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The Riggers Plight

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Typhus

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« Reply #60 on: <08-05-19/1730:14> »
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Typhus -- I love that post.

Thanks!  It's going in my homebrew game, whenever I can get it all drafted.  I keep finding new ideas. 

Speaking of which, it will probably be the only way I play SR going forward.  Someone on these boards, and I think JMH himself elsewhere, used the term "experiment" in reference to this edition.  Seems like that experiment has detonated in less than a week.

From what I am reading,  I can't see myself ever wanting to run or play this game.  That makes three editions running now that have been not for me on the same basis: Extremely poor editing, the continuation of an unfortunate writing style that adds to confusion, numerous rules I don't agree with even in full context, and a glut of rules I don't need to run the game.  I think I am done with CGL's ideas on Shadowrun. 

I will probably lurk around the forums a bit, maybe soak up some inspiration for homebrewing, but I'm not going to be a CGL customer any further.  To release a book in this poor a quality of shape, much less to have the gall to charge more for a fancy cover version of it is the last step on a bridge too far for me.  It's extremely unethical.   

I have two different groups of gamers I play with.  I've already advised them to avoid a purchase of this, or support this company further.  Thank you to the folks who engaged me on this forum, I do appreciate your time and insights being shared. 

Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #61 on: <08-05-19/2121:38> »
So, the "word on the street" is that Riggers are worse off in 6th than they were in 5e.  :(



IMO the Vehicle Control Rig is a mechanical trap option.  A high reaction Street Samurai with a 5 in Piloting will have the same dice pool as a Jumped in Rigger with a Level 3 Control Rig. 

So your racing scenario upthread doesn't even need the arbitrary restraints.  Give 'em both a Racing bike, let the Rigger Jump in, it's basically even odds. 

The VCR gives +1 Dice to Vehicle tests but you've got to be jumped in so you're stuck using Intuition.  Reaction is a lot easier to boost than Intuition so the Samurai can be +/- 1 or 2 of the Riggers pool for any Piloting tests.

But can a Street Sam regenerate by doing donuts in the parking lot.

Wakshaani

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« Reply #62 on: <08-06-19/0006:07> »
*takes more notes*

Super useful stuff thusfar.

Beta

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« Reply #63 on: <08-06-19/0912:29> »
Typhus, I really loved your points, summarized by:

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Make the rigger's investment in versatility and you have a transporter for all occasions, not just a few.  Who will you want on your team?  The guy who won't get out of his van, or the guy who can rustle up a hovercraft and slap an EM system in it if that's what the job needs?  Vehicular fixer in both senses of the word.

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Hold this cannister of superfuel while I rig the engine to not explode when I inject it straight into the converter.  I need to make sure we can clear the moat on the other side of the security fence after we crash through it.  I told you we were doing that, right?  Why else did you think I said we needed "burner car"?  How are we getting out again?  This facility has a garage doesn't it?  It'll be fine.

This sums up so nicely what I was reaching for, and would make riggers so much fun.

Hobbes

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« Reply #64 on: <08-06-19/1348:23> »
So, the "word on the street" is that Riggers are worse off in 6th than they were in 5e.  :(



IMO the Vehicle Control Rig is a mechanical trap option.  A high reaction Street Samurai with a 5 in Piloting will have the same dice pool as a Jumped in Rigger with a Level 3 Control Rig. 

So your racing scenario upthread doesn't even need the arbitrary restraints.  Give 'em both a Racing bike, let the Rigger Jump in, it's basically even odds. 

The VCR gives +1 Dice to Vehicle tests but you've got to be jumped in so you're stuck using Intuition.  Reaction is a lot easier to boost than Intuition so the Samurai can be +/- 1 or 2 of the Riggers pool for any Piloting tests.

But can a Street Sam regenerate by doing donuts in the parking lot.

As well as Riggers can.  Stupid Edge tricks are supposed to be stopped by the GM, and they are not unique to Riggers.  Just pay some street urchin to punch you a hundred times.  All the Regens!


dezmont

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« Reply #65 on: <08-08-19/1322:06> »
Yeah really the 'bag of rats' concept is old as dirt and while I will say time and time again a systems flaws should not be ignored because good GMs can fix them, assuming the GM has two braincells to rub together is a safe bet and you NEED GMs to be willing to adjudicate things like that. Like RPGs cannot function without judgement calls so it is totally fine to put in judgement calls as long as the GMs have the guidelines to make sure they can make them easily. Ironically, Edge's failings isn't in PCs abusing it because its generally easy to see when a roll advances the PC's goals and when it is an edge game, but in the fact that PCs interacting with it in good faith create a ton of really hard judgement calls.

To put it another way: In 5e it is strictly impossible to preform vertical movement without magic, climbing rolls, or jumping. Most GMs managed to make the judgement call that stairs worked and you were not allowed to treat a 4 foot tall wall as just one big set of stairs you could ignore, and it isn't a failing of the system to not make the judgement call on stairs for the GM. But while 6e avoids the bag of rats problem just fine, it fails in the sense that 'honest' attempts to gain edge require you to track so much nonsense.

Hephaestus

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« Reply #66 on: <08-08-19/1334:29> »
I just looked over the costs of the Control Rigs and the RCCs, and holy drek! It irritates me that a decker can get a Tier 6 Cyberjack and a near top-end Cyberjack out of chargen for roughly the same cost as a Tier 3 Control Rig...

dezmont

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« Reply #67 on: <08-08-19/1445:09> »
I just looked over the costs of the Control Rigs and the RCCs, and holy drek! It irritates me that a decker can get a Tier 6 Cyberjack and a near top-end Cyberjack out of chargen for roughly the same cost as a Tier 3 Control Rig...

Yes, the 'ware costs in 6e are, in a word, atrocious and do not reflect nominal utility at all.

Like I get why they tried it, in 4e there was no real 'ware buy in for either of the 'tech roles' so everyone just did them, making specialists in those roles really weak, but the tech roles suffered in 5e because they were choked out on resources and this just made it worse. Like yeah, you want non-trivial buy ins but the buy ins should basically take your entire PC. Especially because the reason everyone rigged and hacked in 4e wasn't because it was nuyen cheap but because skill pools literally didn't matter because either they weren't relevant to success (Rigging) or you could buy a program that beat the decker. And in both cases the outcome wasn't really worth the 'cost' of a PC compared to running an extra mage, face, or samurai.

Basically they are focusing too much on the gate, rather than investment to value. It doesn't REALLY matter what something costs as long as the investment is worth it enough to justify the expense because it is the best value on some axis but not so cheap that you will do it automatically because the value is too good, like how 4e pocket deckers just were insanely high value often in the realms of 200 karma worth of skills and atts for a paltry 20k nuyen.

Like right now riggers are too expensive for what they do AND they don't do anything better than any other role. So they just are bad. Even if they got cheaper the fact that riggers and deckers aren't good for anything, any contributions they provide can be emulated by other roles (ex: Just sneaking past cameras rather than making a test to loop them) kinda hampers the role existing.
« Last Edit: <08-08-19/1449:54> by dezmont »

Xenon

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« Reply #68 on: <08-09-19/1934:04> »
I just looked over the costs of the Control Rigs and the RCCs, and holy drek! It irritates me that a decker can get a Tier 6 Cyberjack and a near top-end Cyberjack out of chargen for roughly the same cost as a Tier 3 Control Rig...
the design intent seem to be that Riggers are supposed to prioritize Resources while Deckers are not forced to spend as much resources anymore (but they now have access to far less essence)

Deckers in this edition are also not really skill intensive, either (need 2 skills, maybe 3 with engineering if you also want access to gunnery and matrix damage repairing).

Is maybe the intent that Deckers should branch out; maybe Muscle+Decker, Adept+Decker, Face+Decker...?

Hephaestus

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« Reply #69 on: <08-11-19/1213:19> »
I just looked over the costs of the Control Rigs and the RCCs, and holy drek! It irritates me that a decker can get a Tier 6 Cyberjack and a near top-end Cyberjack out of chargen for roughly the same cost as a Tier 3 Control Rig...
the design intent seem to be that Riggers are supposed to prioritize Resources while Deckers are not forced to spend as much resources anymore (but they now have access to far less essence)

Deckers in this edition are also not really skill intensive, either (need 2 skills, maybe 3 with engineering if you also want access to gunnery and matrix damage repairing).

Is maybe the intent that Deckers should branch out; maybe Muscle+Decker, Adept+Decker, Face+Decker...?

This seems to be the case. In CRB6, they only list 4 main roles at the beginning of the Character Generation section (Arcane Specialist, Face, Street Sam, and Tech Specialist). They don't discuss archetypes until after character generation, so it seems they are telling players to make more multipurpose PCs.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #70 on: <08-11-19/1250:00> »
Consolidating skills not only disincentivizes one dimensional characters, it also is a direct help to riggers. There's only two skills in the niche.  You can accordingly afford a lower skill priority which helps in the other ares.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Hephaestus

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« Reply #71 on: <08-11-19/1314:16> »
Consolidating skills not only disincentivizes one dimensional characters, it also is a direct help to riggers. There's only two skills in the niche.  You can accordingly afford a lower skill priority which helps in the other ares.

I agree about the skill consolidation, to a point. Having less skills to choose from does allow characters to branch out more easily, but it also makes skill overlap an issue. And in a game where almost every obstacle already has a meat, magic, and tech answer to it, it feels like characters are being encouraged to be jack-of-all-trades. Which then asks the question, why do I need a team?

As for Riggers, I think they are worse off this time around. you are encouraged to focus on mental attributes to boost rigging, but also need to puff up your physical abilities to have a chance of operating/living outside your drones/vehicles. I see almost every Rigger being built the same:

A) Resources
B) Attributes
C) Skills
D) Race
E) Magic

And then they still have to dump copious amounts of money into their control rig and RCC, before even getting to other gear/implants/vehicles/drones.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #72 on: <08-11-19/1856:17> »
Well, riggers are encouraged in 6WE to have decker-like stats.  Physical stats don't matter while you're jumped in (not even Reaction) and if you're driving odds are you're jumped in.

You can do the same old decker tricks to get around wimpy physical stats: augmentations. Get yourself a good cyberarm and you're all good to go for shooting.  Muscle Replacement is much more reasonable this edition as well.  If you're resources A or B these are well within reason.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Hobbes

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« Reply #73 on: <08-12-19/0758:24> »
IMO 6E Riggers are divided into two distinct types.  Drone Riggers will have to look a lot like Deckers as they're going to be the only worthwhile EWAR target for hostile hackers.  They'll be able to jump into vehicles if they want. 

If all you're ever going to use for drones is an occasional Fly Spy recon drone, then build a Wheelman that is basically a Samurai or a Physical Adept and just ignore the RCC and VCR.  You're not a Rigger but you can drive as good as one.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #74 on: <08-12-19/1140:47> »
...  You're not a Rigger but you can drive as good as one.

I'm curious what makes you say this.

Meatbody/AR driving: You get to use Reaction, which is an easier buff than Intuition.  What else am I missing?  Because the Control Rig's dice pool bonus basically compensates for lost potential Reaction and Agility augmentations, and stacks with any Intuition and Logic augmentations you ARE able to score.  Furthermore you get edge every time you make a vehicle test (piloting, gunnery, doding an attack, etc). Freely flowing edge puts a control rig dice pool way over the top of another dice pool, even if it's comparable in size.

RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.