D&D 4E OT: Shadowrun 4E announced

[Altalazar]

I played SR from the start, though I stopped playing just before 3rd Edition came out. It was my favorite system and my favorite game to run. I at one time had three seperate games going at once (in the same in-game city). It was great fun. I did my own version of their news releases, and one group would read about the other in the "paper"

I thought SR2 was an improvement on the first in terms of rules, mechanics, etc. I never played SR3, but I got the books and have looked at the rules, and I thought it was, in some ways, a step backwards - for instance, I thought threat ratings were a nice, simple mechanic that had a cool effect in the game.

I really haven't had time to read any of the supplements post SR3 release done by Fanpro, so I can't comment on them. But from looking at the plans for SR4, killing deckers, killing the Matrix, and "streamlining" the game, I have a very bad vibe about it. I thought the "streamlining" done for SR3 was a step backward. When I first read about it, about "hackers" and the general plans for the world, my gut reaction was that they are killing the game. Part of the great thing for me about Shadowrun was that the world itself was so well built and had such great "flavor" - now they are changing that at its core.

I will probably get SR4 to look at what they did before passing final judgment, but as it stands, I have tons of SR1,2,3 material to use when I have time to run again and I am guessing that I'll never use SR4. Of course, one other factor was the mention that all previous sourcebooks will be obsolete with the rules changes. Now, if SR4 was truly an improvement and didn't kill the game world for me, that wouldn't necessarily bother me that much - though it still would rankle - but what it does do is, if SR4 is as I fear it is, it will likely mean I will never buy another FanPro product again - because then all new supplements would be incompatible with the old rules AND incompatible with the old world (since it has no Matrix). Kinda kills the whole thing for me.

I really feel with this new version, they killed the gameworld. Obviously, there are plenty of materials to play one's own game ignoring SR4 entirely, but then it is sort of like FASA (and FanPro) went out of business and the system is dead from a new material standpoint.

And I'm sorry - "hackers" just do NOT fit into the world of Shadowrun - a huge part of the flavor is all of the new terminology and slang introduced - it put you into the mindset of another world, the same, yet different. "hackers" just drags me right back to the rather stupid (though stylish) movie of the same name with Angelina Jolie. It turns the system to Drek.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

I dunno about the "No new material". We just get tons of stuff - new stuff, not "Translations of old books we had lying around"

 

[Staffan]

Deckers were fun, because they created their own little world and thrived in it. They had their uses, but in general, they were seperated from the rest of the setting.

I've only played Shadowrun twice (one of which was at a con), but if there's one complaint I've heard time and again about it, it's "Don't use PC deckers because their stuff is almost completely separated from the other stuff going on." If FanPro are listening to those complaints, that tells me they probably have the right idea.

Now, whether they'll do a good job of replacing "decking" with "hacking" is still an open question, but I think a move along the lines of "integrate the decker with the rest of the party" is at least in the right direction.

 

[GlassJaw]

I really feel with this new version, they killed the gameworld.

What's with the past tense? SR4 won't even be out for another 4-5 months!!!

How about giving FanPro the benefit of the doubt and see what they come up with?

I've played every version of SR and I never liked deckers to be honest. The concept is very cool but they just didn't work in actual gameplay. Why devote so much space to the incredibly complex rules if no one uses them? If they can make deckers/hackers playable alongside the rest of the group, I'm all for it.

 

[TwistedBishop]

Actually, looking at it from the german point of view... FanPro's editions of the SR-books were always a lot more "cleaned up". They checked and recked for errors, and normally caught the stuff that FASA let slip. Most of the really innovative stuff for the 3rd edit came from FanPro.

Such as what? SR3 was a good book precisely because it finally put together scattered rules from VR2.0, R2, Shadowtech/Cybertechnology, and the magic books (Grimoire, Awakenings). There were very, *very* few actual new changes in that edition, which is why it was a *good* edition. Shadowrun worked, it didn't need some vast overhaul then, doesn't need one now. The only big change in SR3 was the initiative system for characters with extremely high scores, with smaller changes to skills (they branched them out and allowed attribute defaults) and astral space (no more grounding a spell into the normal world, no more living creatures blocking astral bodies).

 

[TwistedBishop]

I've played every version of SR and I never liked deckers to be honest. The concept is very cool but they just didn't work in actual gameplay. Why devote so much space to the incredibly complex rules if no one uses them? If they can make deckers/hackers playable alongside the rest of the group, I'm all for it.

No one requires you to like deckers, but it's not a valid excuse for their extermination. You say they were never used, and that they were unplayable alongside the group. I disagree, I've seen them used well and I've seen them used poorly. It comes down to a GM problem mostly, but can sometimes be a player one (a group who sits around waiting hours in the game world while a decker looks up information about a run, and only then starts doing their own legwork). People who don't take the time to learn a system are always going to have a rough go playing it.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Actually, looking at it from the german point of view... FanPro's editions of the SR-books were always a lot more "cleaned up". They checked and recked for errors, and normally caught the stuff that FASA let slip. Most of the really innovative stuff for the 3rd edit came from FanPro. As a fan of the system, and gamemaster for a bunch of addicts, i'm looking forward to seeing the new edit.

I'm not sure what input you see in SR3 from FanPro, but from what I gather most of the Germany sourcebooks were so off kilter, they would never see the light of day. The one Germany sourcebook that did make US release was substantially altered from what I gather.

But, I think that's been my point all along. The European/German/FanPro feel of the game is different from the SR1 & SR2 feel. It's a different outlook, and it shows quite strongly in FanPro's SR3 stuff. It no longer feels like the Cyberpunk Shadowrunner Hero game, but more like Grand Theft Auto: Shadowrun.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I've only played Shadowrun twice (one of which was at a con), but if there's one complaint I've heard time and again about it, it's "Don't use PC deckers because their stuff is almost completely separated from the other stuff going on." If FanPro are listening to those complaints, that tells me they probably have the right idea.

My complaint is, they're making deckers playable, by removing them from the game?

So now, it will be easier to not have deckers in the game, because they don't exist anymore. If half the player base never used Player Deckers because they were irritating, now 100% of the player base will not use player deckers, because they're GONE!

I've heard the same arguements about Astral space. "I curb the mage astrally projecting, because it's not a group activity." Does that mean ditching astral space?

By the same token, legwork has always been a mixed bag. Youv'e got the player with 10 contacts talking and talking, while Morgan with no etiquette, 1 dead contact and 1 living contact that works at McHughs, sits there twiddling her thumbs.

You can't integrate the Shadowrun rules and streamline them, because the archetypes are incompatible. It will always be a GM balancing act of finding stuff for each character to do. That doesn't mean you give troll goalies a charisma of 8, so they can also engage in conversation when the Face does.

The main streamlining I'd have liked to see with Deckers, was using the ACIFS system from Otaku, which did away with quite a few programs. I also think Cybercombat was a bit silly, but it's one of the sacred cows of the game. Whoops, it was. I don't suppose the toaster will have Black IC loaded...

 

[Geron Raveneye]

You know, Voce...I do feel with you, believe me...but right now you're shooting at ghosts in the fog. As long as we can't take a look at the actual edition and the changes, there's also nothing we can take apart and get riled up about. You ka?

 

[Vocenoctum]

You know, Voce...I do feel with you, believe me...but right now you're shooting at ghosts in the fog. As long as we can't take a look at the actual edition and the changes, there's also nothing we can take apart and get riled up about. You ka?

Yeah, but I don't feel like remembering any Evil DM stuff, and there's not much else to do.