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JettWilderbeast
2008-05-15, 02:50 AM
So I picked up a copy of 4th edition shadowrun yesterday, I've always been a bit curious as to what its like and, well, its pretty daunting to someone who is only used to a d20 system (Not including Risus but then...) but I think I could get used to it, I really like the idea of dice pools and the way they handle skill checks.

Are there any other Shadowrun players out there? Any tips for learning the system? And good points or bad points about shadowrun?

Amiria
2008-05-15, 02:57 AM
I also have the 4th Edition rulebook, since some years, but never played it. I read it and decided that I liked old 2nd and 3rd Edition better. And converting my old edition characters led to no good results.

Maybe I would change my opinion if I start with a fresh character. The dice system is similar to (Old ?) WoD, and while I never really played the campaign settings of that system and liked the simple dice system.

Back when I was playing we played 2nd Edition. When 3rd came out we analyzed it and decided that we liked most, but not all changes and played a hybrid of 2nd and 3rd, something like v2.75.

Prustan
2008-05-15, 05:24 AM
I started with 2nd Edition too, and have read several books for 3rd and 4th. Haven't managed to play the later Editions due to a lack of players, but 2nd and 3rd play much the same as far as I can see. The basic mechanics of the 4th Edition look fine, but I really don't get the whole Wireless (and omni-present) Matrix idea, and the setting has changed too much for me. The ability to customize an ordinary ground car into a sound-barrier breaking suicide machine is kind of scary too.

Xuincherguixe
2008-05-15, 05:26 AM
The ability to customize an ordinary ground car into a sound-barrier breaking suicide machine is kind of scary too.

Which is why Riggers are Awesome.

lord_khaine
2008-05-15, 06:17 AM
i have been playing 4th edition for some time now, and all in all i think its a improvement over the previous editions.

the matrix is only present in the larger cities, and its a logical development of the internet of today.

the only bad thing i have to say is that they did not proberly test all the combat spells, you can do some abnormaly high damage with stunbolt, without taking any serious drain.

Laesin
2008-05-15, 06:30 AM
And yet I find I miss 3rd edition, dropping a troll with maxed body with a single manabolt force one with no drain whatsoever was fun. :smallbiggrin:

wormwood
2008-05-15, 09:15 AM
Yeah, aren't mages supposed to be scary? I mean, passing out after each action is a little odd... but not exactly scary.

I played SR 1st edition many moons ago and loved it. I was easily impressed back then and, even so, recognized that it had room for improvement. I played one game of 3rd edition and noticed that they had made a lot of those improvements. The one thing that everyone seemed to complain about was the time it took for a combat. With all those dice pools being tossed about, it takes a while. Well... that or a mage drops your sorry butt without breaking a sweat.

I picked up 4th edition but haven't found anyone to play it with. Guess I'll never know.

Baxbart
2008-05-15, 09:33 AM
I just recently started playing 4th Edition (Never played any earlier editions unfortunately, being mainly GURPS and D&D) and I've been enjoying it thoroughly so far. I borrowed the book from a friend who kept raving about it, and learned the rules then decided to run a campaign (I have a bit of a photographic memory for rulebooks. I committed the whole thing to memory in two evening's worth of reading).

With regards to the OP's question - I'd highly recommend downloading some cheat sheets or something if your players are new. I'm quite fortunate in that two of my players a similarly gifted in picking up rules very fast, one of them picked up enough to play his face (though granted, he wasn't used to the setting and got himself killed through lack of subtlety) and the other two can get by with help from the others and the cheat sheets.

The thing thats made it easy to get used to is definitely having a pile of cheat sheets on the table, and a GM screen for all the pertinant tables. check out: http://pavao.org/shadowrun/ for some really good resources.

A friend laminated a GM screen for me (only have the pdf unfortunately... Don't have a link) and the cheat sheets (including the stand-by squads of mooks... those are brilliant for me and my seat-of-the-pants style - I have VERY unpredictable players).

I've found that it takes a while to make a character (mostly in relation to equipment... just seems to take ages to work out all the crap a character is packing, especially for well-off characters like hackers/samurai and riggers) so if you can have a few in reserve if people die (or use the iconic character presented in the book) it'll help. But, once you do get going and people get the basics of combat, it runs pretty smoothly and doesn't appear to have many glaring errors that slow things up too badly.

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-15, 04:04 PM
I like it.


I started with 2nd Edition too, and have read several books for 3rd and 4th. Haven't managed to play the later Editions due to a lack of players, but 2nd and 3rd play much the same as far as I can see. The basic mechanics of the 4th Edition look fine, but I really don't get the whole Wireless (and omni-present) Matrix idea, and the setting has changed too much for me. The ability to customize an ordinary ground car into a sound-barrier breaking suicide machine is kind of scary too.

Actually the Wirless Matrix makes a lot of sense. The Wired matrix got taken out in Crash 2.0. The EMP's physically screwed over most of it and the virus took out pretty much everything else. It's a lot easier to create a wirless network than it is to go through and rewire every building in every affected city. It also makes it a lot harder to take down the Matrix in Crash 3.0.

Samakain
2008-05-15, 08:49 PM
http://games.sub-standard.com/Motivational%20Posters/Shadowrun-rifts-Btech/Shadowrun-dice.jpg

<3

Played alot of 1st ed shadowrun, still have the very dog eared rule book next to me now, and it remains through all its editions my favorite Role play setting. stick with the rules, they come pretty easy in the end. although the idea of taking your 4 door machine and turning into hyper-fast death machine, the idea of your high "lvl" character becoming a walking armory, these things are what have always made shadowrun fun for me :P, also i love the idea of shadowrun mages, Awsome Cosmic Power, Tiny Frail Shell. Yes you can explode the dragons head, problem is yours is going to go as well, maybe you should reconsider

BRC
2008-05-15, 08:57 PM
Iv'e played alittle 4th ed, I'm not a very good shadowrun GM though and I'm the only one who's intrested in DMing, maybe I'll try again soon.


The point of the wireless matrix thing was to prevent splitscreening. In 3rd Ed when deckers were in comas while surfing the matrix, they would go and do cool things while the rest of the group sat around waiting for the GM to put them back "on camera" as it were. There's a security gun, And while the decker disables it the rest of the group is just sitting there waiting for the little "armed" light to go off. With 4th ed the hacker can shut off that security gun while under fire! Or you could have your mage powerbolt it, but whatever.

Dirk Redwood
2008-05-15, 10:06 PM
I am a huge fun of the cyberpunk genre so this game looks realy intresting.

I might try and pick up the player's guide somewhere.

Lekkarion
2008-05-15, 10:35 PM
I've been happy with the addition of 4th ed. I am looking forward to Unwired because the Maxtrix rules are a little muddled I think, but all and all it's a lot of fun to play and not too hard to pick up. 5's and 6's are hits and it's just how many you scored against a set number or how many hits your opponent got. :)

Morandir Nailo
2008-05-15, 11:42 PM
Disclaimer: I've only played one Shadowrun session. It was over a year ago, so my memory's kinda fuzzy. Please take what I say with a large grain of salt. I don't know that edition we were using.

Now that that's out of the way: I. Hate. Shadowrun. Part of it is the setting (I'm a medieval fantasy junkie, don't like much else, and I have an especial hatred for steampunk and cyberpunk). Not a big deal there, I played because the rest of the group wanted to and I'm perfectly willing to try new games out, even if I'm not the biggest fan of the setting.

My biggest complaint was the initiative. Dunno if this has changed, but in the version I played, you got to act on your init roll, then every 5 points after. So if you rolled a 26, you acted on 26, 21, 16, 11, 6, and 1. (maybe it was 10 points.) This meant that people with high init mods dominated the game, and those of us who rolled low enough to only act once per round basically sat and did nothing for 45 minutes at a time. One of the girls in my group would actually take naps between her turns.

It really cheesed me off that one person basically was acting 5+ times in a single round, another was acting 3 or so times, and the rest of us acted once (instead of each person acting once per round like in D&D). So the jacked up street samurai basically did all the killing and the rest of us played cleanup. I recall that the rules in general just seemed confusing; I was never able to get the hang of it.

After that one session several of us (all new to Shadowrun) flat-out told the GM that we would never touch the game again. I haven't, and I never will. YMMV, but in all the RPGs I've played, nothing has inflamed my hatred like Shadowrun.

Thanks for putting up with my rant.

Mor

Xuincherguixe
2008-05-16, 12:06 AM
It's 10, not that it matters.

It is still more or less like that. Though initiative is no longer rolled.

Not being able to do anything sucks. Which is why it's important to let the players know if there's going to be a lot of combat or not.

The problem with Deckers, and Riggers was a pretty similar situation. When they're doing their thing no one else can, and when they aren't they aren't really doing anything.

It can also be annoying to keep track of dice, that can really slow down the game. That part is a bit easier now.


There are/were spells that can increase initiative too.


Sorry you had such a bad experience. I love the game.

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-16, 12:10 AM
Actually in 4e you get 1 Initiative Pass (no matter what your Initiative is). If you get certain cyber or bio ware you can get up to 4 Initiative Passes. You can never have more than 4.

DrowVampyre
2008-05-16, 02:43 AM
Actually in 4e you get 1 Initiative Pass (no matter what your Initiative is). If you get certain cyber or bio ware you can get up to 4 Initiative Passes. You can never have more than 4.

Or magic or adept-magic or combat stims. Everyone can get up to 4 now...it's a question of how much money/essence you're willing to spend. ^_-

Prustan
2008-05-16, 04:57 AM
I like it.
Actually the Wirless Matrix makes a lot of sense. The Wired matrix got taken out in Crash 2.0. The EMP's physically screwed over most of it and the virus took out pretty much everything else. It's a lot easier to create a wirless network than it is to go through and rewire every building in every affected city. It also makes it a lot harder to take down the Matrix in Crash 3.0.

That wasn't the problem. I could understand the evolution from the Matrix Crash to the Wireless Matrix. I could even understand that they did this so Deckers/Riggers would be able to act with everyone else. What I could never get is the mechanics of exactly how it worked, and what exact effect it would have on my character. And I've never been able to find a group to try it out, let alone a semi-experienced group that would be able to explain it properly.

JettWilderbeast
2008-05-16, 04:59 AM
Wow, so yeh, there are alot of players around.... It seems to me the general consensus is stick with the rules, it gets easier! Anywhere in the right direction?

Also does anyone fancy running a PbP shadowrun? I'm thinkling great way to learn!

leperkhaun
2008-05-16, 05:04 AM
Wow, so yeh, there are alot of players around.... It seems to me the general consensus is stick with the rules, it gets easier! Anywhere in the right direction?

Also does anyone fancy running a PbP shadowrun? I'm thinkling great way to learn!


The the PbP boards, someone mentioned wanted to get into a 4th edition shadowrun game.

Jerthanis
2008-05-16, 05:30 AM
Or magic or adept-magic or combat stims. Everyone can get up to 4 now...it's a question of how much money/essence you're willing to spend. ^_-

And the system is lethal enough that sometimes having good initiative isn't enough.

A jazzed up street samurai on Wired Reflexes might mince your Shaman only to get his face caved in by your Troll's punch to the noggin' with his Titanium Bones.

Still, it's a point based character creation game without any real intraparty balancing mechanics set in place, and smart folk with a head for numbers and a dedication to making a seriously combat-capable person will want 4 initiative passes and dice pools of 15+ and then you start having Exalted flashbacks and you're once again on that spire, declaring yourself in opposition to the physical manifestation of the concept of corruption.

Ahem, sorry, lost my train of thought there...

My advice? Don't buy so much Cybergear that you don't have the essence to buy some level of Wired reflexes after character creation. If people come to the game with 3 initiative passes and twinked out characters, sigh, save up the money and compete on their same level.

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-19, 10:34 AM
And the system is lethal enough that sometimes having good initiative isn't enough.

A jazzed up street samurai on Wired Reflexes might mince your Shaman only to get his face caved in by your Troll's punch to the noggin' with his Titanium Bones.

Still, it's a point based character creation game without any real intraparty balancing mechanics set in place, and smart folk with a head for numbers and a dedication to making a seriously combat-capable person will want 4 initiative passes and dice pools of 15+ and then you start having Exalted flashbacks and you're once again on that spire, declaring yourself in opposition to the physical manifestation of the concept of corruption.

Ahem, sorry, lost my train of thought there...

My advice? Don't buy so much Cybergear that you don't have the essence to buy some level of Wired reflexes after character creation. If people come to the game with 3 initiative passes and twinked out characters, sigh, save up the money and compete on their same level.

My advice is to avoid Cybergear like the plague. Grab Type 0 system from Augmentation and Sensitive System from the Core book. Its a net cost of 15 BP but you treat all non cultured, Standard grade, bioware as Delta grade for all purposes. Sensitive systems doubles the cost of Cyberware but since you should have more Bio than Cyber in the first place that evens out.

Unfortunately you don't get Delta grade cultured ware at no extra cost. So you buy Synaptic Boosters 2 in character generation. Then just start buying up the bioware once you start making money on runs, basic can be removed and resold so you could buy some cheaper stuff in Char Gen and upgrade it later. Cyber wise a datajack and Skillwires are really the only things that are worth it that you can't do with bio or gear (contacts and ear buds with all vision/hearing mods for fewer nuyen and no essence loss).

BRC
2008-05-19, 11:01 AM
Yeah, Thats the problem with open-ended systems, it's great for casual gamers but once you get a powergamer who wants to optimize for combat it all falls apart in a hail of automatic weapons fire from a troll with 4 passes a round, who also happens to be a mage.