Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: markelphoenix on <05-17-20/0133:44>
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Been trying to find online game. Usually go to Roll20 first, given that it's kind of a mecca for playing PnP online. Did SR6's release hurt Shadowrun badly? I use to find several Shadowrun games on Roll20 back when SR5 was still kicking.
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I still see plenty of people looking for SR5 and SR6 groups on Shadowcasters and Facebook, and someone working on a Roll20 SR6 macro right now.
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I started a classic 2050s game using 2e before the quarantine went down, so we've continued meeting every week on Astral Tabletop and Discord. Similar to Roll20 but newer, so a touch less refined.
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Yeah, I see games posted for every edition other than 6 .... Really want to give it a fair shot. Wonder when Catalyst will lose rights to Shadowrun so that it can go to someone who will do it justice.
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There's only a CRB out, no Firing Squad or other books yet, and no SRMs yet, or R20 macros. So, again, it makes a lot of sense.
Anyway, if CGL fails at Shadowrun, it will die. There is no way another company would be able to convince Topps while willing and capable of offering enough money to them. So I guess you want Shadowrun to end. :-\
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There's only a CRB out, no Firing Squad or other books yet, and no SRMs yet, or R20 macros. So, again, it makes a lot of sense.
Anyway, if CGL fails at Shadowrun, it will die. There is no way another company would be able to convince Topps while willing and capable of offering enough money to them. So I guess you want Shadowrun to end. :-\
This is unfortunately true. They have some epic Shadowrun nerds writing this up, I just wish they weren’t so bad at it and would lose the artistic style and short stories from the rule books. It’s like trying to read through my 5th grade homework, ugh!
OP: check out Runnershub on Reddit
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Anyway, if CGL fails at Shadowrun, it will die. There is no way another company would be able to convince Topps while willing and capable of offering enough money to them. So I guess you want Shadowrun to end. :-\
I don't know what the basis of this comment is.
As far as the Shadowrun property, Microsoft owns the digital rights and Topps owns the rights to publishing novels and pen-and-paper RPGs. The way that Topps monetizes their portion of the intellectual property is by licensing the rights to publish new products. They license those rights to Catalyst Game Labs, who then publishes the books that we all know.
If CGL fails, Topps will license the rights to the highest bidder and the game will go on.
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If the stans keep blindly trashing SR6 so badly that CGL gives up on Shadowrun, do you really think any company with enough cash and clout to get it from Topps and put out quality content, will dare burn their fingers on it? I highly doubt it. There's no way there's a decent future for Shadowrun if the stans destroy CGL.
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The "stans" didn't make such brilliant design choices as "let's make armor useless and make weapons too weak to oneshot anything to balance it out", "strength doesn't effect melee damage except for unarmed", "all advantages and disadvantages generate edge for you or the opposition, except there's a limit to how much edge you can get and we've redefined edge so it doesn't do much anymore" and "let's entirely abandon the simulationism that has defined Shadowrun since it's first edition in the pursuit of the mythical casual audience". In fact, I'd say the real "stans" in this scenario are the ones not asking questions, just faithfully consuming product and getting excited for next product while failing to understand why everyone else refuses to consume product.
Look, if Shadowrun goes extinct because of 6e, I won't like that either. But we cannot blame the fanbase for refusing to buy what they think is a bad product, nor can we reward CGL for making such a product in the first place. They have shat their bed, and now they must lie in it.
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The "stans" didn't make such brilliant design choices as "let's make armor useless and make weapons too weak to oneshot anything to balance it out", "strength doesn't effect melee damage except for unarmed", "all advantages and disadvantages generate edge for you or the opposition, except there's a limit to how much edge you can get and we've redefined edge so it doesn't do much anymore" and "let's entirely abandon the simulationism that has defined Shadowrun since it's first edition in the pursuit of the mythical casual audience". In fact, I'd say the real "stans" in this scenario are the ones not asking questions, just faithfully consuming product and getting excited for next product while failing to understand why everyone else refuses to consume product.
Look, if Shadowrun goes extinct because of 6e, I won't like that either. But we cannot blame the fanbase for refusing to buy what they think is a bad product, nor can we reward CGL for making such a product in the first place. They have shat their bed, and now they must lie in it.
Can't we take the new fluff (which I think is really good!) and move everything back to 3 or 4e rules (calling it 3.5 or 4.5)?
And I am only half-joking. I would probably be pretty happy with that kind of product.
While I enjoy 6E I can't disagree that the design choices made both in 5E and 6E are... questionable at best in some places.
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If 'criticism where deserved, but not jumping to hyperbole' equals 'not asking questions', then that's fine by me.
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I don't know what the basis of this comment is.
It's just standard run of the mill hyperbole, bro.
If CGL fails, Topps will license the rights to the highest bidder and the game will go on.
And this. The genre, and game, is too popular to not get picked up. It just might not be in the way the new publisher or Topps would wish if this does come to pass. I have no idea how the new edition is doing broadly, so I couldn't begin to speculate.
The "stans"
Some people just don't like the feel of the new rules, some love the feel. Both are fine.
Some people don't find the new rule set logical, others do. Also Both fine.
Some people don't find the new rule set well constructed or balanced, others do. Also both fine.
Some people disregard other people's criticism because it doesn't align with their perspective, though. You might be fighting a losing battle with your proper use of logic there, but god speed my dude.
Edit: The additional comments I had here were a result of misreading MC's last statement. As such, retracted. My bad Mikey!
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I can't see any hyperbole in what I said, but that's beside the point. "Stans" makes it sound like there's a fanatical minority obsessed with tearing 6e down. What's actually happening is quite the opposite: an apathetic majority is killing 6e. People aren't buying it because they don't like it, and are instead switching to other cyberpunk systems or continuing to play older editions as if 6e had never even existed in the first place. This how voting with your wallet works, and it seems that for once democracy is actually working.
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If CGL fails, Topps will license the rights to the highest bidder and the game will go on.
And this. The genre, and game, is too popular to not get picked up. It just might not be in the way the new publisher or Topps would wish if this does come to pass. I have no idea how the new edition is doing broadly, so I couldn't begin to speculate.
The Shadowrun RPG would be picked up quickly by someone. My understanding of the Topps/Catalyst agreement have Shadowrun and Battletech in the same bucket so Catalyst would have to fail completely as a RPG publisher (or so near completely it makes no difference).
Licences would revert to Topps, and they would find a new publisher because it's free money for them.
As far as Catalyst failing, that seems unlikely. They have 10ish full time employees, likely no significant capital investments, and really just a (monthly? Quarterly? Annual?) Licence fee to Tops. Digital Distribution means much less inventory held. It would take multiple catastrophically bad releases for Catalyst to be unable to pay Topps.
Mind you I don't think Catalyst is swimming in cash, couple guys at the top of the chain are likely doing very well, but everyone else that works for Catalyst likely makes standard gaming industry subsistence wages. And Topps is probably happy to collect whatever they get as the original investment in the licence probably paid for itself a long time ago, the continued income stream is likely considered a bonus.
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... My understanding of the Topps/Catalyst agreement have Shadowrun and Battletech in the same bucket so Catalyst would have to fail completely as a RPG publisher (or so near completely it makes no difference)...
The phenomenal success of the BattleTech kickstarter campaign has probably assured CGL's licence for the foreseeable future. Not only is it nasty to hope CGL loses it, it's probably also moot.
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i've played srun since 1e, spent thousands of dollars on it and when you count supporting media and paraphenalia likely closer to low tens.
6e is demonstrably horrific and catalyst is also a demonstrably horrific company in all aspects including design, production, customer care and management.
while you might like 6e there's no rational counter argument to be made regarding catalyst.
if they lost the license and another company picked it up and went back to what differentiates and makes srun great i would be back in a heartbeat
until then i am continuing with 5e until out table switches to cyberpunk soon, at which point the IP will be dead to me (after @30 years) until a new licensee comes along, if ever.
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For what it's worth, I've enjoyed the SR setting for over 30years...and have never played the RPG. I played the 90s SNES game as well as the TCG. Bought the DMZ box as I was a budding minis gamer. Even picked up a few Duels figures. I have bought many sourcebooks over the decades and still hang onto my pristine core 2e hardcopy.
But it hasn't been until Anarchy's come out that I've actually decided to try running a real RPG in the setting. I'll be giving it a go for the first time this summer. I'll probably just use Zoom though since the game is so light. just throwing up a few background images will suffice. I trust the players to be honest about their rolls. We're all grown adults.
So, I do thank Catalyst for rules light version of the game.
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i've played srun since 1e, spent thousands of dollars on it and when you count supporting media and paraphenalia likely closer to low tens.
6e is demonstrably horrific and catalyst is also a demonstrably horrific company in all aspects including design, production, customer care and management.
while you might like 6e there's no rational counter argument to be made regarding catalyst.
if they lost the license and another company picked it up and went back to what differentiates and makes srun great i would be back in a heartbeat
until then i am continuing with 5e until out table switches to cyberpunk soon, at which point the IP will be dead to me (after @30 years) until a new licensee comes along, if ever.
See, while my feelings on matter are not quite this strong, seeing the original state 6e came out in and the seemingly slow movement on further developing 6e (time it took to get errata out, splat books, over all design seeming to be multi-directional [i.e. off top of my head, lets get rid of modifiers to dice pools by having edge be an abstraction to simplify and expedite turns!!!!....btw, there are still several modifiers to dice pools.]) I totally get the frustration and sentiment.
I've been searching across multiple online P&P sites for SR6 game, and I mostly see SR5 and earlier. When game first came out, SR6 was popping up everywhere, including live streams and actual plays. Today, I find streams that canceled their 6e run due to them not enjoying given the state it's currently in. On six separate days over past three weeks, I've looked on Roll20, forums, and even a few SR discord groups....no takers for SR6 game. This is from a nerd who loves the setting since SR2, I can't even fathom what it would be like being new to the series and trying to find any semblance of an online play presence.
As someone who loves the setting and most of the general ideas behind the mechanics, it's disheartening to see what appears to be extreme disregard for the IP. Hobbes synopsis on the low cost to return on investment of the license adds a little bit of clarity in regards to how they're able to get away with it...when it comes down to it, it's cheap...so they don't have to do well to make any return on their investment given how little they invest into the IP.
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If the stans keep blindly trashing SR6 so badly that CGL gives up on Shadowrun, do you really think any company with enough cash and clout to get it from Topps and put out quality content, will dare burn their fingers on it? I highly doubt it. There's no way there's a decent future for Shadowrun if the stans destroy CGL.
Blindly? 6e looked bad in its earliest previews, and it only got worse as we learned more. From the release to now nothing has changed and it's still just bad. In case it's unclear pretty layouts aren't what folk buy books for. The "Stans" are sick of a bad product. Fix the system, playtest it and follow the advice returned, update and then release the new core. This isn't mysterious it's how TTRPGs are made these days. The fan base is there, give'em a product that's actually related to the IP we all love and isn't horrible and everyone will be happy.
It's ok to admit mistakes were made. It's actually the reasonable and responsible thing to do.
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Anyway, if CGL fails at Shadowrun, it will die. There is no way another company would be able to convince Topps while willing and capable of offering enough money to them. So I guess you want Shadowrun to end. :-\
If the stans keep blindly trashing SR6 so badly that CGL gives up on Shadowrun, do you really think any company with enough cash and clout to get it from Topps and put out quality content, will dare burn their fingers on it? I highly doubt it. There's no way there's a decent future for Shadowrun if the stans destroy CGL.
Emotional blackmail? Really? If the state of 6e defence has now descended into “this game is bad” / “ok but you must keep buying it for the sake of the brand”, then 6e is in a very poor place indeed.
Catalyst isn’t running a charity. It’s running a business. It wants to sell me things. If it doesn’t make things I want to buy, I’m not going to buy them anyway out of some amorphous fear of Shadowrun “dying” or being “destroyed”. (Personally, I haven’t spent any thing on Shadowrun since 6e shipped, and I do not intend to do so. I don’t like it. I’m not going to buy things I don’t like.)
And anyway: what exactly are we propping up, here? What has Catalyst done for Shadowrun, in the big picture? 5e is (IMO) the best version of Shadowrun to play, but that’s not because it’s obviously the best on its own merits. It’s more of a the-devil-you-know thing. It has few genuinely new ideas in it. Mechanically, it’s an evolutionary descendent of 4e (and 6e is just another evolutionary descendent of 4e.) There are no big fixes for the big problems, like MagicRun. Catalyst’s ambition does not extend that far. It’s just... rearranging the furniture in the same house. The one exception is Anarchy, which had good ideas but was hopelessly underbaked.
At least FanPro had some balls. 4e totally reworked core game mechanics and modernised the setting in (IMO) important ways. Now that’s a set of changes worthy of being called a new edition.
Metaplot wise, we’ve had nothing but the same-ol’-same-ol’ for decades: bodysnatchers, a localised post-apocalyptic zone, a full-on war, the AIs are evil. It’s all cover versions of FASA’s greatest hits, usually Bug City. Again, I see little ambition here, beyond making money from do-overs of the same six splatbooks every 7-10 years.
I don’t understand why defending Catalyst is a hill anyone would want to die on.
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If the stans keep blindly trashing SR6 so badly that CGL gives up on Shadowrun, do you really think any company with enough cash and clout to get it from Topps and put out quality content, will dare burn their fingers on it? I highly doubt it. There's no way there's a decent future for Shadowrun if the stans destroy CGL.
"Stan": A crazed or obsessed fan. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Stan
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" - Inigo Montoya
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If the stans keep blindly trashing SR6 so badly that CGL gives up on Shadowrun, do you really think any company with enough cash and clout to get it from Topps and put out quality content, will dare burn their fingers on it? I highly doubt it. There's no way there's a decent future for Shadowrun if the stans destroy CGL.
"Stan": A crazed or obsessed fan. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Stan
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" - Inigo Montoya
Ahh well good to know. I guess I should have reported that post after all.