Shadowrun: sell it to me!
- Thread starter randomling
- Start date
Sabaron
First Post
Well, I promised I post more, but everyone else already has. Not a lot more to add. So I'll tell you the combat incident that really sealed the fate of the system for my players.
The runners had infiltrated a small corporate compound. Things were going well until the dwarf shot an orc with an unsilenced shotgun. The biggest encounter was with the CEO and his seven security guards, all of whom were taking cover in a room, some as far as 15 meters apart. The dwarf walks in the door, sets his shotgun choke to 2 (spreads every 2 meters) and kills 5 of the security guards with one shot. The party quickly finished off the rest before the guards even got to go. Ugh.
The chief problem there was that SR didn't properly nerf shotguns vs. armor. They had a mechanic in place that claimed to reduce their effectiveness, but doesn't work when a runner throws his entire combat pool into a roll (like mine *always* do
). I would seriously upgrade that nerfing before allowing shotguns again.
All in all though, I enjoyed the system, and would recommend that you try it with your players at least once.
The runners had infiltrated a small corporate compound. Things were going well until the dwarf shot an orc with an unsilenced shotgun. The biggest encounter was with the CEO and his seven security guards, all of whom were taking cover in a room, some as far as 15 meters apart. The dwarf walks in the door, sets his shotgun choke to 2 (spreads every 2 meters) and kills 5 of the security guards with one shot. The party quickly finished off the rest before the guards even got to go. Ugh.
The chief problem there was that SR didn't properly nerf shotguns vs. armor. They had a mechanic in place that claimed to reduce their effectiveness, but doesn't work when a runner throws his entire combat pool into a roll (like mine *always* do
). I would seriously upgrade that nerfing before allowing shotguns again.All in all though, I enjoyed the system, and would recommend that you try it with your players at least once.
Metus
First Post
With Shadowrun being my most favorite system, I just had to chime in and suggest you try it out. The magic system is great (which unfortunately makes <i>everyone</i> want to be a mage), yet it's also balanced in the other areas as well. I love how rich the world is as far as details go. I particularly enjoyed the SR novels (the earlier ones were great, with the recent ones being OK). Anyways, try it out! It's good.
Seule
Explorer
Sabaron said:They had a mechanic in place that claimed to reduce their effectiveness, but doesn't work when a runner throws his entire combat pool into a roll (like mine *always* do
This illustrates my key problem with SR: Die pools seem to have a disproportionate effect. If your die pool is larger than the number of dice in whatever you are trying to do, your actual skills begin to seem irrelevant. Limiting die pools somehow (or eliminating them completely) helps this, but takes you away from actual SR rules, which also bugs me.
On the whole, I find that SR has one of the best settings around, with a quite adequate system. I love the prioritizing during chargen, and I don't love the magic system. Decking was always restricted to NPCs in games I've played. Granted, I've not played a whole lot, I'd like to play more. My last game was maybe 3 years ago.
--Seule
Imperialus
Explorer
easiest way to nerf shotguns I've found is lots and lots of grunt guards with SMG's and shotguns of their own backed up by a combat drone or two. Shotguns can't be silenced and their ammo is useless against any kind of hardened armour like the drones have so a protracted fire fight in a corprate facility will quickly bring more grunts than all but the most experianced teams can handle. Factor in the limited ammo capacity of most shotguns and the fact that it takes a full round to put 4 or 5 rounds in the magazine also works against the runners.
Even just a single blast to drop some Joe nobody sec guard with an Ares Predator will quickly get the team noticed by the facilities rigger at which point the automated defences can kick in.
My players quickly learned that a silenced pistol or a knife to the back made life a great deal easier for them. Heck I had one player who ran around with a very powerful (7M) electric winch crossbow that he used to kill people in almost total silence. Most the team did carry shotguns but they were a backup weapon for when fecal matter hit the fan not their weapon of choice. Besides, as far as munched out weapons went in Shadowrun I had bigger problems with guns like the Ares Alpha loaded with phosphorus ammunition than I ever did with shotguns.
As for the combat pool problem I simply house ruled that all pools refreshed once a day at 12 midnight. They were still there when you had to shoot the guy holding a hostage from 30 feet away with a light pistol but there was a lot more thought put into the occasions when you would utter the hated words, "I drop my entire ____ pool into it."
Even just a single blast to drop some Joe nobody sec guard with an Ares Predator will quickly get the team noticed by the facilities rigger at which point the automated defences can kick in.
My players quickly learned that a silenced pistol or a knife to the back made life a great deal easier for them. Heck I had one player who ran around with a very powerful (7M) electric winch crossbow that he used to kill people in almost total silence. Most the team did carry shotguns but they were a backup weapon for when fecal matter hit the fan not their weapon of choice. Besides, as far as munched out weapons went in Shadowrun I had bigger problems with guns like the Ares Alpha loaded with phosphorus ammunition than I ever did with shotguns.
As for the combat pool problem I simply house ruled that all pools refreshed once a day at 12 midnight. They were still there when you had to shoot the guy holding a hostage from 30 feet away with a light pistol but there was a lot more thought put into the occasions when you would utter the hated words, "I drop my entire ____ pool into it."
La Bete
First Post
hmmm. forgive me if im wrong, but in third ed, most pools are limited by you skill in whatever you are doing.
speaking of 3rd ed, if you have played previous versions and had problems, most of tehm are sorted in 3rd. seriously.
decking is a lot smoother, some of teh more outrageous munchkinism is gone, etc.
speaking of 3rd ed, if you have played previous versions and had problems, most of tehm are sorted in 3rd. seriously.
decking is a lot smoother, some of teh more outrageous munchkinism is gone, etc.
Shalimar
First Post
You are limited by the your skills as to how much you can put from any given pool into a roll, never more then your skill.
Guns aren't a neccesity for shadowrunners, they are only a neccessity for bad ones. My group does a lot of planning before the runs, a lot, and we pride our selves on the fact that in 2 years of runs we have yet to kill anyone. With the laws in shadowrun as they are that is a very big deal. With enough planning murder is avoidable. the better weapon, even then a shot gun, is planning, now I realize other may like hack and slash style shadow runs and that style of think before you leap wont work for those type of people.
Guns aren't a neccesity for shadowrunners, they are only a neccessity for bad ones. My group does a lot of planning before the runs, a lot, and we pride our selves on the fact that in 2 years of runs we have yet to kill anyone. With the laws in shadowrun as they are that is a very big deal. With enough planning murder is avoidable. the better weapon, even then a shot gun, is planning, now I realize other may like hack and slash style shadow runs and that style of think before you leap wont work for those type of people.
Imperialus
Explorer
wow Shalmar, that's good. My group will kill NPC's but not often. There are just some locations you just can't bypass without killing someone, and there have been a few occasions when things have gone horribly wrong (bad dice rolls, bad timeing, anything is possible) and they've had to blast there way out. Now out of sheer morbid curiosity are you saying that they never confront anyone or that they just use non lethal weapons? After all there are many non lethal and very effictive ways to deal with opponants in SR.
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One or two people have already linked to Dumpshock. That site, and its many resources, is very much like the ENWorld of Shadowrun. Keep it linked, and stop on in whenever you have questions...
I can't say much more than what has already been said. Shadowrun is, in my opinion, an amazing system. It is easily my favorite. The magic system is very good. Mage may be my favorite, but the system in Shadowrun makes more sense for the feel of the game.
As others have stated... Previous editions have had issues. Spellcasters were to strong, shotguns owned everything, dice pools were often more important than actual skill, and so forth... The newest edition of the rules clears up much of this, and has made it a well rounded game.
If you do intend to buy it, I do have one bit of advice. Take it slow! Start with just the core book. Leave decking and rigging out at first (restricted to NPCs) and ask magic users to limit astral interaction. Use this time to get familiar with the base game mechanics.
After you've gotten the basics under your belt, go ahead and add in the stuff you were holding back. Do so slowly... Decking and astral travel are new layers for the game, and (although it takes skill) a good Game Master can run them simultaneously with other actions without any need for dumbed down rules. The key here is "Overwatch". Runs should rarely focus on what happens in the matrix or the astral. What goes on in these places should be supporting what is going on in the real world...
Once you have the core book running... add in expansion books, or pieces of expansion books, as you desire or our campaign dictates.
I've just come off a 3 year campaign, and it was one of the most enjoyable I've ever run. I'm going to take a break and run some D&D now... but everyone knows I'll be headed back to Shadowrun once I've wrested up a bit.
I can't say much more than what has already been said. Shadowrun is, in my opinion, an amazing system. It is easily my favorite. The magic system is very good. Mage may be my favorite, but the system in Shadowrun makes more sense for the feel of the game.
As others have stated... Previous editions have had issues. Spellcasters were to strong, shotguns owned everything, dice pools were often more important than actual skill, and so forth... The newest edition of the rules clears up much of this, and has made it a well rounded game.
If you do intend to buy it, I do have one bit of advice. Take it slow! Start with just the core book. Leave decking and rigging out at first (restricted to NPCs) and ask magic users to limit astral interaction. Use this time to get familiar with the base game mechanics.
After you've gotten the basics under your belt, go ahead and add in the stuff you were holding back. Do so slowly... Decking and astral travel are new layers for the game, and (although it takes skill) a good Game Master can run them simultaneously with other actions without any need for dumbed down rules. The key here is "Overwatch". Runs should rarely focus on what happens in the matrix or the astral. What goes on in these places should be supporting what is going on in the real world...
Once you have the core book running... add in expansion books, or pieces of expansion books, as you desire or our campaign dictates.
I've just come off a 3 year campaign, and it was one of the most enjoyable I've ever run. I'm going to take a break and run some D&D now... but everyone knows I'll be headed back to Shadowrun once I've wrested up a bit.
Tsyr
Explorer
My group used to be pretty good at the non-lethal runs.
Then we had someone's cousin play with us for a game.
Mr. Johnson gave us a very specific, and rather easy mission. Follow a guy. Don't let yourself be spotted. Wait until he goes in to a building to pick up a datachip from someone. Ambush him on the way home, don't let anyone but him know about the ambush, and report back to me with the chip and the building where he went.
Simple mission, just to break in the new guy. Since it would only take us a little while IRL to do this, I suspect it was supposed to be part of a larger game. Never got the chance to find out though...
We tailed him. We got to the building. We set up a stakeout on the building. The guys cousin was on the roof of the building, looking down at the door in the alley the guy went into. As soon as the guy comes out and closes the door, he drops a handful of grenades down into the alley.
We didn't get the chip (Destroyed by the grenades), we weren't unseen (Everyone in the surrounding 3 blocks heard the explosion, and the resulting firefight as goons poured out of the building cost my decker an arm (Which was holding a really souped-up Ares Predator, to boot), as I was trying to turn off the stupid security guns that popped out of the side of the buildings, and our mage caught a burst square in the chest, ending him...
The cousin just stayed on top of the building unnoticed the entire firefight.
Grrrr...
Then we had someone's cousin play with us for a game.
Mr. Johnson gave us a very specific, and rather easy mission. Follow a guy. Don't let yourself be spotted. Wait until he goes in to a building to pick up a datachip from someone. Ambush him on the way home, don't let anyone but him know about the ambush, and report back to me with the chip and the building where he went.
Simple mission, just to break in the new guy. Since it would only take us a little while IRL to do this, I suspect it was supposed to be part of a larger game. Never got the chance to find out though...
We tailed him. We got to the building. We set up a stakeout on the building. The guys cousin was on the roof of the building, looking down at the door in the alley the guy went into. As soon as the guy comes out and closes the door, he drops a handful of grenades down into the alley.
We didn't get the chip (Destroyed by the grenades), we weren't unseen (Everyone in the surrounding 3 blocks heard the explosion, and the resulting firefight as goons poured out of the building cost my decker an arm (Which was holding a really souped-up Ares Predator, to boot), as I was trying to turn off the stupid security guns that popped out of the side of the buildings, and our mage caught a burst square in the chest, ending him...
The cousin just stayed on top of the building unnoticed the entire firefight.
Grrrr...
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