[Typhus]

I have an area of concern I'm developing as I consider what I know about the new rules.  I feel like I have seen enough this as an informed concern about the new system (though I'm asking because I might be wrong I suppose).  I don't feel like I'm missing information that would make this concern vanish outright, but there might be things to consider that would help take the edge off it.  I'm looking to see what people's take is on it who have seen, used, developed or written these rules.

The concern is about the flow of the game, specifically combat.  While sure, it's faster (relative to 5E) to resolve a combat encounter (which I may discuss concerns about in another thread), my concern is what the changes translate to in terms of the pace and flow of combat. 

The flow of the turn, which is not the same as the speed of a turn, is important to me.  In any system, when the player declares an action, there is a process to go through to resolve it.  That process either enables the emotional momentum to be sustained, or it inhibits that through shifting the attention to the mechanics for too long, minds wander, phones come out, etc.  I am concerned that the emphasis on evaluating Edge for every single rolled action or defense may become disruptive to that momentum.  This is probably easier to illustrate with an example.

I've recently GMed a few sessions of the old West End Games d6 Star Wars.  It was a lot of fun because the dice support the sustaining of momentum.  The player declares an action, my response is usually "okay, roll it".  They roll it, and then I may need to roll, maybe not, but after that, and maybe a damage roll, we're done, and on to the next person.  The flow moves right along, and the action of "I shoot at the stormtrooper" is resolved before the player's mind has to worry about anything more than adding up a couple of numbers.  The emotional momentum is not usually disrupted by that and the energy in the room stays high in general.

Moving to the other extreme, take a game like D&D 4E.  Players would declare an action, and then the player and GM would go through a drawn out process of checking effects, modifiers, reactions, etc.  We still had fun on balance, but the time between declaration and resolution, not to mention full turn resolution was pretty high.  Hence it's rep for 4 hour fights. 

Translate to Shadowrun.  In 6E, a player declares an action, and may even have the AR stat ready to go, but then the GM has to stop and adjudicate who gets an Edge, the player has to consult their character sheet, possibly even having to flip through the book to refer to a quality, or a piece of cyberware or gear that modifies Edge adjudication in some way, and then when the yes/no and what effect have been determined, we can roll to resolve, and then the player (and GM) still have to decide if they want to spend Edge again (assuming they didn't already).

This goes on every time someone is taking an action they need to roll for in combat. 

With what I know so far, I don't feel like I can just tell the player, "ok roll for it, don't forget to do X".  I flash back to SR2 and SR4, and I could definitely do that, eyeballing some modifiers as I went.  No extra fuss to consider.  Those types of systems are my favorite because as the GM its easy to sustain that emotional tension of a fight between characters, some of whom can do fantastical things and are playing to feel the high of describing and perpetrating those tasks.  We cans till consider all the gear and uniqueness without the flow taking too bad a hit.

I'm not sure exactly how to phrase this, I suppose.  How well does 6E meet a gamer like me where I want to be?   I assume I will eventually learn AR/DR modifiers and memorize Edge charts, sure, but I have zero expectation my players will do that past a point.  What is your experience and expectation from your own perspectives thus far?  With a brand new group, did people get to this level by the end of the night?  Or by the end of a couple sessions?  What suggestions do you have so far (if any) for getting close to that ideal?

Here's my nightmare scenario:
Me: Okay, there are three guards aiming guns at you.  You can tell you have just half a second to do something before they cut loose.
P1: OK, I shoot the first one with my SMG.
Me: Okay, single shot or burst or full auto?
P1: Lemme see, lemme check my attack ratings...*researches, does math* 
Everyone Else: *waits*
P1: Lets do a burst
Me: OK, that's a (modifier), their DR is (X) so that's 1 Edge to you.  Speaking of Edge, would you like to use any on the attack before you roll?
P1: Wait, what can I do with that again?
Me, probably: Take a look at the cheat sheet I printed up for you.
P1: Oh yeah.
P2: Oh, don't forget you have Qualities that might help too.
P1: Oh yeah!
P3: Oh and some of your cyberware and gear too.
P1: I didn't write that down, hang on, I think I have something that will help, let me look that up.
Everyone Else: *Waits for book to load to tablet, searching and scrolling.  Other players start to do the same to try to get through this part*
Me: Okay, so next round you should be ready for that.  Let's pick one and go.
P1: I'm almost there.  One quick sec.
P2: Found it, page 211, (quotes gear rule), oh no wait, that's no help.
P4: *Makes snoring noise*
P1: Yeah, I've got nothing helpful. Let's just roll.
(We do)
Me: Okay that 2 net hits.  Do you want to spend any Edge now?
P1: Hmm...
Me: *Dies inside*

It would be helpful to have a sense of what would be *typical* size for the menu of Edge choices from gear and Qualities combined, in addition to the standard menu of a dozen or so Edge options we've seen?  What are the theoretical controls and tools in place to keep the choice points limited and keep things moving?  What should I lean on to help prevent the nightmare from being a regular occurrence?  Emu has 4 Qualities, and each has some impact on Edge.  Added to the dozen or so standard ones, I'm up to 16 to review on each turn, only a few of which may apply, and that's before I consider any gear effects.  Quality costs are certainly an opportunity to help constrain things, but is that typical or an outlier?  Elsewhere it was stated that about 50% of the Qualities provide an Edge effect.  What about for gear?  Any insights of this nature would be super helpful.  Any insights into countering unavoidable challenge points is helpful too.

LASTLY: I'd like to also request that people refrain from the obvious "if you want fast, just play FATE/Anarchy/Some narrative system".  That's not what I'm looking for.  I'm trying to evaluate the potential fit of this system to my ideal.  I'd love to keep it on that topic.  Thanks in advance.

[FastJack]

How is this topic different than the discussion in Combat in SR6? I'll leave this for now, but if it starts sounding the same as the other thread, I'll merge the two.

[Typhus]

I meant it to be just about this aspect, not all aspects of combat. 

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Well a primary goal of 6w was to streamline the flow of combat. For whatever it's worth, the flow is much cleaner and faster than the previous edition.

As for 6w specifically... most of the crunch on the GM side boils down to judging whether a point of edge is due to a party.  Comparing AR to DR is meta mathematics, but it's a very simple arithmetic. Should flow easy and fast, basically just as fast as the player's decision loop.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I don’t have anything to add because I’ve seen what you have I guess. But I have the same impression though I suspect it won’t hit your worst case often.  The edge system seems just as slow if not slower than the previous modifier system.

[Kiirnodel]

I wouldn't say I'm a supporter of 6E, but from a quick read through your write-up here I don't see how your concerns for the flow of combat actually turn out any different from the flow of combat in earlier editions.

Now, I've only played 4th and 5th myself, and I haven't actually had a chance to try out 6th, so I don't have much to go by. But just from your mock-up of the back and forth (your "nighmare scenario"), pretty much every example you make is one that already exists in previous editions. The only thing that is different is that now those questions, nitpicks, modifiers, whatever you want to call them, are all mostly edge now.

Single Shot, Burst, or Full-Auto: 6E - Modifies AR, 5E/4E - modifies attacker's AND defender's dice pools. (Point for 6E being faster, less people modified)
All of the instances of Edge use: 6E - There might be a few more ways to use edge, but the times you can use edge haven't really changed as far as I can tell. (Point against 6E, more options means more decisions)
Qualities, Cyberware, Gear: All of that stuff exists in previous editions too, they could have added miscellaneous modifiers to dice pools, given additional options for what you can do with a particular action, etc. That doesn't really change with how 6E is written. At best, 6E changes most of those modifiers to flat alterations to your AR (something you should already have calculated), gives a chance for miscellaneous awarding of edge (this would be a thing that happens consistently, so you would learn it and it becomes rote), or maybe gives another option for edge use (add it to the cheat sheet). Worst case, it takes exactly as much time as earlier editions, but at best, it is simplified and streamlines the combat.

Seems like at the worst case, the changes do nothing to speed up or slow down combat, you've just exchanged one type of modifier for another. But at best, it is less things to modify, and more room for a GM to just say "nope, you've got the advantage. Don't bother looking up that other thing, because you can't get more"

[DigitalZombie]

I think your example might not be too far away from actual 6ed first combat scenario.
BUT if this was a 5th ed first combat situation, your example would have been slightly longer.
So depending on your feelings regarding 5th edition, this is smoother.

[Lormyr]

I believe the answer boils down to one thing: system mastery.

There are a handful of edge uses, interrupt actions, and status effects that have the potential to slow things down if players aren't aware of their affect or don't know what they want to do on their turn.

For brand new players, I could see this being a time sink. For players generally familiar with SR, or those who make an effort to commit them to memory, it won't be too bad.

[Hobbes]

I believe the answer boils down to one thing: system mastery.

There are a handful of edge uses, interrupt actions, and status effects that have the potential to slow things down if players aren't aware of their affect or don't know what they want to do on their turn.

For brand new players, I could see this being a time sink. For players generally familiar with SR, or those who make an effort to commit them to memory, it won't be too bad.

5th Edition Combat actually moved along fast if the Players knew what they were doing and stayed engaged during the fight scene.  My actions were plenty complex as a player, but I had the dice pools ready to go, rattled off my actions, rolled dice, counted hits, Next up! 

As a GM I totally stole from an excellent GM and would say Player A your turn, Player B you're on deck at the start of each players turn.   

Also another thing I totally ripped off from another excellent GM a simple cheat sheet for each player.  Print 'em out and have players fill them in.  Initiative, Perception, Most common attack or spell, soak totals, just have them pre-totaled so they don't have to flip through 5 pages of Chummer output to find two numbers to add together.  Really speeds things up. 

Lightning round mode was counting hits for mooks with a consolidated P/S condition Monitor. 

4 hour time slots are a ruthless master.

[Michael Chandra]

I got some A5-size stands that I should use for those cheat-sheets, which can be turned around if I need to see them. Could be useful. I also like how the Beginner Box comes with the summary sheets for the GM, I should design that for all the Archetypes in CRB.

In SR5 I had cheatsheets which had attack-pool, defense-pool, soak-pool for each type of goon when I was dealing with a bunch. And of course for players the characters were Herolab-generated, which helped with quick pools. Sometimes I'd write down 'these will be the penalties for these circumstances'.

Of course I can use the same GM-shortcuts for SR6, especially the 'what devices will give a player Edge and under what circumstances do the baddies get some'. That way I can do that in a flash.

[Typhus]

'what devices will give a player Edge and under what circumstances do the baddies get some'.

How long would that list be?  A single page, or more? 

For instance, if there's only a few gear items that do so, and the player is unlikely to have more than 2-3 qualities that impact edge spends in a fight, that's pretty manageable as an outcome.  Any thoughts on where 6E characters fall with that so far? (Obviously there will be outliers, I mean on average, ie what the CRB archetypes happen to have, for example).

[Typhus]

Also, to the other responders, and meant with all respect, I'm really looking more 6E specific experiences, so comparisons to other editions or games, or describing ways to speed games along in general aren't really what I'm after.  I guess I'm more trying to gauge to what extent you would see a need for such thing in this specific edition (if at all).  If it flows like water in your experience, that would be awesome to hear about.

So, for example, "we played three games of it and by the end of it, everyone had no trouble being ready for their turn and things went fast" or "we found a cheat sheet was (helpful/necessary/whatever)".  Those kinds of thoughts would be super good to know. 

I'm re-watching the live plays of SCN, and I'm not seeing a huge issues once people are in the groove, but I'd love to hear other perspectives.

Thanks for the thoughts above though.  I appreciate you taking the time to chime in.

[Michael Chandra]

I only run open events once a month, and already posted elsewhere why my 'went real fast' experience didn't suffice for a full impression, just for a shallow impression. In my experience, just like with SR5, people don't constantly think about whether to use Edge, they just save it up and use it if things go sideways on crucial rolls.

Meanwhile, after the first round of combat, everyone pretty much memorises how much Edge they get from benefits so you don't have to recheck every time.

[Banshee]

Ok, here my take after running 6WE scenarios with the same group for months.

The problem your describing is only an issue while first learning and adjusting to the new systems and that should be expected with any new system. Once players and GM's getcused to it the flow is very smooth

Edit for example...
Once you get sued to it and know your character sheet then the AR vs DR and gear steps of the edge only take a few seconds and the tactical/environment step usually only takes much effort and time on the first action and even then it's only a minute or so. The rest of the resolution flows the same if not faster than 5E.

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Ok, here my take after running 6WE scenarios with the same group for months.

The problem your describing is only an issue while first learning and adjusting to the new systems and that should be expected with any new system. Once players and GM's getcused to it the flow is very smooth

Edit for example...
Once you get sued to it and know your character sheet then the AR vs DR and gear steps of the edge only take a few seconds and the tactical/environment step usually only takes much effort and time on the first action and even then it's only a minute or so. The rest of the resolution flows the same if not faster than 5E.

Opinions on 6th a side, this is good to hear.