Shadowrun
Shadowrun Missions Living Campaign => Living Campaign Discussion => Topic started by: El Diablo on <08-04-16/2013:07>
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Why, hello.
Right now at our home table we're debating if we should use the FAQ rules. Mostly to fix stuff not very clear in the CRB (Edge in downtime, upgrade ware/foci and so on). Also due balancing reasons (ban Manablade, ban Noizquito, increase Prototype Transhuman to 20 karma, etc).
Is it recommended? Would you advice against it? What 'bout cherrypicking?
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Definitely cherrypick. Some Missions rulings are done to speed up the game and effectively massively reduces the usefulness of some skills that can be great story drivers (enchanting, demolitions, etc), and a lot of qualities are barred because they require quite a bit of GM input.
Ultimately, I say use what makes sense for your table and discard the rest.
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Prototype Transhuman for example was probably altered to prevent certain archetypes from exploiting the advantages. I've seen some great ideas for characters that are based on PT, that literally did not need it. They felt it fit a background they were going for, and ended up with a mundane with like 3.2 Essence left. Losing one more point of essence wouldn't have seriously altered their character, but it fit thematically. Those kinds of builds are basically paying 10 karma for a concept and getting an extra negative only.
However the 1 essence of Augs full magic 7 adepts are a route that can be severely exploited.
So in a home game, if you are fending off the people trying to take advantage of rules exploits, you are doing the job that missions has done with the broad changes that just disallow things like that. Personally I use the Missions FAQ as a measurfing post. If they thought a quality or rule was worth out-right disallowing, I need to keep an eye on it to make sure my player's don't abuse it.
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Definitely cherrypick. Some Missions rulings are done to speed up the game and effectively massively reduces the usefulness of some skills that can be great story drivers (enchanting, demolitions, etc), and a lot of qualities are barred because they require quite a bit of GM input.
Ultimately, I say use what makes sense for your table and discard the rest.
+1
The Downtime rules are great for stuff your players don't care about or require a crap ton of dice rolls. They're not so great for Armorer/Gunsmith type skills, or for anyone paying attention to the calendar (Wait the mage just took three months off to initiate? wth man, I can't be unemployed for three months) . The Character Creation rules are good, but are intended for round robin GM and drop in / drop out players. As such some good stuff gets dropped for simplicity, example Code of Honor.
Some of the Balancing stuff, alternate magic traditions and whatnot, are intended to keep "That Guy" from disrupting a game with new players. If the person at your table wants to use some of these things and you know they won't be a problem, why ban it?
Its a good starting point, and a great list of potentially unbalancing or disruptive things that a GM should be aware of, but not necessarily ban outright in a Home Game.
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I use the FAQ as a guidepost of things to keep an eye on as I have few..... manipulative players I have to keep an eye on for table balance. (I have an interesting mix of roleplayers and rollplayers)
But it's not the end all, be all of the table rules I use to promote table harmony.
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My group discusses any issues/concerns and we decide, as a group, what we want to keep or modify from the various rulebooks.
The SRM FAQ is a handy reference, but there are things I allow in my home game which are not allowed in the SRM FAQ simply because it's the same players every time we gather and we can deal with issues as they become apparent. When we have those issues, we have a place for our house rules to we remember our resolution the next time it comes up.
The Shadowrun universe is a large and cool place to explore in home games because we can dedicate the time and role-play to explore those areas of the rules. Unfortunately, we don't have the same luxury in a four hour convention time slot...hence the SRM FAQ.
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A lot of the FAQ deals with things smoothing out the realities of open play. Certain qualities are banned and downtime is reduced to dice pools. All of that makes sense for SRM, but those sorts of things can be really fun for a home campaign. A GM and player can come to some sort of working agreement as to how Day Job affects things in a way that an open play table can't. Honestly, there's are portions of the FAQ (licenses and sensors, mostly) that I think are a little too bloated and could be safely skipped as well.
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I would recommend using the FAQ. I half suspect the reason it is at version 0.5 instead of 1.0 is because a lot of it will be included as errata if the main book gets an errataed reprint. It's not perfect, but I do think it improves on play quite a bit. (karma for cash, cash for karma, upgrading cyber,....)
There's a lot of good stuff in there.... especially for newer GM's. A lot of the more problematic stuff isn't allowed (possession, metasapients, infected...). And it has a lot of good stuff as regards availability, downtime scheduling, etc.
I also like how it deals with reputation... especially when it comes to mind control spells... a lot of the more powerful mind control spells will get you notoriety now and the other big change is force isn't subtracted from the resistance pool now... and with FAQ makes sure there is a price to pay for notoriety (you like getting paied... negotiation limit is reduced by the highest notoriety at the table now).
The only exception would be the qualities... since for a home game... there's a lot less open play problems with multiple GM's and negative quality drawbacks. So you should have a lot more latitude to rule on qualities on a case by case basis.