[All4BigGuns]

Roleplaying in D&D, as in any other setting, including Shadowrun, is a function of the interaction between the DM and the PCs. The dice are there because not everyone has the silver tongue of a bard, or the nimble fingers of the rogue, or the fighter's skill with a blade. The diceless systems are no better or worse at roleplaying. Indeed, I've seen more than a few such 'diceless' games devolve into cowboys and indians style shenanigans.

And where, then, is the "roleplaying as a key aspect" in Shadowrun? The 1-2 karma points you may get for good roleplaying if the DM feels like it, just like how a DM in D&D can award bonus XP for roleplaying if he feels like it? I will admit that D&D books don't have the same flair as Shadowrun books do, but there is a simple reason for that. Shadowrun is a single setting. D&D is designed to be used in different settings, be it Greyhawk, Faerun, Ravenloft, Eberron, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Birthright, or any one of the hundreds of thousands of homebrew settings that DMs have brought in over the years. Shadowrun's system is intrinsically tied to the setting, making it far more difficult to transplant into another world than D&D, which provides a skeleton, and allows DMs to put meat on the bones, building the world to their specifications.

To be fair, the 1 to 2 karma in SR is worth more than the 100 to 200 xp that D&D allows for non-combat encounters.

Drag from d20 to a "real" system? What the hell? The d20 system is just as valid a system as most others--I say most because of the diceless systems out there.

Its a perfectly valid miniature wargame system with roleplaying optional. You can argue until your blue in the face, but when the suggested XP for roleplaying is absolutely horrid compared to killing monsters and nothing other than killing monsters gives experience, then its pretty much a killing monsters game.

It's not just D20, Dungeons and Dragons has almost always been like this, but D20 definitely redefined it into a board game making a battlegrid and dice almost mandatory to manage it without someone at the table getting jipped on abilities.

Most of the diceless systems out there are actually more viable as a roleplaying system, because the focus is actually on roleplaying.

I'm not saying you can't roleplay D20, just that the focus isn't on roleplaying at all. A real RPG system should have roleplaying as a key aspect, not an afterthought.

The d20 system was not turned into a board game until the crap that is D&D 4th came about.

[Crash_00]

The board game feel came in 3rd edition when the entire game started revolving around the square map system, and abilities began to be tied directly to it. 4E just made it feel like a board game version of an MMO complete with cooldowns.

[All4BigGuns]

The board game feel came in 3rd edition when the entire game started revolving around the square map system, and abilities began to be tied directly to it. 4E just made it feel like a board game version of an MMO complete with cooldowns.

The grid wasn't ever "revolved around" in third or 3.5... Sure, it made things easier, but I've seen it used for other systems with absolutely no mention of such things in the books, and it still made things a bit easier (even in SR), and abilities in 3.0/3.5 weren't "tied directly to" the grid any more than they were in the previous editions.

[Crash_00]

If you went off the grid and just used real distances, melee classes suffered drastically from movement no longer being set up in 5 ft. chunks (primarily due to the five ft. step and how full attacks worked which was a core of the the combat system (Full round and five ft step or move, standard, and five ft step)). Every ability was tied to the combat system which was at it's core tied to five foot movement increments. The game revolved around it so much, that during beta you didn't even have movement in feet, it was in squares that you could move. They changed back to feet because they felt that the math would make diagonal movement easier to comprehend.

[All4BigGuns]

If you went off the grid and just used real distances, melee classes suffered drastically from movement no longer being set up in 5 ft. chunks (primarily due to the five ft. step and how full attacks worked which was a core of the the combat system (Full round and five ft step or move, standard, and five ft step)). Every ability was tied to the combat system which was at it's core tied to five foot movement increments. The game revolved around it so much, that during beta you didn't even have movement in feet, it was in squares that you could move. They changed back to feet because they felt that the math would make diagonal movement easier to comprehend.

Not really, they didn't suffer except in the first round against a given opponent, and even then there were abilities you could gain from feats or class abilities (I think on that second one) where you could get bonuses when making just one attack in a round. This is definitely the case in Pathfinder, which is the true successor to 3.5 D&D, and thus still d20.

[Crash_00]

Not really, they didn't suffer except in the first round against a given opponent,

So, they suffered. I don't really agree with that analysis, but I'm not going to break down the entire 3.5 system in an SR5 thread. That would take far more time and effort than I really care for.

and even then there were abilities you could gain from feats or class abilities (I think on that second one) where you could get bonuses when making just one attack in a round. This is definitely the case in Pathfinder, which is the true successor to 3.5 D&D, and thus still d20.

So, it's not that bad because you can spend your feats or abilities to compensate for the fact that you're not using a vital part of the game's concept? Right.

If you've got a good GM that can just vision the map in his head, it runs fine and smooth. Attacks within 5 ft are the norm, letting you 5 ft. at anywhere from 10-6 ft and be able to full attack. The easiest thing is just to always round to the nearest 5 ft. favorable to the player. Even then though, the fact remains that the map is a core to the game, there is just a work around being used to simulate the map without using it.

[Kylen]

See, the reason I'm fine with maps is because, unfortunately, not everyone at the table has my, or someone else's, ability to envision the situation with "So describe the battlefield." There are a LOT of players who need to physically SEE the situation in order to know what they can, or what they SHOULD do.

[Mirikon]

Indeed. Maps and minis were brought about to make things easier for players to understand what they can and can't do, and to understand what other people can do to them. And it DRAMATICALLY cuts down on friendly fire when a fireball goes off, for instance. In my first SR game, I nearly got killed on a courier run because the troll street samurai thought it'd be a good idea to toss a grenade into the group of gunmen we were facing, not knowing that two of the team were well within the blast radius.

[All4BigGuns]

Indeed. Maps and minis were brought about to make things easier for players to understand what they can and can't do, and to understand what other people can do to them. And it DRAMATICALLY cuts down on friendly fire when a fireball goes off, for instance. In my first SR game, I nearly got killed on a courier run because the troll street samurai thought it'd be a good idea to toss a grenade into the group of gunmen we were facing, not knowing that two of the team were well within the blast radius.

Not as bad as a story I was told where the street sam detonated multiple explosives in the area the team was in (which was surrounded pretty close both by walls and a physical barrier spell...)

[Mirikon]

Heh. Well, my mage did end a later encounter in that mission fairly quickly (and cinematically). We'd crossed two borders in Denver, and were on our way to the final drop when we had a go gang on our tails. So my mage drops an ice slick in the road behind the van. The drain knocked him out, but the DM had a lot of fun describing (in detail) what happened to the gangers as they encountered the ice slick.

[JustADude]

Heh. Well, my mage did end a later encounter in that mission fairly quickly (and cinematically). We'd crossed two borders in Denver, and were on our way to the final drop when we had a go gang on our tails. So my mage drops an ice slick in the road behind the van. The drain knocked him out, but the DM had a lot of fun describing (in detail) what happened to the gangers as they encountered the ice slick.

Oooooooooh.... nice one!

[Mirikon]

Heh. This is what happens when you have someone move to Shadowrun after they have experience in D&D and superhero RPGs (Hero System and M&M), and let them play a mage.

[KarmaInferno]

My point was that the Pool o'd6 just SCREAMS shadowrun to me. The same way seeing someone put down a bag mostly filled with d10s tells me they play in White Wolf games. Its just a fundamental part of it's identity...

-k

[CanRay]

My point was that the Pool o'd6 just SCREAMS shadowrun to me. The same way seeing someone put down a bag mostly filled with d10s tells me they play in White Wolf games. Its just a fundamental part of it's identity...

-k

Star Wars D6.  It's happened in a few of our games.

[Longshot23]

Star Wars d6 rocks!!! unlike 'Star Wars' d20