So, irrational fears of a game system should not only not be laughed at they should be encouraged?

Adventure feels so diffrent that OWoD it ain't funny, and your gaming is just being silly.

odd. "irrational" is a term i often use for people who think mechanics don't impact setting.

i stand by my statement: it's a term. you're correct, though, it happens to be printable.

Not only was Shadowrun out first, IIRC some of the original Shadowrun playtesters and devs went on to devlop the Storyteller system. Shadowrun was the innovator in a lot of ways.

Besides which, I should point out that my gamaing group is comparing nWoD to Adventure!, not oWoD (although they don't like that much, either). And there's a definite similarity in feel to the games themselves, if not the themes used.

Star Wars d20 and D&D 3E don't have a lot of themes in common, but they end up feeling a lot the same. Adventure! doesn't have the angsty themes beloved by WoD, but it still plays the same.

a typical SR4 complainer post that i fight against

Not to mention that trolls in melee already ARE way over-powered in SR3. I see SR4 not correcting this, but they won't make it worse either, from what I have seen.

They're way overpowered in the same way that heavy pistols up through sniper rifles are. If one scores a hit, you're going to feel it (or you won't feel it, or anything else, ever again). However, under an Attribute + Skill mechanic, they will not only hit very, very hard, they can also, through virtue of their brute strength, display effective skill equal to an above-average human with expert skill rating, with little or no corresponding skill of their own. Moreover, they are just as able as the aforementioned human to develop expert skill, at which point they literally outclass every other race in that particular area.

Say you have a human, with Strength of 4 and a strength-linked skill (we'll say that Clubs are strength-linked) of 4. They are above-average in physical capability and skill. They have an unmodified dice pool of 8, which abstracts to around 2.67 hits. Let's now say that you have a troll, with Strength equivalent on a racial basis to that of the human (Strength of 4 with a +4 Racial Modifier means and Clubs of 1. That's an unmodified dice pool of 9, which abstracts to around 3.0 hits. They're already pulling ahead.

Say you have a human cyborg, with Strength of 6(9) and Clubs of 6. Graft muscle and a dozen years of aikido tonfa-training make all the difference. This guy's the peak of human clubbery, he's got an unmodified dice pool of 15 and will average 5 hits when he takes a swing. Say you have a troll cyborg, with Strength of 10(15) and Clubs of 6. This guy's the peak of troll clubbery, and he has an umodified dice pool of 21, thus averaging 7 hits. The best of the best human doesn't really stand a chance, since variance isn't as large in SR4.

Now, in SR3, a strong troll (and people rarely play trolls who don't take advantage of their racial modifier to achieve values humans can't, i.e. 10+) with a giant club is something to fear. If he hits you, you're probably going to take the full damage of his attack, maybe one level less if you're very lucky. However, since his ability to hit you is solely based on his skill, if you're an adept martial artist, you can probably dance around his overpowering strikes and bring him down. Skill trumps raw power.

In SR4, if raw power factors into it (i.e. there exists a skill whose linked attribute is Strength0, it'll work like d20. Higher Strength characters will be more precise in melee combat and more damaging. Trolls, through virtue of incredibly high Strength ratings, likewise, will be able to achieve heights that no one save for someone playing another troll, identically statted, will be able to match.

Is this good? Depends on your style and what you like. I play quick and cunning speed-demons most of the time, so I'm in general not too happy with it. I'm sure people who play characters more like Marv in Sin City will drool and demand more. The only outright problem I see with it is the fact that if you want to be the best at something, certain races (trolls for melee with strength-linked melee skills) are the only solution you have, because if you don't pick that race and that skill/attribute layout, all it takes to trump you is to roll up a character that does.

So let's hope that clubs and the like won't be related to strength

I kind of liked the idea that the number of Attribute dice would be limited by your Skill rating. So a troll with Strength 9 and a Skill of 3 would only be able to roll 3 dice for any Strength-linked attack test even if damage would be based on the full Strength. With that kind of limitation, not only would it require a highly trained troll to take full advantage of his natural Strength, but it would keep Skill as the more important aspect of the Attribute+Skill gestalt (since you would be able to use your full Skill on all tests, but not always your full Attribute rating) just as it should be.

Indeed, I think that mechanic idea has promise. Of course, it also means that you take little or no advantage from having a higher linked attribute than the next guy, unless his linked attribute is particularly low or your skill is pretty high. It also makes defaulting kind of a tricky proposition, since you would by definition be permitted to contribute zero dice from your linked attribute to a test in which you had no skill. If that mechanic is not in place, defaulting sort of handles itself. If it is in place, an additional exception is required to handle defaulting.

Once more, we return to my observation about the system tending to require exceptions for a great deal of situations, and those exceptions in turn leading to further exceptions to smooth and balance the results of the initial exception. The process recurses, in some cases quite deeply.

What if each hit up to skill level is counted normaly and then each hit after is counted for only half as much.

The strength 12 troll with skill 0 will get on average 12/(3*2) = 2 sucesses
The human will str 3 skill 3 will get on average 6/3 = 2 sucesses
If the human rolls all hits he only will get 3 + 3/2 (round down) = 4 hits
The troll with no skill will get 6 hits, but this is far more improbable than the human doing the same.

I'd say that devalues attributes quite a bit. One die, with just a 1/3 chance of success, isn't much of a chance when defaulting for some pretty common stuff (anyone with 6's across the board in physical attributes has the same 1/3 chance of doing a long jump as someone with 1's across the board?).

Depending on...
If you say that to hit someone in melee you have only one dice, but that the damages are based upon your strength, an unskilled human and an unskilled troll won't have the same efficiency...
If you are saying that for each success on your long jump, one success = strength in inchs, feet, yards or whatever, you will notice that your attribute still has an impact.
But it would be more "rough" power, than one that you could exploit at 100% using technics...
Once again, wait and see the rules, but as you can all see, for each complain, you can easily find a counter-complain...

That's not defaulting. Defaulting implies some linkage in the final mechanic to the attribute in question. If you default the same whether you have an attribute of 1 or 10, then you're not really talking about defaulting, you're talking about simply creating a floor of one six-sided die for any given dicepool and discarding defaulting entirely.

Not all complaints (or rueful contemplations, complaint has a negative connotation that I'm not sure is appropriate) are created equal. If someone makes a fairly valid and well-reasoned suggestion as to where things could go wrong, and the other one says "well, defaulting should just result in rolling one die no matter what!", I'd say they haven't really countered anything. It's like trying to block a dagger-thrust with a toothpick.

Defaulting is one of the big hurdles I'm waiting to see them overcome with the new dice mechanic. I haven't been able to come up with any ideas on how to do it well.

ONe wonders if they're going to take a page from The Other Game and divide skills up among those that can be used untrained without a penalty, and those that can't be used without training.

If they do, I will gnash my teeth. It doesn't make any sense, and god knows my PCs default all the damn time (one STILL hasn't bought athletics, even 55 Karma into the game). So I'll echo a real concern as to how they're gonna handle this one.

They already did that. Check the note on Sorcery and Conjuring (and, IIRC, Aura Reading/Enchanting).

~J

Considering what a mess they've made of PR, I have seen nothing to reassure me. I've posted at length elsewhere how their "cute" answers to questions have not helped, I won't go into that detail again. They want to convince me it's worth my money and I am not seeing it.

They have put out some major clunkers in the past- 2nd Black Book comes to mind as a particualr book that was reviled by pretty much everyone. and that wasn't tied to a very specfic release date the way this is.

The FAQs are missing the juicy little specific tidbits that could easily be thrown in if the system were in good shape, essentially complete, and just missing a tiny bit of refinement here and there. For example:

"We have new rules for athletics, covering physical feats of strength, agility, coordination, and so on, all in a simple, easy-to-use framework. They're great for adding flair and daring maneuvers to an otherwise dull combat scene. Don't get too cocky, though; you can't cartwheel through a rain of gunfire."

That's the kind of thing you can say when you're almost done. Here's what you say when you've just started:

"The basic mechanic is rolling 3d6 against a target number equal to 14 - skill + modifers. Skills range from 0 to 8."

Gotta hand it to Ellery. Definitely got a point.

I understand Fanpro wants to keep the element of surprise in the air. We as gamers want to read this thing and go "Wow, this was REALLY good" - Who wants to know the end to their favorite movie 10 minutes in, and then watch it for another hour and a half, right?

The problem is twofold:

1: They know we aren't pleased with what we've seen, so their lack of furhter information is leaving us only with the dregs we already have to speculate on. It becomes a cycle - We see little, we envision the good 'ol FUBAR.

2: If their system IS mostly complete, releasing a little more info would be easy as they know exactly what is and what isn't too much info. They might be aware that giving exact examples of Athletics would be impractical. That's fine. They could still give -something-. If giving anything more than they already have is enough to spoil it, they must be -damn- shallow with the game.

The example often raised is putting the funniest 2 minutes of a comedy film in the trailer. The rest? Filler. I'm sure Fanpro doesn't want to do that, but its good to have some good bits in the trailer as well. Thusfar, in the (possible. I may be wrong) opinion of some, we've seen two minutes of a horse's rear end. If that's all Fanpro has, why bother? I for one sincerely hope they have more.

From the playtesters on the forum (I hope this doesn't violate the NDA)...how long have you guys been playtesting the new rules?

I ask because it serves as a good indication of how rushed the production is. If they've been playtesting for a long time (several months already) and not just the past few weeks then I'd definitely say they are not rushing. From what mfb and other playtesters have hinted at in their posts it sounds as if they are NOT rushing the game.

I doubt it is rushed, it seems to me more like it is not rushed, and just not what I am looking for. Oh well, I hope it is good (Or atleast good at what it tried to do, because it does not sound like SR4 is even trying to be what I want. The biggest possible disappointment is that the audience it is trying to appeal to does not even like it, whichever audience that is).

One thing I've noticed is that us DS Forum people, even if we don't necessarily like everything about SR4, are the ones who are the most rabid about the game and its nuances. If they can do such a poor job as to alienate us (I doubt it) then it signals a completely unparalleled screwup - And, unless the new system attracts a completely new fanbase, the demise of Fanpro.

It'd be like having 20 dice in intellegence and rolling all 1's. Not even one 2.

Fortunately, that doesn't look possible. Many people don't like what they see so far, but time will tell how we recieve it overall.

Fans often become endeared to all aspects of the object of their devotion, even the aspects that most people consider "bad". So in some ways, alienating fans is easier than alienating anyone else--you just have to change anything and some fans will be alienated. (Other fans will love anything as long as it comes out with the brand name on it....)

So fan dissatisfaction, alone, is not enough to judge performance. If there's a high level of dissatisfaction, it's a sign to pay attention, but in order to know whether there's a deeper problem, you need to listen to what they're saying and decide whether they're making a good point.

I would just like Fanpro to stop referring to this as "4th Edition", and call it what it really is, a first edition.

If there's one thing I'm truly disappointed about SR4, it's that they didn't rebuild it from the ground up. I was so hoping they would scrap everything in the past, keep the basic concepts, and rebuild the game with a whole new set of mechanics, history, and metaplot. Ideally, they (Wizkids rather than FanPro) would have scrapped most of the old designers and freelancers and given the task to a hand-chosen group, including someone with a strong background in mathematics/statistics and game design.

<just crosses his fingers for SR5>

As it stands, they only seemed to have the courage to go half-assed with it... and that's my one big criticism about the whole thing at this point. I don't mind that they've come up with a new system in the slightest and look forward to seeing how it turns out. I just wish they had gone all out with it. I guess we'll just have to wait for the franchise to all but die and the title to go up for sale to someone who actually wants it instead of just having it handed over to them (Wizkids, and then passed on to FanPro just 'cause) before that'll happen, though.

It's the sort of statement they make when they think they've got it sorted out.I bet they thought the Rigger Black Book 2 was the bee's knees when they snet it to the printer and we know how that turned out. and that was done without the time clock ticking of it MUST be out by date X.

Yes, because I'm clearly a "pro SR4" person who's totally in love with every bit of information that's come out and firmly believe that there can be no wrong done. Yep, that's me all right. Yessir, you nailed that all right.

Or by "pro SR4 crowd" do you mean those people who 1) aren't whining over anything their imagination can cook up -- especially if backed up by some ignorant or outright stupid rumor some other equally ignorant fool on the internet mentioned on another thread [which seems to include the large majorty of people who are whining endlessly, especially the ones who try so hard to say they're not doing that very thing even though it's blatantly obvious to everyone else], or 2) who aren't whining because they're going to have to spend money on a new edition [which includes individuals such as Snow Fox]?

If so, yes, in that case I guess I am in the "pro SR4 crowd." Though if I were to label myself, I'd place myself more in the "hesitant and untrusting of the new direction of the game, but willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until I know more... and certainly not flying off the handle at the mere notion of some fucking idiotic rumor with no basis in reality whatsoever" crowd.

So have you just not been paying attention? Or do you refuse to understand? Pretty much all of the mopre vocal antiSr4 people have graphicaly and painstakingly explained in great detail that that don't have a problem with change.

Yeah, SR3 needed some help, but not a complete rewrite...

Well, I'm not reiterating it here.

a) You havent' been reading even most of the SR4 boards.

b)You don't understand.

c)you refuse to believe what we have to say about our opinions.

d)You're living in your own happy little world, and ignoring what you don't want to see.

Oh, I've been paying attention. I just see no reason to believe the majority of those people who are claiming that they're not afraid of (or more correctly, angry at) change when they clearly are despite their determined foot-stomping that they're not. They're largely just pissed because -- as I've stated several times beforehand, and as they've come out and stated quite a few times themselves -- those changes aren't the changes they wanted.

Hell, you just did it yourself. "Yeah, SR3 needed some help, but not a complete rewrite..." So, because you didn't think it needed a rewrite, you're pissed off that it's getting one. And considering you're one of the people who go flying off the handle at random statements other users make and then try to present them as the definitive way they're going to be handled in the game (but then trying to be suave by saying you're just theorizing after someone slaps you in the face with that fact), you're a prime example of the type of person I'm referring to.

You want to continue bitching about crap that you and others are making up just so you can vent your anger over the change that's coming? Fine, feel free. But don't be surprised when I come in and start bitching at you for being an idiot for doing so and offering counterpoints in the process (which, apparently, I'm not allowed to do -- only you guys are), either.

...so, being accepting of change means that we should just accept whatever shit gets dumped on me, as long as it's different? and if i decry it as shit, i'm anti-change? okay.

In case you missed it (and apparently you have), I have no problem with people being critical of the changes. Especially since I'm one of those people (I loathe the basic dice mechanic). What I, personally, have a problem with are the people making shit up so that they can have an excuse to bitch about how horrible it is, all the while trying to present the made-up shit as gospel. Doubly so for those who are doing it to cover up the fact that they're just upset because they'll have to buy new books.