I'm considering entering and learning the rules for Shadowrun.
I'm curious if it's worth it to bother spending my time and money on though.
Is Shadowrun a good system? A good book?
Which edition is the one to go with if I do get into it?
Shadowrun
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Lago PARANOIA
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I've only played 4E Shadowrun.
It's a very good system, probably the best one I've ever played. However, you have to understand a couple of things about it:
1) The game is meant to be played in a very specific way. It's not a big deal, since the very specific way conforms to the genre expectations of urban fantasy or cyberpunk--as opposed to D&D, which has a lot of tropes that run counter to our expectations of heroic fantasy. However, the game falls apart if you want to play Cheat the Stock Market or Start Your Own Corporation.
2) Shadowrun isn't meant to be played with an idea that you're not interested in the adrenaline rush. Characters in that game make more money when they're playing by the rules and also accomplish goals faster if they choose another avenue of political influence other than shadowrunning. When you plop down tens of thousands of nuyen on a piece of deltaware, it's done with the expectation that you could have used that money to move out of your parents' basement and live comfortably for the rest of your life with some sound investments, but you'd rather have had the incremental upgrade to help your joyride more.
3) Shadowrun, despite all of its blathering about being a dystopia, isn't really one. There's some seriously scary shit out there like bug infestations and nuclear terrorism, but on the whole it isn't really that much worse living in that world than our real world.
It's a very good system, probably the best one I've ever played. However, you have to understand a couple of things about it:
1) The game is meant to be played in a very specific way. It's not a big deal, since the very specific way conforms to the genre expectations of urban fantasy or cyberpunk--as opposed to D&D, which has a lot of tropes that run counter to our expectations of heroic fantasy. However, the game falls apart if you want to play Cheat the Stock Market or Start Your Own Corporation.
2) Shadowrun isn't meant to be played with an idea that you're not interested in the adrenaline rush. Characters in that game make more money when they're playing by the rules and also accomplish goals faster if they choose another avenue of political influence other than shadowrunning. When you plop down tens of thousands of nuyen on a piece of deltaware, it's done with the expectation that you could have used that money to move out of your parents' basement and live comfortably for the rest of your life with some sound investments, but you'd rather have had the incremental upgrade to help your joyride more.
3) Shadowrun, despite all of its blathering about being a dystopia, isn't really one. There's some seriously scary shit out there like bug infestations and nuclear terrorism, but on the whole it isn't really that much worse living in that world than our real world.
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Fri May 22, 2009 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Lich-Loved
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I have played 3E and 4E and found both games to be great. As an adder to Lago's points, I would add:
4) Shadowrun characters start the game competent and advance at a pace set by the GM. It isn't D&D with regular, rapid power-ups (levels), at least not in the traditional sense. Since there is no "xp per monster slain", there is no benefit gained by doing anything other than focusing on the main and possibly side missions, ideally completing them with as little mess as possible. You can try the "pistol in the face approach", but keep in mind....
5) Gun battles are deadly. This isn't D&D where characters can battle at will day after day. When guns are drawn, characters can easily be killed off, so non-violent or stealth solutions to problems work well, with "kill or die" saved for extreme situations where it is really necessary.
6) A portion of the game is based upon what is called "legwork" - doing research to learn as much about the run (and your employer and target and allies and enemies and...) as you can. Social, computer, technical, magical and stealth skills will be used for this, friends need to be consulted and so forth. Going on a "blind run" may well result in learning far too late you are set up for a double cross or some other unpleasantness. If you are not interested in this aspect of the game and the GM and other players aren't either, then this aspect can be minimized, but it is usually in the game no matter what you do. You do not want to get deep inside some secure location on a lab run only to find out no one can hack the corp maglock that secures the lab.
If you are interested in the game, read Frank's The Ends of the Matrix on this board; it is great. Frank was associated with the production of SR 4E and is our resident SR expert.
4) Shadowrun characters start the game competent and advance at a pace set by the GM. It isn't D&D with regular, rapid power-ups (levels), at least not in the traditional sense. Since there is no "xp per monster slain", there is no benefit gained by doing anything other than focusing on the main and possibly side missions, ideally completing them with as little mess as possible. You can try the "pistol in the face approach", but keep in mind....
5) Gun battles are deadly. This isn't D&D where characters can battle at will day after day. When guns are drawn, characters can easily be killed off, so non-violent or stealth solutions to problems work well, with "kill or die" saved for extreme situations where it is really necessary.
6) A portion of the game is based upon what is called "legwork" - doing research to learn as much about the run (and your employer and target and allies and enemies and...) as you can. Social, computer, technical, magical and stealth skills will be used for this, friends need to be consulted and so forth. Going on a "blind run" may well result in learning far too late you are set up for a double cross or some other unpleasantness. If you are not interested in this aspect of the game and the GM and other players aren't either, then this aspect can be minimized, but it is usually in the game no matter what you do. You do not want to get deep inside some secure location on a lab run only to find out no one can hack the corp maglock that secures the lab.
If you are interested in the game, read Frank's The Ends of the Matrix on this board; it is great. Frank was associated with the production of SR 4E and is our resident SR expert.
Last edited by Lich-Loved on Fri May 22, 2009 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ludomastro
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I play and GM Shadowrun regularly. It is an amazing game and while I don't necessary agree in the extent of the caveats sated, they are indeed present. While I agree that Frank is your best source of information, please feel free to drop me a PM and I would be happy to answer questions.
Last edited by ludomastro on Sat May 23, 2009 6:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
Also, if you're good enough you have a non-negligible chance of making a gun shot against an opponent while you're closing your eyes. There's that too.
It's about as good a system as any. GMs have to like the tropes of the system and not treat it like DnD, but that should be pretty obvious. My own experience with it is that GMs have a greater degree of burnout than with fantasy games for whatever reason, perhaps because my GMs have generally had difficulty porting their idea of a how to construct a campaign framework from DnD to SR and so the results lack longevity.
The largest design flaw that I've seen is in custom-designed spells using Magic in the Shadows guidelines, as it is with every edition of SR and with any custom player-designed content in any system.
It's about as good a system as any. GMs have to like the tropes of the system and not treat it like DnD, but that should be pretty obvious. My own experience with it is that GMs have a greater degree of burnout than with fantasy games for whatever reason, perhaps because my GMs have generally had difficulty porting their idea of a how to construct a campaign framework from DnD to SR and so the results lack longevity.
The largest design flaw that I've seen is in custom-designed spells using Magic in the Shadows guidelines, as it is with every edition of SR and with any custom player-designed content in any system.
Note that this only applies if you still know where whoever you want to shoot is. It applies for example if you can see him on a screen and know where his head is behind the ricepaper wall you are aiming at. it does not allow you to shoot someone you can not pinpoint.mean_liar wrote:Also, if you're good enough you have a non-negligible chance of making a gun shot against an opponent while you're closing your eyes.
In my opinion the biggest drawback to SR4 (and all previous editions) is this: The matrix rules don't work. Frank has a working overhaul, and if I ever finish mine I'll post it here too. But by the book the matrix is broken.
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ludomastro
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I will second, third, no wait ... hell, I'll just sign the petition stating the matrix rules as written are broken. I'm not completely sold on the fluff inherent in Frank's rules but they are internally consistent and work well.
Also, the vehicle combat rules are broken. Getting sideswiped at 30 mph (50 kph) will not only kill everyone in the car but will also make heads explode. That is if you follow the rules as written. If you apply some common sense to the rules, they are no worse than other vehicle combat rules I have read - perhaps better.
Also, the vehicle combat rules are broken. Getting sideswiped at 30 mph (50 kph) will not only kill everyone in the car but will also make heads explode. That is if you follow the rules as written. If you apply some common sense to the rules, they are no worse than other vehicle combat rules I have read - perhaps better.
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Username17
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Book quality for the game has gone down precipitously since the main four. The Core Book is very nice. The expansion books of Street Magic (magic), Augmentation (cyberware), and Arsenal (equipment) are all very solid. Subsequent major expansion books are... not. The Matrix rules are problematic and confusing, and the book designed to speak about them (Unwired) is even more problematic and even more confusing. You're actually better off not reading that book and making your house rules from a standing start. The Player's Guide is almost that bad - adding good and bad in roughly equal measure giving the book an overall slightly negative value.
The setting books they've made for SR4 have sold very poorly and that's because they just aren't very useful. Each one is a discussion of two completely unrelated cities written by different freelancers such that there is no unifying anything. The discussion of each city doesn't really go into enough detail to let you run the town without external research and since the cities are real places you can just do primary research anyway. Basically it's the same problem that the World of Darkness "X by Night" books had - you have wikipedia. To make things even worse, each of the book uses up page count by talking about several other completely unrelated cities that basically give you as much information as a tourist brochure. "Hey guys, did you know Cape Town Exists?" There is not enough information or specific locations in any of those writeups to conduct any kind of business in those areas - making the entire sections essentially wasted page space in a book that was already too scattered.
To confound things even more, each book usually has a writeup that is moderately to very bad. Runner Havens was saddled with Seattle, which was the core setting city for 16 years, so it has accumulated way too many plot points to keep track of. People who are jumping into Shadowrun cold find the Seattle writeup opaque, and people who have been running SR for a long time don't need it. In Corporate Enclaves we have Los Angeles which is confounded by a fucking ridiculous timeline and basic math and physics errors that make it impossible to even extrapolate things from that writeup and wikipedia entries. Which makes it essentially useless. Feral Cities has Lagos, which is a tirade about how it's a nasty place you don't want to go... that forgets to actually include any reason you'd want to go there. There's literally nothing in the whole writeup to suggest that any runner would spend any time in Lagos since there is apparently nothing to steal, nothing to spy on, and no money to be made.
But having a list of books you don't want or care about, while bad for the game company's longterm longevity, is just as well for you the consumer. There have been good setting books. I quite recommend Shadows of Asia, Shadows of Europe, and Cyberpirates. But those books are old and printed by previous owners so you can often pick them up for a song. I mean seriously, Amazon has SoE for less than 15 dollars, and Cyberpirates for Five Bucks.
I have a noticeable list of personal tweaks to the system. Most of those are not really necessary. For example, in the base rules Skills are a bad deal. That's counter intuitive, but not inherently wrong. I reduce skill costs across the board and this incentivizes people to buy more of them, which in turn causes players to have more things that they specialize in.
I can go into them at length, and I have. And doubtless will again.
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The setting books they've made for SR4 have sold very poorly and that's because they just aren't very useful. Each one is a discussion of two completely unrelated cities written by different freelancers such that there is no unifying anything. The discussion of each city doesn't really go into enough detail to let you run the town without external research and since the cities are real places you can just do primary research anyway. Basically it's the same problem that the World of Darkness "X by Night" books had - you have wikipedia. To make things even worse, each of the book uses up page count by talking about several other completely unrelated cities that basically give you as much information as a tourist brochure. "Hey guys, did you know Cape Town Exists?" There is not enough information or specific locations in any of those writeups to conduct any kind of business in those areas - making the entire sections essentially wasted page space in a book that was already too scattered.
To confound things even more, each book usually has a writeup that is moderately to very bad. Runner Havens was saddled with Seattle, which was the core setting city for 16 years, so it has accumulated way too many plot points to keep track of. People who are jumping into Shadowrun cold find the Seattle writeup opaque, and people who have been running SR for a long time don't need it. In Corporate Enclaves we have Los Angeles which is confounded by a fucking ridiculous timeline and basic math and physics errors that make it impossible to even extrapolate things from that writeup and wikipedia entries. Which makes it essentially useless. Feral Cities has Lagos, which is a tirade about how it's a nasty place you don't want to go... that forgets to actually include any reason you'd want to go there. There's literally nothing in the whole writeup to suggest that any runner would spend any time in Lagos since there is apparently nothing to steal, nothing to spy on, and no money to be made.
But having a list of books you don't want or care about, while bad for the game company's longterm longevity, is just as well for you the consumer. There have been good setting books. I quite recommend Shadows of Asia, Shadows of Europe, and Cyberpirates. But those books are old and printed by previous owners so you can often pick them up for a song. I mean seriously, Amazon has SoE for less than 15 dollars, and Cyberpirates for Five Bucks.
I have a noticeable list of personal tweaks to the system. Most of those are not really necessary. For example, in the base rules Skills are a bad deal. That's counter intuitive, but not inherently wrong. I reduce skill costs across the board and this incentivizes people to buy more of them, which in turn causes players to have more things that they specialize in.
I can go into them at length, and I have. And doubtless will again.
-Username17
My problem with thinking about getting into SR was the sheer volume of world material, and it's seeming evolution. I tried looking for a good synopsis on the web but never found one. It seemed to have a metaplot as well which I am not a of (my 7th Sea game is driving me nuts by trying to decide what parts of the metaplot to include).
A repository of good house rules would be a good thing.
A repository of good house rules would be a good thing.
The internet gave a voice to the world thus gave definitive proof that the world is mostly full of idiots.
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Username17
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The metaplot is something that you can and mostly should ignore. The player characters aren't normally going to be assassinating any world leaders or slaying any dragons or whatever. So seriously, what the hell difference does it make whether one or another of the major stock holders of General Motors happens to be a vampire or a demon worshiper?ckafrica wrote:My problem with thinking about getting into SR was the sheer volume of world material, and it's seeming evolution. I tried looking for a good synopsis on the web but never found one. It seemed to have a metaplot as well which I am not a of (my 7th Sea game is driving me nuts by trying to decide what parts of the metaplot to include).
A repository of good house rules would be a good thing.
Since the characters normally interact with individual shipments and laboratories, the machinations of the people at the top of the crime syndicates, corporations, and national governments means basically fuck all. That and the metaplot has a weird preoccupation with the goings on in the government of Ireland. Which since the Emerald Isle collectively has the population and economic clout of the Minneapolis and their primary area of research is actually personal enlightenment and exercise that you can't even steal or trade - it just leaves people asking what the fuck. Like seriously it talks about the sixth most important person in one of the parallel government structures of the island. That's like giving page space to a district judge in St. Paul. I have no idea what the point of the elf fetish is, but those guys don't even matter even in a context where you have to talk to them. The ambassador from Poland seriously laughs in the face of the power of their "court."
The world is huge and has filled up with a fuck tonne of crazy crap, but for the most part you don't need to worry about it. It's largely like claiming that Clockwork Orange and Snatch both happened. Since none of the characters in one set of events participated in the other it's not really important. A single regional survey book usually gives you enough material for years of campaigning.
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Lago PARANOIA
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That's the weird thing about the metaplot. If you want to interact with it you pretty much have to completely ignore the profession of Shadowrunning unless your DM wants to set things up ID4 style--that is, one guy with a laptop can take down Aztechnology.
That's fine in abstract, but like I said the game breaks down if you want to expand the scope of your game that much. It'd be like trying to introduce a social democracy to Dragonlance.
That's fine in abstract, but like I said the game breaks down if you want to expand the scope of your game that much. It'd be like trying to introduce a social democracy to Dragonlance.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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ludomastro
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Username17
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The fallout with Gunderson and Fuchi was kind of cool. But the actual novels that touched Miami were garbage. The world would be a better place if they had not happened. Ironhell!Fuchs wrote:Miami for my own campaign. And I pretty much ignored all the metaplot that supposedly touched it.
Which brings me to discussing the SR novels. Like most game fiction, they have a tendency to be bad. Like, Forgotten Realms Novel or Mech Warrior fiction bad. However, like Dragonlance books there are a few that really are worth reading just as books, and the fact that they take place in the Shadowrun world is just gravy.
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Ganbare Gincun
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I recently picked up SR4. I haven't had the time to read much of it, but what I've read so far seems pretty solid. But I do have two questions about the system that perhaps the Shadowrun experts here can answer:
1) What is the formula that they used to determine the BP costs of the starting races? The Troll seems like he's a lot cheaper then it should be in comparison to the other races. I'm interested in playing a fantasy game using the SR4 system and there's a ton of fantasy races that would need to be "converted", so I'd like to be as informed about this aspect of the game as possible.
2) One of the things that appeals to me about SR4 is that its base mechanics seem less "swingy" overall then the D20 system, but I fear that the ability to blow Edge points to add Edge Dice to your dice pools might reintroduce this issue. I'm especially concerned about the possibility of the players ganging up on a single BBEG to Edge Nuke them. For those of you that have designed or played the game, how valid is this concern? Is this a real issue, or am I just smoking crack here?
1) What is the formula that they used to determine the BP costs of the starting races? The Troll seems like he's a lot cheaper then it should be in comparison to the other races. I'm interested in playing a fantasy game using the SR4 system and there's a ton of fantasy races that would need to be "converted", so I'd like to be as informed about this aspect of the game as possible.
2) One of the things that appeals to me about SR4 is that its base mechanics seem less "swingy" overall then the D20 system, but I fear that the ability to blow Edge points to add Edge Dice to your dice pools might reintroduce this issue. I'm especially concerned about the possibility of the players ganging up on a single BBEG to Edge Nuke them. For those of you that have designed or played the game, how valid is this concern? Is this a real issue, or am I just smoking crack here?
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ludomastro
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@ Ganbare Gincun
RE: 1
There is no formula. Seriously. There is designer fiat. The races are theoretically priced by benefit and then discounted or increased based on rarity and popularity. Hence the elf is horribly overpriced and the ork is the best buy for most builds. (Magic notwithstanding)
I think I saw some of Frank's thoughts about a different pricing scheme. Just don't remember where.
RE: 2
Edge does indeed make the game more "swingy" but that's the point. Older editions had a Karma Pool that could be used for the same purpose (different mechanic and some - myself included - liked it better than Edge).
Keep in mind that the BBEG gets his(/her/its) own Edge just like a character. Also, since you don't expect him to live (or maybe you do?) he can blow it all on the characters. In practice it doesn't come up much - at least in my games.
RE: 1
There is no formula. Seriously. There is designer fiat. The races are theoretically priced by benefit and then discounted or increased based on rarity and popularity. Hence the elf is horribly overpriced and the ork is the best buy for most builds. (Magic notwithstanding)
I think I saw some of Frank's thoughts about a different pricing scheme. Just don't remember where.
RE: 2
Edge does indeed make the game more "swingy" but that's the point. Older editions had a Karma Pool that could be used for the same purpose (different mechanic and some - myself included - liked it better than Edge).
Keep in mind that the BBEG gets his(/her/its) own Edge just like a character. Also, since you don't expect him to live (or maybe you do?) he can blow it all on the characters. In practice it doesn't come up much - at least in my games.
I'd be concerned if PCs could not nuke a single enemy by focusing fire on it. A big part of the appeal for me is that in Shadowrun there's no grinding down enemies, and most BBEGs are BBEGs because of all the henchmen and soldiers they can use, not because they are perosnally uber.Ganbare Gincun wrote:I'm especially concerned about the possibility of the players ganging up on a single BBEG to Edge Nuke them. For those of you that have designed or played the game, how valid is this concern? Is this a real issue, or am I just smoking crack here?
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Lago PARANOIA
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Shadowrun's Edge mechanics make combat for PCs and BBEGs a lot less lethal. It doesn't make it so that you will win, but it does make it a lot more likely that you'll survive than the rules would suggest.
Further, in 4E Shadowrun, stun damage rules your face off. It's easier to fill up someone's stun track than their lethal track and also you don't have to worry about sometimes splitting the lethal damage meter to fill the stun one. Just load up on your favorite gel rounds and go to town.
Further, in 4E Shadowrun, stun damage rules your face off. It's easier to fill up someone's stun track than their lethal track and also you don't have to worry about sometimes splitting the lethal damage meter to fill the stun one. Just load up on your favorite gel rounds and go to town.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Have you tried Earthdawn? I haven't, but it uses SR2 mechanics. It might have a few gems.Ganbare Gincun wrote:...I'm interested in playing a fantasy game using the SR4 system and there's a ton of fantasy races that would need to be "converted", so I'd like to be as informed about this aspect of the game as possible.
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Lago PARANOIA
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Oh, by the way, if you're fighting mooks then you NEED to find cover. This isn't negotiable, unless you like the smell of shotgunned ass--the butt in this case once belonging to you.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
In many or even most cases, there is no BBEG. When you steal research data, blow up a power plant, smuggle drugs/medicine/weapons or extract a key employee ... what main opponent is there to fight? In most cases fighting is a backup plan, and a sign you messed up.Ganbare Gincun wrote:I'm especially concerned about the possibility of the players ganging up on a single BBEG to Edge Nuke them. For those of you that have designed or played the game, how valid is this concern? Is this a real issue, or am I just smoking crack here?
And as previously noted, most noteworthy adversaries in Shadowrun aren't going to be measured by personal combat ability, but by their ability to send SWAT teams or assassins after the runners.
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angelfromanotherpin
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Yeah, if you've seen the Deadwood episodes with George Hearst, that's a good example. He's a terrifying presence, but killing him will do more harm than good, because mostly it'll just piss off his business partners who will then play even-harder-ball.Murtak wrote:And as previously noted, most noteworthy adversaries in Shadowrun aren't going to be measured by personal combat ability, but by their ability to send SWAT teams or assassins after the runners.