D&D 4E OT: Shadowrun 4E announced

[Vocenoctum]

I take back every nasty thought I ever had about Diaglo. His rants are nothing compared to sheer idiocy that seems to be de riguer among certain SR fanatics.

hat of SR4 know no limits, indeed.

Considering the responses the SR Loyalists have received from the NewSR types on different occasions, you should expect some hostility. It is not idiocy, simply emotion.

Like I said earlier, at some point you have to link the material to the author. The comments about SR4 are more related to the handling of the SR3 material as well as the SR4 decisions. Not that I'm endorsing them Rotting anywhere, just like I don't endorse comments of Idiocy or Sillyness.

The discussion is an old one, and can be summed up simply enough for my end. The current direction of SR is different than the old, in a bad way. The responses range from "it has evolved" to "it hasn't changed" from the same person in a paragraph before. Now, removing deckers from the game and adding their place to Riggers, and renaming the symbiote a "hacker" is somehow not removing the deckers.

The NewSR folks won't admit to changes being changes. But you know what, if SR3 is selling better under FanPro than it did under FASA, then I'm the one in the wrong. No matter what my opinion on flavor, sales are what dictate the games success.

I'm sure SR4 will sell well at first, we'll see how the long run treats it.

So, if OD&D was a better selling game than D&D3.5, perhaps Diaglo is right, but somehow I doubt that's the case.

 

[Vocenoctum]

True...

However, the Open Test is far more open to wildly improbable results, which *I* think is annoying as all get out.

Brad

The Dice Gods give, the Dice Gods taketh away.

But yeah, it even's out the wilder results.
But that also means the chances of that stealth-1 guy hiding from the Perception 6 guy is nearly impossible. The S1 guy has to roll a 6, the P6 fellow has to roll all 1's. That's what, 1 in 279,936 odds?

The "set target number" changes things, but is that a Known SR4 Convention? (are you rolling against "4" or are you rolling against the T# of the opponent?)

 

[Felon]

Perhaps you're not paying attention.

Of course I get it. There are some folks that begrudge evolution. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if it don't work so good, don't fix it. And in fact, if it is broken, I still don't want it fixed.

You choose to view any change from the hacker you're used to as a degradation that causes something precious to be lost. You won't acknowledge things can be actually be changed for the better. Stasis is good.

The Decker as it stands in SR1-3 is gone. Hackers are Rigger/ Decker/ Wireless Wizards. I'm not "intentionally" not getting the point, you're not grasping the difference.

So far it sounds like what's gone are clunky rules and a very cumbersome restriction on their playability. If your conception of the decker was defined by clunkiness and immobility, then I guess it is dead. May it rest in peace.

If I said Wizards are now called Sorcerers, and will cast magic spontaneously, that doesn't mean Wizards are now Sorcerers. It means they've been replaced in the setting.

3e wizards now have the capability to cast spells even if they take damage. They get feats every five levels now. They can take feats that let them cast spells without verbal, somatic, or material components. In short, they've changed...for the better. They've evolved. What's to resent?

 

[TwistedBishop]

Of course I get it. There are some folks that begrudge evolution. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if it don't work so good, don't fix it. And in fact, if it is broken, I still don't want it fixed.

Right, that must explain why everyone complained about the complete reworking of Matrix and Rigger rules in VR2.0 and R2. Oh wait....those were well received and praised revisions. Must have been the people that begrudge evolution's day off.

There's a reason why Shadowrun has sold hundreds of thousands of books, and was one of the most beloved rpgs on the market. It had a fantastic setting and style, which FanPro is slowly eroding away to fit their misguided vision. Deckers were a vital part of that style, which is now discarded for something as goofy as "hacker wizards". This is not a case of "they're just called hackers now". The fact that "hackers" and deckers both interact with computer systems does not make them the same.

The reason the above rules changes between SR2 and SR3 worked and were accepted, and this horrible "evolution" done by FanPro won't, is precisely because system and setting are different. You can change and correct a flawed system, while remaining true to the original setting. 3E did that. Everything in Shadowrun pre-FanPro did that. But why pay attention to what people have done before, resulting in massive success and profit? Probably just a fluke.

 

[Imperialus]

Heh, in my old game, sometimes the players would want to do something truely silly. Since a "no" answer was always a let down, I'd just let them roll with a high T#.
You just gotta roll 30 on a d6, and you can do almost anything.

and my responce would be "I permanetly burn a point of good karma and buy a success ". I had a char toast 4 points GK once to jump onto the roof of a speeding citymaster from a highway overpass. He survived too.

 

[Felon]

Right, that must explain why everyone complained about the complete reworking of Matrix and Rigger rules in VR2.0 and R2. Oh wait....those were well received and praised revisions. Must have been the people that begrudge evolution's day off.

Everyone? How many people actually constitutes "everyone"? Is this the internet version of "everyone" where those malcontents ranting the loudest are deemed to represent the attitude of the majority?

There's a reason why Shadowrun has sold hundreds of thousands of books, and was one of the most beloved rpgs on the market. It had a fantastic setting and style, which FanPro is slowly eroding away to fit their misguided vision. Deckers were a vital part of that style, which is now discarded for something as goofy as "hacker wizards". This is not a case of "they're just called hackers now". The fact that "hackers" and deckers both interact with computer systems does not make them the same.

Taking the decker and making it wireless is converting it into a wizard? Is this just more idle speculation about a system that little is currently known about? If you have more details about the decker/hacker transition, by all means sharre.

 

[Imperialus]

Oh, and just to hop on the no SR D20 bandwagon my reasoning is my group rarely plays long term shadowrun campaigns anymore. They usually end with a running gun battle with LoneStar where 2/3rds of the team dies and the remainder are carted off to ultramax security prisons after a few runs. We mostly play it as a break from D&D simply to take a break from the system for a while and have some fun playing a different game. If it was just another D20 game in the filecabinet it would probably see very little use.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Setting mostly. Shadowrunners may not be very good heroes, but at the end of the adventure, the world was a better place. Even if it just meant the bad guys were dealt a setback. Shadowruns are crimes because laws are broken, but in most cases they were commited in extra-territorial terrain, and "didn't count". Lone Star was full of inept racists, but they kept their jobs because the government was frankly vacant.

I guess we have been playing Shadowrun 1E all wrong, then.

Playing criminals has been a big part from the start. And while running for a "higher cause" might be nice, ultimately the runners strive to make the world a better place for the runners.

Corporations ran the world, and resisting them was fun. Humanis was the enemy,

They still are - but they and their secret backers, the Human Nation, have become only more dangerous over the years...

Aztechnology was irredeemably evil

They still are. Have you been paying attention to what is happening in the Yucatan these days? Sure, it doesn't neccessarily involve summoning demons, but that doesn't make it any less evil...

and bugs didn't have civil rights.

Is there any place anywhere where bugs have civil rights?

No human with a silly name like Spinrad could repeatedly thwart Lofwyr and get away with it.

Who says that he has gotten away with it? Lofwyr is a dragon, and thus he can afford to be patient with his revenge. My guess is that he has a very special and spectacular object lession in mind for him.

Perhaps Spinrad suspects this as well, and simply hopes to do as much damage to Lofwyr as possible before he goes down...

SR1 was not realistic, and yeah it becomes more unrealistic the more real technology outpaces 1990, but that's part of what made it fun. The more realistic you make it, the more unrealistic it becomes, for the simple fact that realistically the corporations could stop nearly any group of runners.

If they using their near-infinite budget to squash a team of runners, then yes, the corporations could stop nearly any group of runners. But they are businesses, and blowing most of your budget on security precautions is making it hard to turn a profit. And the cut throat environment in most megacons mean that the managers who turn the most profit will get promoted - and if this means that they have to skimp on security procedures, then so be it. Hey, it wasn't their fault that some criminal element broke in, right?

Lone Star could catch them easily.

Lone Star won its security contract by being the lowest bidder, and it shows. Yes, Lone Star could make a serious effort to catch some runners - but why should they care what criminals do to each other, or to people or installations outside of their jurisdiction (the cons)? Patrolling the rich residental neighborhoods and regulating traffic is much safer, and much more profitable.

The only instances when Lone Star will make an all-out effort to capture or kill a team of runners is when they are doing something so spectacular that it will be on all the newsfeeds (large-scale terrorism like bombing of buildings, or taking large numbers of hostages), or when the runners kill a Lone Star cop. Smart runners know this, and thus avoid such situations. And if they mess up despite this... well, then it is time to skip town.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

There's a reason why Shadowrun has sold hundreds of thousands of books, and was one of the most beloved rpgs on the market.

It still is, at least where I live. Around here, the popularity of Shadowrun doesn't lag far behind that of D&D...

 

[Geron Raveneye]

There's one factor that shouldn't be overlooked in this 4E debate...from the first shadowrun incarnation to the one announced now, 16 years have passed. That means an entirely new generation of gamers can take up the game...but it certainly won't if the only perks the game has is shooting at each other with guns. To a 16-years old, the tech from SR1/2 is so outdated and old it's not even fun wearing it for the retro-flavour, and some of the concepts that make deckers so dear to those with 10 years of SR-experience under their belt are pretty much alien to kids that grew up in a wireless world for the last 5-6 years. So, in that respect, I agree with the notion of completely reworking the game...it'll hopefully fascinate a new generation of runners.

As for us "old timers" , nobody is forbidding us to play the game we love the way we love. I'm still using SR1, with houserules, and the setting information from 2050. I've got most sourcebooks from that time, too, so I can continue playing until my stars go down, if I wish. And I bet the new sourcebooks can be at least mind for setting information, just as much as the old ones could. It's still the same background, after all. And, in contrast to D&D, Shadowrun always has been around and viable as a game in all its incarnations.