D&D 4E OT: Shadowrun 4E announced

[Saeviomagy]

Well, I'm not sure how you're saying SR is markedly different in that respect. Star Wars is labeled sci-fi because it has blasters and spaceships. SR is labeled cyberpunk because it has guns and cybernetics.

Where's the epic journey?

Where's the kid becoming a man becoming a jedi?

Where's bad guy wearing a black cloak?

How does something like this match shadowrun?

It doesn't. But it DOES match starwars.

But surely Star Wars has *always* been epic fantasy (in space) rather than sci fi?

Yeah, kinda what I'm trying to point out here...

 

[Saeviomagy]

4e SR: I hope they simplify and bring a consistent core system for all aspects of the game. Rigging and Matrix were effectively useless in 3ed..

Agreed to the nth degree.

The rules for rigging and decking sucked, the effect of the two rocked.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Agreed to the nth degree.

The rules for rigging and decking sucked, the effect of the two rocked.

Just as an aside, and totally out of curiosity...what exactly sucked about the rules? I'm asking because my current SR group has a decker and will have a rigger, soon, I think the matrix runs will be a breeze as long as me and the player have a grip on the rules, and use them to faciliate play. I certainly don't see a matrix run becoming a 3-hours nightmare, that's why I'm asking.

We're running 1E rules, modified for a bit of streamlining, just as an info. The thing is, when I played SR for the first time, matrix runs were a living nightmare, because neither player nor GM bothered to take a good look at the rules.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Just as an aside, and totally out of curiosity...what exactly sucked about the rules? I'm asking because my current SR group has a decker and will have a rigger, soon, I think the matrix runs will be a breeze as long as me and the player have a grip on the rules, and use them to faciliate play. I certainly don't see a matrix run becoming a 3-hours nightmare, that's why I'm asking.

The big thing about them is that they don't integrate or use the same rules as anything else, and they're quite complex and overly detailed when compared with other rules, and they depart from the real world sufficiently to make experience there less-than-useful.

We're running 1E rules, modified for a bit of streamlining, just as an info. The thing is, when I played SR for the first time, matrix runs were a living nightmare, because neither player nor GM bothered to take a good look at the rules.

Ahh, well I confess I'm unfamiliar with 1E. My expertise is in 2nd and beyond.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The big thing about them is that they don't integrate or use the same rules as anything else, and they're quite complex and overly detailed when compared with other rules, and they depart from the real world sufficiently to make experience there less-than-useful.

Yep.

When we played, the GM and decker player* eventually just used opposed rolls to get most of the decking done.

Also, the GM and rigger player signed an "anti-MIJI" accord, as they came to the conclusion that the EW rules were just plain too much to bother with.

Brad

* - A samurai with a datajack and computer skill; the guy who was going to play the decker never showed up, and the sam had essence left.

 

[Blood Jester]

The presence of SR20 does not invalidate the existence of SR3.

Unless a company only has the budget for one, and the topic of discussion was what the publisher was putting out, not what a fan site wanted to do.

Or perhaps setting material would be more important to differentiate a game from the rest of the pack. Perhaps quality of execution would drive the industry, instead of Different For The Sake Of Different.

As opposed to being The Same For The Sake Of Being The Same? (And I think we can agree that capitalizing each word is just silly.) For that matter, Shadowrun has long since proven that it can stand out from the pack based on flavor or 'setting material'.

The entire idea of new editions of games is to improve the mechanics of What Came Before. It is better to use well-polished rules (D20 or otherwise) rather than come up with something different.

While I enjoy many d20 games and in no way hat d02, the idea that it is the uncontested pinnacle of game mechanics is getting very tired. And changing the game system to d20 is 'coming up with something different' since that is not what this game is evolving from. Improving what came before is not the same as chucking the whole system for a different one.

As I mentioned, the parallel is easy. When Polyhedron was added to Dungeon, the Poly guys didn't like it, but were happy they had material. The Dungeon folks couldn't stand it and revolted.
Those folks that want SR20 are not saying make ONLY SR20, but the folks that oppose it want ONLY their favorite version. If FanPro can't handle it, a fan conversion could, or perhaps a deal could be reached with WotC like CoC20.

Again, what fans chose to do is their business, this entire hijack from the announcement of SR 4E started over the idea that it should be published in d20, or not at all.


In summary, I like not having to play a wizard and cast fireball in order to grab a nice handful of d6 and roll-dem-bones. You want d20 cyberpunk, d20 Modern is already out there. For those of us who want some variety, hooray for games in other systems.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Unless a company only has the budget for one, and the topic of discussion was what the publisher was putting out, not what a fan site wanted to do.

There are avenues besides the publisher.

As opposed to being The Same For The Sake Of Being The Same? (And I think we can agree that capitalizing each word is just silly.) For that matter, Shadowrun has long since proven that it can stand out from the pack based on flavor or 'setting material'.

It's not silly, it's emphasis, and in a longer post would be acronymed. SR4 is coming, it is not staying the same. A lot of game systems survive, SR3 has been in a slump for years. Your strawman arguement that some of us want ONLY SRd20 is quite the wide net. The SR4 supporters have said that SRd20 is impossible, and that's what we're talking about. If SR's setting is good enough, it would be good in the SR system, or in the D20 System. Too many games invent new mechanics when they've run out of truely new material.

While I enjoy many d20 games and in no way hat d02, the idea that it is the uncontested pinnacle of game mechanics is getting very tired. And changing the game system to d20 is 'coming up with something different' since that is not what this game is evolving from. Improving what came before is not the same as chucking the whole system for a different one.

It is not the pinnacle of game mechanics, so again you're inserting stuff that no one has said. SR3 is a fine system, which is being changed into something new in SR4, that something new will not be the full flavor of SR1, or SR2, or SR3. It will be different.
D20 is no more inappropriate than any other system.

Again, what fans chose to do is their business, this entire hijack from the announcement of SR 4E started over the idea that it should be published in d20, or not at all.

It started with someone saying they wouldn't buy the non-D20, then other folks came along to explain how it's impossible to do an SRd20 without it sucking as SR, or as D20.

In summary, I like not having to play a wizard and cast fireball in order to grab a nice handful of d6 and roll-dem-bones. You want d20 cyberpunk, d20 Modern is already out there. For those of us who want some variety, hooray for games in other systems.

I'd like for folks to recognize that both systems have their advantages and disadvantages in such cases. I've played SR since the Stuffer shack mess in SR1, and it's been fun, but that doesn't mean the system handles stuff well. By the logic in this thread, if you fixed it, it wouldn't be SR anymore.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The entire idea of new editions of games is to improve the mechanics of What Came Before. It is better to use well-polished rules (D20 or otherwise) rather than come up with something different.

Once you try to apply d20 to Shadowrun, they are no longer well-polished rules. Since you have to rewrite a lot of the d20 rules to properly capture the mood, you essentially end up with an untested system. And those are rarely well-polished.

The "standard" Shadowrun rules have existed for 16 years in one incarnation or another, so it would be easier to build on those than to rebuild d20 from scratch if you want to end up with something well-polished...

 

[Geron Raveneye]

The big thing about them is that they don't integrate or use the same rules as anything else, and they're quite complex and overly detailed when compared with other rules, and they depart from the real world sufficiently to make experience there less-than-useful.

Ah, okay...yeah, I agree, 1E has the same problem in it's core rules...combat, magic and decking/rigging not using the same resolution system. Which was the first (and easiest) thing to streamline with a few houserules. I really look forward to how they have solved this in 4E...although their announcement about the Matrix 2.0 makes me frown...I'm too "old school" cyberpunk oriented to easily accept a transition to a wireless tech world everybody has access to with a W-LAN antenna sticking in his datajack. It's all a matter of taste, of course.

I also agree that matrix runs can be detracting from the rest of the game. That's between the player and the GM to avoid...and integrate the decker into the team via sec-cams and audio systems, as soon as he's in the security control. Streamlining some of the node's functions helps doing that, and keeping away from letting a decker run a rat-ract through a virtual dungeon just to get to the Cam-SPU.

 

[HellHound]

Except you have to have a classless system set up, a skill based combat system, and a much more deadly combat system. In Shadowrun, you CAN quite easily make a character who's an armor wearing wizard who can fire a heavy machine gun better then anyone else, or a decker who can cast spells with the best of them. And there's nothing wrong with that, at all.

In order to hack apart d20 to the point you're faithfully recreating Shadowrun in it's native setting, you're probley playing something much closer to as-written Shadowrun then anything resembling d20.

Classless system - Done it, works fine. (My d20 modern game only has one metaclass class - it replaces all the hero classes and is called "Punk")

Skill based combat system - Done it, works fine (BESM d20)

Much more deadly combat system - DOne it, works great (Massive Damage threshold of 10... and while SR combat may be deadly sometimes, it ALSO has many of the failings of d20 combat when it comes to survivability - people just take too much damage. That's why I prefer CyberPunk for combat - TRULY deadly combat).

Therefore, I am forced to disagree that d20 can't handle SR.

Now that this has been said, I still don't think that SR4 should be d20. But at the same time, I don't see how come people keep insisting that elements of SR can't be handled with d20.