[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

SSD's response leads me to believe the damage calculation will be changed. Spidey sense is tingling and what not.

Well, if I gave you that impression it's my duty to walk it back.

The "best practice", until such time that issue is formally errata'd, is certainly to go with STR/2.  It's technically unsaid (the reference on pg 111 technically doesn't apply outside of grappling) but is a reasonable inference.

[fougerec99]

Imagine how different the tone and content of the current conversations would be if the exact same 6e ruleset had dropped (without finalised art/layout) at GenCon as an open playtest beta edition, with a robust process for gathering feedback, leading up to a final release at GenCon 2020. Hell, price it at $10 and tie that into the feedback system to reduce noise and recoup some expenses now instead of deferring all revenue a year.

This, with the exception of charging for playtest.  That's just shitty.  I know many people who dropped support for Pathfinder for that sort of thing.

[Lormyr]

Well, if I gave you that impression it's my duty to walk it back.

No need bud, you are all good. Like I said, I just got that intuition from your reply, right or wrong. It's certainly not your fault I got the tingle from your comment.

[Michael Chandra]

SSD's response leads me to believe the damage calculation will be changed. Spidey sense is tingling and what not.

Well, if I gave you that impression it's my duty to walk it back.

The "best practice", until such time that issue is formally errata'd, is certainly to go with STR/2.  It's technically unsaid (the reference on pg 111 technically doesn't apply outside of grappling) but is a reasonable inference.

Natural Attack helps.

[Marcus]

I think part of the reason why D&D 5E worked as well as it did out of the gate was because there where thousands of playtesters and I don't recall being under an NDA for it either.  It was, basically, crowdsourced playtesting and it paid off for them.

Imagine how different the tone and content of the current conversations would be if the exact same 6e ruleset had dropped (without finalised art/layout) at GenCon as an open playtest beta edition, with a robust process for gathering feedback, leading up to a final release at GenCon 2020. Hell, price it at $10 and tie that into the feedback system to reduce noise and recoup some expenses now instead of deferring all revenue a year.

Sigh if only such a thing was possible, but sadly we live in a world where common sense takes a back seat to profit motive, and logic take a back to blind support. Thus we are left with the spectacle of an edition of SR that failed to include the basic concept of how to calculate unarmed damage. smh. I mean come on, I'd honestly called that a bad joke. The fact that it's true just means makes it even more tragic.

[Hephaestus]

I think part of the reason why D&D 5E worked as well as it did out of the gate was because there where thousands of playtesters and I don't recall being under an NDA for it either.  It was, basically, crowdsourced playtesting and it paid off for them.

Imagine how different the tone and content of the current conversations would be if the exact same 6e ruleset had dropped (without finalised art/layout) at GenCon as an open playtest beta edition, with a robust process for gathering feedback, leading up to a final release at GenCon 2020. Hell, price it at $10 and tie that into the feedback system to reduce noise and recoup some expenses now instead of deferring all revenue a year.

Sigh if only such a thing was possible, but sadly we live in a world where common sense takes a back seat to profit motive, and logic take a back to blind support. Thus we are left with the spectacle of an edition of SR that failed to include the basic concept of how to calculate unarmed damage. smh. I mean come on, I'd honestly called that a bad joke. The fact that it's true just means makes it even more tragic.

Privateer Press created their Community Integrated Development (CID) for free community beta testing/feedback on models and rules. Aside from some dedicated salt miners, it has worked fairly well to engage the community by letting them preview new content 2-3 months prior to release, try to break the game with it, give feedback, report errors, and get new stuff closer to balanced at launch.

Not saying all companies would/should/could follow that model, but it seems like it has done good things for PP.

[FastJack]

Unfortunately, some playtesters on this edition went ahead and released information (and possibly the documents). I agree that an open play-test is a terrific thing (examples: Pathfinder, D&D 5E, Pathfinder 2), and I hope that Catalyst goes that route for future books. One of the difficulties is that Shadowrun is a six-book game. Yes, you can play the game with the core rule book, but they now have a history (every since 1st Edition, in fact), where the game really hits the mark after they are able to put out Magic/Matrix/Cyber/Lifestyle/Rigger books that give the players depths to the characters they want to play. It makes it hard to do a playtest without playtesting all the books, since they build on each other. D&D and Pathfinder can get away with playtest on the base rules, since any rules that come after are simply adding on to the rule, not making them more complex and intricate.

[Jareth Valar]

Sigh if only such a thing was possible, but sadly we live in a world where common sense takes a back seat to profit motive, and logic take a back to blind support. Thus we are left with the spectacle of an edition of SR that failed to include the basic concept of how to calculate unarmed damage. smh. I mean come on, I'd honestly called that a bad joke. The fact that it's true just means makes it even more tragic.

If sense were common, everyone would have it.

[markelphoenix]

Unfortunately, some playtesters on this edition went ahead and released information (and possibly the documents). I agree that an open play-test is a terrific thing (examples: Pathfinder, D&D 5E, Pathfinder 2), and I hope that Catalyst goes that route for future books. One of the difficulties is that Shadowrun is a six-book game. Yes, you can play the game with the core rule book, but they now have a history (every since 1st Edition, in fact), where the game really hits the mark after they are able to put out Magic/Matrix/Cyber/Lifestyle/Rigger books that give the players depths to the characters they want to play. It makes it hard to do a playtest without playtesting all the books, since they build on each other. D&D and Pathfinder can get away with playtest on the base rules, since any rules that come after are simply adding on to the rule, not making them more complex and intricate.

I think that is more of a design issue. By putting CRB through playtests and making it solid, it should reduce complexity and ambiguity from any expansion books. A clean and unambiguous rule set version is conducive to extension via virtue of it's ability to be understood. Greater the ambiguity of anything, the harder it is to integrate with. The more clear and accurate, the easier it is to make a choice on how to extend or modify as an optional rule in a expansion book. If the CRB is unplayable by itself, then that is, again, a game design issue.

[FastJack]

Not unplayable. Much like you can play D&D with just a PHB, you get more from the game with the PHB/DMG/MM combo. Shadowrun players expect the six books now, and many will wait until the ones they really use come out before getting involved in the game. I know I tend to wait for the Magic and Lifestyle books because I play a lot of adepts and mages. In previous editions, I couldn't even build an adept until they came out.

[fougerec99]

Yes, you can play the game with the core rule book, but they now have a history (every since 1st Edition, in fact), where the game really hits the mark after they are able to put out Magic/Matrix/Cyber/Lifestyle/Rigger books that give the players depths to the characters they want to play. It makes it hard to do a playtest without playtesting all the books, since they build on each other. D&D and Pathfinder can get away with playtest on the base rules, since any rules that come after are simply adding on to the rule, not making them more complex and intricate.

I would think that is something that would look at changing with a new edition - the reliance on 6 different books to make the game playable.

The core rules should be where your testing is the most rigorous as it's the very core of everything that comes after it (implied by the title Core Rules).  It has to be as solid as you can make it since everything that comes after rests on its foundation.  There's no need for SR6 to have a 10 page errata before the book is even available.  There's no need for simple, basic information to be missing (like Unarmed damage, like starting Essence).  If this is the level of care put into the core book then I can't even fathom how bad supplement books are going to be.

[Michael Chandra]

They playtested a lot but even veteran players missed plenty of things. I caught maybe 20% when I read the book from end to end and making notes like crazy. People ask questions and I'm all "d'oh!". Fortunately they're using a decent errata process nowadays.

[Finstersang]

They playtested a lot but even veteran players missed plenty of things. I caught maybe 20% when I read the book from end to end and making notes like crazy. People ask questions and I'm all "d'oh!". Fortunately they're using a decent errata process nowadays.

I have the suspicion that there were too many veterans and not enough total newbs in the playtesting groups. A lot of the missed/wonky stuff seems to be due to what you correctly identified as "change blindness" - the vets already knew how stuff worked in the previous edition, so when questions like "what´s the unarmed melee DV" come up, they thought they knew the answer without looking if its really written out in the actual book.

Ideally, there should have been some 100% newb groups in the playtesting sessions, with one vet/dev sitting in the background, taking notes and only jumping in when the group gets stuck. But that´s hard to achieve, especially in a rush.

[penllawen]

A lot of the missed/wonky stuff seems to be due to what you correctly identified as "change blindness" - the vets already knew how stuff worked in the previous edition, so when questions like "what´s the unarmed melee DV" come up, they thought they knew the answer without looking if its really written out in the actual book...

But unarmed melee DV is different in 6e...! And the fact that it's Str/2 is not easy to intuit from the rules as written, except for where it comes up in passing in the Grapple rule.

If you gave a seasoned RPG player the bare bones of the 6e melee system (sans Grapple), I think they'd guess that unarmed damage would be some fixed code and not a derivative of Strength, as that's consistent with all the melee weapons.

[Finstersang]

A lot of the missed/wonky stuff seems to be due to what you correctly identified as "change blindness" - the vets already knew how stuff worked in the previous edition, so when questions like "what´s the unarmed melee DV" come up, they thought they knew the answer without looking if its really written out in the actual book...

But unarmed melee DV is different in 6e...! And the fact that it's Str/2 is not easy to intuit from the rules as written, except for where it comes up in passing in the Grapple rule.

If you gave a seasoned RPG player the bare bones of the 6e melee system (sans Grapple), I think they'd guess that unarmed damage would be some fixed code and not a derivative of Strength, as that's consistent with all the melee weapons.

Ah, right. It was the full strength value in 5th Edition. Unarmed Damage being Str/2 was written out in the QSR, though. I can understand how the "vets" come to this conclusion without looking it up (and realizing that it´s really not there).

That being said: Closing these kind of gaps in the RAW is one thing, but I really hope that the errata team gets some leeway to adjust some of the mechanics and balancing blunders as well. F.i. I´d say that there´s a really clear picture now that the majority of players don´t like and/or understand the logic (or rather, lack thereoff) behind Melee weapons being almost 100% independent from Strength while Unarmed Combat relies on it when it comes to both the Damage Code and the Attack rating. Refusing the necissary "blessing" for adjusting this issue via errata (or at least in the Combat supplement...) or refusing to acknowledge that there might be an issue here is just insulting at this point...