Quote from: Winterblight;1086232My beef with 5th Edition was that it was impossible to find actual rules when you needed them. I spent a couple of days combing through character creation before I had a fully completed character, it wore me out from day one. When you could find a rule you needed, it would say see page XX and when you went to page XX it would say see Page X... The rules were scattered all throughout the book and it just became unplayable.

Agreed. The rulebook was a dumpster fire. The thing that really annoyed me was that the rulebook used symbols before definition, with no nearby way to resolve what the symbols meant. I think the mechanics themselves were okay-ish, with enough crunch to be satisfying and enough obvious intent to do sane house ruling on the fly. What sucked was just trying to answer any specific question because the structure of the rules was not what it could have been.

Not to mention that the binding was also so crappy. I am gentle to a fault with my books, and my 5e rulebook has pages nigh unto falling out because of very cautious rule lookups.

My probably wrong but nevertheless strong impression using the rulebook was always that if someone had stopped smoking weed long enough to actually do a pedantic edit of the structure the thing, 5e would've been amazing. As a result I am ambivalent on 6e -- I would've been all-in on a purchase of a more careful rulebook, but stripping out a bunch of interesting bits because writing a coherent rulebook is too hard? Meh.

That said, my Shadowrun party is hyped for 6e because "oh, we can swag stuff without feeling like we should've paused to tackle the herculean task of finding effing anything in our disintegrating 5e rulebooks? Yay!", which I can't fault them for. OTOH, we could always just play cyberpunk FATE.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1086395Or sometimes even the physical intrusion. I've seen groups where 2-3 characters are made for that and the rest stay home being "the guys/gals in a chair/van" so they don't catch bullets. Again, it makes in-world sense, but it's a pain in the ass to play & run.

Yep I've seen that sort of thing too. They did sort of (via AR) bring hackers into the real world stuff more. They need to extend that idea further I think. If it were up to me, I'd require all hacking of higher security systems to be made with a physical hard wire connection (make up some techno fluff to explain it), and I'd get rid of astral travel altogether (astral sight can stay). You then sort of force the team to play together. Sacrifice a bit of realism (SR realism haha!) for gameplay.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1086480Yep I've seen that sort of thing too. They did sort of (via AR) bring hackers into the real world stuff more. They need to extend that idea further I think. If it were up to me, I'd require all hacking of higher security systems to be made with a physical hard wire connection (make up some techno fluff to explain it), and I'd get rid of astral travel altogether (astral sight can stay). You then sort of force the team to play together. Sacrifice a bit of realism (SR realism haha!) for gameplay.

I posted this on facebook:

You know, with 6e coming out, I think there is a missed opportunity to Sci-Fi the tech up a little, while still keeping cyber-decks. Difference between the deck and a com? Slight size variation, for more hardware. Can be worn anywhere a large modern phone could be--comms are MUCH smaller. Imagine a shaped, curved screen bracer or small rectangular box--it does everything a com does--and some companies make a fortune selling deck-knock offs that are just comms and vice-versa.

Yet, you can jack in physically to the Cyberdeck unit, or use a PAN that only runs along your skin surface (you plug in the special earpiece that looks like the old ear hugging outside hearing aids, just sleeker.

But it is still a deck..hidden in it or extendable cables for jacking into harder security/hardwired connections. Things without LANS. (For smart security E-forces.) Or can be used like a comm to hit a secured but open broadcast network.

Difference is? A deck brings up an augmented 3-D holographic or true holographic keyboard and screen. Depending on how obvious you want to be--its deck sized, full-featured, does all the stuff new decks will do. It just still "small" on the outside. (Inspired loosely by the omni tool) but it has advantages as well, it can spoof biometric scanners by projecting special layovers for your hands and eyes. (Might need gloves or contacts for that, not sure.)

So you get decks, but you've moved the technology up even more. I mean if you have stupid E-security a 9-year-old with a good comm, or low-end deck can crack it, but if it's smart e-securtiy, you may still need to go jack in from your decks base unit (or touch it with just a finger or hand, depending on the physical device your connecting too.)

Advantages are you can shut off the overall Matrix while on site (because tech can scan for open Matrix users), and be virtually invisible to new scan tech. (Also keeps workers from surfing or downloading porn trids at work.)

Also biometric elements, AND if needed you don't just download Easy-Ice Hammer 3.4, but write your own code to jam up the worst black ice.

Still has weaknesses of Black ice being able to damage you, but that's why any runner make sure to have good defenses.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1086390The issue has always been that there are (supposedly--I've never seen any in my groups in the 10+ years we played) that like decking/hacking and that there are entire archetypes devoted to it. This is similar to the magicians that enjoy their astral adventuring, but the big difference is that most magicians can still contribute to meat-space combat and challenges far more than deckers/hackers can. They might be going in the right direction by having rigging (drone & vehicle control) be an aspect of deckers/hackers rather than its own thing, but that didn't get a lot of love. In any event, Shadowrun suffers in playability by having so many different 'worlds' the characters have to operate in because every SR adventure almost requires splitting the party to accomplish missions. It makes sense in-world, but it has always been a pain in the ass to play or (especially) to run.

This.

If certain character aspects have their own mini games within the larger game, then they either need to be dialed back or let go.

SR has stayed around because people seem to like the concepts behind it and want to adventure in that world.

But on the PC level IMHO there is just too much going on. Lots of simplifying and streamlining to do that can make it a better overall game. With a much easier rules buy-in for new players.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1086480Yep I've seen that sort of thing too. They did sort of (via AR) bring hackers into the real world stuff more. They need to extend that idea further I think. If it were up to me, I'd require all hacking of higher security systems to be made with a physical hard wire connection (make up some techno fluff to explain it), and I'd get rid of astral travel altogether (astral sight can stay). You then sort of force the team to play together. Sacrifice a bit of realism (SR realism haha!) for gameplay.

This too.

SR rules should be about Genre emulation and increased speed of play.

Astral travel gone. Hacker/Rigger combined. Physical hard-wire connections are in. Techno fluff for the win.

Magic - Simplified. One type, works one way. Mage/Sorcerer(y) some cools bits of conjuration/rituals can be added in for flavor and variety. This will have to be done with en eye to matching the setting fluff as well (rewrite as needed.)

I think a new edition can be cool - but it would take more change than simply cut and pasting rules from the previous edition and adding other poorly play-tested bits in *cough* 5e *cough*.

Quite frankly, they could have kept the 3e rules as their base for this. But for some reason they have fallen into the trap of adding stuff to "fix" things.

The classic: "...if the new edition has more page count than the last one, it must be better! Right?" school of RPG design...

The general consensus on r/shadowrun is that 6e is a dumpster fire, and nobody there has any faith in Catalyst being able to design and edit such a game anyway. Sadly I agree.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1086441The recoil rules made combat more of a pain in the ass, hacking got wirse with the mark system and having to track all that more complicated (which funnily enough was the opposite of intentions) and you had to buy two splats to get everything in one last edition.

So no, 5th was not an improvement.

And that's without getting into political issues like turning the Ork Underground into BLM.

Ork Lives Matter.

jg

Quote from: Psikerlord;1086480Yep I've seen that sort of thing too. They did sort of (via AR) bring hackers into the real world stuff more. They need to extend that idea further I think. If it were up to me, I'd require all hacking of higher security systems to be made with a physical hard wire connection (make up some techno fluff to explain it), and I'd get rid of astral travel altogether (astral sight can stay). You then sort of force the team to play together. Sacrifice a bit of realism (SR realism haha!) for gameplay.

I think that they were trying to lean things in that direction by giving a little more options for Aspected magicians as opposed to "full" magicians, who are specifically listed as being a minority in the magic community. The difference? Only full magicians can astrally project.

jg

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1086609The general consensus on r/shadowrun is that 6e is a dumpster fire, and nobody there has any faith in Catalyst being able to design and edit such a game anyway. Sadly I agree.

So just more SR as usual then.

Did they ever address the binding issues I heard about on the 5th ed core book or did they keep putting them out like that?  I won't touch the new version if they didn't.

Quote from: myleftnut;1086649Did they ever address the binding issues I heard about on the 5th ed core book or did they keep putting them out like that?  I won't touch the new version if they didn't.

They've removed binding for spirits in the new edition. Now it's just summoning.

Oh wait...

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1086776They've removed binding for spirits in the new edition. Now it's just summoning.

Oh wait...

I'm have expecting Binding to be removed because "something something White Male, something something Colonialism".

Release schedule.

https://www.catalystgamelabs.com/2019/05/08/preview-the-lineup-of-shadowrun-sixth-edition-rulebooks-sourcebooks-and-game-aids/

Looks good.