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blakkie
QUOTE (Eldritch @ Jun 23 2005, 02:51 PM)
Yeah, but thats part of the setting - either you'r born with it or you'r not.  Changing that changes the setting.


If you want your 10th level Street Samurai to get some wizard levels, Go pick up d20 modern and urban arcana.

Thats not what SR is about.

Hey, hey hey. Don't be bringing your "America, love it or leave it" around here. ;P Just pointing out that:
a) SR isn't as classless as is commonly trumpeted
b) By mostly standing still it has become middling for flexibility in character creation and advancement relative to other games.

Fortunately it appears that SR4 could bring at least some increased flexibility in choosing how your awakened character is built and progresses.

P.S. The awakened are not automatically aware of their gifts, so there is still some wiggle room for 'discovering' that you are awakened. Also in ED are their still totally mundane humans at the peak of the cycle? Never actually played it, just know some of the more common SR related lore.
blakkie
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Jun 23 2005, 03:05 PM)
QUOTE (blakkie @ Jun 23 2005, 02:14 PM)
Mainly it has to do with magic aspects of the game. Don't start as a hermetic or shaman or adept but want to go there later? Too bad. Start as an adept but later want to cast a couple spells Out of luck. Aspected mage of some sort, but later want to sample the other side? BUH-bye. Only want to start with a bit of magic, putting more resources elsewhere? Options very limited. Can your character experience and be converted by Deep Resonance after creation? Uh-uh, at least until Deus comes back and even then that's leaving the rules reservation.

Start as an Ork and later want to become a straight-up Human? Out of luck. Want to have taken piano instead of tennis when you were 10? Too late to change that. Want to be ambidextrous instead of double-jointed? Not a chance.

Those are about the most idiotic cases of lack of flexibility that I can imagine.

~J

Um, you cut out of that quote the part where i pointed out that SR treats its class choices with similar ridigity as it treats the metahuman choices. So i must say thanks for supporting my assertion! Please come again. smile.gif

P.S. As far as the Otaku part, which i'm not a particularly big fan of in the SR3 implementation, canon seems to suggest they are created by an external force. Certainly Deus could create them after a manner, and not even just in kids though the Deus creations started fading once outside his influence so they aren't exactly the same.
blakkie
QUOTE (Taki)
QUOTE (nezumi)
  What about melee combat?  Sure, SR has it's flaws, but it certainly beats D20 (alright, now I get to try and hit you!  Oh, I missed.  You try to hit me again...)

hum I wouldn't be so sure. Damn it! yes you are right : hit point are stupidly high in dd3, the number of opponent doesn't count that much etc ...

I've found the number of opponents to matter somewhat, there are even options for allowing allies to aid one another. Though the pure canon flanking rules are a bit wack.

As for HP if you think of them representing only the capacity to take physical damage they don't make much sense. But once you understand HP lose as coming from fatigue and spent luck (still searching for a better word) along with the physical damage, and as you increase in levels the capacity for agtual physical damage rises little if any, then it makes a hell of a lot more sense.

One thing though that SR definately has going for it on the realism front are wound penalties.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (blakkie)
Um, you cut out of that quote the part where i pointed out that SR treats its class choices with similar ridigity as it treats the metahuman choices. So i must say thanks for supporting my assertion! Please come again. smile.gif

Rereading it, you've defeated your own assertion. Magic is treated like race because that's what it is. It's not something your character chooses, it's something they are. You choose that your character is an Ork at chargen, and don't change it afterwards. You choose that your character is double-jointed at chargen, and don't change it afterwards—you can't trade it for ambidextrous, for instance. You choose that your character is Awakened, and you don't change it afterwards—because it's exactly the same sort of situation.

~J
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (blakkie @ Jun 23 2005, 04:52 PM)
QUOTE (Taki @ Jun 23 2005, 02:54 PM)
QUOTE (nezumi)
  What about melee combat?  Sure, SR has it's flaws, but it certainly beats D20 (alright, now I get to try and hit you!  Oh, I missed.  You try to hit me again...)

hum I wouldn't be so sure. Damn it! yes you are right : hit point are stupidly high in dd3, the number of opponent doesn't count that much etc ...

I've found the number of opponents to matter somewhat, there are even options for allowing allies to aid one another. Though the pure canon flanking rules are a bit wack.

As for HP if you think of them representing only the capacity to take physical damage they don't make much sense. But once you understand HP lose as coming from fatigue and spent luck (still searching for a better word) along with the physical damage, and as you increase in levels the capacity for agtual physical damage rises little if any, then it makes a hell of a lot more sense.

One thing though that SR definately has going for it on the realism front are wound penalties.

See, but then they'd have to set it up so that hit points were only applicable to hand to hand fighting. Taking damage from eating poison or from a cooking accident should hit something other than hit points so that while a master swordsman might be hard to kill in a duel he still dies if the oven explodes on him like anyone else.

In any case, the Riddle of Steel combat system is so much more realistic when it comes to hand to hand combat than anything that crawled out of D20. Unless someone perversely likes hit points as a measure of how long their character will last in a duel, it really makes sense to just play Riddle of Steel for all your medieval death needs.
blakkie
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
See, but then they'd have to set it up so that hit points were only applicable to hand to hand fighting. Taking damage from eating poison or from a cooking accident should hit something other than hit points so that while a master swordsman might be hard to kill in a duel he still dies if the oven explodes on him like anyone else.

Er, in 3e poison DOES affect one of the 6 ability scores. The only time it affects HP is indirectly if the poison does Constitution damage, which in turn lowers your Constitution bonus HP/level. If the ability affected drops to nothing you are incapacitated, effects based on which ability it is, irregardless of how many HP you have remaining. For example if you are at full health of 100HP but your Dex drops to 0 you are paralyzed.
Austere Emancipator
Why do you get more "fatigued" when hit with a greatsword than when hit with a rapier?
blakkie
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
Rereading it, you've defeated your own assertion.
....
You choose that your character is Awakened, and you don't change it afterwards—because it's exactly the same sort of situation.

I didn't 'defeat' my own assertion at all. Perhaps you should continue reading on into my response to Eldritch, right there above my response to you. embarrassed.gif It is that sort of situation because the game was made that way. Or are you suggesting SR magic rules are based on mimicing what happens with RealLife™ magic people. smile.gif
blakkie
QUOTE (Austere Emancipator @ Jun 23 2005, 04:27 PM)
Why do you get more "fatigued" when hit with a greatsword than when hit with a rapier?

Never been to a Ren Faire to do battle so i can't really tell you. smile.gif But i did mention this "luck" aspect, right? Of couse it is counted all as one, not three separate totals. So exactly where one begins and the other ends isn't a set ratio.

EDIT: So yes it is somewhat abstract. But it isn't as bizzare as the body of a Lvl 10 PC being able to withstand 10x as much actual physical damage as a Lvl 1 PC.
mintcar
Very interesting thread. I´d like to eco Blakkie on a lot of the things he´s said. Basicly the new edition will be so different that some will be real happy others will be real unhappy, and that´s the way it is.

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 didn´t plan for, which is a good thing. Problem is that the system totally looses it´s ballance if it´s 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 rpg´s. I said it before. I´m 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 you´re 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 there´s no wonder people who want it the way it is are feeling sorry.
Nikoli
I like d20 modern and to some degree the StarWars d20 rules for HP, wounds, etc. In those you could have 200 HP, a 10 CON, take 12 pts of damage and a bit of bad luck will still kill you out right. SW if you take enough critical hits you're out, regardless of HP.
mfb
QUOTE (Cain)
Could you clarify? And especially, could you tell us if the devs listened, and fixed the broken parts you discovered?

the things we broke were pretty specific, so clarification won't be forthcoming. whether or not they listened and whether or not they fixed the breakages is a complex question that i'm not able to give a good answer to. i can look at recent versions of the rules and see changes in place that closely resemble things i have suggested, or which address problems which my suggestions addressed.
Nerbert
I think a lot of "realism" is deeply embedded in the players attitude. I'm ok with D&D hit points as long as I think of it as a kind of situational luck and meaure of physical endurance. When you're low on hit points, you might not be wounded, but your luck is running out and you're tired from fighting or even shell shocked. In the same manner, I don't really think of the dodge test as Matrix style bullet dodging, it just represents how aware you are of your surroundings and by what margin of error you can take an action and dive for cover.

When a system becomes unrealistic for me is when I can no longer come up with a reasonable explanation of why something is happening.
Mr. Man
QUOTE (blakkie)
It is that sort of situation because the game was made that way.

As are all of the other rules.

Unlike D20, Shadowrun rules were designed to be tied to a specific setting and in that particular setting you are either born with magic or you aren't.

Cheer up though: At least you can play a catgirl cyberninja. ohplease.gif

GunnerJ
QUOTE
It is that sort of situation because the game was made that way. Or are you suggesting SR magic rules are based on mimicing what happens with RealLife™ magic people.


In a way, that's exactly what it does. In the reality of the Shadowrun universe, Magic is a genetic quality which you either have potential for from birth or don't. Your complaint, then, is that the setting is inflexible, not the rules. The rules are simply modeling the reality of the setting.

In GURPS, there is a much, much, much greater degree of flexibility in character design. That is because there is absolutely no setting, by default. If I made a game using GURPS and ruled that Magery, in the game world, was an advantage that one is born with, to one degree or another, or doesn't have, then would you complain that GURPS is infelxible and has a "hidden class system?" The cause of inflexibility is the setting and not the rules.
Nerbert
The difference is that there are no rules for an aspected Mage becoming a full Mage at a later date. Such a thing is completely unsupported and could potentially be vastly game breaking to implement.
mfb
sure, if you implemented in such a way as to be game-breaking. if you implement it to be sane and well-integrated with the existing rules, the way i've seen it done, then it's not game-breaking at all.
GunnerJ
QUOTE
The difference is that there are no rules for an aspected Mage becoming a full Mage at a later date.


There are actually many differences; for example, in the function of the Magery advantage versus the Magic attribute, or the fact that one uses GURPS mechanics and the other SR3's. What's important is to note signifigant differences that are relevent to the overall point. Otherwise, it's a waste of server space and bandwidth.
FrostyNSO
Coming to a Walmart to you: Mcblakkie's Hooooomebrewed Non-Logic! Get yours before it's gone!
Eldritch
QUOTE (Nerbert)
The difference is that there are no rules for an aspected Mage becoming a full Mage at a later date. Such a thing is completely unsupported and could potentially be vastly game breaking to implement.

Because of the setting. Thats the way it is. The aspected magician wasn't born with enough talent, art, mojo, or whatever 'it' is that defines how much magic he is able to use.

nick012000
Well, not everyone who's got the genes Awakens. Usually it happens at puberty, sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes it happens later than that. Sometimes it happens after the game starts. wink.gif Just make it cost a bucketload of Karma. 50-60ish seems about right.

Similarly, you should be able to become an otaku after chargen. It happened to five deckers in the novel Psychotrope, so there isn't a canon fluff reason as to why it can't happen. You just need to convince an AI to hit you with a variant of psychotropic IC...
mfb
SR character creation/advancement is not wholly unlimited. but it's a lot less limited than some people are trying to make out. it's one of the least limited games out there, especially if you consider setting-specific games (setting-nonspecific games tend to be less limited by nature).

i don't see any in-game reason for limiting magic to starting characters, myself. as long as Awakening mid-game doesn't invovle massively powering up the character, i think it's a great idea. for instance, giving a character that Awakened in mid-game 6 magic and 30 spell points? that's overpowered.

i've only seen one character Awaken in mid-game, and in that situation, one of the main reasons the character did it was because his character was getting to be too much of a badass. his Awakening involved removing a huge chunk of his cyberware, including his spurs (into which skill the character had dumped a hell of a lot of skill points).
Cheops
Cyber character--do I spend all my money and karma on better cyber or do I go for skills and contacts to round out my character?

Skills character--should I cyber up or should I increase my skills for even more versatility?

Magical characters--get more spells? cyber up? initiate? bond more foci? buy power points? buy an ally spirit?

I've given very limited descriptions of the choices you have for advancing a character but that gives shadowrun as much or more choices as any other game.
Ellery
QUOTE (Lady Anaka)
And what do you envision as the process [for integrating playtester comments]? Especially when the playtesters are divided as to what should or should not be changed?
Hopefully the comments are integrated based upon whether they are are factually correct, well-reasoned, if the change is not a matter of opinion, or based on popular opinion when it is merely a matter of opinion.

For example, "needing three hits to cross the street without getting hit by traffic makes crossing the street too dangerous" is not something that's a matter of opinion, given how dangerous street-crossing is supposed to be in the setting, and given how many dice people have to throw.

On the other hand, "SR4 should focus more on street-level action and less on high-powered characters" is a matter of opinion. The justification is based on what is fun to play, and listening to people's opinion on what kind of scenes are fun to play is a very good way to find out what they will find fun to play.

It is important to not confuse the two. Going with popular but factually incorrect opinion will produce a bad product, but one that the developers/playtesters don't realize is bad til later. ("SR5 will present simplified and consolidated rules in a single book, as opposed to the 7 core books most people feel they need for SR4. We're also taking the opportunity to fix up widely-recognized problems--crossing the street, for example.")

QUOTE (Wireknight)
By playtesting Shadowrun 4th Edition with a critical eye, rather than adding to a snowballing groupthink that the ill-considered and untested simulations that are being tossed into the rules and codeified into canon are fine and won't make the game too distorted and unrealistic to enjoy, I'm wasting my energy and pissing them off in the process.
This sounds rather to me like a confusion between popular opinion and matters of fact. It's hard to have factually solid groupthink.

QUOTE (otaku mike)
I'm a playtester as well . . . . All I can say is that I think Rob is an open minded person, and if a suggestion is sound and well argumented, there are good chances he will listen and act accordingly. That is how it worked with most of my suggestions.
This sounds rather to me like the distinction between matters of opinion and fact are being respected.

Whether something is groupthought or not is more a matter of fact than opinion, but unfortunately the two people here would probably have to violate their NDAs to resolve the situation. So we can probably only conclude that there exist playtesters who are of the opinion that there's a problem with the process and/or goal, and those who don't.

Here's a hint, though. If you avoid providing feedback to someone because you think it'll hurt their feelings, or make them think poorly of you, or you don't want to "be negative", or something? That's a potential warning sign. It's a sign that interpersonal/group dynamics are taking priority over producing a high-quality product. Of course, group dynamics exist and must be respected or you won't have any product at all, but they all too easily dictate far more than they should.

QUOTE (Wireknight)
What I am interested in is a game that I can immerse myself in, via realistic simulation within an elegant system. If every fourth or fifth in-play action results in my mind recoiling at the utter unreality of what the rules say just came to pass, given the situation, I'm not going to have fun. Shadowrun's always been something close to a method of telling a good story, and good stories aren't full of things that make the readers cringe.

QUOTE (otaku mike)
For the record and give perspective on my opinion, I have to say that I'm in the group of people that think that rules are there only to support the gaming experience and the fun. Rules should never, in my opinion, get in the way of the game. I'm the kind of GM that disregarded most SR3 rules simply because they were not fun for me; I prefered to decide about the outcome of most situation without any dice roll involved, only my own judgement, with a single goal in mind: make sure my players have a good time. SR4 rules might make me actually use the rules more often.
I guess that makes my opinion diametrically opposed to WK's


It sounds to me as though otaku mike and Wireknight have the same opinion. They want their players to have a good time. I'd wager that otaku mike often decides the outcome of a situation to make it act more believably than the rules would generate (or more like a favorite scene in a movie, or somesuch). I'd make this wager because SR is a role-playing game set in a near-future universe quite similar to ours. This means that getting shot is bad, people don't change their species in the middle of their lives, cars don't travel faster than the speed of light, and so on.

Where the difference lies, I think, is in how the two are approaching the problem. It sounds like WK sees broken rules--that is, rules that generate absurdity and/or imbalance, ruining the game experience--and wants to fix them. It sounds like otaku mike sees broken rules and/or complex rules and ignores them, and would prefer to have fewer rules to ignore.

I don't want people who ignore rules to design rules. Or if they do, they need to keep their "I'm not ignoring rules now!" hat firmly on their heads while performing the design process.

I hope it's obvious why it's bad to ignore rules while designing them, but even the most obvious things seem to require explanation on DS, so I'll spell it out. Good rules and poor rules can both be ignored with approximately equal ease--you simply decide you don't want to bother or don't like the outcome or whatever, and don't use the rule. The only thing that is helpful for ignoring rules is to make the rules sufficiently modular so that you can use rules for some situations and not others. E.g. initiative and taking a complex action are sufficiently modular that you can ignore rolling initiative and simply tell people when they get to act.

However, if good rules and poor rules are easily ignored, there is little motivation to fix poor rules to make them good ones. And if you're going to have rules in your game at all, they ought to be good ones. A poor rule that is almost always ignored is worse than no rule at all, because people have to go to the trouble of learning the rule, learning that it is terrible, and then remembering to not use it, changing it to something that works, or suffering through the annoying consequences.

So it is best, when designing rules, to care about every single rule as though you're not going to ignore it. It's fine to recognize that reality is complex, and simple rules won't capture everything, and therefore tolerate simple rules that break down in some cases. But within the constraints of simplicity (and the timeframe for game development), the rules should do the best job at generating the game's reality, and being fun to use, as possible.

(There is another class of people who actually want the rules to generate absurd outcomes because they find it enjoyable. This is the whole point of the Wand of Wonder in D&D, for example. It's fun because of all the wacky, crazy stuff that happens when you shoot it! Look, I just shot my enemy with 5d4 gemstones! Woo, lookit all the butterflies!! The goals of such people do directly and actively conflict with those of people who want to tell versimillious stories. I'm not addressing this conflict here, however.)
Cain
You want a character to suddenly become magical? SURGE him.

A character wants to shift from human to ork? SURGE again.

Someone wants to become an otaku? Find a willing AI to screw witht he character's brain.

Lots of things are possible in-game, if the GM so chooses. It's not a flaw that you can't have everything at chargen, it's a sign of game balance.
otaku mike
QUOTE (Ellery)
It sounds like otaku mike sees broken rules and/or complex rules and ignores them, and would prefer to have fewer rules to ignore.

I never said such a thing. I never said I saw broken rules in SR4.

Actually, what I said is that I ignored most of SR3 rules, but I'll probably use most of SR4 rules.

There are a lot more freelancers/playtesters testing SR4 than you'd think. The majority of them don't post here. I'm only one voice among the playtesters. So don't try to extrapolate too much out of my posts.

I'm also a special case, because I don't actually have a group to playtest with. All the suggestions I made, I sent them a long time ago, and they were more oriented toward the setting and how the rules interact with it than the rules themselves. I won't allow myself to judge a set of rules without me having "field tested" them in the first place.
Instead, I focused my comments on the elegance of the rules. I looked at everything a step or two back, trying to see the big trends, and trying to help achieving one of Rob's goal: coherence and simplicity. When designing rules, it's easy to get lured into more and more special cases, producing more and more specialized rules. I tried to limit those occurences of special rules whenever I saw them and when I thought they were not trully justified.
Then again, my involvement was limited by the lack of playtest group, so my comments were based on my perception of the rules only after reading them.
I'm sure this gave less weight to my suggestions that other's. But that was not the point. I'm not giving suggestions with the hope to "win", to see "my idea" win over other's. Designing SR4 is not a competition for Rob's attention. It's a team work. And I'm confident that, in my own playtesting niche, I did my job and gave Rob one more point of view to examine.

In a sum: yes I want fewer rules. But it's not to ignore the ones left. That would be pretty stupid of me to dare participate in rules design, fully aware that I would ignore them later. Furthermore, I'm not helping to design a game for me, but for the maximum number of people possible: the priorities are not the same. And finally, remember that the core book is not only made of rules, there are some fluff and setting info in it too, and I have been more active on those aspects.
Ellery
QUOTE (otaku mike)
I never said I saw broken rules in SR4.

Actually, what I said is that I ignored most of SR3 rules, but I'll probably use most of SR4 rules.
I never said you said you saw broken rules in SR4. Apparently you see something wrong with SR3 rules. Maybe it's not that they're broken, though.

QUOTE (otaku mike)
I'm also a special case, because I don't actually have a group to playtest with. . . . When designing rules, it's easy to get lured into more and more special cases, producing more and more specialized rules. I tried to limit those occurences of special rules whenever I saw them and when I thought they were not trully justified. . . . In a sum: yes I want fewer rules. But it's not to ignore the ones left.
Okay, that helps clarify things for me. My characterization of your position was a bit off, although I stand by the points that I made. I apologize to the degree to which I used you as a straw man.

But, given what you've said, I don't see how you and WK are diametrically opposed. Maybe you and he are, in some way that isn't clear here (i.e. WK wants a specialized rule for every case, and you don't want a specialized rule for any case). But it sounds like you want working rules, and WK was complaining that the rules were breaking too often, which makes it sound like you'd want to fix the things that he found.

On the other hand, if you're willing to tolerate a poorly-working simple rule because you can ignore it, then my original point applies.
otaku mike
QUOTE (Ellery)
But it sounds like you want working rules, and WK was complaining that the rules were breaking too often, which makes it sound like you'd want to fix the things that he found.

On the other hand, if you're willing to tolerate a poorly-working simple rule because you can ignore it, then my original point applies.


The point of my reply is not that I'm willing or not to tolerate alledgedly poorly-working rules. My point is that, without really playtesting them with a group of player, I could not see further than the underlying general logic and mechanic used when the rules were written. I couldn't actively try to "break" the rules. I only tried to help unifying them.

I want the rules to be as solid as possible. I don't want poorly-working rules. None of the playtesters wants bad rules! But again, I was (am) in no position to judge those rules when pushed to the extreme.

WK probably did that, and that's how he found things he wanted to see changed. But he's not the only one. I know others who tried and broke the system too. I saw their conclusions and supported their suggestions when I agreed with them. If, in the end, WK's ideas about what SR4 rules don't prevail, that simply means that either he was in the minority among playtesters, or that the Game Developer didn't agree with his vision of SR.

Again, I am a very special case. Probably the only guy that will be listed as a playtester that didn't playtest the rules during actual games. So, I'm not representative of the whole process. I only give you my point of view and describe my own limited involvement. Don't start thinking that all the playtesters couldn't care less about the rules because of me.

Mike
blakkie
QUOTE (Ellery @ Jun 24 2005, 03:31 AM)
QUOTE (otaku mike)
I never said I saw broken rules in SR4.

Actually, what I said is that I ignored most of SR3 rules, but I'll probably use most of SR4 rules.
I never said you said you saw broken rules in SR4. Apparently you see something wrong with SR3 rules. Maybe it's not that they're broken, though.

SR3 has a lot of cumbersome rules that get ignored a lot. Two common big sections for this seem to be the Matrix, which i personally ignore pretty much wholesale, and the larger part of vehicles. But there are other smaller parts to. I'm not sure our group has ever rolled a surprise Reaction test. I know it exists, and am reminded every time i glance through the Adept powers. But frankly we can't be bothered to because there are plenty of rules to slog through without it.

Incidentally we play D&D 3e/3.5e pretty close to canon. The deviations are mostly around the alignment system, and even there we aren't that far off. We even roll surprise tests, and use the (3.5) splat books verbatum. The only other presence of non-canon comes from us having both 3e and 3.5e PHB, DMG, and MM around the table. That has led to us currently playing a mixture of the two until we get all our books up to date.

So it isn't like we have a group that regularly goes around ignoring and rewriting vast tracts of rules in games we play. We just find large portions of the SR3 rules so undesirable to play that we just lopped them off.

EDIT: AD&D was treated in a similar manner to SR3, though not to the same extent. The parts there that got fully lopped off were psionics and a bunch of stuff in the splat books. But there were house rules a plenty surrounding the main rules.

EDIT, part II: But the AD&D house rules were of a different flavour than the ones to SR. They were more....additions than subtractions. So we found AD&D rules had more holes, and SR3 rules more clutter. Not that SR3 doesn't have holes, some large, it is just that there is so much there to start with that adding just wasn't a priority.
Cheops
I'm still shocked and amazed by the number of people on both sides of the SR4 debate who have problems with the rules. The group that I run has almost no trouble with the rules and it doesn't take long for us to get new players up to speed. The usual progression is mage, cyber, then rigger or decker but I have newbies who skip straight from mage to decker or cyber to decker right away. We use all the rules except for maneuver score and instead just abstract/describe vehicle chases. The usage of the rules includes all the additional books and rules such as program bugs, MIJI attacks, MitS, and whatnot.

I'm starting to think that it must be a difference in style of play between my games and other people's games on this board. I play at a gaming club where I am not certain of who will join my campaign ahead of time. I'll have a couple of regular guys who look forward to it and sign on as soon as I say I'm running a game and then I usually get another 6-10 who sign up when they see the books out. The core rules as written are the only way that I can spread SR in this medium. If there are too many house rules or rules I ignore it confuses people MORE than the rules as presented. And I've honestly had relatively few problems (I can't think of ANY off-hand) with unrealistic situations created by the game system.

Again, maybe it is my style of play. Combat is relatively rare and usually means that something has gone drastically wrong or else it is ridiculously short (professional shadowrunners against unprepared or unqualified opponents). Magic is already very simple and runs smoothly. Rigging and decking usually support a run so I run them simultaneously so everyone is involved without WMI.

I guess I must be some kind of freak that is behind the times...not having problems with a system that runs fine if people TRY to learn the rules...shame on me
Ellery
Haven't you heard? "Learning" is out. Rules should be so intuitive that you don't even need to learn them. You glance at the cover art of the book, read the blurb on the back cover, and then you're ready to play!

It works for console games. Why not for RPGs, too? nyahnyah.gif
blakkie
Cheops: There are people that did, and still do, play OD&D straight up with no rules changes. They love it. But they are vastly in the minority. *shrug* YMMV

QUOTE
I guess I must be some kind of freak that is behind the times...not having problems with a system that runs fine if people TRY to learn the rules...shame on me.


Shame on you for what? Implying that everyone that has issue with the system isn't TRYing? Oh ya, you'd make a great head of customer service for Fanpro. ohplease.gif
chevalier_neon
IMO, the rules can be understood quiet easily. The point is that between understanding and learning, there is a big difference. And that's why I hoppe that they will unify the rules under SR4, because I don't want to have to find the exact rules in the core book each time I need to do something...
It's not that much a question of complexity, than a question of quantity. Especially when the rules are not covering all aspects on an issue.
mfb
i certainly agree with that.
blakkie
QUOTE (chevalier_neon @ Jun 24 2005, 11:16 AM)
It's not that much a question of complexity, than a question of quantity. Especially when the rules are not covering all aspects on an issue.

In SR3 i see the complexity coming from mass of the rules, disorganisation of text, odd implementations, and lack of uniformity.

Disorganisation of the text isn't really as much about the design of the rules as it is about the presentation of them. However the design can impact this when you have multiple books. If you don't have a solid core in the main book to tie it all together then people end up flipping back and forth through books when they try to look something up.

The total mass of the rules in SR3 isn't vastly burdensome. But without the uniformity of repeated simple patterns used through out it is harder to memorize, and more difficult to recall accurately.

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. I can't name a Matrix one since i haven't been there in a long time. 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.
Critias
*bites his tongue*
Eldritch
QUOTE (Critias)
*bites his tongue*

Yours, or Blakkies?

Ba-dump-ting grinbig.gif
blakkie
QUOTE (Critias)
*bites his tongue*

Can someone get Critias' hockey helmet for him. He is having another seizure. silly.gif
blakkie
QUOTE (Eldritch)
QUOTE (Critias @ Jun 24 2005, 06:05 PM)
*bites his tongue*

Yours, or Blakkies?

Ba-dump-ting grinbig.gif

rotfl.gif

Not mine, only my SO gets to do that. nyahnyah.gif
Critias
Fine, nevermind. I'll go ahead and call people that can't understand -- if not all, at least most of -- the SR3 rules fucking stupid again. I was gonna not bother, I was gonna not let myself start, I was gonna largely ignore the same crowd of dumb shits whining about the same core basic rules that they just can't be bothered to wrap their heads around. I was gonna follow the ToS and not say a damned thing, since I know it won't lead to anyone trying to learn anything, just lead to people feeling justified in their wringing of hands and wiping of tears.

But, fine. I'll go ahead.

[rant that I was going to contain until prodded]

Instead of taking a little time to familiarize yourself with the rules, you cheer a new edition coming along and making them streamlined enough even you can understand them. Instead of learning, you demand the bar be lowered. Congratulations. The public school system's "no student left behind, whether they should be left behind or not" mentality is overflowing into my fucking leisure time, Shadowrun.

"Boo hoo, 10 - essence is too hard for me to remember, nevermind the thought I could maybe scribble two words and a character onto a notepad to help me remember. Wahhh, I can't add and subtract good enough to keep track of how many successes are left on that pistol shot I tried to dodge, then staged down. Mommy, mommy, this game's hard, make it easy for me and ruin it for the big kids!"

If you find yourself not sure on a rule when it crops up in gameplay, make a little tiny fucking note of it (especially if it's something that's likely to come up again, like how to drive a car, or cast Treat) and have it ready for next time. If you find your combats are bogging the game down, take fifteen minutes to run quick little sample/example/pre-game fights, simple ones, to get people used to the init/action/combat pool decisions they have to make, since the more you do something the easier it gets. Fucking learn, instead of cheering that all the "oh noes, complicated!" stuff is being taken away from the game so that a trained monkey with a handful of dice can play.

SR3, taken one basic system -- meat, magic, matrix -- at a time, is easy if you have two brain cells to rub together and a desire to understand it. Start your game at a reasonable pace if you've got a table full of news, tackle each basic mechanic one at a time, slowly build up to a game that integrates all three, and voila. You'll be allowed to sit at the big kid's table next Thanksgiving before you fucking know it.

[/rant that I was going to contain until prodded]

That better?

Or should I be left alone when I'm trying to hold back, next time?
blakkie
rotfl.gif rotfl.gif rotfl.gif

You feel better now? I know i had a good laugh reading your rant. love.gif

EDIT: It tilted the needle to 7.2 on the Rant-o-matic Meter. Pretty good, but not nearly as enjoyable as the play demo you gave for the soon to be released CreepwoodRun RPG.
Critias
A little.
Eldritch
notworthy.gif Amen Reverend Critias!

(No sarcaasm, total agreement - I like sitting at the big kids table)

blakkie
QUOTE (Eldritch @ Jun 24 2005, 01:41 PM)
notworthy.gif  Amen Reverend Critias!

(No sarcaasm, total agreement - I like sitting at the big kids table)

Ya, but they only let you sit there to keep an eye on you. If you'd stop picking your nose and flicking your boogers at the other little kids you'd be sitting there too. nyahnyah.gif
Kagetenshi
In the page's source, look for "<a name=" on the post you're wanting to link to, and use that for the anchor.

~J
blakkie
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Jun 24 2005, 01:56 PM)
In the page's source, look for "<a name=" on the post you're wanting to link to, and use that for the anchor.

~J

Thanks, linked fix. I had tried to view the source but couldn't remember the proper HTML syntax to look for. Now i'll be able to build it without using View Source too, just mouseover the Report or Quote but for the "entry" number of the message.

Critias gives a play demo for the soon to be released CreepwoodRun RPG, coming soon to a store near you.
Nerbert
QUOTE (Critias)
SR3, taken one basic system -- meat, magic, matrix -- at a time, is easy if you have two brain cells to rub together and a desire to understand it.

Finding people smart enough to learn to play Shadowrun is easy. Finding people with the desire, thats hard.
blakkie
QUOTE (Nerbert)
QUOTE (Critias @ Jun 24 2005, 02:15 PM)
SR3, taken one basic system -- meat, magic, matrix -- at a time, is easy if you have two brain cells to rub together and a desire to understand it.

Finding people smart enough to learn to play Shadowrun is easy. Finding people with the desire, thats hard.

Shhhh, pain is pleasure. Slogging through the drudgery of the rules helps your emersion into the game world, allowing you to really understand how the typical 2065 wage slave tax accountant feels after years of filling out USAC government forms.
Eldritch
ohplease.gif
blakkie
QUOTE (Eldritch @ Jun 24 2005, 04:01 PM)
ohplease.gif

Oh, oh! eek.gif I see someone needs a little extra time in the Happy Hut at Camp Big Stick. A few days of sensory deprivation will turn that glum Anti-SR4 face into a happy one! embarrassed.gif
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