New 6th Edition Shadowrun has been announced. Lets talk about it

[John Campbell]

Go completely backward of the last suggestion and let the hacker force stuff to manifest in meatspace so you can shoot it (or talk to it I guess). Would require a lot of work to make it distinctive and interesting, plus it is very jarring with the setting. But it's an idea.

One of the editions of Cyberpunk did that, with ice manifesting in meatspace as monsters made of nanobots, so that the netrunner's meatspace buddies could help fight it. It was very silly.


The basic problem with recent Shadowrun editions has been that, with 4E, they decided that Shadowrun was too complicated (and they kind of had a point) and needed to be simplified. Except instead of addressing the root cause of the complexity - the multitude of different, inconsistent, just-similar-enough-to-be-misleading systems, ad hoc rules for different bits of kit and magic, and complex interactions between these - they left all of that in place and "simplified" it by kneecapping the core dice mechanic. And then, in order to cover up the fact that the dice mechanic no longer worked at all outside a narrow band, they instituted a bunch of draconian hard caps and restrictions to prevent characters from ever getting outside that band - which both made it impossible for PCs to meaningfully advance, and didn't actually prevent a cunning player from getting outside the band where the dice mechanic kind of pretends to work.

Everything they've done to Shadowrun since then has been in the way of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Or, if the above descriptions are accurate, going, "If we ram that iceberg again, I bet we can get through it this time!"

I'm still playing (currently running) SR3, and will be for the foreseeable future.

[Ignimortis]

One of the editions of Cyberpunk did that, with ice manifesting in meatspace as monsters made of nanobots, so that the netrunner's meatspace buddies could help fight it. It was very silly.


The basic problem with recent Shadowrun editions has been that, with 4E, they decided that Shadowrun was too complicated (and they kind of had a point) and needed to be simplified. Except instead of addressing the root cause of the complexity - the multitude of different, inconsistent, just-similar-enough-to-be-misleading systems, ad hoc rules for different bits of kit and magic, and complex interactions between these - they left all of that in place and "simplified" it by kneecapping the core dice mechanic. And then, in order to cover up the fact that the dice mechanic no longer worked at all outside a narrow band, they instituted a bunch of draconian hard caps and restrictions to prevent characters from ever getting outside that band - which both made it impossible for PCs to meaningfully advance, and didn't actually prevent a cunning player from getting outside the band where the dice mechanic kind of pretends to work.

Everything they've done to Shadowrun since then has been in the way of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Or, if the above descriptions are accurate, going, "If we ram that iceberg again, I bet we can get through it this time!"

I'm still playing (currently running) SR3, and will be for the foreseeable future.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Variable TNs and dicepools for 3e and before seem way too complicated for me, and I've read the 3e corebook a few times.

The basic 4e-5e dice work just fine, and unless you go out of your way, you're not breaking anything. So what if you have 25 dice for guns? That just means you're one of the best people on Earth to shoot a gun. It doesn't make you autowin the game. Dicepool maths are actually pretty flexible, because they can represent both the lows (gangers, mallcops, civilians) and the highs (Red Samurai, special forces prime shadowrunners) well enough to make them believable.

The problem isn't that dice don't work. The problem is that CGL has, for two editions now, tried to fix things that weren't broken to begin with, or touched broken things and made them worse. Combat was mostly fine in 4e, and it got better in 5e...except for initiative passes. Matrix was kinda bad in 4e, and it got way worse in 5e. Augmentation was fine in 4e, got way worse in 5e. Magic was alright in 4e, except for Direct combat spells, and it got worse in 5e except for Direct combat spells.

[Silva]

The basic problem with recent Shadowrun editions has been that, with 4E, they decided that Shadowrun was too complicated (and they kind of had a point) and needed to be simplified. Except instead of addressing the root cause of the complexity - the multitude of different, inconsistent, just-similar-enough-to-be-misleading systems, ad hoc rules for different bits of kit and magic, and complex interactions between these - they left all of that in place and "simplified" it by kneecapping the core dice mechanic. And then, in order to cover up the fact that the dice mechanic no longer worked at all outside a narrow band, they instituted a bunch of draconian hard caps and restrictions to prevent characters from ever getting outside that band - which both made it impossible for PCs to meaningfully advance, and didn't actually prevent a cunning player from getting outside the band where the dice mechanic kind of pretends to work.

This reflects my experiences, yes. The variable target number issue was a minor one, compared to the bazillion exception-based little rules and subsystems that were unplayable or took hours to realistically resolve. It's like they had a super-heavy airplane losing altitude fast, and it was obvious they should have jettisoned the fuel or bombs to make it lighter, but instead they threw the crew away.

[Delta]

The basic problem with recent Shadowrun editions has been that, with 4E, they decided that Shadowrun was too complicated (and they kind of had a point) and needed to be simplified. Except instead of addressing the root cause of the complexity - the multitude of different, inconsistent, just-similar-enough-to-be-misleading systems, ad hoc rules for different bits of kit and magic, and complex interactions between these - they left all of that in place and "simplified" it by kneecapping the core dice mechanic. And then, in order to cover up the fact that the dice mechanic no longer worked at all outside a narrow band, they instituted a bunch of draconian hard caps and restrictions to prevent characters from ever getting outside that band - which both made it impossible for PCs to meaningfully advance, and didn't actually prevent a cunning player from getting outside the band where the dice mechanic kind of pretends to work.

Now while I agree in principle that they missed a lot of the underlying problems that have troubled Shadowrun throughout all editions, but, and I'm saying that as someone who has run SR2 and 3 almost exclusively for over a decade, but to claim that the variable TN dice mechanic of SR1-3 is in any way more practicable than the fixed TN of 4+ doesn't hold any water.

I will always love good old Shadowrun, but the variable TN was a nightmare of unpredictable, unfair and clunky mechanics that constantly led to ridiculous situations (you have a crunchy bit that can lower a TN by 2? If your original TN is 4 or 6, damn that's useful. 8? Not useful at all. 9-12? Oh hey it's useful again...) while stuff like open tests were so utterly random that even the best prepared super stealthed ninja could never reliably sneak by anyone because even your regular run of the mill guard always had a reasonable chance of beating him, while a properly optimized decker (especially an otaku) was for all intents and purposes almost completely undetectable by even the most advanced matrix security.

There's lots of SR4 and later not to like (and they did add a whole host of new mechanical problems, I'll never claim otherwise), and lots about SR3 and before to like, but to claim that the base dice roll mechanic was in any way more sound is just wrong.

[druid91]

Oh, but it does. While hitting something flying is really hard with melee (duh), if you actually hit something as a loltroll with a combat axe, phooey, this thing is going down. Let's just say that 18 BOD/18 Armor T-bird is gonna have a lot of trouble soaking all that damage, which starts at 20P and -4 AP. You can chop a car in half with that with ease.

But closer to the topic - I got my hands on the Beginner's Box, and, well, it's hilarious. All the bad things that were expected of 6e are true: mundanes are nerfed (again), mages are buffed (again), and in fact, there are very few niches left for non-magic characters now. If Technomancers prove to be not awful in the CRB, you should just probably have a non-mundane team of MysAd, Full mage, Techno and another Mysad or fullmage. Don't know if they all should be trolls, though - the quickstart seemed very weird in that none of the pregens have any stat above 6.

Except the part where a Melee weapon does half damage against vehicles and structures...

[Ignimortis]

Except the part where a Melee weapon does half damage against vehicles and structures...

Not sure where that rules comes from. Never found something like it, and I've read the 5e corebook more times than I'd care to count.

[DigoDragon]

Except the part where a Melee weapon does half damage against vehicles and structures...

Where do I get a car like that? :o

[druid91]

Not sure where that rules comes from. Never found something like it, and I've read the 5e corebook more times than I'd care to count.

Huh. They dropped damage rates against objects in 5e? It's from 4e. I wanna say Arsenal.

[Ignimortis]

Huh. They dropped damage rates against objects in 5e? It's from 4e. I wanna say Arsenal.

Seems so. In fact, there is no change to melee damage when attacking objects.

[DigoDragon]

Seems so. In fact, there is no change to melee damage when attacking objects.

I guess I missed that part in Arsenal, cause I always ran it as straight damage. Not like melee gets much love to begin with.

[Kyrell1978]

So, Did anyone get a hold of the core rules yet at GenCon? I'm still in the wait and see phase.

[Akisa]

So, Did anyone get a hold of the core rules yet at GenCon? I'm still in the wait and see phase.

I haven't nor got a look at the pdf upload/leak yet.

[Ignimortis]

So, Did anyone get a hold of the core rules yet at GenCon? I'm still in the wait and see phase.

Well...it's garbage, really. The corebook lacks crucial rules that you'd only know if you played 5e. All of presumptions from the leaks were actually correct, aside from the Armor spell stacking soak dice. Still, it's Magicrun all the way, which is also ruined by most non-mage being tied into the Edge system, which is...underwhelming and broken at the same time. That is to say, 4-point and 5-point Edge boosts are too powerful, but outside of them, Edge feels lame, and since you can't generate more than 2 per turn...

I've written up a comparison, anyway. It's a bit long, so I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler: SR 6e Compared to 5e

Show

I've been reading the book for two days and mostly comparing both to 5e RAW and to my group's houserules to it. Can't say it was a good use of my weekend, but at least I can pass it on.

Long version (TL;DR at the end):

Chargen - absolutely worse. The only reasonable decision was getting trolls out from priority gating, and even that was done crudely enough to not be worth porting over. Starting characters will be worse narratively, unless they're spellcasters, and even spellcaster will lose out on some non-magic versatility. Some Priority values are outright unplayable (Attributes E/D/possibly C, Skills E).

Skills - better than 5e RAW, worse than any reasonable houserule. Sure, Diving and 5 kinds of Mechanic needed to go. But you could keep about 40-50 skills, the game would be playable, it would have reasonable granularity, skill groups could stay for people who want them, and you could actually have a face that knows their way around handguns, but can't really operate an assault cannon. That's meaningful enough that it should've stayed, IMO.

Combat - ridiculously worse. Initiative passes and combat specialists going four (or even five) times per turn and killing someone each time are gone. Not sure why you would make a combat character who's not a grenadier or spirit summoner now, outside of pure style reasons. Maybe burnout punch adept still works, troll fist meta still strong for some reason. AK-97 on autofire doing more damage that any other gun in the game is ridiculous. Autofire giving defense penalties instead of damage was one of the best things in 5e, and it actually let people play with SS/SA weapons without everything being about "how many bullets can you throw at them".

The general motto of "weapons don't do much damage, but if you're hit, you're probably taking damage anyway" is bad. It's D&D-like hitting people with cardboard swords. Grenades are on the other extreme and pulverise everything that they touch at GZ/Close range, which, while realistic, isn't fun for anyone.

Edge-farming for killmoves (which are pretty broken, actually) is lame. I would like to be competent all the time, instead of waiting for metaphysical luck points to do their work. Full-auto weapons work better with Edge, as well.

Magic - got better (obviously, lol, it's Hardy's ShadowMagicrun we're talking about). Mystic Adepts seem to have gotten slightly worse than in 5e (if I'm interpreting errata right?), but pure Magicians are just fine. Spirits are even more broken, because autosoaking 6+ damage means you win at combat by default. If you can get a drain resist value that soaks 6 Drain reliably, you can cast everything just fine. Outliers are to spend Edge on, but most spells don't need more than 6 DV after amps/net hits to be at max effectiveness.

Adepts not getting 6 PP at chargen (might be a rules conflict, but the CRB or errata don't do anything about it) is dumb, as is considering Adepts to be as important as mages for pricing. Then again, RAW rules don't have them losing PP from losing MAG, so you can just 5 ESS burnout and then get cheap points through Initiations.

Matrix - 5e Matrix, a bit better, but still crap. Some reference to hosts sometimes being physical is appreciated, but I'll hate the idea of Foundation and non-physical hosts still, thanks. No point in going into detail, it's still bad and I'll keep thinking how to make a new set of Matrix rules. Technomancers are a bit more on even footing with Deckers, I think, but still worse at the moment.

Riggers - just...oof. Got hit hard and got nothing in return. Even worse than street samurai. Meatspace specialist drivers are better than riggers. Wired Reflexes 3 are better than a Control Rig 3 for vehicles. Improved Reflexes 3 and some Improved Ability (Piloting) are better than both.

Gear - Chameleon Suit got dunked on once again. +Edge while sneaking basically means it's barely better than being in the nude and sneaking. Cyberdecks got cheaper because half the price is in cyberjacks, and they're still cheaper combined than in 5e. That's good for deckers, I guess.

Augmentations....hoo boy, where do I start? Ah, yes, with the improvements. Wired Reflexes got a well-deserved ESS cost buff and a not-so-well-deserved fourth rank. Muscle Replacements got a buff, too. Most augmentations have a fixed availability rating, so you can get almost everything you want at chargen. That's it, that's the good part gone, bye.

Bad parts. Cyberjacks are awful, because CGL don't understand how investment and role protection works. The idea of a professional augmentation for hacking is GOOD. The end result is BAD. The prime example of a good specialist augmentation is 4e initiative boosters or 5e Control Rig. You can do stuff without them, but when you have those, you become a demigod compared to normal people in those areas. A good cyberjack wouldn't be for stats, it would dramatically change how you go about the Matrix. Quicker actions, easier hacks, that sort of thing.

Most augmentations are worse than before. You can't get a +4 to BOD through augmentations, either - at best it's Bone Lacing (Titanium)+Suprathyroid Gland for +3. Bone Density 4 is +4 to BOD for damage resistance, but that's it. Yes, you read that right, a troll mage with Focused Concentration and Improve Attribute used for +4 BOD beats a non-troll samurai for tankiness from chargen, and keeps pace with any troll sam. Forever. Synaptic Booster got a useless addendum about users being in slow motion forever. Just why? To dunk on people who picked SB instead of wires? It didn't get a 4th rank, either, so it's pretty much worse than WR now - and it was done in the worst possible way.

Cyberlimbs are terrible, and they got even worse compared to Muscle Replacements. You can either get Used MR 4 for 60k and 3.08 Essence, or 5 cyberlimbs at 2/2/2/2 (yes, you read that right, they have BOD and REA by RAW, and those stats can't be increased) for 80k and 5.5 Essence before any mods to make them useful. Making them 6/6 AGI/STR would cost you another 200k. Cyberlimb builds are dead, because they don't do anything better than Bone Lacing+Muscle Replacements. Armor is +DR, which is both plentiful enough for a troll sam to have 15 out of chargen (which is more than any gun out there), and absolutely useless.

Advancement - when you're done with chargen, it's where you stay. Forever. Advancement rules are bad. Training times mean that you're gonna be playing in 21XX before long, if you actually want to train. But you aren't, because the recommended payouts are worse than 5e in a way (instead of forgetting that high levels of play exist and are supposed to pay LOTS of cash, they just don't even give low-level examples), and you can't sustain your lifestyle without running at least once a month (because you're street-level, and street-level runners don't get six-figure or even higher five-figure gigs). Advancement costs mean that improving anything important at all will cost you several runs' worth of karma.

Other Stuff - why are PR10 special forces wearing armor jackets instead of FBA? It's in the book, you know. Why are there minor mechanics that exist only to waste time and make useless rolls (bullet trackers, wireless functionality)?

TL;DR - Mages got buffed, Matrix is 10% better, everything else sucks hard. Go play your preferred edition, this garbage fire isn't worth picking up, much less fixing.

[Kyrell1978]

Well...it's garbage, really. The corebook lacks crucial rules that you'd only know if you played 5e. All of presumptions from the leaks were actually correct, aside from the Armor spell stacking soak dice. Still, it's Magicrun all the way, which is also ruined by most non-mage being tied into the Edge system, which is...underwhelming and broken at the same time. That is to say, 4-point and 5-point Edge boosts are too powerful, but outside of them, Edge feels lame, and since you can't generate more than 2 per turn...

I've written up a comparison, anyway. It's a bit long, so I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler: SR 6e Compared to 5e

Show

I've been reading the book for two days and mostly comparing both to 5e RAW and to my group's houserules to it. Can't say it was a good use of my weekend, but at least I can pass it on.

Long version (TL;DR at the end):

Chargen - absolutely worse. The only reasonable decision was getting trolls out from priority gating, and even that was done crudely enough to not be worth porting over. Starting characters will be worse narratively, unless they're spellcasters, and even spellcaster will lose out on some non-magic versatility. Some Priority values are outright unplayable (Attributes E/D/possibly C, Skills E).

Skills - better than 5e RAW, worse than any reasonable houserule. Sure, Diving and 5 kinds of Mechanic needed to go. But you could keep about 40-50 skills, the game would be playable, it would have reasonable granularity, skill groups could stay for people who want them, and you could actually have a face that knows their way around handguns, but can't really operate an assault cannon. That's meaningful enough that it should've stayed, IMO.

Combat - ridiculously worse. Initiative passes and combat specialists going four (or even five) times per turn and killing someone each time are gone. Not sure why you would make a combat character who's not a grenadier or spirit summoner now, outside of pure style reasons. Maybe burnout punch adept still works, troll fist meta still strong for some reason. AK-97 on autofire doing more damage that any other gun in the game is ridiculous. Autofire giving defense penalties instead of damage was one of the best things in 5e, and it actually let people play with SS/SA weapons without everything being about "how many bullets can you throw at them".

The general motto of "weapons don't do much damage, but if you're hit, you're probably taking damage anyway" is bad. It's D&D-like hitting people with cardboard swords. Grenades are on the other extreme and pulverise everything that they touch at GZ/Close range, which, while realistic, isn't fun for anyone.

Edge-farming for killmoves (which are pretty broken, actually) is lame. I would like to be competent all the time, instead of waiting for metaphysical luck points to do their work. Full-auto weapons work better with Edge, as well.

Magic - got better (obviously, lol, it's Hardy's ShadowMagicrun we're talking about). Mystic Adepts seem to have gotten slightly worse than in 5e (if I'm interpreting errata right?), but pure Magicians are just fine. Spirits are even more broken, because autosoaking 6+ damage means you win at combat by default. If you can get a drain resist value that soaks 6 Drain reliably, you can cast everything just fine. Outliers are to spend Edge on, but most spells don't need more than 6 DV after amps/net hits to be at max effectiveness.

Adepts not getting 6 PP at chargen (might be a rules conflict, but the CRB or errata don't do anything about it) is dumb, as is considering Adepts to be as important as mages for pricing. Then again, RAW rules don't have them losing PP from losing MAG, so you can just 5 ESS burnout and then get cheap points through Initiations.

Matrix - 5e Matrix, a bit better, but still crap. Some reference to hosts sometimes being physical is appreciated, but I'll hate the idea of Foundation and non-physical hosts still, thanks. No point in going into detail, it's still bad and I'll keep thinking how to make a new set of Matrix rules. Technomancers are a bit more on even footing with Deckers, I think, but still worse at the moment.

Riggers - just...oof. Got hit hard and got nothing in return. Even worse than street samurai. Meatspace specialist drivers are better than riggers. Wired Reflexes 3 are better than a Control Rig 3 for vehicles. Improved Reflexes 3 and some Improved Ability (Piloting) are better than both.

Gear - Chameleon Suit got dunked on once again. +Edge while sneaking basically means it's barely better than being in the nude and sneaking. Cyberdecks got cheaper because half the price is in cyberjacks, and they're still cheaper combined than in 5e. That's good for deckers, I guess.

Augmentations....hoo boy, where do I start? Ah, yes, with the improvements. Wired Reflexes got a well-deserved ESS cost buff and a not-so-well-deserved fourth rank. Muscle Replacements got a buff, too. Most augmentations have a fixed availability rating, so you can get almost everything you want at chargen. That's it, that's the good part gone, bye.

Bad parts. Cyberjacks are awful, because CGL don't understand how investment and role protection works. The idea of a professional augmentation for hacking is GOOD. The end result is BAD. The prime example of a good specialist augmentation is 4e initiative boosters or 5e Control Rig. You can do stuff without them, but when you have those, you become a demigod compared to normal people in those areas. A good cyberjack wouldn't be for stats, it would dramatically change how you go about the Matrix. Quicker actions, easier hacks, that sort of thing.

Most augmentations are worse than before. You can't get a +4 to BOD through augmentations, either - at best it's Bone Lacing (Titanium)+Suprathyroid Gland for +3. Bone Density 4 is +4 to BOD for damage resistance, but that's it. Yes, you read that right, a troll mage with Focused Concentration and Improve Attribute used for +4 BOD beats a non-troll samurai for tankiness from chargen, and keeps pace with any troll sam. Forever. Synaptic Booster got a useless addendum about users being in slow motion forever. Just why? To dunk on people who picked SB instead of wires? It didn't get a 4th rank, either, so it's pretty much worse than WR now - and it was done in the worst possible way.

Cyberlimbs are terrible, and they got even worse compared to Muscle Replacements. You can either get Used MR 4 for 60k and 3.08 Essence, or 5 cyberlimbs at 2/2/2/2 (yes, you read that right, they have BOD and REA by RAW, and those stats can't be increased) for 80k and 5.5 Essence before any mods to make them useful. Making them 6/6 AGI/STR would cost you another 200k. Cyberlimb builds are dead, because they don't do anything better than Bone Lacing+Muscle Replacements. Armor is +DR, which is both plentiful enough for a troll sam to have 15 out of chargen (which is more than any gun out there), and absolutely useless.

Advancement - when you're done with chargen, it's where you stay. Forever. Advancement rules are bad. Training times mean that you're gonna be playing in 21XX before long, if you actually want to train. But you aren't, because the recommended payouts are worse than 5e in a way (instead of forgetting that high levels of play exist and are supposed to pay LOTS of cash, they just don't even give low-level examples), and you can't sustain your lifestyle without running at least once a month (because you're street-level, and street-level runners don't get six-figure or even higher five-figure gigs). Advancement costs mean that improving anything important at all will cost you several runs' worth of karma.

Other Stuff - why are PR10 special forces wearing armor jackets instead of FBA? It's in the book, you know. Why are there minor mechanics that exist only to waste time and make useless rolls (bullet trackers, wireless functionality)?

TL;DR - Mages got buffed, Matrix is 10% better, everything else sucks hard. Go play your preferred edition, this garbage fire isn't worth picking up, much less fixing.

Well, that sucks. Pretty much expected though.

[LibraryOgre]

I think I need to buckle down and write a SW conversion to make myself happy.

[Rhedyn]

I think I need to buckle down and write a SW conversion to make myself happy.

https://wrathofzombie.files.wordpress.com › ...PDF
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Savage Worlds of Shadowrun - Wrathofzombie's Blog - WordPress.com

Or Google "Savage Shadowrun" there have been a few fan conversions.


I'm disappointed that 6e didn't fix SR problems.

[Ignimortis]

I'm disappointed that 6e didn't fix SR problems.

As someone who's basically been living on Shadowrun (and Final Fantasy but that's beside the point) for a year now, I'm disappointed but not surprised. CGL have shown a remarkable LACK of interest in their Shadowrun license. Most of 5e was reprints of 4e stuff, and the embezzlement scandal never got better, seeing as the perp stayed in the company and the victims had to leave. 6e is just more of the same - an incredible amount of neglect and shoddy work.

[The Glyphstone]

Has any edition ever fixed SR's problems? It seems like everyone has their 'sweet spot' where X edition is the best - not perfect, but better than all the rest.

[Ignimortis]

Has any edition ever fixed SR's problems? It seems like everyone has their 'sweet spot' where X edition is the best - not perfect, but better than all the rest.

Frankly, after reading all editions' corebooks I got the feeling...
2e - fixed perceived 1e problems, left some intact.
3e - fixed perceived 2e problems, introduced more.
4e - rewrote the base, fixed a lot of problems through that, introduced a lot of minor ones and really divided the fanbase by modernizing the setting.
5e - took 4e, smeared it with some paint, smeared it with some dirt in other places, basically a cash-grab edition with a solid base sorta dented by neglect.
6e - took 5e, ripped out the good parts, shoved some straw in, threw it at the audience saying it's as good as new, despite being a mangled broken mess.

I figure all editions before 5th tried to actually fix the problems that the previous editions had, with varied results. 5th tried to push the nostalgia angle and had nothing beyond that. 6e tries to push the streamlining angle and has nothing beyond that, and it's not even streamlined.

[Delta]

That list seems spot on. Personally, I liked 4 very much, and it was the last edition where I could look at it and see "Okay, they had a plan what they wanted to do with this" to a certain degree, something which both 5 and 6 totally seem to lack.

I could not for the life of me figure out what the plan for 6 was. Streamline the game and make it faster? It just... doesn't do that, in any way. If you look at the edge mechanic, there's a core of a more abstract, conflict-driven resolution mechanism in there that might be somewhat interesting but then... yup, it's dropped right into the middle of a mostly unchanged, still completely simulationist mess of convoluted rules. The whole armor/damage/soak resolution just feels weird and wrong, and I'm definitely not the only one to think that. Mind you, I think that nerfing soaktanks is a good thing, but did people really playtest these rules and afterwards say "Yeah, this feels good, this makes sense!", I kind of have a hard time believing that (and again, not the only one, watch the very first Actual Play session on Shadowcasters, they were barely through their first combat encounter when they started discussing how armor, damage and so on might have to be houseruled)

And on top of that, from what I've seen, it's just a bad book. The layout is terrible, a lot of the sections were clearly written for an audience of people with years of experience playing Shadowrun, which is not what a new edition core book should aim for.

I really, really want to be excited for new Shadowrun stuff, and I will try and run a few more games with the new rules, hoping to maybe be positively surprised. But yeah, even by the low standards I apply to new Shadowrun editions, this one feels bad.

[Pendragonx]

Now, this is coming from somebody who's just starting to play 5th edition Shadowrun, so perhaps I have no room to talk here. But it seems to me that the problem with 5th edition Shadowrun isn't that it's too complicated and crunchy; it's that the book is quite possibly the most poorly edited thing I've ever encountered. If 6th edition is published by the same people and they don't hire more editors, it isn't going to matter how streamlined the actual game system is.

So. Much. This.
I've tried to get my head around the rules, but the layout is so bad I gave up at some point

[HappyDaze]

So. Much. This.
I've tried to get my head around the rules, but the layout is so bad I gave up at some point

I'm in my 40s and my eyes have trouble reading the print on some of the 5e archetypes (e.g., drone rigger and weapons specialist). So much text crammed in on gear that they had to shrink the size down beyond my comfort level. Which also goes to my dislike of games where your gear section needs a page or three of its own.

[Delta]

The sad fact is that, if you can believe it, 6e core is even worse. Regardless of what you think of the new edition as a whole, this is just a really, really badly made book.

[Anonymouswizard]

The sad fact is that, if you can believe it, 6e core is even worse. Regardless of what you think of the new edition as a whole, this is just a really, really badly made book.

And considering that 5e was so bad I went back to 3e...

[Delta]

Like, the character creation chapter is a catastrophe by itself, terrible layout with bars just going straight through text in a way any college student with an introductory course to anything regarding publishing, be it web or print, would probably get a massive grade reduction for, the text itself being a convoluted mess with special points for special attributes being mentioned before attributes themselves, or what those "special" attributes might be, I've known Shadowrun priority creation systems for over 25 years now and even I had to read that stuff multiple times to understand how it works (fun fact: since they worded this in the most convoluted way possible, the special racial attribute points intended to be spent on the attributes races are strong in can, by RAW, just as well be spent on those they are exceptionally weak in, not sure that was really intended)

And it's crowned by the completely crazy fact that yes, you can spend those "special" points on Magic, but then you don't get the special benefits you get from having "natural" points in the Magic attribute by picking a higher Magic priority. That's not the worst for mages, who just miss out on some free spells, no big deal.

But if you are an adept and raise your magic beyond what you get from your magic priority, you don't get power points. In essence, that means you just broke your character, during creation, and that's not by accident, that is very specificially the way the character creation rules are designed. If you read the magic chapter, it's quite clear PhysAds aren't supposed to have points in Magic without associated power points, the adept rules clearly aren't designed for that to ever happen, there's no way to later rectify that.

Unless of course you don't use an attribute point to raise magic but karma (of which you again get some during creation), then it's fine again and you get all the associated bonuses.

Stuff like that is just an awful mess that makes it quite obvious that at no point did someone take a step back, look at this chapter as a whole and asked "Is this good?", this reads like an amalgamation of house rules created on the fly to fix some min-maxing problems in character creation, a core book is not supposed to look like that. If you're really intent on guys not starting with Magic 6 by just spending attribute points, say "Magic cannot be increased with those points" and be done with it. And again, this is just one small part of a huge book, it isn't hard to find many other examples of stuff like this throughout the book.