RPG Freebies, Bundles, and Sales News (December 11, 2022)

Abstruse · Dec 14, 2022

evildmguy said:
I'm really torn on the Shadowrun Bundle. I bought 1E when it came out and I LOVED the setting. I didn't like the game mechanics. The weapon codes were confusing, the extra die pools were confusing and complex, and the TN going above six made things seem impossible. Maybe it's just not having many into it back then and no groups to explain it to me.

Is the Lore worth it?

And to explain the rules bits...

Target numbers frequently go about 6 because the system has exploding dice. Any die that comes up 6 on a roll, you re-roll and add the new result to it. And keep going. For example, say I'm rolling to shoot something. The target number to hit is 8. I have a Firearms skill of 6 and decide to use 4 dice from my combat pool so I'm rolling a total of 10 dice. I get 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6. Because I got three 6s, I take those dice and re-roll them and get a 1, 4, 6 (making those dice 7, 10, and 12). Because I rolled another 6, I reroll that and get a 5. That means my entire dice roll was 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10, 17. Therefore I got two successes.

For the damage codes, the first number is the Power (that's the target number to defend against the attack), the letter is the Damage Code (that's how much damage the weapon does by default), and the third number (only used in 1st Edition) is the Staging Number (how many successes it takes to stage the damage up or down a level).

Every character has a condition monitor that functions basically like HP. Damage comes in two types: Stun and Physical, which are tracked separately. You have 10 HP in Stun and 10 HP in Physical. Damage codes are (L)ight (1 damage), (M)oderate (3 damage), (S)erious (6 damage), and (D)eadly (10 damage). So if you take a Moderate wound, you take 3 damage. If you take another Light wound, you take 1 damage for a total of 4. When you hit 10, you're not dead but that's when the "make death saves" style mechanic kicks in. But you are unconscious and out of the fight for the moment.

Now, the Staging Number is what tripped up a lot of players and why they got rid of it in 2nd and 3rd Edition. When you make an attack in Shadowrun, the attacker and defender make rolls to see if the attack hits. You compare successes on the Attack Roll vs Dodge Roll and if the attacker gets more successes, the attack hits. If the defender gets more successes, the attack misses. The defender then gets to resist the damage if they're hit. You compare the Net Successes (however many more successes one side got - If the Attacker got 6 successes and the Defender got 2, the Attacker has 4 Net Successes) and that's used to Stage the damage.

In Shadowrun 2nd Edition, damage stages up or down one level for every 2 net successes. If the gun has a base damage code of M and the attacker has 4 net successes, that means the damage then goes up to D (2 successes to go from Moderate to Serious, then two more to go from Serious to Deadly). It also works the other way around on the damage resist test, so if the defender has 4 net successes the damage stages down from M to L to no damage at all).

In Shadowrun 1st Edition, every weapon had a different staging number. So the Streetline Special, a cheap sometimes even homemade gun, has a damage code of 3L1. Meaning that each net success stages the damage up or down. So those 4 net successes for the attacker would mean the damage went from L to M to S to D. Meanwhile, a more standard gun like the Ares Predator has a damage code of 4M2, so it stages up or down every 2 successes. But let's say you're using a sniper rifle with a damage code of 5S3. That means the default damage starts at S but it takes three successes to stage the damage. What this means is better weapons tend to be more consistent in how much damage they do while cheaper weapons tend to be far swingier. Because defenders get two rolls (one to avoid the attack altogether and one to resist the damage), this means the swinginess works in the defender's favor.

That said, I still prefer the 2nd Ed version of the mechanics because...well...this system is crunchy enough as it is without adding even more stuff to keep track of to the list. Especially since damage codes can be modified by ammo type or weapon accessories or sometimes even cyberware so it quickly becomes a lot to keep track of. Especially in the days before online character sheets that did the damage calculations for you.

And if all that sounded like overly-complicated gibberish to you, congratulations! Now you know why I've had such a difficult time selling people on Shadowrun for years because even as the system has become more streamlined and easy to understand with unified mechanics for different character types, all this nuanced stratigic crap (which I personally like but also started RPGs with this system) has given the system a reputation for being overly complicated to the point of being almost unplayable. The only reason I know how all this stuff works even 30 years later is that Shadowrun was my first RPG and I spent a lot of time playing it as a kid. I don't find it complicated at all, but it's like learning English as a first language - yeah, it's easy for me because I grew up with it but for someone else, it's a complete nightmare of disjointed rules that's easy to mess up.

evildmguy · Dec 14, 2022

Thanks for the feedback! I think I had most of it right back then, both the pools, and the staging but not the explanation or why behind it, so thanks for that. I guess I prefer the d6 with 5+ is a success and then add or subtract from that pool based on circumstances. I don't know if that started in 3E or 4E.

Abstruse · Dec 14, 2022

evildmguy said:
Thanks for the feedback! I think I had most of it right back then, both the pools, and the staging but not the explanation or why behind it, so thanks for that. I guess I prefer the d6 with 5+ is a success and then add or subtract from that pool based on circumstances. I don't know if that started in 3E or 4E.

4e. 3rd Edition is mostly a streamlining and updating of 2nd Ed that fixes the initiative system, adds some balance to skills, overhauls decking with the optional rules from Virtual Realities 2.0 that vastly speeds up decking (it's still a minigame separate from any other mechanics, but it's a much faster paced one than the dungeon crawl decking of 1e/2e), and otherwise tweaks a lot of rules.

4e is where the rules undergo a massive overhaul with the fixed target number, adding two attributes so Quickness/Intelligence is no longer game-breaking, and basically rebuilds most of the systems from the ground up including decking (now hacking and is no longer a completely separate minigame) and magic (which strips all the cultural markers from the magic system and jettisons a lot of the more problematic cultural appropriation previously baked into the system). 5e and 6e are evolutions of this system with their own attempts to refine it (5e places limits on the number of successes you can use in any particular roll no matter what the dice says that fixes a lot of problems of dice pool bloat but creates an unfun situation where you roll well but it doesn't mean anything because of the limits, 6e ditches limits and adds the Karma Pool system which functions more like a metacurrency to allow characters to do cool stuff like different special actions instead of just adding/subtracting from the dice pool).

evildmguy · Dec 15, 2022

Thanks for the history! I don't mind some complexity in game systems but long found out my players are casual. They like some complexity as well, such as number of successes, but not to Exalted's ten step process for one character's round!

I used 5E when I last ran, mainly because that was already in Foundry, but do like some of 6E's further simplifications. I'm torn on the Karma pool. FFG's Star Wars and the need to interpret every roll gets old fast, imo. I think those should be special things used for drama, not something to decide on every roll but that's me.

Hey! Wait a minute! You are selling me something!! Which megacorp do you work for???

Abstruse · Dec 15, 2022

evildmguy said:
Thanks for the history! I don't mind some complexity in game systems but long found out my players are casual. They like some complexity as well, such as number of successes, but not to Exalted's ten step process for one character's round!

I used 5E when I last ran, mainly because that was already in Foundry, but do like some of 6E's further simplifications. I'm torn on the Karma pool. FFG's Star Wars and the need to interpret every roll gets old fast, imo. I think those should be special things used for drama, not something to decide on every roll but that's me.

Hey! Wait a minute! You are selling me something!! Which megacorp do you work for???

It's not separate dice or anything, it's just that certain actions you take add to your Karma Pool depending on your character build, like if your Attack Rating is 4 more than the Defense Rating you add 1 to your Karma Pool or if you have specific cyberware or spells or other gear it can give you Karma. You can spend that Karma Pool on boring stuff like extra dice or re-rolls or whatever, but there's also stuff like special actions you can take. To me, it feels more like the Green Ronin AGE System's metacurrency than then FFG/Edge's Genesys system but even still it's not one-to-one.

And, like all good Shadowrunners, I'm a freelancer

RealAlHazred · Dec 15, 2022

I always felt Shadowrun really, really needed a live-action implementation: be it a movie, a TV show, something...

Abstruse · Dec 15, 2022

RealAlHazred said:
I always felt Shadowrun really, really needed a live-action implementation: be it a movie, a TV show, something...

The closest we've got is Leverage.

RealAlHazred · Dec 15, 2022

Abstruse said:
The closest we've got is Leverage.

That Will Smith movie Bright wasn't too far off flavor-wise, though the plot was... not great.

Abstruse · Dec 15, 2022

RealAlHazred said:
That Will Smith movie Bright wasn't too far off flavor-wise, though the plot was... not great.

Bright was absolutely nothing like Shadowrun. It had more in common with Dresden Files or World of Darkness. Straight urban fantasy, no cyberpunk whatsoever. And on top of that, the protagonists were cops. That's the antithesis of Shadowrun.

RealAlHazred · Dec 15, 2022

Abstruse said:
Bright was absolutely nothing like Shadowrun. It had more in common with Dresden Files or World of Darkness. Straight urban fantasy, no cyberpunk whatsoever. And on top of that, the protagonists were cops. That's the antithesis of Shadowrun.

I get what you're saying, but there's a real dearth of other examples. When Bright came out, I was telling my friends, "See, a little like this movie, only better," when trying to describe my ideal Shadowrun film.

RPG Freebies, Bundles, and Sales News (December 11, 2022)

Darryl Mott

Abstruse

Legend

evildmguy

Explorer

Abstruse

Legend

evildmguy

Explorer

Abstruse

Legend

RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)

Abstruse

Legend

RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)

Abstruse

Legend

RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)

Similar Threads

Related Articles