[Slothman]

After about 20 years I have the urge to get Shadowrun going again.

In short I am part of a small local gaming group who crave some RPG and I think Shadowrun, as I remembered it, would be a perfect fit.

One question. As I am reading through the 4th Ed I notice the Matrix has changed....

Do people still do up "system maps" or is the Matrix now more of a "overfeel" instead of dedicated adventure type section as I remember it (was back in 2nd ed I THINK).

Sorry for the question. I am just trying to evaluate some options for the group.

The idea being EVERYONE in the group who is involved (there is only around 30, with 20 regulars) can roll a character...so we might have 10 or so. The thing I wanted to encourage is flexibility. So someone could roll up a quick "run" and than post it on our boards to get interest, than people could put a party together based on what is out there etc..changing groups, fun and inclusive and not depending on one GM all the time

So if the Matrix has the possibility of doing "solo" runs it could help fill the void for some....

Just spitballing here to get ideas/inspiration for our little group

....damn the Shadowrun world...went digging out all my old novels again the other day...it keeps sucking me back in.

[Mercer]

I know exactly how you feel my brother.  I started playing SR about 17 years ago, and I played it a lot for a number of those years.  The past ten years or so it's been an on and off thing, mainly due to scheduling.  (This reminds me of the Homer Simpson line about why he never reads to his kids, "Things keep coming up, mainly car-related.")  It can be a labor intensive system and it's a hard system to run casually, and as my group gets older and we have careers and kids, that becomes more of a factor.

I've only watched matrix runs, but it seems to be all about tracking successes, so there's no matrix-map of hexagons and triangles and such.  It is a free form system.  I've said it before but Shadowrun is a game where magic is as defined as applying for a small business loan and computers are this mystical realm where anything can happen.

My feeling on matrix runs are its best to integrate them with the action as much as possible.  Shadowrun has a lot of mini-games (astral combat and hacking being the main two, although physcial combat can also qualify) that only certain characters can do, and if they're off doing them for extended periods of time the rest of the group is twiddling their thumbs.  Thumb twiddling is never good for a game. 

[The_Dood]

13 years in and things have changed with this version. I run the matrix as separate nodes, for example: the security camera is separate from the security control room. If the PCs wanted to loop the feed on the camera and they could connect to it I would allow them to hack the camera without worrying about the control room. However if they wanted to delete the footage then they would need to hack the security database which might mean hacking the camera, control room and database in order.

I find this approach keeps things simple and allows hacking to be integrated into combat without focusing too much on the hacker.