Why Do You Hate An RPG System?

[Ralif Redhammer]

I played Shadowrun back when it first came out, and have long felt that it was a great setting with a mediocre system. It's been so long since I looked at 1e, I don't recall if the problems it currently has were always there and I just wasn't critical enough at that age.

I do wish Anarchy had more support in Shadowrun's organized play.

I didn't like any iteration of Shadowrun until I got to playtest Anarchy. We were playing Shadowrun and when our DM was editing and writing for the Anarchy playtest he converted us over and we never looked back. Our characters just improved. They weren't "better" just more consistent in their design. Long gone were the days of rolling 40d6 and we were all happy to see them go.

The organization of it is what stood out to me. Making a character took way more work than it should have - there just wasn't a good path to follow to get the reader to the rules they need to know. Though once that's done, it runs pretty smoothly in play.

What I have read about Anarchy says that the book has lots of editing problems, though, which makes me hesitant to pick it up.

 

[innerdude]

The only thing that would cause me to "hate" an RPG is if the system wholly fails to accomplish what the mechanics plus the descriptive text say it should accomplish.

The only two systems I've tried that would fall into that camp would be GURPS and Fate Core, and even then I think my experiences (and group participants) color my opinions more than games themselves.

My biggest problem with GURPS is that every group I've played it with has gone completely against the system's strengths. Rather than trying to play grounded, semi-realistic games/settings, they instead want to amp up the action into mini-superhero territory---including with generic fantasy.

They don't want to play grounded fantasy. They want to play 350-point starting characters, who can completely counter-act GURPS' baseline lethality.

This impulse of the groups I've played it with further exacerbates my biggest problem with GURPS, which is the complexity of combat resolution. There's just so many things that I dislike about how combat resolves that add absolutely nothing to the "fun" factor of why I play RPGs. Playing with 350-point demi-god fantasy heroes only makes the overwhelming number of combat options worse.


With Fate, it's more a question of, I don't really know where it "fits" in terms of my game style. I've discovered through experience that I'm very comfortable with PbtA / FitD style games, and totally "grok" what they're trying to do. With Ironsworn, I found that I could completely divest myself from the "trad" mindset and really go where the mechanics were trying to take me.

But I can't really find that spot with Fate. It's clearly not supposed to be a "trad" game . . . though devoid of Aspects / Compels, the system itself looks a lot like a pretty "trad" style of game. I get the feeling that Fate is supposed to produce "high drama" / "high stakes" kinds of action, but in play it never really reached that for me.

Plus, in terms of "narrative" style systems, it's still a bit more mechanically complex than I would expect it to be, especially since the gameplay it produced was always a bit bland. In spite of the complexity, it lacked the narrative "heft" of PbtA / FitD, while also lacking the enjoyable tactical gamism of PF/3.x or Savage Worlds.

 

[Umbran]

I played Shadowrun back when it first came out, and have long felt that it was a great setting with a mediocre system. It's been so long since I looked at 1e, I don't recall if the problems it currently has were always there and I just wasn't critical enough at that age.

The system had some great ideas, but in some cases the rules got too baroque with fiddly bits (firearms) or it had dials and levers the players could use that were awesome in theory, but less useful in practice (variable force spells and drain-based spellcasting).

Decking was also cool in theory, but enforced splitting the party in ways that dragged on play something fierce.

The setting, however, was great. Most of the concepts and plots of the published adventures were alao a lot of fun.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

We just never played Deckers back then!

The ideas behind Shadowrun were cool as heck. I suspect that if it hadn't been for the inspired Tolkien + Gibson part, the game itself may have never gotten the traction it did.

Decking was also cool in theory, but enforced splitting the party in ways that dragged on play something fierce.

The setting, however, was great. Most of the concepts and plots of the published adventures were alao a lot of fun.

 

[Umbran]

We just never played Deckers back then!

We recognized it might be a problem, tried the experiment, found we were correct, and from that point on just made sure there were NPC deckers the PCs could call on for services.

The... 5th edition, I think, moved into the space of wireless decking, and how lots of items would be hackable. This made it so PC deckers could actually have a direct role in combat ("Oh, you think you have a Smartgun? Let me turn that into a brick for you!") and reframed security so that being physically present was the way to go, fixing some of the issues.

The base mechanic, unfortunately, was still kind of cumbersome.

It reminds me of Classic Deadlands, in a way. Awesome setting, baroque mechanics. My players put up with the baroque aspect for years, because at least it was baroque in ways that were thematically appropriate, and they loved the setting. Eventually, revamping that core led to Savage Words, which is more tractable. My group might want to play Deadlands again in the future, and I'd probably use the Savage Worlds version.

Shadowrun needs that kind of transformation - someone streamline the heck out of it, please!

 

[Marc_C]

We recognized it might be a problem, tried the experiment, found we were correct, and from that point on just made sure there were NPC deckers the PCs could call on for services.

The... 5th edition, I think, moved into the space of wireless decking, and how lots of items would be hackable. This made it so PC deckers could actually hae a direct role in combat ("Oh, you think you have a Smartgun? Let me turn that into a brick for you!") and reframed security so that being physically present was the way to go, fixing some of the issues.

The base mechanic, unfortunately, was still kind of cumbersome.

It reminds me of Classic Deadlands, in a way. Awesome setting, baroque mechanics. My players put up with the baroque aspect for years, because at least it was baroque in ways that were thematically appropriate, and they loved the setting. Eventually, revamping that core led to Savage Words, which is more tractable. My group might want to play Deadlands again in the future, and I'd probably use the Savage Worlds version.

Shadowrun needs that kind of transformation - someone streamline the heck out of it, please!

Was never able to play Shadow Run. Instead, I used Savage Worlds with the Interface Zero setting book. We had lots of fun.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I also thought that the idea of expanding the matrix to the entire world was a great way to incorporate deckers into the game without making their parts separate from what everyone else is doing. With the Internet of Things and the world of Shadowrun, it's a logical conclusion.

How it played out in the rules, though, just managed to slow the game down anyway, while the decker went and resolved the multiple checks needed to even do anything remotely cool.

We recognized it might be a problem, tried the experiment, found we were correct, and from that point on just made sure there were NPC deckers the PCs could call on for services.

The... 5th edition, I think, moved into the space of wireless decking, and how lots of items would be hackable. This made it so PC deckers could actually have a direct role in combat ("Oh, you think you have a Smartgun? Let me turn that into a brick for you!") and reframed security so that being physically present was the way to go, fixing some of the issues.

The base mechanic, unfortunately, was still kind of cumbersome.

It reminds me of Classic Deadlands, in a way. Awesome setting, baroque mechanics. My players put up with the baroque aspect for years, because at least it was baroque in ways that were thematically appropriate, and they loved the setting. Eventually, revamping that core led to Savage Words, which is more tractable. My group might want to play Deadlands again in the future, and I'd probably use the Savage Worlds version.

Shadowrun needs that kind of transformation - someone streamline the heck out of it, please!

 

[AtomicPope]

We recognized it might be a problem, tried the experiment, found we were correct, and from that point on just made sure there were NPC deckers the PCs could call on for services.

The... 5th edition, I think, moved into the space of wireless decking, and how lots of items would be hackable. This made it so PC deckers could actually have a direct role in combat ("Oh, you think you have a Smartgun? Let me turn that into a brick for you!") and reframed security so that being physically present was the way to go, fixing some of the issues.

Shadowrun needs that kind of transformation - someone streamline the heck out of it, please!

Because we were playtesting Anarchy we had both a Decker and a Rigger in our group. Our Decker would go into the Matrix at least once a session, unheard of in previous editions. There were no problems. Furthermore, the mechanics and fluff matched up very well here. You could hack remotely but there were penalties, firewalls, and defenses. Plugging in directly would bypass the distance penalty and firewall. In game terms that meant when we were planning missions it made sense to break in to a facility and find a safe room so our Decker could plug in.

The mechanics between a Decker entering the Matrix and a Mage Astral Projecting are seamless. Both render the character unconscious. Both allow them to interact directly with a quasi-realm. Neither are allowed to affect the other: Matrix doesn't affect Magic and visa versa. As someone who suffered under previous editions, this was a welcome change.

Edit: If this is a little unclear, it's been a while since we played so my memory is a little fuzzy on other people's characters.

 

[Umbran]

Because we were playtesting Anarchy we had both a Decker and a Rigger in our group. Our Decker would go into the Matrix at least once a session, unheard of in previous editions. There were no problems.

So, I'm sorry, but this does not suggest to me that what I fund was a problem was dealt with - in early editions, Deckers required the GM to, in essence, run a separate little matrix adventure for them. The spotlight sharing issues were severe. You telling me that happened every session does not suggest "no problem" to me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Shadowrun needs that kind of transformation - someone streamline the heck out of it, please!

The problem is that a fair amount of the extent fandom would do some pretty heavy pushback if it was stripped down much in the process, and there's always a dynamic as to whether someone wants to potentially lose significant amounts of extent market to potentially get a different market (which may or may not be larger) all needing significant work.

Basically, it almost never seems worth the effort.