The Shadowrun Situation

[Username17]

i want:
SR3 variable TN

Why?

personal preference, is all.
i'd rather have TN's that go from 2 to 20 than have dice pools that go from -10 to +40 in some cases . .

No. That doesn't make any sense at all. Varying target numbers by definition requires that the dice pools vary much more than with fixed target numbers. It's not even remotely close.

At TN 2, you expect five hits on 6 dice. At TN 20, you expect five hits on one thousand, two hundred and ninety six dice. We're so far out of the "maybe you'd need forty dice" ballpark that it isn't even funny.

If you vary target numbers for increasing difficulty or weapon strength, then you need to increase dice pools for increased skill or toughness exponentially in order to maintain parity. And the required dicepools get stupid really fast. And by "stupid" I mean literally hundreds of dice just to maintain comparable success rates for characters with better skills to perform more difficult tasks as for characters with lesser skills to perform less difficult tasks. Hundreds of actual dice. That is not an exaggeration. That is what exponential progressions fucking do.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

My personal Preference does not have to make any sense to you.
It is just that. My personal Preference. There is no logic behind it, there is no reason for it.
I prefer the wacky TN system of SR3 to the in my eyes bullshit dice pool system of SR4.

[Username17]

My personal Preference does not have to make any sense to you.
It is just that. My personal Preference. There is no logic behind it, there is no reason for it.
I prefer the wacky TN system of SR3 to the in my eyes bullshit dice pool system of SR4.

You literally just said that you'd rather need a thousand dice because forty dice was too many. Your "preference" doesn't make sense to anybody.

Look: the game engine isn't the story. It's a math engine that receives inputs and puts out outputs. Whether you want cartoonish trolls with peg legs jumping around or semi-realistic tough girls doing crotch thrusts is a purely aesthetic choice. There isn't a right or wrong answer. The people who think Cyberpirates is "too goofy" are not wrong, that's a matter of taste. The people who think the Runner's Companion is "too exploitative" are not wrong either, because that's a matter of taste too. But if you think that variable target numbers is a good idea for a dice pool game, you're just fucking wrong. Because it's a mathematical question that has definable parameters and solid, available answers.

Variable target numbers is asymmetric between the two sides of an action. Adding six to the target number is countered by six times the number of dice. It's also incredibly unpredictably sinusoidal in these effects. Literally half of the increase in number of dice needed comes from one point of target number increase, with the other half being distributed extremely unevenly over the other five. And the thing is, it's not even that the big hammer in increased needed dice is always the first or last or something, it is a completely unanswerable question what the giant breakpoint is going to be. It's all bad. This is not up for debate or discussion. If you think that SR3's variable target number system is better than or even nearly as good as the fixed target number system you are factually wrong.

-Username17

[Mask_De_H]

My personal Preference does not have to make any sense to you.
It is just that. My personal Preference. There is no logic behind it, there is no reason for it.
I prefer the wacky TN system of SR3 to the in my eyes bullshit dice pool system of SR4.

Your personal preference is provably shit. Not even badwrongfun, just straight up confusing, wrong, and a shit-ton more work to parse for designers and players alike.

Fuck what you like.

[Aryxbez]

My personal Preference does not have to make any sense to you.
It is just that. My personal Preference. There is no logic behind it, there is no reason for it.
I prefer the wacky TN system of SR3 to the in my eyes bullshit dice pool system of SR4.

Truly, if you're a fan of what you like, then you're willing to look at its flaws, and the facts there of that make it unplayable, opposed to looking through it as if wearing Rose tinted Beer Goggles bub.

[Juton]

My personal Preference does not have to make any sense to you.
It is just that. My personal Preference. There is no logic behind it, there is no reason for it.
I prefer the wacky TN system of SR3 to the in my eyes bullshit dice pool system of SR4.

Would you want a straight up copy of SR3's system or some modification where a 6 TN isn't the same as a 7 TN? That was probably my biggest problem with how SR3 did things, the min maxers at my table put in work to make sure that the likely TNs where 7s, so that they where getting basically +1s on checks for 'free'.

[Neurosis]

Reading some of those quotes gave me the impression that they looked at D&DN and said to themselves 'when it comes to ruining a beloved franchise we will not be outdone!'. Can Hardy, Coleman and Bills beat Mearls at his own game? Whoever wins, we lose.

Rob Heinsoo, lead designer of 4E.

James Lin. Head of NOT MAGIC collectible card games at wizards.

Wov. What a fucking dream team, Catalyst.

Ah, so that's where I'd read Rob Heinsoo's name before this announcement. The Den! Mystery solved. That was niggling me!

[Neurosis]

My personal Preference does not have to make any sense to you.
It is just that. My personal Preference. There is no logic behind it, there is no reason for it.
I prefer the wacky TN system of SR3 to the in my eyes bullshit dice pool system of SR4.

You literally just said that you'd rather need a thousand dice because forty dice was too many. Your "preference" doesn't make sense to anybody.

Look: the game engine isn't the story. It's a math engine that receives inputs and puts out outputs. Whether you want cartoonish trolls with peg legs jumping around or semi-realistic tough girls doing crotch thrusts is a purely aesthetic choice. There isn't a right or wrong answer. The people who think Cyberpirates is "too goofy" are not wrong, that's a matter of taste. The people who think the Runner's Companion is "too exploitative" are not wrong either, because that's a matter of taste too. But if you think that variable target numbers is a good idea for a dice pool game, you're just fucking wrong. Because it's a mathematical question that has definable parameters and solid, available answers.

Variable target numbers is asymmetric between the two sides of an action. Adding six to the target number is countered by six times the number of dice. It's also incredibly unpredictably sinusoidal in these effects. Literally half of the increase in number of dice needed comes from one point of target number increase, with the other half being distributed extremely unevenly over the other five. And the thing is, it's not even that the big hammer in increased needed dice is always the first or last or something, it is a completely unanswerable question what the giant breakpoint is going to be. It's all bad. This is not up for debate or discussion. If you think that SR3's variable target number system is better than or even nearly as good as the fixed target number system you are factually wrong.

-Username17

Frank, everything you are saying is true...of games with unlimited variable TNs, like SR3. But when you factor in games where the TN is variable with a strictly limited range (like say, on a d6 pool, having a target number that can vary between 4 and 6), it stops being true.

(For the record, while it took me a while to be sold on it initially, I think Fixed TN is a HUGE improvement for SR.)

[Otakusensei]

Anyone else feel like this is just a bunch of pre-failed kickstarter projects lumped together with a limp-dicked attempt at SR5?

I mean no disrespect to the teams being brought on to make SR licensed product, I just question why they would want to work with Catalyst. These guys are known crooks. Even if you don't believe that Coleman stole that money, it went somewhere. What's worse; a company that stands behind a thief or a company that stands behind such massive and blatant incompetence? Either way they had the gall to then stiff their creative staff and foreign publishers.

I don't understand why studios are lining up to be abused in the same way Wildfire and Posthuman were. These aren't storied industry veterans, they are sewer rats. They aren't committed to the brand, they are angling for the next payday. I can say from experience that Jason is a nice guy and sounds very well meaning, maybe they all are at CGL. But look at the record, look at what they've published, look at what's happened to a huge franchise under their watch.

Run. Don't work with CGL. Get yourselves out before they bring you down. These projects won't make it, not at the level they need to be profitable. Shadowrun needs a focused redevelopment of the table top game by a talented and dedicated team, not a cluster bomb of peripheral products aimed at every sector of the table top gaming industry that's either already staked out by large players or has already peaked and began declining.

We are saturated with deck building games. Do you really think you'll outsell the next expansions to the already established lot? Do you think you'll pull away enough of those players based on the Shadowrun name?

Small skirmish miniatures games sell in sets on kickstarter or in boxes that that say Warhammer or Warmachine. I've watched the others breeze through the FLGS. They get a lot of praise and then no one plays them. I pick random blisters up cheap to get a few new models for my table top games. All I can say is make sure you stick to the standard size so the store owners can make something back in clearance stock.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Well there can't be any way they don't know what they're getting into. It's not like this is a big secret. And they worked for WoTC for gods sake, they know awful.

My only advice to them, get paid first.

[kzt]

Never underestimate the power of people telling themselves "This time is different".

[Mask_De_H]

Never underestimate the power of people telling themselves "This time is different".

"It's not different at all is it, Steve?"

[raben-aas]

I don't understand why studios are lining up to be abused in the same way Wildfire and Posthuman were.

From my understanding, there is no real business relationship between SRR, SRO and CGL. Yes, they all do games based on the SR license, owned by Topps (and to some degree by Microsoft). Each is doing their own project. They use a common website to promote awareness of the SR license and brand. Other than that, what's their relation?

[Otakusensei]

I don't understand why studios are lining up to be abused in the same way Wildfire and Posthuman were.

From my understanding, there is no real business relationship between SRR, SRO and CGL. Yes, they all do games based on the SR license, owned by Topps (and to some degree by Microsoft). Each is doing their own project. They use a common website to promote awareness of the SR license and brand. Other than that, what's their relation?

I can completely understand why those guys are getting on board. They are both electronic titles that don't hinge in any way on the table top portion of the game that CGL has a license to. In that respect they can just move forward and do their thing and interact with CGL when and if they want.

What boggles my mind are all the side projects that got detailed in that PDF from CGL and all the smaller studios that are working with them on SR licensed table top products like minis and board games. It's like booking a room on the Titanic today. The ship sailed and failed spectacularly years ago. Except in this case there's still a couple of diehards in a lifeboat with Titanic painted on the side trying to convince everyone that the boat was the same size when it launched...

[Ancient History]

"Whores and politicians both become respectable, if they live long enough."

[OgreBattle]

Why does there need to be a new edition of Shadowrun?

What are the failings of SR4 that requires a complete overhaul?

[kzt]

Not selling enough $60 hardcovers?

[Maxus]

Substantial amounts of the company's money disappearing as Loren Coleman's house got bigger?

[phlapjackage]

Matrix rules that are way too convoluted (so convoluted even the authors themselves try to write out an example and fail to get it right) and that require crazy more dice rolling than any other section of the game.

[kzt]

Well, if you want a serious answer...

I don't think the matrix rules of SR4 suck any more then the ones in every other version of the game. That doesn't mean they are any good, but they have been bad in every version. The SR4 problem is that anyone literate enough to read SR4 is also intimately familiar with modern computers, so the bizarre worship of the words of Mr. Mechanical Typewriter gets more and more annoying and also gets in the way of a game version of computers that would make intuitive sense to the average potential player in 2014.

There are lots of other annoying issues with SR4, but they tend to be edge cases or the kinds of things that annoy only small percentage of the players, or are just accepted by players. Things like the inability to damage heavily armored vehicles - they are either perfect or destroyed; how spirits go very fast from annoying to unstoppable; the endless magican worship...

[Username17]

Why does there need to be a new edition of Shadowrun?

What are the failings of SR4 that requires a complete overhaul?

• The game needs to go back to LMSD damage like in SR1-3, because fixed damage values don't work very well. It's now impossible to put someone down with a melee attack or even an assault cannon, but pretty much no one can take a double tap to the chest. Then at the high end it breaks down even more and armored vehicle rules are just impossible to write.
• Vehicle rules need to be reworked. The vehicle rigger is pretty much absent from SR4 campaigns simply because the chase rules are incoherent.
• The Matrix needs to be scrapped and rewritten. Again. We say that every edition (and subedition, and every time a Matrix book comes out), but it's always true every time.
• Spirits get too big, too fast. Admittedly, the fix to this probably pretty easy (give them half-Force in skills instead of full-Force and hard cap their mental stats somehow).
• Mundane characters are capped too early, and are unable to compete in a world with combat drones and spirits. It needs to be cheaper and easier to get super-human levels of Agility, and also the hard caps need to be pushed back so that street samurai have more to aspire to.
• Skills cost too much. The cost for skills should be half of what it is, maybe less.
• Triangular Advancement with Linear Chargen has always been a terrible idea in every edition of every game it has ever been tried. Advancement costs should be linearized or chargen costs should be triangularized. The difference engine brings nothing remotely positive to the game.
• The tests for extended actions take too long to resolve. They should go for a timeframe-based singular test like After Sundown. Because rolling your whole dicepool 8 times for an essentially pre-determined outcome is bullshit and also doesn't interact with Edge in a way that is in any way good.
• Splitting Intelligence and Quickness into two stats each was a step in the right direction, and that should be continued by having the underperforming stats combined. So Strength and Body should be combined, Charisma and Willpower should be combined.
• There is a fair amount of rule-space that you could put stuff in that would be welcome even if it isn't necessary. You could add more social action rules, you could make rules for coverups or information obscurity. And so on and so on. There's always room for NERPS.

-Username17

[Strung Nether]

The game needs to go back to LMSD damage like in SR1-3, because fixed damage values don't work very well. It's now impossible to put someone down with a melee attack or even an assault cannon, but pretty much no one can take a double tap to the chest. Then at the high end it breaks down even more and armored vehicle rules are just impossible to write.

Vehicle rules need to be reworked. The vehicle rigger is pretty much absent from SR4 campaigns simply because the chase rules are incoherent.

The Matrix needs to be scrapped and rewritten. Again. We say that every edition (and subedition, and every time a Matrix book comes out), but it's always true every time.

Spirits get too big, too fast. Admittedly, the fix to this probably pretty easy (give them half-Force in skills instead of full-Force and hard cap their mental stats somehow).

Mundane characters are capped too early, and are unable to compete in a world with combat drones and spirits. It needs to be cheaper and easier to get super-human levels of Agility, and also the hard caps need to be pushed back so that street samurai have more to aspire to.

Skills cost too much. The cost for skills should be half of what it is, maybe less.

Triangular Advancement with Linear Chargen has always been a terrible idea in every edition of every game it has ever been tried. Advancement costs should be linearized or chargen costs should be triangularized. The difference engine brings nothing remotely positive to the game.

The tests for extended actions take too long to resolve. They should go for a timeframe-based singular test like After Sundown. Because rolling your whole dicepool 8 times for an essentially pre-determined outcome is bullshit and also doesn't interact with Edge in a way that is in any way good.

Splitting Intelligence and Quickness into two stats each was a step in the right direction, and that should be continued by having the underperforming stats combined. So Strength and Body should be combined, Charisma and Willpower should be combined.

There is a fair amount of rule-space that you could put stuff in that would be welcome even if it isn't necessary. You could add more social action rules, you could make rules for coverups or information obscurity. And so on and so on. There's always room for NERPS.

Could you elaborate/explain more about these, especially:

LMSD damage
Triangular advancement with linear chargen
NERPS

I want to know more but i don't visit here often and I am not up to date on the acronyms. Also I'm 22, so I've only played SR4, and never even seen a 2/3 book.

[Kaelik]

Triangular advancement with linear chargen

It costs 6 points to go from 5-6 after chargen, but it costs one (different kind of point) to go from 5-6 during chargen.

Therefore, the optimal strategy is to max out as much as you possibly can in chargen and walk in with a really one track character, and then pick up 4-6 dice of versatility in the time it would have taken you to go from 5-6 in your main stick.

These numbers are just made up, but Shadowrun uses that kind of system, as a lot of point buy based games do. And it is fucking stupid every time, because it arbitrarily forces you to be less versatile at the beginning or else you feel like you are "wasting" build points.

[Red_Rob]

Regarding LMSD damage, in previous editions of Shadowrun weapons didn't have a numerical damage value telling you how many boxes of damage they did, instead damage came in four levels: Light, Medium, Serious and Deadly. These corresponded to 1, 3, 6 or 10 boxes of damage respectively.

Now, a weapon would still have a damage code which told you what base level of damage it did, however this was a letter showing which damage level it started off at. The important part was that every two net successes on your attack roll bumped you up to the next damage level. This meant that rather than the current system that requires a DV3 weapon to get 7(!) net hits to increase to 10 boxes, or even a DV6 weapon to get a not-inconsiderate 4 net hits for a one hit kill, you only needed 4 or 2 hits respectively. This meant that weapons could do fairly low base damage whilst still having the threat of one-hit kills be a real thing. There might be some other side effects of the different systems, but I haven't played Shadowrun since 1998 so someone else should be able to expound further on that score.

[phlapjackage]

NERPS = Non-Essential Role Playing...Stuff? I've always taken it to mean little things in game that aren't at all necessary but that can add flavor to the character / story. So you don't have to have rules for pinball machines at the local bar, you don't have to specify your character bought a pack of chewing gum (and spend money, have a price in the book, etc), it can just be assumed they have it with a handwave.

*edit*

I'm not arguing for or against LMSD damage codes, but Red Rob, your example doesn't really seem to show that LMSD is better. For instance, light pistols in SR2 did L damage, so 1 box if you only got one net hit. In SR4, light pistols are base 4 boxes, so with one net hit a light pistol does 5 boxes. In both systems, 6 net hits are needed before reaching 10 boxes for a light pistol. This seems to show that light pistols are more powerful in SR4. But I admit my knowledge of SR2 is getting fuzzy...