Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Moonrunner on <05-22-19/1234:16>
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What is the best/your fave edition of Shadowrun? 1e? 2e? 3e? 4e? 5e? Anarchy? 6e (for those lucky few getting to try it out so far)?
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I have every edition but 1st still in my position and have played them all. We most often play 3rd edition and pre Corp War but have characters and can also play 5th. Can’t wait to get my hands on 6th to see how it is.
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1e: I started playing SR when SR started. TBH though 1e was replaced by 2e in such short order, all I tend to remember are the wacky things that 2e fixed. Like, when using burst fire you used to make an entire attack roll for every bullet!
2e: Played this the longest and it's my sentimental favorite. Perhaps because it's my favorite, I don't think it has any flaws! Or because I haven't played it in about 20 years by this point, all I remember are the good parts :)
3e: I never really adopted 3e. I felt it fixed things in 2e that didn't need to be fixed.
4e: Where editions 2 and 3 were more or less newer iterations of 1st edition, 4e killed a lot of sacred cows. Limitations on the rule of 6? Dispensing with TNs? Is this even Shadowrun anymore? Yeah, I overreacted. But grognards gonna grognard. Plus 2005 coincided with a PCS for me, so at a new base I just fell into playing other games for a while with new gaming buddies.
20th Anniversary edition: missed out on it entirely during my Shadowrun hiatus.
5e: 2013, like 2005, coincided with a life change for me. In this case, retiring from the military and going back to school. Got back into Shadowrun just in time for 5e to be a thing. 5e definitely feels like a 4e MkII in the same way 2e was an organic evolution of 1e.The sacred cows that 4e killed have stayed dead, but so many people are used to that now they don't seem to miss them. In the grand scheme of editions, I'm not particularly a fan of 5e and really won't miss it once we move on to 6th world edition. I especially won't miss taking an hour to resolve a combat turn. But I have had a lot of fun with it, and if I were to pick a 2nd favorite edition this is probably it simply because I've played it so much over the past few years.
Anarachy: Never tried it, but am intrigued by the notion of a cooperative narrative style game in the Shadowrun universe. I wonder though how the setting is supposed to be oppressive and dystopian when the players are telling the GM what happens rather than the other way around :D
6th World Edition: It's shaping up to be a truly new edition rather than a successor edition in the way 4th was a break from 1-2-3e. Killing sacred cows has a way of turning people off. But I've been through that shock once already, and can absorb that kind of blow easier a 2nd time around :D I'm excited for 6e. Particularly the streamlined rules... 5e does have a big problem in that arena.
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I've only really played with 1st and 5th, and dabbled in 2nd and Anarchy.
2nd is more playable than 1st, and my understanding is that 3rd made a more complete system than 2nd. But all of those used the variable target number system (you start off with 4 or higher counting as a success on each die you roll, and modifiers increase or decrease that modifier.) Because a d6 is such a small range, every modifier had a huge impact. Which was a pretty big structural flaw.
4th and 5th (and upcoming: 6th) went to the fixed target number of 5, with modifiers changing how many dice you roll. This allows much finer granularity on bonuses and penalties. I think they are stronger systems at a fundamental level for that reason. Not having played 4th I can't compare it to 5th. I can say that I think 5th has a pretty robust rule set, sadly it suffers from rather poor structuring of the core rule book, making the game quite slow when working in any realm that you haven't memorized (or built your own summary, or house ruled just for simplicity's sake). There are a couple of boneheaded errors (the speed table for vehicles, a matrix that wouldn't work for your average corp drone), but they are pretty easy to house rule or ignore.
Anarchy, to me, just didn't bring the crunch that I like ShadowRun for. I've played rules light systems and loved them, and seriously thought about running my home game using one -- but to me it isn't fully shadowrun without fussing about Essence or working out the best set of Adept powers for your purposes. To me Anarchy is not such a good rule set that I'd prefer it over other rules light systems, once I choose to give up some of that fine textured crunch.
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For nostalgia and favorite storylines, I really loved 2E. The gameplay was a little tricky to learn but it went well once you got the hang of it it was pretty coherent system. I loathed 4E. It turned me off Shadowrun for years.
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Obviously the only good edition to play the sixth world is Sixth World. :P
Anyway, it really depends on what you're looking for. Want crunch? Want easy start? Want 'excessive damage due to a bad roll will permanent cripple your players'? Want a mechanic you can't just easily houserule into an edition that lacks it?
I like 5e for fixing 4e flaws, I like 6e for daring to be different, I like 4e for removing some stuff that people tell me stories about from 3e that makes me hate it, but that's all personal preference.
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2e. All the systems mechanically have issues. 2e is the best setting by far. 4e and on, most the setting changes have been a detriment imo. Though I really like alchemy in concept so for me that is a value add. Too bad the math for it was so damn bad in 5e.
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I missed 1st and 2nd, but cut my teeth with 3rd, which I liked a lot.
4th overhauled the rules significantly and imho improved the rules (except for ini slots), but also added hugely customizable elements (gear, spells, matrix) which I love.
5th was overall an improvement over 4th if you ignore the unsatisfying quality management and less than stellar fluff-crunch mixing. 5th is also the edition that hit late enough in my life that I could affort to heavily invest in all the rule books (Thanks in no small part to Pegasus' excellent pricing scheme).
Anarchy never clicked with me. If you want simple mechanics for a game just use original nWoD.
There is not enough info about 6th yet for me to have an opinion.
So all in all, it's a toss up between 4th and 5th with 5th being marginally ahead in overall mechanics while 4th had a slightly crunchier taste and wasn't afraid to go full SciFi.
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I've been both gamemaster and player in every edition, first through fifth (ignoring Anarchy). They all made progress at fixing the broken stuff, but they also tried new things that didn't always work. Still, I think every edition so far has been a net improvement on the one before. Looking forward to six.
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Old gaming system usually come with a heavy dose of nostalgia, and that has it's problem in the sense that we do ignore many of it's flaws. I do think 2nd was ready to go anywhere and do anything. Even things like fields of fire really stuck with me like none of the new source books did. So I guess i have to vote 2nd story wise, but it's not like it was better system in fact mostly the opposite.
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I started just with the release of 2nd so that’s the one dear, though I probably have played 3rd the most. It felt like a natural change so I stuck with it and persuaded my group to jump ship too. We survived the tormoil of 3rd with the shock of Fasa folding, Fanpro taking over, and Wizzkid games. The setting ensures though I never really liked the art side of third.
Then 4th hit and it hurt. I felt betrayed, stabbed in the back, dragged under a bus, and trampled upon by the system change that turned my beloved game into a WoD clone, a system I hated with a passion. So I turned my back to it all and left for Japan...
After a couple of years of being completely disconnected from tabletop RPGs (or REAL Roleplaying games, because LARP is for “weirdos” and taking the game too far!) mainly because I couldn’t or hadn’t really attempted to establish a friend base here (Tokyo is a cesspool btw) I started looking back at RPGs as a way of making new connections. An old friend of mine had just made me aware of the release of the SR5 core pdf and I invested in it just to see what horrors could be found within.
My years of absence had abstinence had changed my outlook a bit, and my old disdain could overcome my burning desire to play again. Using the game as a medium I reached out to the board gaming community of foreigner here in Osaka and struck gold. That lead me to buy 4th books simply to catch up with the lore.
Now sixth looms on the horizon and I’m definitely going to look into it ...
2nd above all!
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The best edition? The one you play with your group.
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The best edition? The one you play with your group.
That'll be 6th for me! I've already convinced my group to give it a try, and I'll be running the adventure in the starter box when it comes out. :D
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The best edition? The one you play with your group.
That is the best answer.
I played mostly 2, some 3, one or two sessions of 4, and am currently starting a campaign in 5. I never fully mastered the rules of any of the previous editions, but I'm really making an effort to mastering 5 now.
My experience:
2 is incredibly cool, fantastic style and atmosphere, and has all these game mechanics that are weird, unusual and cool, but break when you look at them too closely. My first character was totally useless, my second character broke the game (a shaman flying invisible above the battlefield with boosted reflexes shooting her AR at full auto with recoil comp and smartlink; took Resources A and spend it all on a big power focus and lots of spell locks).
3 was still cool and fixed most of the problems with 2. The only problem it didn't fix: those target numbers. Cool idea, but behaves really weird when you look at it closely. Sometimes a 1 point penalty halves your chance of success, sometimes a 1 point penalty has no impact at all.
4 fixed the remaining problem in 3, and then fixed a few more things that didn't need fixing, like variable initiative passes. At the time I felt like it lost a bit too much of the feeling of Shadowrun, though I liked the Edge mechanic.
5 restored some of the cooler bits that 4 "fixed". I like the basics except for limits, but the rules are poorly organised and badly written, so when I finally do find where a particular rule is, I read it and still don't understand it.
Ideally, to me, 6 should have been a thorough rewrite of 5 that explained the rules better, threw limits out, and made clearer how the Matrix works. 6 turns out not to be that. Instead, it seems to fix some other things that I don't think needed fixing.
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Having played through them all (as well as dabbling in creating my own d20 version back in the late 90s), I can say that I do like them in order of 4E/5E/3E/1E/2E for playability.
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Well, I started with 4th, but I've read enough of the older sourcebooks to have an idea about them. So, for me, it would be 4th. It was a far more elegant system than 5th, in my opinion, allowing for greater customization. It pruned a lot of overcomplicated stuff from earlier editions, while still being robust enough to get the job done.
Fifth, frankly, was not good, aside from the lore. They moved away from the far more easily customizeable Point Buy to priority, and kept the godforsaken progressive karma costs for advancement. They stripped out pretty much all but the barest of bare bones for customization and made changes that essentially forced a de facto class system for certain roles, since between insanely expensive gear/ware and priorities, you were straight up fucked if you were trying to do a lot of hybrid characters, and anyone who wanted to, say, be an ork or troll decker was going to run head long into a shit ton of problems, far more than they faced in 4th. Then you had the absolute prison rape that happened to TMs. And, on top of it all, the quality control looked to be borrowed from Bethesda's Fallout 76 and someone got the 'great' idea to go mixing the fluff and crunch together.
I never touched Anarchy, because one of my complaints about 5th was that they dumbed down and streamlined it too much, so I wasn't going to go for a further streamlined ruleset.
Hoping 6th will be better, but some of the things I've heard give cause for concern.
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I can't really say what's BEST, other than mirror what other people have said which is "Play whatever your table enjoys". I won't break down the minutiae of the rules or pros and cons like others have done(they do it better anyways), but I'll give my honest impressions on the editions I have played/GMed though:
1E. Never played, but I read most of the books(I'm a nostalgia and lore junkie). I can definitely understand how people felt the rules were clunky. The setting was great but a tad restrictive(limitations on magic, cyberware, etc), but the metaplots and atmosphere were incredible.
2E. BIG WORD DUMP AHEAD. My group recently started a campaign in this system, so I've read most of the books a few times. Previously we did a 4-year 4E campaign, thoughts on that below. So we decided to do a classic 2050s game, and it made sense to use a classic 2050s system. While the rules are definitely a touch clunky at first, and compared to later, smoother systems, I'm honestly amazed because the mechanics are so intrinsically tied to the lore of the setting, and they reflect that. Example: Various augmentations have different rules for how they interact(or don't) with other pieces of ware or modes of operation, and they go into a little detail about why that is. Like how a Rigger datajack and a Decker datajack use different spots and function differently because they interface with different parts of the brain. Very cool.
The atmosphere of the world improved even more, and it truly felt like the best expression of the cyberpunk "Man Meets Magic Meets Machine" that we know and love. The metaplots continued from where they were introduced in 1E, and things ramped up a ton along certain major plot lines(Universal Brotherhood -> Bug City, being an obvious example). It is quickly becoming my favourite of the editions I've played.
3E. Again an edition I haven't played, though I read about half of the books. Mostly lore and plot ones, as the rules books aren't a priority unless I plan on switching to 3E at some point, which I'm not right now. If you look online, you'll find people are very split on 3E. Some people love it, and swear it felt like the ultimate evolution of the rules and system that began in 1989. Other people feel very strongly that it began to change too much, dilute the atmosphere, etc, and they stuck with 2E as their preferred system. Neither is right or wrong. Story wise, more great metaplots were introduced, though this edition definitely felt(to me at least) like it started a lot of new plotlines instead of just continuing existing 1E or 2E ones. However, they're no less iconic or riveting. And sometimes terrifying. Just ask any veteran players about Medusas. ;D
4E. My original Shadowrun experience, where I played for about 10 months in a friend's campaign before running my own for 4 years. As such, I do love this system, and it feels very complete to me. IMPORTANT NOTE: We technically played SR4A(the 20th Anniversary Edition, basically 4E but errata'd). Also a very divisive edition depending who you ask. It turned the setting on it's ear a bit by trying to modernise the universe that was inspired by 80s cyberpunk. It introduced wireless networks, streamlined and expanded bioware and nanite-based systems, had more info on space stations and metaplanes, and honestly it felt the most Science-Fiction of all the editions. Which honestly isn't a bad thing exactly, though it definitely took the gritty, street-level game of 1-3E and basically made it Shadowrun-But-Shinier.
The story and metaplots started to focus on magic and BIG events a fair bit. Maybe it took inspiration from Bug City, Renraku Arcology: Shutdown, and others, and saw how popular they were. There was a lot of plot around a war in Central/South America(think Neo-Vietnam for flavour), and an entire Dragon Civil War and culminated in not 1, not 2, but 3 MAJOR PLOTS involving the big upright iguanas. It also set the stage for metaplots to come, but that's basically been a tradition since forever with Shadowrun. Mechanically, it changed the system the most radically, and a lot of the rules it introduced are ones still used in 5E. Had a couple issues with things like massive dice pools, and I feel it catered to Powergamers the most out of all the editions. Still really damn good overall though.
5E. Hoo Boy. The controversy continues, and you'll understand why in a bit. But first off, 5E is a product of what the designers tried to do to fix some of the more glaring issues with previous editions, and still retain that old-school feeling from 1-3E. Grittier, darker, longer shadows, but no clunky rules. They tried, they really did. And despite what some people may tell you, they somewhat succeeded. I played a 5E game for about 8-10 months off and on, and I've read almost all the books that have come out(except the latest couple I think?), but I've stayed pretty up-to-date with what's going on with the game, CGL, etc. So that's where I'm coming from with this.
BTW, I will NOT just be shitting on 5E here. This is my own opinion about the way I feel about the game I played, and what I think of it as an edition. I'm mostly positive-ish, but feel free to check out other opinions here and on places like Reddit and Dumpshock(just bring a lime and some tequila if you do, because there's a lot of salt).
The surface rules mostly make sense, especially as a narrative tool, though there are a few glaring contradictions and rules confusions in need of errata. It primarily uses the rules introduced in 4E, though it tries to fix some of the issues of that system with moderate success. I won't get into the compplaints some of the other people will inevitably bring up, so I'll simply say 5E is pretty fun as long as you're okay with using a little GM Handwavium if you come up with rules that seem confusing, contradictory, or absent. Roll what makes sense and feels right. One thing I will note is 4E and 5E both tended to separate rules from fluff a lot more than 1-3E, in that the lore explanation for they way things worked isn't always reflected in the rules. Synergies between augmentations are mostly gone, though they still note conflicts(EX. 2 pieces of ware that won't work together).
Atmospherically, the setting seems in conflict with itself a bit. On the one hand, it returned to the darker, street-llevel roots in a lot of ways. The Great Big Metaplots were still there, but it was coming at you like you were mucking it up with the rest of the Runners. Jackpoint seems a little more open and grounded in 5E, whereas in 4E it seemed almost like the members responsible for the infodumps(and in-universe lore) were more removed from regular Shadowrunners. And this is good, I like the flavour in the books of 5E a lot. However, the setting's focus on magic gets VERY significant boost, to the point where technology and mundane stuff honestly feels like it's the forgotten 1st child and magic is the new baby that gets all the attention. I don't know the exact ratio of magic-focusing(or involved) splat books to non-magic ones, but the universe of 5E sure feels more fantasy than previous editions. This isn't...bad per say, but it does feel like there's some balance issues. Maybe this is what all the Die Hard 3E players felt like when 4E introduced Wireless and was so tech-focused. Huh. Interesting.
6E. IT'S NEW AND SCARY, RUN AWAY! Okay seriously, I know as much as most people here, which is from checking out the preview and podcasts and Shadowcasters Network and whatnot. So with excitement(and a little apprehension, to be fair) I'll keep an ear out.
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I've played mostly 4th (anniversary), so that's the one I know best. I also have most of the books (both dead tree and PDF). I've dabbled a bit online in 5th, so for me the best is 4th, mainly because it's the only one I've played to it's fullest extend.
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I still have older stuff, tho I have no idea where my sr3 core book wandered off to. I like to look through the 1st edition stuff now and again, it makes me smile. Glue on my 1st ed book died long ago, its more like a folder now.
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According to one poster over at Shadowrun Universe a few years ago, 4e and 5e are obviously an experiment Deus is performing on his prisoners in the Renraku Arcology and never actually happened for real, so you can guess his opinion.
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The best edition? The one you play with your group.
Truth.
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According to one poster over at Shadowrun Universe a few years ago, 4e and 5e are obviously an experiment Deus is performing on his prisoners in the Renraku Arcology and never actually happened for real, so you can guess his opinion.
This might be the most creative use of in-game lore in an out-of-game jab I've ever heard. I disagree, but that's funny as hell. :D
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According to one poster over at Shadowrun Universe a few years ago, 4e and 5e are obviously an experiment Deus is performing on his prisoners in the Renraku Arcology and never actually happened for real, so you can guess his opinion.
This might be the most creative use of in-game lore in an out-of-game jab I've ever heard. I disagree, but that's funny as hell. :D
It's actually pretty clever, given the relationship between Deus and Otaku, and Otaku and Technomancers.... 4th edition is where Technomancers are established as a thing.
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The only sad part is that to this day I still don't know if the guy actually believed it.
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For me, 3e was so far the best edition.
It had the most "complete" feel to the system. Lots of options, gear, and choices to build your character with. Lots of optional rules for everything from custom spell design to optional damage overflow rules.
Yes, there were problems (and no internet support) but they were managable.
4e was.... a mess. Its like they took the "Todd Howard" approach to game design. ("You can do anything! Be anyone! AT THE SAME TIME!!") which left you with a team of generalists, as everyone could rig, hack, and fight with minimal investments.... And DON'T get me started on Technomancers! (Ypu can read my feeling on that epic failure in other threads)
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It’s all true on the Matrix!
Someone will believe it as it’s black on white
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I do feel I should point out one thing in 5E that I really like, and it may get me a bunch of crap. The Life Modules from Run Faster are pretty nifty. I've always been a fan of character creation that's more than just math (even though I'm a Mathematician™), and I hope they keep that as an alternative creation method.
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Life Modules are great for life-like NPCs, and with a tool such as Herolab even nice for creating PCs, but they're a disaster if you're an optimizer. ;D
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There are lots of games that use something like Life Paths to create characters. Personally, I didn't care for the implementation as they were some odd Karma and Skill Point-buy hybrid thing. But I'd like to see a fluff driven version of the Life Path system that tied in more with Priority gen.
Start with Metatype, give you a few fluff choices based on what priority you select. Then Magic/Resonance, give a few choices, and so forth. Pick your priority, a higher priority gives you more choices, those choices drive language and knowledge skills, maybe even some negative qualities for the "E" priority pick. Mechanically you're still spending your stat/skill points but you're filling in some Narrative broad strokes that have some mechanical representation. Which is what most folks seem to enjoy.
Mechanically Life Paths could do some crazy stuff when I took a couple spins through. Didn't care for how easily min/maxed they could be, and the *Huge* variance in outcomes.
Anyways, wouldn't be in the main book, but as a splat book could be entertaining.
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*Raises hand* "Uh, the isometric video games, like Dragonfall?"
Seriously, those not only got me back into trying the actual pencil & paper & handfuls of dice game, it also got me interested in buying PDFs of novels and scenarios of older editions.
Also, I actually never had a group that could stick together after the first or second run. Hopefully, that'll all change soon.
As for editions themselves, I tried a bit with 3, 4a, and 5, and I liked them all for different reasons. I do prefer a point-buy chargen for how you can fine-tune everything, but considering the wealth of options, priority is a bit less of a slog. I do like how later editions tried to make hackers less of a seperate thing, and I can see how technomancers got to be really amazing, then got taken down a few too many pegs between 4th and 5th.
I'll probably be a late adopter for 6th, partially because I want to see how more things in it fit together, and when secondary books & errata come out for it. Plus, I already have a bunch of books for 5th.
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Quite understandable. I also stuck with 4e for a while before switching, to have more toys available. Magic, Guns and Lifestyles are a must before I'd consider a full campaign.
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There are lots of games that use something like Life Paths to create characters.
Really? I'm not even sure what to think about that. Mind blown.
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Let's be nice shall we?
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Let's be nice shall we?
There are lots of games that use something like Life Paths to create characters.
Really? I'm not even sure what to think about that. Mind blown.
Expressing surprise is rude?
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Well, I'm relatively new for SR (2-3 years by now). I know only 3e and 5e. I prefer 5e, though 3e fluff is cool and a lot of things are just adorably retro in-setting. However, it's just so full of unnecessarily complex and weird rules. Maybe it's because I'm coming from WoD, but 5e felt a lot more intuitive and logical for me, albeit the ammount of rules could be a bit daunting.
As feeling goes, 3e has the feel of the '90s, which I like, but 5e is not that different, IMO, at least it felt pretty much the same setting for me. I suspect that's why staunch 4e fans are suspect to call it "nostalgia for nostalgia's sake", because it went back to how things were portrayed earlier and they liked the 4e portrayal more, as I think, based on what I gleaned from discussion, that was the most different-feeling of the editions. Based on the few fluff books I've read from 4e, I like 5e better.
Anarchy is not my cup of tea, I'm not a fan of rules-light narrative games like that in general.
6e, we will see, I don't want to jinx it, I still feel the burn from Vampire 5e, which was a huge disappointment for me, absolutely not the game and setting I loved, so I hope SR 6 won't be like that. Based on the info so far, I1m cautiously optimistic.
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I played 2E and 3E when I was a kid, I remember almost nothing and definitely had no clue what I was doing. Here is how I view the rest:
4E: The best rules overall for regular Shadowrun. This is where I had the best experience as the player.
5E: Fun but riddled with editing errors which eventually made me stop playing it. I consider it a failure because of that.
6E: I suspect this will be the best. Pretty happy with most of what I've heard although GOD not being removed seems very suspect from my limited grasp of the system.
Anarchy: Better than 5E, competitive with 4E. This is where I had the best experience as the GM. Not a perfect system but overall fairly good, if just a few things were different I think it would have been top notch.
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There are lots of games that use something like Life Paths to create characters.
Really? I'm not even sure what to think about that. Mind blown.
Several Space Opera games (Traveler, a couple of Fantasy Flight Warhammer 40k RPGs) do something similar to Life Paths. What Kind of Planet were you from, get these things, what sort of school did you go to, get these other things, Military service get those other things. At least one version of Call of Cthulhu and some of the Twilight 2000 series have a life path lite. Harn is a three or four step Life Path char gen system.
That's just off the top of my head. It's not the most common char gen method in RPGs, but its been around for a very long time.
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Rolemaster did it from Standard system and forward with training packages and of course then Spacemaster did it as well.
It’s not a rare thing to be honest and add some flavor to be sure
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A life path system is the default method of chargen in BattleTech's current RPG edition as well... although there's an optional point buy that is waaaaay easier to do. Heh.
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There was also a Life Path for good ol' Cyberpunk and Traveller. I like them because they give you a story (with faults and not just positive qualities).
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I do recall life paths in traveler, and in mercenary version of battle tech. I guess you could call the rogue trader a life though I always thought about more as the means to tie characters together.
I guess I missed that version of call I think delta green most in call.
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What is the best/your fave edition of Shadowrun? 1e? 2e? 3e? 4e? 5e? Anarchy? 6e (for those lucky few getting to try it out so far)?
Touch choice, but I'm going with 1ST - Because it was the edition that brought me into the game.
That said playing 5th the last few years has been fun, if confusing at times.
4th is my Least favorite, simply because its the one that I skipped completely.
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For me, 3e was so far the best edition.
It had the most "complete" feel to the system. Lots of options, gear, and choices to build your character with. Lots of optional rules for everything from custom spell design to optional damage overflow rules.
Yes, there were problems (and no internet support) but they were managable.
4e was.... a mess. Its like they took the "Todd Howard" approach to game design. ("You can do anything! Be anyone! AT THE SAME TIME!!") which left you with a team of generalists, as everyone could rig, hack, and fight with minimal investments.... And DON'T get me started on Technomancers! (Ypu can read my feeling on that epic failure in other threads)
...you hit the same nail squarely on the head that I did regarding 4E. More than anything else, the hard skill caps turned me off and I went back to 3E. The only characters who could keep advancing were awakened ones, though Adepts took forever to as you had to first initiate, then increase your Magic Attribute to get a new Power Point (something that was fixed in 5E).
While I liked the build point system (there was also an alternative build point system for both 2E and 3E as outlined in the Shadowrun Companion expansions which we usually used) the introduction of what was essentially a "luck" attribute (Edge) made me ask, "why?" For the short time I played (and GM'd) in 4, I felt more like I was in a P&P version of a video game (extra lives, the "mega blaster button", etc). It kind of hit me when I had my strapping Cajun boxer adept pre edge a punch and literally "knock an opponent's block off" with something like 23 or 25 net hits (I wondered if was I playing Shadowrun or GURPS Supers?).
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...OK I've played every edition from 1E to the present and GM'd 1E through 4E.
Favourite of all, a coin toss between 2E and 3E. I loved the setting of the early editions, particularly the strong native American influence in 1E and 2E. Yeah, the skill web was a bit wonky ("gee if I can get a really good roll I could blow up a building using my French Baking skill"). The setting and colour books were great though. I loved Universal Brotherhood, Bug City, Denver, Shadowbeat (yeah, I actually played a trid reporter character), the London and TT Source Books. 3E gave us what I considered one of the best most comprehensive world settings to date, with lots of nice hooks and underlying intrigue as well as the most detailed customisation rules for vehicles, drones, and decks.
As I mentioned in my post above, 4E just didn't hit it off with me because of some of the changes made and new mechanics introduced which didn't make it feel like the Shadowrun I knew and loved anymore. I felt the transition (System Failure) was handled rather clumsily as so many good background plot threads were poorly tied up or simply went *poof*. About the only feature that made sense was the wireless Matrix and "MoT" (Matrix of Things) as the real world was catching up fast and, in some ways surpassing the fictional one that was supposed to be another 5 decades in the future.
I actually ended up going back to playing and GM-ing in 3E after I dumped 4E for several years.
As I briefly touched on above, 5E fixed some of what I didn't like but retained other things I disliked (such as Edge and the lower resources levels) as well as introduced new mechanics that I questioned (such as Limits). The only reason I have been heavily involved with it right now is because I have been involved with Missions for nearly the last four years and that is the edition they are currently using (until Season 11). Fortunately I have the PDF versions so at least I have bookmarks to the sections I need to consult frequently which helps a bit in dealing with how disorganised everything is.
6E? Well, for myself, the jury is still out on this. I've watched the live play sessions and podcasts and the more I think about it the more it is beginning to feel like a slightly crunchier version of Anarchy.
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... ("gee if I can get a really good roll I could blow up a building using my French Baking skill")...
What the heck were you baking? ???
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... ("gee if I can get a really good roll I could blow up a building using my French Baking skill")...
What the heck were you baking? ???
My guess: a baguette loaded with military grade plastique.
On topic, whichever the Genesis game used.
The format made it easier to understand.
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... ("gee if I can get a really good roll I could blow up a building using my French Baking skill")...
What the heck were you baking? ???
Assuming this is a semi serious question, mainly for the readers who may not know earlier editions. They were baking nothing. The skill web just allowed you to default to something other than attributes. Sometimes it would be easier and better to default to a attribute sometimes a skill. But since the system didn’t have a attribute+skill system things were different.
Basic idea was using 3e skills. Let’s say you have a 6 in edged weapons. It’s somewhat likely you picked up something during all that training that would apply to clubs or even unarmed and you’d be better off than a dude with the same agility but no combat skills at all. It might be 1 jump on the skill web instead of 2. Meaning a +2 tn instead of +4. Again no skill+attribute. All being equal you go with the shortest number of jumps. But let’s say baker skill is 15, you have a intelligence of 1. Demolitions is 4 jumps from baking but only 1 from your stat. Do you roll 15 dice with a +8tn penalty or 1 die with a +2. At this absurd extreme baking is the better default choice. Doubt baking linked up at all but it may have for all I know.
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... ("gee if I can get a really good roll I could blow up a building using my French Baking skill")...
What the heck were you baking? ???
Assuming this is a semi serious question, mainly for the readers who may not know earlier editions. They were baking nothing. The skill web just allowed you to default to something other than attributes. Sometimes it would be easier and better to default to a attribute sometimes a skill. But since the system didn’t have a attribute+skill system things were different.
Basic idea was using 3e skills. Let’s say you have a 6 in edged weapons. It’s somewhat likely you picked up something during all that training that would apply to clubs or even unarmed and you’d be better off than a dude with the same agility but no combat skills at all. It might be 1 jump on the skill web instead of 2. Meaning a +2 tn instead of +4. Again no skill+attribute. All being equal you go with the shortest number of jumps. But let’s say baker skill is 15, you have a intelligence of 1. Demolitions is 4 jumps from baking but only 1 from your stat. Do you roll 15 dice with a +8tn penalty or 1 die with a +2. At this absurd extreme baking is the better default choice. Doubt baking linked up at all but it may have for all I know.
I was actually curious. Wow, just wow. Just to clarify, as 6th edition will be my first edition: It's not that wonky anymore, correct?
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We don't know. ;D But it's unlikely, yes. There is rules regarding defaulting in SR5, where a GM can allow you to default on a related skill and the GM picks the relevant penalty, but there's no official abusable default-steps-index.
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We don't know. ;D But it's unlikely, yes. There is rules regarding defaulting in SR5, where a GM can allow you to default on a related skill and the GM picks the relevant penalty, but there's no official abusable default-steps-index.
Excellent! Since I'll be GMing the starter box, I don't want to have to say "Sorry Francis, I don't care how good your ancient Hungarian underwater basketweaving is; you are not using it to hack the megacorps!"
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Actually... I can imagine using that to properly datatap the datacable of the underwater facility... 8)
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Here's a visual aid for skill defaulting in older editions of Shadowrun. It was called the Skill Web and the way it worked you'd count the number of pips between any two skills you wanted to default on. You can follow a line in the direction of an arrow, but may not draw a path against an arrow.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hc0Zmkcziz4/T-v-tf_jweI/AAAAAAAACJc/TlbXZ67ShaY/s1600/SR+skill+sheet.jpg)
So for example, if you wanted to default on your general Athleticism to shoot someone with a Pistol, you count 3 pips between Athletics and Pistols so depending on the edition, you'd know how big or small a penalty to apply. In contrast, Stealth has more pips than that and so is an even more penalized default skill. And you can't get from Bikes to Pistols without going against an arrow, so you couldn't use that to default at all.
5th edition dispensed with a regimented defaulting system and just put it in the realm of GM prerogative as to which skills may default to other skills, and if so what the penalty would be.
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(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hc0Zmkcziz4/T-v-tf_jweI/AAAAAAAACJc/TlbXZ67ShaY/s1600/SR+skill+sheet.jpg)
Ahhhh...some good memories there. Any people complain about the complexity of games today :o ;D
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Geez, I almost forgot about that skill web.
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I liked it. It made a degree of sense though it had specific calmly examples in that related skills when learned give you a grasp of other things. For ease a generic statement like in 5e works as well.
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... ("gee if I can get a really good roll I could blow up a building using my French Baking skill")...
What the heck were you baking? ???
Whatever this guy is baking. (https://youtu.be/QVJ1gqgZ-JM)
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... ("gee if I can get a really good roll I could blow up a building using my French Baking skill")...
What the heck were you baking? ???
...a soufflé made with C-16. It collapsed with a big bada boom!
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I've said my Rigger pieces before, but I will say, even if I rarely got the chance to use vehicles like those seen in the rigger art, yknow the ones, the supercars with the obvious non-hidden antivehicle weaponry and stuff, I've always wanted to have a setting where you could use that without it immediately being considered a terrorist level event :)
Been watching GitS SAC again lately, makes me want to see logic tanks, heh and the new cover art for 6 with that guy charging the drone made me think 'ooh tachikoma' or Lynx + arms + external rigger cocoon :)
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The editions I have experience with are 2nd (technically 1st but 2nd came out so fast I don't think we actually used 1st ed rules), 4A (20th Anniversary Ed.) and 5th.
It's hard to say which is best. 2nd ed was a long time ago but we had tons of fun and the rules actually worked. I'd say it's still my favorite.
4A did make some questionable design decisions though the biggest ones were in the matrix which we tended to avoid anyway. But the editing was superb and I can house rule fixes for design problems. Creating house rules for crappy editing is a lot harder which brings me to 5e.
5e is a dumpster fire IMHO, full stop. There were a lot of good concepts in 5e and there were a lot of horrible ones (limits I'm looking at you) but either way no one I know F2F could stick with 5e for long as we just could not get past the craptacular editing.
I'll keep my 2e and 4A books forever but one of these days when convenient I'll be dumping my 5e books off at Bookman's to see what kind of credit I can get. They're just taking up space for better games.
As to Sixth World I'm a little encouraged by what I've seen so far but I'm going to need to see a lot of really positive reviews before I give Jason Hardy's team any more of my money.
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...in Missions we have no choice but to deal with the poor editing and disorganised structure. Some in our local group took the initiative to create "cheat sheets" and playing aids such as ones for spirits, matrix actions, and combat actions/options to minimise having to plough through two or three books to find things during play.
I've been using Chummer instead of the standard character sheet as it provides more details, like weapon attributes, skills/pools, armour, vehicles, etc and doesn't run out of space for gear (I have yet to see a "out of the box" RPG character sheet that provides enough room for gear/supplies). It's not the best as it does have a few odd traits, but it does help organise the character better. Hero Lab actually gives a bit more information and is pretty accurate, but it is expensive and generally you need a tablet or notebook computer for your character to access those functions.
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I've said my Rigger pieces before, but I will say, even if I rarely got the chance to use vehicles like those seen in the rigger art, yknow the ones, the supercars with the obvious non-hidden antivehicle weaponry and stuff, I've always wanted to have a setting where you could use that without it immediately being considered a terrorist level event :)
Been watching GitS SAC again lately, makes me want to see logic tanks, heh and the new cover art for 6 with that guy charging the drone made me think 'ooh tachikoma' or Lynx + arms + external rigger cocoon :)
I'm reading the Hardwired novel and I love the concept of the panzerboy/girl (riggers in Shadowrun) and their hovertanks (T-Birds in Shadowrun?). I'm curious, is there ever a chance for a player to acquire and use one on a regular basis in the Shadowrun missions organized play?
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I'm reading the Hardwired novel and I love the concept of the panzerboy/girl (riggers in Shadowrun) and their hovertanks (T-Birds in Shadowrun?). I'm curious, is there ever a chance for a player to acquire and use one on a regular basis in the Shadowrun missions organized play?
Keep in mind Shadowrun does have hovercraft, but the T-Birds are not hover-tanks. T-Birds are ground-effect vehicles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-effect_vehicle) which makes them full-fledged aircraft. Aircraft that can't go very high off the ground, and can't hover, but aircraft none-the-less.
T-birds have an aura of sex and glitz, both in-universe and within the out-of-universe Shadowrun fandom, but conventional helicopters are 9 times out of 10 going to be more practical and useful to shadowrunners :) You want to jump out of an aircraft onto the top of a building? T-Birds neither hover nor get high enough to get over the roof of a tall building!
On to the second question... SRMs generally pay about 10,000 per mission. And there's only 6 missions per season (although there's usually 4-8 more SRM-legal missions each year in the form of CMPs). GMs are encouraged to not deviate significantly from the printed mission rewards, especially so on karma/nuyen. So frankly there's very little opportunity to acquire top-end vehicles in SRM post-chargen.
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In a normal campaign you can build in options for those. But in Missions you won't often have room to use them.
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I'm reading the Hardwired novel and I love the concept of the panzerboy/girl (riggers in Shadowrun) and their hovertanks (T-Birds in Shadowrun?). I'm curious, is there ever a chance for a player to acquire and use one on a regular basis in the Shadowrun missions organized play?
Keep in mind Shadowrun does have hovercraft, but the T-Birds are not hover-tanks. T-Birds are ground-effect vehicles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-effect_vehicle) which makes them full-fledged aircraft. Aircraft that can't go very high off the ground, and can't hover, but aircraft none-the-less.
T-birds have an aura of sex and glitz, both in-universe and within the out-of-universe Shadowrun fandom, but conventional helicopters are 9 times out of 10 going to be more practical and useful to shadowrunners :) You want to jump out of an aircraft onto the top of a building? T-Birds neither hover nor get high enough to get over the roof of a tall building!
On to the second question... SRMs generally pay about 10,000 per mission. And there's only 6 missions per season (although there's usually 4-8 more SRM-legal missions each year in the form of CMPs). GMs are encouraged to not deviate significantly from the printed mission rewards, especially so on karma/nuyen. So frankly there's very little opportunity to acquire top-end vehicles in SRM post-chargen.
Ah, I seriously misunderstood what a T-bird was then, sorry! :-[
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In a normal campaign you can build in options for those. But in Missions you won't often have room to use them.
Ah, ok. I'll look at maybe a cheaper helicopter then, or something lower-end.
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Ah, I seriously misunderstood what a T-bird was then, sorry! :-[
Don't be sorry. Being a "ground effect vehicle" hasn't been given much more than lip service since.. well.. ever.
This is what a Banshee has looked like since 1st edition:
(https://www.shadowiki.de/images/thumb/f/f9/GMC_Banshee_double.png/220px-GMC_Banshee_double.png)
And real-life ground-effect vehicles look something like this:
(https://img.newatlas.com/wigetworks-airfish-8-ground-effect-vehicle-17.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max&q=60&w=1000&s=961beee94f535722e95863d9bdae6303)
Besides, don't take my word for it that T-Birds can't hover. Unless I'm mistaken, there's been writers who've had them hover in fiction. It doesn't even matter whether the writers were in left field or not, because a good rigger might be able to make a rigged 747 hover for a short time :)
The part that's really going to be absolute though is the price. It's full of ouch. Price alone might force you to VTOLs.
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...in Missions we have no choice but to deal with the poor editing and disorganised structure. Some in our local group took the initiative to create "cheat sheets" and playing aids such as ones for spirits, matrix actions, and combat actions/options to minimise having to plough through two or three books to find things during play.
Would you be interested in sharing those cheat sheets?
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Ah, I seriously misunderstood what a T-bird was then, sorry! :-[
Don't be sorry. Being a "ground effect vehicle" hasn't been given much more than lip service since.. well.. ever.
This is what a Banshee has looked like since 1st edition:
(https://www.shadowiki.de/images/thumb/f/f9/GMC_Banshee_double.png/220px-GMC_Banshee_double.png)
I actually introduced them in my 3E campaign.
I actually introduced them int my 3E campaign.
And real-life ground-effect vehicles look something like this:
(https://img.newatlas.com/wigetworks-airfish-8-ground-effect-vehicle-17.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max&q=60&w=1000&s=961beee94f535722e95863d9bdae6303)
Besides, don't take my word for it that T-Birds can't hover. Unless I'm mistaken, there's been writers who've had them hover in fiction. It doesn't even matter whether the writers were in left field or not, because a good rigger might be able to make a rigged 747 hover for a short time :)
The part that's really going to be absolute though is the price. It's full of ouch. Price alone might force you to VTOLs.
...ah, ekranoplans. In the real world the Soviets/Russia invested heavily in this technology.
I actually introduced them in my 3E campaign.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Nu94khHoo
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Ah, I seriously misunderstood what a T-bird was then, sorry! :-[
Don't be sorry. Being a "ground effect vehicle" hasn't been given much more than lip service since.. well.. ever.
This is what a Banshee has looked like since 1st edition:
(https://www.shadowiki.de/images/thumb/f/f9/GMC_Banshee_double.png/220px-GMC_Banshee_double.png)
And real-life ground-effect vehicles look something like this:
(https://img.newatlas.com/wigetworks-airfish-8-ground-effect-vehicle-17.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max&q=60&w=1000&s=961beee94f535722e95863d9bdae6303)
Besides, don't take my word for it that T-Birds can't hover. Unless I'm mistaken, there's been writers who've had them hover in fiction. It doesn't even matter whether the writers were in left field or not, because a good rigger might be able to make a rigged 747 hover for a short time :)
The part that's really going to be absolute though is the price. It's full of ouch. Price alone might force you to VTOLs.
They are listed in the vstol/vtol section. I’m pretty sure previous editions had them as vtol. The 2 listed in rigger 5 are specifically vstol but are described as either uber focussed or a Krime cannon version so that might be unusual. That being said given there weight I suspect they stop like a train, so while a rigger might be able to hit the spot for a drop off it’s likely don’t a couple combat turns in advance.
Though given there 2 million price tag i always felt it was a npc thing.
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We've only really been talking about the core rules here, but there's a lot more to an edition of Shadowrun than that.
A friend loaned me some of his old SR2/3 books and reading some of them, I'm blown away by how clear they are. More meat to the adventures (maps!), clear explanations of what's going on in the metaplots, rather than the Jackpoint stream-of-consciousness mess, and just generally clear and readable.
Based on that, maybe SR2 and 3 are the best editions after all. I find it really hard to figure out what's really going on in books like Clutch of Dragons, Storm Front and Bloody Business. The older books spell it out rather than wasting many pages on Jackpoint speculation.
On life paths:
Several Space Opera games (Traveler, a couple of Fantasy Flight Warhammer 40k RPGs) do something similar to Life Paths. What Kind of Planet were you from, get these things, what sort of school did you go to, get these other things, Military service get those other things. At least one version of Call of Cthulhu and some of the Twilight 2000 series have a life path lite. Harn is a three or four step Life Path char gen system.
That's just off the top of my head. It's not the most common char gen method in RPGs, but its been around for a very long time.
Diaspora, a space RPG using Fate, also has one (no idea if this is standard in Fate). Fate relies heavily on aspects, so you describe your youth, get a few aspects from that, then describe a crisis, in which the character of the player to your right played a role and get an aspect from that, then how you helped the character to your left in their crisis, get an aspect, etc. So you get history, aspects, and relationships between the characters all in one go. Pretty neat idea.
Traveller is of course legendary for having the possibility that you die during character creation. It's less about who you are and more about in which branches of the military you served and whether you got promoted or got hurt.
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Speculation gives a lot of nice leeway to GMs, which I rather like myself. No 'THIS is what happened precisely!' and the Jackpoint people clearly got personalities. As for maps, I do like adventures that have those.
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Speculation gives a lot of nice leeway to GMs, which I rather like myself. No 'THIS is what happened precisely!' and the Jackpoint people clearly got personalities.
It's great for atmosphere, commentary and different perspectives, but for conveying actual information that I can rely on, it's terrible. My preference would be giving me the facts in a clear and functional manner, interspersed with Jackpoint commentary. Alternatively, Jackpoint ramblings followed by an explanation of what's actually going on (as some recent books have), but all too often, that explanation is short, incomplete, or even absent.
As for maps, I do like adventures that have those.
I was disappointed when Serrated Edge (which does have a map at least) had just a rambling paragraph of how to get into the facility, rather than a keyed map. Some adventures have no map. I was disappointed that the "adventures" in Bloody Business are more like adventure seeds: nice ideas, but almost nothing to help me figure out what's necessary to accomplish the jobs.
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Traveller is of course legendary for having the possibility that you die during character creation. It's less about who you are and more about in which branches of the military you served and whether you got promoted or got hurt.
...and if you rolled really poor for attributes, there always was the option to become a Belter which had the highest chargen casualty rate.
Another space game that used similar life/career path develoment at chargen was FGU's Space Opera. At chargen if the rolls went your way, you could muster out of a service with a pretty decent veteran standing, severance package, and swag.
I actually ran a campaign way back in the 80s and if you like "crunchy" rules, this system made SR 3E look like AD&D or possibly even Tunnels and Trolls in comparison. Starship combat required something like four different tests just to see if you even scratched the hull of an opposing ship and all the character vs. character combat modifiers would stack to ludicrous levels at times.
Thankfully I had access to a 48 K Apple ][, and an HP programmable scientific calculator that had reverse Polish notation.
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There are some cool stuff added since then but SR2 still has a special place in my hearth.
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...you mean you burned it?
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personally I love 5th. I think limits are great idea, and make a lot of sense. what 5th needed were competent editors. .
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*Fist erupts from the earth...pulls self out of the steaming ground, accompanied by the stench of sulfur, and then shakes and brushes the crypt soil from his trench coat, straightening the collar...*
Started with 1e. Serious nostalgia cred, though I accuse this edition of inventing the double-edged sword that is the splatbook. Loved the setting, had some issues with the dice pools and mechanics, but we made it work.
2e -- I missed this one, was too busy playing Cyberpunk 2020. Interlok System just devastatingly better, in terms of mechanics (though I cannibalized the progressive initiative system from 1e).
3e -- Owned, never played.
4e -- Beautiful, fraught, flawed gem (like my ex-girlfriend :P). I very much liked the myriad of options and customizations, allowing me to endlessly tinker with my builds -- though the complexity that resulted clashed with the often bizarre and broken mechanics.
5e -- I dunno. I mean, it kinda worked at fixing some of the problems with 4e? I don't know if the trade-offs were worth it...seems like the game system got very Meta -- it was no longer about making a game world function in a contextually realistic way, but more about making a game work in a balanced-ish, less broken fashion. Coming from 4e, if given the choice between the two, I think I'd just play 4e and house rule fixes where necessary, but when playing with groups that want to play 5e, it's not like I won't play it.
6e -- So far, it sounds like they're trying to shoehorn SR into the rule set for Star Trek Adventures, and really leaning into the meta-gaming aspects. Having listened to the Q&As, watched many hours of actual gameplay online, I'm fairly wary. Rules around Edge, Armor, Melee...maybe there's some deeper math there than I yet grok, but I'll be watching and waiting before I leap.
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
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From what I can tell, mainly from replies to this and other threads:
The rules for every edition seemed to end up being their own different quagmire, each with their own group of people preferring to stay in the one in which they were currently steeped.
I mean, you have to spend more money and learn a new ruleset for the thing you're already playing.
While I might want to try 6th, at the very least, for its plot & setting books, I also want to try 3rd. I only got to it once, which didn't last beyond the initial session. I'd like to try it again.
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The rules for every edition seemed to end up being their own different quagmire, each with their own group of people preferring to stay in the one in which they were currently steeped.
That is about the right of it.
I am biased, in the fact that I am a Rigger at heart. If I could be a guinea pig for a Control Rig Alpha test, I would beat my way to the front of the line.
I am still waiting for an edition of Shadowrun to treat them right, and not over do it (as I am led to believe 4th did - never had the opportunity to actually play it).
Even looking past that, each edition had it's long list of proud nails. It boils down to which edition works best in your head space, and / or which edition you have house ruled to fit your group.
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I think my favourite edition would be a competently edited version of 5e. Mind you, I've liked all the editions. I still have the softcover SR1 I bought when it was new (not the hardcover).