It'm on the fence with this blog post - apart from "amp up the cyberpunk" everything feels generic. And it bugs me that it says "players are heroes" when "player characters" are meant. But maybe I'm just old and grumpy.

And since when are Runners supposed to be Heroes?
Mercenaries, maybe, but usually professional Criminals for hire . . .
We. Shoot. People. In. The. Face. For. Fun. And. Profit.

Runners are Heroes in the "Runners are the focus of their story" sense, not in that they're white hats, superheroes saving the day, or any of that. Some characters might be White Hats. Some might be black. But in Shadowrun, most are grey hats, and that's fine.

Basically, while you might take jobs from someone much more powerful, at the end of the day the game you play and the story you're telling should be about you and your characters.

I prefer to view it as the Player's characters "are the Protagonists". There are very few HEROES in the world of Shadowrun.

I like most of what I read, only one thing could be questionable:

I hope they don't take it to the extreme, like GURPS, when you always can figure out exactly how much each and every bit of a character costs. No point difference between playing a Human with pointed ears, magaical aptitude and +1 DX, or playing an Elf.

Some things should just not be made to be compared.

What Price does Magic have?

Precisely. I think that's something that came across really well in the old novelizations, that didn't always get the push it needed in the game. Shadowrunners are people outside of society's controls... which makes them the focus point for stories because they have both the power and the motivation to change situations rather than accept the status quo. Shadowrun has drifted from that. It shouldn't be a game about corporate politics and whatever is going on in the metaplanes, it should be about telling the stories of the people you are playing first and foremost.

You may pay a price to learn the magic; Cost to the teacher or drain on your soul.
And a price to use the magic; Drain on your soul or use of resources (fetishes).

Blarg.

They're keeping the old mechanics, which I dislike. So they're neither making them more 'out of the way', nor more fun.

The Everything Has a Price sounds interesting, but I don't have a lot of faith in them pulling it off. The line about the "safety and security of a corporate job" tells me they're not playing the same game I am. I don't think the prices they see as appropriate are going to create serious choices for the characters.

Everything else there is pretty bland and predictable.

Maybe my friends will get me drunk and we'll play it as Exalted: Transhuman, but I don't think this is the game for me.

Slight to serious insanity, danger of magic loss from technology (which should include high-tech medicines/treatments, nano-tech, etc), danger of magic loss from injury, etc etc.

KARMA

I'd like to see a list of what is considered the 'strengths of 4a'.

It's only Exalted: Transhuman when you can walk up to Lofwyr, tell him he's a gigantic shitforbrains that wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, and survive the Force 80 Fireball he throws at you undamaged, by parrying it with your cyberspur.

You don't think that working for a corp is a safer choice than running the streets? Seriously?

Uh, I hope you're kidding here. If anything, SR3 characters are more powerful than SR4, and there's no indication that's changing.
And what transhumanism are we speaking about, exactly, in a game without digital upload or even decent cyborgs?

Attributes directly contributing to rolls and fixed TNs are the big ones. IMO, variable TNs have as a major problem the fact that there's no increase in difficulty between 6 and 7 (or 12 and 13 etc.), which means that sometimes an increase or decrease in difficulty isn't.
While the impact of modifiers is lessened, at least they always matter in some regard.
I also like that a fixed TN allows for rules about buying hits, which makes skilled characters behave much more consistently, though at a lesser level than would be achieved on average.

oops, double post

You might be a pawn, but you should still be the protagonist of your story. Hell, in real life we're all just cogs in various political/corporation machines, casting our votes, soaking up advertisements, paying our taxes, buying products and getting stuck working overtime -- but we're all our own main characters, right?

One danger of having a quarter of a century's worth of metaplot running around is that characters can feel like footnotes. There's also the simple fact that we, as writers, can't write about every PC ever, but we are in charge of NPCs. So there tends to be a real setting/NPC focus in published materials, because that's the only part of the game we have any control over (just like a GM mostly plans an adventure by thinking about environment and NPCs, because those are the parts he can plan for, the PCs aren't nearly so predictable).

It's a danger many of us writers are well aware of, even here in SR4A (not talking about any plans for SR5, here, I'm just a fan talking about the game, right now). We know it can happen, and that maybe it even has happened in the past...but we're wanting to make sure the focus stays on the player characters, whenever it can.

I try to go out of my way to keep that from happening in the adventures I write -- off the top of my head I can think of at least three times, in five adventures, that I do this in Elven Blood -- by occasionally outright saying "Yeah, this NPC contact they've got can probably handle things, but screw that. Your PCs are the stars of the show. Make sure the NPC doesn't do anything and let one of your players knife-fight this gang leader, instead, because that's way cooler," or "There's lots of NPCs in this last big climactic fight, but roll imaginary dice for most of them and make sure that it's your PCs who decide the overall outcome," or something like that.

History is about socio-political forces beyond the control of any one man, huge armies and logistics and weather patterns that have decided the fate of nations, or economic forces that crush everyone and steal hope. A good story is about William Wallace and his claymore kicking ass, or Robin Hood trying to do what's right, or a lone gunfighter standing up to a cattle baron. Shadowrun should be full of those good stories.

Well, i tend to differentiate between protagonist and "Hero". When i think of a hero, it mostly involves world-saving, neutral/chaotic good people, like Luke Skywalker, or a typical DnD group. I prefer grimdark fight for survival, and with a bit of luck, a painless death or maybe a way to retire in peace.

For a Season 4 SRM bit, I did this for the fight in the Ork Underground; I basically decided how many of the "enemy" gang were NOT involved with "friendly gang" opponents, and let the PCs deal with them (or not), as they chose, with only one or two NPCs on "their side" of the fight.

That's how I like to handle massed battles like that; sketch in a backdrop of two sides going at each otehr, then focus in on the PCs, who get to do most of the [b]pivotal[/b stuff ... the events on which the outcome of the battle swings, even if only subtly.


Well put.

*Cough*
The Modern, Fictional, Hero.

"Hero or heroine is sometimes used to simply describe the protagonist of a story, or the love interest, a usage which can conflict with the superhuman expectations of heroism."

Yeah, the modern hero according to Wikipedia:
"In modern movies, the hero is often simply an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances, who, despite the odds being stacked against him or her, typically prevails in the end."
"Examples of modern heroes are Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins, Luke Skywalker, or Superman"

Fatum, I know you get a bug up your butt when anyone says anything disparaging about SR4, but you are allowed to accept that some people just have a different taste in games and roll with it.



I'm not questioning that. My point is that it's a false choice. Very few PCs had a point where they said "well, Fuchi's accounting division is hiring. That would be really good. Or I can fill myself with illegal cyberware and hopefully make a 'big score'." For 90% of PCs, the possibility of working a desk job isn't a choice, either because they're part of the SINless, or because it would violate their basic values. That the author sees PCs choosing 'corporate desk job' as a reasonable possibility implies the author and I aren't seeing the same themes and values in the game, and really aren't playing the same game at all.



It's a question of gameplay type, not power levels. SR4 lacks any mechanical complexity. I approach the challenge, throw some dice, move on. The mechanical tactics side are consequently pretty thoughtless. Both SR4 and Exalted fall into my 'drunk or lazy' game bin. Not saying they're bad games, but they aren't engaging in the same way. (This of course is ignoring the storytelling aspect, which is a function of the GM, so can't be properly quantified here).

I will let you look up what transhumanism is on your own.

Yep.

I am sorry you feel that way. I just don't like when people are wrong on the internet.
And SR4, like any system, has a lot of weak points. You are just not referring to them in your critics.

SINlessness is curable now. You can get a SIN at will.
And it's you who are choosing your basic values.
Btw, not all corp jobs are desk ones. And there are bunches of ex-corp black ops team runners.

As you might imagine, when people hear Exalted, the first thing they're thinking is power level.

I see you still haven't read that Wireless world chapter, heh.

So, you prefer systems that do not require rolling dice, then?

I can only suggest you look up those dozens of threads discussing whether SR is transhumanist before making such categorical statements.

Fatum, watch your tone. You're coming across very aggressive here.

Where?

I hope you aren't saying Exalted isn't complex. My wife can't even look at the game engine because you need to make a flowchart too handle charms and combos. I stopped running it because of the hassle trying to keep the different exalted charm sets straight fo the NPCs thatt would be facing the PCs.

Or because it would be f*cking boring to roleplay that character.

Indeed... Well said.

Definitely well-said.

Not if the desk can fly and has lasers.

Man, have I got a story for you.

We had to extract this guy from an archology. Some minor A rating corp.

Anyway, because my character was both a drake and a mystic-adept, and the fact that these qualities are...shall we say, "rare," I saw it as an opportunity to get fucking hired by this company to be the "inside man."

I only vaguely recall details beyond that point--there was a bit of a job interview, I managed to be less-useful than originally expected to the team, etc. etc.

My character saw the corporate life as being actually viable and somewhat regretted the fact that he wasn't going to show up the next day (post-run), because hell, a steady paycheck would have been nice.

Since arguing semantics seems to be the done thing on these forums (he typed with a light hearted smirk), I would suggest that roleplaying that situation is boring, roleplaying that character thrown into a typical shadowrun type situation can be very interesting.

Not really, the first time something goes wrong and combat starts, you'll be making a new character shortly afterward.

That's what the 8 edge on the desk jockey is for.

Roleplaying the guy with a desk job might be boring (though there's at least one RPG I know that let you do this, and is pretty fun), but your character needs to have other reasons to exist than "because it would be fun for someone to be roleplaying me", unless you're willing to push disbelief suspension that far...

If "PC are heroes" lead to less Thorn Mercury Sue, and to less campaigns like the artifacts one, I'm all for it.

Playing a street doc/mechanic was fun.

And understanding what have been said totally false. I've seldom seen so many answers and assumptions that were off target (I can't express it better).

What he means (IMO) is not that the rules are easy or hard to comprehend or remember.

SR3: Mechanicaly complex: You have to think about how you'll spend your dice pool.
Rolemaster: Mechanically complex: Choose which action pass you wanna act and divide your skill between offense/defense.
Dying Earth: Mechanically complex (even if rules are very easy): you can reroll a number of times equal to pool that you have to refresh.

Earthdawn: somewhat complex (with fatigue and the right uses of talents)

Cthulhu: mechanically not complex (just roll -but roleplay-)
DD3.5: usually not complex (roll and use your skills without toughts-mage spell pool management might be tough considered as complex)


Technically, as far as I understand Nezumi, I would define a complex game as this:

"A game has complexity if, with the same characters, a player with a better strategical approach would perform better than another".

Complexity in games.

Not bothering with the link, but to finish the statement: Complexity in games kills games.

For you.
Others enjoy it.

Fixed that for you.

Complexity in video games is often a very, very good idea (consider the complexity difference between CoD and Dwarf Fortress, and which one is the "better game").

There are certain systems that it works for, but, IMO, SR is not one of them.

You want complexity in your games, go with a Palladium system.

You are absolutely correct. I do want some degree of complexity. And this is why I still play SR3 (and probably not SR5).

Another useless link about "Complexe"

I don't know... the Shadowrun game I'm in is just restarting, and the character I've got for it is an author. No magic. No cyberware. No combat skills. He has everything a perfectly normal person would have that has never had to fight to survive would have. The only thing special about him is his mad history and research skills. I'm more than willing to see how far he goes.

Oh, and for comparison - try Twist, from the original Shadowrun trilogy. He's a sarariman, with a datajack. When the book starts, he's got nothing when it comes to shadowrunning skills. So why not make a character like that to start things off? Not every character has to be 'from the streets' or be built to survive right from the get-go.

Twist would have the Latent Awakening quality though.

True, but until he got that quality, he really didn't have much to offer. In fact, even when he got the quality kickstarted, it isn't like he suddenly had a plethora of spells to call upon. The 'jump' between book 1 and book 2 glossed over that he was mostly useless to start with.

And yet, SR4A has this in spades. *shrug*

This I can get behind. I have many a character that is like this at the start. "The Suit" for one, and he is a Blast to play. Especially since he is now developing some survival skills in game.