PDA

View Full Version : Shadowrun V announced



Satyr
2009-04-01, 05:36 AM
Ullysses Games, the current holder of the Shadowrun license has announced a new edition of Shadowrun for 2010. I will give a try and translate the press release for you non-German speakers:


Shadowrun 5.0 in 2010
Shadowrun has come to a standstill lately - many of the older players left the boat with the edition shift, and both we and Fanpro (the former publisher of Shadowrun) received massive critique for the changes, as well as a significant drop in sales figures - both from an economic point of view and the proclaims of many fans of Shadowrun, the 4th edition of Shadowrun marks a low mark of the franchise.
So we decided to reform the rules again and come up with new ideas and elements for a new Shadowrun edition, because we want to take the critique of you players seriously. Shadowrun 5.0 will be more streamlined, faster to play and more suspenseful in its rules than any previous edition of the game.

Cyberpunk, not Cyberpop
The most common critique of the 4th edition of Shadowrun by far was, that the gaming world started to feel too smooth and cleansed, and has lost its gritttiness and much of the older Cyberpunk style. So we at Ullysses games are going to reintroduce, grit, dirt and violence into the game. Shadowrun 5.0 will be clearly marketed as a game for mature players and will contain more mature contents than before. The Sixth World will face turmoil, chaos and riots and a stronger emphasis than before will be put on the difference between the Beautiful People in their castles of glass and concrete and the scum of the earth that lives in the Barrens. VITAS-7 will hover over the heads of humans and metahumans like the sword of damocles and a new incarnation of the Black Death, while racial conflicts are increasing again. Toxic spirits and toxic shamans will rise in power and become a major threat.
All in all, Shadowrun 5.0 will become darker, grittier and much more violent in the background, but also more mature in contents and topics as the new Shadowrun will be targeted to an adult roleplayer market for experienced and mature gamers who appreciate the internal turmoil and chaos of a dark and fantastic future. Shadowrun 5.0 is going to look more like 1984 and less like the Federation in Star Trek.

Shadowrunners - international specialists instead of local crooks

Shadowrun 5.0 is not going to have a prefered setting anymore, like Seattle in older editions. In general, characters in Shadowrun 5.0 are going to be more competent than in previous editions and the focus of the game will shift from a regional to an international angle - by default, a good shadowrunner is going to operate all over the world, and even beyond, as runs in the space stations are becomming a stronger element than before.
Character creation will feature new and exciting focuses and elements, but will take back many of the changes of 4th edition. Basically, the point-buy model of 2nd and 3rd edition (veterans of Shadowrun who own the Compendium wil remember) will become the standard model of character creation. This allows for very fine-tuned and well balanced characters of various power levels -from the international specialists which will be the default of the setting, to gritty and gruesame campaigns on gang level. The new character creation rules even allow for more exotic characters than before, and even drakes and true dragons (sorry chummers, no Great Dragons) as player characters become feasible.

Brave New Magical World

According to the events in the Year of the Comet and the following increase of the mana level, magic will become stronger and magical characters much more flexible in their powers. Characters will be able to make up new spells and effects on the fly, but more powerful or unused spells will have a harder drain. Another new source of worry for spellcasters is Corruption, as using magic in corrupted areas can slowly turn the character into a toxic wizard or shaman.
The rules for astral projection and metamagic will be streamlined and much easier to use in the game, to come to a quicker and more suspenseful resolution in the game.

The big BANG!
It is a bit early to say anything concrete about it, but the combat system of Shadowrun 5.0 is going to be completely reworked in cooperation with a number of members of the military forces and two technical counselors for action movies. While the combat in Shadowrun will be as quick and fed with adrenaline as ever, we are going to make it even more deadly, more suspenseful and more realistic than ever.

Welcome to Shadowland
Shadowrun 5.0 will follow a new model of release - the different books will all be available via Shadowland, so that every player with an internet access can check out the rules and start to play.
For those players who are more dedicated to the game, a premium access allows to access all published books online and even leave comments in the books as was always the style of the shadowrun source books. The best comments of te pre-release will be chosen by the Shadowrun editor staff and will find their way in the final print versions of the books.
Shadowland will go online this summer and will also feature old out of print shadowrun ressources for a free download, starting with the great Universal Brotherhood campaign book.
With a premium access, every interested Shadowrun gamer can participate in the open playtests for new Shadowrun 5.0 books and can help to create the best Shadowrun ever through their feedback.
Shadowland will feature additional podcasts with "in-world" medias, music, TV-adds, free adventures and floor plans, some of which will be free for all users, some only for premium users. Through this additional information and material Shadowrun 5.0 will be the first roleplaying that uses the fulll potential of the internet and the many dedicated roleplaying gamers out there who want to participate in the creation of a great game.

Angelmaker
2009-04-01, 05:40 AM
Looking at the current date, I wonder, I wonder...

NPCMook
2009-04-01, 05:42 AM
I call well played Shenanigans, SR5, just after a huge deal with SR4.5? I do say well played... but not well enough.

Attilargh
2009-04-01, 07:33 AM
I think the standard response here is [citation needed].

Winterwind
2009-04-01, 07:52 AM
So we at Ullysses games are going to reintroduce, grit, dirt and violence into the game. Shadowrun 5.0 will be clearly marketed as a game for mature players and will contain more mature contents than before. The Sixth World will face turmoil, chaos and riots and a stronger emphasis than before will be put on the difference between the Beautiful People in their castles of glass and concrete and the scum of the earth that lives in the Barrens.Alright...

In general, characters in Shadowrun 5.0 are going to be more competent than in previous editions and the focus of the game will shift from a regional to an international angle - by default, a good shadowrunner is going to operate all over the world, and even beyond, as runs in the space stations are becomming a stronger element than before.
The new character creation rules even allow for more exotic characters than before, and even drakes and true dragons (sorry chummers, no Great Dragons) as player characters become feasible.
According to the events in the Year of the Comet and the following increase of the mana level, magic will become stronger and magical characters much more flexible in their powers.Am I the only one who sees a massive disconnect here?

Now, I've never played or read 4e, but my major problem with 3e was that the characters were too professional right from the start for my taste - those were not low-lives struggling for survival in the barrens, doing the dirtiest jobs to maintain the tools and cyberware they needed for survival (and maybe get the drug/BTL fix to escape from this harsh reality for a while), those were extremely high trained, well equipped elite mercenaries. Oh, sure, one could flavour a character the former way, but s/he would still be excessively powerful compared to the rest of the world.

And they want to make characters even stronger? And have them take international missions? On space-stations? Granted, so did the protagonists from Neuromancer, but in the long run (no pun intended), aren't all of these things that are very, very contrary to making the world grittier, dirtier and more cyberpunk-ish?

Also, further empowering magic? I don't know about 4e, but in 3e, magic was anything, but surely not in need of becoming more powerful, in my humble opinion (and I have played spellcasters almost exclusively!).

Cristo Meyers
2009-04-01, 08:03 AM
Also, further empowering magic? I don't know about 4e, but in 3e, magic was anything, but surely not in need of becoming more powerful, in my humble opinion (and I have played spellcasters almost exclusively!).

The last thing Magic in 4th ed needs is more power...

Can't say I've kept track for Shadowrun for these past couple years, but honestly I had no problem with 4th edition.

Farlion
2009-04-01, 08:11 AM
I never switched to 4th edition, mainly because I had all the 3.0 books and it didn't seem to be worth the money.

I usually play low tech campaigns, dirty backstreet type of campaigns. So with this announcement SR 5 will not appeal to me.

Well, and since its april fools day today, I won't believe the satyr until he posts a source =)

Cheers,
Farlion

Satyr
2009-04-01, 08:31 AM
It can be found on the Ulysses homepage (http://forum.ulisses-spiele.de/viewforum.php?f=1)under "Newsletter.

I haven't found an equivalent in English, but I actually don't know who publishes Shadowrun "over there".



Einfach mitspielen. Winken und Lächeln.

tarbrush
2009-04-01, 08:34 AM
/checks date

/laughs

Although on actually reading the release, it lacks the humour I'd expect.

Cristo Meyers
2009-04-01, 08:50 AM
Now that I think about it, I could've sworn 4th ed was one of the best selling editions to date. They were having problems keeping stores stocked

Satyr
2009-04-01, 09:48 AM
The stock problems were mostly staged, a form of artifical exclusivity copied from the release of gaming consoles - the faster a game or a system is sold out, the more popular and therefore, by public acclamation, "better" the game is.
The other factor is the quite frequent change of publishers and main licence holders (decipher, whizkids, Fanpro, Ulysses, Pegasus...) after the collapse of FASA led to a certain chaos in supply, especially when the main responsibility for the game shifted across the Atlantic and back...
Ulysses is also a very, very unreliable contractor for games and pretty much hated by many German game stores, because they can't keep the orders right.

Fixer
2009-04-01, 11:54 AM
I remember a wonderful campaign in 2nd edition I played. My only real gripes with that system that I can recall were the whole awakened creatures / Mana Wall problem.

I remember the update to 3rd edition and invested in that, and I really enjoyed that system as well, more for the depth of the environment than the game rules, which didn't change much. Same problem with previous editions.

Someone got me a PDF of the 4th edition so I could look at it. I remember trying to build a character and finally, when I got finished making it, realized I had spent FAR too long making a character than I should have. After making the character I didn't have the patience remaining to learn the new system and read no further. Deleted the PDF as there was no way I was buying it.

So, the return to the old tier system of character generation of 2nd and 3rd editions is enough to make me want to actually LOOK at the new edition to see if it is worth my time. I haven't invested in 4th Ed D&D, so maybe I can put my money into 5th Ed SR, if it is worth it.


And, for the record, I had my nickname before Shadowrun even entered my radar. I found it highly amusing, however, that my interpretation of my nickname was similar to that of the game. A guy who makes things happen. :)