[Reaver]

In addition shadowrun, as a non resource management game, is not balanced.

You're telling me!

And Holy F- does the game suffer for it.

How many years - years - could have been shaved off of the time customers had to wait for something that made Technomancers viable if someone took a little time to compare them to what already existed?

At least half of the still outstanding issues could have been prevented with a little eye towards balance.

Conversely The whole "Technomancer" issue could have been solved but not having a Trans humanist team working of 4e and kept a Distopian team...

"Technomancer" has been a slang term to refer to Deckers since 1e... but no, they had to try to shoe horn a "magical techno wizard" into a system that was never meant to handle it... Then they compounded the issue with the very way the Matrix worked in the 4e rules to make Deckers/hackers a non-starter. Why, because there was NOTHING a decker could do that a moron with 1s in all stats and a stack of cash couldn't do...


Really, I could rant on this topic that would cover a half dozen pages... but I doubt anyone would read it


 

[Nephilim]

Conversely The whole "Technomancer" issue could have been solved but not having a Trans humanist team working of 4e and kept a Distopian team...

Now, now. Some of us like Transhumanism...

That said, I still don't like technos. Mostly because like a lot of other things CGL can't seem to decide what they want of be, so they wind up as Wizards and hackers awkwardly mashed together with a (imo) depressing lack of originality. Technos bump heads hard with riggers/deckers. The resonance realms and whatnot are straight rip offs of the metaplanes with a different coat of paint slapped on, and on and on. The whole thing looks and feels weird together and just feels awkwardly jammed into the system.

[Reaver]

Conversely The whole "Technomancer" issue could have been solved but not having a Trans humanist team working of 4e and kept a Distopian team...

Now, now. Some of us like Transhumanism...

That said, I still don't like technos. Mostly because like a lot of other things CGL can't seem to decide what they want of be, so they wind up as Wizards and hackers awkwardly mashed together with a (imo) depressing lack of originality. Technos bump heads hard with riggers/deckers. The resonance realms and whatnot are straight rip offs of the metaplanes with a different coat of paint slapped on, and on and on. The whole thing looks and feels weird together and just feels awkwardly jammed into the system.

Trans humanism has its place in Sci-fi, I am not denying that. But you don't take a game (at that time) with 20+ years of dystonia and then throw in a whole new, and converse ideology into the mix. No, you branch out and make a whole new setting/game based around the trans-humanist plot... AKA Eclipse Phase. (Which, incidentally, I believe was created by the very writers that introduced Technomancers to  Shadowrun!)

And, don't forget that the "technomancer issue" is one that was inherited from FanPro and their time with the SR license. (the original creators of SR 4e) 

[CanRay]

My group's Las Vegas shaman transformed a shipping container full of blue betameth (couldn't help but put in the Breaking Bad reference there) into a dragon.

Meth The Magic Dragon was just an illusion, however, and due to miscommunication (more like no communication), the Street Samurai went "Challenge Accepted!" and attacked it with his sword, ruining the illusion.

But, yeah, I could see a toxic spirit hiding out as a bag of novacoke or something and then doing even worse things to the user than the drug itself.

[Iron Serpent Prince]

Conversely The whole "Technomancer" issue could have been solved but not having a Trans humanist team working of 4e and kept a Distopian team...

To be clear, the Technomancer Archetype evolved (if you will) from Otaku that were introduced in Virtual Realities in 2nd Edition when Shadowrun was still under FASA.  If you are going to point fingers, at least get it right.

Now, it can be said that FanPro is responsible for the transformation into Technomancers.  For all I know it could have been a licensing limitation.

Regardless, the current state of Technomancers (withholding anything from Kill Code that I'm still waiting to read for myself) is firmly in realm of Catalyst.  Like Technos or not, Catalyst made them what they are.  No amount of deflection can change that.




Back to the original topic:

The biggest roadblock for anything  mimc-ish is a lack of digital...  Signature for lack of a better word.  In the Sixth World, from about the 60's onward, everything has electronics in them.  Even Throwbacks.  That is pretty hard to fake, unless you go The Ruins route.  And please, please, don't.

[Marcus]

To be clear, the Technomancer Archetype evolved (if you will) from Otaku that were introduced in Virtual Realities in 2nd Edition when Shadowrun was still under FASA.  If you are going to point fingers, at least get it right.

And, don't forget that the "technomancer issue" is one that was inherited from FanPro and their time with the SR license. (the original creators of SR 4e) 

Next time try reading Reaver's whole post. The Technomancer issue at the end of 4th, was that they were overwhelmingly broken. They had the ability thread a skill into a unlimited techno skillwire meaning you could generate 20 die pool on any skill in the game.

[Mirikon]

That was a false problem. It is like looking at a 3.X Level 10 Wizard who had prepared expressly for a single arena battle against a foe of their level knowing who he would be facing and what they could do, and saying they are horribly overpowered. In the sense of an actual dungeon crawl or campaign, however, the 'problem' was greatly reduced if not eliminated by the third combat in a day. Either the wizard saved his spells, and was FAR less effective, or he blew his wad early, and forced the group to sleep in the dungeon while he waited for new spells.

A TM could thread up to some high level Complex Forms with their skills. However, they were glass cannons when it came to matrix combat, since all damage went straight to their brain. A bad roll on the resist for Fading in getting that Uber-Form or Uber-Sprite? You're out of action for hours trying to sleep it off. It was one of those things that rarely came up in any game I saw, because the risk outweighed the reward when you considered you needed to save some gas in the tank for the rest of the run (and heaven help you if you needed to respond to bullets flying in the meat at any point after dealing with matrix combat).

[Marcus]

The only time High Karma mages were not the biggest BAs of SR was during the Cybermancy days. But you might notice we still have never seem those rules get updated lol. The skill TM took a good bit of karma to achieve but it was no kidding strong. Once done right it could trounce something pretty well ahead of it in Karma. Sure if you battle royal it, full quickened mages and mysads are gonna win. If you don't have counter spell, mana spells are gonna win every time, one of the reason I've always pushed indirects. That's the reality of the system. If you wanna convince them to put Cybermancy back in, that can change, but I don't really wanna see that happen.

[Iron Serpent Prince]

Next time try reading Reaver's whole post.

High-larious, given the source.  Let me help you out.

You quoted Reaver:

And, don't forget that the "technomancer issue" is one that was inherited from FanPro and their time with the SR license. (the original creators of SR 4e) 

Then you write:

The Technomancer issue at the end of 4th, was that they were overwhelmingly broken. They had the ability thread a skill into a unlimited techno skillwire meaning you could generate 20 die pool on any skill in the game.

Point out to me where in the very quote you used it mentions anything about brokenness??  For that matter, where in that entire post - or even Reaver's one before it - does it mention anything about Technomancer mechanics?

Reaver was talking, and repeatedly referencing, Technos as a problem from a Trans humanist perspective / writing team.  And that issue came from 2nd Edition, under FASA.

[Marcus]

Next time try reading Reaver's whole post.

High-larious, given the source.  Let me help you out.

You quoted Reaver:

And, don't forget that the "technomancer issue" is one that was inherited from FanPro and their time with the SR license. (the original creators of SR 4e) 

Then you write:

The Technomancer issue at the end of 4th, was that they were overwhelmingly broken. They had the ability thread a skill into a unlimited techno skillwire meaning you could generate 20 die pool on any skill in the game.

Point out to me where in the very quote you used it mentions anything about brokenness??  For that matter, where in that entire post - or even Reaver's one before it - does it mention anything about Technomancer mechanics?

Reaver was talking, and repeatedly referencing, Technos as a problem from a Trans humanist perspective / writing team.  And that issue came from 2nd Edition, under FASA.

How about now FastJack? I was good, I turned the other cheek.

[Reaver]

Conversely The whole "Technomancer" issue could have been solved but not having a Trans humanist team working of 4e and kept a Distopian team...

To be clear, the Technomancer Archetype evolved (if you will) from Otaku that were introduced in Virtual Realities in 2nd Edition when Shadowrun was still under FASA.  If you are going to point fingers, at least get it right.

Now, it can be said that FanPro is responsible for the transformation into Technomancers.  For all I know it could have been a licensing limitation.

Regardless, the current state of Technomancers (withholding anything from Kill Code that I'm still waiting to read for myself) is firmly in realm of Catalyst.  Like Technos or not, Catalyst made them what they are.  No amount of deflection can change that.




Back to the original topic:

The biggest roadblock for anything  mimc-ish is a lack of digital...  Signature for lack of a better word.  In the Sixth World, from about the 60's onward, everything has electronics in them.  Even Throwbacks.  That is pretty hard to fake, unless you go The Ruins route.  And please, please, don't.

well, you're part right.

back cover of SR1e.

I refer you to the second paragraph...

[Reaver]

AND, from page 34 of SR1e.

So, I say again:

"Technomancer" has been a slang term to refer to Deckers since 1e... but no, they had to try to shoe horn a "magical techno wizard" into a system that was never meant to handle it... Then they compounded the issue with the very way the Matrix worked in the 4e rules to make Deckers/hackers a non-starter. Why, because there was NOTHING a decker could do that a moron with 1s in all stats and a stack of cash couldn't do...



Otaku, are/were entirely separate things. Things that were almost entirely killed off during Crash 2.0 and the events of Winternight.


They then went back and retconned the "Otaku to Technomancer" thing when they decided to introduce Technos into 4e. The Otaku connection isn't even mentioned officially until Unwired. (which I believe came out after Emergence, the big Techno intro sourcebook/adventure)

[Iron Serpent Prince]

Now you are getting confusing.

Is your issue with Technomancer based on the Trans humanist team?

Or because it is a slang term for Decker?

Or because they crammed Otaku 2.0 into that slang term?

Maybe all three?

[Reaver]

Now you are getting confusing.

Is your issue with Technomancer based on the Trans humanist team?

Or because it is a slang term for Decker?

Or because they crammed Otaku 2.0 into that slang term?

Maybe all three?

My issue with Technomancers is that they even exist.

But i'm stuck with them now.


How much do I dislike them?
Well lets just say that if the opening line of Killcode went:

"In 2071 The Megacorps agreed to start adding vitamin supplement KA-134-Beta to all soy products. Also know as KA-Beta, this supplement was marketed as a combination mineral and vitamin supplement to ensure people on a Soy diet remain healthy. However, Ka-Beta also has a hidden effect, it attaches to the DNA responsible for emergence, and alters the genetic code, removing the Emergence Gene from their DNA. By 2077 KA-134-Beta has the reached saturation point globally. No new Emergence has been reported, and those who did Emerge are reporting massive spikes of Cancer, tumors, embolisms, and other organ failure. To the MegaCorps, it seems the near Omnipotent threat that Technomancers posed to their digital security was just too great." 

And now on to some really great and totally NON technomancer themed stuff for Deckers and Riggers! YAY!


But I Know that won't happen.

[Marcus]

My issue with Technomancers is that they even exist.

But i'm stuck with them now.

LOL Can't breath laughing to hard, send help LOL