The Shadowrun Situation

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Fri May 17, 2013 11:18 am

There are those who are not surprised and those who do not understand why this is just stupid and does not do what they want OR does shit that makes no frikkn sense. Oh well.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri May 17, 2013 1:14 pm

Rawbeard wrote:I really like that idea. Finally Trolls will me mastersneaks!

Out of thin air, Bubba the Lovetroll appears right behind you.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat May 18, 2013 2:12 pm

Hmm, something that was just pointed out to me on a german board:

Regaining Edge
Your character gets one point of Edge back after a fulfilling meal and a good night’s sleep (at least eight hours);

so edge is cheap and refills much faster now and adept powers and ware help with that?

And something Aaron just posted on dumpshock:

Wait until you see the Lifestyle rules. They make absolutely no distinction between a two-story three-bedroom house with a basement and a second-story two-bedroom condo with a loft.

Totally ridiculous.

never sure wether or not Aaron is joking though . .

Pulsewidth · Post by **Pulsewidth** » Sat May 18, 2013 2:16 pm

Fixed refresh schedule for Edge is an improvement. The power of Edge in 4e depends strongly on GM generosity.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 18, 2013 3:32 pm

I'm betting they are still going to have a modest list of various Edge Refresh options which will make a huge difference in how good the stat is and what the optimal number of it to have is. I would be shocked if it was anything else.

Stahlseele wrote:never sure wether or not Aaron is joking though . .

The thing to understand is that Aaron is a sarcastic and dismissive dickhead in addition to being always wrong. So when he says that about lifestyles, what he's attempting to do is to make fun of people who are advocating additional minutiae by taking a shit on a ludicrous strawman. An argumentum absurdum ploy if you will.

The problem is that Aaron is basically always wrong about everything. So while there are many many scenarios in which telling people who are asking for more minutiae to go fuck themselves is the right thing to do, in this instance it is far more likely that he is being a dismissive asshole to people who are pointing out that two things of very different utility have the same cost, or that that there is an action or setup you can select that completely invalidates the Matrix and has no appreciable cost or something. Because one of the most reliable things about Aaron is that the snarkier he gets, the more likely it is that he is totally wrong.

-Username17

Dragon Instincts · Post by **Dragon Instincts** » Sat May 18, 2013 3:35 pm

Pulsewidth wrote:Fixed refresh schedule for Edge is an improvement. The power of Edge in 4e depends strongly on GM generosity.

True, we tried lots of refresh systems until we found one that fits our playstyle.
The SR5 version doesn't sound so bad. One Edge per 8 hour rest reminds me of D&D, but whatever, it's good they made a clear rule.

There are problems though:

Stahlseele wrote:Hmm, something that was just pointed out to me on a german board:
Regaining Edge
Your character gets one point of Edge back after a fulfilling meal and a good night’s sleep (at least eight hours);
so edge is cheap and refills much faster now and adept powers and ware help with that?

While I would rule that sleep regulators or the sustenance adept power would cut your resting time in half, there are even more options which are unclear. What about the crank spell (the one where every hit refreshes you as if you have slept one hour)? Will 8 hits on this spell generate 1 Edge? And what about spirits? They do not sleep at all.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat May 18, 2013 3:57 pm

What about the good meal?
Technically, there is no such thing in Shadowrun, if you ain't in the upper 10% of society . .
And Spirits don't eat either.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat May 18, 2013 4:02 pm

It does seem like an odd bit of snark given that Runner's Companion was filled with so much fail that it virtually drowned out any nerd rage inspired by the advanced lifestyle rules.

ErichZahn · Post by **ErichZahn** » Sat May 18, 2013 5:31 pm

I stopped playing SR in 2ed. Is the Soviet Union still around?(I kid.)

That said, a Binging of "Shadowrun Pro Bono" has offered up zilch. Did they ever offer any options for Pink Mohawk games like they said they would?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat May 18, 2013 9:37 pm

a who the what now?

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Sun May 19, 2013 1:20 am

Stahlseele wrote:a who the what now?

I'm guessing a malicious spellchecker has changed googling to Binging (i.e. Microsoft's Bing search engine). Well, he totally could be using 'Binging' but I can only hope it was a spellchecker.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Sun May 19, 2013 1:38 am

Noone bings.
I mean, noone with a brain.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun May 19, 2013 2:50 am

I'm pretty sure I would end up being the recipient of a restraining order were I to shoehorn myself into someone's life the way bing tries to get into mine.

Dragon Instincts · Post by **Dragon Instincts** » Mon May 20, 2013 11:21 am

I heard Karmagen will become the new standard chargen in SR5. Imho, that's good, I always liked Karmagen better.

The question is: Will it be Karmagen with 750 or 1000 Karma?
I just realized what a fabulous fail the latter would be.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon May 20, 2013 11:55 am

how so?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon May 20, 2013 12:06 pm

I wrote the Karmagen rules balanced for 750 Karma (with the errata taken into account fixing attribute point costs); when Jason "fixed" Karmagen for the software character converter he basically just applied the errata...and then calculated up the total Karma cost to 1K because the cost of attributes had increased. So, yeah, making a Karmagen character with 1,000 Karma is ridiculously overpowered.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Mon May 20, 2013 12:17 pm

Sounds about right.

I don't like Karmagen being the standard, not because of "omg, overpowered" but simply because it's more fiddly shit and newcomers and people with a general distaste for character generation that can take up a week or two, will be turned of. They should change character progression to BP and be done with all that shit.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon May 20, 2013 12:27 pm

@AH:
Ah, right, i had actually forgotten about that debacle . .

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Wed May 22, 2013 2:28 am

The thing to understand is that Aaron is a sarcastic and dismissive dickhead in addition to being always wrong. So when he says that about lifestyles, what he's attempting to do is to make fun of people who are advocating additional minutiae by taking a shit on a ludicrous strawman. An argumentum absurdum ploy if you will.

The problem is that Aaron is basically always wrong about everything. So while there are many many scenarios in which telling people who are asking for more minutiae to go fuck themselves is the right thing to do, in this instance it is far more likely that he is being a dismissive asshole to people who are pointing out that two things of very different utility have the same cost, or that that there is an action or setup you can select that completely invalidates the Matrix and has no appreciable cost or something. Because one of the most reliable things about Aaron is that the snarkier he gets, the more likely it is that he is totally wrong.

Made my fucking day. Will someone try and defend Aaron, please? I'd love to see Frank continue in this vein.

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Wed May 22, 2013 4:28 am

Schwarzkopf wrote: Made my fucking day. Will someone try and defend Aaron, please? I'd love to see Frank continue in this vein.

Sure.

While Aaron is one of the two people on Dumpshock that I have on ignore, it's not because he's a hypocritical asshole who you can't believe if he tells you that water is wet. It's more that he's an ignorant...

Well, on second thought maybe I'm really not really ideally suited to this role...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed May 22, 2013 4:38 am

Schwarzkopf wrote:
The thing to understand is that Aaron is a sarcastic and dismissive dickhead in addition to being always wrong. So when he says that about lifestyles, what he's attempting to do is to make fun of people who are advocating additional minutiae by taking a shit on a ludicrous strawman. An argumentum absurdum ploy if you will.

The problem is that Aaron is basically always wrong about everything. So while there are many many scenarios in which telling people who are asking for more minutiae to go fuck themselves is the right thing to do, in this instance it is far more likely that he is being a dismissive asshole to people who are pointing out that two things of very different utility have the same cost, or that that there is an action or setup you can select that completely invalidates the Matrix and has no appreciable cost or something. Because one of the most reliable things about Aaron is that the snarkier he gets, the more likely it is that he is totally wrong.
Made my fucking day. Will someone try and defend Aaron, please? I'd love to see Frank continue in this vein.

He has a really great recipe for pot roast?

He breathes very well?

He once pet a puppy?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed May 22, 2013 9:32 am

Aaron created /dev/grrl, which he said he based on someone in real life. This was disturbing. However, he did hide a marriage proposal in his AI section for Runner's Companion, so that was kind of sweet. I just wish he'd given the same TLC to the rules themselves.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu May 23, 2013 8:48 am

soo, some more "Information" about SR5 from Hardy:

Game mechanics will be more universal. If you learn the combat rules, it’s the same basic rules for magic, decking, rigging, etc. This will hopefully level off the learning curve for the game.

The Matrix will be harder to hack, making deckers more unique again since not everyone can try to hack anything like in 4th Edition.

Character creation in the core book will go back to Priority, with other options showing up in the Companion book. You’ll also get karma to spend as well, which spends exactly like karma you get as experience.

Skills can be raised to 12 rather than 6 like previous editions.

Missions Season 5 will take place in Chicago. Other cities that will be featured are Seattle (of course), Denver, Vladivostok, and Boston.

Magic changes: Traditions will be more unique than in 4A with more of the flavor coming through, there will be a new mechanic called “preparations” that allow a spell to be pre-cast and triggered later, and spirits no longer have individual Edge (which fixes a major overpowered rule).

The metaplot will be developed more in sourcebooks than in 4A along with Missions adventures. A plot sourcebook will be released shortly after the core rulebook.

SR5 and Crossfire (the Shadowrun deckbuilding game) “should” be out sometime this summer.
Core rulebook will be more “generalized” in background rather than tied to the timeline, though the core book will not support play in other eras (2050s, for example) out-of-box.

The sub-core rulebooks that give expanded rules and additional gear will be released a few months apart from each other, according to the current plan.

The various Native American cultures will be re-emphasized again.

The first two books released after SR5 (an adventure and a rulebook) will explore the cybernetic body-snatching metaplot introduced in Storm Front.

HeroLab (the character creation software) will be updated for SR5.

Thoughts?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu May 23, 2013 9:04 am

Getting rid of Spirit Edge is a step in the right direction, but it's a baby step. If you don't fix the fact that a Spirit's dicepool grows at 4/3 the rate of the conjurer's dicepool, getting rid of their ridiculous edge doesn't actually make high force spirits "not broken".

The problem with the Matrix was never that it was "too easy to hack". There were many problems, but that was not ever really one of them. Coming out swinging with that as a selling point indicates that they still don't have clue one as to what the problems of the matrix actually are and they won't be able to get anywhere with this revision.

We moved away from Priority generation because it was overly fiddly, overly restrictive, took too long, and no one liked it. Adding a layer of Karmagen on top of that just makes it even more fiddly and annoying. And it brings the Karma/Build Point difference engine front and center so that starting characters will now be able to start with a 1 and a 6 and karma buy the 1 to a 3 or start with a 3 and a 3 and buy one of the 3s up to a 6 and have way less Karma left over because the advancement system sucks.

Jason Hardy plots are always terrible, so having him talk up his latest and greatest just makes me sad.

-Username17

Korgan0 · Post by **Korgan0** » Thu May 23, 2013 9:19 am

What exactly does having Native American cultures be "re-emphasized" mean?