What I like the most about Patrick's passionate defense of SR4 is that his taste in RPG seem similar to mine. This is making me fairly optmistic I will like SR4.

Or Plaply woulda come to Qui-Gon; "Since the council is not willing to allow him to train, I'd be happy to take the poor boy in...." And we woulda had a Lord Vader trained from the age of 9.

Opps - derailment - But I'm a sucker for Star Wars what ifs!

Or maybe we can be skeptical as Hell and so mistrusting of SR4 that any goodness will seem extra good.

Nah.... That's just more crazy talk from the poo-flinging monkey.

Or maybe it's because every time I get my hopes up about anything related to SR, they're crushed like a bug. Maybe that's why dozens of submissions are in landfills across the country and on two continents.

Nah. CD's a crazy beligerent asshole in his "electronic ivory tower."

That never works. When you go into something fully expecting to hate it, you will hate it. It's basic psychology. Note that this is opposed to going into something as a skeptic or not really caring either way.

Its true of my movie-going experiences, that's for sure.

Again, that's because you went in as a skeptic or not really caring about the movie. As opposed to actively hating it, which is how you clearly seem to feel about what's been revealed about SR4 so far. EDIT: And yes, you did say skeptical. But the context of your posts indicate that you've already made your decision.

No, plenty were movies I had to be dragged to see. I hated the very idea of them being put onto celluloid.

I don't know how many times I have to say it before people listen, but my feelings about SR4 are not those of hate.

They are of mistrust, and doubt. How can I hate something I know nothing about?

Well, technically you know "something" about SR4. Enough to warrant your current reaction. Right?

I'll give you that. I know enough to know to react that way.

But I can't understand, and it annoys the piss out of me, how people think I hate it when I've said that I don't umpteen times already in the last week alone.

not to steal CD's thunder, but Funk? i went into SR4 loving it. look through the threads--way back at the beginning, me, Critias, Rask, and a few others were defending SR4 against all the naysayers. now, we're among its biggest detractors. nobody slipped anti-SR4 in my coffee. i don't even drink coffee. i dislike SR4 because of what i've seen, and what i know of the system.

I really don't like the new dice mechanic as its been described. At all. Same goes for the Edge attribute and several other things. Especially sinceI firmly belive you don't have to dumb something down to simplify it. But you also don't see me going around rampantly stomping and screaming about how evil the game is, or worse, the developers are simply because they're being optimistic about it (especially since they're able to see the whole picture rather than a few small pieces, and thus have a more informed basis for that optimism).

I'll probably join the side of dissent when the book is actually released, though, unless it somehow coagulates into being greater than the sum of its (currently revealed) parts. But for now there's just no point in getting one's feathers ruffled since, by and large, we're completely ignorant about the new rules... so getting angry and spiteful about those rules without really knowing what they are is just plain out stupid.

I agree on most of those. Not a big fan of edge, still wondering how the mechanics will work out. But the pointless arguing and nit picking over "I said this", " didn't say that" is just annoying.
So Simpson references are a nice alternative.

As yoda said

Well, that sure was pertinent to the discussion at hand.

It was meant to be

I'd say probably around when you became guaranteed.

Rob Boyle will pee on us!

They are not trying to make it terrible. You know that as expressed in conversations we have had, so I think you're comming off a little aggressive there.

However, there are definite aspects of the game it does not feel, to me, like they've fully thought through -or- their desired game is dramatically different from the theme, mood, and play of the current SR.

Okay, here's the thing. I've also been playing Shadowrun since 89, and I've seen exactly what Patrick describes. I've seen far too many characters with maxed-out Int and Quick, simply so they can get the high reaction-- in fact, I saw it so much, it took me aback the first time I saw a character *without* it.

Does that mean I agree with the proposed changes? Nope, not at all. Adding more stats never gets rid of munchkins, it just gives them more room to maneuver. And I think adding more attributes is definitely the wrong way to go, if you're out to simplify a game. If you want a simpler game, you need to go for less attributes, not more-- Tri-Stat and Everway are decent examples of this sort of thing.

Patrick, what I think you don't understand is, most of us aren't questioning the intentions of the SR4 devs. I don't think anyone reasonably believes that they have anything but the greatest of love for the game. What we're doubting-- with good reason!-- is that this direction is the best for Shadowrun. Good intentions are fine and dandy, but you know what they say about the road to hell.

Now, here's some questions I have, which you should feel free to ignore if they interefere with your NDA:

• Is there still a Dodge test in combat?
• Are there replacements for tactical pools? (Such as the Action pool from SR QuickStart.)
• Does the system run quicker overall, or does it take the same amount of time?
• Has the average lethality of the game increased, decreased, or stayed about the same?
• As a playtester, how many power levels have you run games for? And which ones? (e.g., Starting characters, 20-30 karma, 50-60 karma, 100+, etc.)
• How many dice rolls are necessary for resolution of a given task, such as combat?
• Is Edge mostly good for rerolls, like the existing Karma pool, or does it have a totally different mechanic?
• Can you permanently "burn" Edge like karma pool, or can you just spend it?
  
• Has anyone run a side-by-side comparison of similar scenarios in SR3 and 4, and rated them on how they're handled?

The "samurai with Intelligence of 6" thing was something I've done, myself. I never found it that hard to justify reasonably. This was largely a function of the Intelligence attribute not actually measuring what we typically define as Intelligence, or rather encompassing things beyond that simple scope. My street samurai wasn't Albert Einstein. He just possessed extremely acute instincts and sharp perceptions. He didn't have a plethora of scientific(or humanities) knowledge skills or a strong academic background; I spent extra knowledge skill points in other things, things more in tune with such a character's background.

It was unfortunate that Intelligence was the measure of both instinct and, based on its linkage to knowledge, technical, and language skills, actual mental acuity/capacity. It made for some oddities, to be certain, as a result. I am immensely pleased with the decision to subdivide Intelligence into Intuition and Logic, as it gives one the ability to create characters with sharp senses and a primal and reflexive speed to their mental processes, that are not possessed of much true intellectual gift, as well as intellectually gifted individuals with average or poor senses and ponderous mental speed.

While it was possible, but difficult to do well and believably, to justify your combat-oriented character's Intelligence of 6 (which, metagame-wise, you grabbed to maximize their Reaction) as being a genius, there were a lot of other possibilities, and other roles that the Intelligence attribute played, that you could just as easily chalk up this high Intelligence score to. Does admitting I did it just to get the high Reaction make me a bad roleplayer? No. Doing that and not being able to put my money where my mouth is, and pull it off in-game, in the most important realm, that overlays the purity of the mechanics, is what determines such things.

Frankly, most every character statistic decision I've made has been due to metagame interest in achieving certain effects within the bounds of the rules system. The fun part, for me, is taking this bundle of statistics, these actions I've granted my character the capability to perform, analyze their meaning, and flesh out a real personality and background that fits them so well you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. I'm sorry if people have been soured to the idea of doing things with purely statistical motivations, but I think that's the result of poor blending of this aspect with roleplay. Blending can be improved with time, and no real change to the game will allievate what is, at its core, a player-centered issue.

Intelligence has never represented being highly educated or even a genius. In a nutshell it represents how sharp you are and how well you perceive the world around you. I believe the description of it in the SR3 sourcebook even goes out of its way to tell you that a low Intelligence doesn't mean you're stupid (and thus by default that a high Intelligence doesn't make you a genius).

There's nothing wrong with any type of character having a high Intelligence. Now having a mercenary with a street background who's never even seen what a school looks like, not to mention having no Reading/Writing skill over 3, having Physics (Quantum Theory) 5(7) or Rocket Science 6 or whatever... that's probably inappropriate.

I think my main concern is that they are n;t going to make it "SR lite". Weaker characters, harder to do most things out of the normal scope, more inside the box. I don't think that they are, and I think that a lot of the things they've mentioned could work out really well if done correctly.
I'm just waiting to see more. I hope Patrick can expand more one the "There is a Rule of Six and Rule of One". That has my interest.

My hope and prayer: Combat actually runs faster.

Which leads to something I'd love to see the devs or playtesters do:

Take a stopwatch when doing combat in its many forms.

Note how long a pass takes, a turn takes, and a whole combat takes.

My bet on the rule of one is that you botch if you have no successes and some 1s. The severity of the botch depends on the number of 1s, with just one 1 being fairly harmless.

Like every one else, I'm assuming the rule of 6 is simply the you reroll 6 for extra success. Another possibility would be that 6s count as two successes and 5s count as one. That's faster.

I have 500 that says his pulse goes erratic by paragraph 3.....

You forgot to mention that that the following freelancers most clearly have ties to Shadowland:

Dave Hyatt (creator)
Jason Levine (superuser)
Elissa Carey (superuser)
Peter Milholland (superuser)

If Hyatt created the site, why is it not valid?

~J

Because he grew tired of Shadowrun and Shadowland, and had been less and less present for years before he left because he had other priorities. The days when he administered the site by himself were long gone nearly a decade ago. SL was always a hobby. I mean, he wrote up the original cgi-bin client back in 1994 in "a few days." (Interview Goodness). SL6 was designed more than five years ago in his spare time. A lot's changed since then, but it doesn't make it any less of a site because the only thing that matters is the Java client.

SL6 is a stable Java client, and has been for the last several years, and that is the only really important issue. I don't see any problems, and I've run it on pretty much every browser I can think of on Windows and Macs and used to run it on Unix/Irix/etc.

That is like asking why a brand new 911 Turbo S would be using last year's headlight design. It'll still rock your socks.

Anyway... I was going to add, before I got detoured, that I don't understand any of this. I've worked with confidential information for a while, and been exposed to it's effects for even longer (comes from knowing kids whose parents couldn't tell them what they do for a living, or did so in broad and useless strokes). I'm coming from this from two places. First, I don't understand why, when given any confidential information, a person would want to talk about it, around it, or just try and sneak things past. It hasn't been particularly pleasing to read freelancers, devs, and/or playtesters talk about SR4 because there's really not much they can talk about that's of any utility.

Second, at the same time I am very passionate about SR. However, I remain as emotionally detached as possible when discussing it. Occupational hazard, you know. I get frustrated at having to repeat myself or when people don't see my point, and that's been known to be expressed privately in an emotional response. Sometimes I get particularly anxious just writing for a long period of time because if I'm sitting here for an hour responding to whether the sky is blue, I have something invested in it. I know, for example, that my blood pressure tends to go up when posting. Since some of my more verbose posts (like this one: 2 hours) can and have taken up to 2-3 hours to write, I know it's unhealthy. But ultimately, all of this weight comes from me onto me. I don't take things people say personally... Usually. I don't write posts for the purposes of attacking someone's person. This is the Internet. It's useless. Until the day comes when I can verbally slap someone so hard they are knocked off the Internet (Kind of like this.), it's not even fun. It's just unhealthy, a waste of time, and usually doesn't make me feel better.

However, that said I tend to become an idiot when people put words in my mouth, attack myself, my character, or my buddies. When one does all four, then it is times like this that, as other will attest, it is fortunate the God did not grant me the power to cause people to burst into flames. Until Friday, I did not feel that way about SR4. It annoyed that people missed my point, or assumed things. I'm not very big on assumptions, as I'm sure many people have figured out by now. I haven't assumed anything about SR4, either, in spite of some people's apparent perceptions to the contrary. I didn't primarily due to the fact that assumptions are useless. However, while I was annoyed or frustrated, in the last two months, and for most of the last 6-7 ish years I have not taken anything said here personally.

Why would I?

I haven't meant anything personal, and I've made that pretty clear over and over and over again. I know how to draw the line, although apparently some people seem to think I don't. The fact that I have had to repeat ad nauseum the fact that I don't hate SR4 is particularly telling. I've never said I hated SR4. I have no idea how that even became a popular DS meme that there are any people who hate SR4. How can one hate something that isn't even out yet? That defies common sense.

I don't understand how Patrick thinks I am attacking him. I don't understand how Patrick thinks I am personally attacking anyone. It doesn't compute. I never said anything about him. What I have said, and will continue to say, is that I don't trust the devs or anyone related to Fanpro. Sorry. It's an occupational hazard, from my POV, that if you're dealing with SR players you're going to have to deal with the occassional player who doesn't trust The Man--that is, the devs, freelancers, playtesters, et al. What I have also said is that the FAQs have been rather counterproductive, poorly-written, and just bad PR. If I mention someone by name, I like to think I can differentiate between the person and the product. Like I said before, I like Steve Kenson as a person. We used to get along. I don't like his work product, and I've written fairly lengthy explanations as to why. There are plenty of personal reasons why we might not still get along, but it has never, ever come up because it's no one's fucking business, and it's not germaine to anything SR.

The same goes for Jon Szeto. I'm sure he's a great guy. I don't know. I don't care, either, though. What I care about is work product. I've also said it fairly clearly that as far as I'm concerned past performance is an indicator of future performance, which has led me to be even further skeptical about game mechanic development done by either of those two men. Likewise with Rob. Past performance is an indicator of future. I've pointed out flaws in the FAQ. Logic holes, just things in general. I've also commented on various things which haven't been addressed in the FAQs and have nothing to do with the FAQs on the off chance that someone might read them and think, "Hey! CD has a point. Mark that down for later." Because my thoughts on SR4 aren't limited to the FAQs. My interpretations of the FAQs are also based on incomplete information, so I elaborate in a "What if..." scenario.

So what of it? It doesn't make me a bad person. It makes me a concerned gamer with exclusive SR gaming experience going back to SR1, who owns virtually every sourcebook written and half of the novels, who has more than a half dozen active PCs scattered throughout Seattle with their own lives, agendas, encounters, and fates each in the middle of their own shadowruns; GMing three (soon to be four) games; doing demi-GM tasks for two other people; and spending literally hours on DS and SL doing nothing but talking about SR every day. If I seem to have an opinion about SR's rules or setting, it's because I'm sitting here staring at them all the time. And, gee, sometimes I can be abrasive. Well, that's who I am. That's who I've always been, and will always be. But I don't attack people, even if you THINK I do. I don't criticize people, even if you THINK I do.

And I don't take personal attacks from anyone. But when you read this, if you read this, Patrick, you will not see one personal comment about you. I don't sit here, lying in wait to pass judgment on people because it's a waste of my time. I don't care about the person sitting on the other side of some screen somewhere reading what I say. I don't tailor my posts that way, and if it seems that I have a casual disregard for other people's feelings, then it is because I do.

I don't think that anything I said in that last big post was personal. I tried very hard to make it as detached as possible. I know it wasn't personal, because I didn't write it that way. I could write all sorts of mean things, personal things, emotional things. I didn't. I wanted to do it. Oh, I really did. But that wouldn't solve anything. It wouldn't take back the McCracken's Effect of someone in the biz attacking a customer for voicing his opinion, especially when you are at best tangential to anything I have to say about SR4.

And for the record, "Wow." was because I read that post and all I could think of was that all I saw was someone justifying his own existence. And it was also the moment that it really struck me that playtester opinions of SR4 without context mean nothing to me.

Don't forget the...

GenCon Rush. The process of publishing a game prematurely in order to make it available during the ultra-all-important GenCon. Of course, doing this invariably prevents the editors from getting a good look at it, and results in a game that is even more pathetically edited than most RPGs already are.

Thanks for the information, very useful.

Check.

Its my turn to say "Wow."

And no, not in a bad way. While I appreciate the information I can't help but be a bit overwhelmed at the rancor that some posts can create.

CD2.0, thanks for the very thorough and informative post as to your perspective.

Patrick, thanks for your Curriculum Vitae as it pertains to Shadowrun.

And.....breathe.