level campaign setting, but the game becomes less "shadowrunner" and more "ganger" oriented. Shadowrunners are in high demand because they're deniable assets, blather blather blather with enough skill and resources to be a limited threat. If they were no threat (read - A quartet of gangsters against even one Red Samurai ain't likely to win) they wouldn't get hired and would be reduced to simple thugs, and if they were too great a threat they probably wouldn't be shadowrunners, they'd be military or corporate property.

The idea of power-creep in general in the game is bad enough when you compare a gangster with maybe - MAYBE - a smartlinked assault rifle to a fully set, 1 million nuyen Street Sam. Now take that beginning character and put him against someone with betaware, a corp higher-up security technician? Pshh, please, its over before it starts. Sure the cyberware may have the same effect, but whereas street sam 1 mil may have Wired 3 at the cost of most of his essence (and thus ability to implant more junk), the betaboy may well have Wired 3 and half his body replaced, making him a walking tank. Gods themselves fear the Deltaware.

So the only sensible solution is to drop the cost of some stuff, and especially higher-level 'ware, by one degree or more. Make a normal, used cyberlimb a few thousand nuyen, tops. Make Boosted Reflexes of level 3 (or even 4, if you dare to climb that high with chemical treatment advances) less expensive.

Think of it this way - To make a "level-1" SR3E Street Sam, throwing fully one million into normal-grade cyberware, costs about 1 million Nuyen. He will be damn powerful, make no mistake. Now alphawarize him so he can carry 20% more 'ware and he costs twice that. Betawareize him to give him twice the gear for 50%.

If we've learned ANYTHING about military combat in the last eternity its that in a firefight, the team with four men is very likely to beat the team of one. Now, given that the betawareized samurai might just take down two of the level 1 samurais, but Mr. Beta is going to be overwhelmed. In game-mechanics, for every turn he gets he has four people firing at him. Its virtually impossible for him to win without an enormous edge in what his 'ware or his skills let him do. If Wired 3 normal gives 3d6+6 and wired 3 beta gives 3d6+6, they all go about the same time. Four men going at once = You die. Granted its likely the level-1's only have wired 2, but so you squeeze a shot or two off and maybe pop someone? You are greeted with a cooked-off grenade and about 30 bullets to pin you down in place.

So why should a corp invest in deltaware unless they can make the other stuff more cost-efficient and use deltaware ony in experimental cutting-edge stuff?

[Edit: Actually, to fully outfit a betaware street sam, you'd need twice the cyberware and thus could sink 8 million into him before he's in the same shape as the one-million-dollar-men. Just going by the SR3E guide itself and how much it costs to arrive at .01 essence.]

Street level. Hmm. Well, I personally loathe the idea. Not often I say that, but there you go.

Don't get me wrong, ganger campaigns have their place. I've played a couple, enjoyed them. But imho, they aren't Shadowrun. Not the core concept of Shadowrun.

A shadowrunner is supposed to be a professional criminal. He has the skills, the experience and the technological/magical edge to make it happen. Whether he be a modern day Robin Hood or John Travolta in Swordfish, that core remains true.

Street level means bugger all cyberware - you can't afford it. And you probably never will, given what most runs pay.

Street level means barely more than zero magic. It's hard enough rationalising a mage working the shadows in the first place, let alone at such a low level.

Street level means deckers and riggers - hackers - are, pardon my French, fucked. Those lads are probably the most cash-intensive of the iconic SR archetypes. No cash, no hacker.

And, you know, I wonder why people have such a hard time with the 1 million nuyen man idea. We aren't talking about someone who walked into a street doc, dumped a 1 million yen credstick on the table and said "Make me Steve Austin". He probably never had the cash at all. He'll have had this stuff put in piecemeal over his career, be it by employers (more likely for the bigger stuff like Wired Reflexes) or carefully saved up for to increase his edge (not his Edge - let's not get confused here ).

All my commentary, of course, isn't going to change a thing. If the devs want street level, they'll have street level. But for those who can get feedback to them, let's make sure we can still play professionals as well. Shadowrunners. It's what the game's about, after all.

street level doesn't necessarily mean no-cyberware gangers. it encompasses them, i guess, but that's not what street level centers around. street level centers around professional criminals who have to struggle to get by, who don't live in fancy high-rises, who don't always have the correct tool for the job on-hand. and, as DE said, street level is a starting point, not the whole campaign.

Personally, I think the words "professional" and "street level" don't belong in the same room, but that may just be me.

~J

why not? "professional" just means you're making your living by doing a certain thing. "street level" describes where the thing you do is taking place. how are these incompatible? where do professionals come from--are they all ex-corp/ex-mil badasses? the street is where SR takes place; it touches everybody. where does a professional get his gear? the street. where does a professional find jobs? the street, even if he never goes there himself. where does a professional get his rumors on what organized crime boss X is doing? the street.

I yanked out my old SR2 stuff (well I had a friend scan it and send it to me (now owe him some anime ) and I looked up the old priority system.

Priority Race Magic Att Skill Resource/Spell Points
A Meta Mage(human) 30 40 1,000,000/50
B Human Aspect(hum)/Mage(meta) 24 30 400,000/35
C Human Aspect(Metahuman) 20 24 90,000/25
D Human Mundane 17 20 5,000/15
E Human Mundane 15 17 500/5


It really was different back then wasn't it. If you were a metahuman mage, you were royally hurting from losing your top two priorities. Also the money system was a really sharp curve (and mages spell points were based on their resources too). However, this system did allow for mundane people a lot more (one of the street sams in the Street Sam Cataloge had no cyber what-so-ever and was completely viable). As everyone was a bit weaker than in SR3, the none cybered mundane had a chance to get the karma to stay viable as everyone had a chance to keep up a bit with the others.

SR3 tried to make things more equal. Race was lowered, resources increased, spell points became standard no matter your resources, skills went up and active and knowledge were seperated. So everyone is now more powerful but on the same degree of skill right? Not really

One thing I've heard around here is that mages are too powerful right now with their magic 6 and such a high number of spell points. Also making a mundane human is really hard as they'll either have skills overflowing, or attributes almost maxed, or resources to burn and nothing to really spend it on but massive amounts of equipment. While that might be fun for some, I found it frustrating when I tried to make one yesterday as it kept breaking any character idea I had .

If you look at the archetypes, you'd also be surprised. Yes the street sam is fully cromed, but not a spec of alpha wear and not loaded with as many toys as the SR3 one. The ganger while having some small cyber was still viable to play. The merc while having little in the way of cyber still had a huge edge (LMG vs any one of the others would have hurt royally). The mages were weaker, especially in the spell catagory but still viable. Oh and don't forget the mundane Detective who was at the time something viable.

So these people aren't street level like everyone is afraid SR4 will be and they aren't the major leagues of the city like in SR3. They're runners who have a ways to go to get to the big leagues but they can still do their job well enough and they have a lot of room to grow. I remember a player in my SR2 game who was so estatic to finally get access to alpha wired that we had to call a 20 minute break while he did his little dance and burned up his energy (that and his gf forbad him from drinking any caffine for the rest of the night ). I seriously doubt he'd have been so happy at his success to go from Alpha to Beta.

As for street level runners not being able to take on Red Samurai, yeah that's a good conclusion, a Red would make mince meat of them. However to say that they can't do shadowruns and are nothing but a bunch of thugs is pretty unimaginative. A low level runner would be hitting lower security targets (no arc runs here, but against the shell companies of the AA and AAAs and none critical A corps they'd be fine), trying to save enough to get the upgrades or find a backer willing to front them the money. Likewise a lower powered decker would be hitting Green systems and gaining skill, not cutting his teeth on Red systems and a rigger would have some simple drones that fell off the back of a truck not a nice shiney new Steel Lynx. The SR2 characters weren't up to tangling with the Reds either, but they could hit some Renraku subsidiaries. SR3 however lets you start ready or almost ready to take on the core corps main bases from the get go. They're just one step away from being a prime runner and that doesn't leave much room to advance in my opinion.

I don't know really. Just the more I think about it, the more I miss the old SR2 characters who had so much that they had to do and so many challenges they had to face. To me, that wasn't about making a runner who had everything he needed and was ready to go bloody a AAA's nose, it was about improvising with what we had and working to make it to the big leagues. So I think if they make a system that starts street but has rules included to go up higher, then they'd be able to satisfy people who love starting out in the big leagues as well as people like me who like to earn our spot in rather than have it handed to us on a platter

As for rules, I'd still have prefered a revamp, but if they can make it flexible enough to let all of us play the level of experience that we want, then I think they should get a major pat on the back. As for me, I think I'm going to go back and revamp a few things in SR2 just in case

Sorry for the rant, just tossing my thoughts out on the current Street-High level debates.

I never liked the SR3 archetypes much myself, but I have built some pretty interesting (to me) SR3 characters with the base rules.

However, I don't think the SR3 archetypes are ready to bloody a AAA's nose. I don't think they're even ready to bloody one Tir Ghost's nose, or one Renraku Red Samurai's nose. And it's not like those guys are the best of the best--they're just some of the best that you can have whole armies of. Compared to characters with five years of experience and maybe fifty runs and hundreds of karma under their belts, they're small fry.

But I think they are a good bit above a real ganger, or at least more so than the SR2 archetypes.

In all the time i'm playing sr2 and sr3 i never had the problem to give the characters a challenge - with "normal" opponents. Even a bunch of average guards (all attributes and skills on 3) can be difficult to overcome, if played with tactics, using cover and having smgs or assault rifles.

The sr3 chars are a bit more powerful than those back in sr2, but not so much i ever had to worry about challenging them. Even the 300-karma-mage had some hard times

So it depends on your gm if those bloody mighty sr4 chars (and we don't even know much about the creation system used then...) might face a challenge.

Hmmmm.... It seems my rant was taken as an argument against SR3 rather than a rant on my feelings

Actually I don't have anything against the character creation system in SR3. I know you can create some really cool characters. My point was that in SR3, the characters are going to have access to a larger spell selection/ equipment/ cyberware and as a result going to be more well prepared and well rounded than an SR2 character. This has some good sides to it and some bad sides depending on each person.

The rest of my rant was just my feelings on the good and bad sides. Grinder is right, you can give a bunch of players a challenge with normal street cops or sec guards no matter if you use SR2, SR3, or (presumably) SR4. The challenges I'm refering to is a bit more on the role playing side of things and as a result is harder to define. I'll do my best to elaborate though.

My feelings on this was that while you can make some cool characters (both well thought out and with a really colorful personality) in SR3, I feel that by doing that you miss out some of the oportunities that having a more flawed SR2 character has.

One area where I feel the missing out is in the aquisition of equipment. As I said one of my friends actually did a dance when he finally had the chance to go under the knife to get Alpha Wired Reflexes after finding a corp sponsor through some very hard roleplaying. To him getting those reflexes was worth the price the corp asked in services and the loss of all soda privilages for the next six hours by his girlfriend for the dance he did. If a runner starts with alpha wired, then they don't get the chance to take such a big upgrade in equipment besides maybe Deltaware. The same goes for drone/guns and what not with Avaliability set at 8.

The challenge is another area. Ellery caught me over exagerating a bit. Granted a new SR3 runner isn't going to be able to go toe to toe with the Reds, nor are they going to bloody the nose of a AAA. However with a more rounded character, they are able to do much more than a limited character. That means they can hit important corp facilities (not say get to the top of the main Ares building in Seattle, but maybe the middle management if they're smart). While I know that makes it funner for many people, my feelings and that of my group was that those types of challenges got stale as they always had skills (or equipment) to fall back on when things went awry. While the SR2 characters didn't have those skills to fall back on at first making it feel a lot more by the skin of your teeth, something that got great excitement and some really loud laughs.

The last thing and I think most important was the feeling of belong of the characters. I don't know why really, but my players bonded with their SR2 characters more than the SR3 ones. It's been 3 years since we've played (me being in japan sort of makes it hard to get together ) and when I talk about those games the names that come up are always SR2 ones, Papa Shanga, Dirg, Knight. My gut feeling to this is that they bonded to the flaws in skills and the personality traits that were created on the fly because of them (I will never forget the big tough male orc street sam standing on a chair screaming like a little girl as a spider crawls past ). Plus they got to watch their characters grow a lot more substantially than in the SR3 campaign.

Like I said, all of this is my feelings and should be taken as only that. My point is that there are good things and bad things to the different power levels and that I truly hope that the main rule book has a way for us all to play at the level that the GMs and groups feel would be best for them and that no one game level is the best.

Yeah I agree with you there. Then again this was all years ago and I didn't really realize what had caused things to go downhill completely until this past week while reading all the SR4 debates. I just gobbled up SR3 when it came out, saw all of the improvements and completely missed the changes that the beginning characters feel different. If anything all these debates have helped me understand why I enjoy Shadowrun and why I haven't lost interest after 13 years.

It's sort of sad I found out so late though, my group (should we ever game together again) has completely blackballed ever using SR3 again so it's either SR2 or SR4

Hasagwan, believe it or not, I only today noticed what you said actually applies. Maybe it' because I haven't made an entirely new character in ages, maybe it's just that I never bothered with the archetypes in SR3, I dunno.

My rigger started out as almost completely by-the-book Rigger archetype (no eyes, but a chipjack and that knowsoft thingie instead). Just checking up on her again after what - 12 years? - made me realise just how much these archetypes still had to progress, and how much better equipped the SR3 archetypes are "born".

This kinda lowered the fun in playing indeed. SR2's archetypes could hndle themselves, but still had a way to go to become prime runners. SR3's practically were there already.

As i said: you can limit the things available at chargen - even back to make a pure sr2-character. ok, the sr3-made char has more knowledge skills, but hey, how important are they

I mean, just feel free to adjust char gen as it fits you, your gaming group and your gaming style. When you want sr2-feeling at chargen: use it Use the best of both versions and i guess you'll be fine. Throw in the things you like from sr4 (if possbile) and you have your paradise

I come back from a few weeks in the Welsh mountainsides and I see that attributes are being shuffled. Okay by me, but WTF, no adjustment to BOD.

Intelligence doesn't really need to be split between intuition and logic, INT represents the ability to reach a conclusion, RP whether it was logic or intuition.

Quickness really does need some work as it is supposed to encompass agility (not failing over), reaction (avoiding the chair that fell in the way), and dexterity/co-ordination. Speed on the other hand should really be farmed out to Strength. I've seen sprinters and, crikey, they have A LOT of muscle development.

I've always thought a good yard-stick for a system's attribute scheme is the ability to map oneself's attributes into the game, but to have one stat that represents Health, Size, Fitness, and Pain Tolerance is horrendous.

I am the size of an ork and have walked and fought with fractured bones, yet I get sniffles much more than my partner and struggle to run around a sports track at any great speed, but can carry 30kgs of kit for 8 hours over mountainous terrain if I am walking. So my BOD is impossible to calculate, 2 for health, 4 for size, 1 for athletics, 6 for damage checks; basically all over the place.

If I was juggling with attributes and wanting to maintain portability from SR3, it would probably be something like this.

Strength = Power&Speed
Quickness = Agility&Reaction
Body = Endurance&Tolerance
Intelligence = Solving&Learning
Willpower = Focus&Drive
Charisma = Personality&Appearance

Give PCs twice the allocation of points for attributes (or halve the cost) in 4 than 3 and when you want to 'port you favorite PC over you double then split the original stat up over the 2 new ones in any ratio that fits the PC concept.

Maybe you don't like it, but forgodsake sort out BOD because its currently tut and CHA just doesn't function correctly for orks and trolls.

The problem with dividing all the attributes is that design wise it becomes a bitch to deal with all of them and make them equally useful balance wise.

Looking at a suggestion to split body into 2 attributes what do you do to make teach one as relevant for the game as quickness? Either you have to come up with a bunch of body linked active skills or they become dump stats.

Ignoring Magic, Edge, Essence and Init for a second as they are generally special case scenarios lets look at the 4 physical and 4 mental attributes.

Body
Active Skills linked: Athletics and the reasonable dubious active skills like diving and parachuting.
Game system effects: Controls damage resistance tests!

Quickness
Active Skills Links: Uhh just about every ranged combat skill but heavy weapons and gunnery
Game System Effects: Maybe something like dodge tests?

Reaction
Active Skills: Vehicle Skills
Game System effect: Likely initiative and surprise

Strength
Active Skills: Melee Skills plus heavy weapons (although a good case could be made for linking heavy weapons to a different skill)
Game System effect: Encumberance and Melee Damage

Charisma
Active Skills: Social Skills although a good case could be made for allowing characters to link intimidation to body or strength
Game System Effect: Uhh unknown

Intuition
Active Skills: Unknown but a case could be made for some of the current int skill being moved over to here
Game System Effect: Initiative and Perception tests

Logic
Active Skills: Technical Skills galore Knowledge Skills
Game System Effect: They need more on top of the linked skills?

Willpower
Active Skills: A case could be made for survival and maybe negotiation
Game System Effect: Drain tests, spell resistance etc maybe a case could be made for resisting the effects of wound penalties

If you divide attributes like body, strength etc more they are significantly less valuable than quickness and reaction etc. Now you can rebalance them by having quickness etc cost more to purchase at any given level but that becomes pretty nightmarish.

Calm down

Melee skills could be linked to Quickness for skill tests and Strength for Damage Codes. We used to house rule it like that but switched back out of forgetfullness and laziness.

I disagree. Sixteen rounds of suppressive fire a pass can make sure that when the time comes to reload, no one's going to be bothering you while you do.

Doubly so if there's someone else who can open up during the periods you don't have covered.