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Birdy
Critas, what are you using to post on this board? I hope nothing more modern than vi and / or telnet. After all, everything else is just for "dumpasses and weaklings" who request "dumbing down" to make things "easier to use" so they don't have to work hard.

Back in the past, most things where lousier, not better


Birdy
mfb
you get a 9.5 for missing the point and a 10 for putting words in other people's mouths, Birdy. good form--especially the splashy finish, where you said the exact opposite of what Critias has been saying, and then attributed it to him.

Critias didn't say "if it's older, it must be better". he sad that this particular old stuff is pretty good, and the direction the new stuff is going doesn't please him (among others). he's also said in the past that he's quite supportive of changes from SR3, but that the changes that are being put in effect aren't good changes.

but i suppose if you streamline that enough, you can turn that into "old good, new bad."
Nerbert
He's also saying, pretty clearly, that anyone who doesn't want to learn to play the game is stupid. And that anything done to make the game easier to learn is "dumbing it down" to a Seseme Street level.

His whole post is a detailed explanation of why learning to play Shadowrun is a mind numbing chore. And then he suggets that anyone who doesn't think playing a game should be a chore is a mentally retarded 2 year old.

Its great that Critias and many other people already know how to play and are already intimately familiar with the Shadowrun universe. *applause*

I'm not trying to say that the proposed solutions are going to be a great thing for the Shadowrun game line as a whole, only time will tell in that respect. But I do think that the goals of streamlining and ease of use are good game design decisions and good business decisions.
Birdy
mfb, next time I'll add irony-tacks just for you!

But just to spell it out for you:

Critas rant basically says: "Keep the game as is, make the players work to learn the rules because the rules are not that complex. Dumbing it down takes away from my learning/achivments"

That is the same as saying "Don't write a Web-Browser, make people work to learn telnet / sendmail and use a mailing list"

While I have been doing that, I prefer a browser and forum software. Same with the rules. SR rules are the most complicated PoS I have ever seen this side of Rolemaster. They are in bad need of a rework and simplification.

Take a look at the GURPS rules. The equivalent to the SR game rules (including CC, MITS, Rigger, Matrix, excluding Chargen and Design rules) fit in about 100 pages and! are more stable, better scaling and far easier to learn.

If SR4 makes that grade, it might be a worthy game. If it remains the current unbalanced quackmire, I hope it dies a quick and ugly death.

Birdy
mfb
*sigh* okay. go ahead and base everything on one post which the poster admits is reactionary and inflammatory. all that critical thinking is for ivory tower highbrows anyway, who needs it.
Ellery
There's a difference between poorly organized rules and simplistic rules.

The people who decry SR3 rules as being unpleasant to use raise a mixture of the two complaints. For example,

QUOTE (blakkie)
The odd implementations are things like where you halve numbers, rounding up or down. Or for the Healing spell where your TN is 10-essense. Or how you roll a check and multiple by a rate factor to calculate how much a vehicle accelerates in a given action. Or avoiding firearm damage using two different dice rolls over a few stages with the number of roll successes from each roll carrying through and getting added together.


Inconsistent rounding is poor organization. Healing spell TN weirdness is poor organization (unless people have difficulty subtracting a number between 0 and 6 from 10). Rolling and multiplying could be either, hard to tell. Firearm damage seems to be a complaint about difficulty.

As far as I can tell, Critias only addressed the difficulty part--basically, you should be able to handle everything without significant trouble. In fact, the original poster admitted as much:

QUOTE (blakkie)
Each one of these implementations by itself slows things up only a bit, and each taken alone is entirely managable. Unfortunately in numbers they tend to overwhelm. This is sort of a by-product of a lack of uniformity.

So the uniformity issue is the one that really needs to be fixed. Switching to TN 5 doesn't do anything to uniformity--you can still have just as many different ways of resolving things, rounding up and down, subtracting from # of hits needed, and so on.

However, the desire for that uniformity has been announced but we haven't seen enough to see if it's been implemented. Given the lack of uniformity between new SR3 materials and existing SR3 materials, one is justified in being skeptical until shown otherwise that rules will be a lot more consistent. We have, however, seen multiple instances of apparent simplification--most obviously removal of tactical pool and loss of a degree of flexibility in the dice mechanic--and these simplifications seem to be addressing a problem that doesn't exist unless the audience is supposed to be dumb.

There is no inherent reason why variable TNs cannot be consistently applied, and there is no inherent reason why a fixed TN system must be consistently applied. In fact, a more powerful core mechanic often allows one to avoid the need for rules to handle common special cases that don't work with a weaker core mechanic.

The lack of demonstrated consistency coupled with the demonstrated dumbing-down is something that may well frustrate people who can handle a little complexity and like the benefits that you get in exchange for that complexity. Critias sounds frustrated. I am too.

It's especially frustrating when people don't even seem to comprehend why one is frustrated, and start making wild, incorrect guesses about hating change, or thinking the existing system is perfect, or whatever.
mfb
you just hate SR4 'cos you're a girl. (i'm tired of SR4, so any commentary i can motivate myself to post for the next while will be full of the flippancy.)
blakkie
QUOTE (Ellery @ Jun 24 2005, 04:54 PM)
There's a difference between poorly organized rules and simplistic rules.

The people who decry SR3 rules as being unpleasant to use raise a mixture of the two complaints.  For example,

In the post you quoted i was talking about only what i saw as complexity sources, not overall unpleasantness. I also mentioned 4 items.

The mass is in two parts, overall and local. But i put local as a sub-catagory "odd implementations" (i guess you missed this when i posted about it before). Once you address the local rules mass problem and uniformity i doubt total mass would be an issue for me. Others? *shrug* So that is sort of symptom too, but i included it because it can take off by itself.

The "odd implementations" is admittedly a sort of catchall. I tried to give a smattering of some of the different aspects of it. But you misunderstood my meaning with them.

The halving issue isn't just about whether you round up or down, which is somewhat organizational. However there are good reasons for rounding up or down that would make it hard to justify always one way or another. But the halving It also is creates of an extra step (local mass) and clunkiness from loss of precision in whatever value was halved. An example of the later is damage staging. When you stage down 1 successes is functionally equivalent to 0 successes. This makes for fewer, larger descrete steps in the range of possible outcomes.

Not sure what your understanding could have been of the Healing TN to put it under organization? question.gif That's is two part, first a bit of the hassle of substraction. But second it has been my experience that when you start having to invert from an arbitrary fixed number then something went wrong somewhere, something is upside down. I guess this really leads back into the area of Essense, cyberware, and bioware. A quick glance there and you see more reversals and up and down and stuff. You also see numbers with 2 digits behind the decimal place. But sadly we might just be screwed trying to fix that mess due to legacy concerns.

My issue with firearm (ranged) combat i've gone over at lengths. Extra steps (local mass), hassle, extra rolls.

Now on to the example you missed, vehicle acceleration. What, couldn't squeeze it into "poor organization"? wink.gif That IMO is an unnessasary skill check. So an extra roll and multiplying. Instead a fixed acceleration rate, or since the entire section is rife with clutter, something else entirely. The vehicles is an excellent candidate for a teardown and rethink.

QUOTE
As far as I can tell, Critias only addressed the difficulty part--basically, you should be able to handle everything without significant trouble. In fact, the original poster admitted as much:


QUOTE (blakkie)

Each one of these implementations by itself slows things up only a bit, and each taken alone is entirely managable. Unfortunately in numbers they tend to overwhelm. This is sort of a by-product of a lack of uniformity.



Now here is where you really have to back the bus up. As far as i can tell Critias addressed little more than providing a "reactionary and inflammatory" post for me laugh at.

Further just creating a system full of these "odd implementations" uniformily implemented still can leave you the numbers to be overwhelmed with them. If the rules are bulked up with extra rolls, extra steps, and such everywhere then the complexity on the micro level still leads to speed and iritation problems on the macro level. Imagine if you decided to unify on a 16 step process for each action that included branching logic and potential loops where you could roll between 6 and 14 separate checks depending on outcomes.

So no, uniformity is a big piece of the puzzle. But it isn't the only one.

As for whether fixed TN or variable TN is the way to go? As i've posted before:
- the rules are such a mixed bag that vast portion of the rules have to be rewritten anyway to unify, so you aren't saving much work and likely costing work to try figure out what to save
- changing to the fixed TN can create enough of a break to help SR3 players over the hump by excising ghost memories of past rules
- i still suspect that some of reason for the proliferation of variations of how the variable TN is used in SR3 is because there isn't a single one that is general utility enough to work, but that's just a hunch
- i personally don't think it matters a huge amount which way it goes, i certainly don't see some sort of huge advantage with variable TN; fixed TN is a lot better at multiple hit successes variable is much better at single hit successes, if the Fanpro successfully builds the system up around multiple hits then it should be fine *shrug*

Maybe this last part is what makes you feel uneasy? You can't envision how multiple hits can work? Myself i can't envision how a variable TN would work that well given that the "flexibility" it shows in SR3 kinda just an expresion of the problem. smile.gif In the end it probably won't have mattered to you much either since all those old variable TN mechanics would have been pretty much gone anyway.

P.S. No i don't understand much less agree with that wierd idea you had to do with linear progression, but then you didn't answer my question asking for you to explain WTH you were talking about. So its hard to fault me for that.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (blakkie)
You also see numbers with 2 digits behind the decimal place.

*Gasp* How absolutely terrifying!

(You may at this point accuse me of ignoring the rest of your argument. I am, but simply because I'm too tired to respond coherently to the rest—I'll leave that for morning if someone else hasn't done it by then)

~J
blakkie
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Jun 24 2005, 09:32 PM)
QUOTE (blakkie @ Jun 24 2005, 10:30 PM)
You also see numbers with 2 digits behind the decimal place.

*Gasp* How absolutely terrifying!

(You may at this point accuse me of ignoring the rest of your argument. I am, but simply because I'm too tired to respond coherently to the rest—I'll leave that for morning if someone else hasn't done it by then)

~J

No problem. You've said plenty enough. smile.gif

Yet not really provide much of an arguement at all. Then neither did i provide my thinking behind why i think that is a bad thing. *shrug* It has been posted before, but i suppose not widely.
FrostyNSO
What feels more SR to you?

The sammy who has installed so much ware his essence is 1 (yay! no decimals! streamlined!)?

...or the sammy who is toeing the line of man-machine with an essence of .01?
lollerskates
c: the one with an essence of .00000000000000001.
mfb
i've got to side with the people who mock other people for things like maths is scary.
lollerskates
preach it, brother. smile.gif they should make SR4 more complex, not less. essence costs should be extended six more decimal places. price tags should include the breakdown in cents and they should have currency conversions for each individual country. the formula to determine drain should be (force^2 + magic - essence / 2)^.5 instead of merely f/2. they should add more modifiers for melee combat tests, such as +2 TN for wearing pants that are too tight for you. the sourcebooks should come packaged with a knife to stab anyone too stupid to understand the rules. we should all become math professors.
Kagetenshi
If by "math professors" you mean sixth graders, sure. There's not a mathematical concept in Shadowrun that wasn't introduced to me by then.

~J
lollerskates
*whoosh*
Kagetenshi
Apparently so. Maybe in the morning I'll get it.

~J
lollerskates
it's okay if you don't. although posting on an internet forum is usually considered a recreational activity, i enjoy writing cryptic messages that people will find difficult to understand so i can gloat at how much more intelligent i am than they are.
mfb
haha. if the inability to communicate your ideas clearly is a sign of intelligence, i must be the king of the smart people.
Cheops
I actually had a guy who played in my games who found a way to get his essence down to 1 plank (sp?). I never really bothered to learn how to do it but this guy was the biggest rules lawyer so it means it is possible. Until we found the rule in the book that says you can't go below 0.01 without dying...lol

I pretty much already had a fixed TN in SR3...I don't need A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SYSTEM to unify my rules...TN of 4 worked perfectly for about 90% of situations. Combat was hardly beyond short range, melee combat starts at 4, dodging past cameras and sec guards is easily handled as TN 4 how many successes?, etc... It just takes a little intelligence and adaptable thinking within a clearly defined set of parameters to resolve a situation.

There was NO REASON TO REWRITE THE RULE SET in my opinion. They could have easily STREAMLINED THE EXISITING RULE SET. In my opinion, the reason they are doing a complete rewrite is to show THAT IT IS THEIR GAME AND NOT FASA's. At least Exalted had the grapes to say that their new edition was partly due to a change in developers. I, and many of the other naysayers I think, are objecting to the complete rules change and not to streamlining the rules. The changes from 1st to 2nd to 3rd, while fairly big, were no where near as big as the changes that the developers have hinted at for 4th edition. I just don't feel that SR will be the game that I love anymore. And this concerns me, and pisses me off when people in the know talk down to us for not believing in "their" new game.

I feel that Living Room Games had the same mentality when they took over ED. They bought it because it was the game they loved and they developed the way they wanted to play it. That style didn't mesh with mine at all so I stoped buying their products BUT I ACTUALLY LIKED THE RULES CHANGES THEY MADE AND USE THEM TO THIS DAY. If they had changed the rules to make the game "feel" different than it used to then I would have become disenfranchised even before I did. This is what appears to be happening to me with SR4. What I have been told about the rules I don't like and it is pissing me off and making unwilling to play even without seeing the product. This is my problem with SR4.

I'll download the free PDF, read it over, if the rules aren't total crap I might try running a game or two to see if it feels the same and if it doesn't then SR just lost another GOOD customer (I collect all editions of SR like I used to collect ED) to d20 and D&D.
TeOdio
I want to make a few observations for pro and con 3rd ed rules. I had to takes advanced maths like Calcs 2, and Stats 2, so Math doesn't scare me. Plus I'm pushing 30 and have been doing math for so long it's like speaking English. So I'll ignore the math part.
1. Some things, like combat, come up once a game session, or every other game session. Those are easy to learn.
2. You want to play a Rigger, a Decker, or a Mage, damn you can do a lot of stuff!, but they don't come into play every game session, so unless your Fucking Data from Star Trek, you will find yourself reaching for a book.
3. Which slow down game time, unless of course you just "wing it", which is perfectly acceptable, as long as it is done fairly.
4. Blackie is right on the money when he talks about shit being spread all over the fucking map when it comes to rules. Did ya ever notice, how disjointed and repetitive the rules for some of the skills are, if they even give you a rule (Demolitions anyone?). Or that source material break the rules they created (Word Recognition Spell). Shit, half the damn books don't even have an index in the back.
5. I make do, cause I bind up all of the rules together from the multiple sources, but for a GM just starting out, they gonna be "winging it alot" And to answer Criterias I believe, yeah, you can look it up and jot it down for later, but that's more time that takes you out of character, and worrying more about the mechanic than the fun to be had.
6. So therefore, I am looking forward to SR4, because it is my hope they hire a Fucking editor that knows how things are supposed to be organized. That additional rules can be added, if they support the earlier rules. That there is some consistency (always round down, always need more successes on opposed rolls, etc)
7. So therefore,i don't give a Rats Ass about how the system will change, I'm more interested in how the design of the books will change. If 4th Ed looks like it was slapped together by a Freshman Art Major I'm gonna be selling that bad boy on E-Bay.... And declaring war on Canada.

nuyen.gif nuyen.gif nuyen.gif
Ellery
Blakkie wrote a whole bunch of stuff but I still don't see a clear separation between problems that are inherent because of the level of complexity in the rules, and problems that would be fixed if only the authors would decide on a consistent way to do things. So I'm not going to respond, aside from saying that blakkie's clarifications didn't add to my understanding. What he said the second time is what I understood the first time.

I don't think blakkie understood what I meant by organization. I didn't simply mean that the rules were supposed to be printed next to each other. Rather, I meant that there was a consistent, organized framework for the rules, one that was used systematically, so that you didn't have strange special cases nearly so often.

TeOdio seems to be looking forward to SR4 in the hope that the book will be better organized. That's fine, but he should realize that this is actually less likely with all the changes to the core mechanic. It's going to take a lot of time to deal with those changes, and that leaves less time to work on improving editing and organization. So he might want to rethink whether or not he's really indifferent to the scope of the changes being made. Of course, it's still worth hoping that despite the change, the organization will be better. The one benefit is that the seldom-used rules probably will be a bit easier to remember since there are fewer degrees of freedom with the new dice mechanic, even if they're just as random of a hodge-podge as they are now.

P.S. without using surgery options, the smallest base increment of essence cost I'm aware of is 0.05, and with betaware that's 0.03, and with deltaware it's 0.025..., which makes a minimum difference of 0.005. The surgery options can change implantation costs by 5%, which means that your smallest difference is potentially as little as 5% of 0.005, or 0.00025.
Cheops
Giving the book better organization didn't require an entire change in the rules. That is not what I see the issue as being with SR4. And all the rules for things are there if you can string it together.

E.G. optional rules for increased damage for explosives based on their power, description in gear section about how explosives work, and description of how skills work.

Better organization would solve this problem without requiring a change to "Explosives stage up based on a roll of explosives' rating + demolitionist's skill versus TN 5" which isn't much different from "demolitionist's skill versus variable TN plus explosives' rating versus TN 4."

Riggers don't see much play because they are overwatch, surveillance, and getaway (plus tech support). They are always doing stuff but you have to like playing a support character to like them. Deckers are the lynchpin of the whole SR team. They can get the most legwork before the run, after the run, and make or brake the actual success of the run. They are usually the only character who knows the majority of what is going on and may even know the reasons for the run better than the Johnson in some cases. They are the most important and most used characters. I've had players decide that we should play something else that week because the decker didn't show up and they didn't want me to give them an "inferior" result. Mages are just so broken that I can't think of situations where they wouldn't be useful.

It is difficult for starting GMs to learn SR. I'll grant that. However, I have to say, and the few other SR GMs in our community agree, that it is one of the most rewarding systems to GM. There is a sense of real accomplishment when you can run a good game of SR. When I spend 5-10 hours making the most elaborate security system devised in our game to date plus all the complications and hidden gems that the players can run into and then watch the team succeed despite my preparations I take real satisfaction. With D&D I can spend that much time or I can slap some shit together in 10 minutes or less and I get the same enjoyment. The difference between the two is the rules. SR is in general much less forgiving than D&D. You had better know what you are doing or the shit is going to hit the fan. Not so in D&D or Storyteller or 7th Sea from my experience.

From what I have seen of the rules characters are going to be able to do crazy stuff with their MUCH larger "dice pools" than they could with the same level of training in SR3. I don't think it will feel the same.
mfb
i think you're hitting on what i appreciate most about SR. i haven't been able to put my finger on it, but it's depth. you can streamline and simplify all you want, as long as you don't mess with the depth that SR has.
DrJest
QUOTE
Deckers are the lynchpin of the whole SR team.


I so disagree. I think one of the beauties of the game is that there isn't really a mandtory archetype to get the job done. In fact, I've only had three people play deckers in the... when did SR1 come out? 1990? So, fifteen years (holy crap, that long?) I've been running it. Deckers are actually considered (in my groups) the most disposable archetype after Riggers. Most of what you would want them for can be handled through other channels, or at worst with a quick call to a contact.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your players are dumb for liking deckers or anything; I just don't think the archetype is quite the be all and end all you portrayed it in that post.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Cheops)
Riggers don't see much play because they are overwatch, surveillance, and getaway (plus tech support). They are always doing stuff but you have to like playing a support character to like them.

Spoken like someone who has never actually played one. Riggers are combat machines.

~J
Wounded Ronin
Seriously. A rigger can be incredibly powerful with their drone armies.
Kagetenshi
…And their dodging against a TN based on Handling (with VCR TN mods applying!), and their being able to use Combat Pool to attack leaving Control Pool for just dodging, soaking, and vehicle maneuvers. Then, if they're in a bind and someone really needs to die, they can use Control Pool for the attack as well. Add in Sensor-Enhanced Gunnery and people get eaten.

~J
lollerskates
QUOTE (mfb)
haha. if the inability to communicate your ideas clearly is a sign of intelligence, i must be the king of the smart people.

don't try to destroy my source of self-esteem, you bastard.
mintcar
My God! I would have laughed at Critias rant and everyone who agreed with it if I wasnīt so damn sure you actually mean it. I play along when here and pretend that I donīt think itīs fucking stupid to make rules the big issue in roleplaying games in the first place. You guys are too damn full of yourselves.
Nerbert
Now, now mintcar, you can't just come in here and start bandying about insults without some solidly hyperbolized and offensively phrased non-facts to back you up. Thems the rules.

And just so I'm not feeding the trolls. Ellery, Cheops, and others who wrote some good replies. I think that things are still a lot more open to interpretation then most people claim. I think the "evidence of dumbing the game down" isn't as ironclad as its being made out to be. On the other hand, I know that there isn't necessarily any good reason to think otherwise.
Cheops
I don't have issues with dumbing the game down...I have issues with what I've been saying on several threads for the past couple of days...I don't see the need for a complete rewrite of the rules. Not dumbing them down.

I have played a Rigger. Dixie was his name, a former NASCAR driver who tried to make the switch to F1 with his shiny new VCR3 but didn't like it. So he became a smuggler/shadowrunner. I played him for about a year. And yes, riggers are combat monsters, hence the overwatch and whatnot, but in games I've played, combat comes up infrequently unless something goes wrong.

Correct, deckers can be replaced by people with cell phones. Unless your GM actually read and understood the Wrong Party rules and bothers to use them. You'd be surprised how timid people can get after one catastrophic blunder in the planning phase. Deckers generally can get really good info for cheaper than anyone else, with less chance of raising the target's alarms, and with less chance of letting the street know you are up to something. When I first started playing the group I was in didn't allow deckers because they didn't want to deal with them. So EVERYONE had a decker contact. Deckers are useful. Especially if your group's decker picks up a good rating Counterfeit program...tee hee.
mintcar
My opinion of the new edition and the "dumbing down" was expressed earlier but was basicly ignored until Critias attacked it or similar posts.

QUOTE
My thought is, that the direction is set for a system that can fade to the background in favor of the story. The current system is very ballanced, and you can use it to bring an intellectual challange of number crunching to almost any situation. This allows for the players to beat the system and do stuff the gm didnīt plan for, which is a good thing. Problem is that the system totally looses itīs ballance if itīs not used consistently, and it takes a lot of work to keep that up. It wears me out. It takes focus away from what I think is fun with rpgīs. I said it before. Iīm overjoyed to see this change. And my players will be as well, because they never asked for an increased ability to influence the outcome of rules regulated parts of the game. In fact that seems to them as an unwelcome burden, same as to me. We never wanted our game to be a contest between gm and players, but a colaboration.

Now, before you say I could have done it the way I wanted; I know that, but unless I would have taken complete control it would have ment re-writing the system. The system was ment for the type of game were both gm and players have to be smart in using the rules to be successfull, and so it would become sort of a contest. If you are one of those who like that sort of thing; then it was your kind of game. Hopefully it wont be anymore, but it will be my kind of game. Try and imagine if it was the other way around. Say youīre in love with vampires and think that the Vampire RPG has the coolest game world ever, but you feel that the system is too trivial and gives too much power to the gm. Then a new edition comes along and it promises to bring all the finness and number crunching you love into the system. What a releif, now you can play your favourite game without feeling cheated by the gm, and without feeling offended by the outcome of every roll. This is what is happening for me. I will be able to play my favourite game the way I want it. And thereīs no wonder people who want it the way it is are feeling sorry.     


Kagetenshi
QUOTE (mintcar)
My God! I would have laughed at Critias rant and everyone who agreed with it if I wasnīt so damn sure you actually mean it. I play along when here and pretend that I donīt think itīs fucking stupid to make rules the big issue in roleplaying games in the first place. You guys are too damn full of yourselves.

The rules are the vast majority of the product. I don't need their books for me to roleplay, I know how to do that. I buy some books for the world because I like it, but I can write my own worlds and do so not infrequently. What is the only product that FanPro sells that I have no interest or demonstrated ability to create for myself? Rules.

For some of us, purchasing role-playing products is just short of entirely about rules. Note that that does not mean that playing them is.

~J
Aku
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
For some of us, purchasing role-playing products is just short of entirely about rules. Note that that does not mean that playing them is.


Ditto for me Kage, No MATTER what system i'm Gming in, i largely play "homebrew" worlds, because it lets me decide what may or may not exist. For instance, in That Other Game™ playing in a canon setting, pretty much garuntee's all of the PHB races and classes, AND everything "unique" to that world. However, in a homebrew world, i COULD eliminate any number of things, and as long as i was upfront and honest about it, the players really can't say much about it. For instance, wizards and sorcerors. They exist, everywhere pretty much, in that game™ however, in a homebrew, i could pick one, or the other, and say it's not possible(either magic is a learned thing, and no one has innate spell potential, or vice versa).

The same with shadowrun, if you run in seattle, everything is sort of expected to be there, although metaplot sort of stuff can generally be safely ignored, buth otherwise, you really can't just say, well, Ares isn't opperating in my seattle.
Critias
If rules weren't important, RPG core books would be called "novels."
Collier
First posting here, so bear with me as I don't run the Shadows myself. What I am is Commando 23 with Fanpro, Kevin "Corsair" Collier. I read this entire post and just wanted to encourage some of you who are worried about the game. The guys working on it LOVE SR and are trying to come up with the way to do it right. I've worked with Fanpro and FASA before that and was also a playtester for WK. These guys want this to be exciting and a game you can enjoy. Ive been trying to learn SR3 and see some of the same problems you do but even the Commandos have not seen the final results of the work the playtesters have put in. Hang on good stuff is coming.
mfb
whether or not they want it to be good is not something most of us are questioning.
Ellery
Thanks for the encouragement, Collier. I appreciate the sentiment, but I already was expecting that the people working on SR4 love SR.

It requires more than love to achieve success, though. It also requires talent and good judgment. And, for me to like it, it also requires the people working on SR4 to have a similar enough vision of what makes a good game. Not all people will like any given game, and there are very successful games that many people like that I mostly do not. For instance, D&D is well done for what it is, but I tend to like grittier, more realistic games, and D&D isn't that. Plus, I dislike the enormous quantity of modifiers on top of the simplistic, easily-broken mechanic that is d20.

I don't question that the love for SR is sufficient to generate a good game in SR4, if the other factors are there.

I do have to question the talent, though. That the current set of people can put out fun SR products is undeniable--I have enjoyed the FanPro era supplements, and generally found them to be pretty well done (with the usual level of assorted quibbles, of course). But the products have all been light on rules, and the SR3 FAQ has on several occasions contradicted published material when it comes to rules, apparently unwittingly, and sometimes with game-breaking results. (E.g. invisibility.)

I want them to have the talent to create good rules, and I think with enough time, they probably could, but I'm not so sure that the level of inherent talent is so high that they can generate awesome mind-blowingly good rules in minutes. Given the huge number of rules that have to be rewritten to make sense in SR4, I don't think there's time to spend more than minutes per rule. There are what, 40-odd skills, plus dozens of modifiers for combat, for magic, etc., many of which interact with other rules, etc. etc.. Creating rules is not easy, and rule-creation is not, as far as I can tell, something with which the authors possess a great deal of experience.

I also want them to have good judgment, but trying to create a unified, well-organized system is contrary to trying to create a new rules system. Working from old rules gives a perspective that is tremendously valuable when trying to create cohesion and unity. That perspective is mostly lost when creating new rules, and the loss of perspective (plus the loss of time to actually writing the new rules as opposed to improving them) more than outweighs the advantage of being less constrained in what one changes. So they're already one down on the judgment, if the primary motivation really was to clean up and simplify.

If the primary motivation was to leave a personal stamp on SR, or to revamp SR to be a simple-minded game that is more geared towards hooking teenagers than remaining engaging for adults, then the judgment was just fine.

So, anyway, I hope good things are coming. I hope SR4 does as well as it can under the circumstances, because I enjoy the setting, and if SR4 does poorly, it doesn't bode well for the setting.
Collier
I understand your point about the skill needed to make it right. When the new stuff for CBT was anounced, I was apprehensive too. But I've watched the crew at Fanpro trying to correct old FASA problems and watched them take their time to do things right instead of fast. Those are the reasons I think you can relax a bit on SR. As far as playtesting, I've been there too, and understand when you love a game that it can be very frustrating, annoying, enraging, hysterical, etc. Hang in there guys and don't give up!
Cain
Lemme give you a specific example, then.

The maneuver score may be one of the most-hated, most-ignored rules in SR3. It's insanely complex, mind-numbingly tedious, only really works when there are just two vehicles involved, and is completely incompatible with normal pedestrian combat. In short, it's a complete and utter mess. Now, the man responsible for this mess is Jon Szetzo. Now, guess who is listed as one of the primary developers of SR4?

Jon Szetzo is a very nice guy, and a very bright one. However, like many bright people, he sometimes forgets that the rest of us can't keep up with his mathematical ability. And like most people, he sometimes misses the point.

None of us are disputing that Jon and Rob and the rest love Shadowrun. Heck, Jon must love the game, to have spent so much time developing his system. The question isn't their love of the game-- it's their ability to pull it off. And on that count, there hasn't been much encouragement.
apple
QUOTE (Cain)
Now, the man responsible for this mess is Jon Szetzo.  Now, guess who is listed as one of the primary developers of SR4? 


No. Responsible is/was Mike Mulvihill, Line Developer. It is/was his responsibility, that the rules, in the end, after all playtesting, correction, discussion etc are playable und usable. And MM failed (at least from my view as a paying and buying customer). He and most of the playtesting/developing staff of SR3. Yes, it is an unfair opinion and generalization, but sometimes this is my thought if I read through many rules. I hope that the new team has learned from the SR3-mess. Or that the same old SR3 people, who are now developing SR4 have changed some of their views ... especially regarding rules complexity.

@Collier
Yes, we all know, that everyone loves SR. Does this make a good game? I am quite sure, that everyone of the SR3-Developerteam loved SR3. But to be polite: I do not think that the SR3-Rulesytem was very good.

SYL
Cheops
QUOTE (apple)
QUOTE (Cain)
Now, the man responsible for this mess is Jon Szetzo.  Now, guess who is listed as one of the primary developers of SR4?  


No. Responsible is/was Mike Mulvihill, Line Developer. It is/was his responsibility, that the rules, in the end, after all playtesting, correction, discussion etc are playable und usable. And MM failed (at least from my view as a paying and buying customer). He and most of the playtesting/developing staff of SR3. Yes, it is an unfair opinion and generalization, but sometimes this is my thought if I read through many rules. I hope that the new team has learned from the SR3-mess. Or that the same old SR3 people, who are now developing SR4 have changed some of their views ... especially regarding rules complexity.

@Collier
Yes, we all know, that everyone loves SR. Does this make a good game? I am quite sure, that everyone of the SR3-Developerteam loved SR3. But to be polite: I do not think that the SR3-Rulesytem was very good.

SYL

spoken like someone who has never been in charge of people or of creating a complicated product involving several stages of development...

despite any manager's best intentions nothing ever ends up happening without some major mess ups. there are too many people involved and too many details for any person to manage without having a complete mental collapse. At a brief glance the maneuver score seems like a good idea, and it is, until you try to use it for an actual game situation. But odds are that all the feedback on it was good so if it looks good at a short look and everyone tells you it is good then as a manager you are going to give it a rubber stamp because you having 10 other fires to put out...
Cain
Actually, Mike had barely gotten his feet wet as line developer when R2 was published. I have no idea how far along the pipeline it was when Mike took over, but I do know that Mike would have been heavily swamped with the SR2-3 changeover. R2 was the last SR2 sourcebook, so I think Mike's attention would have been focused on playtesting and writing SR3.

None of this changes the fact that Jon, as much as I like the guy personally, has written *the* most-hated set of Shadowrun rules. The fact that he was even chosen to develop a "simpler, streamlined" product should raise eyebrows.
mfb
QUOTE (mintcar)
I play along when here and pretend that I donīt think itīs fucking stupid to make rules the big issue in roleplaying games in the first place.

alternatively, it could be pretty fucking stupid to settle for bad rules in a roleplaying game. it could also be pretty fucking stupid to assume that because you don't value the rules, nobody should. and stupid or not, it's certainly pretty fucking arrogant to shove your playstyle down everybody else's throat.

if the rules are good, everybody wins: those who don't place value on the rules can ignore them just as easily as they can bad rules, and those who do value the rules are satisfied with what they're presented with. make bad rules, and the only people you'll satisfy are the ones who don't use the rules anyway.
Namergon
It's quite some time now I read the DSF for the last time. Playtesting SR4, finding time for various RPG gaming sessions, RL and so on, kept me from this forum and others.
I've been told that there was a "general concern feeling" about SR4, and that debates were often quite tense. So I've decided to have a look.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can bring some added value to the various discussions. I have my opinions, my hopes and concerns about SR4, that won't give much as a clue about SR4 quality level (I have no particular "popular credit" here to begin with).

Just to feign that my post has some added value I would just give my opinion on 1 thing in SR4 rules as I saw them:

QUOTE (apple)
I hope that the new team has learned from the SR3-mess. Or that the same old SR3 people, who are now developing SR4 have changed some of their views ... especially regarding rules complexity.


I think they did learn, and my first word when I read the vehicle rules was "fresh!" biggrin.gif
tisoz
QUOTE (Cain)
None of this changes the fact that Jon, as much as I like the guy personally, has written *the* most-hated set of Shadowrun rules. The fact that he was even chosen to develop a "simpler, streamlined" product should raise eyebrows.

Didn't he also write the pretty much useless (for SR) naval section? 10 pages I've never used.
Jrayjoker
QUOTE (tisoz @ Jun 30 2005, 05:34 AM)
QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 29 2005, 08:43 PM)
None of this changes the fact that Jon, as much as I like the guy personally, has written *the* most-hated set of Shadowrun rules.  The fact that he was even chosen to develop a "simpler, streamlined" product should raise eyebrows.

Didn't he also write the pretty much useless (for SR) naval section? 10 pages I've never used.

Come on, be fair, just because you didn't use it doesn't mean it wasn't necessary. A lot of campaigns can spiral up quickly and the use of military gear and city destroying weaponry can happen. Even if it is the rigger saying, "Oops," after jacking into the battleship for the first time.
Nyxll
My question is, if Rigger 3 was the worst book published, (which I am going to borrow and find out for myself), how did it get out of the playtesting phase? Sounds like a systemic problem with the development process not just the writers.

blakkie
QUOTE (Cheops)
spoken like someone who has never been in charge of people or of creating a complicated product involving several stages of development...

rotfl.gif rotfl.gif rotfl.gif

Damn, you sure know how to make customer service look like your strong suit.

If it looked good on a "short look" (as opposed to no look) then i'd say the priorities of something like "brevity is the soul of wit" (just for you anal nutjobs out there biggrin.gif ) were not ingrained in his mind either. Of course a quick look through the rest of SR pretty much confirms this.
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