Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Zar on <03-15-16/1048:34>
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I'm sure the subject is being passed around at Catalyst and I'd like to get this request buzzing around in the right ears before it gets too far. Please make crunch the Priority over fluff and make it all work correctly. In other words, have all the freelance developers actually talk to each other and work out the balance between the systems. There are too many parts of this game that are confusing or just don't seem to work. All this stuff about rewriting how 5e Technomancers work has gotten me thinking that almost every part of this game needs to be rewritten with these issues in mind. People play Shadowrun because they like a complex game system that encompasses technology, magic, and intrigue. I think 5e got the intrigue right but fails on the other two in many ways. Instead of making bandaid books to fix the problems in core please work it out before hand. Do a beta ! I'd gladly pay for a beta rules book if it would make for a much better game in the long run.
Some of the fluff is great. Some of it I ignore. But frankly I don't need more fluff. What I need is a game where we don't have to halt the session to figure out how something works. Or worse, to have a rigger spend all their resources buying drones but have them destroyed by small arms in a single session. How about before you put martial arts into print, you actually use it in a run. How about a Martial Artist with 30 karma in jujitsu? They look great in the book but wind up coming up short in ability during game play. Enchanting? Ugh. Total waste of so many pages. Come to the forums, ask the players and GMs how to make this game better instead of firing and forgetting each book. Do PDFs first. Let us vet it out before you send it to print. Catalyst has their hands on a wonderful game but it can be so much better if more effort is put into balance and making sure the crunch works properly.
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I am still wondering why there is no widely used open source roleplaying system. Most of the time the community is better than the developers in creating a rule system.
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Nope,
it's way easier to criticize than to create. A lot of people underestimate how hard it is to come up with a good text basis.
That said:
One thing I wished for SR 6e: Consistent term usage or "keywords".
D&D4e wasn't a very good system in my opinion, but it did that right at least: It defined certain terms and build from there.
If an object had the "fire" keyword you knew it did "fire" damage, triggered special abilities that had "fire" in their description and was resisted by things with "fire" immunity.
At the moment in SR 5 different writers will use different terms to describe the same things and same terms to describe different things. (Just look at the recent "Unarmed Attack" discussion)
A greater emphasis on consistency of terms would remedy a lot of problems - including how to differentiate between crunch and fluff.
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Zar, I love that you made this post, but I wouldn't hold out much hope. Why? Well, the Line Producer for Shadowrun is obviously too busy with other responsibilities to manage this line properly. Look at the lack of Errata for SR while Battletech gets, if not timely, a pretty decent errata pass on each product. Clearly, the company wants quality to be high, but for whatever reason, SR consistently falls below the mark and the issues do not get corrected via errata. My conclusion as to why has already been stated -- it's not incompetence or malfeasance, it's that the person responsible for it is spread too thin.
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I am still wondering why there is no widely used open source roleplaying system. Most of the time the community is better than the developers in creating a rule system.
IMNSHO this comment is indicative of the biggest problem with the modern gaming community. Gamers these days think (falsely) that they know more than the professionals and proceed to issue their insults disguised as criticisms with that mentality.
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I am still wondering why there is no widely used open source roleplaying system. Most of the time the community is better than the developers in creating a rule system.
IMNSHO this comment is indicative of the biggest problem with the modern gaming community. Gamers these days think (falsely) that they know more than the professionals and proceed to issue their insults disguised as criticisms with that mentality.
The community may not be better at writing rules, but I think it's fairly obvious that it's better at figuring what's wonky, vague, broken, or inconsistent than the writers are.
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It's kinda logical that the community knows what's not working. There are like what, 10-15 developers working on the products and it's play-tested with about double that amount of people, whereas we are with thousands of people all playing slightly differently. So imbalances will be much quicker found when the product is out on the market than while play-testing.
And what one group thinks is broken, another group finds perfect, depending on play style. Of course, if almost everybody thinks something is broken, there's a good chance it is.
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I am still wondering why there is no widely used open source roleplaying system. Most of the time the community is better than the developers in creating a rule system.
IMNSHO this comment is indicative of the biggest problem with the modern gaming community. Gamers these days think (falsely) that they know more than the professionals and proceed to issue their insults disguised as criticisms with that mentality.
I was one of these "professionals" once. So I know what I am talking about.
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Of course, if almost everybody thinks something is broken, there's a good chance it is.
Actually, this is solidly in Bandwagon Fallacy territory, especially since most such gripes are found on forums such as this and social media where most of the posters are generally polarized in a particular direction.
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I am still wondering why there is no widely used open source roleplaying system. Most of the time the community is better than the developers in creating a rule system.
IMNSHO this comment is indicative of the biggest problem with the modern gaming community. Gamers these days think (falsely) that they know more than the professionals and proceed to issue their insults disguised as criticisms with that mentality.
The community may not be better at writing rules, but I think it's fairly obvious that it's better at figuring what's wonky, vague, broken, or inconsistent than the writers are.
Agreed, that's why beta testing is a thing.
As far as 6th edition is concerned I think if things are to be different there will have to be a change in leadership for the dev team. Regardless of how you feel about how well things work in 5th edition you can't deny that errata is just not a priority for the current leadership.
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Of course, if almost everybody thinks something is broken, there's a good chance it is.
Actually, this is solidly in Bandwagon Fallacy territory, especially since most such gripes are found on forums such as this and social media where most of the posters are generally polarized in a particular direction.
Because the writers are always right and perfect and always playtest things sufficiently and never put out bad or inconsistent products and always communicate with each other perfectly, right? Yeah ok :P
There are systems much better managed than this one where the writers still release errata due to problems they can't see on the front end for one reason or another or which internal playtesting misses due to its particular assumptions.
The fact that a bunch of people not only agree but can prove issues actually using the game systems means there's data to investigate, not just angry anecdotes. And the fact that people agree doesn't inherently make them wrong or part of a wrong herd mentality.
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I am still wondering why there is no widely used open source roleplaying system. Most of the time the community is better than the developers in creating a rule system.
There is. Its called the D20 system, and there is a lovely SRD for it and everything. Problem is, it is based primarily on fantasy games.
As for other genres, you start going into niches and areas where mechanics start supporting specific settings and world views, such as the way Shadowrun interplays man, machine, and magic, or the way Vampire: The Masquerade promotes a certain style game. The most open games, other than 'quasi-freeform' (pure handwavium) systems like the Window, would be things like GURPS, Hero System, or Mutants & Masterminds, which have basic rules that can be adapted to many different settings, but trying to hammer out Shadowrun's Matrix in Champions would be a major headache.
Of course, you're more than welcome to do the work yourself. But most likely you, like me and many others, don't have that kind of free time and energy to devote to writing up a game system from scratch.
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I am still wondering why there is no widely used open source roleplaying system. Most of the time the community is better than the developers in creating a rule system.
Of course, you're more than welcome to do the work yourself. But most likely you, like me and many others, don't have that kind of free time and energy to devote to writing up a game system from scratch.
Well, I did (or am well into doing right now. Although my ruleset is maybe too ambitious, and niche. I myself of course think it is brilliant . . .).
My question is more like this:
With the tools the internet gives you, like Wikis and other collaborative tools, you could create a ruleset that is constantly updated and evolving. This is of course completely anti-capitalistic, as it defies any release cycles and such. But nobody does it. Why? There are enough open source programming projects, but no noticeable RPG ones I can think of (which may be because of my own ignorance).
For me it seems like people only think something is good if it costs money. Which, in the case of RPGs is exactly the problem (being sold by a coporation in release cycles with profit in mind) that prevents it from being much better (constantly updated digital rulesets, that benefit from efforts of the whole community).
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I didn't really mean to insult catalyst or the people who created 5e. I also don't meant to lament the lack of errata since that won't give Catalyst any revenue. But I do know that if they continue to want use the IP they have to put out a 6th eventually and just want them to regroup and review to make things better for the game.
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I will lament the lack of errata. You should care about the quality of your product enough to fix the problems with it. Otherwise you burn through all your good will.
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Shadowrun isn't broken. It's just got missing critical gaps , has subpar formatting/editing and a not-transparent-enough erratas situation (which might very well be a business conscious choice. It angers this community at times, but it's a valid business model). Aaaand it's filled with nitpicky issues that really, really deserves to be fixed from accidental copy-pasting portovers. As a whole... it's solid though, and quite enjoyable.
But people confuse those (numerous) issues with ''Everything is broken''. Even with all my vehement argumentation against the current state of the rules (and i don't hold back usually :P), it would be a stretch to say it's broken. It's like a puzzle with missing pieces. It sucks and angers at the end of the day, but it's not 2 pieces missing that doesn't let you see the bigger picture. They just shine by their absence.
I'd be quite happy with a 5e ''Anniversary-ish Edition'' that would synergizes everything proper. 6e might be a bit premature :P
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Wow, what a hornet’s nest.
While I too am frustrated on several occasions with CGL concerning the Shadowrun team, I am also able to sympathize with them in certain regards. I too wish that they had a dedicated team for the much needed errata, but… face it… I enjoy Shadowrun, everything that it is… and I enjoy 5E, despite as broken or backwards it may appear at times. I don’t think anyone on these forums can say different, or else why would they be here?
When I first read this post… I was a bit peeved to say the least. I typed out a 1300ish word reply detailing my personal experience as a trouble shooter, and the complications that go into something as simple as a board game, much less a full PnP RPG… but thankfully, my internet crapped out before I could post it, and gave me time to reply with a clearer head.
With respects, Serbitar… you yourself have outlined the problems with an open source player driven RPG. “Lack of release cycles and such”.
While the internet does provide a vast array of tools for such a project… you have to ask yourself some very simple questions.
How will you make people cooperate, much less make sure they are even working on the same game? What is vision behind the game? And who will enforce that vision?
Who will decide what stays and what goes? (What one person thinks is world changing brilliant, another will see as trash.)
Without a release cycle, how will anything be put out in a timely manner? Dead time means limbo and limbo means losing interest in the project.
With unpaid freelancers, what incentive do they have to devote vast portions of their own time and money to it? And yes, one way or another, it will take money… Everything has a price.
And the biggest killer of open source projects, imo… what happens with a freelancer loses interest and leaves a gaping hole in your development cycle? How you will proceed when no one is will to pick up the extra work?
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
Humans are chaotic… what a game’s design team thinks is perfect… what the play testers thinks perfect… just can’t, honestly, please everyone. Every person thinks differently. This is shaped by our culture, our upbringing, our education, and our further life experiences. You can’t even write the English language’s shortest complete sentence, and be sure everyone will interpret it the same way. (“Go.”, btw) And you can’t possibly hope to account for every “What If” scenario that can/will pop up. Groups of players range ever where and anywhere, including Fungs to Military Veterans to people that hardcore couch jockeys. And they all will have a different train of thought and a new “What if I do this” to throw at you.
This also means… that the work is never done. The project will be in a state of constant development, and thus always running into those same questions above.
But, that is just my option. Take it or leave it. I don’t mean any hard feelings to you or anyone over this matter.
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I agree with the op's general assessment, I wish I didn't.
I'm still hoping they'll release Errata and update the borked rules errors but I'm not holding my breath.
I've agreed not to rant about it anymore so i'll leave it at that.
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Shadowrun isn't broken. It's just got missing critical gaps , has subpar formatting/editing and a not-transparent-enough erratas situation (which might very well be a business conscious choice. It angers this community at times, but it's a valid business model).
I suspect there is some deliberate vagueness in the rules to allow individual GMs run their games the way they want to. And I also suspect the low frequency of Errata is a little bit of everything. (lack of ) Money, time, talent are all likely playing a part. This isn't an industry you go into for financial reasons ; )
Overall 5th edition is fun and will continue to sell me products. I would still like to see Technomancers get some luv, and a few of the more glaring errors get official errata. I'm looking at you Shifter Table from Run and Gun.
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I suspect there is some deliberate vagueness in the rules to allow individual GMs run their games the way they want to.
Mayyyybeeee..but i still think its far from an optimal choice. Some people just want the official crunch and dont want to go outside of it. They feel it's the ''legitimate'' way to play it.
Forcing house-ruling on GM is detrimental to that demographic...and kind of sadistic towards new players and GM who are trying to grasp the ''Full'' basics (as opposed to the quick-start rules).
It might be intentionnal, but that kind of rubs my common sense the wrong way :P
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I have to agree that despite my sometimes vehement posts, SR5 is by in large a system that works quite well and the consistency of how everything is handled does allowed for a fall back f "Bugger it, roll Attribute + Skill or another Attribute while I roll this" solutions... it may not be exact, but with EVERYTHING being an Attribute + Skill or 2nd Attribute roll you can do something off the cuff to keep the game moving, or allow a player to do something crazy. (Like ripping a coffee machine out of a bench and braining the ganger who shot it up with it... no kidding that happened last time I ran Food Fight)
That said, there are a few things that really, REALLY need to be addressed.
Technomancers.
Sensor Arrays, especially default vehicle/drone arrays.
Missing ammo. Every time some really exotic weapon gets added, they forget to add the ammo... the latest culprits being the Flame Bracer from Hard Targets and Cyberware Flame Tosser from Chrome Flesh.
Treating drones as a separate thing, rather than sometimes a metahuman and sometimes a vehicle and not making it clear when it's supposed to be what.
Table snafus... I know editing is difficult, but when an entire table worth of gear gets messed up that can mean anything up to a couple of dozen pieces of gear are unusable.
And of course many of these issues, especially messed up tables, could be fixed by simply releasing some errata...
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I will lament the lack of errata. You should care about the quality of your product enough to fix the problems with it. Otherwise you burn through all your good will.
In a perfect world, there'd be a small "After-action" team who'd prowl around for a while, gathering up mistakes, finding solutions, and then assembling a "fixer" book with errata and a FAQ. Toss it out to anyone who'd bought teh PDF, and not produce the physical copy until that was done and it could be incorporated.
The PROBLEM is finding money to pay for that, and that the time delay between a book being on PDF and one being in hard copy would be painful if not disasterous as a whole.
Mrf.
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Well truuuue, but crowdsourcing the bug-finding is something cost-free: These very boards have PAGES of requested fixes. You dont even have to reread the entire manual :P
Then again, from having had employees of my own in a not-so-distant past (never again! :P), it's still a financial impact to have someone spend days looking through that information and formatting takes even longer.
But y'know.. 1- drivethru rpg, and other similar web-based stores aren't Catalyst, and likely expect to be paid for any extra work, so that's an added cost t consider. 2-we don't see or know everything that's going on behind the scene (unfortunately) and 3-that horse has been beaten to death, raised back to life, and beaten back to death over and over again, and if months of similar notes haven't gotten official answer, we are left with 2 choices: Quit or Live with it. Expecting anything else is just...psychological masochism :P
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Yeah, I'm with Whiskeyjack here. Income is something they need, yes; supporting the products they've already released is something they need as well.
There should be comprehensive Errata; we've paid for their product, they should support said product. As-is, I'm no longer buying 5th Ed books until I know things have been rectified. That includes seeing an update to the unfinished Core Errata that hasn't seen an update in 2 years. It isn't finished or comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination.
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I feel you guys are not offering advice. So I will.
Things that I'd like to see in SR6.
Less magic. By that I specifically mean reduce the amount of magic rules. Leave alchemy and enchanting for the magic supplement. And maybe rituals too...
Reduce skills. There are too many niche skills. I want more abstracted skills that can do more.
Remove cybercombat as a skill and let deckers/technomancer's use a combat skill in place of cybercombat. It makes sense because the Matrix is a metaphor, so you should be able to use your other skills in the Matrix, kind of like how foundations can use knowledge skills as active skills.
Make deck's and TM living persona's attributes equivalent. My biggest problem with the decker v TM is that decks are WAY more powerful. By a lot, like with Data Trails is now possible to get a deck with 10 to a Matrix attribute, TM's can get their logic that high, but that's only data processing, which is a lame Matrix stat.
Give us build rules for decks. Decks should also cost karma and nuyen, showing the decker has invested time and money into making the bloody thing.
I'd also like TMs to be able to focus all hacking with only Complex Forms. Make TMs more like mages.
Make the Matrix more like the other parts of the game. Firewalls, are literal barriers and can be passed through like mages going through an mana barrier, or attacked and destroyed like a normal barrer. Or the ability to take cover behind a device or piece of virtual landscape.
Allow mundane hacks to resolve faster, but epic hacks be less abstracted and more epic. Mundane hacks are things like opening doors and looping cameras. Epic hacks are entering hosts, navigating the VR landscape while the team watches over the decker/TM meat body. and finally finding the paydata. Right now the Matrix is too abstracted so that mundane hacks take too long while epic hacks are over too quickly.
Put the rigger rules together more. They're like in 5 different parts of core.
Remove gear and replace them with the packages like from Run Faster. Break down the packages in another gear supplement, so people can be more granular later. But in core, using packages by default will speed up character creation by a lot.
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It's easy to make a gaming system, harder to make a good one, difficult to make one that covers a lot of concepts in a balanced manner and near impossible to make one that perfectly satisfies two people much less more. If you have multiple people doing the different sections it gets worse since person A wants mages to be extremely powerful but slow to gain their full strength while person b wants them to get stronger at the same rate and be balanced against technology all the while person c is busy coming up with creative unique effects for mages that are all bug impossible to correctly map to a technical equivalent.
Developer A: Mages can teleport.
Developer B: No they can't that invalidates too much defence by non mages.
Developer A: But, but how about short range only?
Developer B: Maybe if an astral barrier can stop it but if you hit an offensive ward you could die.
Devrlooro A: Errrr.
Developer C enters "Hi I got delayed because the train was late, hey how about a spell to summon a phantom train that takes you to whatever station you want on time."
Developer B: "You do realise anything that would delay a normal train would also delay your phantom one?"
Developer C: "No it wouldn't I have to come all the way into the city then transfer and catch a train back and that's the one that got delayed my train would have just stopped at my station so no delay."
Developer D in the corner mutters something about casters and starts sketching an emitter for his martials that will create a disturbance in astral space to block teleporting in a 5 mile radius.
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With the tools the internet gives you, like Wikis and other collaborative tools, you could create a ruleset that is constantly updated and evolving. This is of course completely anti-capitalistic, as it defies any release cycles and such. But nobody does it. Why? There are enough open source programming projects, but no noticeable RPG ones I can think of (which may be because of my own ignorance).
Time, money, and energy. To make a game with a consistent rule-set, that is actually good, takes time and energy. If you're not being paid for it (and open source says you're not) then this is going to be something you're doing on your free time. And the more people you bring into the project, the more likely the whole thing will devolve into herding cats, if you're lucky. Not saying it couldn't be done, since you could get a bunch of monkeys banging on typewriters and eventually get the complete works of Shakespeare, but the signal to noise ratio is going to be horrible.
As you pointed out in your most recent post, getting multiple people to move in the same direction on a game design is difficult without someone being 'The Man', which is nigh impossible with open source.
Now, you could do a crowdfunded RPG, and there have been at least a couple in the last few years that I'm aware of. But that still means you've got a small, closed group of developers and beta testers. Alternatively, you can do what D&D did in 3.X, and let anyone use the stuff in the SRD to make their own material. In which case you get a broad group of potential material, but focused on common elements.
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This whole post.
Couldn´t say it better.
Especially the part about the fluff/crunch ratio.
The most depressing part is the fact that we´re already putting our bets on 6th Edition, as if 5E is screwed beyond repair.
No hopes for usable errata, no hopes for a working TM supplement...
I mean, cheer up folks. There´s still some stuff in this pipe!
And who doesn´t like Tarot? ;)
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I will lament the lack of errata. You should care about the quality of your product enough to fix the problems with it. Otherwise you burn through all your good will.
In a perfect world, there'd be a small "After-action" team who'd prowl around for a while, gathering up mistakes, finding solutions, and then assembling a "fixer" book with errata and a FAQ. Toss it out to anyone who'd bought teh PDF, and not produce the physical copy until that was done and it could be incorporated.
The PROBLEM is finding money to pay for that, and that the time delay between a book being on PDF and one being in hard copy would be painful if not disasterous as a whole.
Mrf.
Yeah, I agree but I'll admit - it's too much to ask and too expensive with regard to physical books honestly, because I know the margins of this industry run razor-thin. I get it. And I understand not all end users look online and know about errata, but in 2016, a significant enough percentage of the consumer base does that releasing easily-found errata PDFs is the easiest solution.
No hopes for usable errata, no hopes for a working TM supplement...
I mean, cheer up folks. There´s still some stuff in this pipe!
I don't really have hopes for usable errata, largely because I've been given no reason to believe it will ever happen. No announcement of "we're working on it but it might take some time." Just silence. I consider that disrespectful given that the developers knew that issues existed to an extent, to even produce errata, then stopped. As anyone knowledgeable about finance will tell you, goodwill is not an infinite resource and just because I like a game generally doesn't mean the company that makes it is entitled to unlimited benefit of the doubt, forever.
I get errata is not paid work, however I feel like freelancers who love the system and setting should step up even to a small extent if they're able. Exalted 2e wound up with an errata document that was hundreds of pages long, because certain then-writers just didn't want to let the game sit in the awful state it was in (this is before there was any notion that 3e would be funded). The community loved them for it. But I certainly also recognize that not all writers are that invested or willing to put in that much non-paid time to fix someone else's mistakes. I totally get that. I'm not asking for a 300-page errata doc for SR5 (I don't think it remotely needs that much, tbh). But SOMETHING that covered the big issues would be nice.
On another note I generally agree with DeathStrobe but what would this game be without ridiculously granular gear?! ;D
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There hasn't been "good will" in a long, long time, only constant whinging and insults over those piddly little minor pieces like 'errata' and typos making mountains out of ant hills.
Don't want silence? Stop the whinging.
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Don't want silence? Stop the whinging.
"Want this company we pay money to to answer us? Then stop complaining!"
So basically "stop criticizing them and they might deign to answer us."
This mindset is royally screwed up.
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I feel you guys are not offering advice. So I will.
Things that I'd like to see in SR6.
Less magic. By that I specifically mean reduce the amount of magic rules. Leave alchemy and enchanting for the magic supplement. And maybe rituals too...
Reduce skills. There are too many niche skills. I want more abstracted skills that can do more.
Remove cybercombat as a skill and let deckers/technomancer's use a combat skill in place of cybercombat. It makes sense because the Matrix is a metaphor, so you should be able to use your other skills in the Matrix, kind of like how foundations can use knowledge skills as active skills.
Make deck's and TM living persona's attributes equivalent. My biggest problem with the decker v TM is that decks are WAY more powerful. By a lot, like with Data Trails is now possible to get a deck with 10 to a Matrix attribute, TM's can get their logic that high, but that's only data processing, which is a lame Matrix stat.
Give us build rules for decks. Decks should also cost karma and nuyen, showing the decker has invested time and money into making the bloody thing.
I'd also like TMs to be able to focus all hacking with only Complex Forms. Make TMs more like mages.
Make the Matrix more like the other parts of the game. Firewalls, are literal barriers and can be passed through like mages going through an mana barrier, or attacked and destroyed like a normal barrer. Or the ability to take cover behind a device or piece of virtual landscape.
Allow mundane hacks to resolve faster, but epic hacks be less abstracted and more epic. Mundane hacks are things like opening doors and looping cameras. Epic hacks are entering hosts, navigating the VR landscape while the team watches over the decker/TM meat body. and finally finding the paydata. Right now the Matrix is too abstracted so that mundane hacks take too long while epic hacks are over too quickly.
Put the rigger rules together more. They're like in 5 different parts of core.
Remove gear and replace them with the packages like from Run Faster. Break down the packages in another gear supplement, so people can be more granular later. But in core, using packages by default will speed up character reaction by a lot.
I agree with most of this. Some good ideas here.
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Simple fact is that they don't have to talk to us or provide any sort of errata or FAQ or whatever. The gaming industry went fine for a long time before those were ever a thing. Once the internet became bigger, some companies decided to be nice and give those things, and the gamers became spoiled and came to feel entitled to it. At this point, I'm all for all companies to just cease all errata and FAQ delivery because of the attitude from so many forum and social media going gamers.
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Simple fact is that they don't have to talk to us or provide any sort of errata or FAQ or whatever. The gaming industry went fine for a long time before those were ever a thing. Once the internet became bigger, some companies decided to be nice and give those things, and the gamers became spoiled and came to feel entitled to it. At this point, I'm all for all companies to just cease all errata and FAQ delivery because of the attitude from so many forum and social media going gamers.
The world and state of the industry has changed. There is more competition for your gaming dollar now than at just about any time previously. Social media engagement is an incredibly important and vital aspect of being a successful business in today's market.
So, if you are a small publishing company, you should be doing everything possible to engage your community and make them into evangelists for your product rather than antagonists who wave people away from your products. With Shadowrun, we are almost at the later position. When someone asks, "Tell me about 5e Shadowrun" you always see the same comments: Good system, Good world, horrible editing/holes in rules, zero errata.
That's not a good place to be.
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I get errata is not paid work, however I feel like freelancers who love the system and setting should step up even to a small extent if they're able. Exalted 2e wound up with an errata document that was hundreds of pages long, because certain then-writers just didn't want to let the game sit in the awful state it was in (this is before there was any notion that 3e would be funded). The community loved them for it. But I certainly also recognize that not all writers are that invested or willing to put in that much non-paid time to fix someone else's mistakes. I totally get that. I'm not asking for a 300-page errata doc for SR5 (I don't think it remotely needs that much, tbh). But SOMETHING that covered the big issues would be nice.
We have, and we do; but it's not official, it's not distributed through official means, we can't always do it (we self-errata for stuff we wrote, not stuff someone else did, because it's rude as hell to try and correct someone else's work without being asked), and because it's not official or officially distributed, it's easy to miss. For the closest-to-official version of this work I can point to (because it's not just forum posts somewhere), who do you think compiles the Missions Errata/FAQ every so often (and do you think they get paid for it)?
It's not that we're not invested or willing -- which, by the way, is a terrible fucking thing to imply about people, thanks -- it's that we're already doing what we can, where we can, where professionalism allows, and it's easy to miss because the community is spread out across a half dozen forums, our responses are equally spread out, etc, etc.
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...horrible editing/holes in rules, zero errata.
That people are so overly concerned about typos, punctuation errors or slightly misaligned tables and feel that entitled to errata and FAQs is exactly the problem.
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It's not that we're not invested or willing -- which, by the way, is a terrible fucking thing to imply about people, thanks -- it's that we're already doing what we can, where we can, where professionalism allows, and it's easy to miss because the community is spread out across a half dozen forums, our responses are equally spread out, etc, etc.
I've seen several posts of yours and other freelancers correcting things where they can and I'm deeply grateful for the efforts. The fact that no one at Catalyst collates and publishes these things officially has to be even more frustrating for you than it is for us. Keep up the good work and know it's appreciated, even as we criticize the state of the product.
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and it's easy to miss because the community is spread out across a half dozen forums, our responses are equally spread out, etc, etc.
This was part of the reason Falar put together the SR5 FAQ wiki, but it hasn't gotten traction which the community could help with (anyone can update the wiki) but again it just hasn't gone far.
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Simple fact is that they don't have to talk to us or provide any sort of errata or FAQ or whatever. The gaming industry went fine for a long time before those were ever a thing. Once the internet became bigger, some companies decided to be nice and give those things, and the gamers became spoiled and came to feel entitled to it. At this point, I'm all for all companies to just cease all errata and FAQ delivery because of the attitude from so many forum and social media going gamers.
I don't have the largest collection of RPG games in existence but I do have quite a few and in my personal opinion 5th edition Shadowrun is by far the worst edited RPG I have ever seen in 30 plus years of gaming. Note I don't say the worst it is the worst RPG (the rules aren't broken just too many places where they are contradictory, incomplete or vague) or the worst written (the fluff is generally quite good) but the worst edited.
In the Total Warfare ear the Battletech team has produced 400+ pages of errata, clarifications and rule changes over 10 years. That doesn't even count corrections to record sheets or TRO entries. They have set up a system on their forums to maximize efficiency in reporting problems and minimize the effort needed by the devs to sign off on the changes.
Shadowrun 5th edition has been out for about 2 1/2 years and has produced what? 7 pages? 9? Color me not impressed.
Call me a complainer or whatever you like because I really just don't give a shit honestly. If TPTB don't want to bother with errata then they should please just come out and say so officially. Otherwise they need to come up with some kind of plan within the framework of their existing resources and get the ball moving.
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We have, and we do; but it's not official, it's not distributed through official means, we can't always do it (we self-errata for stuff we wrote, not stuff someone else did, because it's rude as hell to try and correct someone else's work without being asked), and because it's not official or officially distributed, it's easy to miss. For the closest-to-official version of this work I can point to (because it's not just forum posts somewhere), who do you think compiles the Missions Errata/FAQ every so often (and do you think they get paid for it)?
It's not that we're not invested or willing -- which, by the way, is a terrible fucking thing to imply about people, thanks -- it's that we're already doing what we can, where we can, where professionalism allows, and it's easy to miss because the community is spread out across a half dozen forums, our responses are equally spread out, etc, etc.
Look, let me be clear - I don't know the investment of people, and I don't feel obligated to assume the best, though I think it's proven that the writers care a lot more than management does (as evidenced by y'all posting on here when you can). And thank you for clarifying where exactly the issue in the pipeline is (though we basically all assumed it anyway).
I don't know how many writers would say "sure, I'll do fixes for free, to make a better product" and how many might say "nah, I'm not doing errata, because I don't give away my labor for nothing," both of which are eminently reasonable positions. I'm not saying writers should do effectively unpaid errata work and possibly put themselves in a bad financial position, or if they would rather pick paid work over unpaid fixes, or would rather not add extra work hours to their lives. I don't think you have a moral obligation to work for free to make corrections. And I get that you guys are potentially in the unenviable position of writing, say, a chapter, without really knowing what might be said two chapters later that contradicts you in the final product.
I think probably the main difference between the SR errata and, say, Exalted 2e, is Exalted errata had the existing buy-in of management to OK it, consolidate it, distribute it, and trust that the writers doing it knew what they were doing, and it's unfortunately that you guys haven't been afforded the same level of agency with regard to putting out errata, except as related to Missions. That's in no way your fault.
[That people are so overly concerned about typos, punctuation errors or slightly misaligned tables and feel that entitled to errata and FAQs is exactly the problem.
Nobody is saying typos or badly-done tables need errata (unless the badly-done table renders it impossible to interpret, in which case, it sure as hell does deserve errata). Typos just shouldn't happen in the first place. In an ideal world they wouldn't, hell, I get a few would still slip through because it happens, but we're so far beyond that that you're just arguing a straw man here.
[I've seen several posts of yours and other freelancers correcting things where they can and I'm deeply grateful for the efforts. The fact that no one at Catalyst collates and publishes these things officially has to be even more frustrating for you than it is for us. Keep up the good work and know it's appreciated, even as we criticize the state of the product.
+1
The difficulty is, I think, for all that you guys try to clarify on the forum and stuff, a lot of people won't interpret anything short of officially-stamped errata to be, well, binding and official. I like getting the clarifications, sure, but they fall into a weird canonicity spot vis a vis the RAW, especially when the correction-post itself is confusing or contradictory or creates its own problems (as has happened).
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Sixth Edition isn't even being discussed. There are SR5 products on the schedule for at least the next two years, with others under discussion beyond that.
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I don't have the largest collection of RPG games in existence but I do have quite a few and in my personal opinion 5th edition Shadowrun is by far the worst edited RPG I have ever seen in 30 plus years of gaming. Note I don't say the worst it is the worst RPG (the rules aren't broken just too many places where they are contradictory, incomplete or vague) or the worst written (the fluff is generally quite good) but the worst edited.
I have seen worse. FAR worse, in fact. But I no longer purchase products from those companies, and that is one of the big reasons.
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Yeah with all due respect ALL4BIG I really don't see the whole "throw the product over the fence and ignore the customers" as a rational way to do business in this century.
It used to work, back before the internet and social media but not anymore.
If you produce a sub-standard product and don't attempt to make things right (or heck even talk to your customers) then how can you expect to have their continued excitement in your efforts?
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I'm with All4BigGuns.
This is not a miniatures war game or a card game. The rules for a role playing game are a framework to facilitate story telling. Yes, Shadowrun is crunchy, like REALLY crunchy. Especially compared to its contemporaries, like Dungeon World, Numenera, FATE, etc. The problem is that less crunchy systems don't feel meaningful. Like getting a new arm in Numenera is just fluff to explain how you just leveled up. In Shadowrun getting a new arm usually means that arm is faster and stronger and may even have a cyber weapon inside it.
Shadowrun also does leave some things open to fluff interpretations too. Like if spirits can talk or just what they look like. They're all treated relatively the same.
Rules will never be perfect. Things will never be perfectly balanced. GMs will always need to make interpretations or make called on how to do something within the framework of the system. I'd personally like more options and new books and leave RAW/RAI to the Rules forum to figure out.
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Big, if you think it is a problem that people don't like spending their money and then receiving shoddy products, then you're the problem.
I remember starting to count errors in Street Grimoire; I hit fifty errors before I hit fifty pages. That is shit. I have professional editing experience; I'd have been reamed if I'd let something like that get by me at any point in the process, much less the final stage. There's no freaking excuse; copy-pasting that shit into Microsoft Office and hitting autocorrect would have caught half of it, easily. Actually going over what people decide to copy/paste would have fixed the other half (not copy-pasting things would have been better as well, but c'est la vie). Lay-out is something else they botched. That was the worst book in the edition so far, but the others aren't much better.
The part that makes it worse is when it comes to mechanics; contradictions, vagueness (mechanics, not fluff), obvious imbalance. They couldn't be bothered to explain that Naga have no arms, or what Vanishing does for Pixies (or the lack of depth on mechanics that should apply to metasapients in things like Lifestyle). The ability to make a scooter break the sound barrier. The lack of balance in Spell Drain. The absolute horrid treatment of Technomancers. Addiction. Rigger 5. Street Grimoire. The list goes on. This falls on the editing stage, where it should have been caught and rectified. A house-rule here or there is fine, sure. Almost every table has a few. At this point, I'd be writing a fifty-page-plus errata in order to run the game. I'm not wasting my time on that when I have access to other games that are a hell of a lot better managed and maintained. Shit, I'm actually putting together an entire system/setting with some friends right now, and we're in our second year of play-testing. That's where I'd rather put my time. I know people who've tossed 5th Edition out the window to run Shadowrun on different systems because they're so dissatisfied with the current problems. These people I'm talking about aren't your so-called entitled, millennial cry-babies (it's obvious who you're blaming). They're veteran gamers who've been playing longer than my parents have been alive in some cases, or since I was born.
If they expect us to pay them, they sure as hell better start fixing their work. If it isn't worth the money, people aren't going to pay. I know I'm not going to write a novella's worth of house-ruled Errata just to make the game freaking fully functional. I've already hit the point where I'm not buying new Shadowrun products until I am satisfied things are being rectified. I'm sorry to say I doubt it'll happen at this point in time, but I'm not wasting my money if the product continues the current course. It sucks, since the freelancers and other writers make some phenomenal fiction and give the setting a good name; the mismanagement of the system is flat-out driving me crazy.
As far as my response to the original author's point goes; I don't want to have a 6th Edition to fix Shadowrun. I want them to fix 5th Edition like they should.
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Big has a point though. Same as WhiskeyJack or a number of others have stated
They dont have to.
Just like
You don't have to purchase their products
If it's their conscious choice, be it due to fund limitation, manpower limitation, or willingness limitation, they can do as shoddy a work as they want (and for the record, i dont think anything besides the editing jobs is that shoddy..but omg the editing..) , then there's nothing we have to say about it. The right to the Shadowrun line of products is theirs. Houserule it all or change games, ask away, but dont expect to be owed products up to your expectation. You're not. No one is. You exchange currency for the product offered, as is. Not a promise to fix it if it's not on par with your desire. (But it's still legitimate to want or to ask for it..it just isn't realistic nor fair to the writers to demand it.)
Hell, i'll RE-PAY for a well-edited edition. I'll also purchase the products i havent purchased yet because of the horrid editing ive witnessed on friend's copies, reviews or whatnot.
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Well, to start I never said they 'have to'. I said should.
It is sad to say, but I don't expect Catalyst to bother at this point; my own personal pipe dream, if you will. The writers obviously try, and I love their part of the work. But when a company goes for years without addressing the mistakes and errors in a product while providing that kind of care to another? Obviously there's a problem.
They don't 'need' to support Shadowrun, sure. But by not fixing the errors, they're going to lose money. They're going to lose fans, they're going to lose in the end. By not doing their jobs to a reasonable standard, they're causing themselves harm. I've already stated my decision to not buy their products until they're up to my standard. I know folks who've flat-out sworn off of Shadowrun at this point. I've got an illustrator friend who no longer does work for Catalyst because of how they do things. I hate hearing it, but I understand it.
In my opinion, charging the prices they have does entail certain expectations. If you went out and bought a 60 dollar video game, put it in your console/PC, then found out it was a glitchy, bug-ridden game whose flaws suck the fun out of playing, would you not return it? Or not expect some patches to fix the stuff they've obviously botched? Which is why, since they've failed repeatedly, I'm no longer going to be a customer until they FIX it. I can't return what I've already acquired at this point, but I can save myself some cash and not lower my expectations some more.
If money really is the only issue (it isn't, but hey), I'd consider chipping in on a Kickstarter to pay for a comprehensive, official Errata (to include updating all of the current PDFs). I wouldn't re-purchase jack though, wouldn't trust any newer products and if Catalyst tried charging people to get an updated copy with the corrections and adjustments that should have been in the product from the beginning, I'd never touch a product from them again.
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If you don't want silence, don't insult the developers actually on Catalyst's payroll. The attitude has gotten to where the freelancers barely like coming here, and since so much of the hatred is directed at those others, they're even less likely to show up and say anything.
Get this whole "the customer is always right" drek out of your heads. It isn't true, and it never will be. With very few exceptions, the customer doesn't know what they're talking about because, as just about every freelancer has pointed out, NDAs prevent revealing anything going on behind the curtain and rightly so.
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Oh trust me, i'd wait for reviews too before shelling my hard earned nuyen or a re-edited reprint :P
But yeah..wallets speaks louder than forum posts these days, and i can't find a fault in your opinion, besides it comes off as a bit abrasive (but maybe it's the pot calling the kettle black, to be faire :P). I also believe it should be fixed. We would definitely like more transparency from those allowed to speak of it. My main point was: We can't expect it, or feel like it's owed to us, because really...we're not. :P
I like Shadowrun, i like what's been done with it in 5e, i have many, MANY gripes with it, i still hope it gets better, which is why i voice my complaints and cheers here like all of us. The day i give up is the day i'll leave these boards entirely. Hell if i felt i understood how to contribute towards a direction i approve of, i like would like to do my own part to help out. :P
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All4:
I agree the insulting is never a bad idea.
But this isn't "Customer is always right" stuff, because I agree most people don't know a bloody thing about what goes on behind the scenes. Most of us aren't even talking about nit-picking spelling errors. (Yes, I know it's important and shows the over-all quality, but bare with me.
What we're talking about is an Echo in Data Trails that uses 4e mechanics.
Or entire tables of augmentations in Chrome Flesh so garbled it's impossible to use them.
These aren't minor issues... these are major snafus that make it impossible to use the material, things like tables especially could be EASILY fixed by quick errata... instead we get the cone of silence.
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...but dont expect to be owed products up to your expectation.
Uh, ok. Wait, sorry, no. ::) I don't expect the product to be perfect out of the gate but I do expect corrections to errors to be published in a timely manner. I myself am pretty flexible on just how long timely stands for but I think after two and a half years I can expect to be owed some sort of update to the CRB at the very least. The Shadowrun devs have to decide if they are going to be used car salesmen and sell their product "as is" or are they going to be new car salesmen and stand behind their product when things don't go as planned.
But you are absolutely right about one thing. I don't have to purchase their products and I will not be purchasing any Shadowrun products for the foreseeable future. However, since I have purchased their products in the past I will continue to request they address their existing issues.
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Openly pointing out there are products whose quality is blatantly inferior to what is expected or when compared to contemporary products shouldn't be insulting. Nor should pointing out the mistakes and problems. I still haven't seen anyone actually come out and defend these copious errors and flaws that mar this game. Shit, if I were an editor in the position where I had to claim a product with this many mistakes as my work, I'd be ashamed.
There's no excuse for the quality of editing at this point (an NDA doesn't justify jack; neither the problems the system currently has or whatever is causing it behind the curtains), nor is there an excuse for not continuing the support for this product (especially when they're giving plenty of regular support to a different product); someone, somewhere is allowing this to happen for some reason. It may be a 'good' reason to them for all we know. It is a shoddy excuse either way.
I'm with Kraaken on why I'm here. I am hoping it gets better, and if possible I want to contribute. The day I give up is the day I stop coming here.
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@MijRai you may not have been, but there have in the past been plenty of insults thrown at freelancers, line producers and others at CGL.
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...but dont expect to be owed products up to your expectation.
Uh, ok. Wait, sorry, no. ::) I don't expect the product to be perfect out of the gate but I do expect corrections to errors to be published in a timely manner. I myself am pretty flexible on just how long timely stands for but I think after two and a half years I can expect to be owed some sort of update to the CRB at the very least. The Shadowrun devs have to decide if they are going to be used car salesmen and sell their product "as is" or are they going to be new car salesmen and stand behind their product when things don't go as planned.
But you are absolutely right about one thing. I don't have to purchase their products and I will not be purchasing any Shadowrun products for the foreseeable future. However, since I have purchased their products in the past I will continue to request they address their existing issues.
I buy something that's too defective for my enjoyment, i expect a refund or to deal with my frustrations, not a fix . Anyone , including the devs, have a right to sell "As is" , thats my whole point. :P
And afterwards, everyone can decide to pay or not. Some pdfs i outright refuse to buy despite them being out for months. Others i gladly shelled out for. For example the latest missions on DriveThru RPG i heartily recommend if you want to play missions.
Buying expecting something than demanding a fix is just reaaaally naive, OR masochistic, in my humble opinion :P
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Whether they put out an errata'd set of books or a new edition, it doesn't matter to me as long as the game is better. I just keep seeing problems band-aided instead of fixed. They don't want overwrite something they have already printed and that means we won't get a chance to see real changes until the next edition.
Whether or not Catalyst is working on 6e, I still request that when they do, that they focus on the rules and eliminating the need for errata in the first place. We don't really need an errata'd Street Grimoire. We need a Street Grimoire 2.0. Are we more likely to see that or get a 6e version? It doesn't matter as long is the end result replaces the one we have.
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For what it's worth, we could drop some unofficial things out there, but, well, unofficial. They'd be about a sbinding as if the boards, here, got together and hashed out an errata doc of their own. WIthout that stamp from on high, it doesn't mean anything. Freelancers are wordprocesssors-for-hire, not actual company people. We gots no authority, nor should we. It's the height of hubris to stroll in here and give Official Errata to something that, say, I hacked out over an hour long typefest. That can get you on the hook *so* fast. I can point out an error in a chart, I can try to explain how something was intended, I can give me viewpoints on stuff, but they're all, you know, just *me*, not the guys upstairs.
Until they move, no one else can go official.
It's kinda like a football game. You're at home and watch the ref blow a call. The players (that'd be freelancers) in this can argue about it until they're blue in teh face, and lord knows teh fans in the bar are gonna go ballistic, but the refs are where it begins and ends. (And, for the record, they get it right 98% of teh time. It's when they get it wrong that people go crazy. Same thing here. Rigger 5 has the correct numbers in almost every place, art is aligned to vehicles, names are correct, details bout the vehicle are in the right place, etc, but a couple entries are shifted by one column. That isn't a "landslide of failure", but it *is* a mistake and one that needs fixin'. Point out mistakes, demand a higher standard, but keep some perspective too, that's all I ask.)
Love you guys, love the game, and again, I don't take this stuff personal. There are more of us listening than talking, so when you find errors, keep letting us know! This stuff's important.
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How do we community errata something like the weakness of drones when it has already been band-aided with armor upgrades? Do we as a community say "That's not enough Catalyst , we think it Drone armor should be hardened" That's great for a house rule in our games but doesn't help with RunnerHub or Missions.
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Wakshaani, I'm sure we all appreciate anything and everything you writers can tells us about fixes unofficial as they may be. I certainly do.
My problem is that CGL has a highly effective errata reporting and documenting system in place right now that has been functioning for several years now. As I understand it about 90% of the work is done by volunteers. They also have a highly effective rules forum where players can ask and usually (not always) receive a timely, official answer to how a vague or contradictory rule actually works. Again this is mostly done by volunteers. All the decision making is still done by the devs, the volunteers primarily act as something like file clerks and go betweens. A little cross team communication with the Battletech folks and they could have the same system up and working in a couple weeks if they wanted to. The only real challenging part should be making the necessary changes to the boards to accomodate the system.
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My only real complaints remaining about 5e so far are the following:
Priority Generation being primary (in Core) with no true Build Point (Karma Generation is not Point Buy no matter what you label it)
"Fluffy Bits" overload in Rules Supplements
No 'ground up' creation rules for weapons, vehicles and 'decks. (was a problem in 4 and 4A as well)
Modification rules lack the depth even of the previous edition's version
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Sample with a full team with all main type of characters... may be as separate pdf...
How to destroy a gmc bullvan
How to open a door
How to copy Securised datas
How to kill de spirit
How to jump to the next roof
How to detect the snake in the corner
Seeing if IAs, decker and technos have with the same cost the same (karma, nuyens, fading) chance with different tricks
Seeing if gunslinger and mage have with the same cost the same (karma, nuyens, fading) chance with different tricks
Seeing if technos and mage have with the same cost (karma, nuyens, fading) the same chance with different tricks (and make the mage cannot do thing that are matrix revealant or please upgrade capacities of technos...)
Seeing if adept and streetsam have with the same cost (karma, nuyens, fading?) the same chance with different tricks
Seeing if rigger, dronomancers and critter trainer/master have with the same cost (karma, nuyens, fading) the same chance with different tricks
and so on
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I also would like to add my wishlist. I don't add it because I think 5e is broken by any means but because I am 100% sure there will be a 6th edition sooner or later as it is just a economic reasonable step to take and you can't add to one rule system forever and rules just sell better than fluff books. It could be soon from now it could be far from now and I don't want to speculate about that but I know there are many people working for CGL beeing active in the forum and therefore I hope to reach some of them which will carry into the 6th edition:
- Please don't copy and paste anymore. Write the book from scratch. Don't get me wrong, this does not mean the rules and the system or the fluff has to be changed but the amount of errors and unclearness from copy left overs fromt he 4th edition is pretty high and subtle changes always lead to discussion and stuff like indirect area spells/grenades and direct melee spells are just unecessary more complicate than they need to be.
- Streamline and if you do, do it right. And again, do not get me wrong, I don't mean that 5th edition is not streamlined in some ways or everything was done wrong there. What I want to say is, that for examples if TMs rely on mechanisms similar to those of mages, then I think it can't be good that there are subtle and fine differences like the -2 concentration penalty one has and the other has not. From a balance point of view neither would be broken if it would be the same as the other but such subtle differences always create rule discussions and are a pain in the ass
- Rethink structure. For everything that is not a campaign book where the rules are meant to be only read by the GM please, please, please if something comes up in one chapter, keep all the rules there. The worst example for this is street magic where the texts and rules for adept ways are distributed over 3! chapters. It would have been so much better if there would have been one (sub-)chapter "adept ways" and then everything about ways would be there
- Please spread responsibilities more. I get that every good project needs this one person making final calls and that is important and great but I wished that freelancers which invest a lot of time writing some rule chapters and think those stuff through also should be the person responsible for those rules. It is a bit sad how often freelancers write here or there what they had in mind and very often that would have been a better idea than what made it into the rulebook. Trust your freelancers more. You pay them for a job and if they don't deliver it might be better to look for different writers (or really make them read and understand the rules until they deliver the quality you want them to deliver) but those you trust, trust them more.
- Be more honest and clear to your customers. If there is no errata/faq planned anymore, then don't simply stop talking about it. Most people here know, that beeing a RPG-author does not pay that well and that shadowrun is not the only project Jason M. Hardy is responsible for and that customer support is really hard to monetize. If there is no way to maintain an official errata/faq just admit it. It could be no one wants to pay for it or no one wants to do it because it might be a boring job and that is fine. We don't have a right to get any of these, but I am always saddened if we as customers are left in the unclear for something like that and if those stuff stays unclear for years it becomes horrible. A good example are the missions FAQs which contain a lot of unofficial rulings and corrections, many of them which might possibly come or not come as some sort of errata but the fact people have to discuss how "official" or "unofficial" the missions FAQ rulings are outside of the missions is makes me sad, as the only reason people want some of those to be official is because there is no other document to rely on.
- Less mechanisms. Shadowrun has a really solid and diverse set of possible tests. We have success tests, we have extended tests, teamwork tests, opposed trests and thresholds/intervals. Use them more often and think twice before you want to add a new rule. If it could be done with one of those that is almost always a better decision.
- If realism clearly can not be achieved, don't try to force it. In shadowrun almost everything is possible. We got magic, augmentations, artifacts and crazy stuff like metaplanar stuff. If something like the speed table just looks really stupid on the first look because the attribute can raise faster than the real speed is intented to, it might be better to not give numbers for those as well.
- Work together as a team. Too often it looks like the one hand does not know what the other does, especially when we look at pdf's vs books, or german vs english versions or an earlier chapter vs a later chapter. For example some people here complain that some players refer to german rulebooks and that they are "different" than english rules. I really wished this thinking would stop some day, but for that it would be necessary that the major publishers are really visibly working together. I as a person not involved in the process obviously can not know how it really is, but I wished shadowrun was considered a single game with a single version and that would require a clear working together between both companies. And the same is true for only the CGL team as well (earlier chapters vs later chapters or pdf authors vs book authors).
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I'd be happy with a revised 5e set of books with everything rebalanced and revised but 6e is probably more profitable.
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Seeing if IAs, decker and technos have with the same cost the same (karma, nuyens, fading) chance with different tricks
Seeing if gunslinger and mage have with the same cost the same (karma, nuyens, fading) chance with different tricks
Seeing if technos and mage have with the same cost (karma, nuyens, fading) the same chance with different tricks (and make the mage cannot do thing that are matrix revealant or please upgrade capacities of technos...)
Seeing if adept and streetsam have with the same cost (karma, nuyens, fading?) the same chance with different tricks
Seeing if rigger, dronomancers and critter trainer/master have with the same cost (karma, nuyens, fading) the same chance with different tricks
and so on
Are you seriously asking for SR to become bland and boring with all the character types being just dull reskins of everything else? That's what this really looks like because that's the only way what you ask for can be done.
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@MijRai you may not have been, but there have in the past been plenty of insults thrown at freelancers, line producers and others at CGL.
You are downplaying the whole factions within factions aspect of the grand soap opera that Shadowrun has become.
I wish for 6e to scrap the current game system and fluff and hit the biggest reset button in RPG history.
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I wish for 6e to scrap the current game system and fluff and hit the biggest reset button in RPG history.
The system is fine. The "fluff" could definitely use a reset though. One doesn't need massive amounts of "fluff" which clogs and takes up needed space in the rules sources, and one doesn't need the fine details of the setting spoon fed to them, just the general broad strokes.
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The system is fine. The "fluff" could definitely use a reset though. One doesn't need massive amounts of "fluff" which clogs and takes up needed space in the rules sources, and one doesn't need the fine details of the setting spoon fed to them, just the general broad strokes.
I find the system has too many holdovers from previous editions, making for clunky mismanaged mechanics
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Shadowrun should never have it's fluff reset. Then we'd end up with the new World of Darkness, where they bring over the themes with none of the lore. SR's history is honestly what makes it great.
I also can't see any mechanics system that'd work well enough to simulate all the insane character options while making the choices feel meaningful other than what we already got.
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S'alright you are allowed to have a wrong opinion from time to time. 8)
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Shadowrun should never have it's fluff reset. Then we'd end up with the new World of Darkness, where they bring over the themes with none of the lore. SR's history is honestly what makes it great.
I also can't see any mechanics system that'd work well enough to simulate all the insane character options while making the choices feel meaningful other than what we already got.
Fully agree on the fluff. The fluff is what makes Shadowrun great, aside from (and on quite a few occasions, in spite of) the rules system. I would say, however, that switching to point buy, and getting rid of the escalating costs per rank, would allow people to make choices that are meaningful, and yet still be able to have noticable improvement in their characters over the life of an average game.
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Fuck, I'm old.
Not just in body, but as a "gamer". I remember when I first got into roleplaying games, it was the winter of 1981 and my first game system was the classic DnD basic "red Box" set. And surprisingly it was recommended to me by my 3rd grade teacher, through my parents, as a way to get my reading and math skills up. (And, if you think I have bad grammar now.... well just imagine! Read on.) And I have to say, it worked. I was hooked, learning to play these games required reading and understanding the rules, math as involved in figuring out if you succeeded or not.... by the end of the school year, I went from basically failing in both reading and math to very strong marks. By the end of 1983, I was a the top of my class (and lets be real here, this is grade 5... you still know shit for shit :P)
But for me, it was more then just the numbers on the page, and the words, it was the worlds that those numbers and words unlocked. The gleaming knights, and castles, the giant dragons and horrible trolls. IT was the fact that you got to be not only someone else, but the HERO! You name the game system from 1985 to 1990 and I either played it, read it, or owned it. From the transformable mecha of Robotech, to the mysteries of Dark Conspiracies , from the rules light Pathfinder: tales of Travel , to the rules intensive Spy Games .
And, naturally I right there when computers and the first RPG games where coming around (MUDs). Naturally I bought and played every single Gold and Silver Box SGI game ever made :P (And if you don't know what those are, you are NOT a true Gamer!!! :D) Only my accountant knows how much I spent on computer game RPG genre over the years..... $10,000? $30,000? All I know is I have shoe boxes filled with 5.25' floppies..... and they are all store bought games. And I have equal boxes of 3.5' floppies, and several boxes of CDs/DVD... and thanks to Steam, over 100 games in my library... (and thank God for the new return policy! or it would be much higher!)
But we are getting off track.....
Back then, when there was an error or a bug, regardless of the media, you had no recourse. If you bought the Gold Box Pools of Radiance and killed the wizard BEFORE the elemental, you got a corrupted hard dive (SERIOUSLY!!). There was no internet to get a "patch" from, there was no "mail in" option. All there was, was a article in a games magazine from an other publisher, that you had to buy, in order to find this out... Usually several months after the game was released.
If you read a rule in a book that didn't make sense, there was no internet, or email to ask the developers, there was no FAQ departments at all. You could write to them at their publishing house, and hope to get a response of course. Not that I ever got a single response from any of the developers I wrote questions to. Not FASA, not TSR, not SJG, not Palladium, not White Wolf, not GDW. Not even when I included a self addressed, postage paid envelope.
Nope, if you wanted answers, you turned to the 'experts' in magazines like Dragon and other war gaming journals for your answers. Heck, that is how many of these publications got their start! By publishing 'Unofficial' answers to the problems the communities where having. And as they gained subscribers, they gained pull with the gaming industry, going from 'Unofficial' answers to 'official' answers,, to even offering expanded and optional rules for various game systems. Again, if you are an 'older skool' gamer like me, you'll remember when Dragon used to publish all sorts of optional character classes and rules for AD&D....
And along comes the internet.... And shakes things up.
At first, it was just fan made sites hosting fan made content. Then the developers got in on it....
Finally, a low cost effective way for developers to offer up their own errata and fixes to problems without undue costs of completely printing their own magazines! Soon, every major developer that could afford to was online hosting their own forums (HI!! <waves>) and errata sections. Places where their customers could come and get a direct answer to their questions without the need or the expense of a middle man (gaming mag).
With emails, people could get their responses in days instead of months or weeks!!
And... It all went to hell in a handbasket.
The Developers were not ready for the influx that the new technology allowed, and its exponential growth meant they couldn't keep up. What went from a few dozen snail mail letters a month exploded into tens of thousands of emails a day! (Remember folks, we are talking the start here, not last week.....) Granted, many of these emails where 'junk' *thanks to the proliferation of spam mail in the early days. Something that gets filtered out almost automatically nowadays) but it also meant that their assumptions on manpower where dangerously off. instead of just one or two people answering questions, now they ended up with an entire department! (near the end days of TSR, they said their estimates where a department of 30 people to answer questions with a 72 hour turn around!).
What had looked like was going to be an "Epic Win" for customer satisfaction in war gaming, quickly turned into a sinking ship for many companies as the man power required to run their "Q and A" departments threatened to outstrip their budgets! Some companies tied the "paid Q and A" approach, arguing that the costs of such a service outstripped their monthly revenues. Not that that answer went over well... and the "Paid QnA" died out.
Some companies, have managed to find a model that worked for them for a time....
And along came Social Media......
And what can I say for THIS hot stinking shit pile of a mess? Well, I think it speaks volumes when the brightest and most creative minds of our generation are leaving Social Media in DROVES, leaving it to literally, the unwashed, uneducated masses..... (what's your share price NOW twitter??? Thank God I never bought stock)....
The rotting carcass that is social media is an other reason many companies are actually winding down their 'net interaction' behind automated responses and 'dead air'... They just can't win. No matter what they do, and what they say, it is never enough, and is always used against them in the end. Its a lesson companies have been slow to learn, but are quick to adopt. What, thanks to Social Media wonderful little 'trends" like Mizzou where they want to REVOKE freedom of speech and re-adopt SEGREGATION (you know, the very thing many people died to end back in the 50s and 60s, and something that is protected in the constitution.) or the Boaty McBoatface naming, or even just the public shaming of someone's life.... Social Media has proven to NOT be the friend of companies or even it's users....
FFS, just look at the first 5 pages of THIS thread! there are about a dozen posters, and TWO DOZEN different 'solutions' to the 'problem' !! Even among the small sample size of a single thread you can't reach a consensus....
I dare many of you guys who came here after the release of 5e to go back a few dozen pages and actually read some of the threads and posts... FROM DAY ONE of release, the writers, editors and developers have been attacked. Some attacked with consideration and honesty, pointing out small errors and omissions, but the vast majority just piled on shit and venom. And at first, we DID hear from the developers and editors.
And every time we DID hear from an editor or a developer... the venom and shite got flung faster and harder then before......
And now here we are, 3 years later.
Not an editor in sight on the forums.
Not a developer in sight on the forums.
Freelancers, once prolific on the forums, a rare find....
You want to know why? Might I suggest you look in the Mirror? If day in and day out you had dozens to hundreds of people saying "Fuck you! you Fucking suck! You're a fucking idiot! You can't do your job! You're a waste of space! You should be fired! You're a loser!!" How long until YOU quit responding?
IMO This Community is getting EXACTLY what it deserves. Silence...
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I hate build point. There are too many "trap" options. It's not easy for new players and it just requires too much math that it forces players to use a program like chummer or herolabs.
Really, I don't even understand the point of build point chargen. It's difficult to use, requires a lot of math, and isn't consistent with the game system. At least with priority it's quicker and simpler. And karma gen makes the most sense as it's just using the natural progression mechanics.
I really think core for SR6 needs less options. Stick with priority. Also use the gear packs instead of individual gear, like in Run Faster. Then in the gear book, have everything broken out into it's individual components for people that want something more granular for gear. Have the priority broken out into it's karma cost components for more granularity again for the advance character option book.
Then release all the expanded rule books, like magic, cyberware, the matrix, and rigging. Possibly break the magic book into two books, because there seems to be too much magic content in Street Grimoire.
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Well, DeathStrobe, it would be even simpler if they put in a class and level system, like in D&D. But 'simple' isn't always a good thing. There's a reason why only kids use lanes with the bumpers in them at the bowling alley, and why the 'special' and 'simple' kids aren't in the same class as everyone else at school.
Seriously, though, simple only works when you're doing a choice of A, B, or C, like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. When you start wanting to do things that aren't in those narrow options, you need complexity. And point buy provides that, without going into insane numbers of tables like, say, Heroes Unlimited, or FASERIP. A point buy type chargen process allows for flexibility, allowing people to play what they want, while still keeping them on an even keel (or at least making sure that anyone who tries to be too tough in one area will have glaring weaknesses in others). There's a reason why most systems that are designed for multigenre play have some form of point buy. In 4th edition, I could easily make an Elf Combat Mage, a Troll Samurai, a Human Hacker, an AI Face, and a Dwarf Rigger, and have them all be on about the same keel. I could go from simple concepts to crazy out there things.
When you keep things 'simple', it means that, in the end, it will be like World of Warcraft, where every high level Warrior is going to have about the same stats, about the same gear, about the same build, and about the same playstyle, because that's what it takes to 'win'. Complexity opens the door for new play styles, new paths to follow, and new ways of achieving objectives.
But you're right that in 4E point buy ran into a wall when it came to advancement, because of the cumbersome sacred cow that is karma and increasing costs per rank, that actively penalize people for improving the things they're good at. Which is why no other major system that includes a point based XP system works that way, because the designers understand that improving your character is part of the fun of the game, and taking 3-5 modules-worth of XP to initiate (and needing a whole lot more to actually raise your magic) puts a major damper on people's enthusiasm, which is part of the reason I've never seen a game go past 50 karma.
As for math? At least until you get into buying gear, there really isn't more than basic math, even in 4E's point buy. X rank x Y cost/per = Z cost. Add up the cost for the section (abilities, skills, etc.), and then subtract the sections from 400 to see how many points you have left. You LITERALLY had harder problems than this in your high school Algebra class.
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Increasing costs per skill rank isn't necessarily bad, but the usage of multipliers is. That's why I keep suggesting skills costing an amount of experience (can even still call it Karma) equal to the rank one is going to (example- Going from 5 ranks to 6 ranks would cost 6 Experience/Karma/whatever-you-call-it). Keeping the multiplier on attributes wouldn't be too bad, but by going to this cost scheme for skills, that multiplier could go to 4 instead of 5.
As for math? At least until you get into buying gear, there really isn't more than basic math, even in 4E's point buy. X rank x Y cost/per = Z cost. Add up the cost for the section (abilities, skills, etc.), and then subtract the sections from 400 to see how many points you have left. You LITERALLY had harder problems than this in your high school Algebra class.
Add to this the fact that with a good point-buy system, you can go ahead and get the gear you want FIRST to ensure you have what you need and get the part that takes the most time out of the way before getting into the rest.
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The WOW analogy is flawed as winning in Shadowrun can be done from a lot more angles. And it's not about creating the most munchkined character, it's about making concepts viable.
All those archetypes you listed can be done with priority. I've found with build points people either make characters that are good at a few things and straight up immune to aspects of the game, or hyper specialized and are only good at one thing at the cost of everything else. And technically there is nothing wrong with that, other than the immunity part. I hate how people cheese the Matrix.
The problem with progression in Shadowrun is the game does attempt to do some simulation work and that runner's start off REALLY powerful. Getting rating 12 in a skill is a big investment of karma and time. But if everyone was rocking 12 skill then what makes Street Legends and Elite Corp Forces special? The mechanics help reinforce the setting. Game mechanics wise, 1 dice isn't a big deal when you're already rolling 12+. But because the way SR is set up, that's kind of how it has to be. It's not like D&D where power levels have huge spikes every time you level. Its slow growth to help simulate the world. I'd also like character growth to be meaningful, but at the same time I also want bad asses to remain badasses. So I can live with the higher costs for the next rank. Because that makes it feel realistic.
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The PCs should be those in a setting (just not those named by the book authors) that reach that level of being Street Legend. Inordinately high costs of advancement prevents this.
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The PCs should be those in a setting (just not those named by the book authors) that reach that level of being Street Legend. Inordinately high costs of advancement prevents this.
Should PCs really be that though? Why isn't every Joe and Jane Wageslave rocking rating 12 skills? I don't like the idea of the rules being different for PCs and NPCs, I realize it happens a LOT, especially with the Matrix in this edition, but I don't like it. We'll just end up pushing the goal posts back and the skill cap be 24 or something. At some point, you just gotta stop with the dice inflation. Luckily with limits, there does come a point where getting extra dice literally do nothing for you.
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Should PCs really be that though? Why isn't every Joe and Jane Wageslave rocking rating 12 skills?
The PCs are supposed to be special and "a cut above the rest". The 'Joe and Jane Wageslave' types aren't.
At some point, you just gotta stop with the dice inflation.
No you don't, and this is the very idea that leads to these absolutely ludicrous costs put on advancement that causes people to not be able to really see any real and measurable advancement.
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My opinion, of course, is between the two of you. PCs shouldn't START OUT being Legends, that's just damn stupid. However, it should at least be POSSIBLE to make improvements to your character in a reasonable amount of time, and with the exploding karma costs, it most certainly is NOT.
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I will say that fast character advancement is low priority for me. It's pretty much always been that way that characters advance rather slowly karma-wise.
I do feel that NPCs and dragons got a huge boost to them to the point where many of the older modules just don't work anymore without a lot of GM revision.
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My opinion, of course, is between the two of you. PCs shouldn't START OUT being Legends, that's just damn stupid. However, it should at least be POSSIBLE to make improvements to your character in a reasonable amount of time, and with the exploding karma costs, it most certainly is NOT.
Start as Legends, no, but they should always be heads and shoulders above the typical Joe Schmo wageslave/security-guard/cop.
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My opinion, of course, is between the two of you. PCs shouldn't START OUT being Legends, that's just damn stupid. However, it should at least be POSSIBLE to make improvements to your character in a reasonable amount of time, and with the exploding karma costs, it most certainly is NOT.
Start as Legends, no, but they should always be heads and shoulders above the typical Joe Schmo wageslave/security-guard/cop.
Why not just lower the opposition's dice pools then?
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arent they already though?
I mean you come out of chargen head and shoulders above them....
and if you want a more powerful campaign then just start em at prime runner.
I'm not seeing a problem here...
whereas I do think dice pool inflation is a real problem.
Srun is barely manageable as it is what with tossing 10-20d6 per skill test....
My opinion, of course, is between the two of you. PCs shouldn't START OUT being Legends, that's just damn stupid. However, it should at least be POSSIBLE to make improvements to your character in a reasonable amount of time, and with the exploding karma costs, it most certainly is NOT.
Start as Legends, no, but they should always be heads and shoulders above the typical Joe Schmo wageslave/security-guard/cop.
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Not just in body, but as a "gamer". I remember when I first got into roleplaying games, it was the winter of 1981 and my first game system was the classic DnD basic "red Box" set. And surprisingly it was recommended to me by my 3rd grade teacher, through my parents, as a way to get my reading and math skills up. (And, if you think I have bad grammar now.... well just imagine! Read on.) And I have to say, it worked. I was hooked, learning to play these games required reading and understanding the rules, math as involved in figuring out if you succeeded or not.... by the end of the school year, I went from basically failing in both reading and math to very strong marks. By the end of 1983, I was a the top of my class (and lets be real here, this is grade 5... you still know shit for shit :P) ......
IMO This Community is getting EXACTLY what it deserves. Silence...
love this post! ;D
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You know i'm as old (mebbe older) as you Reaver and I started RPing in 1977.
I totally disagree with your conclusions below.
The world has changed and so must business.
I run a business that serves customers and there is no way that we would still be in business if we treated them the same way Catalyst does theirs (go read the thread on lost orders, plus of course shoddy product).
We would be roadkill if we ignored out customers, continued to output error-ridden products and made no attempt to engage with our customers beyond posting to our tumbler feed.
IMHO this could all be solved very simply by instituting a freelancer/ community based errata process and simply fixing their years-borked web-site.
This is stuff that takes very little money, just a slight shifting of priorities.
Move some of the $$ from color art and the reams and reams of overflufff into good rules design and a few hours a weeks of community errata management and they would be done.
Its really that easy imho.
Why they continue on the same path that is turning off their loyal playerbase is beyond me.
Fuck, I'm old.
Not just in body, but as a "gamer". I remember when I first got into roleplaying games, it was the winter of 1981 and my first game system was the classic DnD basic "red Box" set. And surprisingly it was recommended to me by my 3rd grade teacher, through my parents, as a way to get my reading and math skills up. (And, if you think I have bad grammar now.... well just imagine! Read on.) And I have to say, it worked. I was hooked, learning to play these games required reading and understanding the rules, math as involved in figuring out if you succeeded or not.... by the end of the school year, I went from basically failing in both reading and math to very strong marks. By the end of 1983, I was a the top of my class (and lets be real here, this is grade 5... you still know shit for shit :P)
But for me, it was more then just the numbers on the page, and the words, it was the worlds that those numbers and words unlocked. The gleaming knights, and castles, the giant dragons and horrible trolls. IT was the fact that you got to be not only someone else, but the HERO! You name the game system from 1985 to 1990 and I either played it, read it, or owned it. From the transformable mecha of Robotech, to the mysteries of Dark Conspiracies , from the rules light Pathfinder: tales of Travel , to the rules intensive Spy Games .
And, naturally I right there when computers and the first RPG games where coming around (MUDs). Naturally I bought and played every single Gold and Silver Box SGI game ever made :P (And if you don't know what those are, you are NOT a true Gamer!!! :D) Only my accountant knows how much I spent on computer game RPG genre over the years..... $10,000? $30,000? All I know is I have shoe boxes filled with 5.25' floppies..... and they are all store bought games. And I have equal boxes of 3.5' floppies, and several boxes of CDs/DVD... and thanks to Steam, over 100 games in my library... (and thank God for the new return policy! or it would be much higher!)
But we are getting off track.....
Back then, when there was an error or a bug, regardless of the media, you had no recourse. If you bought the Gold Box Pools of Radiance and killed the wizard BEFORE the elemental, you got a corrupted hard dive (SERIOUSLY!!). There was no internet to get a "patch" from, there was no "mail in" option. All there was, was a article in a games magazine from an other publisher, that you had to buy, in order to find this out... Usually several months after the game was released.
If you read a rule in a book that didn't make sense, there was no internet, or email to ask the developers, there was no FAQ departments at all. You could write to them at their publishing house, and hope to get a response of course. Not that I ever got a single response from any of the developers I wrote questions to. Not FASA, not TSR, not SJG, not Palladium, not White Wolf, not GDW. Not even when I included a self addressed, postage paid envelope.
Nope, if you wanted answers, you turned to the 'experts' in magazines like Dragon and other war gaming journals for your answers. Heck, that is how many of these publications got their start! By publishing 'Unofficial' answers to the problems the communities where having. And as they gained subscribers, they gained pull with the gaming industry, going from 'Unofficial' answers to 'official' answers,, to even offering expanded and optional rules for various game systems. Again, if you are an 'older skool' gamer like me, you'll remember when Dragon used to publish all sorts of optional character classes and rules for AD&D....
And along comes the internet.... And shakes things up.
At first, it was just fan made sites hosting fan made content. Then the developers got in on it....
Finally, a low cost effective way for developers to offer up their own errata and fixes to problems without undue costs of completely printing their own magazines! Soon, every major developer that could afford to was online hosting their own forums (HI!! <waves>) and errata sections. Places where their customers could come and get a direct answer to their questions without the need or the expense of a middle man (gaming mag).
With emails, people could get their responses in days instead of months or weeks!!
And... It all went to hell in a handbasket.
The Developers were not ready for the influx that the new technology allowed, and its exponential growth meant they couldn't keep up. What went from a few dozen snail mail letters a month exploded into tens of thousands of emails a day! (Remember folks, we are talking the start here, not last week.....) Granted, many of these emails where 'junk' *thanks to the proliferation of spam mail in the early days. Something that gets filtered out almost automatically nowadays) but it also meant that their assumptions on manpower where dangerously off. instead of just one or two people answering questions, now they ended up with an entire department! (near the end days of TSR, they said their estimates where a department of 30 people to answer questions with a 72 hour turn around!).
What had looked like was going to be an "Epic Win" for customer satisfaction in war gaming, quickly turned into a sinking ship for many companies as the man power required to run their "Q and A" departments threatened to outstrip their budgets! Some companies tied the "paid Q and A" approach, arguing that the costs of such a service outstripped their monthly revenues. Not that that answer went over well... and the "Paid QnA" died out.
Some companies, have managed to find a model that worked for them for a time....
And along came Social Media......
And what can I say for THIS hot stinking shit pile of a mess? Well, I think it speaks volumes when the brightest and most creative minds of our generation are leaving Social Media in DROVES, leaving it to literally, the unwashed, uneducated masses..... (what's your share price NOW twitter??? Thank God I never bought stock)....
The rotting carcass that is social media is an other reason many companies are actually winding down their 'net interaction' behind automated responses and 'dead air'... They just can't win. No matter what they do, and what they say, it is never enough, and is always used against them in the end. Its a lesson companies have been slow to learn, but are quick to adopt. What, thanks to Social Media wonderful little 'trends" like Mizzou where they want to REVOKE freedom of speech and re-adopt SEGREGATION (you know, the very thing many people died to end back in the 50s and 60s, and something that is protected in the constitution.) or the Boaty McBoatface naming, or even just the public shaming of someone's life.... Social Media has proven to NOT be the friend of companies or even it's users....
FFS, just look at the first 5 pages of THIS thread! there are about a dozen posters, and TWO DOZEN different 'solutions' to the 'problem' !! Even among the small sample size of a single thread you can't reach a consensus....
I dare many of you guys who came here after the release of 5e to go back a few dozen pages and actually read some of the threads and posts... FROM DAY ONE of release, the writers, editors and developers have been attacked. Some attacked with consideration and honesty, pointing out small errors and omissions, but the vast majority just piled on shit and venom. And at first, we DID hear from the developers and editors.
And every time we DID hear from an editor or a developer... the venom and shite got flung faster and harder then before......
And now here we are, 3 years later.
Not an editor in sight on the forums.
Not a developer in sight on the forums.
Freelancers, once prolific on the forums, a rare find....
You want to know why? Might I suggest you look in the Mirror? If day in and day out you had dozens to hundreds of people saying "Fuck you! you Fucking suck! You're a fucking idiot! You can't do your job! You're a waste of space! You should be fired! You're a loser!!" How long until YOU quit responding?
IMO This Community is getting EXACTLY what it deserves. Silence...
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Seeing if IAs, decker and technos have with the same cost the same (karma, nuyens, fading) chance with different tricks
Seeing if gunslinger and mage have with the same cost the same (karma, nuyens, fading) chance with different tricks
Seeing if technos and mage have with the same cost (karma, nuyens, fading) the same chance with different tricks (and make the mage cannot do thing that are matrix revealant or please upgrade capacities of technos...)
Seeing if adept and streetsam have with the same cost (karma, nuyens, fading?) the same chance with different tricks
Seeing if rigger, dronomancers and critter trainer/master have with the same cost (karma, nuyens, fading) the same chance with different tricks
and so on
Are you seriously asking for SR to become bland and boring with all the character types being just dull reskins of everything else? That's what this really looks like because that's the only way what you ask for can be done.
I just want to have viable concepts.
And compatible with there fluff.
In SR5 it's seems they forgot some playtest.
I don't want to have every concept able to do everything but i want to have concept that are able to do what they need to do...
You know i'm as old (mebbe older) as you Reaver and I started RPing in 1977.
I totally disagree with your conclusions below.
[...]
Move some of the $$ from color art and the reams and reams of overflufff into good rules design and a few hours a weeks of community errata management and they would be done.
Its really that easy imho.
Why they continue on the same path that is turning off their loyal playerbase is beyond me.
[...]
Thanks to both of you.
Really.
We had ideas on this forum that can be used as base or already built solution.