Shadowrun v4 - Your Experience

[kigmatzomat]

I'm a proponent of SR4. I started back in SR1 when the Big Blue Book was the only book.

I enjoyed SR1 but it was convoluted at times and was very much a work in progress. Let's face it, burst fire and 'reactive triggers' were added in the Street Samurai's Guide.
In a lot of ways, SR1 is like oD&D. A decent first release with some weird concepts here and there.

SR2 was fun. Very over the top with lots firepower everywhere. Much like AD&D, the players got silly powerful but in an entertaining way. The rules included the previously optional material and had a lot of room for growth.

I was never fond of SR3, it felt like an attempt to corral in the excesses of SR2 but in a lackluster fashion that really seemed to lack flash. Kinda AD&D 2nd ed. One of the big problems IMO was the time it took a character to noticeably improve. SR3 felt way too slow.

SR4 is a complete re-imagining of the system. The core concepts are still there but the mechanics got a total overhaul. On the main, the new system is significantly simpler to comprehend and a touch faster to play. Mechanics that didn't exist in previous editions, primarily the wireless stuff, tends to be the sketchiest material.

My one issue with the rules is that they added a core mechanic for hackers rather than reusing an existing rule. Everywhere else the rule is character stat+ character skill +/-modifiers sometimes capped by external rating. Hacking is computer stat + character skill +/-modifiers. They could have simply done it like magic and have the program rating act as the cap. SR4 RAW now states that a mental stat 1 character is as good in the matrix as a mental stat 7 character.

Matrix security is always a problem in shadowrun. It's just too easy to come up with a security system that is if not invulnerable, then at least secure from external hacking. A multi-network "vanishing SAN" can easily provide general net access to a facility but seriously limit hacking. Hard to break in when the connection dies every 15+random() seconds. Best you can do is upload an Agent and pray for success.

The short answer is to bow to the necessities of game play and state that there is some idiosyncrasy of the technology that provides for the obscene amounts of bandwidth/cyber/etc that prevents good automatic security. You can have good security but you have to be using 1980s technology (where the SR-verse diverged from the real world). Okay, maybe 1990s tech; give them 56k modems, T1s, and DSL lines.

 

[mmu1]

Agreed. The dice subtraction/addition is definitely better than SR3. For example a beginning character with the right cyberware and pistol skill will never miss a shot in SR3, and that's before karma! The only thing to offset it is high armor values. Our games became this massive RPG of one shot kills or unstoppable tanks. By losing dice it doesn't matter if the character has a dozen dice or one, it's still a 1 in 3 chance to succeed with the difference in SR4 being the defense roll which can eliminate some of the auto-hits SR3 suffered, thus reducing the dependency on ultra high armor.

1. A new SR3 character is (or rather, can be - the system certainly supports it) a highly competent professional, generally with his primary weapon skill at "professional" or "expert" level.

2. Yes, a character with a good weapon skill and the right cyber (which makes a huge difference) will almost never miss a well-lit, stationary, man-sized, short-range target.

However, if the same is still the case in a serious firefight (NOT putting a bullet into some hapless corp security guard that didn't even see you coming) - where longer ranges, movement, cover, lilghting modifiers, multiple enemies, etc. should come into play - then your GM is doing something very wrong.

 

[masshysteria]

I've played a bit of second edition and some third edition. The fourth edition, despite the fact that they still haven't figured out how to organize all the information in an efficient and straight forward way, is definitely much more streamlined to play. It still feels like Shadowrun and most of the changes are for the best.

The distinction to hermetic and shaman magic could have been better. But it really lies more in the fluff than in the rules. Technomancers rub me the wrong way. I can't figure out why they are needed in the setting when we already have decker/hackers that can manipulate code (to the non-coder) like magic.

And just for clarification, the following isn't true:

7. By default, using the rules as written, you only need 1 success to accomplish an unopposed task. The rules note that if that's too easy (and it is extremely easy to get at least 1 success in many cases) the GM can set a treshold higher than 1, but there are really no rules or guidelines for this.

The thresholds should be as follows: Easy (1), Average (2), Hard (3), Extreme (4).

 

[Thanee]

4th edition is the best Shadowrun edition out there.

It sure has some flaws (which game hasn't), but the upsides by far outnumber the downsides.

The best thing is, that the system has a very good flow and works well as a representation of what's going on.

Bye
Thanee

 

[GlassJaw]

1. A new SR3 character is (or rather, can be - the system certainly supports it) a highly competent professional, generally with his primary weapon skill at "professional" or "expert" level.

SR4 definitely brought the power of new characters down a bit, and I'm glad they did.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

SR4 definitely brought the power of new characters down a bit, and I'm glad they did.

Seriously; most characters that I saw built at creation really didn't have anywhere to grow, mechanically speaking. At most, they went laterally, filling out a few skills, unless they were mages, in which case they were trying desperately to initiate and buy new spells.

Of course, mages still are going to be hurting for Karma.

Brad

 

[Chiaroscuro23]

In a lot of ways it's like D&D 3e: a much better iteration of an old favorite that some grognards bash online for changing.

As compared to D&D, it has a disadvantage in putting all the complexity right up front: creating an SR PC is more like creating a 15th level PC than creating a 1st level PC, both in terms of time to spend all those points (much worse for gear-heavy characters) and in terms of needing to know how the system works when designing them. We found the chapter layout extremely unintuitive when generating PCs for the first time. Each player will definitely want their own book.

Combat can be dangerous, but we played many sessions without any PC dying, which was nice. Like D&D it's rules-heavy. It can bog down pretty badly if you're a look-stuff-up type and not a just-wing-it type. (Actual Play example: at one point I fired a grenade from one moving boat onto another moving boat, using the airburst feature. Must've been 10-15 minutes of book checking. This was unusual, but even regular hacking tasks produced lots of looking up.)

I'm fond of this review: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11661.phtml

 

[mmu1]

Seriously; most characters that I saw built at creation really didn't have anywhere to grow, mechanically speaking. At most, they went laterally, filling out a few skills, unless they were mages, in which case they were trying desperately to initiate and buy new spells.

Of course, mages still are going to be hurting for Karma.

Brad

Unless you get rid of the hard attribute and skill caps that SR4 has, SR4 characters - despite being less competent, on average, than their SR3 counterparts - still don't have a lot of room to grow. It's one of those many things that they changed and it's still broken.

...but if you just get rid of the caps, then the game breaks down real fast as die pools get too large. Systems in which you use attribute+skill for die pools tend to have that problem.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I played SR1-3, but I ditched SR3 towards the end, since I couldn't stand the writing/direction/feel of the new books. (Past around Shadows of Europe) A lot of the stuff seems to have the attitude of saying everything about previous SR was so flawed as to be worthless, and frankly that feeling isn't what I as an SR fan felt was a direction I liked.

Looking through SR4 reminded me too much of White Wolf's system, which I already disliked. The changes to the setting also left me cold. For myself, I'd compare the change from SR3 to SR4 more as the change from oWoD to nWoD. Same/similar names, recognizable similarities in setting/system, but more or less a different game.

 

[coyote6]

I like the new system (I vastly prefer it over the old system), but I think it could use some improvement (e.g., improving how you handle low-probability of success shots -- the drop from "1-in-3" to "no chance" is too steep; and the "impossible shots" with Edge are, IIRC, a little too easy with the rules as written). Unfortunately, it'll probably take another edition/revision to do it.

The hacking rules do have a lot of vague areas, and really should account for the hacker's attributes, somehow. It's very easy for a starting PC hacker to have all his most useful programs at rating 6, leaving little room for growth.

(When we were actively playing, I had more detailed ideas on what I saw as flaws with the system; but we haven't played in 9-10 months, so it's all faded. Maybe we'll get back to it, once they put some books out, and everybody but the mage has some place to spend nuyen & Karma. )