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Geekkake posted:Unless I'm not understanding you, I just want to point out that your character will then be pointing a (presumably loaded) firearm at an individual in order to take their picture and assess their current emotional state. Well, I had imagined doing it from afar (since I'd just mentioned Vision Magnification), but yes. It's a very silly idea. I have this picture in my mind of someone who got sensor softwares, but has no cybereyes and forgot to get a camera. "I ... uh ... well, my gun has a camera, right?"
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Mar 28, 2013 18:51
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Running the matrix if you are disinterested in running the matrix: Everything the hacker wants to mess with that is a device is on it's own network they need to find and the network's signal strength is so low the hacker needs to be on site to hack it. Find the network specific to the device: From 3 to 15 successes on an EWar check. Enter the network: From 1 to 6 sucesses to get a user account, which should be enough to open a door or turn off a camera. If it's a security door / high threat camera, they may need a security account which is three more successes. If it's an admin account they need because they're trying to install a pirate MP3 distribution server on the door, they need six more successes. Door rolls some dice (who cares how many! Twice security rating) each time the hacker tries to get in and accumulates successes right back: If the door gets as many total successes as the hacker's stealth program the hacker is found. Find the appropriate program: Find the door hinges autosoft by running Scan a few times. Opening the door: Got an account? Found the open function? Simple action to open it. Attacked by IC: OH GOD IT'S SO SCARY LOG OUT AND TRY AGAIN. There, hacking a door takes anywhere from four to fifteen actions. Same for turning off a camera, same for disabling a drone temporarilly. If the hacker does small things he's fine. If he steals cars or entire databases a security hacker notices and shows up, guess you have to learn the matrix combat rules which are honestly pretty simple.
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Mar 28, 2013 19:16
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Mystic Mongol posted:Running the matrix if you are disinterested in running the matrix: One thing that keeps it from being hilariously easy to do everything forever is noting that when the skill says to roll "Hacking + Exploit", it does NOT mean "Logic + Hacking + Exploit". My players are pretty upset about that at present, having missed the single paragraph in the rulebook that says it. Also, the Matrix combat rules are pretty much exactly the same as swordfighting rules with different attributes. I blame Hiro Protagonist for this.
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Mar 28, 2013 19:29
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I know the Gibsonian iconic cyberspace hacking concept is superfuckingcore to Shadowrun, but I can't ever read anything about it or see it during a game and not roll my eyes. I ain't no hacker but I used to live with a few and watched them do their thing. Granted typing into a command line is nothing exciting to watch, but in an RPG it doesn't matter because everything is representational anyway. At some point when I have a little more time I might run a cyberpunk game using Shadowrun rules and set in a similar universe, but no magic, no iconic cyberspace hacking or "matrix combat," and there would be much more variety in who the PCs can be. In other words, "shadowrunner" isn't a thing, but PCs could be "freelance security operators" or whatever who do pretty much the same thing, private detectives, bounty hunters, or mob associates and so on. It would probably be set in the NY Metroplex area. I already have a lot of campaign stuff for that from when I ran a campaign last year and from my own cyberpunk writing. A lot of Advanced Combat Rules would be in effect, especially More Lethal Gameplay. I might keep Technomancers, and they'd still be able to do the regular Matrix hacking instead of using a command line for brute-force and whatnot. Would anyone be interested in that kind of thing at some point in the future?
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Mar 28, 2013 19:29
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Martello posted:I know the Gibsonian iconic cyberspace hacking concept is superfuckingcore to Shadowrun, but I can't ever read anything about it or see it during a game and not roll my eyes. I ain't no hacker but I used to live with a few and watched them do their thing. Granted typing into a command line is nothing exciting to watch, but in an RPG it doesn't matter because everything is representational anyway. So run shadowrun but strip out a bunch of things that make it interesting? Make hacking more like what you saw some friend of yours do? And when couldn't Shadowrunners be bounty hunters or PIs or anyof that stuff?
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Mar 28, 2013 20:41
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I'm just looking to run a plain cyberpunk game, not sure what's to be mad about that. Some people don't always like mixing fantasy with their cyberpunk.
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Mar 28, 2013 20:53
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Martello posted:I'm just looking to run a plain cyberpunk game, not sure what's to be mad about that. Some people don't always like mixing fantasy with their cyberpunk. I get this, really. I spent a long time a couple years ago looking for a system to run a game like this because the magic in my cyberpunk bothered me a lot (I got over it; I've had a great time running SR once I decided to stop taking the computers so seriously). Shadowrun, I can say from experience, is not that system. If you like rules, try something more like GURPS. If you hate rules, try something more like FATE. SR is not the system you are looking for. The system is deeply coupled to the world.
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Mar 28, 2013 21:27
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SolTerrasa posted:The system is deeply coupled to the world. See, I haven't had that be my experience at all. After a few runs of magic being really stupid, we stripped it out of the campaign I was running and everything worked perfectly. Matrix stuff I don't know because nobody ran a hacker so we didn't really come across it besides my hacker NPCs rolling against other enemy hacker NPCs. Don't get me wrong - I love Shadowrun the way it is, it's just that sometimes I want to play regular no-magic cyberpunk with a little more realism. I like the rules and I know them, so I'd rather not learn a whole new system either.
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Mar 28, 2013 21:47
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Martello posted:I know the Gibsonian iconic cyberspace hacking concept is superfuckingcore to Shadowrun, but I can't ever read anything about it or see it during a game and not roll my eyes. I ain't no hacker but I used to live with a few and watched them do their thing. Granted typing into a command line is nothing exciting to watch, but in an RPG it doesn't matter because everything is representational anyway. I would be up for a straight cyberpunk game. My characters tend to lean towards the realistic end of the scale, so a game centred around that would be fun.
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Mar 28, 2013 23:40
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Martello posted:See, I haven't had that be my experience at all. After a few runs of magic being really stupid, we stripped it out of the campaign I was running and everything worked perfectly. Matrix stuff I don't know because nobody ran a hacker so we didn't really come across it besides my hacker NPCs rolling against other enemy hacker NPCs. Well, that's interesting. I'd love to see how you do it so I can try it myself, later. I'd be down if you start a PbP or an IRC game.
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Mar 29, 2013 00:22
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Martello posted:See, I haven't had that be my experience at all. After a few runs of magic being really stupid, we stripped it out of the campaign I was running and everything worked perfectly. Matrix stuff I don't know because nobody ran a hacker so we didn't really come across it besides my hacker NPCs rolling against other enemy hacker NPCs. Have you tried Corporation? Setting wise, apart from the fact that Corporation has no fantasy elements, they're so similar I sometimes get them confused. Megacorporations, dystopia, rogue AIs, cybertechnology, mutants. All that jazz. The biggest difference is that by default you're working for the megacorps in Corporation.
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Mar 29, 2013 02:09
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Martello posted:I know the Gibsonian iconic cyberspace hacking concept is superfuckingcore to Shadowrun, but I can't ever read anything about it or see it during a game and not roll my eyes. I ain't no hacker but I used to live with a few and watched them do their thing. Granted typing into a command line is nothing exciting to watch, but in an RPG it doesn't matter because everything is representational anyway. I would love some plain cyberpunk.
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Mar 29, 2013 02:15
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Mystic Mongol posted:It wasn't even a cliffhanger you left us on... I befriended (sorta) the rust stilettos, we murdered the poo poo out of some random NPC for the crime of having something the team psycho wanted, we loaded our hobo army into vans obtained by our crypto-anarchist academic dwarf hacker squad, and then--then you had to put our game on a back burner in favor of earning a living. Ah I'd forgotten we'd got that far. You guys came up with some crazy plans. I do remember the team psycho now (Omar Little as a street mage), that was a fun character. Anyway, I'm working on an OP for a new game now, I'll post here when it's all cooked.
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Mar 29, 2013 04:18
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Done! New game here, come make dudes and then shoot other dudes: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3540940
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Mar 29, 2013 08:14
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Literally every time I think to myself "hey, I've got a neat idea for a Shadowrun character" I go and open the books, start looking over gear selection and BP costs, remember all the dozens and dozens of fiddly bits and "how do these two rules work together again, if I take these raptor cyberlegs how bad am I loving myself over when I want to get muscle toner, etc. etc.," at which point I remember why I don't actually make Shadowrun characters anymore and put the books away. Then someone else will pitch a Shadowrun game and I'll think to myself "hey, I've got a neat idea for a Shadowrun character" and do it all over again. It's like the candy corn of RPGs.
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Mar 30, 2013 11:05
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I like playing character doctor... feel free to tap me with help for what you want to do.
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Mar 30, 2013 11:33
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Mystic Mongol posted:I like playing character doctor... feel free to tap me with help for what you want to do. I mean, I'm sure I could get Chummer or Hero Lab or something like that, it's not as though it's impossible...I just feel like I've reached a turning point and may have become the grognard. I noticed this when Eclipse Phase first came out and I rushed to make a bunch of cool cyber-bio-transhuman dudes some of whom were genetically engineered sabertooth big cats; making characters in these systems is exhausting. My very first RPG ever was Feng Shui, which really isn't relevant to this thread at all. My second RPG ever was Shadowrun. I bought it from the same way-out game store I'd gotten Feng Shui from which wasn't really a game store per se so much as a miscellaneous junk and knick-knacks store that happened to do a brisk trade in Magic cards. This was in 1996 or so, so around the start of the Ice Age block. Friendliest guy ever ran the place, Bill Deschler out on Cape Arago Highway. I miss that place. Anyway they also had a small collection of RPGs that basically sat there and gathered dust, among which was a battered and well worn softback of Shadowrun 2nd Edition. Now, I was vaguely aware that Shadowrun was "an RPG" in the pencils-and-dice sense largely thanks to an article in some video game magazine or another talking about the Shadowrun game for the SNES (which I would later go on to get stuck on in my younger and dumber years then return to triumphantly defeat in all my full-body cyborg dog shaman decker glory), and it was enjoying the SNES game as much as I had as well as finally beginning to "get" RPGs thanks to Feng Shui that led to me purchasing that copy of the tabletop RPG. So Feng Shui had been my first game, but Shadowrun was the game that really made me "get" RPGs. I'd managed to understand Feng Shui after a lot of reading and re-reading and getting my head around words I knew used in different ways and contexts, but when I pieced together Shadowrun in my head that was apparently the key that led to me being able to go "oh okay, I see how this poo poo works" and understand RPGs in general. And once I got it I loving loved it, and I did what every dorky teenager without a group of like-mindedly dorky friends does when he has an RPG and an overstimulated imagination and I spent what I can only imagine must be dozens and dozens of hours making characters for games I would never play on an old Apple II (a "cs" I think, Christ I can't even remember). And at one point, for a while, I owned drat near every sourcebook for SR2E and a number for SR1E as well. Didn't need'em, bought'em anyway, loved'em regardless. And every new sourcebook gave me more ideas for more characters, all of which were made by poring over combinations of books, flipping through pages and punching combined Essence costs and modifiers into a calculator before typing the finished product up nice and neat. And then somewhere along the way that just...stopped, y'know? Part of it is doubtlessly simply getting older, very marginally wiser, and going "hey, why are you wasting your time doing this? You should be wasting your time arguing about elfgames and discussing Let's Plays instead, that's a much more valuable use of your time," but somewhere along the way I feel like without even having some grand epiphany I just lost whatever urge I had to really dig back into a character creation system like Shadowrun's again. I'm probably not going to pitch to children overboard's game and I wasn't likely to anyway (no offense intended children overboard, I'm already waiting to hear back on a game and I'm in a couple more already) but seeing it go up got me kinda thinking it'd be cool to crack open the .pdfs and give it a spin again and...yeah, like I said, as soon as I start actually start to get into the process of making the character I just check out. I remember the same thing happening when I last had a tabletop group and the GM was like "Shadowrun!" and everybody was like "Aw yeah, awesome" and then chargen happened and the game just sort of stalled on the runway (at least it wasn't only me that time). I still like Shadowrun the setting, and I'm one of those people who actually likes a lot of the changes that went on in 4E. And of course people have made a bazillion hacks for "Shadowrun in [SOME OTHER SYSTEM]" but none of those has ever really appealed to me either for various reasons. I dunno. tl;dr  blah blah blah, today I am the grognard.
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Mar 30, 2013 12:27
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Kai Tave posted:I still like Shadowrun the setting, and I'm one of those people who actually likes a lot of the changes that went on in 4E. And of course people have made a bazillion hacks for "Shadowrun in [SOME OTHER SYSTEM]" but none of those has ever really appealed to me either for various reasons. I dunno. …and the magic didn't matter since the game's standard character creation model was more one of statistics and randomisation on funny tables (i.e. large chance to be born poor; as born poor, large chance of having the military being your only good legal career choice; as a soldier, a fair chance of having suffered a nuke and start the game with a few mGy already in your system). So full magic users were only 1% of the population, adepts another 1%, so picking either for min-maxing purposes was out of the question. It was a completely different style of building characters that didn't always appeal to everyone, but it actually turned out quite fun in the end, and the rules made the game as dangerous and gritty as I think Shadowrun should be.
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Mar 30, 2013 12:38
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If I want to have a crazy-high Data Search and Electronic Warfare, what's the best way to do it? At a glance, these kinds of skills seem to be hard to get above 12 dice (program of 6, system of 6). You can get the higher-end stuff for big piles of money and it degrades... is there a way to get an extra half-dozen dice on these that I'm not aware of? e: Not system of 6, skill, my bad. Still, seems hard to get big piles of dice like you can with a shotgun. e again: vvvvv Yeah at the moment I'm looking at a system 6 commlink with a program of 6 on it, plus my skill of 5, plus 2 for a hot sim. Normally specialization is a good way to pick up a couple of dice, but I dunno what a good Data Search specialization would be, and for Elec. Warfare there are multiple uses and you can only specialize in one. So that's just 13 dice. I can boost my skill eventually, but it's not cheap in terms of karma. drunkencarp fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Mar 30, 2013 |
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Mar 30, 2013 16:27
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drunkencarp posted:is there a way to get an extra half-dozen dice on these that I'm not aware of? There's a bunch of stuff that adds to your matrix rolls. Hot Sim, for instance, adds two to every roll in the matrix. Don't look for bonuses to Data Search, look for bonuses to matrix rolls.
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Mar 30, 2013 16:58
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Kai Tave posted:Literally every time I think to myself "hey, I've got a neat idea for a Shadowrun character" I go and open the books, start looking over gear selection and BP costs, remember all the dozens and dozens of fiddly bits and "how do these two rules work together again, if I take these raptor cyberlegs how bad am I loving myself over when I want to get muscle toner, etc. etc.," at which point I remember why I don't actually make Shadowrun characters anymore and put the books away. Then someone else will pitch a Shadowrun game and I'll think to myself "hey, I've got a neat idea for a Shadowrun character" and do it all over again. It's like the candy corn of RPGs. This. I ran a Shadowrun game like two years ago. All the things that initially got me excited about the game ("Customization! Look at all this gear! It's like an IC Sear's Catalogue of guns!") eventually made me want to die. The number of ways players can combine things to make an absolutely devastating character is astronomical. The idea of putting the same amount of effort into my NPCs just to make a relevant challenge is exhausting.
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Mar 30, 2013 21:46
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drunkencarp posted:You can get the higher-end stuff for big piles of money and it degrades... is there a way to get an extra half-dozen dice on these that I'm not aware of? To Augmentation! A rating 1 Encephelon adds +1 die to all Logic-linked Active Skill Tests. A rating 2 Encephelon adds another die to everything from the Cracking and Electronics skill groups when using AR or VR. That's 2 extra dice to all E.War and Data Search rolls (to say nothing of all the other skills). A Math SPU adds 2 dice "to any Electronic Warfare tests involving encoding or decoding." Not stellar, but good and cheap. PuSHeD is a transgenic modification which gives +1 to Logic-linked skill tests. Two drugs from Arsenal: Overdrive gives +1 Reaction and +1 to all Logic-linked skills. Lasts 10-Body hours and has a crash of 8S damage. Trance gives +1 Intuition, +2 to all Logic-linked skills, and Paralyzes you. Lasts 6-Body hours. As mentioned, in Hot Sim VR you've got +2 to all Matrix tests. Codeslinger is a 10bp quality from the corebook. +2 dice to a particular Matrix action of your choice. Analytical Mind is 5bp, from Runner's Companion. It gives +2 dice to Data Search and Software tests, as well as any Logic test involving pattern recognition, solving puzzles, hunting for clues, etc. Base 12 + Encephelon 2 + PuSHeD 1 + Trance 2 + Hot Sim 2 = 19 dice before you add in Qualities or the Math SPU. Edit: I didn't look hard enough in Augmentation. Neocortical neural amplifiers, a kind of nanoware, boost Logic-linked skills by +1 per rating point, "as long as the character is able to concentrate on the problem at hand without major distractions or encroaching stressful situations (such as a raging firefight, an ongoing chase, or hacking an ultra-secure system)." They go up to rating 3. So, being a creepy internet detective, when that's totally your thing? You might have 26 dice. Hacking the Gibson on the fly? You stick with your 19 dice, 21 if Hacking on the Fly is your thing. Vavrek fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Mar 31, 2013 |
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Mar 30, 2013 22:56
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Kai Tave posted:
Maybe it's just the rose-colored glasses of youth, but Shadowrun has always felt to me a system that, for all the issues it generates, begs for its overly intricate and usually unwieldy system. From looking at the point system of 4e it seems obvious the intent is to provide balance as best as possible, although execution falls flat in a number of areas. Like you said as well there's been any number of adaptations to other systems as well- I've been playing around with Savage Worlds. But Shadowrun begs a certain level of detail and specificity for its cybernetics and equipment. I don't think it's just because of some sense of verisimilitude or even the need to manage lethality-balance in a combat heavy system. Rather, all that detail seems to just breathe the commercialism and marketing of corporate Shadowrun. Do you go with the Remington Roomsweeper or the Ares Predator? The AK-97 or the HK? What mix of bone lacing versus dermal plating? A lot of these choices secretly end up driving to very similar numerical outputs in damage output or resistance...but still it's poured over like a day at the mall. IDK- maybe it's just me, but to me it ties back to 2nd edition's Street Samurai Catalog. The book catches us as children fetishizing guns and happily plays along by showing us the Runners who gleefully do the same thing.
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Mar 31, 2013 01:35
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DeclaredYuppie posted:Maybe it's just the rose-colored glasses of youth, but Shadowrun has always felt to me a system that, for all the issues it generates, begs for its overly intricate and usually unwieldy system. I actually agree with this and had considered going into it but that post was already word city. A certain degree of, for lack of a better way to put it, "shopping list syndrome" feels right for a game like Shadowrun which is all about tweaking and tuning yourself into a finely-honed black ops mercenary along with a healthy dollop of consumerism and "gotta spend money to make money, gotta chase the cutting edge." This is, I think, why I'm never quite satisfied with Shadowrun hacks that use ultralight systems or where character creation is abstracted too much. Like you, it could be nostalgia talking, but there it is. At the same time, I feel like that while SR4's chargen isn't hard, it suffers from being unwieldy ("Take your 400 starting points...") as well as married to a system that both encourages hyperspecialized Buckets O' Dice and makes players jump through a lot of other hoops to do things that could stand to be simplified a lot (like practically anything to do with cyberlimbs, holy poo poo. Eclipse Phase at least got that right; you want a cyberlimb? Fine, one of your arms is made of robot, done, no messing around with "all your cyberlimb attributes start at 3 and you have to buy them back up, then you have to take the average value of your stats whenever you do something involving all your limbs, but the stats can't go too high without this other piece of cyberware, hey where are you going, you still have 150 more BP to assign..."). I don't know if there's a way to have that feeling without it inevitably leading to fiddly chargen hell though, but I am not a smarty-man game designer so.
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Mar 31, 2013 01:52
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Honestly, one page shadowrun was the RPG design contest I'm most upset that fell through.
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Mar 31, 2013 02:26
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Kai Tave posted:I actually agree with this and had considered going into it but that post was already word city. A certain degree of, for lack of a better way to put it, "shopping list syndrome" feels right for a game like Shadowrun which is all about tweaking and tuning yourself into a finely-honed black ops mercenary along with a healthy dollop of consumerism and "gotta spend money to make money, gotta chase the cutting edge." This is, I think, why I'm never quite satisfied with Shadowrun hacks that use ultralight systems or where character creation is abstracted too much. Like you, it could be nostalgia talking, but there it is. I never understood why Cyberlimb rules are so obtuse, and I hope the implement a very simple fix. 1. Your cyberlimb has the same stats as your physical attributes 2. If you raise your physical attributes with Karma, you have to pay a minimal Nuyen cost to adjust the limb. 3. Limbs can't be more powerful than your base stats. 4. Limbs should cost less Essence, maybe .5 each for full limbs, .25 for partial. Simple, easy, no confusion.
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Mar 31, 2013 14:14
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Bigass Moth posted:I never understood why Cyberlimb rules are so obtuse, and I hope the implement a very simple fix. That said, it's not like your rules couldn't be the basis of it all, and then you tack on something about how you could give limbs more by paying exorbitant costs for it and how it doesn't really count if the body as a whole is mismatched (or only counts at the GM's discretion). In fact, that's probably another reason right there: they don't really trust “GM discretion” over rules, no matter how messed-up the attempted rule replacement becomes. Personally, I'd probably keep the essence cost, but provide massive discounts (down to making stuff entirely free) on essence cost for things that are partially or fully integrated into those limbs to a far greater extent than the rules already do. After all, essence is supposed to measure some kind of “closeness to ideal human form”, and replacing ¼ of it with cyberarms should give that measure the corresponding reduction (cyberskulls and -torsos perhaps being an exception since there's still a gooey centre inside). But at the same time, it means that, once lost, putting more stuff into the same hole should make absolutely no difference.
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Mar 31, 2013 14:47
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Bigass Moth posted:I never understood why Cyberlimb rules are so obtuse, and I hope the implement a very simple fix. Because that takes out pretty much the actual point of having a Cyberlimb, which is that they're supposed to be better then human limbs. I mean I know "make a dude with little to no combat stats then pump up a super mega cyberarm" is pretty cheesy, but that's literally the point of the cyberarm. If a cyberarm is just "your arm but cyber" then it loses a lot of what makes players get them and pretty much just leaves cyberarms as nothing more then a spurs delivery system. Case in point, Eclipse Phase actually does have more then just "your arm but cyber" in that "Cyberlimb +" is an option - it's your arm, but with slighty better stats. With cyberlimbs I feel like the easiest approach is to start with just "your arm but cyber" and then allow one of it's potential modules to be "increase x stat by 1." Then, I dunno, make it cost a lot of slots or just give cyberlimbs not a lot of slots so it doesn't break. If you're still worried about uberarms, give it a cap that's below the augmented super best - the best samurais don't just have a single arm, their whole dang body is made of 'ware. Edit: this post - and this part - were written when Tippis was writing his own response For rules light Shadowrun I feel like "Literally Leverage with one extra option for Magic" works, but I also agree that rules light isn't for all games, including Shadowrun. I mean, I think EP's chargen could be shortened but I'm not sure it needs to be "rules lite." It just needs to be EP instead of Shadowrun In Space - if one of your main themes are disposable and changeable bodies, then be sure the dang rules make bodies disposable and easily changed, dammit! My problem with SR4's chargen - not having really played the other editions - is that it suffers less due to chargen itself and more due to the whole system being kinda janky. I feel with Shadowrun they made the system without ever actually thinking about what kind of gameplay they wanted to push for. Like, take the whole thing about melee that we talked about earlier - melee being a poo poo choice for losers is rather explicitly not supposed to happen in Shadowrun, where two of the classical archetypes are built entirely around swinging a katana or punchin' dudes. I mean, Shadowrun's core book is vaguely infamous for the sample characters being absolute garbage. It's kinda clear the developers had no to little idea how their own system actually worked. I think what developers need to do, before they actually start developing, is decide early on how certain things are going to work. If you want cool dudes who are made of either magic or 'ware that punch and/or chop other dudes, then before you even write the mechanics you need to decide how that works. A lot of Shadowrun's systems, and I'm looking at you hacking, appear to have been written without any attention paid whatsoever to how it actually plays out. And this is what kills me in chargen - the chargen is really hosed up and BP is a mess, sure, but a lot of the hosed up -ness about it comes from trying to manipulate a frankly unwilling system into doing poo poo it's supposed to do. It's long been my opinion that the worst forms of chargen are ones where you have to wrestle the system itself into making the character you want - and SR4 suffers kinda hard from this. Or to put it another way... I'm fine with light crunch chargen and mechanics. I'm fine with heavy crunch chargen and mechanics. What I hate is unintuitive chargen and mechanics. Making a character must always - always - be one of the easiest parts of the game, because it is the first boundary every player must jump over.
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Mar 31, 2013 15:03
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ProfessorCirno posted:I think what developers need to do, before they actually start developing, is decide early on how certain things are going to work. If you want cool dudes who are made of either magic or 'ware that punch and/or chop other dudes, then before you even write the mechanics you need to decide how that works. A lot of Shadowrun's systems, and I'm looking at you hacking, appear to have been written without any attention paid whatsoever to how it actually plays out. And this is what kills me in chargen - the chargen is really hosed up and BP is a mess, sure, but a lot of the hosed up -ness about it comes from trying to manipulate a frankly unwilling system into doing poo poo it's supposed to do. It's long been my opinion that the worst forms of chargen are ones where you have to wrestle the system itself into making the character you want - and SR4 suffers kinda hard from this. …but then, it did rely a lot of GM discretion and arbitration to take out a bit of the un-fun-ness of the random rolls for the character background. Would getting shivved in prison (or whatever) really make the character boring to play for whatever reason? Then ask the GM for a re-roll — hell, it's an explicit rule that you're not slave-bound to the dice.
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Mar 31, 2013 15:23
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I remember the first time I led my group through Char-Gen. "Here spend your 400 points. Okay, that took an hour and a half. Two hours for the mage. Did you get any money? Okay, look at these 5 books and try to spend all your money as efficiently as possible." Buying gear in Shadowrun is like having another, smaller char-gen inside of the first one.
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Mar 31, 2013 18:23
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Am I the only one who loves shadowrun character generation?
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Mar 31, 2013 18:52
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MohawkSatan posted:Am I the only one who loves shadowrun character generation? I love it because I love working with fiddly bits, it's the save way with D&D 3.5 vs 4E.
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Mar 31, 2013 19:30
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MohawkSatan posted:Am I the only one who loves shadowrun character generation? You're never the only one. I like the system so much that any time I run a one-shot, I ask people what they like about games and about cyberpunk, and then give them completely new characters to match. But like Piell, I really like playing with fiddly bits and complicated systems. I play Dwarf Fortress, and EVE Online, and I totally get why normal people don't want to poke at characters for hours on end.
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Mar 31, 2013 19:40
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You guys actually nailed the reason I love it. Fiddly bits errywhere. Same reason I do wargaming, play strategy games, and love guns. Fiddly bits.
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Mar 31, 2013 20:11
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SolTerrasa posted:But like Piell, I really like playing with fiddly bits and complicated systems. I play Dwarf Fortress, and EVE Online, and I totally get why normal people don't want to poke at characters for hours on end. Fiddly can be fun. Fiddly because you're fighting against the mechanical and thematic schizophrenia of the system removes a lot of the additional fun that could be there. For some applications, the whole thing rather turns into a puzzle to be solved and could probably be played as such for its own sake, but it makes for a pretty poor implementation of a character generation system. Tippis fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Mar 31, 2013 |
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Mar 31, 2013 20:26
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Mendrian posted:Buying gear in Shadowrun is like having another, smaller char-gen inside of the first one. It gets even worse if you gamestyle is less Pink Mohawks & Miniguns and more Jason Bourne Covert Operations. For the former, you buy anything you want that is Awesome with a Capitol A and makes pretty explosions. Simple, right? For the latter, you need safe-houses, fake IDs, bolt holes, supply & equipment caches, contacts out the wazoo, and god forbid you are a rigger, because now you have several vehicles, someplace to store and maintain them, and a dozen drones of every size, shape, color, and lethal ability.  In D&D/Pathfinder and other games, a beginning character is most often a wanderer who travels light, maybe a horse & cart, or a house somewhere. You can count off your equipment items on your fingers. Shadowrun requires logistics. It is unsurprising your average player doesn't want to go through the effort.
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Mar 31, 2013 20:56
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MRC48B posted:god forbid you are a rigger, because now you have several vehicles, someplace to store and maintain them, and a dozen drones of every size, shape, color, and lethal ability. The last time I tried making a rigger in 4e I blacked out and ended up with "NEVER AGAIN" carved into my chest and a wheelman adept with one, single, nice car written in my own blood.
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Mar 31, 2013 21:20
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Performance modifications, software upgrades, weapons, ammunition, fake licensing, and storage. For every drone or vehicle. It occurs to me that there are no rules for fuel/energy use, but now that I have mentioned it, someone will make a houserule. Don't get me wrong, I am one of those  s who doesn't mind doing Shadowrun Chargen (as long as I can use chummer, gently caress doing it manually). But I can totally understand why others hate it even with a software package or spreadsheet to do the math for you.
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Mar 31, 2013 21:56
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MRC48B posted:Performance modifications, software upgrades, weapons, ammunition, fake licensing, and storage. For every drone or vehicle. Chummer actually makes it more fun for me. As for fuel, my group always house ruled how many hours of fuel we had left. Not that we ever cared, unless fuel was going to be very important for some reason(gently caress the Mojave desert forever)
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Mar 31, 2013 22:39
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Tippis posted:Fiddly can be fun. Fiddly because you're fighting against the mechanical and thematic schizophrenia of the system removes a lot of the additional fun that could be there. For some applications, the whole thing rather turns into a puzzle to be solved and could probably be played as such for its own sake, but it makes for a pretty poor implementation of a character generation system. Agreed. Fiddly - that is, having lots of different mechanical options that are valid in the Right Circumstance - is fun. Even having a few choices that live two or more levels deep is fun. Having to know the exact right formula to improve Recoil Compensation to max levels while avoiding trap choices is Not Fun. Having to know which Adept powers are mechanically more or less efficient then their cyberware counterparts is Not Fun. Really, the problem with SR isn't that it's fiddly, it's that there are huge wasted investments along side clearly superior game options. You can approach min/maxing in SR4 from two directions. You can do it the Mostly Fun way - start with a concept and do the best you can with that concept. E.g., I'm a duel wielding pistol dude regardless of how much better a different weapon might be, and I'm going to get the most dice within that. The problem with that, is that the kind of person who can get the most out of Two Pistols Guy could also hypothetically make Highest Gun Pool Ever Guy. The level of system mastery required to get the most out of a concept is much too high, I think. As an aside: How viable is it to play SR4 out of just the Anniversary book and no supplements? I sometimes wonder if the complexity overload is just a symptom of all the supplements. I mean nobody is making me use Augmentation or Arsenal; the systems in those books are clearly optional. Riggers notwithstanding.
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Mar 31, 2013 22:40
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