Complexity is not automatically bad, any more than Simplicity is automatically good. Either one, taken to excess, is detrimental.

No, but given that SR4.5 is too complicated as is, and one of the design goals for Sr5 is to simplify the system, I'd say it's not suited for our purposes.

SR4A is too complicated? Really? Not seeing it, personally. *shrug*

Well, let's focus on character generation, because that's when you build traditions. Creating a character is slow and tedious, and improving it is a design goal of SR5. As it stands, allocating 400 bp takes a long time and is very fiddly. Karmagen takes even longer and is fiddlier.

In either case, building a tradition adds to that time. Right now, it doesn't take too long, because there's fewer options to deal with. However, expanding this means it'll become more complicated and take even longer. I think this is entirely the wrong step for SR5 to take.

Nor am I.

Someone wants complicated ... they need to look at SR1, which was explicitly written to not be new-player friendly. Staging rules, especially ... nowadays, a pistol just has a damage value of "4" or "5", etc. Back in SR1, you could have one with "4M3" and another with "6L2". And that's just weapon damage codes.

...um, no it isn't.

Just now I made a NPC using the BP system and the standard 400 BP count. At most, it took me an hour to make this character.

Not sure how character creation goes down at your table, but it certainly doesn't take THAT long to make a character (especially if you have a clear idea of what kind of character you want to make).

Even without using HeroLab, I could probably assemble a good, playable character in under 30 minutes using BPgen.

His equipment list would likely take me another 30-60 mintues, but that's because (a) I'm the kind of player who has 3+ page equipment lists in D&D, and (b) I really, really, really like the Weapon and Vehicle customisation rules in Arsenal.

Yeah, the only thing that I could see taking a ridiculous amount of time on deciding is the equipment. (and from what I understand, SR has always been known for the ridiculous amount of gear you could get, not that I can blame people)

But in terms of deciding attributes and skills? If you have a good grasp on what kind of character you want to make, you should be fine. There's the whole issue of lowering your attributes and/or skills you have so you don't creep into negative BP, but other than that there aren't any glaring issues abound.

Yeah, character generation does not take that long...usually. Now sometimes in our group we'll have people that take two or three hours, but generally that's starting one character, getting halfway through and deciding against the character idea (and repeating this a couple times). "Flip flopping" on character ideas is mainly what slows people down.

I don't know of anyone who spent any significant amount of time choosing a tradition in SR2/3 (beyond defining terms like "sorcery" and "manipulation"). Honestly, looking at SR4's complexity, I don't see any time advantage.

Like Pax, the main reason that I personally take a while is that I keep thinking of little "trinket" gear that I want (I would be seriously PISSED OFF if I couldn't choose all that little trinket gear).

The fastest I've ever seen is a character completed in an hour and a half. My characters have been know to take days. But even an hour is too long, minus gear lists it takes under 15 minutes to create characters in comparable systems. Even including gear, it usually doesn't take 30 minutes.

The biggest problem is fiddliness. If you forget something important, you might have neutered your character, so you have to go back and fiddle to fix it. For example, many new players forget to get essential things, like commlinks, fake SINs, and Contacts.


Actually, no. SR1 was lighter on gear than most games of the day. Starting around SR2-3 is when gear porn accumulation started to happen.

That's .... that's actually sad. Days? For the numbers??


New players unfamiliar with the game don't count, here. I've never ever left a truly new player on their own when it comes to making a character. Do you ...?!?



Street Samurai Catalog, Shadowbeat, Shadowtech, Riggers' Black Book. All first-edition books. All chock full of "gear porn".

No, which is part of the problem. For my current game, I built all the characters, which took us two weeks.

The original SSC only added a few items, one per page in fact. Shadowtech added even less, and Shadowbeat hardly had any at all.

Compare this to Arsenal and Augmentation, each of which added hundreds of new items to the game.

Considering your claim that it take days for you to make a character .... has it ever occurred to you, that the problem is ... you ...? That maybe you just aren't particularly adept with the SR4 rules?

I mean, there are systems out there that I find inexplicably time-consuming to use, compared to the people around me. It can take me 3, 4, 5 times as long to make a character in them, than anyone else at the table. Or at least it could, back when I was in a gamign club and got to play multiple systems all the time.


You know what? I'm going to call you on that. You see, I just bought PDF copies of SSC and ShadowTech from BattleShop.

I count seventy-six items in SSC. SEVENTY SIX. Running the gamut fro melee weapons, through guns, and cybernetics, and even a couple vehicles. Since when is that "a few items" ...?

Then there's Shadowtech ... which introduced Bioware to the Shadowrun universe. ST lists 22 augments, for that category alone. Then there's 22 Cybernetic augmetns (some of which are actually more than one item - "bone lacing" I've counted as only one, but we both know there's ALWAYS been Plastic, Aluminum, and Titanium versions of that). And that doesn't even count the Genetech section, or the Chemistry section.

...

Yes. Yes, i am in fact willing to spend money to prove someone wrong. (Besides, there's the nostalgia value of those two books ...)

It should take days to make a character - if you are putting thought into it anyway.

There's a difference between spending days ont he concept, the backstory, the descriptives, the personality, etc. ........ and the pure numbers. Which was the only part of the process we were discussing here - because it's the only part of the process affected in the slightest by the BPgen or KarmaGen rules.

Why bother with that much "thought"? It'll just be wasted effort in the long run. Big, novel length backgrounds are just a waste of time and energy, as 9 times out of 10 it won't even get read by anyone but the writer, let alone come up in the game with any goals stemming from it being able to be worked toward.

The problem is the fiddliness. I keep backtracking to make sure I covered everything.

Uh-huh. Now, let's compare that to Arsenal and Augmentation, respectively.

Arsenal introduces over 110 new weapons in one chapter. That's just weapons-- I'm not including exotic weapons or weapon accessories yet. If you add those, that's another 73 items. Over 180 new items in one chapter.

Heading over to the next chapter, we open with over 30 armor lines. That's lines, not individual pieces. All total, the Running Gear section introduces over 170 new items.

Skimming Augmentation, the cyberware chapter alone introduces about 80 new items. That doesn't include all the mods or accessories, just new items.

I could go on, but what's the point? One chapter of Arsenal introduces more items than the entire Sr1 splatbook line.

Numbers should reflect the character. Granted, some of my characters are min/maxed to hell and back, optimized for every last BP/karma. But then again, that's what the system rewards.

How many of them are new ...?

Meaning, how many of them are not merely updates of stuff that was part of prior editions?

The same goes for everything else from Arsenal, and everything from Augmentation too.

Whereas, let me tell you ... SSC was 100% new, never-before-seen material.

Too bad it does it with a fraction (small one at that) of the style.

And 76 items isn't what I'd consider 'a few' items. If you had originally 'a few compared to Arsenal', you'd have had something there, maybe.

You're overthinking it if you have to take that long to plan out your character.

And there's always room DURING the campaign to think about and develop your characters' backstory and motivations. Especially if its the kind of thing that won't be directly addressed until much later in the campaign.

Not to mention there are more than enough examples of a characters' backstory and motivation not being established at the beginning. (did we learn about James Bonds' backstory in Dr No from 1962? No, we didn't get to it until Skyfall in 2012. Did we learn about Indiana Jones' deal in Raiders of the Lost Arc? No, it wasn't until Last Crusade that we ever learned where he got all of his trademarks that make him Indy)

In my current group, here's what we got so far, in terms of the basics of characters:

-the elf face, a gunslinger, former Lone Star cop, family was murdered, making him a drunkard
-dryad sniper, former spec-ops, infiltrator
-human Shinto priestess, travelling the world to complete training
-coyote AI, who has no recollection of who she his
-human ganger, has some of the craziest bioware out there
-haruman hacker, also loves burning things and blowing sh*t up

And that's how we started the game.

It wasn't until later that we decided that the sniper was part of the many strike teams that were instrumental in taking down the Ghost Cartels. Or that later the Shinto miko actually is a Yakuza brat, and a former wagemage of MCT. Or that the reason the face's family was murdered was because he stumbled across a conspiracy during his investigations of the Tempo Wars, and that his family's death was to ensure his silence. And even know, I STILL don't know what that conspiracy could be!

So really, you should start with broad strokes when thinking up the concept to your character. And specify later during the game about their backstory. Otherwise, you have no one to blame but yourself if you take too long thinking up a super-special-awesome backstory for your character.

Well, since it was a new system, all the mechanics were totally new.


A few compared to SR4.5. My point was that gear porn accumulation didn't start with SR1, it really took off later.

This leads nowhere. Will be unlocked when more news regarding SR5 are coming in.

What? No more speculation? After we've learned that the rules largely stay the same, with an addition of gear limits and the new skill cap of 12? That there will be a whole new rigger chapter? Or that Edge will be even more important?

Well, it's in that other ten page thread

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=38433

3 pages for me :ь
Thread multiplication is appalling, but thanks for the link.

Yes, but this thread was locked - AFAIK, today marks the first day it's been unlocked. Look at the post immediately above yours today - by Grinder, on 26 January, closing this thread down.

So at the time, I really had no other choice, than to open a new thread.

Yeah, I know it was locked; but when I read the posts referenced and went to dumpshock to discuss them, it was unlocked already, so I had no way to know when it was.

I was only explaining why I made the other thread, Fatum. Not saying you were wrong for bringing it up in this one.

New Shadowrun beginner box.

Woohoo! Finally, now I haz the tools to draw in more victims- I MEAN players into the wonderful world that is Shadowrun!!

(and hopefully a simpler way to explain the canon too, considering that's a chore in of itself)

I'd be very happy if the setting book were available separately, perhaps as a PDF, that I can then hand out to new players as needed.

Well, if Runner's Toolkit was any indication, I would hope so.

(since apparently just handing my players the Core rulebook and Sixth World Almanac creates even more confused players...)

http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2013/02/p...uctory-box-set/

I think if I can put together the cash, I will be picking this up. But that is just me liking shiny stuff for the most part. Honestly I have never found item cards or pre-generated character sheets to be used in games I run outside of convention games / one-shot adventures. Maybe it will be good for getting new players/groups into the game but it doesnt strike me as a product for established groups to pick up. Things like maps I can see being of limited use depending on who is using them/what form they take. It's just I know in my group when a map is required I either have a printed-out floorplan or a quick sketch, as maps are far more suited to the small-scale tactical combat seen in d20 games than the complete-building infiltrations that can feature in shadowrn.
Then again, that is just me and the way my table works. After all, this IS an introductory box and is not intended for established groups, and I imagine having information easily on hand could be very helpful planning/running a first game

I find item cards useful, as my group gets confused by things like "Revolver", "Automatic Pistol", "Semi-Automatic Rifle", and "IT'S A FRAGGING FIREARM, OK???"

I pity you for having to GM.
I don't get how Americans/Canadians can get confused by things like that especially o.O

Most important thing for me in there?
MAPS!
Things that should have been in BOGOTA!

Urban Canadians don't know much about firearms unless they're veterans, or they hunt. I grew up in Rural Canada, so I know a fair bit about rifles and shotguns at least, and know the rest from being a gun nut.

To tell you about how bad things can get, I can scare people just by being able to tell the difference between a Colt M1911A1 and a Glock of any model. *Rolls Eyes*

lol wow. Really freak them out. Tell them I just ordered a Mossberg 590A1 shotgun through the mail, with no checks of any sort. Just sent a money order and it's being delivered in a few days. Guy even threw in 100 free shells ((Shipping in a separate box.)). The 590A1 is the Shotgun the military uses. You can even mount a boyenete on it. LOL

Can't be that bad. I mean, I live in Ireland and I know a grand total of 3 people who have EVER fired a real firearm, and 2 were in the army reserve while the other is a clay pigeon sportsman. We have a LOT of gun control laws. The only legal civilian firearms are sporting shotguns and similar longarms (mostly olympic-spec guns for use in said sports), while pistols and anything like a SemiAutomatic firing mechanism are completely illegal for anyone outside army/police, and even the majority of the police are not allowed to carry firearms. Yet I have rarely if ever encountered an absolute dearth of knowledge about firearms and how they work, with a lot of the people I know having a scarily extensive theoretical (if not practical due to lack of access to firearms) knowledge. The biggest challenge I have ever encountered is coming to terms with the fact that it can even be conceivable to own a burst-fire/fully-automatic weapon legally (even in real life!). We just don't have a legal gun culture at all to base such knowledge on. What "gun culture" exists is either sport-shooting like clay pigeon, farmers having a shotgun (rarer than many people think) or illegal gun use amongst criminals.

EDIT: Pepsi Jedi, thats exactly the kind of thing that I personally STILL have trouble believing is possible, despite having gone and researched to a degree how easy it can be to acquire a firearm in the US

It was the first time I'd used an online source to buy a firearm. To be honest, it was a little surprisingly easy to me too. I usually buy my guns from dealers. This time though, 13 stores didn't have the one I was looking for so I went online. The only stipulation was that the gun had to be delivered to an FFL holder. One here charges $25. So.... other than that, lol yeah. Kinda shockingly easy.

Not that it's any harder in the store. You can walk into walmart and buy a shotgun, and the only thing you need is ID to say you're 18 and the money on the counter.

...somewhat back on topic...

The booklet having a condensed version of describing the setting of SR alone is enough to be a buy. You have no idea how frustrating it is to for me (as GM) to try to explain to players to the setting when they don't want to have to read through the blurbs in the Core rulebook or read through the Sixth World Almanac, especially when RL commitments prevent them from reading through the whole thing.

And more tools to induct meatpuppets- er, new players into Shadowrun!

I agree with that. That setting book will be awesome for the recruitment of new players or catching up old players. As long as it's done well. If it's too condensed or leaves out too much, it could be the inverse. If it sucks it could be what 'breaks the box'.

Not gonna lie and front.. the collector in me says I'll buy it either way... but one side, I'll be enormously happy about it. The other, a bit bitter... but I'll buy it either way.

We've got some cool stuff in the pipeline right now. It's not all as purely practical as this boxed set (which should really be something awesome, especially for new players)...but lately there's not a day that goes by I don't get some email about an upcoming project, and get a stupid grin on my face because I think it's gonna be really neat when it's finished.

Damn. I wish I knew you were shopping for one, I would've cut you a deal. I've got one, and Mrs. Crit just can't use it (her tiny little t-rex arms are too short), I don't have a local range nearby that will let us shoot it (so I've never even been able to pattern the thing)...so truth be told, I'm looking to ditch it. It's only really useful as a home defense weapon, and it's useless to me as a home defense weapon right now (since half my home can't use it, and I can't count on it, having never practiced with it, which means in an emergency I'd still grab something else). It's literally dead weight grabbing dust in my closet.

So, yeah. I wish there could've been some Shadowrun geek hook-up telepathy going on, I would've been happy to get it to someone who can use the thing. Hopefully you got a decent price on it, at least.

Dumpshock's Gun Trade Forum?

...

Dumpshock's Crime Mall?

Somehow I forgot to factor in that "Heres what the 6th world is like booklet" earlier. yeah, that would be a bloody lifesaver when inducting new players. I have only ever had 2 players who had an active interest in reading the setting material, the rest never even read a single shadowtalk post in one of the rulebooks on their own iniatiative. It was always straight to the game information sections.

And is it truly a Crime Mall if its legal? (I have no idea what laws on second-hand gun trades are like)

Yes, I've been wanting "Here's Shadowrun in a Booklet", as my speech tends to go over a lot of people's heads despite being entertaining. I start out with, "So, 2012, a dragon wakes up on Mt. Fuji and sees a bullet train and thinks, 'F***er thinks it's fast, huh?', and suddenly you have freaked out Japanese wageslaves just trying to get to work that need new pants."

It'd be Dumpshocky, and that's all that matters.

I might be the odd one out, while I would adore a booklet to help bring in new people, I devour all the lore and metaplotty stuff I can get. People that have never read up on the setting confuse me. I always wonder if they're just kinda skimming along the surface enjoying the pretty colors, while there's sharks and whales and stuff below them exploring the depths.

The 6th World Almanac was awesome for me. I love books like that. I know it's guns and cyber, and cars and spells that 'sell sell sell', but it's the fluff and the deep setting of Shadowrun that draws me in. I'm looking forward to the next few books in the pipeline and even the new edition this summer because it'll have that sort of fluff.