I don't post on Dumpshock much, and for what I deem a good reason. I am neither new to Dumpshock, nor am I new to Shadowrun. I have been playing the game as long as many of you, having started with 1st edition and worked all the way through 3rd edition, and probably longer than many others of you. I do not equate respect for someone on a forum with their post count, but the quality and content of their posts.

I will state now that I do not intend to start any sort of "flame war", and anyone who perceives this as an opportunity to attempt to begin such themselves is doomed to failure. I am just stating my own thoughts on why this forum fails to support the very game that it was built to support. Respond as you like, to agree or disagree or swordfish mustardball; I'll likely not respond myself. In the immortal words of Tommy Victor, "Opinions are like assholes, everyone's one." After having seen so many of them for months on end while awaiting the upcoming 4th edition, I thought to add my own to the mix. And yes, I am being ambiguous on whether I am really speaking about assholes or opinions, both on my part and the part of some others here

Seems to me that Dumpshock is not really for logical discourse of thoughts and ideas, but more like the gathering place for a crew of elite uber-posters who get off on telling everyone who disagrees with their opinion how wrong they are and exactly why their opinion is better and how much the person who disagrees with them sucks. Note that I am not including everyone on Dumpshock in this category, but it seems that I must include a goodly portion, anyway.

Take this how you will, but when someone posts a valid question relating to a subject that they may not know as much as someone more familiar with the rules and game system (which is probably what they are hoping for when they ask such a question to begin with) and all they largely get are snide comments, that's exactly how I see it.

On the subject of the 4th edition, it seems to me that a majority here are coming out with an attitude that SR 4 is a failure to deliver before they even crack open any pages and have any insight at all as to why their opinions are validated by fact.

True, the artwork that I have seen for the new edition is not the best in the world. But it is definitely not the worst. The general quality of RPG art overall has been suffering for years; it's no surprise that SR is suffering too. But I have not seen it all in its entirety. Basing my entire opinion on a game by a few bits of art that are thrown at me by the publisher is not the sort of direction I wish to take. Besides which, it's pretty easy for someone with no talent at any artistic endeavor to point a finger at something someone has created and say "This is bad because blah, blah, blah", while having no ability whatsoever to produce anything better themselves.

The rules I have seen so far (and, indeed the rules anyone has seen who are not under an NDA) are not bad. They are merely different. And that difference seems to have raised a hue and cry from those who are not prepared for a change. It's been seven years; most games don't last that long before they get some kind of overhaul. SR's time has come. If you happen to be one of the people who disagrees, there's a simple answer for you that really should be apparent: don't buy the new edition, keep playing SR FASA. But FASA is dead and WizKids/FanPro owns Shadowrun, therefore I feel it's well within their right to put their own stamp on SR and move on, with or without the "core (FASA) fans".

As far as the claim of over-simplification, or "kiddie-fying", I have yet to see any hard evidence on that for certain either, although it seems many would make that assumption based on rumors, hearsay and what little has been exposed so far. I don't suspect the direction of SR will be towards twelve-year-olds at all; but if FanPro does aim in the direction of a new audience, who can blame them? It is about keeping their game alive, after all. Something I will assume more people who currently play SR want than don't.

And then there's those cries of "They are only doing it for the !!!" That's probably not the only reason, as it seems most writers, artists and so on seem to enjoy their work as well. I'm sure they will be happy if their product sells, of course, but people in the RPG industry (at least the ones I know) don't labor under the illusion that their products are going to automatically become #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and make them millionaires overnight. (Sorry if anyone at FanPro reads this and it spoils everything for them ) Indeed, the cost of most RPG products to create makes them inherently a labor of love, as most industrialists I know would say they don't make nearly as much return for the investment that's put into them. The publishing business is quite expensive...unless your name happens to be Ha$bro.

All this negativity, and invalid negativity at that, is counterproductive to the forum's purpose of supporting Shadowrun. Anyone new to SR who came here to see what was up with this game called Shadowrun probably would find very little reason to get into the new edition due to the overwhelming negativity and every reason to buy SR3 that they could think of and many people here could put forth. And then they would find they had purchased a product that is outdated and not even supported any longer.

Therefore, I am given to the opinion that this forum should be renamed "The Outdated Versions of SR Forums" and a completely new set of forums should be created for those who will be playing the 4th edition. Oh, wait, I thought that's why this section was called Shadowrun 4...

I have been reading dumpshock for a bit now but never had the urge to add anything. Most stuff was already mentioned (several times).

This case is different, I have to agree and for that, post.



It never failed to amuse me how most people play SR, regardless of edition.
Its usually "building up" a safe spot inside the rules and then going tunnel vision all the way. Well, not only people in SR play this way, but specially in SR its a joke.

We all play / pretend to be shadowrunners that are basically dead when caught in the light. Every run we have to analyze, adapt, analyze, change, anaanalyze.., survive.

But for some reasons with every change of edition exactly that is asked of the player, usually for the better of the player.
But for some reason most players just dondon'tnt to do it. Or cant do it.

Personally SR is the system I am in love with, but its not the system I am in love with, but the idea and the background. Unfortunately the system itself is very much lacking (rule clogging, complexity, strange char gen / ingame balance, sucky skill system, min-maxing, ...). Many of the problems this game has are not unique to it, but as I am in love with this system I dondon'tve too much about other games.

I never really actively played SR1, but I still got my book somewhere in the shelf.
SR2 was my most active time and when SR3 was announced I was very much looking forward to it. I was aware of all the good and the ill that would / might come from it, but change is good.
Change is good. Even though most people are afraid of changes, as am I usually, I always welcome changes as they are evolution and evolution is good.
Well except for the ones that get ... well ... they stay behind. No offense indendintendedyone ... I dondon'tow anyone anyway.

I havenhaven't playing too active during the last year but I have spend many hours thinking about alternative rule systems, specially skill systems, that would reflect the game as it is and make it more viable. We can agree or disagree that skills of 1 or 2 (or 3) are not too viable.

For this reason (not alone but almost) I will very much love the new generation of SR. Beeinbeingchy myself I dondon'tve to mention that part, do I?

Well ... about the part that people in forums tend to be elitist, ignoring others below their post count? Or not actually discussion an issue but just stating their given oopinion I agree and I feel guilty. *shrug*

For the other side of the medal ... I can understand the people not wanting SR4, or fearing all the stuff they "broke". I can feel for you very much.
But its basically the same for house rules. We can bend the system as much as we want, but what happens if you ever play out of "your" group? Or ... a Con?
We don't make the rules, but we live by the rules, one way or the other.

again with the "you don't know that" argument. a) some of us do know that, and b) deductive reasoning is not (quite) dead.

different is not a problem when it helps, changes in decking and rigging would be accepted, but the need to change something that for three editions has grown, people know and works with very few flaws, to something completely new and unknown people are going to worry, they will hope that they will be proved wrong but when they get misleading information it makes them worry even more. whats more, there are those who either because they have playtested the new edition, or because they have seen whats in store in some way hold their own oppinions and can only slightly comment on the FAQ due to the NDA's....we will see how things are for fact in a few days, and either way it goes someone will be eating crow and someone will be vindicated

One of these arguments actually has a shred of sense to it. The other does not.

~J

I suspect most of these complaints have been addressed already. This looks like yet another 'Jesus wants people to be pro-SR4, anti-SR4 have no idea what they're talking about' post. If you're just posting because you like to make noise, welcome to the club If you're posting because you want a response to your complaints, go back over pretty much every thread in the SR4 forum.

If the rules have changed dramatically since playtesting, that means there are a lot of unplaytested rules. Do you think that's wise? If the game has changed dramatically since Origins, that means that a huge amount of work was done in under a month with very limited manpower. Do you think that's possible?

There's really very little around here that makes much sense. And it all goes to hell, really, whenever someone tries to apply their personal opinion to people beyond themselves.

Deleted because it's more productive to ignore than refute sometimes.

icharbezol, that's some seriously lacking logic, not to mention some wild missing of the point. i'm basing my opinion on what i've seen of the game. i've seen quite a bit of the game. it's possible that the game could have changed completely between the time we stopped playtesting and the time the book went to print, but--hey, let's take a vote: raise your hand if you think that happened. no takers? none? s'what i thought. sure, details would have changed, minor rules, but my issue with SR4 is with the overall direction and feel of the game. no minor changes are going to fix that, unless you count "bring back variable TNs" as a minor change.

and that, right there? that's a hard fact. SR4 uses a static TN. the FAQs said so. what else is known? SR4 lacks SR3-style die pools. there are hard limits on attributes and skills. i'm not speculating, here, i'm not making things up. i'm stating what the FAQs have stated, and saying i don't like it. i'm not just naysaying because i don't like change, i'm naysaying because i don't like SR4. i don't like the style of the game, i don't like the way it plays, and chances are that none of the things i dislike about it are going to have changed by the time the book hits the stands. take your "you don't know that" crap and shove it, because I DO KNOW.

oh, for the love of mike. of course it's my goddamn opinion, nitwit. did i ever say it was anybody else's opinion? did i ever say you weren't allowed to like SR4? you, there! you! you do not like SR4! grrr!

as for my knowledge being questionable, you're right. there's a chance that the Archangel Gabriel came down from on high and handed Rob a better ruleset, scribed on a gold-crusted PDF. i think i'll bet the farm on that possibility. good idea.

i'm going to go back and sulk quietly, now. it's not like it matters, at this point.

*shrug* not having discussed it with other playtesters, i've got no idea about that. seems kind of counter to the purpose of playtesting, though. every group is going to miss some glaring flaws; that's why you have multiple groups. and, like you said, my biggest problems are with the "big" rules, the ones you really can't change without wholly altering the game and invalidating all prior playtesting.

...maybe you should pay attention to how you're coming across, because

@icharbezol

That's not knowledge, that's opinion. He even fully acknowledged when he first broke silence about the playtesting that it was his opinion that what was happening with SR4 was very, very bad. He even gave some further explaination about what his tastes were, and a bit about how SR4 crossed those...all the time trying to keep clear of totally trashing the non-disclosure rather than just bending it.

If you go back and find that post i think you'll see. After i read through it a few times i got a much better appreciation of what his concerns were, and why in some ways his opinion made me feel MORE hopeful about SR4.

I can't speak for how fanpro does it, but the couple play tests I've been in we did see the near final product. Only thing missing was some lay out fluff stuff. All the rules were hammered out and ran by the groups for one last "Did we miss anything".