Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Image Miroir on <07-14-18/1822:15>
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I think many know it'll be Shadowrun 30th birthday in 2019, so do you think we'll have a 30th Anniversary Edition or... a 6th Edition?
I think the only bad option would be nothing!
If it's to fix minor problems (and remaining errata) maybe an Anniversary Edition would be enough. The 5th edition exists for 6 years now and for a dense game like Shadowrun, it might be a bit too short. Even if it was up to now the standard lapse between two editions.
I admit a 6th Edition of the Sixth World would be appealing. I only hope, after 30 years, that the compatibility won't be the dominant criterium for new rules design. Maybe something that would be playable with less dice...
Anyway, what would be interesting to have in any case is a playtest PDF to have a glimpse and eventually contribute.
But what do you think would be better in 2019 for Shadowrun?
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Anything, but what they did with 7th Sea 2e and Vampire 5e. I don't want a totally different game than Shadowrun is right now, I'm content with it being the game it is, yes with all the dices and crunchiness (but I'm happy for anarchy to exist for people who like that style).
I'd be happy with a 30th anniversary, with some cleanup of the rules, to be honest. Maybe a big, comprehensive 6th World setting book.
That, or a real-life Lofwyr plushie...
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A reasonable guess would be that Missions Seasons 9-12 will play out in 5E, which would carry through 2022
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SR1 released in 1989, lasted 3 years.
SR2 released in 1992, lasted 6 years.
SR3 released in 1998, lasted 7 years.
SR4 released in 2005, lasted 8 years.
SR5 released in 2013, lasted 5 years and counting ...
I hope we get another 4 years out of fifth edition, at least.
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SR1 released in 1989, lasted 3 years.
SR2 released in 1992, lasted 6 years.
SR3 released in 1998, lasted 7 years.
SR4 released in 2005, lasted 8 years.
SR5 released in 2013, lasted 5 years and counting ...
I hope we get another 4 years out of fifth edition, at least.
To be fair, 2e was basically just a streamlining of 1e, not much changed other then the floating thresholds for upscaling, and a couple of matrix tweaks.
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So 2022 for SR6, 2032 for SR7, 2043 for SR8, 2055 for SR9... :P
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So 2022 for SR6, 2032 for SR7, 2043 for SR8, 2055 for SR9... :P
A reasonable guess would be that Missions Seasons 9-12 will play out in 5E, which would carry through 2022
That's through 2022. So 2023 for SR6, 2033 for SR7, 2044 for SR8, 2056 for SR9.
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I hope we get another 4 years out of fifth edition, at least.
If it unfucks the Matrix and gets TMs out of the cell with Bubba the Love Troll, I'm good with 6E dropping YESTERDAY.
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Pretty sure that there is NO 6e on the immediate horizon. I wouldn't be surprised if there were plans for the 30th anniversary, but nothing that I'm in the loop on.
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Pretty sure that there is NO 6e on the immediate horizon. I wouldn't be surprised if there were plans for the 30th anniversary, but nothing that I'm in the loop on.
Oh please, we all know the truyh AJ... But since You won't, I'll spill the beans.
Yes, there is an updated 5e printing on the way for the 30th anni.
Since the "Bronie" cover was such hit with people scowering everywhere for a copy, they decided to fo the same thing again.
However, there is a licensing issue, as the Ponies are owned a different company. Appenrently it will be a bovine themed to keep a "pony like shape"....
The tag line with be:
SHADOWRUN: where magic, meets machine in Moo-derous fun!
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;D
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Why must you all make me feel old?
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Why must you all make me feel old?
Because you are????
But, i am right there with you....
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Just tell those kids to get off your Lawn and get over with.
As someone who loved the 4th edition Anniversary edition I welcome or 5th edition equivalent, and with any luck, Firebug will have all the errate fixed in time for it.
Maybe they can incorporate whatever fixes come out of kill code into it as well.
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However, there is a licensing issue, as the Ponies are owned a different company. Appenrently it will be a bovine themed to keep a "pony like shape"....
The tag line with be:
SHADOWRUN: where magic, meets machine in Moo-derous fun!
As long as the rules are compatible with CattleTech...
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However, there is a licensing issue, as the Ponies are owned a different company. Appenrently it will be a bovine themed to keep a "pony like shape"....
The tag line with be:
SHADOWRUN: where magic, meets machine in Moo-derous fun!
As long as the rules are compatible with CattleTech...
You mean the game of Giant Stompy Cows?
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However, there is a licensing issue, as the Ponies are owned a different company. Appenrently it will be a bovine themed to keep a "pony like shape"....
The tag line with be:
SHADOWRUN: where magic, meets machine in Moo-derous fun!
As long as the rules are compatible with CattleTech...
...I believe we recently ran into that on a farm outside of Columbus OH. The bunnies there were literally "dynamite".
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I hope we get another 4 years out of fifth edition, at least.
If it unfucks the Matrix and gets TMs out of the cell with Bubba the Love Troll, I'm good with 6E dropping YESTERDAY.
Which can be done with Kill Code (although I have a baaaad feeling about that one ::)) and a relentless balancing fix to the core rules, though. If it´s not just 20% of the latest errata and some pictures swapped, but an actual update to the rules, I´d love to see a 5E.
(Oh, and an update to the Archetypes would be fine!)
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I'd prefer a 6E I think. There are so many mechanical problems with it its past the point I want to house rule it. No guarantee they would do better in a 6E, but I have a hard time running 5e without ignoring swaths of it. Not a fan of the mechanics of Anarchy either, though at least its supposed to be more narrative so its rules are designed to be ignored more.
Edit to add, I kind of think they need a reboot of the setting. a lot of recent products kind of go too far in tech/magic.
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I hope we get another 4 years out of fifth edition, at least.
If it unfucks the Matrix and gets TMs out of the cell with Bubba the Love Troll, I'm good with 6E dropping YESTERDAY.
Which can be done with Kill Code (although I have a baaaad feeling about that one ::))
I think the title has a meaning... and not the one people think.
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I hope we get another 4 years out of fifth edition, at least.
If it unfucks the Matrix and gets TMs out of the cell with Bubba the Love Troll, I'm good with 6E dropping YESTERDAY.
Unlikely. No edition of shadowrun has ever succeeded at unfucking the matrix. And it's been one of the stated major design goals of at least one. ;D
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I think the title has a meaning... and not the one people think.
Yeah I had been considering that issue. Kill Code. For me I learned Kill Code as an added line into looped code structure in case you screwed up loop conditions and turned out to be infinite.
But I suspect that its not what they intend.
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I hope we get another 4 years out of fifth edition, at least.
If it unfucks the Matrix and gets TMs out of the cell with Bubba the Love Troll, I'm good with 6E dropping YESTERDAY.
Unlikely. No edition of shadowrun has ever succeeded at unfucking the matrix. And it's been one of the stated major design goals of at least one. ;D
Admittedly, I've only played 4th and 5th, but I didn't think the matrix in 4th was all that bad. Certainly no worse than the astral for mages and spirits. There were issues, of course, but they were nowhere near the level of clusterfrag the 5e matrix was. Hell, the main concern of Hackers vs Technos was how TMs could get high-rating programs through threading, but most of those arguments were done in what I like to call 'arena-style' instead of 'campaign-style' builds. In other words, like those D&D arena fights where you take two builds that are uber-optimized for a single battle, and let them loose, as opposed to characters that are viable for a full campaign, when the down-side of taking Fading and Matrix damage directly to your brain becomes more pronounced.
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I hope we get another 4 years out of fifth edition, at least.
If it unfucks the Matrix and gets TMs out of the cell with Bubba the Love Troll, I'm good with 6E dropping YESTERDAY.
Unlikely. No edition of shadowrun has ever succeeded at unfucking the matrix. And it's been one of the stated major design goals of at least one. ;D
Admittedly, I've only played 4th and 5th, but I didn't think the matrix in 4th was all that bad. Certainly no worse than the astral for mages and spirits. There were issues, of course, but they were nowhere near the level of clusterfrag the 5e matrix was. Hell, the main concern of Hackers vs Technos was how TMs could get high-rating programs through threading, but most of those arguments were done in what I like to call 'arena-style' instead of 'campaign-style' builds. In other words, like those D&D arena fights where you take two builds that are uber-optimized for a single battle, and let them loose, as opposed to characters that are viable for a full campaign, when the down-side of taking Fading and Matrix damage directly to your brain becomes more pronounced.
Its a matter of perspective really.
The matrix from 4 to 5 is worse for some options, that is very true.
The matrix from 1-3 to 5 is a massive improvement by all measures!
I have talked about this before, so I won't repeat myself. But if you want to understand the difference, get your hands on an old 3e CRB and read up. Just have a dustbin close by to catch exploded grey matter...
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Hopefully the next edition fixes alot of the problems with the game... i spent a month learning the rules, played the game with my group and they all were so frustrated with the combat and learning the rules that we all just moved the game over to hero system and used the shadowrun books as lore and econamy and equiptment and critter guide...
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Its a matter of perspective really.
The matrix from 4 to 5 is worse for some options, that is very true.
The matrix from 1-3 to 5 is a massive improvement by all measures!
I have talked about this before, so I won't repeat myself. But if you want to understand the difference, get your hands on an old 3e CRB and read up. Just have a dustbin close by to catch exploded grey matter...
Ssssssh... Making sense is forbidden around here!
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Hopefully the next edition fixes alot of the problems with the game... i spent a month learning the rules, played the game with my group and they all were so frustrated with the combat and learning the rules that we all just moved the game over to hero system and used the shadowrun books as lore and econamy and equiptment and critter guide...
Despite the wishful thinking of several folks in this thread, 5th is here to stay, and will be with us for a good while to come.
If you swapped to heroes thinking you would avoid complexity you made a mistake lol.
Pools and limits are easy, just take the time get used to it. You will get used to formules very quickly. 5th SR is reasonably intuitive once you understand the logic of the system.
Compared the static and combat dominating nature of the heroes speed chart SR, is much more dynamic. At least everyone will get to go before your fastest player goes 3 more times lol.
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Compared the static and combat dominating nature of the heroes speed chart SR, is much more dynamic. At least everyone will get to go before your fastest player goes 3 more times lol.
Speed 8 ftw, man.
2-3, 5-6, 8-9, 11-12
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Despite the wishful thinking of several folks in this thread, 5th is here to stay, and will be with us for a good while to come.
I give it another year, maybe two. That puts it right in line with most editions of the game for 'length of service'.
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Hopefully the next edition fixes alot of the problems with the game... i spent a month learning the rules, played the game with my group and they all were so frustrated with the combat and learning the rules that we all just moved the game over to hero system and used the shadowrun books as lore and econamy and equiptment and critter guide...
Good for you!
As long as you are having fun, that is all that matters. And at least you can say you actually gave them a try.
Me, I'm still holding out hope for an edition of Shadowrun that is worth spending money on. I've not paid into a franchise that had such a bad track record over multiple editions before. I'm hoping 6th will fix that, whether is comes this year or five from now.
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I hope we get another 4 years out of fifth edition, at least.
If it unfucks the Matrix and gets TMs out of the cell with Bubba the Love Troll, I'm good with 6E dropping YESTERDAY.
Unlikely. No edition of shadowrun has ever succeeded at unfucking the matrix. And it's been one of the stated major design goals of at least one. ;D
Admittedly, I've only played 4th and 5th, but I didn't think the matrix in 4th was all that bad. Certainly no worse than the astral for mages and spirits. There were issues, of course, but they were nowhere near the level of clusterfrag the 5e matrix was. Hell, the main concern of Hackers vs Technos was how TMs could get high-rating programs through threading, but most of those arguments were done in what I like to call 'arena-style' instead of 'campaign-style' builds. In other words, like those D&D arena fights where you take two builds that are uber-optimized for a single battle, and let them loose, as opposed to characters that are viable for a full campaign, when the down-side of taking Fading and Matrix damage directly to your brain becomes more pronounced.
Its a matter of perspective really.
The matrix from 4 to 5 is worse for some options, that is very true.
The matrix from 1-3 to 5 is a massive improvement by all measures!
I have talked about this before, so I won't repeat myself. But if you want to understand the difference, get your hands on an old 3e CRB and read up. Just have a dustbin close by to catch exploded grey matter...
And it's not just the old Matrix. I became acquainted with SR maybe three years from now and we started with 3e, because the old-timers of the group knew that. We hopefully transitioning at least to 5e, but it's a slow process, because of time isues and people. Don't get me wrong, I love 3e for many reasons. The history part at the beginning got me to love SR in no time. I think the metatype writeups were the best. In general, the writing was good. I love gritty b&w artworks in books.
That said, it set a new standard for totally-unnecessarily overcomplicated clusterfrag of rules for me. :D We still have to look up how damage and armor works and I'm the only plpayer in the group who didn't play it prior to this campaign...
Compared to that, 5e is a breeze. Yeah, it's crunchy, but I'm okay with it.
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Good for you!
As long as you are having fun, that is all that matters. And at least you can say you actually gave them a try.
Me, I'm still holding out hope for an edition of Shadowrun that is worth spending money on. I've not paid into a franchise that had such a bad track record over multiple editions before. I'm hoping 6th will fix that, whether is comes this year or five from now.
If that is really your opinion on SR, why exactly are you on this board? There are games that have a bad track record, but SR is not one of them, just FYI.
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Speed 8 ftw, man.
2-3, 5-6, 8-9, 11-12
Yeah pretty much. I love Heroes system don't get me wrong, Steve Long has contributed so much the industry and the gaming conversation in general. But lets not pretend there aren't issues even the most well intended attempts at things. It's the only system where I accept use of character gen software as a better idea then just doing by hand. Players and fractions are not good friends. lol
I give it another year, maybe two. That puts it right in line with most editions of the game for 'length of service'.
I expect we will see play testing start in a couple years, that's working as intended. D&D 6th Play testing will kick off around there i expect as well.
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Hopefully the next edition fixes alot of the problems with the game... i spent a month learning the rules, played the game with my group and they all were so frustrated with the combat and learning the rules that we all just moved the game over to hero system and used the shadowrun books as lore and econamy and equiptment and critter guide...
Despite the wishful thinking of several folks in this thread, 5th is here to stay, and will be with us for a good while to come.
If you swapped to heroes thinking you would avoid complexity you made a mistake lol.
Pools and limits are easy, just take the time get used to it. You will get used to formules very quickly. 5th SR is reasonably intuitive once you understand the logic of the system.
Compared the static and combat dominating nature of the heroes speed chart SR, is much more dynamic. At least everyone will get to go before your fastest player goes 3 more times lol.
HeroSystem may be complicated but I KNOW hero, like the back of my hand, I am so proficient with it i can create entire character sheets on the fly with zero hesitation.
But the big thing is its not the complexity that drove my players away from shadowrun, They just werent having fun, The Opposed die rolls were hell and so the GM was rolling as much if not more than the players ( My table hates opposed die rolls like in gurps ) and combat was so slow and plotting cause of it, and everyone had so much health that we felt like the slow pace of combat was made even longer... when you gotta shoot a guy 10 times to kill him and you have to do opposed die rolls every time and it just made the combat not flow very well.
So by the end of a single encounter my players were feeling drained... none of them wanted to do anything cool or exciting cause they basically had to punch a random thug over and over again just to knock em unconscious which was just an endever with the opposing checks.
The players prefer a faster more dicey type of combat, so bullets are scary and combat is fast and franetic and bombastic, plus hero system martial maneuvers are fun and exciting, so you are suplexing people and charging them and throwing them through tables and it all feels intuitive and fast paced.
But in the end it just came down to that when my players played SR they didnt have fun.. I wanted them too, i did all my usual descriptions and flourishes and passion but it wasnt working for us.
( Also shadowrun really needs a hitlock or a wounding chart for losing limbs and extremities, the game would be much more fun if people were being blasted accross the room with knock back and having eyes and ears blown off, for being an old school gragnard system that cares about everything from wind pressure to chunky salsa grenade rules it really doesnt spend alot of time on the wizbangs alot of players actually like in systems like this )
I potentially could have rebalenced shadowrun to be more dicey punchy and frantic cause honest to god I do love the character creation system, i could do that ALL day, making characters in shadowrun is more fun than any other system, but hero just felt comfortable for us and had already built in all the stuff i wanted from the game.
( Also about the speed charts i literally just house rule they only apply for bosses and villains so all players have the same speed and sometimes a super sonic monster will show up and zip around but its an easy fix )
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What i hope for in a new version is that they take a hint from 5e and streamline alot of this stuff.
Hopefully the next edition fixes alot of the problems with the game... i spent a month learning the rules, played the game with my group and they all were so frustrated with the combat and learning the rules that we all just moved the game over to hero system and used the shadowrun books as lore and econamy and equiptment and critter guide...
Good for you!
As long as you are having fun, that is all that matters. And at least you can say you actually gave them a try.
Me, I'm still holding out hope for an edition of Shadowrun that is worth spending money on. I've not paid into a franchise that had such a bad track record over multiple editions before. I'm hoping 6th will fix that, whether is comes this year or five from now.
My hope from a 6th edition would be that they take hints from D&D 5e's success and streamline alot of the chunkier parts of shadowrun and add in some more wizbangs and optional rules to farther customize your game.
Oh and i hope they go back to the retro futurism of the 1980s aesthetic in the original ( Pink Mohawks all the way )
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Ugh, no. I hate, hate, HATE D&D 5e for how it basically put training wheels on everything and never takes them off. Give me 3.X any day.
Same with Shadowrun. Give me 4e over 5e any day. I LIKE the complexity and the options for customization. In 4e, archetypes were essentially guidelines, and you had a wide variety in how you went about things. It was possible to be more than one role, which was good for groups that didn't have 5-7 people needed to cover basic roles. In 5e, the Priority system, return of cyberdecks and other such things make for de facto class structures you have to abide by.
Go back to Point Buy, and kill off the karma system of exploding costs in favor of a fixed cost per rank. And the 'simplified' weapon and vehicle customization rules can die in a fire, preferably one used to reforge the 4e customization rules.
But seriously, the reason for D&D 5e's 'success' is that it wasn't D&D 4e, which was a radical and complete departure from D&D as people knew it, and rightly panned as the WoW edition. Well balanced combat system, but it was actively craptacular at everything else. Being better than D&D 4e was so low a bar that the most unethical politician could still have higher standards.
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Ugh, no. I hate, hate, HATE D&D 5e for how it basically put training wheels on everything and never takes them off. Give me 3.X any day.
Same with Shadowrun. Give me 4e over 5e any day. I LIKE the complexity and the options for customization. In 4e, archetypes were essentially guidelines, and you had a wide variety in how you went about things. It was possible to be more than one role, which was good for groups that didn't have 5-7 people needed to cover basic roles. In 5e, the Priority system, return of cyberdecks and other such things make for de facto class structures you have to abide by.
Go back to Point Buy, and kill off the karma system of exploding costs in favor of a fixed cost per rank. And the 'simplified' weapon and vehicle customization rules can die in a fire, preferably one used to reforge the 4e customization rules.
But seriously, the reason for D&D 5e's 'success' is that it wasn't D&D 4e, which was a radical and complete departure from D&D as people knew it, and rightly panned as the WoW edition. Well balanced combat system, but it was actively craptacular at everything else. Being better than D&D 4e was so low a bar that the most unethical politician could still have higher standards.
I disagree, Once you get into 5e and explore its system a bit more intimately it is faster and more punchy than 3.X games, the changes were a giant step toward making the game more slick and efficient.
Plus the game is very customization, with its core classes it is able to simulate any character concept with a its archetypes system, what 3.X systems need to create 400 new classes for 5e has managed to do with only 10 classes, a rogue can be a charming thief of a fearless acrobat with the right tweaks and no need to invent a whole thief and acrobat class.
Plus the book is full of optional rules that help customize your game even farther and take those training wheels off, the extreme damage rules and such can make for some very lethal and dangerous situations in which id argue that pathfinder baby-sits the players and makes them feel too safe with its dieing mechanic verses 5e's death saves.
And this is the opinion of a table top veteran of 15 years playing every system under the sun no matter how complicated or overwhelming they may seem. Sometimes it takes experience to see the value in a more streamlined and elegantly made system. And it never hurts to have a change of pace, systems like savage worlds are incredibly floppy and loose on rules vs something like shadowrun or herosystem but I play a little bit of everything based on what i am feeling at the time.
what i dislike about 3.X systems are things like the gear treadmill.
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D&D 5E has it's charms. Simple and easy to set up. Fast moving. The Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic is really flexible, so you don't need to know a million different situational modifiers.
But what I really like about 5E over 3.X (I still play both, mind you) is that it shrunk the numbers. When a character levels up, they are rewarded with greater versatility rather than just bigger numbers, which is more tactically interesting and fun to play. Like, if I'm a martial character, I get more options in a turn than just hit a guy with my strongest weapon. And the target numbers, AC and attack bonus, don't really change by much than a factor of 5 from level 1 to 20. Thst always feels more real to me. I never liked how in 3.X, a guy no more than 5 levels below you doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of even touching you. Whereas in 5E, I've beaten guys way above my level through clever strategy and a lot of luck.
5E is beautiful in its simplicity and there are actually plenty of optional rules out there to increase the complexity of you so desire it. It is a well made game, but obviously it's not for everybody. And some may take this as a point of derision, but I think it's a compliment. It's a great game for kids and noobs. If I wanna play with my little cousins, nieces and nephews, friends that are new to the hobby, or with my dad that hasn't played D&D since 2nd Edition, I can do that. I can do it very easily, with little time explaining the mechanics.
3.X is more fun to build a unique character, tweak and customize it to your heart's content. But when it comes time to actually play the game, 5E takes it for me.
There is a place in this community for everything. Your mechanical behemoths like Shadowrun and your straightforward storytelling games like D&D 5. I play and appreciate both.
Way off topic, sorry y'all. I just think 5E is unfairly derided sometimes.
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I agree with you on both cases.
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Sadly, DnD 4e killed the franchise for me. My group moved away from 4e right after Paizo released Pathfinder, and that's what we moved to. I've seen the 5e books, but I have no interest in even opening one of them due to how they totally fucked 4e....
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when you gotta shoot a guy 10 times to kill him and you have to do opposed die rolls every time and it just made the combat not flow very well.
You guys are doing something wrong. Are you rolling for damage or something? Shadowrun combat compared to heroes is 9 time out of 10 more lethal and much faster. If you shot someone ten times in SR you have missed about the system. Heroes combat includes a lot of inherent and system dictated recovery. SR is fast and final, if that's not what your experiencing then you have made mistake in how you are executing it.
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D&D 5E has it's charms. Simple and easy to set up. Fast moving. The Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic is really flexible, so you don't need to know a million different situational modifiers.
But what I really like about 5E over 3.X (I still play both, mind you) is that it shrunk the numbers. When a character levels up, they are rewarded with greater versatility rather than just bigger numbers, which is more tactically interesting and fun to play. Like, if I'm a martial character, I get more options in a turn than just hit a guy with my strongest weapon. And the target numbers, AC and attack bonus, don't really change by much than a factor of 5 from level 1 to 20. Thst always feels more real to me. I never liked how in 3.X, a guy no more than 5 levels below you doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of even touching you. Whereas in 5E, I've beaten guys way above my level through clever strategy and a lot of luck.
5E is beautiful in its simplicity and there are actually plenty of optional rules out there to increase the complexity of you so desire it. It is a well made game, but obviously it's not for everybody. And some may take this as a point of derision, but I think it's a compliment. It's a great game for kids and noobs. If I wanna play with my little cousins, nieces and nephews, friends that are new to the hobby, or with my dad that hasn't played D&D since 2nd Edition, I can do that. I can do it very easily, with little time explaining the mechanics.
3.X is more fun to build a unique character, tweak and customize it to your heart's content. But when it comes time to actually play the game, 5E takes it for me.
There is a place in this community for everything. Your mechanical behemoths like Shadowrun and your straightforward storytelling games like D&D 5. I play and appreciate both.
Way off topic, sorry y'all. I just think 5E is unfairly derided sometimes.
I'd pretty much agree with this. I do/have played both systems, and as someone who can get waaaay into crunch/optimization if I want 3.X was a dream, where you could customize literally anything you want. The problems here are intimidating complexity that makes new players hesitant, the difficulty of scaling between new characters and experienced, optimized characters, and the sheer, massive piles of cheese that 3.X produced.
I find 5th to be an amazingly simple, easy to learn and direct system that's a fantastic system for first time tabletop players while still having a remarkable amount of depth for those of us that enjoy that. The benefit of the more limited scaling is that while there's certainly a difference between optimized and non-optimized characters it's not the orders upon orders of magnitude that could crop up in 3.X.
Sadly, DnD 4e killed the franchise for me. My group moved away from 4e right after Paizo released Pathfinder, and that's what we moved to. I've seen the 5e books, but I have no interest in even opening one of them due to how they totally fucked 4e....
I definitely get that, I walked away from D&D midway through 4th (I actually went and played Shadowrun pretty much exclusively for a few years ;D.) I was myself hesitant to try 5th after the disappointment of 4th, but I'd encourage you to give it a whirl sometime. IMO it preserves the better parts of 3rd while tamping down on the more ridiculous/out of control aspects of it, and repackages it on top of a remarkably simple and elegant system.
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Sadly, DnD 4e killed the franchise for me. My group moved away from 4e right after Paizo released Pathfinder, and that's what we moved to. I've seen the 5e books, but I have no interest in even opening one of them due to how they totally fucked 4e....
Same, Pathfinder became my go to for D&D for years. And I was really wary of 5e for about two years after it's launch, but a friend gave the core book as a gift. I decided to give it a shot and found it quite enjoyable.
It feels like a huge apology for 4e and if anything, reminds me of a super slick, refined 2e, along with a few lessons learned in 3.X.
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when you gotta shoot a guy 10 times to kill him and you have to do opposed die rolls every time and it just made the combat not flow very well.
You guys are doing something wrong. Are you rolling for damage or something? Shadowrun combat compared to heroes is 9 time out of 10 more lethal and much faster. If you shot someone ten times in SR you have missed about the system. Heroes combat includes a lot of inherent and system dictated recovery. SR is fast and final, if that's not what your experiencing then you have made mistake in how you are executing it.
He's exaggerating/referencing a specific fight wherein a guy rolled absurdly well on armor checks, over and over again. I'm in the same game as him.
The lethality and speed of Hero is dependent on a lot of things. Because it's much more of a toolkit than a full game, making it just as dicey as Shadowrun is pretty easy. Just restrict defensive powers and make the purchaseable armour less powerful than the guns and you're golden.
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4e broke plenty of rules, vansen spellcasting probably being the biggest. But it's the only serious attempt to making a remotely balanced version of D&D and character portal-able version of D&D, concept that D&D struggled with from day 1, and have been utterly ignored in 5th. I went back and watched Matthew Colville's making a fighter in every edition of D&D. To me looking at the progression D&D from tactical war game to modern RPG, 4th hit closest to home in terms of logic progression. It pulled concepts developed the in the MMO industry into the table top parlins, it codified a lot of concepts. Skill challenges, Power Sources, Monster Types (Lurkers, Brutes, Soldiers, Artillery), Defined named party Roles (Strikers, Tanks, Leaders, Controllers), it redefined the save vs Death Mechanic into an acceptable modern form, it redefined adventure construction encounters, skill challenges, combo-challenges, shorts rests, long rests, downtime activities. The creation of healing surges lead to develop expending hit dice for recovery, defined DPR, it reversed so much of what defined negatively in the past editions into positives (-2 or -3 if you didn't proficiency become a bonus if you did). The concepts or ritual magic, magic item creation, codified magic item progression and usage were all well defined and level linked to enforce some level balance. Play tiers, and scaling economies based upon those tiers (See gold coin, Platinum coins and astral diamonds). It was aggressively updated, with codified with living errata documents and a system for purposing changes. It created a structure for increased drama in an encounter with introduction of the bloody mechanic, and creating triggers that were activated by that mechanic. Finally it gave D&D the easiest encounter adventure construction method to date. Making 4th adventure was as hard falling off a log, there a literally a button you could press on the online tool that would do for you, complete with everything.
It failed in a couple key places. One the online table top. Right from the beginning 4th was always intended to be paired with an online way of Running 4th a means to help players be able to solve the distance and time issues. That failure and that fact that it was never correct b/c some poor sod killed his wife and ate .45 is a truly tragic, both for them and game itself. Next 4th was never very good at helping the player imagine the other half the ability. How does the power look? Does look for each character? Do you recognize this power when your character sees it? those meta concepts general well defined in Pathfinder didn't carry well into 4th. Finally mechanically the stun and daze mechanics were too common, and trivialized combat.
5th is simple and there is beauty in simplicity, we are getting to there point where there enough diversity to begin to make interesting. I agree it can feel kind dumbed down at times. But it's well written. It's not being aggressively expanded, which is keeping power creep pretty locked down. They did learn many good lessons from 4th, and they did a better job of selling to the player base. It's feels a lot like AD&D 2nd Rev which was certainly the intent. I don't like it as much 4th. A third level 5th character is as complete a character as a 1st level 4th character, and the DMG does recommend beginning at 3rd level in 5th. But there you go, that's also working as intended.
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4e broke plenty of rules, vansen spellcasting probably being the biggest. But it's the only serious attempt to making a remotely balanced version of D&D and character portal-able version of D&D, concept that D&D struggled with from day 1, and have been utterly ignored in 5th. I went back and watched Matthew Colville's making a fighter in every edition of D&D. To me looking at the progression D&D from tactical war game to modern RPG, 4th hit closest to home in terms of logic progression. It pulled concepts developed the in the MMO industry into the table top parlins, it codified a lot of concepts. Skill challenges, Power Sources, Monster Types (Lurkers, Brutes, Soldiers, Artillery), Defined named party Roles (Strikers, Tanks, Leaders, Controllers), it redefined the save vs Death Mechanic into an acceptable modern form, it redefined adventure construction encounters, skill challenges, combo-challenges, shorts rests, long rests, downtime activities. The creation of healing surges lead to develop expending hit dice for recovery, defined DPR, it reversed so much of what defined negatively in the past editions into positives (-2 or -3 if you didn't proficiency become a bonus if you did). The concepts or ritual magic, magic item creation, codified magic item progression and usage were all well defined and level linked to enforce some level balance. Play tiers, and scaling economies based upon those tiers (See gold coin, Platinum coins and astral diamonds). It was aggressively updated, with codified with living errata documents and a system for purposing changes. It created a structure for increased drama in an encounter with introduction of the bloody mechanic, and creating triggers that were activated by that mechanic. Finally it gave D&D the easiest encounter adventure construction method to date. Making 4th adventure was as hard falling off a log, there a literally a button you could press on the online tool that would do for you, complete with everything.
It failed in a couple key places. One the online table top. Right from the beginning 4th was always intended to be paired with an online way of Running 4th a means to help players be able to solve the distance and time issues. That failure and that fact that it was never correct b/c some poor sod killed his wife and ate .45 is a truly tragic, both for them and game itself. Next 4th was never very good at helping the player imagine the other half the ability. How does the power look? Does look for each character? Do you recognize this power when your character sees it? those meta concepts general well defined in Pathfinder didn't carry well into 4th. Finally mechanically the stun and daze mechanics were too common, and trivialized combat.
5th is simple and there is beauty in simplicity, we are getting to there point where there enough diversity to begin to make interesting. I agree it can feel kind dumbed down at times. But it's well written. It's not being aggressively expanded, which is keeping power creep pretty locked down. They did learn many good lessons from 4th, and they did a better job of selling to the player base. It's feels a lot like AD&D 2nd Rev which was certainly the intent. I don't like it as much 4th. A third level 5th character is as complete a character as a 1st level 4th character, and the DMG does recommend beginning at 3rd level in 5th. But there you go, that's also working as intended.
Let's not forget 4e's other big failing. Presentation. The lore was bad. The art was worse. And of course, they staggered out the release of core classes. You couldn't play as Barbarians, sorcerers, monks or druids with the core rulebook. You needed to wait for and then buy two more books to use stuff that had central to the game for an entire generation of players and was required to realize some of the most basic fantasy fiction character concepts.
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when you gotta shoot a guy 10 times to kill him and you have to do opposed die rolls every time and it just made the combat not flow very well.
You guys are doing something wrong. Are you rolling for damage or something? Shadowrun combat compared to heroes is 9 time out of 10 more lethal and much faster. If you shot someone ten times in SR you have missed about the system. Heroes combat includes a lot of inherent and system dictated recovery. SR is fast and final, if that's not what your experiencing then you have made mistake in how you are executing it.
I feel like you are focusing on the wrong parts of what i said, That was sort of a hyperbole, My brother created a troll so beefy that 1 bullet felt like a ball of paper.
Hero systems combat flows much faster and much smoother cause you do not have to do anything like opposed die rolls which slows a game down to a snails crawl when you are rolling for armor every round, And recalculating initiative and just a bunch of little rules designed to slow down the pace of the game and keep from doing anything fun or exciting.
And if you disagree than I direct you to the grenade rules for both. In hero, i throw a grenade, if you are in its area, you take 6D6 Damage. Now compare that tot he nightmare that is the chunky salsa rules for shadowrun ware i need to calculate every surface the shock-wave is bouncing off of.
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Attached an image of the odds of a gangbanger with 4 Body and an Armor Vest vs an Ares Predator V with 1 net hit and regular ammo. Seems like you hit a rather extreme case, so not sure why that is being held as representative of the system. Ahwell, your call if you want a system that doesn't allow 1% chances for suckage.
Also attached, just for fun, the damage odds of a Remington 950 with APDS and 1 net hit vs a Force 6 Spirit with F-1 Body. Not attached: The odds that my edged Crockett burst would tear straight through the Air Spirit engulfing Kane in the cockpit of our ride. Aaaaah, good times, good times.
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when you gotta shoot a guy 10 times to kill him and you have to do opposed die rolls every time and it just made the combat not flow very well.
You guys are doing something wrong. Are you rolling for damage or something? Shadowrun combat compared to heroes is 9 time out of 10 more lethal and much faster. If you shot someone ten times in SR you have missed about the system. Heroes combat includes a lot of inherent and system dictated recovery. SR is fast and final, if that's not what your experiencing then you have made mistake in how you are executing it.
I feel like you are focusing on the wrong parts of what i said, That was sort of a hyperbole, My brother created a troll so beefy that 1 bullet felt like a ball of paper.
Hero systems combat flows much faster and much smoother cause you do not have to do anything like opposed die rolls which slows a game down to a snails crawl when you are rolling for armor every round, And recalculating initiative and just a bunch of little rules designed to slow down the pace of the game and keep from doing anything fun or exciting.
And if you disagree than I direct you to the grenade rules for both. In hero, i throw a grenade, if you are in its area, you take 6D6 Damage. Now compare that tot he nightmare that is the chunky salsa rules for shadowrun ware i need to calculate every surface the shock-wave is bouncing off of.
My knowledge of HERO is very basic... and from what I understand of it, combat is also very basic. SR takes a much more damaging and realistic approach to combat. - and yes that does slow things down. But to each their own in that regard.
And to your grenade example. The first quest is "what are the walls made out of?" If that isn't a structural wall (concrete+) then there is NO chunky salsa as the walls will blow out enough to absorb the shock.
And trust me, "Chunky Salsa" is a real life effect of pressure waves. I have had to clean up after their effects.
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I once ran a 30-individuals-with-15-initiative-scores fight that took place in both Matrix and the meat world at the same time. Good times. It was doable, but that involved me having written down the A/D/S rolls for each entity and having stacks of 12/13/14/15/16/17 dice at hand to not have to bother count the dice. Takes practice to do a fight fast.
There's plenty of rules in Shadowrun that not everyone might understand at first glance. Easy for people to help you with though. Those include partially-setting-based things such as what Reaver mentioned (not all walls are structural so bye chunky salsa), and for example 'looting on a run is a bad thing', or 'collateral damage causes people to go collateral on you', or 'mind-control puts your team at risk', or 'if it ain't a PC, the GM decides what it does, including your summons'. Not to mention the classic 'help, I allowed a Tank player' with the response of 'okay, here's a list of your options'.
Hm, I should make a list of these things. Reaver, care for a joint effort to help put these things together for fledgling GMs? You got way more experience in doing things right, I got mostly experience in doing things wrong and trying to fix them after. =P
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when you gotta shoot a guy 10 times to kill him and you have to do opposed die rolls every time and it just made the combat not flow very well.
You guys are doing something wrong. Are you rolling for damage or something? Shadowrun combat compared to heroes is 9 time out of 10 more lethal and much faster. If you shot someone ten times in SR you have missed about the system. Heroes combat includes a lot of inherent and system dictated recovery. SR is fast and final, if that's not what your experiencing then you have made mistake in how you are executing it.
I feel like you are focusing on the wrong parts of what i said, That was sort of a hyperbole, My brother created a troll so beefy that 1 bullet felt like a ball of paper.
Hero systems combat flows much faster and much smoother cause you do not have to do anything like opposed die rolls which slows a game down to a snails crawl when you are rolling for armor every round, And recalculating initiative and just a bunch of little rules designed to slow down the pace of the game and keep from doing anything fun or exciting.
And if you disagree than I direct you to the grenade rules for both. In hero, i throw a grenade, if you are in its area, you take 6D6 Damage. Now compare that tot he nightmare that is the chunky salsa rules for shadowrun ware i need to calculate every surface the shock-wave is bouncing off of.
My knowledge of HERO is very basic... and from what I understand of it, combat is also very basic. SR takes a much more damaging and realistic approach to combat. - and yes that does slow things down. But to each their own in that regard.
And to your grenade example. The first quest is "what are the walls made out of?" If that isn't a structural wall (concrete+) then there is NO chunky salsa as the walls will blow out enough to absorb the shock.
And trust me, "Chunky Salsa" is a real life effect of pressure waves. I have had to clean up after their effects.
No, combat in Hero is anything but basic. It's pretty involved. But it uses more familiar mechanics. Attack rolls are made against a target number damage is rolled and armour is a static number that is subtracted from that. But as I have said, Hero is a toolkit and so the tier of play (heroic vs superheroic changes A LOT) and which optional rules you implement change the realism and time involved in adjudicating combat.
I am in two hero games right now. In one, I survived an attack that eradicated an entire city wherein I was at ground zero. In another, I was dropped with one errant bullet cause it hit me in neck and I started bleeding out.
As a Shadowrun noob, I have to wonder why bother with dodge and armour rolls? It seems like an unnecessary set of rolls. And I feel like the attacking character should never roll less than their target. It leaves the Gamemaster doing more on a player's turn than the player. Hence why damage rolls are the standard in almost every system. So an average roll in Shadowrun should yield a number of hits equal to 1/3 of the dice pool. So why not just use 1/3 of the target's dodge and armour dice pools as a static target number? Genuinely curious as to what is gained from this.
Nobody is arguing it's realism of the rule. Just the fact that it's definitely not something that EVER needed to be included in a game.
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So an average roll in Shadowrun should yield a number of hits equal to 1/3 of the dice pool. So why not just use 1/3 of the target's dodge and armour dice pools as a static target number? Genuinely curious as to what is gained from this.
Nobody is arguing it's realism of the rule. Just the fact that it's definitely not something that EVER needed to be included in a game.
Two things.
1: Because 'average fully soaked' is not the same as 'average no damage taken'. It's why even buying hits at 4 to 1 isn't always allowed. Bad things AND good things happen this way. A Summoned Spirit might end you with 8 Drain after Edge, or with 0 without. That randomness is what puts the stress on. And I prefer the d6-way of it over 'oh, if I roll a 1 on a saving throw twice, I die'.
2: This isn't going away any time soon. So if you think a system shouldn't have Attack-vs-Dodge and Damage-vs-Soak, then waiting for SR6 isn't going to help you. And if this is a dealbreaker for you, then there is no point mentioning anything about the mechanics of Shadowrun you dislike, because you simply already decided never to play Shadowrun as system. So what's the point of going into a lengthy debate?
Anyway, since it's clear this whole conversation has no possible shared agreement, what with the whole 'your game system sucks' and 'my preference is divine fact' arguments being tossed about by both sides, I think I'll step out of it. =) Enjoy all.
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when you gotta shoot a guy 10 times to kill him and you have to do opposed die rolls every time and it just made the combat not flow very well.
You guys are doing something wrong. Are you rolling for damage or something? Shadowrun combat compared to heroes is 9 time out of 10 more lethal and much faster. If you shot someone ten times in SR you have missed about the system. Heroes combat includes a lot of inherent and system dictated recovery. SR is fast and final, if that's not what your experiencing then you have made mistake in how you are executing it.
I feel like you are focusing on the wrong parts of what i said, That was sort of a hyperbole, My brother created a troll so beefy that 1 bullet felt like a ball of paper.
Hero systems combat flows much faster and much smoother cause you do not have to do anything like opposed die rolls which slows a game down to a snails crawl when you are rolling for armor every round, And recalculating initiative and just a bunch of little rules designed to slow down the pace of the game and keep from doing anything fun or exciting.
And if you disagree than I direct you to the grenade rules for both. In hero, i throw a grenade, if you are in its area, you take 6D6 Damage. Now compare that tot he nightmare that is the chunky salsa rules for shadowrun ware i need to calculate every surface the shock-wave is bouncing off of.
My knowledge of HERO is very basic... and from what I understand of it, combat is also very basic. SR takes a much more damaging and realistic approach to combat. - and yes that does slow things down. But to each their own in that regard.
And to your grenade example. The first quest is "what are the walls made out of?" If that isn't a structural wall (concrete+) then there is NO chunky salsa as the walls will blow out enough to absorb the shock.
And trust me, "Chunky Salsa" is a real life effect of pressure waves. I have had to clean up after their effects.
No, combat in Hero is anything but basic. It's pretty involved. But it uses more familiar mechanics. Attack rolls are made against a target number damage is rolled and armour is a static number that is subtracted from that. But as I have said, Hero is a toolkit and so the tier of play (heroic vs superheroic changes A LOT) and which optional rules you implement change the realism and time involved in adjudicating combat.
I am in two hero games right now. In one, I survived an attack that eradicated an entire city wherein I was at ground zero. In another, I was dropped with one errant bullet cause it hit me in neck and I started bleeding out.
As a Shadowrun noob, I have to wonder why bother with dodge and armour rolls? It seems like an unnecessary set of rolls. And I feel like the attacking character should never roll less than their target. It leaves the Gamemaster doing more on a player's turn than the player. Hence why damage rolls are the standard in almost every system. So an average roll in Shadowrun should yield a number of hits equal to 1/3 of the dice pool. So why not just use 1/3 of the target's dodge and armour dice pools as a static target number? Genuinely curious as to what is gained from this.
Nobody is arguing it's realism of the rule. Just the fact that it's definitely not something that EVER needed to be included in a game.
Yeah thats pretty much all that needs to be said.
I actually find when it comes to skill checks and things outside of combat i prefer SWs systems ( admittedly i barely understand the calculations involved but i liked how it flowed )
But when it comes to combat hero shines in ever category, there is no comparing the two at that point, and thats sort of to be expected, Hero is built all around the combat, almost laser focused on perfecting that one area. Everything else around the combat is sort of basic.
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So an average roll in Shadowrun should yield a number of hits equal to 1/3 of the dice pool. So why not just use 1/3 of the target's dodge and armour dice pools as a static target number? Genuinely curious as to what is gained from this.
Nobody is arguing it's realism of the rule. Just the fact that it's definitely not something that EVER needed to be included in a game.
Two things.
1: Because 'average fully soaked' is not the same as 'average no damage taken'. It's why even buying hits at 4 to 1 isn't always allowed. Bad things AND good things happen this way. A Summoned Spirit might end you with 8 Drain after Edge, or with 0 without. That randomness is what puts the stress on. And I prefer the d6-way of it over 'oh, if I roll a 1 on a saving throw twice, I die'.
2: This isn't going away any time soon. So if you think a system shouldn't have Attack-vs-Dodge and Damage-vs-Soak, then waiting for SR6 isn't going to help you. And if this is a dealbreaker for you, then there is no point mentioning anything about the mechanics of Shadowrun you dislike, because you simply already decided never to play Shadowrun as system. So what's the point of going into a lengthy debate?
Anyway, since it's clear this whole conversation has no possible shared agreement, what with the whole 'your game system sucks' arguments being tossed about by both sides, I think I'll step out of it. =) Enjoy all.
I never said Shadowrun sucked, I never said I was done with the system (why would I be on the forum?). I actually just scheduled a game with some more experienced players for next week. After trying to run my own with my friends, wherein none of us had any practical experience, it was a total mess. Nobody enjoyed it, so I assumed we were all doing it wrong. So yeah, I'm looking to see how an experienced player runs a game so I can see where I went wrong.
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Hm, I should make a list of these things. Reaver, care for a joint effort to help put these things together for fledgling GMs? You got way more experience in doing things right, I got mostly experience in doing things wrong and trying to fix them after. =P
LOL, the only experience I have is experience at what NOT to do... :D But I have learned those lessons well.
It was a long and painful road of almost 38 years of tabletops and GMing/playing. And I have/had the advantage of having a great GM for most of my time in Shadowrun that I could learn from for my own games.
But yes, I could help write out a small list of things to keep in mind for Shadowrun.
If fact, here is the first, "On" and "Off" tip for new GMs and Shadowrun.
The world is a realistic one
Yes, its a game, and yes it is a fantasy setting. Yes there is magic and super tech all around. This is not what I mean. Many players and GMs that come from other systems have a hard time grasping the differences that the rules of Shadowrun, and just how much "power" characters can and can not have.
Many other tabletop systems have a "leveling" system of some sort. After you gain a certain amount of points your character goes "ding!" and your character gains a bunch of nifty new bonuses. And it also gives you an at a glance view of how powerful a character is. After all, a LvL 5 character in going to be "less" then a character at lvl 15 in a given system.
This is not what Shadowrun is, or is about. Unlike in other game systems, In Shadowrun it is entirely possible to have a freshly minted character to run with a bunch of old pro karma whores and still have fun!* It is this very lack of levels that makes Shadowrun realistic.
In other games. The group goes running off to a dungeon, kills shit around their level. Go "Ding!" and leave. They go to the very next dungeon, and magically find shit to kill that is around their level, go "ding" and leave. Rinse and repeat. (yes, yes, "very simplified!!" you scream, but the point stands). But in Shadowrun, the group goes down the barren kills a bunch of gangers. and... gain nothing, except what they salvage as the very act of "killing" in SR doesn't give you anything to your advancement - completing team objectives does! And if that team went off and completed a bunch of team objectives gained karma and then came back to that street corner?? They would find the gangers... and they would be even easier to kill!
Unlike many other settings, in shadowrun, what you see is often what you get when it comes to enemies. A Ganger, is a ganger, is a ganger. And she will always be a ganger. Why? Because she's a Ganger. Now what do i mean by that? lets look at the CRB to highlight this point:
CRB 382 lists the base stats for Gangers. And what you see should be what you get when you encounter them in the world (Attributes adjusted for metatype, of course)
The base skills of: Blades 4, Clubs 3, Etiquette (Street) 3 (+2),
Intimidation 4, Pistols 4, Unarmed Combat 3
Should never change. Why? Because they are a Ganger!
To highlight this lets look at look at an elite special forces of page 384
Athletics skill group 7 (10), Stealth skill group
6, Close Combat skill group 8, Demolitions 7,
Firearms skill group 9, Perception 7
Seeing the difference?
One is ganger, with ZERO professional training, ZERO resources to spend on equipment and education. the other has had the very best that their agency could afford.
Now why do I bring this up? Because the very first concepts that many new GMs struggle with is the concept of "challenge" in Shadowrun, and figure that they have to play with the numbers to keep things interesting for their players; often because they are looking for that magical Level number that tells them how powerful a group is.
So they think they have to start adjusting skills to compensate... And soon you have gangers that are starving in the street, that any military force in the world would pay a 5 digit salary to have in their ranks as gangers start sporting combat skills in the low teens!
No. As has happened every single time that police force/military pushes back against gangers, you end up with a lot of dead gangers! As is the same in Shadowrun... you throw gangers up against a combat party of runners... expect a high body count!
On the reverse side. What the in the name of FUCKING FUCKITTY HELL are those gangers doing picking a fight with a Runner team?!?! Gangers may be the pond scum of the streets, but they are not usually suicidal! (Ok.. Yes the halloweeners come very close.... but still!) They should beating feet about .25 seconds after the troll Runner turns the first ganger into paste with a smile!
People in SR do things for the very reason that they do things in our world, because they want to live, be comfortable, and happy. And just like our world, not everything is going to stop you from achieving those desires. But, unlike our world, there are not as much helping to achieve those desires. There is no social safety net to catch those that are unemployable. There is no real government programs to help with the many things you (the reader) have come to expect. No welfare, no healthcare, no social pensions, underfunded public education, spotty utilities, and more taxes. - But this is all covered in the history of the game... which should be required reading!
*I say this because I have seen this happen several times. I play in a living campaign with 5 steady players and the same GM for the last 25+ years... Occasionally over the years people have joined and dropped out as time goes on. Those who join always start with "fresh characters" or their old character where they left off. Which has lead to games where there are characters with 12,000 karma teaming up with people with 0 karma! And at the end of the day everyone who played enjoyed themselves!
I admit this is something that takes a huge amount of expertise and skill on the behalf of the GM, and is not something that I have been able to replicate with the same proficiency.... I just don't have my GM's skills weaving that complex of a narrative together and make it work as well as he does.
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Let's not forget 4e's other big failing. Presentation. The lore was bad. The art was worse. And of course, they staggered out the release of core classes. You couldn't play as Barbarians, sorcerers, monks or druids with the core rulebook. You needed to wait for and then buy two more books to use stuff that had central to the game for an entire generation of players and was required to realize some of the most basic fantasy fiction character concepts.
The art wasn't bad, it was fairly generic, I liked it and we certainly got a lot of it, it usually did a good job of being relevant. As to the classes You couldn't play a bard ether, from the 1st players handbook but that hardly seems like epic failure to me. 4th Classes were much more complete then their 3rd edition counter parts, which required a lot more content including paragon paths, and of course epic destinies. You also didn't actually have buy two more book, the online subscription gave you full access as content was released.
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Let's not forget 4e's other big failing. Presentation. The lore was bad. The art was worse. And of course, they staggered out the release of core classes. You couldn't play as Barbarians, sorcerers, monks or druids with the core rulebook. You needed to wait for and then buy two more books to use stuff that had central to the game for an entire generation of players and was required to realize some of the most basic fantasy fiction character concepts.
The art wasn't bad, it was fairly generic, I liked it and we certainly got a lot of it, it usually did a good job of being relevant. As to the classes You couldn't play a bard ether, from the 1st players handbook but that hardly seems like epic failure to me. 4th Classes were much more complete then their 3rd edition counter parts, which required a lot more content including paragon paths, and of course epic destinies. You also didn't actually have buy two more book, the online subscription gave you full access as content was released.
4E was a well-balanced combat system, but it had less roleplaying support than WoW does. Great for a pick-up game at a store or convention where you can get 3-5 people who may or may not know the system, hand them pre-gens, and have them go to town. Crap for people who wanted to customize or grow their characters in different directions. As with WoW, you wound up with every Sorcerer being one of three basic builds, with a little difference in the spells which were all basically the same with pallet swapped descriptors and secondary effects.
5E did a lot to try and fix the damage that 4E did, don't get me wrong, but it has always felt like drinking flat soda to me. There's potential there, but it just doesn't have that something that makes me want to create a character. The whole game feels like 'The Complete Noob's Introduction to Fantasy RPGs', or making the whole edition for the people who really, really love the first five levels, and want everything to be like that. For players (like me) who feel that when Wizards start slinging Fireballs is when the game actually STARTS being interesting, it is a major let down.
In 3.X, however, there were not only plentiful options for races, base classes, prestige classes, magic items, feats, and more, but guidelines for building your own. Creating custom magic items for my characters was always fun, as was having several low-level magic items that, combined, could be used in unexpected ways. You could look at six Fighter 20 builds, with no PrCs, and find six radically different builds, for six different playstyles. Compare that to 5E, where you have three options for most classes, pick one, that's what you'll be forever, no, you can't learn new languages or get new skills unless you drop something you get every 4 levels to find a feat that lets you do it, and no, why would a Barbarian with 8 Int and a Wizard with 18 Int not know exactly the same number of languages?
And this plays into my complaints about SR 5th as a whole. The game feels like the 'Noob's Guide to Shadowrunning'. It feels constrained, in ways SR4 wasn't, with a lot of options forcibly locked into either-or binary choices. You can be a Hacker OR a Rigger. A Rigger who can hack access to the vehicles and drones he wants to steal? Preposterous! A Hacker who can jump into drones? MADNESS! A Technomancer who can secure their own gear? WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO?
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My Knowledge is Heroes is not basic. I have played Heroes many forms across multiple editions, including the variants that most closely resemble SR, and I can tell you right now, you're disregarding the SR core and using custom NPCs instead profession rating enemies then that's what you're doing wrong. SR isn't Heroes, making custom NPCs is fine, but it something you do after you have mastered the system. (Remember when I suggested you open the core rules to the run construction section and run until you're comfortable in the system, that is exactly what you need to do.) If you don't understand why SR uses layered defense then you really don't understand the system. SR combat is deadly, and is deadlier then Heroes, to help reduce that player usually have layered defense, (saves on burning edge). No one recover anything in an SR combat. There is no static values because the intention is for it be dynamic. Initiative changes in combat as wound penalties are applied and various weapon type take effect. Weapons drop people very quickly. Limit is there flatten down the curve and keep things from getting to over the top. But well built characters are not generally going to adversely effected by it. Pools should be built taking limit into account.
If you find the dice rolling is slowing you down to much, then switch roller program, or modify your dice so you pick out 5 and 6 at glance. But no kidding if you had combat where someone took 5+ attacks, and their weren't a super dodge build, a dragon, great form spirit or a bug queen, odds are something is wrong, and your ether running the system wrong or building characters incorrectly.
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Let's not forget 4e's other big failing. Presentation. The lore was bad. The art was worse. And of course, they staggered out the release of core classes. You couldn't play as Barbarians, sorcerers, monks or druids with the core rulebook. You needed to wait for and then buy two more books to use stuff that had central to the game for an entire generation of players and was required to realize some of the most basic fantasy fiction character concepts.
The art wasn't bad, it was fairly generic, I liked it and we certainly got a lot of it, it usually did a good job of being relevant. As to the classes You couldn't play a bard ether, from the 1st players handbook but that hardly seems like epic failure to me. 4th Classes were much more complete then their 3rd edition counter parts, which required a lot more content including paragon paths, and of course epic destinies. You also didn't actually have buy two more book, the online subscription gave you full access as content was released.
Well okay, let's remove Adepts from Shadowrun 6 until 10 months after release and see if that doesn't bother people. Bard didn't exist when AD&D, launched, so nobody was going to care if it wasn't there. Snd the online subscription presumably wasn't free (I was 15 at the time, so I don't know) so you still had to pay for the new books in some means. I just remember being a kid that had grown up playing 3rd Editon and being confused and frustrated that I could no longer play as some of my favourite classes.
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My Knowledge is Heroes is not basic. I have played Heroes many forms across multiple editions, including the variants that most closely resemble SR, and I can tell you right now, you're disregarding the SR core and using custom NPCs instead profession rating enemies then that's what you're doing wrong. SR isn't Heroes, making custom NPCs is fine, but it something you do after you have mastered the system. (Remember when I suggested you open the core rules to the run construction section and run until you're comfortable in the system, that is exactly what you need to do.) If you don't understand why SR uses layered defense then you really don't understand the system. SR combat is deadly, and is deadlier then Heroes, to help reduce that player usually have layered defense, (saves on burning edge). No one recover anything in an SR combat. There is no static values because the intention is for it be dynamic. Initiative changes in combat as wound penalties are applied and various weapon type take effect. Weapons drop people very quickly. Limit is there flatten down the curve and keep things from getting to over the top. But well built characters are not generally going to adversely effected by it. Pools should be built taking limit into account.
If you find the dice rolling is slowing you down to much, then switch roller program, or modify your dice so you pick out 5 and 6 at glance. But no kidding if you had combat where someone took 5+ attacks, and their weren't a super dodge build, a dragon, great form spirit or a bug queen, odds are something is wrong, and your ether running the system wrong or building characters incorrectly.
No, we used the core sample NPCs. We ran Fast Food Fight in SR. Afterwards we found a fan made Hero conversion which we're gonna try until we can find more experienced Shadowrun players to show us the ropes.
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Ok, I can't resist, but adding my 2cents to the conversation about D&D editions (because that is always fun, isn't it? :D):
I got totally disinterested in D&D during the 4e era. Just not my game, not what I expect from D&D. I went over to Pathfinder, or kept playing 3.5, depending on the group.
5e got me very enthusiastic at first. I still think it's a good system, but I lost interest in it some time ago too. Why? Because while it fast, easy to play and good for new gamers, I started to see the drawbacks of that. Lack of character customization in later levels. Swingyness. Also minor things, like lack of real crafting rules, or the handling of magic items, which wasn't in line with my view on high fantasy settings.
Also, how WotC treats their settings and novel lines nowadays put me off, big time, because I always got invested in an RPG because of the setting and lore and novels, those are the things that get me wantng to play it.
So, I got disintersted in D&D 5e too. Right now, I think PF2e will be the best "D&D" out there for what I want from a D&D-esque game and I'll be able to play all the D&D settings with it too. I totally get all the reasons behind 5e's success (and they aren't just because it's so perfect, but it's pretty good in what it's doing), but it's just lacking for me.
As for SR and combat an lethality: it's funny, bcause a few months back someone complained here that SR seems to be too lethal for them. For me, it's totally okay. Yeah, the combat is more complex than D&D 5e, for example, but I like it. We got through fights pretty fast and felt it pretty lethal and cinematic even in SR3 and that is infinitely worse than SR5.
I do not want SR to be like D&D 5e or, heaven forbid, like Vampire 5th turned out just now (which is a totally over-simplified mess on an albeit good chassis, unfortunately). I like it in the place it is right now, though more polishing and working out the kinks in the math or in the unnecessarily overcomplicated rules (like grenades) is always welcomed! :)
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If that is really your opinion on SR, why exactly are you on this board?
Why am I on the board? Seriously?
Let me know if this makes any sense to you:
I like Shadowrun. I know it can be better. It should be better. Leaving it to the sycophants and apologists for the past three-ish years hasn't done it any good.
Speaking of which...
There are games that have a bad track record, but SR is not one of them, just FYI.
Case in point.
To go back to my reason for being on the forums: Are you really suggesting that the money I paid Catalyst isn't valued as much as the other posters?
Or are you seriously suggesting that you so arrogantly have the right to determine who can post here and who can't?
Which of those high horses do you need knocked down from?
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If that is really your opinion on SR, why exactly are you on this board?
Why am I on the board? Seriously?
Let me know if this makes any sense to you:
I like Shadowrun. I know it can be better. It should be better. Leaving it to the sycophants and apologists for the past three-ish years hasn't done it any good.
Speaking of which...
There are games that have a bad track record, but SR is not one of them, just FYI.
Case in point.
To go back to my reason for being on the forums: Are you really suggesting that the money I paid Catalyst isn't valued as much as the other posters?
Or are you seriously suggesting that you so arrogantly have the right to determine who can post here and who can't?
Which of those high horses do you need knocked down from?
I'm suggesting if you don't like the game and ya don't wanna read the rules, then contributing to the discussion of those rules is not gonna very entertaining for you, lol. If you got something to say man say it. lol
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Starfinder is a disaster. It clearly needs a complete re-write, the class balance is a trash fire. PF2 I hope will be better. But Lets be honest your gonna have the same issue with PF2 that we all had beginning of 5th. If your interested in adding depth to 5th I strongly recommend look vast amount of Homebrew Material, sure lot of it is bad but there are some diamonds in that rough.
My favorite thing to do with 5th, is run 2nd edition modes in 5th. There are so many 2nd edition mods. With a little practice you can do these almost seamlessly. Setting specific items cause the most trouble. But swap them or port them all is well.
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Ok, I can't resist, but adding my 2cents to the conversation about D&D editions (because that is always fun, isn't it? :D):
I got totally disinterested in D&D during the 4e era. Just not my game, not what I expect from D&D. I went over to Pathfinder, or kept playing 3.5, depending on the group.
5e got me very enthusiastic at first. I still think it's a good system, but I lost interest in it some time ago too. Why? Because while it fast, easy to play and good for new gamers, I started to see the drawbacks of that. Lack of character customization in later levels. Swingyness. Also minor things, like lack of real crafting rules, or the handling of magic items, which wasn't in line with my view on high fantasy settings.
Also, how WotC treats their settings and novel lines nowadays put me off, big time, because I always got invested in an RPG because of the setting and lore and novels, those are the things that get me wantng to play it.
So, I got disintersted in D&D 5e too. Right now, I think PF2e will be the best "D&D" out there for what I want from a D&D-esque game and I'll be able to play all the D&D settings with it too. I totally get all the reasons behind 5e's success (and they aren't just because it's so perfect, but it's pretty good in what it's doing), but it's just lacking for me.
As for SR and combat an lethality: it's funny, bcause a few months back someone complained here that SR seems to be too lethal for them. For me, it's totally okay. Yeah, the combat is more complex than D&D 5e, for example, but I like it. We got through fights pretty fast and felt it pretty lethal and cinematic even in SR3 and that is infinitely worse than SR5.
I do not want SR to be like D&D 5e or, heaven forbid, like Vampire 5th turned out just now (which is a totally over-simplified mess on an albeit good chassis, unfortunately). I like it in the place it is right now, though more polishing and working out the kinks in the math or in the unnecessarily overcomplicated rules (like grenades) is always welcomed! :)
Glad at least someone out there thinks PF2 looks alright. The Paizo forums are fucking war zone right now.
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Starfinder is a disaster. It clearly needs a complete re-write, the class balance is a trash fire. PF2 I hope will be better. But Lets be honest your gonna have the same issue with PF2 that we all had beginning of 5th. If your interested in adding depth to 5th I strongly recommend look vast amount of Homebrew Material, sure lot of it is bad but there are some diamonds in that rough.
My favorite thing to do with 5th, is run 2nd edition modes in 5th. There are so many 2nd edition mods. With a little practice you can do these almost seamlessly. Setting specific items cause the most trouble. But swap them or port them all is well.
Done a few Starfinder sessions. Hit level 3 before the game was put on indefinite hold. I didn't notice any glaring issues myself, but as I said, I haven't had much an opportunity to get farther in.
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Well crap.
.... didn't know there was even a PF2 in the works.....
Great more crap to spend money on! At this rate will never achieve my summer dream of keeping the corner beer store out of stock :(
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Well crap.
.... didn't know there was even a PF2 in the works.....
Great more crap to spend money on! At this rate will never achieve my summer dream of keeping the corner beer store out of stock :(
Playtest rules can be downloaded for free from the website. A lot of people are still in grieving over 3.X's last stand, cause the material released this far abandons a lot of that framework. So the response been very
.. passionate.
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PF2 will get beyond extensive play testing. It may or may not be enough to save it but I think it will,the core writers there are currently making the same mistakes with starfinder. If you are locking a hit curve then you don't push the curve the Nth. When you do that you force optimal only builds. 5th works well b/c it's very forgiving, a first time player can sit down build a character around every single stat and still pretty much be fine. Seriously I have seen it work.
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If that is really your opinion on SR, why exactly are you on this board?
Why am I on the board? Seriously?
Let me know if this makes any sense to you:
I like Shadowrun. I know it can be better. It should be better. Leaving it to the sycophants and apologists for the past three-ish years hasn't done it any good.
Speaking of which...
There are games that have a bad track record, but SR is not one of them, just FYI.
Case in point.
To go back to my reason for being on the forums: Are you really suggesting that the money I paid Catalyst isn't valued as much as the other posters?
Or are you seriously suggesting that you so arrogantly have the right to determine who can post here and who can't?
Which of those high horses do you need knocked down from?
I'm suggesting if you don't like the game and ya don't wanna read the rules, then contributing to the discussion of those rules is not gonna very entertaining for you, lol. If you got something to say man say it. lol
Wow... I feel very sorry for you.
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Starfinder is a disaster. It clearly needs a complete re-write, the class balance is a trash fire. PF2 I hope will be better. But Lets be honest your gonna have the same issue with PF2 that we all had beginning of 5th. If your interested in adding depth to 5th I strongly recommend look vast amount of Homebrew Material, sure lot of it is bad but there are some diamonds in that rough.
My favorite thing to do with 5th, is run 2nd edition modes in 5th. There are so many 2nd edition mods. With a little practice you can do these almost seamlessly. Setting specific items cause the most trouble. But swap them or port them all is well.
I don't have the time or the inclination for digging through thousands of pages of homebrew/DM's Guild material to remedy the issues I have with the core game. Also, I don't think they'd remedy my issue, for example, the lack of character custumization on later levels, or the treating of magic itmes. They won't remedy WotC's treating of the settings and the lack of fiction. At the same time, I have games which are giving me what I want and even scratches the D&D itch. So, why bother? 5e is a good game, especially for newbies, but I'm just more in the PF2 target audience. That's okay.
So, in the same vein, I'm okay with SR being a complex game, but some clearing up is always good. That's what I would expect and want from a new edition, or from an anniversary edition, not going for the less-crunchy, more rules-light route.
Though, I'd be happy for having a second edition for Anarchy, or something, for people who like that style better!. :) The more angles the more people could get into this great setting and game, the better.
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Ok, I can't resist, but adding my 2cents to the conversation about D&D editions (because that is always fun, isn't it? :D):
I got totally disinterested in D&D during the 4e era. Just not my game, not what I expect from D&D. I went over to Pathfinder, or kept playing 3.5, depending on the group.
5e got me very enthusiastic at first. I still think it's a good system, but I lost interest in it some time ago too. Why? Because while it fast, easy to play and good for new gamers, I started to see the drawbacks of that. Lack of character customization in later levels. Swingyness. Also minor things, like lack of real crafting rules, or the handling of magic items, which wasn't in line with my view on high fantasy settings.
Also, how WotC treats their settings and novel lines nowadays put me off, big time, because I always got invested in an RPG because of the setting and lore and novels, those are the things that get me wantng to play it.
So, I got disintersted in D&D 5e too. Right now, I think PF2e will be the best "D&D" out there for what I want from a D&D-esque game and I'll be able to play all the D&D settings with it too. I totally get all the reasons behind 5e's success (and they aren't just because it's so perfect, but it's pretty good in what it's doing), but it's just lacking for me.
As for SR and combat an lethality: it's funny, bcause a few months back someone complained here that SR seems to be too lethal for them. For me, it's totally okay. Yeah, the combat is more complex than D&D 5e, for example, but I like it. We got through fights pretty fast and felt it pretty lethal and cinematic even in SR3 and that is infinitely worse than SR5.
I do not want SR to be like D&D 5e or, heaven forbid, like Vampire 5th turned out just now (which is a totally over-simplified mess on an albeit good chassis, unfortunately). I like it in the place it is right now, though more polishing and working out the kinks in the math or in the unnecessarily overcomplicated rules (like grenades) is always welcomed! :)
Glad at least someone out there thinks PF2 looks alright. The Paizo forums are fucking war zone right now.
I stopped paying attention to the forums roughly on day 2. :D I can use that time more productively. What I see, I mostly like, in the playtest. Not everything, but most of it. PF2 has the potential to be my favorite "D&D edition" so far.
One thing I don't like is reducing spellcasting for dragons. I just always preferred dragons as mighty spellcasters, keepers of ancient magic. Yeah, no wonder my favorite dragons are our old lizards in SR, among all the rpgs. :D
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Well crap.
.... didn't know there was even a PF2 in the works.....
Great more crap to spend money on! At this rate will never achieve my summer dream of keeping the corner beer store out of stock :(
Playtest rules can be downloaded for free from the website. A lot of people are still in grieving over 3.X's last stand, cause the material released this far abandons a lot of that framework. So the response been very
.. passionate.
Well, on some level, I can understand that. I went to PF, because I didn't like 4e, but liked 3e. Then I tried 5e, find it good, but lacking and went back to PF. PF2 seems to be the next step of evolution for the 3.5 chasis to me. It's not the same, but at places better and not radically different, nor lacking the good kind of complexity and depth.
I'm not saying it's perfect, far from it and it needs the extensive playtest. But I like the direction. I hope it won't be a bummer as 7th Sea 2e was and V5 is right now. I've had enough of not liking my favorite game's new editions for a time, would be good to get something new I actually like, for a change.
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I was gonna say if you want rules light SR, then Anarchy is right there for you.
With the right table and the right GM, a narrative system can be an amazing game. But it is extremely hard to find. For me SR is great b/c we have a good strong established set of rules. At con I can sit down at the table talk to some players and a gm and have a pretty good idea how things are gonna go, and I enjoy that a lot about SR.
Anarchy is exactly that. Who knows?
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PF2 will get beyond extensive play testing. It may or may not be enough to save it but I think it will,the core writers there are currently making the same mistakes with starfinder. If you are locking a hit curve then you don't push the curve the Nth. When you do that you force optimal only builds. 5th works well b/c it's very forgiving, a first time player can sit down build a character around every single stat and still pretty much be fine. Seriously I have seen it work.
The problem is that works well for a convention setting, or where you have a rotating crowd where you don't know who will be playing what week to week, but it absolutely shits on people who enjoy high level play, customization, and the epicness that you could get up to in 3.X when you started venturing into the planes.
5E works extremely well if you were one of the people who played the E5/E6 variants in 3.X, where you basically stopped leveling after 5 or 6. It keeps the low-level feel all the way through the game. The lack of magic items and customization options channeling people into one of three choices per class is great if you want to be able to throw characters into other games and know they're balanced, playing musical tables and all. But it gets old for a lot of people when everything ends up being the same, especially if they prefer high level play.
I was gonna say if you want rules light SR, then Anarchy is right there for you.
With the right table and the right GM, a narrative system can be an amazing game. But it is extremely hard to find. For me SR is great b/c we have a good strong established set of rules. At con I can sit down at the table talk to some players and a gm and have a pretty good idea how things are gonna go, and I enjoy that a lot about SR.
Anarchy is exactly that. Who knows?
And that is why I would love for them to keep Anarchy around for the people who like a 'simplified' game, and bring back the crunch and customization of 4th when 5th dies in a fire and 6th comes along. Let Anarchy be the rules-light noob version, and then take the training wheels off when they're ready to get into customization in the real system.
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I still think your getting ahead of yours on that last part Mirikon.
We both know 5th isn't perfect. But I really do think with an Anniversary edition to patch the holes we will get the moral equivalent of the 20th Anniversary edition back in 4th. Which was certainly as strong a rules set at SR ever had. Developing a reasonable point buy system for 5th is certainly possible. But even if that point buy came out tomorrow, it wouldn't solve most your issues with 5th. We need to fix TMs, rigger, patch the matrix. After that I think we would be in pretty good place.
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I still think your getting ahead of yours on that last part Mirikon.
We both know 5th isn't perfect. But I really do think with an Anniversary edition to patch the holes we will get the moral equivalent of the 20th Anniversary edition back in 4th. Which was certainly as strong a rules set at SR ever had. Developing a reasonable point buy system for 5th is certainly possible. But even if that point buy came out tomorrow, it wouldn't solve most your issues with 5th. We need to fix TMs, rigger, patch the matrix. After that I think we would be in pretty good place.
So... chargen and a full third of the game, plus the lesser issues people have brought up in other areas (the utter crap customization rules for weapons and vehicles/drones compared to 4th, and the total lack of spell creation guidelines, to name a couple)? That's more than the 'patch' the 20th Anniversary edition gave to 4th. That's a structural revamp on a large portion of the game, which will need to be tested for balance issues with other areas of the game... By that point, you may as well just make it a new edition.
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Hey now, 4th is responsible for breaking riggers, 5th just has to find a way to fix it. I made my suggestion several times, oddly no one seems to take it seriously.
I couldn't care less about spell design rules. Magic is doing just fine. We lots of spells they do lots cool things, the errata team will fix those 2 lightsaber spells and ether the designers will figure out how they want to handle magic bullet and alter ballistics or the errata team will. (Though I suspect if the errata team does it, they will probably just light that section of FA on fire and then write haiku about the Excalibur weapon system using the ashes. Or maybe just F U Marcus!!! lol)
Eh there is always going to be some one unhappy I think customization rules are working, fixing the speed chart would be nice. But I'm sure we should ban swarms right now before the player base catches and no table is safe ever again.
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And that is why I would love for them to keep Anarchy around for the people who like a 'simplified' game, and bring back the crunch and customization of 4th when 5th dies in a fire and 6th comes along. Let Anarchy be the rules-light noob version, and then take the training wheels off when they're ready to get into customization in the real system.
See, for me and some other old skool players, 4e feels like a "dumb down" version of 3e....
when 4e came about, a lot of options were also dropped, changed with the rules to become nonviable, or were simply thrown by the wayside.
I admit that the matrix rules are faster under 4e (by a factor of 1000!), but at the same time the matrix lost its charm. It was no longer a place that a specialist was needed - you could just throw money at the problem. and the matrix disappeared. (the Commlink/agent combo)
In fact, after a certain level of play, the very idea of a "specialist" died right out. Everyone could do everything with just about the same level of skill. (except magic... that stayed separate just because of the resources need.)
Transferring a character from 3e to 4e was fine.... unless you actually played a Decker/hacker, then you found that everything you had invested time in for the 6 years through 3e was utterly pointless as your attributes have 0 effect on your matrix performance. Many players of Deckers in 3e where.... "slightly" annoyed at this.
And, I for one was happy with 5e because it meant a return to specialization again for those that really wanted to invest down an avenue, and allowed that didn't to branch out into other disciplines. Granted never as well as someone who specializes.
Am I saying the 5e rules are perfect, adn without flaws? Don't be silly, there is definite room for improvement all across the board. But it is not an "epic failure" as some want to believe.
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Hey now, 4th is responsible for breaking riggers, 5th just has to find a way to fix it. I made my suggestion several times, oddly no one seems to take it seriously.
Riggers have gone from "unstoppable army of death of one" to almost useless, to semi functional through the editions....
In 1 to 3, Drones got hardened armor, and thanks to the combat rules and mechanics, that usually meant 90% of the time the drone took 0 damage from attacks. (Combat drones of size anyways)
Riggers were the ONLY class in play that I have actually seen get their players physically assaulted. Twice!
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Riggers were the ONLY class in play that I have actually seen get their players physically assaulted. Twice!
LOL You guys have some pretty rough tables up there in the great white north.
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Riggers were the ONLY class in play that I have actually seen get their players physically assaulted. Twice!
LOL You guys have some pretty rough tables up there in the great white north.
both times it wasn't up here.
The First time was in Georgia, US while working on something that is STILL under NDA until 2021.... A player got so fed up with the Rigger, he picked up the hardcover rule book and swung it baseball bat style into the Rigger player's face. Laid his right out on his back in the floor! That was 2001
The second time was in Ghana, working on the Mines. This Finnish guy was playing the Rigger, and decided to turn his drones against the team, because he knew the team couldn't stop him... A Russian steelworker player looked at him and said: "you think that funny?" then grabbed him by his hair and proceeded to slam his face into the table until we could restrain him. This would have been 2004?
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I still think your getting ahead of yours on that last part Mirikon.
We both know 5th isn't perfect. But I really do think with an Anniversary edition to patch the holes we will get the moral equivalent of the 20th Anniversary edition back in 4th. Which was certainly as strong a rules set at SR ever had. Developing a reasonable point buy system for 5th is certainly possible. But even if that point buy came out tomorrow, it wouldn't solve most your issues with 5th. We need to fix TMs, rigger, patch the matrix. After that I think we would be in pretty good place.
Agree.
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Riggers were the ONLY class in play that I have actually seen get their players physically assaulted. Twice!
LOL You guys have some pretty rough tables up there in the great white north.
both times it wasn't up here.
The First time was in Georgia, US while working on something that is STILL under NDA until 2021.... A player got so fed up with the Rigger he picked up the hardcover rule book and swung in baseball bat style into the Rigger player's face. Laid his right out on his back in the floor! That was 2001
The second time was in Ghana, working on the Mines. This Finnish guy was playing the Rigger, and decided to turn his drones against the team, because he knew the team couldn't stop him... A Russian steelworker player looked at him and "you think that funny?" then grabbed him by his hair and proceeded to slam his face into the table until we could restrain him. This would have been 2004?
LOL indeed! :D
I'd share this with our group if you don't mind! :D
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both times it wasn't up here.
The First time was in Georgia, US while working on something that is STILL under NDA until 2021.... A player got so fed up with the Rigger he picked up the hardcover rule book and swung in baseball bat style into the Rigger player's face. Laid his right out on his back in the floor! That was 2001
The second time was in Ghana, working on the Mines. This Finnish guy was playing the Rigger, and decided to turn his drones against the team, because he knew the team couldn't stop him... A Russian steelworker player looked at him and "you think that funny?" then grabbed him by his hair and proceeded to slam his face into the table until we could restrain him. This would have been 2004?
That sounds like Georgia all right.
Crazy Russians huh? Fair enough.
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Wow...
That whole reply comes across as incredibly racist.
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Wow...
That whole reply comes across as incredibly racist.
Georgia is a race to you?
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Wow...
That whole reply comes across as incredibly racist.
Georgia is a race to you?
With what 70%+ of the people who refer to anything as "southern" / <southern state name> mean when they say it... Yes. Yes it is.
Combined with "crazy Russian," it pretty much seals it.
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Wow...
That whole reply comes across as incredibly racist.
Georgia is a race to you?
With what 70%+ of the people who refer to anything as "southern" / <southern state name> mean when they say it... Yes. Yes it is.
Combined with "crazy Russian," it pretty much seals it.
.
..
...
.....
<Looks South>
Fuck, It's America.
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I'm agreeing with the Russian tbh. Good man.
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I'm agreeing with the Russian tbh. Good man.
I just remember the events because it was so shocking. In all my years of gaming with as many people as I have, Its been only a dozen times that violence has erupted. And usually that violence is just a dice throwing, alcohol induced temper tantrum...
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Wow...
That whole reply comes across as incredibly racist.
Georgia is a race to you?
With what 70%+ of the people who refer to anything as "southern" / <southern state name> mean when they say it... Yes. Yes it is.
Combined with "crazy Russian," it pretty much seals it.
Well as it happens y'all, I'm from the South myself. Just so ya know ISP Russians are nationality not a race. Georgia is a state and thus also not a race. But I'm perfectly happy to report you for calling me raciest. Have a great night ISP.
I'm Sorry FastJack with Reaver and Michael as my witnesses I tried really hard, I didn't start anything!
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We have Eraser Dice that tend to be thrown around by my wife, especially when people make dirty jokes.
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I'm agreeing with the Russian tbh. Good man.
I just remember the events because it was so shocking. In all my years of gaming with as many people as I have, Its been only a dozen times that violence has erupted. And usually that violence is just a dice throwing, alcohol induced temper tantrum...
I used to game a bunch down at Fort Brag I could tell you some stories. Nothing like bored drunk troops to do some truly silly Sh*t.
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I'm Sorry FastJack with Reaver and Michael as my witnesses I tried really hard, I didn't start anything!
Selective memory at it's finest.
Hey, if it works for you, I won't pop your bubble.
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We have Eraser Dice that tend to be thrown around by my wife, especially when people make dirty jokes.
I would pity her at my table. :(
Even the other "girls" at the table make sailors run screaming while covering their ears.
Sadly in the industrial world, if every second word isn't a cuss, people don't understand you. Cussing is the only universal language that I have seen understood across the globe.
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The way you say "girls" Reaver makes me very nervous.
Ladies? Women Gamers? Violent Female Canadians?
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.
..
...
There are expressions in the industrial world, that may cause those with some views to take offense...
How do I put it gently?
In the Industrial world, we get being shipped off to Camps that fit 40 to 40,000 workers into a small area. We work 8 to 14 hour days for 14 to 49 days in a row...
We are paid very well for this isolated hell.... but there are problems with it too.
so when on Day 1 someone looks like this:
It's not a big deal for everyone. Even for those that look like that. (Especially those that look like that!)
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Because - generally speaking, They will look like this to everyone by day 21
And as for names... well, what's in a name? You know how many Kelly, Laurie, Niki, Sasha, Etceta with 3 legs I have worked with in the last 20 years?
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I find the following are a nice thing to toss about:
(https://www.funslurp.com/images/big-mistakes-eraser.jpg)
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LOL
Oh man Reaver
LOL
I'm dying here. I guess hunger is the best sauce?
LOL
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both times it wasn't up here.
The First time was in Georgia, US while working on something that is STILL under NDA until 2021.... A player got so fed up with the Rigger he picked up the hardcover rule book and swung in baseball bat style into the Rigger player's face. Laid his right out on his back in the floor! That was 2001
The second time was in Ghana, working on the Mines. This Finnish guy was playing the Rigger, and decided to turn his drones against the team, because he knew the team couldn't stop him... A Russian steelworker player looked at him and "you think that funny?" then grabbed him by his hair and proceeded to slam his face into the table until we could restrain him. This would have been 2004?
That sounds like Georgia all right.
Crazy Russians huh? Fair enough.
Yeesh!
Though not crazy on the level of the scientists during the Antarctic winter period of 1959, who opted for an ice axe duel over a chess match.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AVostok_Station
search for 'axe'
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I'm just gonna assume they were driven mad by cabin fever. Ice Axe to death might start looking really good after 3 months in the dark with only a chess board to pass the time. I mean at-least the guy won in the end right?
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I have had proper violence erupt in a game once. But, in all fairness, we were teenagers. Our GM was a dick, the kind that would play favourites, intentionally screw players for slighting him earlier in the day. But we were all poor kids and he was the only one lucky enough to own the rulebooks.
Anyway, he and my brother never got along under the best of circumstances. So he always targeted him the most. GM makes a douchey, biased call and my brother said fuck this. Called the guy out, told him he was a terrible GM, threw out a slew of nasty comments he'd been saving up for the better part of a year and walked away from the table.
Now, there was about a foot of height and 100lbs between these guys, in favour of my brother. So I'm not sure what possessed the little bastard to do this, but he ran up behind my brother and tried to choke him out. It ended very swiftly when my brother body slammed the GM onto his own kitchen table. Into the dice pile and there were d4 in there.
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I have had proper violence erupt in a game once. But, in all fairness, we were teenagers. Our GM was a dick, the kind that would play favourites, intentionally screw players for slighting him earlier in the day. But we were all poor kids and he was the only one lucky enough to own the rulebooks.
Anyway, he and my brother never got along under the best of circumstances. So he always targeted him the most. GM makes a douchey, biased call and my brother said fuck this. Called the guy out, told him he was a terrible GM, threw out a slew of nasty comments he'd been saving up for the better part of a year and walked away from the table.
Now, there was about a foot of height and 100lbs between these guys, in favour of my brother. So I'm not sure what possessed the little bastard to do this, but he ran up behind my brother and tried to choke him out. It ended very swiftly when my brother body slammed the GM onto his own kitchen table. Into the dice pile and there were d4 in there.
LOL that's awesome.
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For the original topic. I think it needs a new edition. There are tons of bad rules, math and the supplements, many took bad turns. But, I’m not confident they wouldn’t just make the same mistakes all over again.
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Did Kill Code not improve things on the Matrix front? I was hoping at least some of the more overarching issues with it would have been fixed....
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Did Kill Code not improve things on the Matrix front? I was hoping at least some of the more overarching issues with it would have been fixed....
Some, yes.
others it made as clear as mud.
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Did Kill Code not improve things on the Matrix front? I was hoping at least some of the more overarching issues with it would have been fixed....
Jury is out, probubly but there are to many questions to be sure.
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I was hoping at least some of the more overarching issues with it would have been fixed....
Kill Code didn't really fix anything with the 5E Matrix.
If you had an issue with the way it worked, or any lack of clarity, before Kill Code was published... It almost certainly exists after Kill Code.
There were some clarifications, such as Agents can no longer run by their lonesome anymore.
The new Matrix Actions are really a double edged sword. Sure, MARK-less actions are great for PC hackers. But they just as easily hurt PC hackers because without a MARK, there is no way to know it is being used against you / your team.
Just in case there were still groups out there running with PC team PANs, the Tag action punishes them - again without any MARKs to let the team know it is even happening.
The gear is a mixed bag. All of a sudden you can end up running up to 7 cyberprograms on commlinks now... Not to mention an additional 7 programs on cyberdecks. Maybe more, if your GM allows the two pieces of gear to stack with themselves. Program slots are nearly useless now.
I could go further into it, but won't here.
In short there is plenty of good in the book. If your table will only use the whole thing without cherry picking at all, it is even more true that PCs need to either run Wireless Off all the time, or rely on a truly benevolent GM that plays everyone else as Matrix - Ignorant.
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All in all, my impression of Kill Code was that someone took duct tape, and tried to patch a hole in the Hoover Dam you could drive a Buick through. It is better than nothing, but it did nothing to address the structural changes desperately needed. And instead of just retconning the piece of idiocy that said TMs couldn't be part of a PAN, they instead made it a quality you have to pay for. The other TM 'fixes' are along the same lines.
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Personally, I read parts of Kill Code as strongly hinting at a matrix shake-up coming down the line. Which would probably require either a 5.5 or 6th edition to implement. They may stretch the storyline of the increasing Nul threat out for a couple more years, perhaps making it big enough to lead to major world disruptions (hey, can't let things get too good out there!). But it sure seemed to telegraph an upcoming change.
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Looking at the 'lifespan' of previous editions, I'd say 2019 is a good age for 5E to be sent to the glue factory, and hope 6E fixes the major structural problems.
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I suspect we'll see 6E in 2023. Gives them time to get some more stuff out the door, errata in, playtesting and plot foreshadowing. And finish SRM seasons 9 to 12.
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I suspect we'll see 6E in 2023. Gives them time to get some more stuff out the door, errata in, playtesting and plot foreshadowing. And finish SRM seasons 9 to 12.
If so, that would make 5th a 10 year edition, from 2013 to 2023, longer than any other one. Given the massive problems with 5e, that seems like a... less than spectacular idea. Really would need to have a 5.5 to fix the horrible structural problems that have still not been addressed.
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Industry wise I don't think we will see much in the way of new editions until late 2020 or after.
Pathfinder 2.0 is in the works. 2 years of play testing or so, amusingly I heard it described as 4.5.
5th I don't think is in big hurry to edition up, their attempt to merge Magic and D&D is where I think they focusing right now. So I expect to see more support for that.
Onyx Path, we might see some revised OWoD, NWoD thing? They keep pushing new titles. But I don't feel they are really interested in pushing the agenda.
FFG is soaking up profits from Star Wars in ever known table top method, and probably coming out with unknown ones. We will see their version of L5R soon.
Can Ulissies Spiele make the jump to a T1 Table top gaming company? Anyone read their 40k variant? I love FFG Rogue trader to much at the moment.
7th sea 2nd continue to expand their setting, maybe start some meta soon?
Catalyst doesn't seem like it's in a hurry to close out 5th. I think an anniversary edition, then maybe we ride up plot book mountain? We need a dragon book for sure, maybe some Milspec? More Prime runner support? Fixing Riggers? Making the Matrix Make Sense?, I for one really miss RNG adventure tables from 3rd. Lots of stuff from 3rd that never got shuffled forward, maybe how to play corp again? Plenty of room for adventure mod, lots ground work has been layed in the last couple releases. Lots of plot from the tarot book to mess with.
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It would be nice to see an open play-test of any new rule system; IF they are planning a new edition...
But those can also throw a lot of mud onto issues as well...
Also, Editions seem to last until the ideas for book runs out, not for a set number of years number of years.
Or when something "huge happens" within the company.
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I doubt we will see large scale play tests for SR. That never been their MOD, as far as I know.
5th closed most of the system holes that 4th developed.
But at this point 5th it has several of its own.
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'At this point'? The biggest holes in 5e have been there since the very start. The Matrix was completely FUBAR, and has moved to 'mostly FUBAR'. TMs are still getting smacked around like a redheaded stepchild. The extra magic books have just made things more complicated, with them adding in kindof sortof magic bullets and muddying the waters with alchemy.
5e started as swiss cheese, and it is still swiss cheese.
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I'm not sold on the TM part (TMs are currently basically immune to drain right now), and the matrix isn't that bad. But i'll give magic bullets are an issue and add riggers to the pile as well.