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Dakhran the Dark
June's issue of Game Trade Magazine has a one-page preview article by Rob Boyle and Steve Kenson, which gives some new details not covered by the FAQs...
  • Rule of One (now called a Glitch) is triggered more frequently, and may be triggered even when successful.
  • Rule of Six no longer applies, except when you are using the new Edge attribute.
  • A new type of test, Extended Tests, has been added.
  • Along with the Edge attribute, a new Resonance attribute has been added for "technomancer" characters.
  • Combat turns are now 6 seconds long.
I'm still in the "wait and see" camp, which is starting to look kind of empty...and I'm thinking of striking the tent and moving when I see advertisements use phrases like this:
QUOTE
You’d have to be whacked, or a serious trog, to pass up on a righteous opportunity like this!
Crimsondude 2.0
Kenson...
Eldritch
QUOTE
Our intention is to make the Matrix something all
characters in Shadowrun use on a regular basis, as
well as bring deckers (now hackers) out of their mothers’
basements
and into the streets with the rest of the
shadowrunning team.


Ooohh, thats just cold hearted. nyahnyah.gif
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0)
Kenson...

It sounds like you're about to fight a manly duel of rage with him, dude.
Catsnightmare
I have to wonder how far will FanPro get after shooting themselves in both feet with this crap.
Crimsondude 2.0
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0 @ Jun 1 2005, 09:47 PM)
Kenson...

It sounds like you're about to fight a manly duel of rage with him, dude.

Probably because my first thoughts were of this post.
QUOTE (Steve Kenson)
Ah, Crimson (may I call you Crimson?), fear not. To say I am on the "design team" for SR4 is, well, something of an overstatement. The whole of my contribution was attending a few meetings and offering a couple suggestions. I'm not writing a single word of SR4, and I've got practically nothing to do with it otherwise, so you can rest easy there. Shadowrun is "safe" from me.

Unless someone is just mocking me now.

This is a bad joke... This is all a bad joke...

Can't sleep... Clown'll eat me... Can't sleep... Clown'll eat me...
Wireknight
There are no words.
Nerbert
Glitches triggered more frequently? That'll mix things up

Well at least that covers one thing Edge will be good for.

Extended Tests are no surprise. Probably for things like athletics.

More Attributes? Why are they calling them all "Attributes" they clearly don't work anything like Str Quick etc.

I wonder if they're restructuring the action system at all? Instead of two or three actions, only one? Only two? My guess is two simple actions per turn or one complex action.
Crimsondude 2.0
QUOTE (Wireknight)
There are no words.

Sure there are.

QUOTE
This is a bad joke... This is all a bad joke...

Can't sleep... Clown'll eat me... Can't sleep... Clown'll eat me...
Bull
Keep the personal attacks off the board, please.

Bull
Bull
QUOTE (Nerbert)
Glitches triggered more frequently? That'll mix things up

Well at least that covers one thing Edge will be good for.

Extended Tests are no surprise. Probably for things like athletics.

More Attributes? Why are they calling them all "Attributes" they clearly don't work anything like Str Quick etc.

I wonder if they're restructuring the action system at all? Instead of two or three actions, only one? Only two? My guess is two simple actions per turn or one complex action.

Glitches: Well, consdierng that I've seen the Rule of Ones come up a grand total of twice in all my years of playing and GMing... I'm looking forward to this.

Attributes: the only new "attributes" that doesn't function exactly like the current Attributes will be Edge and Magic. The other new ones just break up old skills into more logical categories.

Bull
Crimsondude 2.0
n/m
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Bull)
Attributes: the only new "attributes" that doesn't function exactly like the current Attributes will be Edge and Magic.

So Resonance acts exactly like a current attribute?

~J
hermit
QUOTE
Rule of One (now called a Glitch) is triggered more frequently, and may be triggered even when successful.

Wow, his will make explosive ammunition much more fun to fire ... seeing as how your gun in 2070 apparently suddenly starts to blow in your face much more frequently and all, even if yiou handle it the same way and with the same skill as before. Also, expect more runners to cut themselves in half with monowire whips when using them, or throwing the pin and holding the grenade .... I dunno, but have all runners become clumsy smurfs in between 2065-2070, or will glitches not be as catastrophic as rule-of-one fumbles were?

QUOTE
Combat turns are now 6 seconds long.

Now there's good news. At least *something*.
Critias
Sounds that way.

I've never heard of streamlining by adding like four attributes before. What a totally righteous idea.
Nerbert
I guess that could make sense. They could use it instead of Intelligence or whatever it is now for Hacking. Kind of like a Technomancer 6th sense? If thats true, it'd make them more Karma intensive in the long run.

And Bull, did you forget about Essence? Is it gone? Radically changed?
Critias
QUOTE (hermit)
QUOTE
Combat turns are now 6 seconds long.

Now there's good news. At least *something*.

I...what?

Do you realize how insanely out of wack rates of fire/actions/movement rates are now, with a three-second combat round? Doubling the length of time covered by a round, unless the initiative system is completely new and different (to the point where people get at least twice the actions they used to, to keep it at least the same actions-per-second as before) just makes that worse.

Firing as fast as he can, your average-Reaction unagumented human will apparently need about a minute to empty the magazine of an average semi-auto pistol. That's retarded.
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE (Nerbert)
Glitches triggered more frequently? That'll mix things up

at least one thing to look forward to!
Cain
I can't get that page to open, but based on what I'm seeing:
QUOTE
Rule of One (now called a Glitch) is triggered more frequently, and may be triggered even when successful. 

Mixed bag. While "Oops" might have been to rare under SR1-3, I'm somewhat worried that they may now be triggered too often. Besides which, as a GM, I used to fumble at least once per session, and always when I was rolling more than 3 dice.
QUOTE

Rule of Six no longer applies, except when you are using the new Edge attribute.

Is this all Edge is useful for? If so, then it's a pretty useless attribute.
QUOTE

A new type of test, Extended Tests, has been added.

Hold on a sec. Supposedly, the whole idea of simplifying the game is to get everything under one unified mechanic: attribute + skill. That's why they're getting rid of the silliness that is the open test, right? Now, we're coming up with a totally new test?

It's seeming increasingly like the promise of "Attribute + skill" is being broken. Which, to me at least, means the system isn't going to be any simpler than before. Dumbed down, perhaps, but not simpler.
QUOTE

Along with the Edge attribute, a new Resonance attribute has been added for "technomancer" characters.

I'm with Kage on this one. Yet another new attribute, with no doubt new rules for it. So, it's attribute + skill all the time! Except for Edge. And Reaction/Initiative. And Essence. And Magic. And Resonance. Yup, one mechanic to rule 'em all. ohplease.gif
QUOTE

Combat turns are now 6 seconds long.

Well, excepting the firing rate issue, 3 seconds always did seem a little short for me. But it wasn't horrible. I think this is what mfb might have meant by a fix for something that wasn't broken-- the 3 second turn wasn't hurting anything that I can see.
Crimsondude 2.0
I once toyed with the idea of suggesting 1 turn being 1 second...
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE
Mixed bag. While "Oops" might have been to rare under SR1-3, I'm somewhat worried that they may now be triggered too often. Besides which, as a GM, I used to fumble at least once per session, and always when I was rolling more than 3 dice.


I have seen two instances of the "rule of 1" since I started playing, about 8 years ago.

I'm looking forward to this, but I'm hoping that if it's a lot more common, ot's more along the lines of a glitch than the catastrophic failure we use it for now (in my game at least, ... when it happens)

Ol' Scratch
I just hope its not a "if you roll more 1's than successes" kind of rule. Or if it is, they clearly indicate that a glitch isn't a catastrophic failure that will likely get you killed, which is what a lot of GMs seem to assume the current "Rule of 1" is supposed to mean.
hermit
QUOTE
Do you realize how insanely out of wack rates of fire/actions/movement rates are now, with a three-second combat round? Doubling the length of time covered by a round, unless the initiative system is completely new and different (to the point where people get at least twice the actions they used to, to keep it at least the same actions-per-second as before) just makes that worse.

Firing as fast as he can, your average-Reaction unagumented human will apparently need about a minute to empty the magazine of an average semi-auto pistol. That's retarded.

It's not just firing, it's also aiming and all that. A maximum autofire rule, like the one I once saw on BlackJack's page, might be in order, but really, your average empty-the-clip human isn't gonna hit anywhere near as precisely as the one-shot-one-hit SR ranged combat of now suggests. You know, in real life, people would actually *miss* when shooting at something, at least occasionally. Not so in SR. That has always bothered me.

So long as firing rates are adapted to be more realistic (and to allow Joe Sam to empty his clip in one combat turn if he really feels like it), a six-second combat turn is going to be much more sensible than a three-second turn.

QUOTE

I'm with Kage on this one. Yet another new attribute, with no doubt new rules for it. So, it's attribute + skill all the time! Except for Edge. And Reaction/Initiative. And Essence. And Magic. And Resonance. Yup, one mechanic to rule 'em all.

Maybe Resonance works for Otaku the same way Magic works for mages? that WOULD simplify things a great deal. It just evades using the actual magic attribute for Otaku-style netrunning, and being flamed to hell and back for insisting that Otaku ARE technomages, and not some wacky form of AI enhanced cyber characters.

Odds are, though, that Resonance will not be subject to power loss with essence loss.
Cain
QUOTE (Doctor Funkenstein)
I just hope its not a "if you roll more 1's than successes" kind of rule. Or if it is, they clearly indicate that a glitch isn't a catastrophic failure that will likely get you killed, which is what a lot of GMs seem to assume the current "Rule of 1" is supposed to mean.

If ti can be triggered even if you the roll otherwise succeeds, it's pretty much got to work the way you describe. As to the second part of your question, I have no idea; but I'll grant that the rarity of glitches under SR3 might be what causes GMs to push their severity.
QUOTE
Maybe Resonance works for Otaku the same way Magic works for mages? that WOULD simplify things a great deal. It just evades using the actual magic attribute for Otaku-style netrunning, and being flamed to hell and back for insisting that Otaku ARE technomages, and not some wacky form of AI enhanced cyber characters.

That *still* leaves too many exceptions. I didn't even deal with the issue of Extended tests; which if they work in a similar way to oWoD, would require a third mechanic for all those situations. For a system that's supposed to only have one mechanic, they've sure got a lot of exceptions.
fistandantilus4.0
so... what the hell is an extended test?
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Cain)
If ti can be triggered even if you the roll otherwise succeeds, it's pretty much got to work the way you describe.

Not quite true. You could have things like triggering if one gets more 1s than Skill/(1/2 Skill)/whatever.
QUOTE
so... what the hell is an extended test?

To find the answer to that question is to find oneself.

~J
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 2 2005, 01:48 AM)
If ti can be triggered even if you the roll otherwise succeeds, it's pretty much got to work the way you describe.  As to the second part of your question, I have no idea; but I'll grant that the rarity of glitches under SR3 might be what causes GMs to push their severity.

Well, if it is, then it will be occuring way too often, so I doubt if it's going to work like I described. Here's a quick example using six dice.

Roll 1: 2, 2, 5, 3, 5, 4 = 2 Successes
Roll 2: 3, 4, 2, 3, 6, 2 = Failure
Roll 3: 4, 2, 3, 3, 3, 1 = Failure and Glitch
Roll 4: 1, 1, 6, 4, 1, 6 = 2 Successes and Glitch
Roll 5: 5, 3, 4, 3, 3, 5 = 2 Successes
Roll 6: 1, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1 = Failure and Glitch
Roll 7: 5, 3, 5, 2, 3, 2 = 2 Successes
Roll 8: 2, 4, 3, 1, 4, 4 = Failure and Glitch
Roll 9: 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1 = Failure and Glitch
Roll 10: 2, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6 = 5 Successes
Roll 11: 6, 4, 6, 3, 1, 2 = 2 Successes
Roll 12: 2, 5, 5, 3, 6, 6 = 4 Successes
Roll 13: 6, 6, 4, 4, 3, 5 = 3 Successes
Roll 14: 2, 2, 5, 1, 1, 2 = 1 Success and Glitch
Roll 15: 1, 1, 5, 4, 1, 5 = 2 Successes and Glitch
Roll 16: 2, 3, 3, 5, 1, 5 = 2 Successes
Roll 17: 1, 5, 6, 1, 3, 1 = 2 Successes and Glitch
Roll 18: 5, 5, 6, 5, 1, 3 = 4 Successes
Roll 19: 4, 3, 6, 2, 2, 4 = 1 Success
Roll 20: 2, 1, 4, 6, 1, 4 = 1 Success and Glitch

So out of 20 rolls, there were 9 glitches, 5 of which occured with a success. That's way too chaotic for someone with enough skill/talent to be rolling six dice, so I really doubt (or at least hope) that that isn't the way its going to be handled.
hobgoblin
the extended test im guessing is basicly just rerolling the skill to build up more successes. anything more advanced would be silly...
Adam
QUOTE
Hold on a sec. Supposedly, the whole idea of simplifying the game is to get everything under one unified mechanic: attribute + skill. That's why they're getting rid of the silliness that is the open test, right? Now, we're coming up with a totally new test?

It's seeming increasingly like the promise of "Attribute + skill" is being broken. Which, to me at least, means the system isn't going to be any simpler than before. Dumbed down, perhaps, but not simpler.

Extended Tests do not break the Attribute + Skill rule. They're primarily used for tests that may take place over a period of interrupted time -- repairing a car, for example.
Grinder
Is it still possbile to reduce the time needed to i.e. repair a car by having a lot of succesess?
Nerbert
An extended action, as I understand it, is a simple "att+skill" roll, repeated many times. Each time you roll, you tally the successes to try to reach a target threshold as usual. For example, you might roll 3 dice, the first time you get 1 success, the second time none and the third time 2. In total, three sucesses.

These kinds of tests are good for a number of things. First of all, you know how long it takes to finish a project by the number of times the dice are rolled. This can be either open, or limited depending on the situation. For example, repairing a car would likely be open, whereas picking a lock would probably be capped, with respect to the number of times you're allowed to reroll. So, thats how they can be used to reduce the time needed, by accumulating successes quickly.

Also, this kind of mechanic is good for athletics tests too. For example, two characters can make running an open extended action to see who is faster, or you can make it a closed extended action if one person is running away and the other is trying to catch them.

This might not be precisely how it works, but this what "extended action"means to me.
Nikoli
The exteneded test isn't new, they had them in SR 1 and 2, don't recall if it survived into SR3.
It can make a lot more sense if properly applied. Say you need 10 successes per damage box to repair your bike. You get to make one test every hour, so more successes = less overall time to repair the bike. Rather then 1 to accomplish and divide base time by total successes, which can lead to very stupid diminishing returns for some skils.
mmu1
The one thing I've always liked about SR is that (the way I've played it and seen it played) it pays to plan well and be professional, because details matters.

Because of this, I always loved how rarely Rule of 1 occurred for competent characters - regular failure is dangerous and damaging enough in SR3, thank you very fucking much.

That, and I absolutely hate games that have a punishing critical failure mechanic without a critical success mechanic to go with it...

Nerbert
I don't think it'll be that bad. As a GM I always like the opportunity to flex my creativity a little and make Critical Failures a dangerous, but interesting and provocative plot twist, anopportunity denied, most of the time, by the Rule of Ones
Edward
I am assuming magic will be the linked attribute for all sorcery and conjuring related tests, and in this way will work just like any other attribute. Shore it may do other things as well (in SR3 it determined the force of spell you can cast without taking physical drain, I assume it still will, but then qui determined walking speed as well and probably still will, that is not part of the core mechanic.)

I ques that Resonance will be similar for technomancers, acting as there linked attribute for there versions of computer skills (or not who can tell)

We don’t yet know what the initiative mechanic is so who knows what reaction will do, if SR3 is any guide it will be used for driving tests, eg reaction + car as well as its roll in initiative.

The only attribute that will be acting nothing like the others is essence, that one is special I guess.

Edward
Jrayjoker
I just read it and, other than a few tounge in cheek comments, it seemed OK. I am curious to see how this impacts mfb's comments of late.
Shadow
I guess it is to late to hope they change their mind.
Shadow
The article says that they could have made a diceless system but they wanted to maintain familiarity. I'm sorry, I don't see anything familiar about the new system, other than yes, it still uses dice.

That paragraph seemed like some sort of duplicity.

"We could have made a diceless system but we didn't want to alienate our current fans, see we thought about you. Don't hate us!"
Jrayjoker
That is a fairly negative interpretation of of what was said. I prefer to keep hope alive and assume that was one of the tongue-in-cheek passages.
Bigity
EXPIERENCE THE DISCORD!

Bah!

Diceless system? Why the hell even have rules at all then. If the people working on this actually pondered a diceless system a split second...then they can forgot about selling stuff to me.

If I wanted a diceless game, I'd play...outside.
Fortune
Maybe Glitches will occur when you roll more 1's than non-1's (ie over half of the Pool), regardless of success or failure.
NeoJudas
QUOTE (Bull)
Glitches: Well, consdierng that I've seen the Rule of Ones come up a grand total of twice in all my years of playing and GMing... I'm looking forward to this.

Attributes: the only new "attributes" that doesn't function exactly like the current Attributes will be Edge and Magic. The other new ones just break up old skills into more logical categories.

Bull

Hrm... Bull, you need to have been there to have seen the one guy strike the Ro1s twice in less than 5 minutes of playing. It's where his characters first street name arose from ... "Crit" he was for quite a while. Occasionally, he still gets called Crit. If you aren't seeing it more often, then you are either
a- have players who aren't using enough pool dice to raise the risk of crits
b- quit squeezing the dice to off balance them. wink.gif

The second comment about attributes makes me wonder if there is more flack/commentary that is being leaked out simply to stir up the community. Wouldn't surprise me if this was happening, not at all.
Adam
QUOTE (Bigity)
Diceless system? Why the hell even have rules at all then. If the people working on this actually pondered a diceless system a split second...then they can forgot about selling stuff to me.

It's all so confusing, having people online dictating what we should and shouldn't even think about.
Kagetenshi
You thought about it! Go spend eight hours in your closet.

~J

Postscript: I lose the game.
Bigity
Of course FanPro is perfectly free to think about what they want.

Even if it results in them thinking about where to send the resume.
nezumi
Neo, are you sure you're using Rule of 1's right? Throwing more dice from your pool should DECREASE the chance of Ro1.
NeoJudas
QUOTE (nezumi)
Neo, are you sure you're using Rule of 1's right? Throwing more dice from your pool should DECREASE the chance of Ro1.

If the number of 1's equals your skill, it's a crit failure. Yes? Add more dice to the mix and you keep the odds more likely (in gamer luck mechanics, not dice statistical analysis). At least, that's how we've have the critical failure/Ro1's now for what seems like years. My favorite was doing this rule to a magician who isn't limited in dice to their skill, but to/by their magic attribute. Oh yeah, pump those dice in... come on!!!! devil.gif
Ol' Scratch
No. It's all 1's.
Bigity
I've always done Rule of 1 with the number of 1s vs the Skill being used. Still pretty rare, but stops some of the 'roll my 2 skill' and add CP, KP, cyber, etc etc.
Adam
QUOTE (Bigity)
Of course FanPro is perfectly free to think about what they want.

Oh, good to hear. Because we totally thought about going totally diceless!

Okay, actually, we didn't, but it's much easier to go diceless and still use the remaining SR4 mechanics within SR4 than it was with SR3.
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