[adzling]

6e really does seem to have taken simplification so far as to convert srun from a PnP rpg into a boardgame-like experience focussed on pink mohawk flavor and mechanics where the details don't matter and the outcomes are not connected to physics or anything IRL.

The constant refrain i am hearing is "but your concerns are irrelevant because WE don't think that stuff is at all important / we did not use that feature in our own games".

That simply illustrates the disconnect between the design process and the playerbase (or at least the deeply invested, highly engaged fans that come to this and other internet boards).

yaay?

How is it a disconnect in the design process if the WE you're talking about is the playerbase that simply doesn't agree with you. I'm not saying that there isn't a disconnect, I'm just trying to get to the core issue here. I agree that the better games that have come out recently are because they've invited players to playtest new rules for a year or more before releasing a final product. But in this case, since (AFAIK) none of the users disagreeing with you are working for Catalyst, I don't think you can attribute it to the design process.

Ok Fastjack (god it's always so weird replying to you with the lore firmly embedded in my head) my responses below-->
I don't KNOW at all, hence my comment about the "the deeply invested playerbase on this forum.." which is clearly smaller than "all folks who play shadowrun".
So for other's opinions I only have the comments from people online to go on.
Unfortunately the reviews I have seen online are so crap as to be meaningless and the demo plays that have occurred were very limited in scope.

We have a track record of Catalyst's "process" to refer to and we know some minimal details about the playtests (thanks banshee!).
So given the lack of information I can only extrapolate based on past experience (not good) and the fact that this game veers heavily away from the preferences of all the people I play with and the majority of people I interact with online.
My comments and concerns are inline with the dataset of players I have available to me.

On another note, let's say (in a perfect universe), Catalyst had done playtesting of Sixth World for the past year, and these are still the rules they released because that's what the playtesters liked. What then?

Then in that case I would say "ok, you clearly don't want the type of player I am, or my table is, or the many people I interact with online to be part of the future of Shadowrun, so long and thanks for all the fish. At least you listened."

I'm trying state the problem I'm seeing with everyone coming on the boards and being critical of rules that we haven't seen in their entirety. Is the problem that the individual doesn't like the rules that the majority thinks are okay, or is there a majority of those that don't like the rules and most are just not speaking out.

Clearly there's no way to judge this given the game is not released.
I am restricted from commenting on the core rules due to NDA, so I am only commenting on the very mechanics that have been revealed by public demos.
With that tiny amount of information it's clear to everyone that armor and melee weapon damage are completely unrelated to reality, physics or anything approaching how they actually effect a real combat. That was clearly a design decision to favor simplicity over verisimilitude and to me that's an horrific design choice as there are other ways to achieve simplicity and retain a semblance of reality.

Hell, rules are there to do one thing: Determine if your cool idea works.

.

I respectfully disagree completely.
Rules are there to provide a framework to determine how your character's actions interact with the world and are adjudicated by the GM.
Doing "cool" stuff in only part of that.
Focussing on "cool stuff" to the detriment of a grounding in realistic outcomes results in a game that is divorced from reality, shallow and generally (imho) a waste of my time.
If I want that experience I pick up a boardgame. OR a modern CRPG.
For me a PnP RPG is there for detailed, in-depth, richly nuanced game play.
This ain't that.

If they become overly complicated, then your idea stops being cool once you're going through the fifth table.

Agreed!
Hence my many, many comments in this thread agreeing that some simplification was needed in Srun 5e.

On the other hand, if they are too simplified, then every idea is cool and is successful. The trick is finding a balance.

Agreed!
Imho 6e is just that, cool over everything else.
It's all cool with no relation to reality or realistic outcomes.
That's why the new edge mechanic is so horrific in my estimation.
It replaces the real, gritty feeling of a dystopian world with the Men in Black trope of all flash and no substance.

In my opinion, Shadowrun has trouble finding that balance because they have to write rules for three different games (Matrix, Magic, and Meat) and make sure they are tied together and work together so no one gets left behind.

I agree 100%.
All the more reason why the rules should be clearly written, well edited and have easily understandable and accessible mechanics that are similar across the meat, astral and matrix.
5e failed terribly in that regard by implementing matrix and driving sub-systems that were completely different from the mechanics for the other sub-systems, were confusing, terribly written and horribly edited.
They could have been fixed / replaced with tossing the entire thing in the garbage.

If simplifying the rules gets closer to that objective, I'm willing to give it a shot.

So am I!
I was hoping the surprise announcement of 6e was going to lead to something awesome.
Unfortunately just with stuff revealed publicly it's horrible.
It's a total abandonment of any connection to realistic outcomes in favor of "the rule of cool".
It is, in essence, exactly what you asked for in your post above "a game to let you do cool things"
And as you said above, the trick is finding the balance.
IMHO this ain't it, it's far from it and it gives me sad as I was hoping for so much more.

[FastJack]

***WALL OF TEXT***

Thank you for going into detail on this, that's what I was hoping for. It basically comes down to we all want the same thing from the game: to make it more enjoyable for us to play it. We may disagree on processes and styles of play, but can agree on that.

[adzling]

***WALL OF TEXT***

Thank you for going into detail on this, that's what I was hoping for. It basically comes down to we all want the same thing from the game: to make it more enjoyable for us to play it. We may disagree on processes and styles of play, but can agree on that.

hear hear!

[Ixal]

Full agreement with adzling
Both the rules (or most of them) presented so far and the lore do not appeal to me at all and, in my eyes, show that Catalyst is going for a over the top "rule of cool" edition which frankly is not Shadowrun for me.
I will look at the final product (or rather read what those who played it say after a few months), but so far I rather hope that 6E won't be the end of SR when it performs like I expect it to and that 7E will be better.

[Moonshine Fox]

I take it you're not familiar with the Stormwind Fallacy.

Oh I am, but it's not an absolute. There is a difference between taking skills, spells, abilities, and gear that boost what you want to do, and taking skills, spells, abilities, and gear that boost what you want to do despite it making no sense for the character. The first is just character building, the second is roll building.

Being able to work with the GM to establish a character and what they know and do is critical for good role playing, and doesn't always need full mechanics behind it, especially when the mechanics are already kinda vague to begin with, something knowledge skills have always been despite having a number assigned to them. You could have two characters with the same knowledge skill, but they role-play them as knowing different aspects of said skill. In 3rd and 2nd (and I think 1st), knowledge skills could work as a complementary roll. This roll would let you roll the skill (was just skill back then, no attribute) and add half the successes to whatever other roll you were about to make. It was also suggested that a player could simply be given more information then someone who didn't have that skill.

The description sounds like it's going back to that, where the knowledge augments other skills rather then being rolled for it's own sake, which could be handled with a Memory Test for many of them if a solitary roll is required.

[incrdbil]

There's also no way to differentiate between a technically skilled artist, an emotionally authentic artist, and a highly original artist. These are very different, but the distinction doesn't really matter to Shadowrun. I can easily see that a binary distinction between people who do know about the subject, and those who don't, could be enough for this game. If it makes it easier for players to justify picking up new knowledges to reflect their characters' life experience, then it could be a good thing.

 Knowledge skills aren't meaningless throw aways--knowledge is important in so many ways. Having knowledge, or finding knowledge. Why search for a expert on some unique bit of lore or information needed for a run, go to the trouble of finding that expert, when you can just find anyone with the skill, who will know just as much, as the system now has no  way to account for actual depth of knowledge in anything that is not a main combat skill.  the full some of human knowledge not contained on the basic skill list--meh, that;s just a flat skill.

with this approach--experts don't matter. Mathematics--doesn't matter how much you study. Nuclear physics? Meh, easy to learn.  Culture, history, design theory--everyone's the same once you buy the the flat skill (and you have a similar mental stat).


Binary skill ratings are not satisfactory or acceptable as a game mechanic, no more than makign all of the active, mainstream combat skills in the game binary. --It's just a lazy cop out.

[Cyclomatic]

I wouldn't automatically draw parallels between a mechanic of academic "ranks" and what people actually know in terms of knowledge.  The way academic knowledge works in the real world has nothing to do with your "level of training" and everything to do with you knowing the specific piece of knowledge (or a LOT of specific pieces of knowledge + some fairly basic theory).

I'd bet a lot that a nurse that watched some videos put together by researchers at various labs doing research on ebola and read papers on it will know more about the details of ebola than most doctors.  Even a layman with little to no medical knowledge could likely stump most doctors on ebola mechanics after investing time into reading about it.  Ebola isn't common enough for doctors to have clinical experience with it and so are unlikely to have been prompted to brush up on it.  Doctors are doctors because they spent years studying many different things that are all related.  If you want to represent a PhD level of knowledge, then it seems like you would list out knowledge skills for all the topics they covered in getting their doctorate.  They will have knowledge of anatomy, they will have knowledge of virology, they will have knowledge of organic chemistry, knowledge of pharmacology, etc (etc...etc...etc...etc...etc... in the case of doctors).  If you want to use the knowledge system to reflect a doctorate level of education, list 30+ knowledge topics that are all clustered around the subject they have their doctorate in, and that list won't exactly match the list that someone else with a doctorate in the same field will have (which is why people with degrees consult with people that have the same degree as them).  If you want to spend more points to have a better specialized knowledge than someone who didn't, then have more points spent on tightly clustered topics than someone who didn't.

For hands on stuff like clinical skills?  Yeah, ranks make sense because it takes hands on experience to develop practical skills and some practical skills are better than others.  Those knowledge skills would really help though, as knowing the specific theory behind a specific task would give you an edge when performing a task you know the steps to but something doesn't quite fit the expected sequence, and their wide range of knowledge skills mean they will almost always have that edge.

Frankly, I don't see an obvious inherent issue based on what has been presented so far.

[incrdbil]

...
6e will.
...

Actually, it won't.  It's not that the difference between binging some documentary trideos and earning a PhD is gone, it's just that the difference is now moot. Differentiating how MUCH knowledge you have on a topic literally doesn't matter in the mechanic of how knowledge skills work in 6e.

That's a sorry pathetic excuse of an RPG. Thats goign from knowledge is power to knowledge is meaningless.

Someone who only watched documentaries just might have watched the perfect episode and does know it.  And the Professor who teaches the subject to doctorate students might have never bothered going into those particular weeds and might not know it.

and the 6e system throws the burden fully on the GM to randomly figure out who knows what, and how much, with no useful way to measure the relative likelihood of a PC or NPC to know a fact. That is lazy. That's abandoning the purpose of having RPG mechanics--so the GM doesn't have to constantly wing it and has a useful system to gauge a PC's or NPC's capabilities in an given area.

I'm stunned anyone can think is remotely acceptable.

First Aid: Training, level of ability, easily comparable. Who do you want working on your wounds? The guy with a lot more skill.


Nuclear physics? thats a toss up. Everyone in the world  who has that knowledge is about the same.  Doesn't matter who you talk to.

No need to go search for n expert in a unique knowledge area, a common hook of games.   Just find the easiest closest one. They are all the same. There's no way to know who knows more. As long as the player has the knowledge skill, there is less need to go find a more knowledgeable expert--because according to the rules, there is no way for them to be more knowledgeable.

[David Chart]

Knowledge skills aren't meaningless throw aways--knowledge is important in so many ways.

So is art. Rocker was one of the archetypes in SR1; Scholar was not. So, arguably, art is more important to Shadowrun than knowledge.

Having knowledge, or finding knowledge. Why search for a expert on some unique bit of lore or information needed for a run, go to the trouble of finding that expert, when you can just find anyone with the skill, who will know just as much, as the system now has no  way to account for actual depth of knowledge in anything that is not a main combat skill.  the full some of human knowledge not contained on the basic skill list--meh, that;s just a flat skill.

In SR5, what score in a knowledge skill means that you know all about the megacorps' (all the megacorps') latest research in that field? Suppose I have Cyberware 12 — does that mean I know the schematics for Ares's latest cyberlimb design?

I'm guessing not, so the switch to binary skills does not fundamentally change anything. You sometimes needed to look for specific people under the old rules, and you will sometimes need to do it under the new ones. What it does do is make it harder to run a variant campaign in which knowledge skills are central to in-play activities. But that's fine; the core rules should not try to support all possible variant campaigns. That way lie 1000 page rulebooks. Combat skills need to be granular, because they are central to the core Shadowrun campaign type. Knowledge skills are not, and never have been. If they were, there would have been a list, not "make up your own".

Maybe Catalyst should do a supplement on eggheads, with full rules for scholarship and knowledge. And one on revolutionary artists, with full rules for art. I think those could be very interesting supplements, but I don't think they should be in the core rules. In the context of the core rules, I think binary knowledge skills is a reasonable compromise, with potential strong benefits.

[Shinobi Killfist]

They already have the mechanic in place for languages. It’s not that hard to house rule knowledge skills to that.

I think it’s freaking bizarre for language they understand there are varying levels of knowledge but every other knowledge skill nope. But whatevs it’s easy to fix as they have the template in the game already.

[David Chart]

I’m only seeing the same handful of people cheerleading as well so woo small numbers of people are talking about it altogether.

That's at least partly because all the people who have seen the full rules are bound by NDAs. I like some of the changes I've seen mentioned and am cautious about some of the others, but I'll wait to see the full rules before making a final judgement.

I've actually designed a new edition of an established game with a fervent fan base (Ars Magica 5th Edition). It's really hard work, with a lot of straight-out incompatible demands from the fans. The initial reaction almost always skews negative, because people seize on things that look wrong to them. But, sometimes, it shakes out over the course of a few months to generally positive. (Ars Magica 5th went that way, as did D&D 5e.) So I'm going to wait and see.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

...
I'm stunned anyone can think is remotely acceptable.

First Aid: Training, level of ability, easily comparable. Who do you want working on your wounds? The guy with a lot more skill.


Nuclear physics? thats a toss up. Everyone in the world  who has that knowledge is about the same.  Doesn't matter who you talk to.
...

I give up.  I was going to respond but I'm done trying to change made-up minds.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I’m only seeing the same handful of people cheerleading as well so woo small numbers of people are talking about it altogether.

That's at least partly because all the people who have seen the full rules are bound by NDAs. I like some of the changes I've seen mentioned and am cautious about some of the others, but I'll wait to see the full rules before making a final judgement.

I've actually designed a new edition of an established game with a fervent fan base (Ars Magica 5th Edition). It's really hard work, with a lot of straight-out incompatible demands from the fans. The initial reaction almost always skews negative, because people seize on things that look wrong to them. But, sometimes, it shakes out over the course of a few months to generally positive. (Ars Magica 5th went that way, as did D&D 5e.) So I'm going to wait and see.

And it goes the other way too where people have a initial like of a game as it seems to solve problem x but the more they play it the more other flaws bring it down.

There are plenty of things I like from what I’ve heard. Did the lack of multiple passes. I would have leaned more into that and not had multiple majors, but had multiple minors being added into super moves so it’s just one action instead of a potential 2 but still overall optimistic about that.

I generally like edge. I think it may have some uses that break verisimilitude and I don’t think it should replace combat modifiers but instead be a add on to them but hey edge overall looks more usable this edition so far.

No force in spells love it. Need to see the details to see how it works entirely. You can up damage to drain but can you hold back like let’s say use physical barrier just as an umbrella for rain 5e force 1 cast. Wish spirits were force less as well. Like forcex2 resistance by spirits to being summoned. But im cautious about what a force 6 spirit means in a world where heavy pistols do 4 damage.

I see 0 positives in this knowledge skill system but at least house rules should be easy just by copying the language template.

[Nomad Of Endings]

I personally like not having skill ranks in Knowledge Skills... Anything that gives narrative options to players (ie. How much they should/would know) free's up a GM to focus on other things on the fly while GM'ing. I know I'm in the growing minority, but I like giving more freedom to players to sway the narrative control of the game. How that interacts with Skilljacks, that's what has me intrigued.... But I like NOT having a 6 in Biochemistry, rolling, and getting only 1 success and having to portray it as "Pfff, I think the poison was Arsenic... Maybe?" Where then, I'd hear people complain that you should be using Edge to balance out that bad dice role, but if one mechanic that didn't work as well as intended needs to rely on a second mechanic to act as a stop gap for the first, it just gets too clunky and bogs the flow of the game down. If you've got a 6 in a Knowledge Skill, you shouldn't be at the mercy of bad dice rolls when your an EXPERT in your field.

[Moonshine Fox]

I personally like not having skill ranks in Knowledge Skills... Anything that gives narrative options to players (ie. How much they should/would know) free's up a GM to focus on other things on the fly while GM'ing. I know I'm in the growing minority, but I like giving more freedom to players to sway the narrative control of the game. How that interacts with Skilljacks, that's what has me intrigued.... But I like NOT having a 6 in Biochemistry, rolling, and getting only 1 success and having to portray it as "Pfff, I think the poison was Arsenic... Maybe?" Where then, I'd hear people complain that you should be using Edge to balance out that bad dice role, but if one mechanic that didn't work as well as intended needs to rely on a second mechanic to act as a stop gap for the first, it just gets too clunky and bogs the flow of the game down. If you've got a 6 in a Knowledge Skill, you shouldn't be at the mercy of bad dice rolls when your an EXPERT in your field.

And lets the GM and player work together to build the character they want beyond what just the number can impart. And if it turns out that more complexity is desired/needed, Shinobi pointed out there's already a system in place on the languages that can be used.