Shadowrun: What's the likelihood of a complete system overhaul?

[DarkCrisis]

Shadowrun has always been a tad unwieldy, but thats just how it was.

As other systems have grown they've also changed. Simplified.

But SR still has its issues.

Anarchy is a sort of complete overhaul but it's simplified to far. Even with that it's still the best current version to play.

A lot of its sacred cows need to be slaughtered. Something like 5E D&D. Heck I'd even take 4E D&D overhaul.

Keep the guns. The ammo. Heck, keep dice pools. But cut way back on how combat works. Like a whole new combat system.

 

[overgeeked]

Not likely Catalyst will do so. The 5E mechanics are CC-BY. All you’d need to do is add the guns, ammo, cyber, and custom classes. Way less work than starting from scratch.

What level of crunch are you looking for? There’s likely a fantasy or cyberpunk game that is close enough. With a bit of DIY you’d have what you’re looking for.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Not likely Catalyst will do so. The 5E mechanics are CC-BY. All you’d need to do is add the guns, ammo, cyber, and custom classes. Way less work than starting from scratch.

What level of crunch are you looking for? There’s likely a fantasy or cyberpunk game that is close enough. With a bit of DIY you’d have what you’re looking for.

I love SR. Love the art. But man do I not like Catalyst. Like, they need better editors. Their 6E core book has the most errors of any rpg I’ve ever owned.

I just got the new SR card game from them and they somehow messed that up where 2/3rds of the required tokens to play are missing.

My dream is they sell it to a competent company who does something amazing with the property.

Man, do I miss FASA. Atleast I still have the 3E book if I want some good old SR crunch.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Haven't looked at 5 or 6. SR games are sporadic in my circles. SR2 was my favorite for anime power levels (Trolls with tons of cyber- and bioware? Mages doing absurd damage with the Ram spell? Yes please!) but the hacking was atrocious.

I liked Unwired in general for adding an AR world. I came around to the core ideas behind new riggers and hacking rules in SR4, though I felt most of them were kind of half baked. The ideas of pursuit and hacking alerts were good but there was always a feeling they either didn't fully playtest things or liked a very lopsided game. I sometimes felt like two different authors were fighting and the line developer wasn't willing to put their foot down.

Sad to hear they haven't made it better in more than a decade.

 

[Jaeger]

As other systems have grown they've also changed. Simplified.

But SR still has its issues.

Anarchy is a sort of complete overhaul but it's simplified to far.

There was nothing wrong with 2-3e SR that couldn't be fixed.

Catalyst went in the wrong direction - they changed the success number for the die pools, but never addressed any of the underlying complexity of the system that was the main issue for players.

I agree that there is a happy medium between base SR, and SR anarchy that could be reached.

The system needs to be gone through from the top down with an eye towards streamlining and simplifying, while maintaining the 'character' of the SR system that everyone is familiar with.

Sad to hear they haven't made it better in more than a decade.

IMO sometimes the owners of a IP are just too close to the problem. Too much catering to the hardcore base that knows the system like the back of their hand, and that does not perceive the changes needed to keep a steady stream of new players coming to the table that won't be overwhelmed by the core games complexity.

GURPS and HERO have both fallen to this. RQG has ensured its niche status this way.

My dream is they sell it to a competent company

This is what it will take given catalysts current track record.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Shadowrun has always been a tad unwieldy, but thats just how it was.

As other systems have grown they've also changed. Simplified.

This is an over-generalization. And the longer a game is in play, the less clear it is to what extent this is a good idea. Does simplification get you a lot of new people? Does it lose some of your old fanbase? Does it make things that previously made sense no longer do so?

Shadowrun has struggled with all of these. Some people dearly loved the changes between 3e and 4e. Some people hated it. And its not clear which group was more worth catering to. 6e was theoretically supposed to be simpler but I haven't heard an overwhelming number of people singing its praises. As you noted, some people really liked Anarchy, but the majority of SR fans didn't seem to think much of it.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

Shadowrun hasn't been the same since they took "Turn to Goo" off the core book spell list the first time.

 

[DarkCrisis]

They really really need to simplify the combat math.

 

[MGibster]

This is an over-generalization. And the longer a game is in play, the less clear it is to what extent this is a good idea. Does simplification get you a lot of new people? Does it lose some of your old fanbase? Does it make things that previously made sense no longer do so?

I was thinking the same thing. A radical change in how things work risks alienating their current fans with no indication that new fans will replace them or surpass their numbers. i.e. It's a tough spot to be in. I'm a fan of the idea that they should work to streamline the rules while retaining as much of the Shadowrun feel as possible. I played a little bit of Shadowrun in the late 80s and early 90s, but it wasn't one I played very frequently. I get a flood of warm nostalgia anytime I see art from the 1st edition book.

There's a lot to like about Shadowrun. While I've alway preferred Cyberpunk, I'll have to admit the setting for SR has always been pretty good and over the years has changed with the times much better than CP. I've always liked character generation and the way you prioritize what's important to you. Do you want to be a Troll? Do you want your lifestyle to be your lowest prority? How about Skills or Attributes? You have a lot of flexibility.

I picked up 5th edition a few years back and after reading the rules came to the conclusion that running this game didn't interest me. It's been a while, but I just felt the rules for magic, riggers, etc., etc. were all overly complicated when taken in the aggregate. Figuring out a mage wasn't too complicated, but when adding everything else it just seemed like a bigger headache than I wanted.

There was one thing that threw me and it was wireless devices. Like, I get how useful wireless devices where, but, for reasons I did't understand, a decker could hack into your cyberware because it was also online. If I were a cybered up Street Samurai, why on God's green Earth would I leave myself vulnerable to hacking by leaving my cyberware connected to the WIFI? Obviously it was to give the decker a chance to defend the group as well as participate in attacks on enemies as he hacks their cyberware, but it just struck me as monumentally stupid. I can accept magic returning and goblinization, but I sure as hell couldn't accept professional killers keeping their cyberlimbs connected to the WIFI.

 

[dbm]

I sure as hell couldn't accept professional killers keeping their cyberlimbs connected to the WIFI.

Always-online DRM is the pits…