[FastJack]

You're both right, everyone is just expressing their opinion on the new edition and also that no-one is telling players not to buy the game.

It may be the incredibly uncomfortable heat wave amping up my exhaustion and getting tired of trying to defend my attitude of "give the game a shot". When I became a moderator here on the forums, it was because I was very active in the boards and tried my best from keeping this place from becoming like Dumpshock (or like they were, I haven't looked in a few years). When all I see is people that consistently stretch the line and bash developers of the game because they don't like the new product, I get upset.

You can have opinions, think a game sucks, whatever. But when you start questioning the skill, knowledge, and decision-making of developers, that's when you stop criticizing and start becoming a troll, man.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

...
3. So if no one is willing to discuss (house rules) is that any less toxic to the community see below.
...

On this specific point: Many of the proponents of 6WE are those that have seen the whole thing. Categorically, these are people who are bound by NDAs.  Furthermore, house rules are a touchy subject for NDAs as some people are also actively involved in errata'ing 6WE. Anything discussed here may very well be something that's also being proposed behind the shroud of public discussion.  Either way, what IS going on with potential errata is also NDA'd.

So, an echo chamber of like-minded opinions all in opposition to 6WE's new paradigms doesn't mean the pro-6WE people are ignoring you or refusing to engage with you on house rule ideas. In a couple weeks when the CRB should be "in the wild", not only will you have more context with which to work there shouldn't be NDAs gagging potential collaborators.

[adzling]

You're both right, everyone is just expressing their opinion on the new edition and also that no-one is telling players not to buy the game.

It may be the incredibly uncomfortable heat wave amping up my exhaustion and getting tired of trying to defend my attitude of "give the game a shot". When I became a moderator here on the forums, it was because I was very active in the boards and tried my best from keeping this place from becoming like Dumpshock (or like they were, I haven't looked in a few years). When all I see is people that consistently stretch the line and bash developers of the game because they don't like the new product, I get upset.

You can have opinions, think a game sucks, whatever. But when you start questioning the skill, knowledge, and decision-making of developers, that's when you stop criticizing and start becoming a troll, man.

dude the last thing i want to do is demoralize you.
you keep the lights on here and there's no farking way i want this to turn into dumpshock.
im gonna sign off for a bit, i made my point.
gluck!

[tenchi2a]

Another statement that I keep hearing is the game was exhaustively playtested, by whom was it playtested.
Having playtested many RPG/MMO/Computer game (Currently play testing a game expansion as we speak)/ and Boardgames I can say there is no such thing as exhaustively playtested. No closed playtest can fined all the problems or exploits in a game.
So who where your playtesters
1. The playtest should include players from every aspect of your core gaming community and not just like minded players to the writers.
2. All responses should be evaluated and not dismissed because they don't fit what you are going for, because this could indicate that what you are going for is not working.
Not say CGL did any of this, but a lot of the hearsay about the playtest seems to be upsetting.

I was also in on the open playtest done for D&D 5th edition and while I did not agree with everything they did, the results speak for themselves as D&D 5th edition has gone on to be a big hit with both the old and new players because the listened to their fans comments whither good or bad.

It also doesn't help that most of CGL promotions for the game consist of "we know you had problems with this mechanic so we got rid of it" "Edge".
Don't like the amount of mods "gone" "edge"
Armors to strong "gone" "edge"
To much damage from weapons "reduced""edge"
Edge not covering it well "edge"
They keep telling us what they got rid of and how edge now covers it, but don't tell us how edge is suppose to covers it.
Edge replaces armor; How, there is nothing in the edge charts that even remotely approximates armor and how does only ever getting 1 edge from it make sense?
Even if its not what was intended, it gives off the feeling that the game was gear to show off their baby the edge system.
I'm not saying this is the writers fault, as marketing departments can sometimes really sway opinions in the wrong direction.

[tenchi2a]

You're both right, everyone is just expressing their opinion on the new edition and also that no-one is telling players not to buy the game.

It may be the incredibly uncomfortable heat wave amping up my exhaustion and getting tired of trying to defend my attitude of "give the game a shot". When I became a moderator here on the forums, it was because I was very active in the boards and tried my best from keeping this place from becoming like Dumpshock (or like they were, I haven't looked in a few years). When all I see is people that consistently stretch the line and bash developers of the game because they don't like the new product, I get upset.

You can have opinions, think a game sucks, whatever. But when you start questioning the skill, knowledge, and decision-making of developers, that's when you stop criticizing and start becoming a troll, man.

I want to be crystal clear, nothing I ever say here is an attack on you or CGL personally.
You do a great job and have been more then far when we get out of line.

[dezmont]

You're both right, everyone is just expressing their opinion on the new edition and also that no-one is telling players not to buy the game.

It may be the incredibly uncomfortable heat wave amping up my exhaustion and getting tired of trying to defend my attitude of "give the game a shot". When I became a moderator here on the forums, it was because I was very active in the boards and tried my best from keeping this place from becoming like Dumpshock (or like they were, I haven't looked in a few years). When all I see is people that consistently stretch the line and bash developers of the game because they don't like the new product, I get upset.

I get this feel. Basically is my story with Reddit and Reddit is REALLY on fire right now because there is an (untrue) perception you can just flip every table and scream all ya want. I had to take a break (And am hiding out here to some extent in fact as I ease back in to whipping my billy club about as internet police).

You can have opinions, think a game sucks, whatever. But when you start questioning the skill, knowledge, and decision-making of developers, that's when you stop criticizing and start becoming a troll, man.

I disagree, especially with the last one of questioning decision making, because a vital part of criticism of art and media is being able to understand the author. Like death of the author is kiiiinda a thing but you also need to try to understand who the person is making choices and why to get a greater context.

Or, to put it another way, you gotta take credits for the Ls as well as the Ws. Especially because often getting inside the designer's head can help you understand why a mistake was understandable. For example, magicrun is a super common criticism of 5e, but magicrun didn't come about because of super terrible choices made for no reason, when you look at what 4e was like and the things that cause magicrun (The fact that 'ware got massively downgraded which made the relative advantage of sustained spells go from 'a joke compared to my emotitoy and weird software suite giving me +10' to 'Yeah I absolutey gotta have that', combat got significantly less lethal for soak tanks, autofire changed to make hitting easier but dying harder, defense tests... existed) were all good changes that needed to happen and it came about somewhat out of left field, and combined with thematic concepts that are foundational to SR but aged extremely poorly (mainly the idea that body modification and prothestetics are pushed by 'morally pure' mage NPCs who can kinda be viewed as genetically superior as making you less human... which is... yikes!) make it seem like there was absolutely no love for mundane PCs, when in actuality mundanes benefited a lot from many of SR5's rules changes (For example not having to be an optimized limb build sam to survive an AR burst shot is super nice in making 'ware's versatility a valid upshot because now you don't need to spend ALL your essence on cyberlimbs) and it just so happens a few rogue rules totally unrealted to magic sorta accidently pushed the mage's power level crazy high.

Of course there is a line between between an intense critical analysis that can get personally uncomfortable but is something you have to accept will happen in order for fair evaluation of your work to exist (Something hurting your feelings does not necessarily make it invalid or unacceptable) and the weird internet rage feedback loop vomiting hot takes and anger all over someone way disproportionate to the 'crime' and utterly unrelated to the work of the artist that is like legitimately concerning for our societies ability to function. Having been part of that loop (And at least feeling like they pulled themselves out) it does really worry me how many people are angry because they LIKE being angry as opposed to people asking the sincere question of 'what were they thinking?'

In the magicrun example some people try to push a narrative that the designers just love magic soooo much and want everyone to be mages and really just want 'wared PCs to go away. This trollish attitude where there is an attempt to blame some moral failing of a game designer, rather than the fact mechanical systems are INSANELY complex and its super hard to see every outcome of every rule interaction and every bit of lore that has been about longer than most people who are playing SR have been doesn't come from people questioning the designer's intent, it comes from the opposite, a fundamentally unsympathetic place where people imagine others are making choices purely to spite them, be mean, and make things worse rather than just like... trying their best.

[Jareth Valar]

OK, I've lurked these posts for long enough. Time to chime in.

As for working hard on something...you can spend hundreds of hours polishing a turd (it IS possible BTW) and looking at the shiny brown results think "Who wouldn't buy this? We've slaved for hours over this, of course people will want it!"....in the end, people will only see a shiny turd someone wasted hours polishing and scratching their heads wondering why the polisher is so upset people don't like it..."

As for Toxicity. Very true there are some very bitter and vocal haters, however the venom drips both ways as been seen. Most of what has been turning me off the the forums in general is all of the "toxic supporters" of 6E. Like mentioned before the "if you don't like it and don't appreciate what we went through to do it....you're wrong!" crowd.

Personally, from what has been presented so far, I'm not likely to purchase straight away. I will see what the core rules have to offer, but I don't like what I see so far. Which, for the record, no one has to jusrify WHY. I don't like shell fish, don't have to explain why, just don't.  I also hate paisley. Won't buy it. It may be the most comfortable perfect fit piece of wear in the world, but I'll never even consider it based on what I SEE at the moment.

6th Edition might be a perfectly playable and enjoyable system. And for those that think so, beautiful. ENJOY, the world needs more gamers. I think many are upset because of the perceived "star peg into round hole" feel the rules have as presented so far. Heck, even a square peg would have preferred, though was hoping for a few more sides myself (better fit/less drastic a change)

To me, I like mostly crunchy systems, but not Grape Nuts crunchy (there have been systems I have stayed away from because of that..ChartMaster RoleMaster for one, Stalking the Night Fantastic for another (the ability to die from hydro-static shock from a graze to your pinkey after 3 different charts to deal with damage...nope) and a few others. I also stay away from FATE and the like, not for me or mine. Tried all of the above plus over a hundred others over the years.

I feel that rules (yes, I said the "R" word) should provide the skeletal framework for the world. Set certain parameters and benchmarks that the players (and GM) can glance at for levels of expectation, whether or not the game goes beyond those if irrelevant They still provide a reference to show what is expected and normally available in the world as a whole.  6E to me, again from what has been given light so far, to be building it's framework from Ooblech, really firm and solid during some key points and way to runny fluid otherwise.  Not a solid framework IMHO.

Now to my biggest complaint about this whole discussion... the defense of "Now the GM can just....." That has been a thing since the beginnings of tabletop role-playing. The GM has ALWAYS had that option, ALWAYS will. That is NO defense. To me it's about as intelligent as "am too, am not, am too, am not, am too........"

As for the "if we don't buy it, it might go away" thing. If (and I do mean IF, since I don't have the core rules I don't know, but the QSR have NOT impressed me) it sucks for my table, should I still support the company that is producing it so they can put out more of something I don't think is worth it? Never going to happen.  If sales are down and they don't try to analyze why and try and find a solution (whatever that may be) then why bother at all?

Personally, I'm going to try and stay away from the coulda/shoulda/woulda conversations. What's been done is done. Now, the only thing to do will be how to fix what is perceived to be broken on an individual level and let the company know we are dissatisfied, how we are dissatisfied and why we are dissatisfied in a way that they will hopefully listen, NOT crankily bitch and moan nonconstructively.  For those trying to be constructive, kudos. For those defending 6E with the understanding that others may not see what you do, double kudo's. For all of the others on both sides, well.......Not trying to get myself banned, so "have a nice life"

End result, I'll post more when I have read the core rules, until then good luck trying to convince the internet you are right.

[FastJack]

Thanks to you all, I do like to hear the opinions on the game, and going into depth on them helps both old and new player understand where the opinions are coming from.

Dez/Jareth: Regarding the decision-making and criticizing, I agree that you should be able to point out a bad decision and ask "WTF"? My concern is when people start saying things like CGL can't make ANY good decisions.

Adz/T2A: Thanks guys, it's good to hear once in a while that other appreciate you.

[dezmont]

Dez/Jareth: Regarding the decision-making and criticizing, I agree that you should be able to point out a bad decision and ask "WTF"? My concern is when people start saying things like CGL can't make ANY good decisions.

I don't care about CGL. I say this boldly on CGL's own forums that you are a soulless LLC and not a person, and I shake my fist at ye!

Caring about people in CGL is different, of course. People's wellbeings and emotions matter quite a lot.

From the perspective of PR and public image, it is well understood tanking your rep is way easier than building it up. Say what you want about modern CGL, but it is... sorta inarguable their history is not spotless. And it doesn't matter if you start doing better because reputations, especially of companies and brands, are about consistency. It doesn't really matter, from a consumer perspective, that CGL can make good choices, if the perception is that they are not consistent.

This is why, despite editing being an issue in literally every RPG book I have ever read, people enjoy sniping at CGL with it. Things that others get away with become corporate sins (heh) when you do them if you have developed a reputation relating to them. So it doesn't super matter if Forbidden Arcana did a great job of managing to bridge old with new and preserve the way things used to be without ruining the new status quo for anyone who liked it, people are going to look at the mistakes the company keeps making because it indicates a non-commitment to improvement.

And that gets SUPER UGLY when like... some people, like freelancers or lead designers or line developers sorta are 'avatars' of the company and become collateral damage absorbing hate over patterns they didn't start and are trying to end. But at the same time, corporations don't exactly deserve the benefit of the doubt and its... super weird how individual personalities get tangled up in that.

And I have no doubt CGL is unaware of this, brands are literally only a value add for a product because they create a reputation, it is why PR and marketing is such a huge field. It has not gone unnoticed to me that CGL has focused a LOT on personality based marketing, with freelancers often representing their works instead of CGL in places like Reddit and the decision to announce 6e with the well liked Shadowcasters Network (who also include a freelancer who has positive ties with the company) rather than doing it themselves. These are actually pretty good choices, but also have the side effect of exposing people who are not PR professionals to really intense public attention, which is really rough, especially because on the flip flop of them sometimes accidently or deliberately becoming martyrs for CGL I have no doubt in my mind these personalities feel INTENSE pride in getting to represent their work and get attention for it so it isn't like CGL is just abusing them.

It is actually really funny how often we talk about CGL as an entity with feelings, it was actually one of my first research projects and was what got me noticed by the head of my college's graduate program to examine how social media blurs the line of what a corporation is and confuses us into almost viewing them as people, because a corporation can both position itself as a person like entity and because they can push key members of the corporation forward as almost 'avatars' of the corporation when needed before retracting them, like a creepy corporate possession spirit hive mind.

I think about this kinda stuff a lot, it is why I chose to study this stuff, as my friends say only partially ironically: 'Real life is a Cyberpunk.' Social media is a huge intellectual, moral, and emotional quagmire none of us can escape from which has ramifications to how we interact as humans that position it both as possibly one of the greatest existential threats to our ability to rationally view and interact with the world while also an insanely potent social good. And it sometimes really pays to step back and really look at what is going on, be it a company like Wendy's putting on a creepy human mask to gain sympathy and esteem because now people have the perception of a freaking fast food company as a being they interact with who is funny and clever and is willing to use their cutting wit to make observations about the world and involve you in the joke in order to sell you fast food burgers, or people getting absolutely drenched in what amounts to internet harassment campaigns that literally spontaneously form with no individual human effort or attention and self organize organically thinly defending itself as discourse about corporations, consumer rights, whatever.

Basically the resonance is real and its creating gestalt consciousnesses able to interact on the individual level and probably is going to kill us all, is what I am saying. Which I personally hope is the next 6e metaplot!

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Dez/Jareth: Regarding the decision-making and criticizing, I agree that you should be able to point out a bad decision and ask "WTF"? My concern is when people start saying things like CGL can't make ANY good decisions.

Wall of smart and well thought out text

Damn, awesome analysis.

At FastJack Hey, glad you keep us from becoming a dumpster fire like other famous/infamous web forums. But, that said, I will still be strongly opinionated about how CGL has handled 5th. We still lack errata for old books and keep getting sold new ones with, at times, massive errors. Maybe this is due to my experience with Paizo overall being better at errata and responding with fixes. Not to say their forum is nicer, it is not. Honestly, it is a hell of a lot meaner/trollier than here. The other honest criticism is open playtests are better for a new system than closed. I don't like Pathfinder 2 for several reasons, but they did fix a bunch of dumbass rules thanks to the open playtests. Resonance and consumables being one big example. Now, I promise to try my damnedest not to directly criticize the actual writers, and if I do, please call me out and ban-hammer the drek out of me if need be.

Again, thanks for not letting this place become a dumpster fire of the internet.

Edited for clarity.

[tenchi2a]

I also need to bring up two things that I have noticed on this thread.

1. please stop the reality vs. fantasy debates, the whole point of this thread was to get away from that tired argument as it has no Bering on a RPG from either side.
Looking at the name of the tread you can fine the better argument.
Arguments like this caused the locking of the combat thread.

2. Not to insult any of the fans of 6th edition, but continually informing people that the game ran well at your table or flows well for your group is in no way reassuring when you keep badmouthing 5th edition. This shows you did not like 5th and think this edition is better, not that people who like 5th will enjoy it because you do.

[Moonshine Fox]

2. Not to insult any of the fans of 6th edition, but continually informing people that the game ran well at your table or flows well for your group is in no way reassuring when you keep badmouthing 5th edition. This shows you did not like 5th and think this edition is better, not that people who like 5th will enjoy it because you do.

I would say the main difference between the two, is that we know all of 5th ed's rules. We've been playing them for years now where 6th edition we only have the quick start (and let's be honest, we know how those don't line up to full rules) and a few hints and rumors otherwise. We don't even have a core yet. There's a difference between pointing out known flaws of a well work system vs potential flaws of a system not even deployed yet. That said one can criticize that little bit we've seen of the not-yet-deployed system without crossing the line into being a badmouthing hater, a line that thankfully few have crossed here.

[Michael Chandra]

I love 5e. But I see 6e solve >90% of the problems I had with 5e, and no longer force me to do all the math for most of my players. If that counts as badmouthing and I'm not supposed to answer questions about how well SR6 plays, fine.

[Michael Chandra]

Let me clarify a bit: At my home game I know what houserules I need to circumvent vagueness. I love math and crunch and I can handle SR5 just fine. But not all my players can, and at open events I'm restricted. I can't advertise SR5 as well as I want to, and the crunch gets in the way of some of my players. If I can convince them to give Shadowrun another shot in SR6, then I love that. So it's not that I dislike SR5 and think everyone should quit it. But I believe SR6 is what the franchise needs.

[tenchi2a]

Let me clarify a bit: At my home game I know what houserules I need to circumvent vagueness. I love math and crunch and I can handle SR5 just fine. But not all my players can, and at open events I'm restricted. I can't advertise SR5 as well as I want to, and the crunch gets in the way of some of my players. If I can convince them to give Shadowrun another shot in SR6, then I love that. So it's not that I dislike SR5 and think everyone should quit it. But I believe SR6 is what the franchise needs.

I guess one of the reasons I feel so strongly about this is I have already gone through this with one of my other favorite games (legends of the five rings) and watched the new company destroy everything that I liked about it in the name of getting new players and for lack of a better name social justice.
examples:
Resetting the story to;
Add a more female heavy story line
Add a lesbian love story
Get rid of all the fan inputs to the original story

Change the game mechanics to;
Add custom dice
Simplify the rules to draw in new players
Add a narrative dice mechanic (Strife)
and like edge making it a intricate part of the system that is near impossible to remove.
effectively making the game a shell of its former self.

And this trend towards streamlining for new customer reminds me of the open d20 craze from a few years back, where every game had to have or become an open d20 game to get new customers.
And the end results where most companies dropping the d20 version with very few new customer for the effort.

Just so it is clear, I hate D&D in all its forms, probably because my intro into RPGs came from games like (in order) Top Secret, Mechwarrior, and Shadowrun, Pendragon, Legend of the Five Rings. So I never liked; level systems, fix defense, hit points without loss effect, etc. The reason this is important is that the switch to open d20 changed the game involved so much that they stopped being anything other then a d20 knockoff of their setting, thus becoming what I hated.

That is what I am seeing now with the streamlining craze, games becoming shells of what they once where to join the bandwagon. Most of the game I play are due to the mechanics and how they fit the setting, streamlining has a tendency to destroy this in an attempt to draw in new players with simple rule.
If a company has to draw in players by proudly announcing they rulebook is only 300 pages then something is wrong.
Truth be told if you removed most of the pictures, stories, extras from the 5th corebook you could get really close to 300 pages without changing the rules so page count is not the reason. This leaves only one option, you are trying to attract players who want to play a simple game.
And that IMHO is not what Shadowrun has ever been about.

My dearest hope is that 6th edition is not CGL jumping on streamlining bandwagon to get new customer, and is truly them trying to improve the game.
But in the current RPG environment where company after company is jumping on every new flash-in-the-pan idea or gimmick my hope is small.