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State of 6e today

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adzling

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« Reply #15 on: <06-08-20/0820:49> »
I can understand criticism, but not falsehoods.

Pure Chandra moment.

Nice to see nothing's changed around here and the Catalyst bunker mentality is still in full force.

Now whatever happened to the "the grognards hate 6e 'cause edition wars!" trope?

Dezzmont is right, 5e's bones were good and needed updating, streamlining and repairing in certain spots (*cough* rigging, *cough* matrix, *cough* magicrun) but instead we got the majority of of srun 5e's problems just transposed onto 6e's horrific relative advantage mechanic and even less information on how to run the game.

-Strength does not affect melee damage (entertaining to watch a couple people try to justify that craziness)
-Armor doesn't provide any meaningful protection (that was also a funny one to watch people try to rationalize)

It's like they turned the daft dial up to 11 and just expected people to not notice.

6e is Catalyst's Spinal Tap moment.

We should all be in awe.

Marcus

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« Reply #16 on: <06-08-20/0933:23> »
6e has a problem where its bones just aren't great for the most part, which is why its so hard to imagine fixes for.
Don't worry, dezmont; I was told repeatedly a year ago that we were all just change-averse grognards who'd soon be playing 6e and swearing up and down we'd loved it all along. We can't be far away from that now, surely?

I have to basically agree that's what has been implied. I think Chandra referred to the "Stans" a couple threads ago, which apparently is his short hand for those of us who just haven't drunk the cool aid. But the truth is for 6e they aren't going to change 6e. They aren't going to fix something as simple as the AR/DR problem. They aren't going to do the re-write it would take make it playable. They just don't think it's a problem. After all the layout is really gorgeous. Why would they mess it up by making the rules work? It's the 5e TM issue all over. Even after they finally changed it they would never actually considered it a problem, it was simply all in our totally unreasonable grognard heads.

To be totally honest that is the current state of 6e.
« Last Edit: <06-08-20/0936:13> by Marcus »
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Lormyr

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« Reply #17 on: <06-08-20/1021:01> »
I think if we are honest we will find that Chandra is himself 75% of the personal grief. The majority of everyone else realizes that neither liking nor disliking what they did with the new rule set makes you a <insert adjective of your choice here> because it is all a matter of objective preference.

Point in case, I see a lot of people (myself included) criticizing or even name calling some of the rule set, but he is the only person I routinely see name calling the actual people for their perspective, "stans" being the most recent.

Edit: Also, as related to the Matrix. I agree the system could stand to be further simplified and less complex, but I do think Banshee did a solid job of improvement from SR5. Could it be better, sure - but his work was solid, and I would also imagine he most likely didn't get to do all he would have liked.
« Last Edit: <06-08-20/1028:02> by Lormyr »
"TL:DR 6e's reduction of meaningful choices is akin to forcing everyone to wear training wheels. Now it's just becomes a bunch of toddlers riding around on tricycles they can't fall off of." - Adzling

penllawen

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« Reply #18 on: <06-08-20/1103:16> »
Edit: Also, as related to the Matrix. I agree the system could stand to be further simplified and less complex
That might be what OP meant. Not so much "the Matrix doesn't work" as "the Matrix still doesn't work." Your table's mileage may vary, but you could certainly argue it should be pared back further than 6e did. I don't mind the detail level where it is, myself, but I don't think you'd be wrong to want that.

There is one legitimate criticism I've seen made of the 6e Matrix that I don't have a complete answer for: now that you can only hack PANs/Hosts and not devices, I think most people's reading of RAW means every minor hack of an exterior camera is now a full-on host dive unless the GM invents some handwaving reasons why this particularly security decker was a total incompetent who didn't want to make their network hacker proof. (You may recall I started a thread about this here: https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=30909.0) I haven't yet found an answer to this I'm totally comfortable with from both a mechanics and a fluff perspective.

Quote
but I do think Banshee did a solid job of improvement from SR5. Could it be better, sure - but his work was solid, and I would also imagine he most likely didn't get to do all he would have liked.
Well, yeah, I reckon so too: https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=30909.msg533986#msg533986 ;)

Finstersang

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« Reply #19 on: <06-08-20/1121:16> »

I have to basically agree that's what has been implied. I think Chandra referred to the "Stans" a couple threads ago, which apparently is his short hand for those of us who just haven't drunk the cool aid. But the truth is for 6e they aren't going to change 6e. They aren't going to fix something as simple as the AR/DR problem. They aren't going to do the re-write it would take make it playable. They just don't think it's a problem. After all the layout is really gorgeous. Why would they mess it up by making the rules work? It's the 5e TM issue all over. Even after they finally changed it they would never actually considered it a problem, it was simply all in our totally unreasonable grognard heads.

To be totally honest that is the current state of 6e.

Oh, I think they know itīs a problem  ::)

But the party line here obviously is: "If you donīt fix it, it was never broken in the first place"

Well, letīs see how that turns out for them. I mean, if things are going according to plan, the playerbase will soon be receive an unprecedented influx of those fabled "fresh new players" that will finally appreciate 6th Edition as the Masterpiece it truly is. And then all of us bitter, bickering grogs wonīt matter anymore  ;D   

Lormyr

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« Reply #20 on: <06-08-20/1400:11> »
Your table's mileage may vary, but you could certainly argue it should be pared back further than 6e did. I don't mind the detail level where it is, myself, but I don't think you'd be wrong to want that.

Totally. I'd have liked to see the actions condensed significantly, but that is it. Like your matrix options are Find / Hide / Hack Access / Alter Code / Attack, and then anything you want to accomplish can be just an application of one of those rolls. Or something similar that is intuitive for us non-computer laymen.

Oh, one thing that I also find true is that it is much less overall resource intensive to be a primary matrix character in SR6, so having a solid secondary focus is very easy if you build your character "right".

« Last Edit: <06-08-20/1404:44> by Lormyr »
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Marcus

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« Reply #21 on: <06-08-20/1704:19> »

I have to basically agree that's what has been implied. I think Chandra referred to the "Stans" a couple threads ago, which apparently is his short hand for those of us who just haven't drunk the cool aid. But the truth is for 6e they aren't going to change 6e. They aren't going to fix something as simple as the AR/DR problem. They aren't going to do the re-write it would take make it playable. They just don't think it's a problem. After all the layout is really gorgeous. Why would they mess it up by making the rules work? It's the 5e TM issue all over. Even after they finally changed it they would never actually considered it a problem, it was simply all in our totally unreasonable grognard heads.

To be totally honest that is the current state of 6e.

Oh, I think they know itīs a problem  ::)

But the party line here obviously is: "If you donīt fix it, it was never broken in the first place"

Well, letīs see how that turns out for them. I mean, if things are going according to plan, the playerbase will soon be receive an unprecedented influx of those fabled "fresh new players" that will finally appreciate 6th Edition as the Masterpiece it truly is. And then all of us bitter, bickering grogs wonīt matter anymore  ;D   

I used to think just like you in the first part above, and I totally support the second part.
If they had any desire or intent to fix AR/DR, that FS was the perfect and totally easy place to do it. One Martial art action, one devices, a merit any one of those would have worked, or a little grey box just like called shots. Could have been such an Easy solution. But it's not there and it's not accident. They didn't forget, they truly believe the edge system works fine as is. 

Lormyr is exactly right about Chandra being 75% of the personal grief. But I don't doubt that Chandra's position does honestly represent the dev's position and more then that, if you read that little blog he links. I'd bet a lot that is in fact exactly what the devs think, just showing how completely detached their concepts are. There is a thread in here, that was conversation with one of the authors from 5e (I'm specifically not mentioning names.) after the change over on TMs in 5e. I really do believe them when they said they didn't believe there was a problem with TMs and they still didn't believe it. It's just the perfect example of how truly out of touch the devs are with the reality of the game. 6e is no exception. They had X hours to develop it, they had Y hours for layout, and Z hours play test it. They completed those they did the minimum possible edits for release and have sense touched once again after that, certainly In whatever budget cycle they have. But keep in mind rules as clearly broken as grenades weren't touched. They'll keep putting out books, but they have no interest in fixed the system, to them it's "Standing on it's Own" I think was the phrase the line developer used. 


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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #22 on: <06-08-20/1707:23> »
It's fine to not like the AR/DR/Edge mechanic.  Some people think of pineapple on pizza as a travesty as well.  Me, I like both.  And I respect that sometimes other people don't.

However, it's kind of a stretch to expect CGL to have used FS as a means to change the direction of 6th ed's mechanics.  Of course they weren't going to do that.
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Marcus

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« Reply #23 on: <06-08-20/1720:53> »
It's fine to not like the AR/DR/Edge mechanic.  Some people think of pineapple on pizza as a travesty as well.  Me, I like both.  And I respect that sometimes other people don't.

However, it's kind of a stretch to expect CGL to have used FS as a means to change the direction of 6th ed's mechanics.  Of course they weren't going to do that.

Armor started Soaking, Str/3 started being added to melee, edge started to get saved. So yes of course they weren't going to do that. lol
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dezmont

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« Reply #24 on: <06-08-20/2329:20> »
Perception is reality in branding. If you like the new edge system, good on ya. I am... sincerely confused at that, because it is hard to justify what it actually helps (It increases the time it takes to resolve combat and increases the amount of information tracked but reduces how important this information actually is), but I enjoy systems that are like... actually objectively totally broken rather than just designed in a questionable way, which means no one should take my opinion seriously for anything.

However, 6e as a brand is in a horrific spot, in the objective sense. Regardless of what you think of the quality of a game, it can end up here. 4e D&D was kinda low key great but ended up here, for example, despite now most people agreeing it was actually pretty good (and it influencing a LOT of games).

So, divorcing your mind from if SR6 is actually good or not (that, in a weird way, doesn't super matter. Exalted was bad and yet was crazy popular until it got into grimness porn) there is an unfortunate reality that... the market just doesn't feel anything about it anymore. When your community essentially rises up and has a rage spiral, it doesn't really matter if you think its justified or not because after their anger can't be sustained anymore if you don't make structural changes to bring them back to 'like' they aren't going to think about you at ALL. Losing relevance as a brand is terrifying, which is what SR6 managed to do.

Its communities don't exist outside of this site. This is... really bad because it is an extreme minority of the SR community in terms of web traffic, again this site is such an inconsequential slice of the greater SR community that despite being the official site for a long time it literally didn't come up in the top 4 results if you googled shadowrun, and its traffic stats routinely put it at 1/10th to 1/3rd of what other SR sites have as traffic both in pageviews and unique viewcount. Also, this website's bounce rate of 60%, meaning around half the unique visits SR gets a month are by accident.

SR Tabletop's website averages 25,000 total (non-unique) visits a month, which would be much higher than its uniques. For perspective, the SR subreddit gets around 80,000-60,000 unique visits a month, and its average viewed pages per visit are 10 times higher, which means its bounce rate is around 5%. So I hope I didn't blow anyone's mind because I know a lot of people on this site seem to think reddit represents a vocal minority rather than the current primary location SR fans talk about the game. Even pretending that the facebook group and this website have a 100% overlap with SR's fans, and that lets say half these uniques are people logging on through IPs reddit doesn't recognize as connected (Which would, by the by, be a freakishly high number and is entirely unrealistic), we can safely assume there are 40,000 active SR fans.

SR6's latest release is a 'silver best seller' despite being on a 50% discount for most of its 2 weeks of being out. That sounds neat, but as I overviewed before, if your below platinum you didn't break a thousand sales. Silver, for perspective, means that this book in its 'blockbuster debut period' sold less than 250 copies electronically. We have good reason to suspect the majority of SR's sales are electronic, including history and the fact that we are in the middle of a major viral outbreak and pickup sales from Barnes and Noble or FLGS are likely down, the book isn't available on Amazon yet, and the book isn't even a featured product or for sale in the Catalst store, so right now RPG drivethru is sorta the only location to obtain this book right now.

Cyberpunk Red's DEMO got over 5,000. SR 6th world itself sold (or 'sold' considering what went down with that release probably counts in the system, but we can't be sure), 1000-2000 copies, though that could in theory be bolstered by physical and CGL site sales. I doubt the CGL site sales though because its web analytics are so amazingly bad that most of the analytic tools I use to do research on website traffic kinda low key for a living right now don't even know it exists. And the store requires you to manually type through to get to even browse the shop, and it doesn't show up on google searches for shadowrun on the first 3 pages of results (Which is multiple levels of OOF because it both means your unlikely to discover it and it means so few people go to it google thinks it can't be what you are looking for), AND it doesn't show up on google shop.

So, to be really clear, 6e is kinda... screwed as a product right now no matter how you slice it. If you believe the uniques on this site are artificially high, well that means the percentage of people who actively play SR who bought the new book is.... lower than .5% (meaning for every 200 SR fans, 1 person bought this book). If you think its artifically high, it means this place is even more of a minority. If you think that books obtained via a discount coupon would result in them not counting towards sales, that means that however many lost sales via this coupon fiasco caused increases the ratio of players who despite owning the core system did not go on to purchase the next product (as at the VERY LEAST 80% of the people who obtained the 6e core rules from RPG drivethru did not decide to obtain the next book through RPG drivethru).

RPG drivethru takes 30-40% of sales. Maybe CGL made a special deal to keep more, but I doubt it. This means firing squad, which has been around 20 dollars most of its existence, made, at most, 2,800 dollars. 6e's core rules made about 27,900 dollars. The German edition also sold for around that much, but we can't say anything on how much CGL took away from that because all localized licensing and distribution deals are unique and we have no idea what the nature of that relationship is.

Soooo.... that is... really bad, and indicates a dramatic marketing change is needed, and considering the most vocal complaints about the game were about disliking core elements of the system, that being fixed is likely what marketing needs to focus on. You know, like 5e D&D kinda high key did. The time to actually fix things was way way earlier, and it would be hard to reverse ship without dramatic structural changes, but the idea that people early on were just an angry minority has kinda been demonstrably proven false in the worst way. The product has no attention on RPG drivethru with a devistatingly low amount of conversation. On reddit its announcement basically was non-news to the point I almost asked if we were going to actually keep it stickied for the normal amount of time considering how little anyone cared.

And, I can't stress enough, it does not matter if SR6 was so good it restored IRL essence, balanced your real life and PC gen budget for you, made people like The Rocker PC concept again, and made your favorite NPC from the videogames canon. The fundamental reality of the sales situation is so dire that... it doesn't matter. I don't like D&D 5e very much but it makes gangbusters cash with tons of lucrative 3rd party deals based on mega popular IPs and so many books that are just flying off the shelves that they basically decided to leave RPG drivethru because they were doing so well they could just ignore a middle man, my feelings on 5e as a product are totally irrelevant when talking about its success as a product. No matter how much I don't like 5e D&D its a success. No matter how much you like 6e SR its... kinda objectively a really titanic failure and continuing to put one's head in the sand and pretend all criticism is bad faith and things are going great is the literal worst scenario you can do in a crisis communication scenario.

Like, for real, I get its an LLC and part of the appeal is that you don't have to get super corporate, but CGL needs to hire some marketing experts, do some actual research on its consumer base, and right this ship. As an LLC CGL has advantages in fixing these problems. They also had a few good ideas (reaching out to influencers, for example, to try to mimic D&D's success with podcasts) but handled it clumisly. Either this is a 'face issue' where your Rules Designing street samurai just failed to manage the crowd, or it isn't and legit mistakes were made, but now you need a face to get you out of your social snafu! Get yourself a face, first step, so many problems were clearly caused by a lack of effective community communication and good will (Ex: Howling Shadows).

Or don't the intersection of communications crisises and Shadowrun make it really easy for me to generate research materials and papers. Saves me a lot of stress in my studies!

Yes, that was exactly what was said. CONFORM!

It wasn't, but it doesn't matter what you say. It matters what people hear. Either what was said was careless enough to be construed as that, that was an overt implication of what was said, or good will is at such a low that people just want to hear that. None of those 3 things are good. No matter where you stand on 6e, I think it is fair to say CGL is facing a really big crisis right now, and at least from my perspective, doesn't have the expertise to handle those problems due to Cata being one of those companies that sorta grew out of a more 'fluffy' project, which is an enheartening success story but at some point you gotta bring in at least one suit.

That said, I may just be biasing hard to marketing and PR here because I literally research and study that for a living. Your lawyer thinks you need a lawyer, your plumber thinks you better hire a plumber, that sorta thing.

Dezzmont is right, 5e's bones were good and needed updating, streamlining and repairing in certain spots (*cough* rigging, *cough* matrix, *cough* magicrun) but instead we got the majority of of srun 5e's problems just transposed onto 6e's horrific relative advantage mechanic and even less information on how to run the game.

Also, who is this Dezzmont? I am clearly Dezmont, totally different person and not at all the same or just Dezzmont accidently making a typo in his own screename on the official forums like a goof, very good myessss?



But also it isn't invalid, like I said, to just abandon 5e and restructure the system entirely so you can do new things. Even 5e D&D is fundementally very different than 3.5 despite being based on its bones. I want to be clear I am assigning the problem not to 'change bad' but 'change attempting to fix something perceived as a problem without understanding or addressing the underlying problems likely makes bad thing worse.'
« Last Edit: <06-08-20/2339:53> by dezmont »

Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #25 on: <06-09-20/0008:02> »
Perception is reality in branding. If you like the new edge system, good on ya. I am... sincerely confused at that, because it is hard to justify what it actually helps (It increases the time it takes to resolve combat and increases the amount of information tracked but reduces how important this information actually is), but I enjoy systems that are like... actually objectively totally broken rather than just designed in a questionable way, which means no one should take my opinion seriously for anything.

However, 6e as a brand is in a horrific spot, in the objective sense. Regardless of what you think of the quality of a game, it can end up here. 4e D&D was kinda low key great but ended up here, for example, despite now most people agreeing it was actually pretty good (and it influencing a LOT of games).

So, divorcing your mind from if SR6 is actually good or not (that, in a weird way, doesn't super matter. Exalted was bad and yet was crazy popular until it got into grimness porn) there is an unfortunate reality that... the market just doesn't feel anything about it anymore. When your community essentially rises up and has a rage spiral, it doesn't really matter if you think its justified or not because after their anger can't be sustained anymore if you don't make structural changes to bring them back to 'like' they aren't going to think about you at ALL. Losing relevance as a brand is terrifying, which is what SR6 managed to do.



I think the difference I see in the comparison to 4e D&D is even when it was active while a lot of people didn't like it, it was for the most part mathematically sound and seen that way.  They gave enemies too many HP and in the 2nd and 3rd tiers of play the ABs were 1 to less than they should be but otherwise the math of the system pretty much worked. 1 doesn't sound like much but round over round it adds up.  Still while it didn't have the feel people liked, I think even people who didn't like it understood it was a mechanically sound system. Despite how much I push for solid rules on some level this shows that getting the math right isn't everything. Here, I think they are neither nailing the feel, and the math is pretty damn far off.

I think everything else you wrote makes sense, but sometimes the numbers are better than they seem to outsiders. Maybe the catalyst game store sells a lot more than drive through etc. I suspect you are right, but you never know.

Marcus

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« Reply #26 on: <06-09-20/0040:01> »
+1 Dezmont very well reasoned.

I love 4e DnD and always have. No system is perfect and certainly 4e had it's share of flaws. But it taught so many good lessons, and i think it easiest version dnd to run ever.

I really hope the numbers aren't that bad. But it's easy to see why we don't hear much if they are that bad.
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« Reply #27 on: <06-09-20/0222:23> »
It's fine to not like the AR/DR/Edge mechanic.  Some people think of pineapple on pizza as a travesty as well.  Me, I like both.  And I respect that sometimes other people don't.

However, it's kind of a stretch to expect CGL to have used FS as a means to change the direction of 6th ed's mechanics.  Of course they weren't going to do that.
The extension books were never going to be Shadowrun Essentials. At best you get more finesse to blunt instrument rules, or extra options, or optional rules. But they're not going to completely overhaul the mechanic of the same edition.
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dezmont

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« Reply #28 on: <06-09-20/0306:53> »

I really hope the numbers aren't that bad. But it's easy to see why we don't hear much if they are that bad.

To be fair, you don't advertise failure unless your pullin a Dominos, which was a very clever PR judo move which SR probably is going to have to take due to how entrenched the brand perception is. When your negative brand perception has become so entrenched it is a repeated target for joking in the community to the point people actively seek out excuses to make jokes at your brand's expense (Ex: Cata editor jokes) then... you kinda are screwed.

The extension books were never going to be Shadowrun Essentials. At best you get more finesse to blunt instrument rules, or extra options, or optional rules. But they're not going to completely overhaul the mechanic of the same edition.

I dunno. They are in a tough spot because it is hard to imagine 6e turning around at this point sales wise, the numbers are just so low and stories and news about it get extremely low engagement that it is in a deathspiral at this point.

5e managed to turn itself around near the end specifically because Opti did a great job of coopting a lot of anger and redirecting it into actionable points, essentially doing some qualitative research for SR which SR hasn't done before. 5e went from one of the lowest points of relationship with the community (frankly over something dumb, but that is how it goes sometimes when the outrage is merely a symptom of more fundemental issues) to a pretty good one. I don't think that will work with 6e due to a lot of the surrounding issues (people have, essentially, resolved not to like it, and while you can say it is intellectually dishonest, at a certain point consumers are going to stop performing exploratatory purchases of your product and create justifications to refuse to continue to engage with you if their needs are repeatedly not met) and some sort of 6e essentials or anniversary edition is going to be necessary for this.

It just is fundamentally hard for me to imagine what would make the fan community come back, a lot of the traditional tools game companies use (like dev dairies, weekly articles, ect, to foster a positive community relationship) won't work if people just do not care anymore. Once people already have made up their minds to the point of basically not engaging with you in good faith, as frustrating as it is, no attempt to earn good will without basically making a sacrificial gesture is going to work. People aren't going to be interested in what you have to say unless you validate their decision to not pay attention to you while in the same breath saying you made structural changes and it would be different this time baby, I swear, lets just forget the past and run for the sunset enjoying our new, totally reworked Dominos crust that doesn't suck and joking about how dumb the cookie pizza idea was.

That sounds pretty bad. It is worse than it sounds because I agree with an assumption you have that SR would fall with CGL (though not the conclusion that we should unconditionally support CGl as a result, loving something unconditionally is just loving it in a sad and toxic way, the SR you fell in love with will ALWAYS exist and you don't need new SR products that you may or may not like for that to be the case. People still play RIFTs, those freaks!).

Right now we are in the middle of what is likely an RPG bubble, multiple game companies have shut down or are shuttering their RPG departments, such as FFG which is an absolute market titan. FFG soft-core closed its RPG divison. Paizo already has a scifi fantasy setting. WOTC does not want to make a second system to compete with itself and learned not to buy settings with a fanbase who is attached to its legacy from L5R.

So like... what... Maybe Steve Jackson Games buys SR to make it a setting in GURPS? Not the worst outcome, not the best, but not likely. So, ideally, CGL about faces and does something dramatic. Rebrand SR6 as Anarchy 2e? Make a new SR edition that is a reboot of 5e? Just go back to 5e? (I mean Traveller did that when it was really clear Trav 5 was bonkers terrible and aborted back to Mongoose Traveller).

But the big take away is, yes, we actually probably should expect some big shakeup, it is pretty reasonable in this environment.

It is also important to note while the extension books don't historically change the game in SR, they do in other games. A good example is how despite having cybernetic rules in core, the Traveller cybernetic rules book totally converts the game (Down to rules to play it, I kid you not, in the Judge Dredd universe). Same for its psi book (totally new systems including ways to run it as a different setting despite Trav PSI powers being a specific thing, because if psi isn't 'executions' tier illegal it needs to be weaker), its merchant book (Rules for companies and long term projects, though because trade rules are very legacy and core in Trav this didn't change a lot), combat book ect. Gurps also tends to do this. SR, as a very established world, historically has cleaved hard to a unified rules module, but there is precident for the combat book in an RPG line saying 'ok if you use these optional advanced rules everything works different now.' I didn't expect this, but it may be one avenue for changes to be made that CGL can point to to try to 'listen to the fans.'


I think the difference I see in the comparison to 4e D&D is even when it was active while a lot of people didn't like it, it was for the most part mathematically sound and seen that way.

This is the wrong way to think about it. 4e was hated in its time, people made fun of so many mechanical aspects of it (PC death was really hard despite that being basically a feature of 90% of RPGs on the market now, there were things like blade cascade memes, MMO memes, fighter once per day memes, ect). The truth of criticisms of the system, however, is a profoundly incorrect way to think about it. 4e did well (to, again, the point it basically changed RPG design permanently for the better) but it did significantly worse than 3.5 purely due to brand perception, which is why after a lot of effort to keep it going WOTC made a huge effort to make 5e evoke 3.5.


Maybe the catalyst game store sells a lot more than drive through etc. I suspect you are right, but you never know.

I would be shocked to the point I would say its impossible but freak occurances happen. For some reason the CGL store literally has an anti-bot filter where you need to type Catalyst to get in right now, to get perspective on how utterly out of the way it is. CGL's website has essentially no traffic, and no presence on google when searching any of its brands. While someone could get to buy it from the official store from this site, remember this site has a 60% bounce rate, an extremely low visit rate, and doesn't show up on the shopping tab either. People who use the forums may be inclined to hit that big button up there (but while we are here, I am not a web designer, but I know a bad banner advertisement when I see one. Looks too much like a background, not enough like something telling me I can purchase something). The real place that it may be doing better is Amazon, simply due to its prevalence on google when doing test icognito searches so that google doesn't know I am liable to want to come here or go to reddit.
« Last Edit: <06-09-20/0340:18> by dezmont »

Lormyr

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« Reply #29 on: <06-09-20/0657:07> »
I don't like D&D 5e very much but it makes gangbusters cash with tons of lucrative 3rd party deals based on mega popular IPs and so many books that are just flying off the shelves that they basically decided to leave RPG drivethru because they were doing so well they could just ignore a middle man, my feelings on 5e as a product are totally irrelevant when talking about its success as a product. No matter how much I don't like 5e D&D its a success.

I completely agree on both points. I also don't care for the system - it's alright, it's just...really boring to me. It is successful as a mofo, however.

You guys are killing me that that 4e talk though! :p That edition was easily my most disliked game I have ever played. It felt like I was trying to play a bad cookie cutter mmo as a table top game. All gimmick, no substance.
"TL:DR 6e's reduction of meaningful choices is akin to forcing everyone to wear training wheels. Now it's just becomes a bunch of toddlers riding around on tricycles they can't fall off of." - Adzling