Shadowrun Min Max

[Korwin]

We are talking about 4ed. Not that ancient stuff...

[Rawbeard]

Fool me once...

[sabs]

except that the 4ed german stuff is much better. More importantly, the Runner's companion german book contains AH's revised, I'm sorry I fucked up I suck have some errata, Karma gen rules that take into account the changes in stat costs, etc.

[Otakusensei]

So, figured I'd get some constructive help on the SR forums and posted what I'm doing so far. Not terribly heartening; and I'm told point-blank that I should use Runner's Companion (especially KarmaGen), halving skill costs breaks the game, I shouldn't think about using house-rules for my first time running the game to a significant degree, and all I'm doing is taking to heart spouted BS...

That was the first time I've been back to the official(TM) forums since they launched, and that prick who calls himself Fastjack got uncomfortable because I kept referring to him by his real name. Glad I'm not missing anything. I especially liked the guy in this thread who pointed out that "10s of 1,000s of people game with the vanilla rules easily and happily". I don't know the guy, but that has to be some of the most subjective horse shit I've ever heard. SR4A is a lot cleaner and easier to use than previous versions, but it is still a far cry from the ease of D&D and I still see plenty of people fuck that up regularly.

Anyone who has cracked a core book and played more than a few sessions knows that you need some house rules. It isn't a question. I doubt the intentions of anyone who suggests to someone playing a game for fun that they should stick to vanilla. Sticking to vanilla is for the playtest group, and they aren't in it for fun.

[Stahlseele]

and the german version of WAR!/BOGOTA! won't be censored away because they wisely decided to throw the killing jew spirits/zombies in auschwitz to get the scalpell of a nazi clerk out and replace it with something usefull . .

furthermore:
german SR4 stuff actually incorporated errata THAT CGL HAS BUT DOES NOT RELEASE IN THEIR OWN BOOKS!
And SR4 Stuff from CGL in some cases actually got de-errataed . .

Yes, the SR2 and some SR3 german stuff was utterly bonkers . .
But the SR4 people are really awesome in fixing dumb stuff instead of making it worse.

[virgil]

Whelp, they're saying that any negative opinion on of the Matrix rules is one that's quite misconceived; couldn't have used better proof to start ignoring them.

[duo31]

what are the Karma Gen revisions ?

[virgil]

Fvck RHat, in the ears.

[Stahlseele]

say about dumpshock what you want, but it's still less bad than the official boards . .

[Korwin]

what are the Karma Gen revisions ?

Attribute x 5 instead of x 3

[Username17]

Whelp, they're saying that any negative opinion on of the Matrix rules is one that's quite misconceived; couldn't have used better proof to start ignoring them.

The Matrix Rules as printed really do require dozens if not hundreds of die rolls to accomplish even the most basic of tasks. If anyone even claims a by the book play of those rules is even possible, present the following scenario:

• You're on a sculpted system, where everything looks like stuff from some Arabic adventure series that you're unfamiliar with. So literally everything is some sexy lady or dancing sultan or something, and the character traits have something to do with icon function. What text labels there are are in Bahasa. Your mission is to find one of the daily inventory reports and replace it with a different report that you have been given for this purpose, and then delete any records of the switch having occurred. Possibly to hide or plant evidence of embezzlement, you're a Shadowrunner and you don't necessarily know. There is one report for every day of the last year. Also, there are other things in here: meeting minutes, schedules, market research, employee rosters, and so on and so forth.
  
  Unfortunately, there is also a security spider. Since he is on this system, all of his running programs use icons which are characters from this popular Arabic show you've never seen. You want to find and replace the report without being caught, and failing that you want to defeat the security spider and still replace the report and hide the evidence of what you were trying to do. The Security Spider wants to discover your treachery and kick you off the system.
  
  Use the system as printed. Go!

It's just not even fucking possible. There are hundreds if not thousands of icons on that node, and it's not even a weird node.

-Username17

[virgil]

Response was to just use Data Search with the parameter of "the daily inventory report I care about" and let his attack program run one with the parameter of "security programs"

[Username17]

Response was to just use Data Search with the parameter of "the daily inventory report I care about" and let his attack program run one with the parameter of "security programs"

That's not even attempting to deal with the turn order or the Matrix Perception Rules, or anything else. That's literally just "roll a Data Search and MTP something". Which I'll admit, is what you have to do. But that's not what the rules say to do.

-Username17

[Rawbeard]

But the rules work, because you can MTP it! Can't you see? CAN'T YOU?!

[virgil]

This one player's concept is using a couple qualities from outside my standard list of allowed books, and he's liking them for his concept. It doesn't help that the online generator he downloaded, while robust, doesn't tell you the source of the qualities you select.The question I ask is if I should be hardnosed and deny their use (with suggested alternatives), or if they're not bad things per se and let him use them.

• Lost Loved One
• Trust Fund (High)
• Day Job (10 hours, Corporate Translator)
• Flashbacks (Uncommon)
• Media Junkie (Mild, Trid news)

For background, his other qualities include: Adept, Cyberware Compatability, Addiction (Mild, Alcohol), Allergy (Mild/Uncommon, Roses), SINner.

[Stahlseele]

the upper ones aren't that bad, and if they are there for concept reasons, give him the drawbacks without the points. if that is so important to him, then he won't argue too much about the points i guess.
adept and OF COURSE cyberware compatibility . . < = that one would invoke my ire much more than the ones above.
same with the allergy against roses. i would not like to see those in there.

corporate translator?
how many languages does the character speak and WHY THE FRAG WOULD ONE NEED ONE OF THESE ANYMORE?
There's linguasoft that let anybody speak even dead languages as if they had grown up using them in a second . .

[Hicks]

Fun fact: my wife is allergic to roses.

Anything that supplements Vitamin C is most likely to be extracted from processed roses. Anything fortified with nutrients (energy bars, multi-vitamins, total cereal) has vitamin C.

Unless he watches what he eats, he will break out in hives, and unless he can get fresh fruit he'll suffer from scurvy.

[rasmuswagner]

Fun fact: my wife is allergic to roses.

Anything that supplements Vitamin C is most likely to be extracted from processed roses. Anything fortified with nutrients (energy bars, multi-vitamins, total cereal) has vitamin C.

Unless he watches what he eats, he will break out in hives, and unless he can get fresh fruit he'll suffer from scurvy.

G. Gygax would be proud.

[Hicks]

Only if you do this without discussing it with the player before the game.

[virgil]

Fun fact: my wife is allergic to roses.

Anything that supplements Vitamin C is most likely to be extracted from processed roses. Anything fortified with nutrients (energy bars, multi-vitamins, total cereal) has vitamin C.

Unless he watches what he eats, he will break out in hives, and unless he can get fresh fruit he'll suffer from scurvy.

Wouldn't that make the allergy common rather than uncommon?

[Rawbeard]

Yes it would.

[Pulsewidth]

Anything that supplements Vitamin C is most likely to be extracted from processed roses. Anything fortified with nutrients (energy bars, multi-vitamins, total cereal) has vitamin C.

Anything advertised as "natural" vitamin C is probably sourced from roses, but most is instead synthesized from glucose using a combination of chemical processes and bacterial fermentation. The end result is identical, so you wife ends up suffering purely because of a marketing gimmick.

[virgil]

There were police response time in some books (can't remember which). They were completely unrealistic (it took a few seconds to get a complete HTR team at the door) in order to make sure the police could arrive before the PC were long gone.

Pretty much this. Shadowrun was burdened with a combat round that was way too damn short. And as a direct result there was basically no chance in hell that any action was going to take even a minute to resolve was basically laughable. That's twenty combat rounds, which means that one side or the other is going to win in half that time even if they are handing out Light Wounds. The remaining time can be spent blowing doors or simply running a quarter kilometer (2 blocks) with no athletic ability at all.

And of course, in the real world 911 response times are over three minutes pretty universally and the actual average is over 10 minutes. Shadowrun desperately needed a combat turn that was two to ten times as long in real time. Because not only did it make fire fights unrealistically short - it made real world events occurring during combat rounds be something that was itself unrealistic.

How much of the system is dependent on the rounds being three seconds long? Because if you just arbitrarily lengthen it to AWoD's 12, then this chart seems like it would be fairly realistic.

[Stahlseele]

nothing is dependent on that, as far as i know.

[Blade]

If you have longer rounds and the same actions, some actions will take an absurdly long time to do (6s to pick up an object or push a button) and movement will be a bit slow.