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Gobbeldygook posted:There were a few pages of discussion earlier in the thread. Thanks.
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Mar 11, 2020 04:18
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It’s really just a dnd knockoff but based on cyberpunk and with witchers. It’s not good enough mechanically for non fans and all the weird discrepancies and power level issues tank it as an adaptation.
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Mar 11, 2020 07:41
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Hostile V posted:It's built on Cyberpunk 2020 except set in The Witcher, Witchers are more or less Solos but with more fancy poo poo and there's a lifepath chargen system, so. If any of those set off red flags, maybe get ready to either duck out or lean into the disaster. Hey now, lifepath chargen can be really fun and just requires a lot of careful balancing. And admitting that it's got to make actual good characters rather than just being a weird mini-game for people who like quietly adding numbers by themselves. And also be balanced. But it's not inherently bad!
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Mar 11, 2020 07:49
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But also not good. I´ve run it for a group of hardcore fans who were disappointed in how bad people start and how stuffy the combat system is. The fact that you have to roll so often and do so little in effect makes for a very bad game indeed. Furthermore, because its inspired by the pc-game more than the books, the game isn´t really suited to group play, which is kinda weird considering how the books are mostly Geralt & Friends cruise the weird lands of the North.
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Mar 11, 2020 09:06
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Alright, thanks guys. Turns out we're gonna do a FFVII game using the Shadowrun 4E ruleset anyway.
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Mar 11, 2020 10:32
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MonsieurChoc posted:Alright, thanks guys. Turns out we're gonna do a FFVII game using the Shadowrun 4E ruleset anyway. !
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Mar 11, 2020 11:02
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MonsieurChoc posted:Alright, thanks guys. Turns out we're gonna do a FFVII game using the Shadowrun 4E ruleset anyway. That's significantly worse. Can you at least convince them to go for 3E?
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Mar 11, 2020 14:28
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grassy gnoll posted:That's significantly worse. Can you at least convince them to go for 3E? Lol, as if 3E is better than 4E Shadowrun. I don’t think there’s a single Shadowrun edition that isn’t at least wonky as poo poo. 4E is the one we started with and so the one we know best how to deal with the problems. I’m the only one who even read older Shadowrun books from my group.
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Mar 11, 2020 14:30
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grassy gnoll posted:That's significantly worse. Can you at least convince them to go for 3E? Can't believe you fell for the obvious troll Nobody would voluntarily play a game with Shadowrun's rules
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Mar 11, 2020 15:01
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Gort posted:Can't believe you fell for the obvious troll I've played way worse. I should be asleep but I'm sick and can't sleep. This guy (me) are sick.
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Mar 11, 2020 15:05
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Shadowrun is one of the very few games that if you gun-to-my-head made me run it, I would just nod and do secret rolls behind a GM screen and actually just free form it because holy loving poo poo I don't want to touch that system. I'm a big advocate of both crunchy systems and keeping everything open and honest with players, but nah, nah, I don't have time for that poo poo. I will Magic Tea Part hand-wave everything before ever actually using that system.
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Mar 11, 2020 15:11
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Yeah, there are games that reward engaging with their rules, and then there's Shadowrun. poo poo like the decking rules are unique, almost entirely disconnected from how the other rules work, and completely unrewarding if you do actually go to the trouble of fully following them.
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Mar 11, 2020 15:14
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I had a dream once that I was in a game store and there was a Shadowrun 7th Edition on the shelves, and people were excited about it and talking it up as an actual good game with modern design sensibilities. This was back before sixth edition came out.
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Mar 11, 2020 15:32
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What's the best edition of Tunnels & Trolls?
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Mar 11, 2020 15:40
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I would argue SR3 is the least-bad edition of Shadowrun, just barely. The 4E technomancers and wireless rules were pretty bad on top of being useless. Play Dragonfall anyway.
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Mar 11, 2020 17:06
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The sum total of my knowledge of Shadowrun rules is the apocryphal story of the group that fired a rocket launcher from inside their rocketproof vehicle and my buddy's recent story of how his entire squad of runners failed to successfully google the address of a public building, and they've both cemented in my head the idea that "incompetence comedy" is how Shadowrun is supposed to be played.
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Mar 11, 2020 17:06
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I was pleased with the revisions in SR4 but barely got to play it, and people were indeed very very confused about what you could and couldn't do with wireless. I hate to be That Guy but if I want to run Shadowrun again it would probably be in a hack of a totally different system. I think that Blades in the Dark is a better base system for what Shadowrun and CP2020 wanted to do--in particular, playing characters whose abilities aren't Shoot Gun or Cast Spell.
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Mar 11, 2020 17:23
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grassy gnoll posted:That's significantly worse. Can you at least convince them to go for 3E?
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Mar 11, 2020 17:51
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The pools were a neat idea that was never well executed, I'm kinda nostalgic for them myself.
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Mar 11, 2020 17:53
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Gobbeldygook posted:4E is so superior to 3E that I'm assuming you're trolling. Why would you want to go back to combat pools and floating target numbers and all that other garbage they left behind in 3E? I learned on SR3 and knew what not to touch to avoid breaking things, but didn't get to that same parity in 4E. It's me, I'm the Shadowrun grognard.
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Mar 11, 2020 17:54
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I really feel like the best version of Shadowrun is any other game. I really don't understand why people are wedded to the rules when the setting is the thing, and the rules do such a poor job of implementing the setting. Like, Genesys's first two books, Realms of Terrinoth and Android, have all the rules you need to play a fantastic game of Shadowrun. If you like crunchy gear porn, boom, done. Or use Savage Worlds. Or Fate. "Cyberpunk, but with elves" is a fun, easy premise. I don't know why people feel the need to use such a crappy system.
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Mar 11, 2020 18:10
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grassy gnoll posted:I learned on SR3 and knew what not to touch to avoid breaking things, but didn't get to that same parity in 4E.
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Mar 11, 2020 18:36
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My Lovely Horse posted:The sum total of my knowledge of Shadowrun rules is the apocryphal story of the group that fired a rocket launcher from inside their rocketproof vehicle and my buddy's recent story of how his entire squad of runners failed to successfully google the address of a public building, and they've both cemented in my head the idea that "incompetence comedy" is how Shadowrun is supposed to be played. If you want more fuel for the incompetence comedy, The Squirt Gun Wars is a good spot to start.
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Mar 11, 2020 18:51
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Hot take: Shadowrun would be a way better system if it actually embraced being Cyber D&D. Classes, levels, and hit points are better for what they're trying to do there.
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Mar 11, 2020 18:59
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I haven't played Shadowrun since 1993, so I may be off base, but this is the impression I continue to have: the game is fundamentally broken because it's actually two different games. One game is about deckers going into cyberspace to do cyber adventures/crimes/heists etc. against the evil corporate overlords One game is about augmented cyber elves and trolls with miniguns doing adventures/crimes/heists in real life, also probably against the evil corporate overlords Either the decker is tagging along not really being good at stuff while the party is breaking and entering and doing fights in real life, or, the rest of the party is standing around not really being good at stuff while the decker(s) do poo poo in cyberspace. Sure, you can have assassins attack while the decker is plugged in and the party has to fight them off! Or you can have the decker conveniently jack in to turn off the security cameras while the party fights the corp goons! But at some point these contrivances become overplayed and it feels implausible that this happens every single time. I think the proper cure is to just admit it's two different games and treat it as such.
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Mar 11, 2020 19:08
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And of course there's the wheelman (driver? what the hell is it called in Shadowrun?) just humming and waiting for a chase scene, hoping he could be relevant.
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Mar 11, 2020 19:11
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I'm pretty sure we're not gonna use the Matrix rules since we're using the FFVII setting instead. Not a long of hacking going on in that game.
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Mar 11, 2020 19:19
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Leperflesh posted:I haven't played Shadowrun since 1993, so I may be off base, but this is the impression I continue to have: the game is fundamentally broken because it's actually two different games. 4E tried to remedy the dual-adventure problem by saying the entire world now used wireless tech, so now instead of the decker hacking into just facilities and going off on cyberdungeon adventures they could also hack the enemy's guns, grenades, contact lenses, etc. This was widely reviled by players because it meant NPC deckers could theoretically hack their stuff and so now everyone had to learn the Matrix rules. A lot of players reacted by opting out of using any and all wireless tech so they couldn't be hacked, which then raises the question of why the opposition doesn't routinely do the same. Xiahou Dun posted:And of course there's the wheelman (driver? what the hell is it called in Shadowrun?) just humming and waiting for a chase scene, hoping he could be relevant.
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Mar 11, 2020 19:44
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This is going back a bit, but I skimmed the Witcher RPG and it has some weird ideas about historical weapons. Falchions were not used for chopping wood. I also can't even visualize what half the weapons are supposed to look like, and I'm playing Witcher 3 right now.Leperflesh posted:I haven't played Shadowrun since 1993, so I may be off base, but this is the impression I continue to have: the game is fundamentally broken because it's actually two different games.
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Mar 11, 2020 19:45
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Halloween Jack posted:What's the best edition of Tunnels & Trolls? I've only got the Deluxe edition that came in Bundle of Holding a while back (5th?) but from reading the book it seems like edition changes are mostly just errata and refining the rules, as opposed to big sea changes like D&D. There's pull-outs in most of the sections talking about how previous editions did certain specific things, in case the player would want to use those rules instead.
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Mar 11, 2020 19:53
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Gobbeldygook posted:I can't remember the name of it or google it up, but someone made a PC game that was just the 1E/2E Shadowrun hacking system with the serial numbers filed off and it was quite fun. 
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Mar 11, 2020 19:55
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Leperflesh posted:I haven't played Shadowrun since 1993, so I may be off base, but this is the impression I continue to have: the game is fundamentally broken because it's actually two different games. It is at least four games, in addition to the two you have listed. The third is shitfarmer gangland stories, but the system isn't calibrated for play at a level where the most exciting gear you've interacted with is the lingering flatulence of someone who looked at a cyberarm once. The fourth is the complete other end, where you're basically a superhero and the game is busted in the complete other direction, you have millions of nuyen worth of augmentations and customized weaponry, and most of your time is spent in a spreadsheet tweaking modifications to your guns and spells, rather than having an adventure.
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Mar 11, 2020 19:59
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Yeah, IME Shadowrun has historically had a really loving weird fan community where some people are snobs who insist that you're wrong for wanting to play the game that is presented in the books. You're supposed to want to play this extremely tense paranoid heist game where "if you fire your gun, the run is hosed" and every security countermeasure in the rules is presumed to be in effect everywhere. Sneakers with orks instead of Heat with orks.
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Mar 11, 2020 20:22
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I ran a game of Blades in the Dark where the group's Spider just hung out back at base explaining to the group's patron what was happening at the heist, and didn't go on said heist, opting instead to contribute entirely via flashbacks. So every time the group came up against something they weren't sure how to deal with, we'd turn to the Spider player. "I take a long sip from my whiskey. I look [Patron] dead in the eyes. Now I know what you're wondering. `What happens when they trip the alarms? Won't the Inspector come running?' And you'd be right. Which is why I spent the last week taking the Inspector's wife on walks through the Scarlet Toadstool grove. Now, when I left an incriminating love letter...'" et cetera. I think you could easily do the same thing with a hacker character, if a hacker character enjoys doing that kind of thing.
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Mar 11, 2020 20:30
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That's exactly what I mean, yeah. I have some issues with The Sprawl, but it has a similar ability to play somebody who isn't a Gunsman or a Spellsman.
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Mar 11, 2020 20:46
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Halloween Jack posted:Yeah, IME Shadowrun has historically had a really loving weird fan community where some people are snobs who insist that you're wrong for wanting to play the game that is presented in the books. You're supposed to want to play this extremely tense paranoid heist game where "if you fire your gun, the run is hosed" and every security countermeasure in the rules is presumed to be in effect everywhere. Sneakers with orks instead of Heat with orks.
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Mar 11, 2020 20:46
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That's probably it! But I'd never played any version of D&D at that point, so I never put 2 and 2 together.
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Mar 11, 2020 20:47
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To be fair to those people, the heist in Heat is clearly not an ideal situation. But maybe you shouldn't play that game in a system where my Ork resembles a Space Marine in full power armor with an autocannon.
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Mar 11, 2020 21:01
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CitizenKeen posted:I really feel like the best version of Shadowrun is any other game. I really don't understand why people are wedded to the rules when the setting is the thing, and the rules do such a poor job of implementing the setting. Honestly I'd probably just staple some gun rules and some of the other cyberpunk bits onto a OSR system if I want to do something in the vein of Shadowrun Halloween Jack posted:Hot take: Shadowrun would be a way better system if it actually embraced being Cyber D&D. Classes, levels, and hit points are better for what they're trying to do there. Agreed, been contemplating about trying to write a supplement for Old School Essentials, and one for Fantasy Cyberpunk is definitely one of the possible ones I'm thinking about FMguru posted:Sounds like a descendant of that weird OSR D&D playstyle where you spend all your time trying to find ways to not get into fights. To be fair trying to avoid all fights period is an extreme outlier, though at the same time it's generally agreed that getting into fights where you don't hold some sort of advantage is something of a suckers game, at least at low levels where even the Fighter likely has less than 20 hit points and the Wizard probably only has like two spells and only one of them is useful in combat
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Mar 11, 2020 21:12
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The Black Hack has some cyberpunk expansions you might want to look at, but I haven't looked at them myself.
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Mar 11, 2020 21:19
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