Shadowrun; comparison of editions

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 11:05 pm

I guess my thread title sums it up.

I got my feet wet with second edition in the 1990's; and have played some... 4th; or 5th edition (?) a year or so ago.

Is 4th edition better than 2nd? Is 1st still interesting to take design lessons from?

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:16 am

Up until fourth edition, there were variable dice pools and variable per-die targets, which is a big no-no, so fourth is the one you'd want to start with if you're trying to steal base mechanics. Fifth I'm unfamiliar with, but I'd be surprised if it was better than 4th, given that Catalyst was mostly putting out shovelware towards the end of 4th.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 8:05 am

Shadowrun 5 has been given a once-over, and much of the review pertains to how it was worse than Shadowrun 4 for no good reason.

Nath · Post by **Nath** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 8:59 am

Shadowrun 1st edition
- There six natural attributes: Body, Quickness, Strength, Charisma, Intelligence and willpower.
- You roll a number of D6 equals to a skill or an attribute, you succeed if the number of dice with a result higher or equal to a Target Number (6 explodes if TN > 6) is higher or equal to the Threshold.
- You can default to another attribute or skill, using a "skill web" ("maze" would be more appropriate) and increasing the Target Number.
- You get a number of actions during a turn that depends on your Initiative Score, 1-10 = one action, 11-16 = two actions, 17-22 = three actions, and 23 or more = four actions. The fastest character gets to act several times before the slower ones do.
- Weapon damage codes specify a damage level (Light=1, Moderate=3, Serious=6 and Deadly=10), a Target Number and a Threshold to roll to stage damage up or down damage (one level per multiple of the threshold).
- Computer networks are virtual mazes, you have to make you way through each room and move onto one of the next. Action is slowed down by making you searching your way to what you are actually looking for.

Shadowrun 2nd edition
- Some of you karma points (experience points) go into a reserve to reroll or roll more dice.
- You get a number of actions that depends on your Initiative Score, divided by 10. The fastest character gets to act several times before the slower ones do.
- Weapon damage codes now only specify a damage level and a Target Number. The Threshold is always 2.

Shadowrun 3rd edition
- Starting characters get points to buy knowledge, languages and background skills.
- No more skill web. You can default to one attribute or another skill if they belongs to the same group. It still increases the Target Number.
- You get a number of actions that depends on your Initiative Score, divided by 10. The fastest character gets to act only once before the slower ones do.
- Computer networks are now like a single "room" (in most cases), but it is more common to encounter multiple opponents at once. Action is slowed down by making you defeat waves of opponents.

Shadowrun 4th edition
- There are eight natural attributes: Body, Agility, Reaction, Strength, Charisma, Intuition, Logic and Willpower.
- There is a special attribute called Edge that allow to reroll or roll more dice.
- Skills natural max is 6 (8 with a specialization).
- You roll a number of D6 equals to an attribute plus a skill, you succeed if the number of dice with a result higher or equal to 5 is higher or equal to the Threshold.
- You can default to only the attribute if you don't have the skill.
- Character have a fixed number of actions during a turn. The fastest character gets to act only once before the slower ones do.
- No more LMSD damage level. Weapon damage code is a numerical value, which you stage up or down with a threshold of 1.
- The cost of body augmentations and hacking gear technology-based character use is significantly lower, along with starting money.
- There is one global worldwide wireless network. You directly jump into the device you want to hack. Action is slowed down by requiring multiple rolls.

Shadowrun 5th edition
- You roll a number of D6 equals to an attribute plus a skill, you succeed if your Limit score and the number of dice with a result higher or equal to 5 is higher or equal to the Threshold.
- Skills natural max is 12 (14 with a specialization).
- You get a number of actions that depends on your Initiative Score, divided by 10. The fastest character gets to act several times before the slower ones do.
- The cost of body augmentations and hacking gear technology-based character use is up again, along with starting money, but not in the same proportions.
- I am not able to explain the 5th Matrix in a single sentence. Action is certainly slowed down.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 1:11 pm

1st edition and 2nd edition were largely consistent in tone, and basically established the gameworld, mostly because they were written by the same people - call it the "Pink Mohawk" period, or "Shadowrun Classic." Things were fun, if not always realistic. A lot of the most definitive storylines and campaigns like Universal Brotherhood and Harlequin and Harlequin's Back came out of this period.

3rd edition saw a trend toward branching out - not just away from Seattle, although it continued to pop out new sourcebooks for far-away places, but for different concepts of what you could play in the game besides just a Shadowrunner. The tone was somewhere between ultrarealistic and silly for stuff like Cyberpirates!, and included some really controversial megaevents like Year of the Comet.

Near the end of the 3rd edition there was a change in owners again, and with Rob Boyle coming to be lead developer a substantial change in style and tone...cue 4th edition. 4e was a leap forward in many respects; by that time the cell phone revolution had already happened, and the idea that you'd plug in your increasingly large and clunky keyboard into something via wire seemed silly. The tone creep also meant people like me were allowed to write for SR...which some people liked, and others didn't really care for, and still others never notice who writes this crap. Internally, it was a time of tremendous upheaval - lot of the old freelancers left, a succession of lead developers, shady business practices, etc. - which is in part responsible for the unstable tone and consistencies in the books.

4.5 is what is called the "anniversary edition," - a rules cleanup and fresh coat of paint, which sadly failed to address some critical issues of the Matrix. It's the beginning of the second half of 4e, which is where I depart and Jason Hardy makes a hash of things with books like War! and Spy Games...yeah, I'm biased, sue me.

5e I still haven't taken a look at. I don't want to. I have no interest. Frank did a ragereview of it a while back.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 1:47 pm

AH, you and Frank worked on the same edition, right?

I take it if both of the "Actually worked on Shadowrun" members of the Den were aligned with the same edition, this won't turn into a massive cage match of a fight?

(Clearly I'm hoping violence erupts)

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 1:57 pm

I have a toehold on the very end of 3rd edition, but Frank and I both worked on early 4th edition, yeah - we both have some work in Street Magic, for example, which is where we properly met ("Did a houngan run over your dog?")

Nath · Post by **Nath** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 7:34 pm

Ancient History wrote:3rd edition saw a trend toward branching out - not just away from Seattle, although it continued to pop out new sourcebooks for far-away places, but for different concepts of what you could play in the game besides just a Shadowrunner. The tone was somewhere between ultrarealistic and silly for stuff like Cyberpirates!, and included some really controversial megaevents like Year of the Comet.

Near the end of the 3rd edition there was a change in owners again, and with Rob Boyle coming to be lead developer a substantial change in style and tone...cue 4th edition.

Cyberpirates was published in 1997 and belongs to the second edition, though near the end of it.

The closure of FASA and the change of ownership took place in 2001, somewhat halfway during the 3rd edition (1998-2005). I guess you can consider it was near the end from a rules point of view - Magic in the Shadows, Man & Machine, Arsenal, Shadowrun Companion, Matrix and Rigger 3 had all been released at that point (so the only rules that got out after were in the SOTA books).

To me, the turning point would be 2003, with Dragons of the Sixth World hailing the end of the "Boyle-Kenson era" and the beginning of "Boyle-Taylor".

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Fri Jan 02, 2015 8:31 pm

Koumei wrote:AH, you and Frank worked on the same edition, right?

I take it if both of the "Actually worked on Shadowrun" members of the Den were aligned with the same edition, this won't turn into a massive cage match of a fight?

(Clearly I'm hoping violence erupts)

Shadowrun's an odd duck when it comes to edition wars. There's certainly in-fighting and grognards but aside from the most egregious assholes I did have a small amount of sympathy for Team Nostalgia. That's because one of Shadowrun's conceits is that there is a metaplot and time is supposed to be moving forward in step with the real world--if 6 years pass between new editions then 6 years are supposed to pass in-world too. 20 in-game years have passed since the first books came out and so I can see why people interested in only playing out their character's glory days would rather continue treating their games as period pieces rather than skip ahead to the part where your runner is getting kinda fat and their friends were all shot years ago. It'd be a very cyberpunk thing to do, but well, cyberpunk is also pretty damn depressing, so I can understand the aversion.

My sympathies only go so far, however, because Shadowrun has ultimately chosen the worst of all worlds: they change the dates just enough to piss off the grognards while being entirely too conservative with changes of any real import.

JesterZero · Post by **JesterZero** » Sat Jan 03, 2015 5:44 am

At a super high level:

SR1 to SR3 used variable TN (boo!) and proportional damage (yay!). SR2 is clearly a minor iteration on SR1. SR3 is a slightly more ambitious iteration on SR2.
SR4 to SR5 used fixed TN (yay!) and nonproportional damage (boo!). SR5 is an iteration on SR4 where nearly all the changes wind up being either unnecessary or outright worse. There are a tiny number of changes that were clearly "borrowed" from various house rule systems going back at least 6 years.
The Matrix rules are a constantly moving target, and they have always been problematic to the point where I had actually been playing SR for more than 10 years before I ever met a GM who allowed decker characters. Seriously.

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 9:11 pm

At this point in the development cycle, downloading and implementing random houserules off the internet is likely to improve your game. It's that crazy.

Ferret · Post by **Ferret** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 2:41 pm

I do like the way 5e treated Mystic Adepts; the costs need tweaking a bit, but they're actually functional as characters in 5th.

Of course, without tweaking the costs, they're the "I win at Everything" button, but I'm sure there's a happy medium to be found.

SubversionArts · Post by **SubversionArts** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:12 am

Shadowrun 5E now has a point buy system (actually kinda two) available with the release of "Run Faster".

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:20 am

SubversionArts wrote:Shadowrun 5E now has a point buy system (actually kinda two) available with the release of "Run Faster".

Holy shit. I thought that was a joke name, like the way we call all the 3.5 splats stuff like "It's Cold Outside," but no. Right there on the cover - "Shadowrun: Run Faster." That is amazingly terrible.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:26 am

What? That can't possibly be a real... Oh my god

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 6:49 am

name_here wrote:What? That can't possibly be a real... Oh my god

Bonus points: It's 50 fucking dollars for a dead tree edition. 25 for a PDF preorder. I can only imagine the MSRP for the PDF will be 30 bucks.

I think I paid 60 bucks for the "limited edition" Anniversary edition of SR4 that took like 2 years to ship on the backs of migrant slug orphans or something like that.

How do you know SR is going the way of White Wolf? White Wolf used to charge 50 bucks for a *splat book* before it went under too!

SubversionArts · Post by **SubversionArts** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 4:07 am

Run Faster is fucking huge. I was in awe of the pdf because it just went on and on and on...

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 1:45 pm

Run faster is the SR5 Version of the SR Companion from Third ed. and Runners Companion from 4th ed. And these are not small books.

JesterZero · Post by **JesterZero** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 9:59 pm

In comparison to the other SR5 rulebooks...

In the interest of fairness, I thought it was an improvement content-wise over Run & Gun...less immediately obvious problems, copy/paste issues, etc. I also thought it was a bit of an improvement layout-wise over Street Grimoire, although typesetting issues continue to abound, and the PDF at least doesn't have an index.

That being said, I still can't understand why you'd choose to use it in lieu of the SR4 edition.

There are still quite a few content issues: the authors clearly weren't on the same page about metatypes a few times, shifters no longer get regen (with no explanation), issues regarding metavariant confusion from previous editions have been carried over (with the exception of centaurs, which obviously were somebody's hobby horse).
In terms of layout issues: the most immediately obvious one is there is still no index. CGL has been called out for this already since the SR5 habit of hiding information you need to know about a single rule in 12 different paragraphs, tables, and sidebars over hundreds of pages is getting on people's nerves. Also, the fellow who does their layout doesn't seem to understand quite how to build a decent TOC. Maybe this is just a massive conspiracy to get people to buy the PDF version, because unless you can word-search these things, I don't know how you're supposed to find anything.
Lastly, while I applaud the effort to try to use AH's PACK's system...and while I understand that certainly some PACKs entries might be more robust than others...their list is littered with entries that have a single item. No joke. There's a PACK that is just Muscle Augmentation...and one that is just Muscle Enhancement...and one that is just a Skilljack...and one that is just a Skilljack that in 1 rating point higher than the previous PACK that was just a Skilljack...etc. (And each of these are listed individually on the TOC, which is why the section on PACKS takes up about 9% of the page count, but about 20% of the TOC space...which I suppose is what happens if you don't know how to make an index).

At the end of the day, it's probably the best SR5 rule expansion to date both in terms of content and layout. But that is not an endorsement.

SubversionArts · Post by **SubversionArts** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:18 pm

JesterZero wrote:In the interest of fairness, I thought it was an improvement content-wise over Run & Gun...less immediately obvious problems, copy/paste issues, etc. I also thought it was a bit of an improvement layout-wise over Street Grimoire, although typesetting issues continue to abound, and the PDF at least doesn't have an index.

I've gotten the impression that they got a lot of very negative attention over Street Grimoire, so put some additional effort in not repeating similar problems, but obviously not enough additional effort.