who are the Shadowrunners among us?

[Gundark]

chime in

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Ah, Shadowrun. The group I DM for now played a lot of Shadowrun in college. That RPG has it's own soundtrack for us: 21st Centry Jesus by Messiah. That CD played over and over and over again while we played.

My hand to God, I thought I was the only person who had ever heard that disk. Great sci-fi CD.

Never again though. That system had the most useless magic system, the most boring cyberspace simulation, and an incredible dependance on having the best initiative. When D&D 3.0 came out, we switched to playing that and never looked back.

I agree about cyberspace. I thought the magic system was cool though.

They toned down initiative in 3rd edition SR. But yeah, it was bad. I once tried to play a character without wired reflexes. Everyone else had wired-2 at a minimum and the mages made spell locks with reflex enhancements (don't tell me you can pop a spell lock, those things were hard to take apart). Anyway, during one combat I made my action and went out for pizza. When I came back with the food my turn hadn't come up again. I only wish that had been atypical.

 

[der_kluge]

I used to play a lot in college. Haven't played it in years. For some reason I had a lot of "non-heterosexual" (for lack of a better term) characters in that game, don't ask me why. From the lesbian rigger, to the pedophiliac decker. Strange.


One of the most boring games I played at Gen Con was an SR game. I played the rigger, and I stayed in the car, ready for the quick get-away, while everyone else went into the complex and fought all the battles. Why the GM just didn't relegate that to an NPC role, I'll never know.

 

[carpedavid]

My hand to God, I thought I was the only person who had ever heard that disk. Great sci-fi CD.

It's a fantastic CD in its own right, and, in my mind, almost the perfect cyberpunk soundtrack.

I agree about cyberspace. I thought the magic system was cool though.

Hmm. I may have to go take another look at the magic system, since everyone seems to like it. It's entirely possible that I've given it short shrift.

My main problem with it was that, at least in my experience, spellcasters never lasted long enough for them to pose any challenge to the PCs. We had one player that was a dedicated min/maxer, but the rest of us only did what I would suspect to be the customary amount of optimization - yet it was the characters with cyberware that always ended up emerging victorious.

Looks like I'm going to have to go home and dig my battered 2nd Ed Sourcebook out

 

[Breakdaddy]

Hoi Chummers!

Havent played in several years, but I loved the game. Would like to play again sometime.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Hmm. I may have to go take another look at the magic system, since everyone seems to like it. It's entirely possible that I've given it short shrift.

My main problem with it was that, at least in my experience, spellcasters never lasted long enough for them to pose any challenge to the PCs. We had one player that was a dedicated min/maxer, but the rest of us only did what I would suspect to be the customary amount of optimization - yet it was the characters with cyberware that always ended up emerging victorious.

We tended to have casters with 6 will, etc. 6 is a huge number in Shadowrun. Once you can reliably roll a six things get a little wacky. If you had normal casters with attributes of 3 or 4, then I can completely see where you would run into this problem all the time.

A typical caster in our group would have attributes of 3/3/3/5/5/5 to start with. After the second adventure they had enough karma to get a 6 in willpower and then it was all over. Plus, they were demons in astral space so unless the DM wanted to outright kill the character with a force 9 spirit or whatever, the mage was going to kick butt.

Short version of the above: we were icky little number crunchers

 

[Treebore]

I love SR. Doug was my DM for it and I loved being the Rigger. I also played Shaman and Physical Adepts. I agree that cyberspace and cyberware was boring and too powerful, respectively. However, as Doug told me, the technological edge is what it is really all about.

I came to agree with him, and spellcasters are by no means losers in the system, they are very deadly in their own ways.


Edit: of course the deadliest thing in SR is the sniper rifle headshot. I forget how many PC's Doug killed with that one.

 

[IcyCool]

Hmm. I may have to go take another look at the magic system, since everyone seems to like it. It's entirely possible that I've given it short shrift.

My main problem with it was that, at least in my experience, spellcasters never lasted long enough for them to pose any challenge to the PCs.

Well, read the spells again. There's a reason one of the common phrases in Shadowrun is "Geek the Mage first."

I'm a big fan of the magic system. You can throw reasonably powerful spells all day (with an appropriate WILLPOWER score), which is important in a game where you may have many combats in a night. When you give the system a look over again, do keep in mind some basic concepts about the usage of certain spells. Don't use physical combat spells against targets that are likely to have huge BODY scores, and likewise, don't use mana combat spells against targets that are likely to have huge WILLPOWER scores. Damaging Manipulation spells are easy to cast, but they don't ignore armor like Combat spells do. Try that approach and see what you get.

We had one player that was a dedicated min/maxer, but the rest of us only did what I would suspect to be the customary amount of optimization - yet it was the characters with cyberware that always ended up emerging victorious.

Well, the Street Sam is always going to out-Street-Sam the Mage.

Looks like I'm going to have to go home and dig my battered 2nd Ed Sourcebook out

Bah! That's your problem right there. Pick up 3rd edition. The initiative rules are re-worked (no more going 8 times before anyone else goes), the Matrix rules are nicely redone, and it generally flows more smoothly.

My main complaints with the system would have to be dragging combats. Don't have more than 5 players if you can help it. And remember, the run (and the gaming session ) is hosed if you have to pull your gun.

 

[Dagger75]

I actually played for the first time 6 months ago. Loved it. Wish we played it more but real life scheduling conflicts ended the game The new group I am with is up to new games. If only I knew the rules better.

 

[marionde]

Its been over 10 years since I played, but I would definately not mind playing again.