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Is/was Shadowrun the most widely played cyberpunk RPG?

Because if it is/was I find it very slightly sad that cyberpunk as a genre apparently needed a fantasy implant to make it big in tabletop.

From all accounts Cyberpunk 2020 was more played. But as Cyberpunk and Talsorian started to falter Shadowrun caught up. It may have passed it eventually. But I know a couple of cyberpunk genre fans who pass on Shadowrun because of the fantasy elements and stick to Cyberpunk 2020.

Really a YMMV thing.

But Id say that Shadowrun has had by far more media coverage. Three console games and probably a few dozen novels before 2001 ended.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;879484Because if it is/was I find it very slightly sad that cyberpunk as a genre apparently needed a fantasy implant to make it big in tabletop.

Its not that the fantasy elements were needed. The mix of fantasy and cyberpunk was the draw. It was so crazy a mix that it drew people. Theres also alot of fans of TORGs Cyberpapacy cosm. Cyberpunk+Inquisition. And Tharkhold cosm. Cyberpunk+Horror.

Its bound to beat out something more standard. Locally though all the players prefer Cyberpunk 2020 over Shadowrun.

It's really hard to get actual numbers. Frankly, I think most people who played Shadowrun set out to play Shadowrun, not to play a cyberpubk game. Those who did want to play a cyberpunk game probably played 2020 or GURPS Cyberpunk.

I have no hard numbers, but I saw more people actually playing Cyberpunk than Shadowrun, although Shadowrun had more public attention. Shadowrun felt like more of a conversation subject than a playable game.

In my neck of the woods and from the apocaphyral tales I've heard..

Cyberpunk 2020 started as the most played version...but ended up quickly getting surpassed by Shadowrun, partly because of a few factors..

1.) Rules
Cyberpunk's rules were much faster and lighter and ultimately more shallow....Shadowrun's rules were more complex but not utterly arcane...in an era when Geeks had less distractions, Shadowrun's complexity lent itself to a more interesting play dynamic..

2.) Focus
Yes, the magic was a big draw...but more than that, was the focus of what you did in Shadowrun vs what you did in Cyberpunk.... Cyberpunk was a much more 'open' game...You could play rockstars, detectives...gang members...you could play mercenaries, or corporate tycoons battling it out. The game was almost more 'social' than Shadowrun in many ways...

Shadowrun by contrast, had a veneer of being able to do the same sorts of things (Just look at the sample characters in 2nd edition) but at the end of the Day, Shadowrun was about doing one thing.....Shadowrunning, playing a group of mercenaries hired by corporations to get dirty jobs done..

In this sense, Cyberpunks verisimilitude worked against it. Shadowrun had the much more familiar set up that most RPG players are used too and is still used by most rpgs to this day...A group of eclectic troubleshooters who are hired to get things done...

Very different from a game that says, "How about we play a rockband this campaign, you can be the manager, you can be the security, the rest of us are the band members" to "Lets be Police this time, we'll be the detectives, you be the Swat Guy, you be the Forensic Guy, and you be the Police Hacker" that paralyzation of choice was present....even if most people did just play Edgerunners in the end.

3.) Backing
R.Talsorian games has mostly been a one man operation. Mike Pondsmith is one of the best RPG designers out there, but FASA had more resources because of MechWarrior and could end up hiring for better production values and to keep putting out more books...

Anyway, this could all be complete bunk on my part...but it's what seemed to be the case for why Shadowrun overtook Cyberpunk 2020 by the mid 90s..

Cyberpunk 2020 (or 2013 for that matter) was much more playable than Shadowrun 1.  Second edition came after and fixed a lot of things.   A lot of people in SoCal played Cyberpunk, but Shadowrun had a lot more going for it as far as novels, metaplot, tie-in to Earthdawn, just a lot more going on setting-wise and in the 90s, setting was king.

Cybergeneration and Cyberpunk3 just never went anywhere, while Shadowrun just kept getting bigger and bigger.  Add in computer and console games and Cyberpunk never had a chance to compete outside the tabletop and had way less name recognition.

Cyberpunk 2077 at least has the potential to bring it back in a big way IP-wise but that isn't going to necessarily translate to tabletop, but then with all the cocaine and whores Mike will have, he might not care. :D

In college, I played Shadowrun when it came out. Never even heard of anyone who played Cyberpunk, though I bought it when I saw it at the game store...I think more people probably played GURPS Cyberpunk.

Cyberpunk seemed archaic to me at the time. It had classes. It was set in 2013, which clearly was impossible.

I mean, you had to buy Shadowrun's premise with a huge grain of salt, but it was somewhat tied into modern myth, that 2012 stuff bringing the end of the world (or magic in this case) and the setting, 2050, was far enough into the future that they could make radical changes without being immediately dated. (Though both CP and SR ran into the USSR falling right quick)

And lastly, Cyberpunk's products seemed a bit, well, low quality. Ugly covers, cheap paper, ugly fonts, crappy artwork. For a game where the premise of the world is style above substance, they kinda completely missed it


edit: Actually lastly, Shadowrun was also by FASA, a fairly experienced company. Not only that, but they had started doing modules for Traveller. At least early on, most Traveller modules had the players being essentially Shadowrunners - paid thugs who will commit crimes for money (either hired or just looting a place).

We played both. I guess CP 2020 was more popular in Italy (Shadowrun was translated by a company that folded pretty soon), my players however preferred a game where you could toss grenades at dragons than being a Reservoir Dog in Corporate Dystopia.

I find it hard to believe that Cyberpunk 2020 is more widely played than Shadowrun. It may have been in the early 90s but from that point forward Shadowrun got more novels, adventures, videogames (by 94 there was 2 crpgs already), etc. even a TV advertisement.

What it says about the hobby is that we like fantasy too much. Cyberpunk, Hard Sci-fi and other genres will always come after it. From my part, the exotic blend of chrome and magic and the easy premise of shadowrunning was also a big factor, as Orphan81 explained above.

Quote from: Itachi;879532I find it hard to believe that Cyberpunk 2020 is more widely played than Shadowrun. It may have been in the early 90s but from that point forward Shadowrun got more novels, adventures, videogames (by 94 there was 2 crpgs already), etc. even a TV advertisement.

What it says about the hobby is that we like fantasy too much. Cyberpunk, Hard Sci-fi and other genres will always come after it. From my part, the exotic blend of chrome and magic and the easy premise of shadowrunning was also a big factor, as Orphan81 explained above.

If that were true then Traveller would have never gotten the traction its had. Or Battletech for that matter.

The real trick here is I think that often Shadowruns fantasy side was downplayed in an interesting way that made it work where something more blatant would have failed. And even so theres lots of folks who flat out will not touch Shadowrun because of the fantasy elements.

As for the novels and games. As we know from other multimedia games. There is sometimes not as much crossover as we might like to think.

Omega, while Traveller was really big in the 80s, nowadays it seems really small compared to games like D&D, Pathfinder, World of Darkness or Shadowrun (arguably the current big 4). And Battletech never had much traction in the roleplaying sphere, just on the boardgame one.

I suspect the biggest, pure, sci-fi game nowadays is Eclipse Phase. (which baffles me, as I find its rules unplayable lol ).

I think CP2020 did really, really well for a game put out by a small press operation - Mike Pondsmith really caught bottled lighting with that and Mekton II.

I think, however, it was doomed to lose traction over time to Shadowrun as Shadowrun's production values outpaced it. The downright horrible botch which was Cyberpunk 3 didn't help either. (Indeed, as I understand it Cyberpunk 3 is now unhistory and the R. Talsorian shop sells Cyberpunk 2020 instead.)

Quote from: Omega;879533And even so theres lots of folks who flat out will not touch Shadowrun because of the fantasy elements.

I wasn't turned off because it added fantasy but because of what flavor of fantasy it added... standard fantasy races like dwarves, dragons, trolls.
Other cyberpunk games that added horror elements were of more interest to me and I did pick up some of the Shadowrun books that featured the bugs (Invai).

I'm sorry to say that the answer seems to be positive.

Quote from: Orphan81;879504

I think you're right. Shadowrun was a complex rule system when games like GURPS and other crunchy things were becoming serious contenders (and pointlessly complex games like Aftermath were becoming distant memories). That level of knobs and dials to fiddle with was seen as a feature, and not a bug (frankly, I think they were until fatigue with GURSP 3 and then D&D 3.x set in).

Likewise, the focus was there, and was simple. Yes, you were in modern times, and you could be a street mage, a street samurai, a decker, or a vehicle guy, but you were still focusing on infiltration and fighting (sometimes VR programs, but it was still combat by another name). CP 2020 was much more open and it figuring out how to roleplay a futuristic rockstar or something was a greater leap from the existent view of what one gamed.

I also think the fantasy element probably helped it, in that it could be thought of as a alternate (classless and levelless, which was also in vogue at the time) D&D, just with guns and cars. You could still have your elves and trolls and wizards, just with cyberware (which, fluff aside, were magic items that you could take at character creation).

Quote from: Simlasa;879550I wasn't turned off because it added fantasy but because of what flavor of fantasy it added... standard fantasy races like dwarves, dragons, trolls.
Other cyberpunk games that added horror elements were more of more interest to me and I did pick up some of the Shadowrun books that featured the bugs (Invai).

I liked some of the twists Shadowrun put on the standard fantasy races. Especially the trolls and orcs who pretty much were just really ugly very strong humans at the end of the day. Probably because many were human before changing.

But yeah. They could have gone in other directions. But perhaps the familliarity helped. WEG went inquisition with the Cyberpapacy and TSR went superheroes with Free LANCERS.

FASA's glitzier production and connections to multiple media had to have helped alot too. Especially the broader connections.

Quote from: Omega;879570But yeah. They could have gone in other directions. But perhaps the familliarity helped. WEG went inquisition with the Cyberpapacy and TSR went superheroes with Free LANCERS.

I was always intrigued by (but never got to play) Mayfair's Underground... which probably doesn't quite qualify as 'cyberpunk' but still felt in the general ballpark in terms of my interest in near-future dystopias mixed with low-level supers.

The level of popularity a game has is mainly a source of annoyance for me, when games I don't personally like get mobs of fans and games I do like don't get so much. But not much annoyance, as long as there are people to play the ones I do like. In fact, it's often nice when the games I do like don't get the attention of the unwashed mob.

So I don't know or particularly care how many people like or play Shadowrun versus Cyberpunk. As a GURPS player, I was mildly interested in GURPS Cyberpunk, but used very little material from that book, and when I ran or player Sci Fi games, things rarely went very far in those directions. Shadowrun seems like a clever idea that caught on, and that I really don't want to play or know more about than I already involuntarily do. I do see that it still seems to have a bunch of newbie mainstream players, and I haven't heard people talking about Cyberpunk 2020 (or GURPS Cyberpunk) in a long time.

As a barely interested taxonomist, or just as far as my personal thinking on the subject goes, it seems to me that Shadowrun is not Cyberpunk per se, it's hybrid Fantasy/modern... I didn't even know some people considered it Cyberpunk. Can you play Shadowrun as a computer geek who ignores reality and just does virtual reality hacking and stuff?

In my neck of Vancouver Shadowrun was the only thing we played.  The fantasy elements and "high-tech dungeon crawl" paired with the Pacific Northwest setting which is familiar to us made it really easy to get people into.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;879484Is/was Shadowrun the most widely played cyberpunk RPG?

Because if it is/was I find it very slightly sad that cyberpunk as a genre apparently needed a fantasy implant to make it big in tabletop.

It is precisely the "Fantasy Implant" that made me hate Shadowrun.

As a teen, I ran several adventures using CyberAge, a standalone system published by French RPG Magazine Casus Belli. Loved it and it had all the tropes I needed to have a good time.

Other than that, our group played Cyberpunk (2020). I recall an attempt in High School where one of our friends wanted to run a campaign of Shadowrun for us, and the fantasy stuff just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Quote from: SkargAs a barely interested taxonomist, or just as far as my personal thinking on the subject goes, it seems to me that Shadowrun is not Cyberpunk per se, it's hybrid Fantasy/modern... I didn't even know some people considered it Cyberpunk.

I find Shadowrun more cyberpunk than Cyberpunk 2020. This may sound crazy but I find its fantastical elements enforce the kind of dystopias seen in staple works of the genre in ways that I find lacking in CP2020. Metahuman prejudice, Amerindian prejudice, the barrens, magic based on "evil" beliefs (voodoo, shamanism, etc), etc while the corps rule the day from their steel mirrored towers. The actual elements differ from the ones seen in Blade Runner or Snow Crash or Sprawl Trilogy, but the feeling of desperation and social collapse is as strong (or more) to me.

QuoteCan you play Shadowrun as a computer geek who ignores reality and just does virtual reality hacking and stuff?

Yes, it's perfectly possible. The matrix rules are structured and dense enough to allow for, say, a deckers-only group. (some say these rules are too structured and dense, in fact, to the point of disrupting the rest of the game lol )

Quote from: Orphan81;879504In my neck of the woods and from the apocaphyral tales I've heard..

Cyberpunk 2020 started as the most played version...but ended up quickly getting surpassed by Shadowrun, partly because of a few factors..

1.) Rules
Cyberpunk's rules were much faster and lighter and ultimately more shallow....Shadowrun's rules were more complex but not utterly arcane...in an era when Geeks had less distractions, Shadowrun's complexity lent itself to a more interesting play dynamic..

2.) Focus
Yes, the magic was a big draw...but more than that, was the focus of what you did in Shadowrun vs what you did in Cyberpunk.... Cyberpunk was a much more 'open' game...You could play rockstars, detectives...gang members...you could play mercenaries, or corporate tycoons battling it out. The game was almost more 'social' than Shadowrun in many ways...

Shadowrun by contrast, had a veneer of being able to do the same sorts of things (Just look at the sample characters in 2nd edition) but at the end of the Day, Shadowrun was about doing one thing.....Shadowrunning, playing a group of mercenaries hired by corporations to get dirty jobs done..

In this sense, Cyberpunks verisimilitude worked against it. Shadowrun had the much more familiar set up that most RPG players are used too and is still used by most rpgs to this day...A group of eclectic troubleshooters who are hired to get things done...

Very different from a game that says, "How about we play a rockband this campaign, you can be the manager, you can be the security, the rest of us are the band members" to "Lets be Police this time, we'll be the detectives, you be the Swat Guy, you be the Forensic Guy, and you be the Police Hacker" that paralyzation of choice was present....even if most people did just play Edgerunners in the end.

3.) Backing
R.Talsorian games has mostly been a one man operation. Mike Pondsmith is one of the best RPG designers out there, but FASA had more resources because of MechWarrior and could end up hiring for better production values and to keep putting out more books...

Anyway, this could all be complete bunk on my part...but it's what seemed to be the case for why Shadowrun overtook Cyberpunk 2020 by the mid 90s..

Sounds about right to me. All of the points you made actually have zero to do with the Fantasy mash-up elements, so now I'm wondering how feasible it would be to use Shadowrun without the dreaded (for some of us) fantasy elements.

Quote from: Itachi;879595I find Shadowrun more cyberpunk than Cyberpunk 2020.

You and I have different ideas of what "cyberpunk" is, or a totally different reading of the source material, or I don't know what.
Mind, I'm not disputing that it works like that for you, just saying that it was the opposite for me:).

Of course, I also feel both lose to the less-known Fates Worse Than Death;).

Since I don't think we're going to see a representative poll I can say this: I first came across Cyberpunk 2020 in a tiny comic shop in New York.This was an easy buy for me and instantly appealing. We played several campaigns over the next few years before moving to Las Vegas. It took a few months to find a gaming group, and I found them in a library by overhearing them trying to decipher the almost Byzantine rules of 1st Edition Shadowrun.  

As I integrated with this new gaming group I saw the appeal of Shadowrun's  mechanical intricacy and how to arrange your character. Actually, I think Shadowrun, and GURPS may have been my introduction to Min/Maxing. After playing with the group for a few months I tried to introduce them to Cyberpunk 2020 but the general consensus was that the game felt antiquated, albeit with several great one liners.

Over the years I met a number of other gamers that were either pro Cyberpunk or pro Shadowrun. What seemed to be consistent was their preference ran with whichever game they were exposed to first. Although, I did find a few cyberpunk purests that wouldn't touch Shadowrun due to magic.

Personally, I preferred Cyberpunk 2020, but that was what I was exposed to first.

Quote from: JeremyR;879521And lastly, Cyberpunk's products seemed a bit, well, low quality. Ugly covers, cheap paper, ugly fonts, crappy artwork. For a game where the premise of the world is style above substance, they kinda completely missed it

I don't know about this. One thing that the CP2020 rulebook, and a lot of its supplements did, was capture that almost gonzo/future shock vibe very well. I actually got drawn into cyberpunk as a genre through the game, rather than the other way around.

I liked the GURPs supplement, but it didn't really have much flavor.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;879484Is/was Shadowrun the most widely played cyberpunk RPG?

Because if it is/was I find it very slightly sad that cyberpunk as a genre apparently needed a fantasy implant to make it big in tabletop.

The fantasy stuff really killed my interest in Shadowrun as a setting. Cyberpunk is somewhat predicated on being reality based (that is, the imagined furture was predicated on reality). Adding tolkienesque fantasy elements to it is too jarring.

 CthuluPunk, though, that was an interesting mixture. I think that sci-fi and horror mix very well.

I wouldn't really classify Shadowrun as Cyberpunk. Its more like Urban Fantasy with cyberpunk elements like cyberware and decking due to its heavy reliance on magic and creatures due to its link to Earthdawn.

I know Cyberpunk 2020 was much more popular before Shadowrun's mid-90s breakout.

I am looking forward to seeing what Ted does with the genre. He is working on creating an Interface Zero/Shadowrun Cyberpunk/Urban Fantasy game for Savage Worlds. Although, it is sort of weird that he has been working on it for like three months now to tweak it just right. At some point you gotta throw your vision out there to the wolves...I mean players lol.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;879607I liked the GURPs supplement, but it didn't really have much flavor.

FIXED took all the flavor of GURPS Cyberpunk, guess it was suspicious looking.

Quote from: Itachi;879532What it says about the hobby is that we like fantasy too much. Cyberpunk, Hard Sci-fi and other genres will always come after it.

Quote from: Omega;879533If that were true then Traveller would have never gotten the traction its had.

No, that has been my experience. The vast majority of gamers know what D&D and Pathfinder are, but when you ask them about Traveller, you usually get blank stares.

There is also a disconnect between what the internet finds popular and what the Real World finds popular. The internet thinks that Eclipse Phase is at the top of SFRPGs while the Real World thinks that FFG's Star Wars is the top SFRPG.

Shadowrun was kinda it's own thing. Cyber enough, but it really didn't scratch the itch compared to full body conversions, etc. The whole essence thing kinda mehhed me.

That said, Shadowrun was fun, if cumbersome.

I migrated from Cyberpunk 2020 to Gurps Cyberpunk games. Then...well the genre kinda died out after the late 90's mecha game craze.

I was using Tri-State for some cyberstuff before the market dried up.

Shadowrun in some fashion just kept chugging along.

I was playing Shadowrun when it was first released. I'd never even heard of Cyberpunk 2020 until the late 90s when I saw it on the internet.

Shadowrun was in Waldenbooks, and that's what got me to notice it.

Quote from: danbuter;879673I was playing Shadowrun when it was first released. I'd never even heard of Cyberpunk 2020 until the late 90s when I saw it on the internet.

Shadowrun was in Waldenbooks, and that's what got me to notice it.

This is probably the biggest advantage Shadowrun had. Marketing. They were all over at conventions and on book shelves. While Talsorian was sometimes nearly a cypher as to what they had out.

On the other hand Cyberpunk spawned one of the most popular CCGs after Magic. But then that was a collaboration with WOTC and a rocky one at that. Whereas Shadowruns CCG is pretty much forgotten. And Netrunner was recently re-released as a non-CCG by FFG and took off again while Shadowruns new card game is again mostly forgotten.

Omega, the new Netrunner has no connection with Cyberpunk 2020.

In my neck of the woods, each edition of Shadowrun saw less play of the game. Fans were just buying the books as collectors (cool art inside!). Cyberpunk as a whole was becoming boring for most players. GURPS and 2020 were early casualties. You could count the number of good cyberpunk novels on one hand. Steampunk was more popular by far soon after.

Quote from: Itachi;879770Omega, the new Netrunner has no connection with Cyberpunk 2020.

Did I say it did?

The FFG Netrunner is the original Netrunner with all the Cyberpunk 2020 refferences removed and shifted to FFGs Android setting.

Quote from: Shawn DriscollCyberpunk as a whole was becoming boring for most players. GURPS and 2020 were early casualties. You could count the number of good cyberpunk novels on one hand. Steampunk was more popular by far soon after.

Again, the dominance of fantasy elements over science elements, even in how we interpret technology.

Quote from: Omega;879774The FFG Netrunner is the original Netrunner with all the Cyberpunk 2020 refferences removed and shifted to FFGs Android setting.

And the Android setting, tellingly, has a setting book* but no actual RPG. Perhaps Fantasy Flights evaluated the feasibility of a straight cyberpunk RPG and decided it wasn't worth it. Which is sad. (Or maybe not, perhaps it would have been another funky-dice nightmare.)

* https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/the-worlds-of-android/
Notice how the tagline is "The World Changed, people did not," and they double down on that point in the marketing copy - not even the courage to fully embrace the transhumanism inherent in up-to-date cyberpunk.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;879786And the Android setting, tellingly, has a setting book* but no actual RPG. Perhaps Fantasy Flights evaluated the feasibility of a straight cyberpunk RPG and decided it wasn't worth it. Which is sad. (Or maybe not, perhaps it would have been another funky-dice nightmare.)

Part of that may be a slight to Talsorian as the collaboration with WOTC was not exactly an amiable one. Excising anything CP2020 related was the only way Garriot could have sold the game to FFG and still retain the general feel.

That is though all irrelevant to weather or not a pure cyberpunk setting is feasable. Moreso because there are several different views on what cyberpunk even is. Just because it hasnt taken off doesnt mean its not viable. WOTCs DeathNet could have taken off if they had spun it off into its own book. Or not.

What year is wi-fi invented in Shadowrun? I seem to remember much groaning when players bought old editions of the setting.

What year in continuity, or as in what edition and its published year?

According to a friend who loves Shadowrun. The edition where they introduce wireless wasnt all that great due to some issue with how wireless was used?

What was so bad about it?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;879971What year in continuity, or as in what edition and its published year?

What year in the setting. Thus, the groaning part.

I believe they advanced the story 10 years when wi-fi was introduced. After the events of Dunkelzahns apparent demise? That was 2057? So probably some time after that in the timeline?

The wireless Matrix kicked in in 2070.

Wireless was a thinly veiled attempt at giving hackers combat relevance, because they could hack vehicles, cyberware, everything.

Makes perfect sense if your natural response to the second crash of the global network would be to make everything on earth plug into the third iteration of the matrix wirelessly thus eliminating the one last security feature you had. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Celestial;880135The wireless Matrix kicked in in 2070.

Yes and no.  Augmented Reality kicked in in 2070 but the wireless matrix had been around a lot longer.  3rd edition really started to break the doors open on wireless hacking and the Matrix book published in 2000 really expanded the rules.  Of course in 2000 no one even used Google yet and Youtube, Facebook, etc were all still science-fiction that no one saw the point of.  Those things at least existed when SR4 came out in 2005 so we had a frame of reference to build around but even then AR seemed like magicy bullshit at the time because most people still didn't have cellphones and tablets weren't a thing yet.  Again there was no frame of reference for those of us at the table to really understand the impact of these technologies.  It's ridiculously crazy how much things have changed in the past 10 years of real life -- it's hard to even remember how backward we used to be.

This was of course back when Shadowrun was still a vital game with decent to great writers working on it and some sort of actual editorial vision and competence to direct it.  Now it's fallen into the White Wolf trap of being navel-gazing bullshit.

Quote from: Itachi;879546Omega, while Traveller was really big in the 80s, nowadays it seems really small compared to games like D&D, Pathfinder, World of Darkness or Shadowrun (arguably the current big 4). And Battletech never had much traction in the roleplaying sphere, just on the wargame one.

I suspect the biggest, pure, sci-fi game nowadays is Eclipse Phase. (which baffles me, as I find its rules unplayable lol ).

fixed that for you

Quote from: Skarg;879579at Shadowrun is not Cyberpunk per se, it's hybrid Fantasy/modern... I didn't even know some people considered it Cyberpunk. Can you play Shadowrun as a computer geek who ignores reality and just does virtual reality hacking and stuff?

as it was all ready said yes yes you can and yes its defiantly cyberpunk of a form though its closer to what most ppl call tv or video game cyberpunk then what you find in novels

Quote from: Mostlyjoe;879664Shadowrun was kinda it's own thing. Cyber enough, but it really didn't scratch the itch compared to full body conversions, etc. The whole essence thing kinda mehhed me.

That said, Shadowrun was fun, if cumbersome.

I migrated from Cyberpunk 2020 to Gurps Cyberpunk games. Then...well the genre kinda died out after the late 90's mecha game craze.

I was using Tri-State for some cyberstuff before the market dried up.

Shadowrun in some fashion just kept chugging along.

actually i think thats part of why its stayed popular its just different enough

Quote from: kosmos1214;880702actually i think thats part of why its stayed popular its just different enough

Since when is that a guarantee for success in RPGdom:D?

And I just want to ask the Shadowrun fans a question. Seriously, guys, how do you even deal with the system? I tried to run an adventure for Free RPG Day, and three hours later, after finishing the first firefight, the group just decided unanimously to not even approach it any more. Even the D&D veterans seemed to have a dicerolling overload.

Then we switched to a different system and continued with the same characters, managing to finish a full run in the time allotted for the session. But that's another story, which might be told some other time;).

I DMed 1st Ed and it was pretty easy. But I totally botched a few details and had to rewind after accidentally exterminating the runners through my own mistake.

I played as a player extensively with 2nd ed. Went pretty well really. Though I actually played the whole time knowing nearly nothing of the mechanics behind what I was doing.

Quote from: CRKrueger;880138Makes perfect sense if your natural response to the second crash of the global network would be to make everything on earth plug into the third iteration of the matrix wirelessly thus eliminating the one last security feature you had. :rolleyes:

Decentralization was the general idea, make it impossible to actually crash the entire matrix again. The wireless stupidity was more commentary on exactly what people are doing now. Your toaster can have wireless connectivity, but I still wonder why you would. Hasn't stopped many people.

Quote from: MrHurst;880840Decentralization was the general idea, make it impossible to actually crash the entire matrix again. The wireless stupidity was more commentary on exactly what people are doing now. Your toaster can have wireless connectivity, but I still wonder why you would. Hasn't stopped many people.

White Wolf's d20 Gamma World (AKA: NanoWorld) took that to the Nth degree. Making fully sentient AI was absurdly easy. So they stuck the things in EVERYTHING. And so you have the toaster sitting there going quietly insane. Or the biotech in Amazing Engine's Kromosome where its used extensively, then too extensively.

Quote from: AsenRG;880831...

And I just want to ask the Shadowrun fans a question. Seriously, guys, how do you even deal with the system? I tried to run an adventure for Free RPG Day, and three hours later, after finishing the first firefight, the group just decided unanimously to not even approach it any more. Even the D&D veterans seemed to have a dicerolling overload.

Then we switched to a different system...

Despite running and playing 1st through 3rd, or perhaps even because of, I, like you stopped using the Shadowrun system and used another.  Gurps for a while, and Savage Worlds most recently.

I have the later editions main books, but the system actually got worse rather than better IMHO.

I never understood the Shadowrun love. I played 1e... but I'd been a big fan of cyberpunk sci-fi from the get-go, so it affected my ability to like the fantasy-elements. I found them... unnecessary... to run the kinds of games I was running. I felt like someone was trying to intrusively insert D&D-Fantasy into my Gibson-Williams-Rucker-Sterlingverse. So Shadowrun never left a positive impression on me nor my gaming circles in LA.

CP2013/2020 however was rabidly played by us. I met a lot of new gamers that I'm still in contact with to this day.

CP does a really good job of hitting the high-points of the genre. I noticed while most noobs were concerned with maximum-metal cybered-up murder-hobos, I ran games that really homed in on the unease of class-warfare and the realities of life in the end-zones of those spectrums. Especially when the game roamed outside of the cities into the wastelands in-between and on the edges.

So while I'm sure I could do this with Shadowrun, I never had enough interest back then to explore that. Most GM's that ran it in my circles just ran it like it was low-grade CP2020 w/magic (by my standards).

I've considered picking up the new Shadowrun... just to give it a fair shake... but never got around to it. But that Interface Zero is looking nice... and CP2077 is ever waiting in the wings (still waiting for the batsignal on that one)...

Quote from: AsenRG;880831Since when is that a guarantee for success in RPGdom:D?
snip

true but it makes it stand out in the crowd of cyberpunkesc rpgs

Quote from: MrHurst;880840Decentralization was the general idea, make it impossible to actually crash the entire matrix again. The wireless stupidity was more commentary on exactly what people are doing now. Your toaster can have wireless connectivity, but I still wonder why you would. Hasn't stopped many people.

or like the megaman battle network series every thing has a computer in it and is linked to the internet stoves and toilets included maybe theirs a reason cyber terrorism is such a problem.

Quote from: Brander;880931Despite running and playing 1st through 3rd, or perhaps even because of, I, like you stopped using the Shadowrun system and used another.  Gurps for a while, and Savage Worlds most recently.

I have the later editions main books, but the system actually got worse rather than better IMHO.

I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it was a 4e game when it started:D! If the system was getting worse, that might explain the experience.
I actually switched it to an extremely simplified 3d6 Fuzion/Unisystem/Synergy v2 hybrid, which reduced the average number of rounds in fights to 3 against cyborgs. But I was left wondering how people would deal with every session losing hours upon hours on a single fight:).

Quote from: tenbones;880936I never understood the Shadowrun love. I played 1e... but I'd been a big fan of cyberpunk sci-fi from the get-go, so it affected my ability to like the fantasy-elements. I found them... unnecessary... to run the kinds of games I was running. I felt like someone was trying to intrusively insert D&D-Fantasy into my Gibson-Williams-Rucker-Sterlingverse. So Shadowrun never left a positive impression on me nor my gaming circles in LA.

You and me both, FWIW:).

Quote from: kosmos1214;880947true but it makes it stand out in the crowd of cyberpunkesc rpgs

Not really, it doesn't.
It just excludes it from the crowd of cyberpunk RPGs while sending it to the crowd of kitchen sink fantasy RPGs.
And there it doesn't stand out. Like, at all;).

Quote from: tenbones;880936I never understood the Shadowrun love. I played 1e... but I'd been a big fan of cyberpunk sci-fi from the get-go, so it affected my ability to like the fantasy-elements. I found them... unnecessary... to run the kinds of games I was running. I felt like someone was trying to intrusively insert D&D-Fantasy into my Gibson-Williams-Rucker-Sterlingverse. So Shadowrun never left a positive impression on me nor my gaming circles in LA.

Its  not an uncommon view. Most arent aware it was more a urge to not be seen as a copycat of Cyberpunk. Do something different. They took a risk and it payed off. They did the same with Crimson Skies. Pirates+Aeroplanes.

Quote from: AsenRG;881016Not really, it doesn't.
It just excludes it from the crowd of cyberpunk RPGs while sending it to the crowd of kitchen sink fantasy RPGs.
And there it doesn't stand out. Like, at all;).

Not really, it does.
Otherwise it would have been seen as a copycat, "ho-hum not another one."  unoriginal idea in the cyberpunk crowd while sidestepping sending itself into the crowd of "fantasy kitchen sink." RPGs.
And there it does stand out. Like, totally.:rolleyes:

Quote from: tenbones;880936I've considered picking up the new Shadowrun... just to give it a fair shake... but never got around to it. But that Interface Zero is looking nice... and CP2077 is ever waiting in the wings (still waiting for the batsignal on that one)...

I parted ways with SR some time ago - the only people who consider playing it insist on using the latest edition and it's way too complicated for my comprehension. It might be only me (I realize I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box), but way I see it, its ruleset is harder to learn than one of popular programming languages, so I'm not sure why anyone would choose to sacrifice that much time and energy to pick up such a complicated thing for the purpose of entertainment only. :duh:

Luckily enough, I'm part of a group playing Kuro. We don't consider it full CP experience, but we enjoy it so far, more than any other CP-lite game we know about.

I miss these times when CP2020 was still a thing around here. Unfortunately, every player I knew is either dead, or moved abroad.

I knew both, preferred CP2020, but when I was playing lots when I was in Bremerton, WA, a lot more people were playing Shadowrun and that's what we ended up playing. Even though we mostly played it fantasy-element lite.

I really liked the writing on CP 2020... it had some of the rare flavor text I liked. But you can tell that their art budget was a shoestring compared to Shadowrun.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;881040I parted ways with SR some time ago - the only people who consider playing it insist on using the latest edition and it's way too complicated for my comprehension. It might be only me (I realize I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box), but way I see it, its ruleset is harder to learn than one of popular programming languages, so I'm not sure why anyone would choose to sacrifice that much time and energy to pick up such a complicated thing for the purpose of entertainment only. :duh:

That was my experience as well. And I can run LotW without consulting the rulebook...:)
Really, the version of SR I experienced, either 4e or 5e, was lots of complexity for no or negative gain.

QuoteLuckily enough, I'm part of a group playing Kuro. We don't consider it full CP experience, but we enjoy it so far, more than any other CP-lite game we know about.

There are always other new games. I prefer Fates Worse Than Death, myself;).

QuoteI miss these times when CP2020 was still a thing around here. Unfortunately, every player I knew is either dead, or moved abroad.

Hopefully, for most of them, it was moving abroad:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;881184That was my experience as well. And I can run LotW without consulting the rulebook...:)
Really, the version of SR I experienced, either 4e or 5e, was lots of complexity for no or negative gain.

I hear that a lot. 4th was quite crunchy and not without its own problems, but in comparison to 5th it was quite reasonable, dare I say "acceptable".

5th? I can't comprehend how it's supposed to run without electronic combat managers. :idunno:

Quote from: AsenRG;881184There are always other new games. I prefer Fates Worse Than Death, myself;).
Hopefully, for most of them, it was moving abroad:D!

I didn't realize FWtD is CP! I was sure it's post-apo. Thanks man, I'm in constant need of more horror and CP games and sourcebooks.

FWTD is neocyberpunk. It actually begins with a comparison between the genres:).
When you add Price of Power supplement, though, you get lots of classical Cyberpunk tropes reintroduced and given an interesting look, though;).

Quote from: AsenRG;881375FWTD is neocyberpunk. It actually begins with a comparison between the genres:).
When you add Price of Power supplement, though, you get lots of classical Cyberpunk tropes reintroduced and given an interesting look, though;).

Neocyberpunk.

I'm old. It's officially confirmed. Woe is me.

Is there a difference between neocyberpunk and post cyberpunk?

Quote from: AsenRG;881016snip
Not really, it doesn't.
It just excludes it from the crowd of cyberpunk RPGs while sending it to the crowd of kitchen sink fantasy RPGs.
And there it doesn't stand out. Like, at all;).

well i disagree for every  person iv met who plays/ed a cyberpunk game most of them say shadowrun and most of them have never heard of cp2020 or its children.
its also worth noteing the 1st cyberpunk rpg i ever saw was a sr supliment and this was before i got in to rpgs but i still havent seen a copy of 2020 irl

Quote from: tenbones;880936I never understood the Shadowrun love. ...

CP2013/2020 however was rabidly played by us. I met a lot of new gamers that I'm still in contact with to this day.

CP does a really good job of hitting the high-points of the genre. I noticed while most noobs were concerned with maximum-metal cybered-up murder-hobos, I ran games that really homed in on the unease of class-warfare and the realities of life in the end-zones of those spectrums. Especially when the game roamed outside of the cities into the wastelands in-between and on the edges.
...

Even the games of SR that included the transgendered sex addict Fixer (created and run by a lesbian player, for what that's worth) tended to be "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" rather than anything approaching class warfare and the realities of the hard life.  Some groups I played with preferred CP2013/2020 and others preferred Shadowrun, but all were mostly playing similarly themed games.  I was only GM for about half those games, but that was what the players wanted to play and, frankly, we mostly had a lot of fun.

Quote from: kosmos1214;881397well i disagree for every  person iv met who plays/ed a cyberpunk game most of them say shadowrun and most of them have never heard of cp2020 or its children.
its also worth noteing the 1st cyberpunk rpg i ever saw was a sr supliment and this was before i got in to rpgs but i still havent seen a copy of 2020 irl

I would answer to that if I could decypher what you mean. Alas, after "well, I disagree", I didn't manage to decrypt anything relevant to the discussion:).

Quote from: JesterRaiin;881380Neocyberpunk.

I'm old. It's officially confirmed. Woe is me.

:D
Well, "neocyberpunk" is just what I called it last night. The book actually contains an analysis of the differences in genre. Here's the relevant page, from the publisher's site.
http://www.fatesworsethandeath.com/!fwtd/FWTD_vs_cyberpunk.pdf

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;881381Is there a difference between neocyberpunk and post cyberpunk?

I actually meant "postcyberpunk", but was posting late at night, and inadvertently created a term that is, for all I know, a neologism;). And on second thought, I'm not sure it's really post-cyberpunk, either.
More like "cyberpunk with a new take on it". See the link.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;881381Is there a difference between neocyberpunk and post cyberpunk?

Neo impressionist post deconstructionist cyberpunk :cool:

Quote from: AsenRG;881471I actually meant "postcyberpunk", but was posting late at night, and inadvertently created a term that is, for all I know, a neologism;).

Does that make you sagacious or ultracrepidairan? ;)

Quote from: Willie the Duck;881488Does that make you sagacious or ultracrepidairan? ;)

And there I thought it makes me "tired at the time of posting";).

Quote from: AsenRG;881471I actually meant "postcyberpunk", but was posting late at night, and inadvertently created a term that is, for all I know, a neologism;). And on second thought, I'm not sure it's really post-cyberpunk, either.
More like "cyberpunk with a new take on it". See the link.

Hmm, I'm interested. I just  wanted to be sure. It sort of sounded like a revival of the genre or something.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;881662Hmm, I'm interested. I just  wanted to be sure. It sort of sounded like a revival of the genre or something.

Yes, I think of FWTD as a new take of the genre, but that's me, not a literary analysis:). It also helps that the game has a quite realistic hacking system that actually solves "the Netrunner problem".

Besides, you can't beat the game for hope in the face of a gritty, unforgiving setting;).

Spoiler

In other cyberpunk settings you're shooting your way through corporate mooks using the latest military hardware, wearing body armour and in a van with tainted glasses.

In this setting, you're far more likely to be assaulting (submachine)gun-wielding criminals using a stick with a nail, which has on it the poison some street people are selling. Better hope it really was a Drake you bought that poison from, and not a fake... and that the bastard you're fighting isn't genetically modified to resist poisons. (Granted, most of them aren't, but some of the elites would be).

Post-combat worsening of your wounds? Check. Hope you'd get to the Black Med in time. But one of the songs in the game's soundtrack is named "bleeding to death on a deserted street". That's fiction that the mechanics support really well, and something few other games have.
Your enemies likely get corporate healthcare, though. You might be an illegal foreigner, or wanted by the authorities.

Dehumanisation through technology? There are people in the setting that no longer look human. Some of them are used as part of "hit squads" or for execution.

To compensate, you might want to learn to access your inner animal side, but then you also have to take care that it doesn't take over. Or you might end up roaming the streets and not knowing you're human.
Or you might want to set yourself apart by infecting yourself with vampirism, but that comes with its own drawbacks.
Others seal themselves in protective suits to ensure they're going to remain physically and spiritually pure. Coupled with a strict regimen, this allows them to almost equal someone who got a corp to pay for his operations, getting implanted muscles.

Yet people's ingenuity can still win. It has already, in the past.

You know, one of the biggest issues I had with Shadowrun has always been the Great Ghost Dance.

So, apparently, the natives has this super Magical nuke that's better than a nuke, and manages to wipe out most of the North America.  So why aren't they in total control of the North American continent?

Oh, they could only do it once?  Guess what?  Most of the Nuclear Arsenal that the U.S. still has in setting?  Still work!  BOOM!  Native American problem solved!  Let's get back to business as usual!

The issue with a nuke level blasting is that unless you wipe out your enemies completely, and should they also have the same weapons, they WILL retaliate.  Cuz some dumb bunny out there is going to want revenge, and will have the power to get it.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;881774You know, one of the biggest issues I had with Shadowrun has always been the Great Ghost Dance.

So, apparently, the natives has this super Magical nuke that's better than a nuke, and manages to wipe out most of the North America.  So why aren't they in total control of the North American continent?

2009: Native Americans gain access to a nuclear silo and successfully launch a MIRV at Russia in protest.
2011: First elves express and a dragon is sighted. Magic starts to appear.
2014: Redondo Peak errupts and Los Alamos is buried in ash.  Howling Coyote claims responsibility. A military strike force sent in is destroyed by tornadoes.
2017: in response to the US governments plan to exterminate all NA peoples the Ghost Dance is performed. Mt Hood, Ranier, St.Helens and Adams all errupted at once. Meanwhile NA resistance fighters are taking over military bases.
2018:Denver treaty is signed by America, Canada and Mexico conceeding just about all of the USA with the exception of California, Seattle and some other locales. And to relocate all non-NA off.
2021: Goblinization outbreaks of types begin expressing in people and animals.

Essentially they couldn't be nuked because there was no central government or infrastructure to target. That and you really cant fight mother nature with a nuke.

Quote from: Omega;8817822009: Essentially they couldn't be nuked because there was no central government or infrastructure to target. That and you really cant fight mother nature with a nuke.

Humans have been killing Mother Nature for millennia.  One big burst of magic and we back off?  No.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;881814Humans have been killing Mother Nature for millennia.  One big burst of magic and we back off?  No.

Try nuking a hurricane or volcano and then get back to me on how well one stops it.

Quote from: Omega;881899Try nuking a hurricane or volcano and then get back to me on how well one stops it.

People survive those.  Also, the fallout from the amount ecological damage they would have caused with those eruptions would have killed the Natives just as badly as their enemies.  Worse, they just made their homelands inhospitable to THEMSELVES!  Nuclear Winter much?

And that's what gets me about the Great Ghost Dance was how perfect it was.  No fallout what so ever.

Even better for them there was nothing Technology could do.  To which I call, bullshit.  Simply because Shadowrunner mages and shaman get gunned downed in the system relatively easily.  There would have been no take over of the army bases.

The fluff doesn't match the system.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;881907People survive those.  Also, the fallout from the amount ecological damage they would have caused with those eruptions would have killed the Natives just as badly as their enemies.  Worse, they just made their homelands inhospitable to THEMSELVES!  Nuclear Winter much?

And that's what gets me about the Great Ghost Dance was how perfect it was.  No fallout what so ever.

Even better for them there was nothing Technology could do.  To which I call, bullshit.  Simply because Shadowrunner mages and shaman get gunned downed in the system relatively easily.  There would have been no take over of the army bases.

The fluff doesn't match the system.

Well 4th edition fixed that for you by making the game unplayable.  Mages were so overpowered that you were foolish to play anything else.

Not exactly fun stuff.

Quote from: KingCheops;882079Well 4th edition fixed that for you by making the game unplayable.  Mages were so overpowered that you were foolish to play anything else.

Not exactly fun stuff.

No but at least it matched the fluff. :p

It was just a little too one-sided.  I don't mind the Natives winning most of the land back, but there should have been more of a war, than a simple bland massacre.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;882197No but at least it matched the fluff. :p

It was just a little too one-sided.  I don't mind the Natives winning most of the land back, but there should have been more of a war, than a simple bland massacre.

While far as I know not mentioned in 1st ed. The threat of erupting the Yellowstone supervolcano would have probably been sufficient to make everyone back off.

Part of the NA relatively easy win was that the US was still reeling from te assassination of the president and his replacement with a corporate puppet nutjob. Probably aided by the fact that at that time no one knew the full extent of magic and this was the first display. There was as yet no counters to "Summon Tornado". And the NA resistance was scattered and using guerrilla tactics.

At the end of the day they backed down and as of 1st ed the full details of why were unknown aside from the noted incidents.

You dont like mother nature at its finest being pretty much invincible? Tough! It is.

Quote from: Omega;882256You dont like mother nature at its finest being pretty much invincible? Tough! It is.

It's not invincible (if it was, there would be no cities and frankly no human society), BUT I do agree that it's powerful, and doesn't like to be messed with.  And having four super volcanoes pop on the same continent would have dire, dire repercussions that would do as much damage to the Natives as it would the rest of the U.S. to teach humanity you do not FUCK with Mother Nature.  And it wouldn't take all that long either, by 2030, they would know that the Great Ghost Dance would have been a REALLY bad idea.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;882308It's not invincible (if it was, there would be no cities and frankly no human society)

Not sure how this tracks.  Those things exist because Mother Nature doesn't give a rat's ass.  Besides which human beings are also part of nature and doing a pretty kick ass job of it -- successful species don't require biodiversity or specific habitats.  We're the most successful and invasive species Gaia ever birthed.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;882308It's not invincible (if it was, there would be no cities and frankly no human society),

Im currently living on an active faultline. Remind me again about how cities > nature? (We had a small tremor last year.)

In any case seems like subsequent editions toned down the shamanic magic while upgrading the hermetic? Seems like over time the designers have lost sight of its less magic heavy start.

Then again the SNES port was a little more heavy magic oriented.

Quote from: KingCheops;882322Not sure how this tracks.  Those things exist because Mother Nature doesn't give a rat's ass.  Besides which human beings are also part of nature and doing a pretty kick ass job of it -- successful species don't require biodiversity or specific habitats.  We're the most successful and invasive species Gaia ever birthed.

Bugs and bacteria disagree. Lots. :eek:

None of the volcanos that erupted would have been a supervolcano eruption.  Rainer would ruin southern seattle (which it did) but not be that big.
Adams could go big, but nowhere near super range.
Baker is too young.
Saint Helens didn't have much left after the last one.

4 Supervolcano eruptions at once would probably be a Extinction Level Event.  There weren't any eruptions that big though.

However, it proved that the natives had "natural nukes" and were willing to use them.  Plus, the gov't had no idea what they *could* do.  Winter storms burying the East coast in 30ft of snow?  Tornados or hurricanes wiping out all the oil refineries?  Every nuclear power plant becoming a Chernobyl?  Pretty much every country and Megacorp in the world was pressuring the US to deal, including all the Megacorps that supplied the US with all its hardware.

Plus, you don't find out until later, but even though the Elves weren't really known about yet, and most of the dragons were still asleep, there was still a gigantic "Oh fuck me."  moment because the ones that were around and active knew there was only way to achieve that level of magic at this point in time, a type of magic no one not alive during the last cycle should know how to do - Blood Magic.

So considering all the shit that had been going on, weakening the country, there was no way the US could fight a civil war with zero help from other nations and the megas.

The Great Ghost Dance wasn't a one-shot kill, it was just a mighty blow to a country that was already weak and staggering from decades of disaster and decline.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882387None of the volcanos that erupted would have been a supervolcano eruption.

I didnt say any were. I was pointing out that all they had to do was threaten to detonate Yellowstone. They didnt. But you can imagine the high ups worrying just what the hell the limits were.

Other than that. Spot on.

When someone uses nukes, those in power have to make a decision.  Do they also want to use them?  Because when someone uses nuclear weapons, it's done.  It's over.  You've lost everything, and if you have them, you have to make the call of do you want to wipe someone else out to?

And against all the fundamental rules of nature and physics, there were no repercussions from using mother nature as a weapon as a nuclear level weapon. Whatever happened to equal and opposite reaction?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;882398And against all the fundamental rules of nature and physics, there were no repercussions from using mother nature as a weapon as a nuclear level weapon. Whatever happened to equal and opposite reaction?

It triggered the full scale expression of metas worldwide. So instead of a few elves at the time of the event. You had people mutating into orcs, trolls, elves, and dwarves, as well as vampires, wendigo, ghouls, and so on. As well as animals mutating too.

Not sure but it may have kickstarted the return of magic enough that after that hermetic magics were possible. Not to mention theres now five active volcanoes and swaths of surrounding devastation.

And eventually the elves kicked the NA out of a section of territory.

Mother nature and sister magic apparent appreciate irony.

And heres a funny observation. To date I've never seen anyone play a mage or shaman in Shadowrun.

Quote from: Omega;882409It triggered the full scale expression of metas worldwide. So instead of a few elves at the time of the event. You had people mutating into orcs, trolls, elves, and dwarves, as well as vampires, wendigo, ghouls, and so on. As well as animals mutating too.

Not sure but it may have kickstarted the return of magic enough that after that hermetic magics were possible. Not to mention theres now five active volcanoes and swaths of surrounding devastation.

And eventually the elves kicked the NA out of a section of territory.

Mother nature and sister magic apparent appreciate irony.

I was talking ecological fallout.  It's just a bugbear.  Like I said, I have no problems with the Natives winning (they deserve it!) but the amount of raw uncontrolled damage and side effects would go a long way into explaining why Shaman and Mages don't cut loose with the earth shattering spells whenever Renraku decides to flex their muscles in everyone's faces.

Quote from: Omega;882410And heres a funny observation. To date I've never seen anyone play a mage or shaman in Shadowrun.

Really?  Hmm.  I have to admit, other than myself (and I played a fellow who hated the fact that he was a mage) I didn't see them often.  But then I was more of a CP2020 gamer.

Quote from: Omega;882410And heres a funny observation. To date I've never seen anyone play a mage or shaman in Shadowrun.

To me, this observation is as bizarre as playing D&D and never seeing a Mage or Cleric character. Every group I've played Shadowrun with had at least one magically active character. And the one I'm in right now has two (a hermetic mage for astral security, and a voodoo houngan of the Loa Erzulie the Seductress as our face).

The reason the Great Ghost Dance isn't used often is because it's a Blood Magic ritual.  Every single one of the Great Ghost Dancers died, their life energy feeding the magic spell cast by Howling Coyote.  Remember, the US issued an Extermination Order against Native Americans and Megacorps were herding Natives into prison camps (which would have become death camps). They were dead if they didn't, so sacrificing themselves to get freedom for their people was worth the sacrifice.

We're willing to destroy ourselves if necessary - are you?  Metaphor for nuclear brinksmanship, with the Natives at Defcon 1, Howling Coyote has the football and his finger is on the button.

If there is a weak spot in any alternate history, it's always the break up of the US, because everyone has different opinions of what would and wouldn't happen, if someone would be that crazy or not, etc... and to be honest, a lot of the WHY's definitely don't get laid out until later.

Quote from: Itachi;882430To me, this observation is as bizarre as playing D&D and never seeing a Mage or Cleric character. Every group I've played Shadowrun with had at least one magically active character. And the one I'm in right now has two (a hermetic mage for astral security, and a voodoo houngan of the Loa Erzulie the Seductress as our face).

Yeah in my experience, if going against a hard target, a team will run with magical support always unless they can't find one or afford one.  However, not every company can afford to have a wagemage on site 100% of the time, so you don't "need" one for most things.

Quote from: Omega;882409It triggered the full scale expression of metas worldwide. So instead of a few elves at the time of the event. You had people mutating into orcs, trolls, elves, and dwarves, as well as vampires, wendigo, ghouls, and so on. As well as animals mutating too.

Not sure but it may have kickstarted the return of magic enough that after that hermetic magics were possible. Not to mention theres now five active volcanoes and swaths of surrounding devastation.

And eventually the elves kicked the NA out of a section of territory.

Mother nature and sister magic apparent appreciate irony.

Unexplained Genetic Expression (UGE) the term applied to mothers giving birth to what people called Elves and Dwarves happened in 2011.  
The Ghost Dance was in 2017.
Goblinization (what the media called UGE when Orks and Trolls came along) started in 2021.
All this would have happened anyway, the Ghost Dance didn't trigger any of that.  However, even if the Dance wasn't powerful enough to raise the entire Global level of mana, it did have an effect, one that would have to be dealt with 40 some years later.

Yeah, the NAN accepting elves, elves migrating to the Oregon area of NAN and then voting to secede and form their own country basically doing to them what they did to the US was part of Ehran's plan from the beginning, he was one of the key members of the early NAN in human form.

Quote from: Omega;882326Bugs and bacteria disagree. Lots. :eek:

Haha.  I always forget those little buggers.  Touche.

Quote from: CRKrueger;882436Unexplained Genetic Expression (UGE) the term applied to mothers giving birth to what people called Elves and Dwarves**

1n 1e it was just elves.
The rest I listed off was from 1e as well. So I'd guess that 2e or later changed some details?

Quote from: Omega;8826001n 1e it was just elves.
The rest I listed off was from 1e as well. So I'd guess that 2e or later changed some details?

Dwarves and Elves were always UGE, but Elves are a little more common and a lot of Dwarf babies were just assumed to be some other type of defect at first.  Dwarves weren't recognized as part of UGE at first.

The dates I gave are the same, I don't recall 1e ever saying that the Dance itself triggered meta gene expression.  A lot of the supplements are written from in game point of view, so someone on Shadowland certainly could have said that, I just don't recall.

Yes, Shadowrun is the most played Cyberpunk RPG, unless you count RIFTS as a cyberpunk RPG.

Quote from: Omega;882410And heres a funny observation. To date I've never seen anyone play a mage or shaman in Shadowrun.

this is an odd one i will admit

Quote from: RPGPundit;883510Yes, Shadowrun is the most played Cyberpunk RPG, unless you count RIFTS as a cyberpunk RPG.

So far. A cyberspace setting is one of the few things Rifts has not yet touched on. Least as of last time I looked at Rifts. Which was some time ago.

Quote from: Omega;883952So far. A cyberspace setting is one of the few things Rifts has not yet touched on. Least as of last time I looked at Rifts. Which was some time ago.

Sure, but it had cybernetics and hacking from the very first book. Not to mention the "Street Rat O.C.C."

Quote from: RPGPundit;884309Sure, but it had cybernetics and hacking from the very first book. Not to mention the "Street Rat O.C.C."

Yep. But oddly to date no actual cyberspace. Which is odd. At this point I think that is about the only thing Palladium hasnt covered.

Though Id prefer they did it as a standalone or at least its own world book.

Quote from: Omega;884392Yep. But oddly to date no actual cyberspace. Which is odd. At this point I think that is about the only thing Palladium hasnt covered.

Though Id prefer they did it as a standalone or at least its own world book.

Cyberspace stuff can be really tricky.  Make it too simple and there's nothing there (in fact, RIFTS does have a really basic and straightforward 'hacking' skill).  Make it too complex, and it eats away a party, as the one 'hacker' character gets two hours of playtime while everyone else sits around twiddling their thumbs.

Quote from: RPGPundit;885159Make it too complex, and it eats away a party, as the one 'hacker' character gets two hours of playtime while everyone else sits around twiddling their thumbs.

Or you drag the whole group along into cyberspace.

The whole "wah wah we is bored while the mean hacker is in the net!" falls really flat since said hacker has probably been waiting idle for the moment to do their thing.

Quote from: Omega;885195Or you drag the whole group along into cyberspace.

The whole "wah wah we is bored while the mean hacker is in the net!" falls really flat since said hacker has probably been waiting idle for the moment to do their thing.

How does that fall flat? The game was set up so that one player is relatively useless except in the rare instance when everyone else is. That's (for a lot of people) un-fun. Why wouldn't one complain about a game with that setup?

Yeah, it makes the whole hacker thing feel more like a secondary character, kinda like a Medic NPC waiting on the sidelines for his turn to help heal some PCs.

An extensive Cyberspace rules system would work well if all the PCs were expected to interact with it as a group, the same way that PCs are expected to interact as a group when mass combat gets going.

"If you can't handle the fight (and/or cyberspace), don't show up for this mission/adventure..."

Primarily thinking of Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. where all/most members of Section 9 are shown seamlessly hack a system and fight some dudes, with room for specializations, of course. I could see something like that working. Cyberspace exploration/hostile system hacking does not need to be anything different than real world exploration/mass combat.

I think a decent GM (but especially a decent game system) could make a hacker character work within the party without all the "waiting around for their turn" thing.

The Matrix as it currently works in Shadowrun is kind of silly, as is most of Shadowrun, but it does at least give a good reason for the decker to come along with the party on the mission and maybe invest in a few extra skills on the side rather being overspecialised.

The "everyone sits around waiting for the hack to finish" problem could be avoided if you let all the other players play the hacker's various little AI programs they use to help them accomplish their hacks.

Quote from: Warthur;885268The "everyone sits around waiting for the hack to finish" problem could be avoided if you let all the other players play the hacker's various little AI programs they use to help them accomplish their hacks.

Exactly what I would do! And that's also true of most scenes where other PCs aren't necessarily present, I usually have the players handle minor NPCs, etc.

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;885249Yeah, it makes the whole hacker thing feel more like a secondary character, kinda like a Medic NPC waiting on the sidelines for his turn to help heal some PCs.

An extensive Cyberspace rules system would work well if all the PCs were expected to interact with it as a group, the same way that PCs are expected to interact as a group when mass combat gets going.

"If you can't handle the fight (and/or cyberspace), don't show up for this mission/adventure..."

Primarily thinking of Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. where all/most members of Section 9 are shown seamlessly hack a system and fight some dudes, with room for specializations, of course. I could see something like that working. Cyberspace exploration/hostile system hacking does not need to be anything different than real world exploration/mass combat.

I think a decent GM (but especially a decent game system) could make a hacker character work within the party without all the "waiting around for their turn" thing.

on that point
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAPDFwHjUf8

Quote from: kosmos1214;885341on that point
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAPDFwHjUf8

And that is why wireless systems are stupid.  And why most smart execs and 'runners are fully wired.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;885365And that is why wireless systems are stupid.  And why most smart execs and 'runners are fully wired.

The funny thing is that most wireless signals are easily scrambled once an attack has been detected, and a wired hack is more reliable and comes with a slew of other advantages. At least that's how I'd run things.

Hi there

(inaugural post on this site actually)
See back in the day I looked at Shadowrun and said "ugh fantasy elements in Cyberpunk WHYYYYYYYYY" and left it well alone. Unfortunately as the years have gone on I've wanted to run more cyberpunk stuff, but R Talsorian has not updated Cyberpunk 2020 so it feels very much like "Yesterdays Tomorrow".

SR5 meanwhile has been updated which is why I have decided to use if for the Cult of Tea and Dice Cyberpunk campaign. I'm ignoring the huge amount of background the game has picked up over the years and replacing my own, but I've allowed the fantasy races (resulting in a minotaur rigger!). It's OK, Im not making a big deal about the fantasy side of things.

One game I would suggest for a Cyberpunk fix however is KURO, J-horror meets Cyberpunk, by way of Psycho Pass and Tokyo Ghoul.

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;885249I think a decent GM (but especially a decent game system) could make a hacker character work within the party without all the "waiting around for their turn" thing.

Fates Worse Than Death already does that:). In it, hacking a single system might well be the goal of tonight's adventure.
I've run it enough to be able to confirm that everyone gets to contribute, depending on what their talents are;).

Not to derail...

but I picked up Interface Zero 2.0 for Savage Worlds. It's a goddamn work of art. I daresay it might be one of the best modern cyberpunk books I've ever read.

It's like Shadowrun without any of the magic stuff. But scaled up to include some space-opera elements with a dash of Mechwarrior.

I liked what I read of Interface Zero 2.0, but I'm not a fan of Savage Worlds nor FATE.  Hopefully it'll see some other iteration some day.

I don't equate Fate to Savage Worlds, though I can see how some might. They share some DNA... but in play, at least when I've played it, it played pretty straight up as a standard RPG with little "meta-gamey" rules.

I was surprised at how cinematic it felt. But I don't pretend to be an expert on the system either. I plan on rectifying that soon as I'm considering it running it for a good bit once my 5e game winds down.

... unless I get "The Call" - then it's CP2020 time.

But having said that. Interface Zero has a *tremendous* amount of material in it that is just saliva-inducing. I'm a little surprised it's not been brought up in the thread, or in others for that matter. In fact... I'll post another thread on it.

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;885424The funny thing is that most wireless signals are easily scrambled once an attack has been detected, and a wired hack is more reliable and comes with a slew of other advantages. At least that's how I'd run things.

As someone who has been in the tech industry and been playing with computer parts for about 30 odd years, hacking a wireless signal is still easier than a wired connection.

See, the big issue that very few people seem to grasp, even after having it explained to them, is that a wireless device is never actually turned off.  Even when it is turned off.

A wireless device is always broadcasting a low level signal to the various networks around them at all times, letting them know that there's a device in the area.  This is why, whenever you boot up your phone, you're connected already and ready to surf/call whatever it is you need to do.

Take a PC for example, there's always at least a few seconds as everything boots up, detects the various hardware and internet connection.

A phone device once it lights up, it has everything available on the spot.  There's no boot up sequence, because there's nothing to boot up.  It's all been in standby mode.

Quote from: tenbones;885590But having said that. Interface Zero has a *tremendous* amount of material in it that is just saliva-inducing. I'm a little surprised it's not been brought up in the thread, or in others for that matter. In fact... I'll post another thread on it.

To make this mildly more related to the thread, if there's a game I'd nominate to get more attention and try to replace shadowrun with it, it'd be Interface Zero.

In large part because they've intentionally designed it to be modular, while there is a lore, it's not massively self referential. The items given to you are self contained elements you can use to build your cyberpunk out of. And I know savage worlds backwards so that's nice.

Quote from: MrHurst;885732To make this mildly more related to the thread, if there's a game I'd nominate to get more attention and try to replace shadowrun with it, it'd be Interface Zero.

In large part because they've intentionally designed it to be modular, while there is a lore, it's not massively self referential. The items given to you are self contained elements you can use to build your cyberpunk out of. And I know savage worlds backwards so that's nice.

I *think* (because I don't have enough experience with the system yet) you could easily hack Interface Zero w/ Fantasy Companion and do Shadowrun a solid facsimile *AT MINIMUM*. I suspect it might even be better.

Edit: AAaaand of course someone did it.: https://wrathofzombie.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/the-savage-worlds-of-shadowrun-hack/

Quote from: tenbones;885759I *think* (because I don't have enough experience with the system yet) you could easily hack Interface Zero w/ Fantasy Companion and do Shadowrun a solid facsimile *AT MINIMUM*. I suspect it might even be better.

Edit: AAaaand of course someone did it.: https://wrathofzombie.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/the-savage-worlds-of-shadowrun-hack/

I preferred my version of Shadowrun using Savage Worlds to any version of Shadowrun I've run or played (1-3rd in play, though I own the rest).  There are some other Shadowrun conversions out there (a google search should pick them up), but none of them quite felt right for me.

I'm curious to know how many Shadowrun players on this forum play Shadowrun hacked with another system?

Anyone else?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;885643As someone who has been in the tech industry and been playing with computer parts for about 30 odd years, hacking a wireless signal is still easier than a wired connection.

See, the big issue that very few people seem to grasp, even after having it explained to them, is that a wireless device is never actually turned off.  Even when it is turned off.

A wireless device is always broadcasting a low level signal to the various networks around them at all times, letting them know that there's a device in the area.  This is why, whenever you boot up your phone, you're connected already and ready to surf/call whatever it is you need to do.

Take a PC for example, there's always at least a few seconds as everything boots up, detects the various hardware and internet connection.

A phone device once it lights up, it has everything available on the spot.  There's no boot up sequence, because there's nothing to boot up.  It's all been in standby mode.

Well, shit...

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;885807Well, shit...

It's also why the various tech industries are very much focused on the current 'arms race' of hackers vs. security.  Problem is, hackers are almost always 'winning', as security has to fix the holes found, and often can't predict other security problems.

Again, a good, smart 'runner will ALWAYS have his gear wired.  The down side is convenience.  You have to actually plug all the gear up, wait for it to boot (even a half second can be LETHAL in a firefight) and then you're good to go.

Oh, and another point, data transfer speeds are actually faster on a wire, as opposed to wireless.  There's often (given the quality of the cable) less electromagnetic interference slowing the signal down.

Quote from: tenbones;885805I'm curious to know how many Shadowrun players on this forum play Shadowrun hacked with another system?

Anyone else?

Does a stripped down version of it, for Forum use count?

I think Shadowrun for SNES was my introduction to the cyberpunk genre. Never played the tabletop. But depends. Mutant Chronicles also got cyberpunk in the mix, which I am quite sure of that I was exposed to earlier. But it was really SH that defined it for me as genre, despite fantasy creatures and magic.

The really stupid thing about SR4 wireless was for cyberware hacking. "But the Doctors need access to diagnose the systems."  Hmm, if only there were a way to access those things physically...say through the various jacks, ports, and interface plugs we just put in for decks, rigs and smartguns...and some way to connect all those systems...say through the 3.7 miles of microscopic wiring we just replaced your nervous system with. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Mawdrigen;885560but I've allowed the fantasy races (resulting in a minotaur rigger!). It's OK, Im not making a big deal about the fantasy side of things.

As I've mentioned elsewhere. My longest running Shadowrun character was a minotaur rigger running a road rescue service. Said minotaur was standard Shadowrun metagene expression. So more mutant. Not a fantasy creature.

Quote from: tenbones;885805I'm curious to know how many Shadowrun players on this forum play Shadowrun hacked with another system?

Anyone else?

I never have, but if I was going to do it, it would be with Interface Zero 2.0.

I think the whole concept of a vr-cyberspace hacker is pretty ridiculous anyways.  A hacker should be like a D&D Thief + Bard; able to obtain information and break into places and fuck with machines.  None of that should be happening in some VR universe.  

Think about it: right now, if you want to get some kind of information it would take you about a half a second on google.  Experts at getting information that's hard to find are basically better searchers and have some pre-built programs that let them break into stuff.

Why would we, in the future, replace that with a complex and time consuming system of virtual reality that makes everything slower and more annoying?

Quote from: tenbones;885805I'm curious to know how many Shadowrun players on this forum play Shadowrun hacked with another system?

Anyone else?

I've considered it for post - apocalyptic setting, but in general, SR is just too bulky for me to run, especially with everything getting 300 pages long splatbooks.

Quote from: CRKrueger;885838The really stupid thing about SR4 wireless was for cyberware hacking. "But the Doctors need access to diagnose the systems."  Hmm, if only there were a way to access those things physically...say through the various jacks, ports, and interface plugs we just put in for decks, rigs and smartguns...and some way to connect all those systems...say through the 3.7 miles of microscopic wiring we just replaced your nervous system with. :rolleyes:

Actually, here's the thing - Everything is Wireless does make sense from SR's world point of view.

Even nowadays, something as simple as toaster has an USB port for implanting instructions into it (there's a video of a guy who discovered this fact and turned toasters into game controllers)  - imagine 50 years into the future, where factories'll just put in wireless routers like that. It's not just information exchange, it's also that everything draws actual electric power from the grid. Decking is, after all, an illegal act, and why'd a mass produced mechanical arm be protected from hacking any more than your mass produced smartphone? If you are really paranoid about deckers. Military's after all protected by having it's gear specced up with Black ICE VPNs protection during the operations, and you after all shouldn't be trying to perform military actions if you are not a soldier. It's not 100% logical, I agree with you, but it makes sense in this libertarian dystopia, where it's just cheaper to give your cybernetic arm WiFi, and if it's get hacked - you should've read T&Cs. There should probably be an exploration in one of those splatbooks (they are each a deadly weapon already, what's 20 pages more) on downgrading your gear so it doesn't have WiFi - illegal power redistributors or even generators so you can just load your cybernetic arm manually. You can do it with rifles, why not with everything else.

I think also in 5e if you turn off the wireless, you can't be hacked (Technomancer might still manage to do so, but I don't remember the rules that well anymore).

Quote from: RPGPundit;885159Cyberspace stuff can be really tricky.  Make it too simple and there's nothing there (in fact, RIFTS does have a really basic and straightforward 'hacking' skill).  Make it too complex, and it eats away a party, as the one 'hacker' character gets two hours of playtime while everyone else sits around twiddling their thumbs.

Indeed, the eternal problem of Netrunner in Cyberpunk 2020, which is a good description of any overspecialized class in any RPG setting.

Or, you know, you can make hacking harder, so it would require the concerted efforts of the whole group, not all of which require electronic machines. You can, gasp, look to the real world for inspiration:)!
Or you can bitch about "the hacker's problem", I guess;).

Quote from: RPGPundit;886835I think the whole concept of a vr-cyberspace hacker is pretty ridiculous anyways.  A hacker should be like a D&D Thief + Bard; able to obtain information and break into places and fuck with machines.  None of that should be happening in some VR universe.  

Think about it: right now, if you want to get some kind of information it would take you about a half a second on google.  Experts at getting information that's hard to find are basically better searchers and have some pre-built programs that let them break into stuff.

Why would we, in the future, replace that with a complex and time consuming system of virtual reality that makes everything slower and more annoying?

Gibson (who, if not created the idea of VR hacking, certainly seeded the CP literature with it) has said that he wasn't really a computer guy and he was more creating something cool than predicting how computers would evolve.

Given that movies and TV are still trying to figure out how to make computer operation look both cool and suspenseful, I can understand the impulse to draw it off into some alternate reality where hacking exists as some bizarre VR adventure. That said, if you're basing your game on this alternate universe, there's no reason to include real world developments like ubiquitous wifi, especially if it mucks up the rest of the game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;886835Why would we, in the future, replace that with a complex and time consuming system of virtual reality that makes everything slower and more annoying?

Because it's cool.

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;886953Because it's cool.

I'm afraid that might turn out to be an accurate prediction. Cool and more user-friendly is pretty much enough for way too many people:).

Windows itself is a prime example, now that I think of DOS;).

Quote from: RPGPundit;886835I think the whole concept of a vr-cyberspace hacker is pretty ridiculous anyways.  A hacker should be like a D&D Thief + Bard; able to obtain information and break into places and fuck with machines.  None of that should be happening in some VR universe.  

Think about it: right now, if you want to get some kind of information it would take you about a half a second on google.  Experts at getting information that's hard to find are basically better searchers and have some pre-built programs that let them break into stuff.

Why would we, in the future, replace that with a complex and time consuming system of virtual reality that makes everything slower and more annoying?

Because the assumptions of netrunning - even as far back as Neuromancer - and definitely in CP2020, was that netrunning was happening radically faster, literally at the speed of thought. You're just perceiving it as some kinda cool adventure in VR.

Quote from: tenbones;887204Because the assumptions of netrunning - even as far back as Neuromancer - and definitely in CP2020, was that netrunning was happening radically faster, literally at the speed of thought. You're just perceiving it as some kinda cool adventure in VR.

The problem with that, was that the human brain cannot process information that fast.  VR Hacking would be as fast as it is today.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;887218The problem with that, was that the human brain cannot process information that fast.  VR Hacking would be as fast as it is today.

LOL I didn't say it made sense! Just saying that's what the thought was "back inna day."

I think Shadowrun and CP2020 both attempted to do the same thing, in trying to capture Gibson's view of cyberspace. Worked great in books. Heck even as a standalone item in CP2020 it worked pretty nicely - but as implemented in both games? It was horrible. Which is why you hear over and over how most tables just NPC'd all the netrunning stuff.

Internet Zero realized this and just did away with all the fluff, making it just straight-up dice-rolls. Which is what it should'a been. But y'know...

Quote from: tenbones;887233LOL I didn't say it made sense! Just saying that's what the thought was "back inna day."

I think Shadowrun and CP2020 both attempted to do the same thing, in trying to capture Gibson's view of cyberspace. Worked great in books. Heck even as a standalone item in CP2020 it worked pretty nicely - but as implemented in both games? It was horrible. Which is why you hear over and over how most tables just NPC'd all the netrunning stuff.

Internet Zero realized this and just did away with all the fluff, making it just straight-up dice-rolls. Which is what it should'a been. But y'know...

Oh, I agree completely.  It was a clunky system hammered on, without actually thinking about what it would do the game's pacing.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;886910Gibson (who, if not created the idea of VR hacking, certainly seeded the CP literature with it) has said that he wasn't really a computer guy and he was more creating something cool than predicting how computers would evolve.

In fact, I know Gibson wrote all his novels on a typewriter until at least the late 90s (maybe later) and didn't even own a computer until at least that same time.

Quote from: RPGPundit;888027In fact, I know Gibson wrote all his novels on a typewriter until at least the late 90s (maybe later) and didn't even own a computer until at least that same time.

as i guy who grew up in the computer age that makes a lot of sense to me
then again i find a type writer easier on my eyes

Locally there has been a shift in what gets the most play. When I was in college it was Cyberpunk (1e then 2020). We did a few games of Shadowrun, but went back to Cyberpunk. Now there is a Shadowrun group but I don't think anybody has even heard of 2020.

Cyberpunk as a genre feels kind of dated and late '80s to me anyway. It has lost its edge.

Shadowrun is more urban fantasy noir than cyberpunk.

And VR Decking/Netrunning was a bad idea from the start for game play. The ultimate in split the party. One player/character is off in cyberspace doing cool stuff their (at the speed of thought, so not even the time scale is in sync) while the rest of the group is in meatspace doing their thing and the poor referee is stuck trying to cut back and forth between them and keep the game moving and involving.

I used a typewriter throughout high school till 96. Computers became a thing in 1997 at the university. The PC age was a thing that I came into late comparatively. Of course, I was that guy who played Command & Conquer on Playstation never knowing that the game was so much better with a mouse until far later as one repercussion of this late adoption of PCs.

In the end Shadowrun did cyberpunk better than Gibson.

Am I the only guy who actually really enjoyed the Netrunning parts both in SR and Cyberpunk, and actually saw it managed in the former (in 5e though) without a hitch in play? I see it not terribly different from splitting a party mid - combat if someone enters a Dream Realm to battle their enemies or something like that.

Quote from: Rincewind1;888824Am I the only guy who actually really enjoyed the Netrunning parts both in SR and Cyberpunk, and actually saw it managed in the former (in 5e though) without a hitch in play? I see it not terribly different from splitting a party mid - combat if someone enters a Dream Realm to battle their enemies or something like that.

I did enjoy it. But the first few times I ran CP2020 I didn't have a handle on how to integrate it better into my game without *always* having to split the party up every single time my lone netrunner decided to go "do stuff" in the net.

The more we got into it - the more time it took from everyone else and the game in general.

I finally figured out that you don't need to really be a netrunner to do significant things in the net. A few of the non-netrunners were expert programmers, so they could tag along (just not use the menu effectively) but they participated.

Even then - it still ate up too much time do so things that could be handled more efficiently. Or as most people I know did - just NPC it.

Quote from: Omega;888817In the end Shadowrun did cyberpunk better than Gibson.

Galactus strike you down for your blasephemy.

Quote from: Rincewind1;888824Am I the only guy who actually really enjoyed the Netrunning parts both in SR and Cyberpunk, and actually saw it managed in the former (in 5e though) without a hitch in play? I see it not terribly different from splitting a party mid - combat if someone enters a Dream Realm to battle their enemies or something like that.

My players enjoyed it.  We usually didn't "go to another room while everyone plays Xbox".

People roleplaying characters whose lives, reputation, and livelihood depended on what the Decker/Hacker was doing...actually were interested in what the Decker/Hacker was doing.  So odd...

Quote from: Omega;888817In the end Shadowrun did cyberpunk better than Gibson.

Well, we know now that since Cyberpunk literally means "Only that written by Gibson (except all the mystical parts...and the Space AI thing)" well then what you said can't be true. ;)

Quote from: Rincewind1;888824Am I the only guy who actually really enjoyed the Netrunning parts both in SR and Cyberpunk, and actually saw it managed in the former (in 5e though) without a hitch in play? I see it not terribly different from splitting a party mid - combat if someone enters a Dream Realm to battle their enemies or something like that.

That's pretty much the part that people are complaining about. One character goes off and does stuff (and may in fact have to be almost exclusively dedicated to that, if they are built at the same 'level' as the rest of the group) while everyone else sits and waits to find out what happens in that side venture. If a fantasy game had one character who routinely went off to do Dream Realm battle and the other characters weren't involved (and potentially that one character wouldn't have the build points to be good at non-Dream Realm activities), I'm sure it would draw the same complaints.

I haven't played either SR or CP recently enough, but my hazy memory says that the actual in-the-VR-net minigame wasn't in any way a bad game. Kind of a mini-dungeoncrawl with enemy programs/monsters you either evaded or defeated, right?

Quote from: Rincewind1;888824Am I the only guy who actually really enjoyed the Netrunning parts both in SR and Cyberpunk, and actually saw it managed in the former (in 5e though) without a hitch in play? I see it not terribly different from splitting a party mid - combat if someone enters a Dream Realm to battle their enemies or something like that.

No we liked it in our games too.  There were big parts where the mage would be off doing astral stuff, the face would be doing social stuff, and the samurai would be out procuring gear.  So fair was kind of fair that the decker get their turn.  I'm not sure how people were running it such that only the decker was eating up time all by their lonesome.  Maybe everyone was friendly with everyone else's contacts and were never jumpy at having a whole team of highly skilled and heavily armed runners at the meet?

Someone liked the netrunning part enough to make a PC game based on it. Decker. I did some sprite work for it way back.

I know there's a number of Shadowrun fans in my area (Massachusetts) but I can't get a game of it going.

But that seems to be me - no one seems to want to game with me.

Quote from: Omega;888817In the end Shadowrun did cyberpunk better than Gibson.

Quote from: tenbones;888828Galactus strike you down for your blasephemy.

LOL :D

The interesting question would be which of the Shadowrun fanbase and the RIFTS fanbase are more fanatically loyal, because they're both pretty damn fanatical.

My general guess would be Shadowrun. Most of the RIFTS fans I know say things along the lines of "I'd really love to play it. I just have to put the work into porting it to a usable system." OTOH, I have a friend who has a Shadowrun tattoo. Anecdotal evidence to be sure, but still.

Quote from: RPGPundit;889849The interesting question would be which of the Shadowrun fanbase and the RIFTS fanbase are more fanatically loyal, because they're both pretty damn fanatical.

Having lived through the Great Catalyst Debacle I'd have to say Shadowrun.  The only reason being that they have pretty much purged anyone who isn't drinking the Catalyst Kool Aid.  RIFTS fans are pretty bad too but they are still kind of waging their witch hunt.

Let's bring both tribes together under the banner of the Savage Worlds convention.

Then in during the grand moot, Pinnacle pronounces Interface Zero 3.0: ShadowRifts - Gleaming the Splugorth!

The RNC isn't the only crooked conspiracy!

I'll put my chip down on Rifts fans being more rabid, because the system has remained in its current state. Those boys and girls are troopers. You'd have to be to stick it out this long.

Shadowrun has been pimped out a bit.

Meanwhile... in the sewers, below the ghettos that have been trampled by progress, and urinated upon, below that irradiated rubble in the darkness, CP2020 fans pray to the gods that their cult will be resurrected.

Oh how they are rabid... and hungry.

Quote from: tenbones;890368Meanwhile... in the sewers, below the ghettos that have been trampled by progress, and urinated upon, below that irradiated rubble in the darkness, CP2020 fans pray to the gods that their cult will be resurrected.

Oh how they are rabid... and hungry.

Yes, yes we are.

;)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;890398Yes, yes we are.

;)

Patience, my brother. Patience.

(http://i.imgur.com/zwqhS6s.jpg)

Quote from: Willie the Duck;890030My general guess would be Shadowrun. Most of the RIFTS fans I know say things along the lines of "I'd really love to play it. I just have to put the work into porting it to a usable system." OTOH, I have a friend who has a Shadowrun tattoo. Anecdotal evidence to be sure, but still.

Most RIFTS fans I know of think the system is great.

Quote from: RPGPundit;891607Most RIFTS fans I know of think the system is great.

That's because Rabies will make you think funny thoughts.

Don't get me wrong - I have had a long multi-decade love-affair with Palladium Fantasy, Heroes Unlimited, Robotech, and Rifts (and Ninjas and Superspies) - but that's like when I had a girlfriend that was really into blow and was batshit crazy... but you know... It got old replacing my TV, stereo, furniture, and having to stitch/superglue my own wounds.

Rifts is just overwrought. It needs a cleaned up new edition, and honestly they don't have to change a lot in terms of style - they just need to settle on some unified mechanics.

Still don't understand why they don't do it. Given their solid fanbase, the fact that the system hasn't really had a legitimate new edition. I think they'd make a fantastic amount of money. Maybe they're waiting to see how Savage Rifts fares?

Quote from: tenbones;891715Rifts is just overwrought. It needs a cleaned up new edition, and honestly they don't have to change a lot in terms of style - they just need to settle on some unified mechanics.

Still don't understand why they don't do it. Given their solid fanbase, the fact that the system hasn't really had a legitimate new edition. I think they'd make a fantastic amount of money. Maybe they're waiting to see how Savage Rifts fares?

Simple - the fanbase is obviously not only loyal, but probably used to the system by now. Add to that the experience of watching the various edition wars over the ages, calculate the risk of alienating your audiences, because what might be simplifying mechanics to you will be STORYGAMING SWINERY/needless abstraction/too much realism etc. etc. to others, and it all starts to sound like way too much hard work, no?

Quote from: RPGPundit;889849The interesting question would be which of the Shadowrun fanbase and the RIFTS fanbase are more fanatically loyal, because they're both pretty damn fanatical.

Never seen much fanatical about either. Least untill Cyberpunk 2020 fanatics attack them then all hell breaks lose. Rifts fans rarely come across as fanatical. Loyal, yes. Fanatical. No. Very different things.

Most Rifts fans are kinda subdued really. They just lurk and play and try to keep their quiet little fan sites from being deleted by Palladium. Or wondering what new screwup will happen next.

Quote from: Rincewind1;891725Simple - the fanbase is obviously not only loyal, but probably used to the system by now. Add to that the experience of watching the various edition wars over the ages, calculate the risk of alienating your audiences, because what might be simplifying mechanics to you will be STORYGAMING SWINERY/needless abstraction/too much realism etc. etc. to others, and it all starts to sound like way too much hard work, no?

I don't disagree. But where I put my chip on the table is this: Just like from the days of yore! no single group of roleplayers played AD&D the *exact* same way. Everyone had their house-rules etc.

Palladium has never even been consistent between their different respective games. Some concepts sure. Rifts *tries* to smooth that over - but let's face it, anyone that plays Rifts knows there are ways to smooth things over in the existing system. That's all I'm asking for.

I don't think you'll ever WANT to balance Rifts - (especially since I think such a thing would ruin Rifts as it does most games that try to do that). I think it can unify its various processes into something more streamlined even if that means different tables for different OCC's - but at least make it a little less opaque. Hell, I'd be happy for just them doing a new layout.

Quote from: tenbones;891748Hell, I'd be happy for just them doing a new layout.

This. This.  A thousand times THIS!

Obviously, you'd want to clean up the text, but even if all you did was redo the layout of the books with a more modern, readable style you'd improve the game.  A lot of the times when people say Rifts is "unplayable" they mean "unreadable" or "unfollowable".  They never got to the playing part. :D

I found it 'unplayable' because the combat system is so defense heavy, and the resources take so long to get anything done, especially if you have the later books worth of stuff.

And don't get me started on the NGR and their Gargoyle Overlords.

That's exactly what I'm talking about in terms of just "smoothing things out" a bit.

Palladium never really revised itself as it kept glomming new material on.

Kinda like 1e D&D. The system grew long in the tooth and needs some shaving down and consolidation. Palladium in general, went crazytown with that and took it even further than 1e did.

I think the core of Rifts (and all the other Palladium material) can be salvaged but it needs a little re-work to trim the fat a bit. I honestly believe that if they did that, Palladium could re-do its entire catalog and become a pretty powerful name again in the TTRPG industry. It's sitting on a goldmine of ideas and a library of material that is unique and second to none. And I'm saying this as a neutral party. I wouldn't consider myself a Palladium fanboy by any stretch.

I fully recognize that their material could/would be utterly outstanding with a rules revision and some professional layout and redesign. I still wonder why they don't do it.

Quote from: tenbones;891951Kinda like 1e D&D. The system grew long in the tooth and needs some shaving down and consolidation. Palladium in general, went crazytown with that and took it even further than 1e did.

AD&D had Unerarthed Arcanna, Manual of the Planes, Wilderness Survival Guide, and Dungeoneers Survival Guide. Of those. Most people seem to have ignored UA and the other three are environ books. And people ignored those enough that TSR was giving them away.

Wasnt till 2e that things went nuts with the Complete Guides and other add-ons.

Back on topic.

Interestingly. Like Palladium. Cyberpunk was one of the few settings that TSR did not really cover. Though they did do a nice Biopunk setting with Kromosome for Amazing Engine. (it does have some cyberware tech in it too.)

And merged it with a superhero theme for F .R.E.E. Lancers for Top Secret/SI. Probably the closest TSR got to a straight up cyberpunk setting. To me at least the writing was so bland that it just felt kinda... there. But had some really interesting ideas in it.

Anyone else tried either of those?

Quote from: tenbones;891748I don't think you'll ever WANT to balance Rifts - (especially since I think such a thing would ruin Rifts as it does most games that try to do that). I think it can unify its various processes into something more streamlined even if that means different tables for different OCC's - but at least make it a little less opaque. Hell, I'd be happy for just them doing a new layout.

We found it best to ignore balance, just use the books as you would; last adventure we had was Juicers from Juicer's Uprising, but in the New German Republic, using some sort of dimensional transport to go to Wormword and find a pan flute that would lead the Gargoyles through a rift. Turns out it was to Atlantis where the Gargoyles were going. As long as you bracketed the players occ's, it was ok, but there really wasn't a lot of balance between the various books.

Quote from: tenbones;891715That's because Rabies will make you think funny thoughts.

Don't get me wrong - I have had a long multi-decade love-affair with Palladium Fantasy, Heroes Unlimited, Robotech, and Rifts (and Ninjas and Superspies) - but that's like when I had a girlfriend that was really into blow and was batshit crazy... but you know... It got old replacing my TV, stereo, furniture, and having to stitch/superglue my own wounds.

Rifts is just overwrought. It needs a cleaned up new edition, and honestly they don't have to change a lot in terms of style - they just need to settle on some unified mechanics.

Still don't understand why they don't do it. Given their solid fanbase, the fact that the system hasn't really had a legitimate new edition. I think they'd make a fantastic amount of money. Maybe they're waiting to see how Savage Rifts fares?

RIFTS has had a single game system for nearly 30 years now, and while parts of it are cumbersome it's clearly served the game well.

Shadowrun has gone through four (or is it 5) editions now, and every single one has been crap. Buckets of Dice, stupid subsystems, and UTTERLY Appalling character creation ("here's 400 points, and now here's 50 different things you can put those points into. Good luck over the next 8 hours while you try to decide what to make your character, newb, though it doesn't really matter at all since the guy who knows all the tricks to game the system will have a character a thousand times better than yours").

If I have to decide between systems, there's no contest. The Palladium system, warts and all, is better by a thousand fold than ANY game that ever called itself 'shadowrun'.

Quote from: Omega;891726Never seen much fanatical about either. Least untill Cyberpunk 2020 fanatics attack them then all hell breaks lose. Rifts fans rarely come across as fanatical. Loyal, yes. Fanatical. No. Very different things.

Most Rifts fans are kinda subdued really. They just lurk and play and try to keep their quiet little fan sites from being deleted by Palladium. Or wondering what new screwup will happen next.

Palladium is, aside from D&D, the only company I've seen multiple gamers wearing t-shirts of. I met one guy who went around with a RIFTS t-shirt and had his dice-bag tied around his belt and claimed he was a... I don't remember the exact word he used, I want to say "prophet" but I'm not sure that was it... of the glory of Palladium and its products.

There's a reason Kevin Siembieda can unironically use terms like "Crisis of Treachery" and get his base to send him thousands of dollars in a move that would make TV Evangelists jealous.

Quote from: RPGPundit;892561There's a reason Kevin Siembieda can unironically use terms like "Crisis of Treachery" and get his base to send him thousands of dollars in a move that would make TV Evangelists jealous.

I thought it was for the same reason people pay to tour circus sideshows? :D

Quote from: RPGPundit;892560RIFTS has had a single game system for nearly 30 years now, and while parts of it are cumbersome it's clearly served the game well.

Shadowrun has gone through four (or is it 5) editions now, and every single one has been crap. Buckets of Dice, stupid subsystems, and UTTERLY Appalling character creation ("here's 400 points, and now here's 50 different things you can put those points into. Good luck over the next 8 hours while you try to decide what to make your character, newb, though it doesn't really matter at all since the guy who knows all the tricks to game the system will have a character a thousand times better than yours").

If I have to decide between systems, there's no contest. The Palladium system, warts and all, is better by a thousand fold than ANY game that ever called itself 'shadowrun'.

I would never think of comparing the two in terms of my own preference. I've never cared for Shadowrun's system and that has been since 1e (the only one I played) but I've seen enough edition wars to know I have zero interest in the system of the later editions. Setting seems interesting tho.

Quote from: RPGPundit;892561There's a reason Kevin Siembieda can unironically use terms like "Crisis of Treachery" and get his base to send him thousands of dollars in a move that would make TV Evangelists jealous.

To be clear, Siembieda and his work has enough fans to send in money when they see that things really went south. However, he could call it such unironically because that (with or without the catastrophic language) is what happened. A trusted employee ripped them off. Whether the donations were because the fans are so die hard, or because it was kind of like a help someone afford the suddenly needed organ transplant situation, I don't know.

As to RIFTS itself. I think its greatest hindrance is that there is now such a high purchasing bar for new entries into the system.

Shadowrun is getting a new edition called Shadowrun Anarchy by the end of the year, but from all accounts it will be a narrative storygame version of Shadowrun.  Rules are supposed to only be about 40 pages, and rumor is that there will be no GM at all.

The good thing is that this is supposed to complement Shadowrun 5th Edition for the storygame crowd, not replace nor supersede it.

Quote from: Celestial;892700Shadowrun is getting a new edition called Shadowrun Anarchy by the end of the year, but from all accounts it will be a narrative storygame version of Shadowrun.  Rules are supposed to only be about 40 pages, and rumor is that there will be no GM at all.

The good thing is that this is supposed to complement Shadowrun 5th Edition for the storygame crowd, not replace nor supersede it.

I thought you were joking. Joke's on me apparently.

My initial reaction is: ungh.

But given the current ruleset... I think this is kind of reactionary.

Nope, not joking.  I wish I was.  I'd much rather see a traditional rules medium Shadowrun, but c'est la vie.

Quote from: Celestial;892700Shadowrun is getting a new edition called Shadowrun Anarchy by the end of the year, but from all accounts it will be a narrative storygame version of Shadowrun.  Rules are supposed to only be about 40 pages, and rumor is that there will be no GM at all.

At least all the debates will be over: THIS will be the shittiest edition of Shadowrun ever.

Yep.  From bad (first to third edition) to worse (fourth and fifth edition) to even worse (Anarchy).  I can't say worst, because who knows what they'll cook up in five to ten years.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;892764At least all the debates will be over: THIS will be the shittiest edition of Shadowrun ever.

LOL but will it still be cyberpunk!?!?!?!

Quote from: tenbones;892778LOL but will it still be cyberpunk!?!?!?!

*Takes the gas can from Tenbones*  Stop that.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;892782*Takes the gas can from Tenbones*  Stop that.

BUUURN BABY!!! BURN!!!!ingchrome... BUUUURN!!

Quote from: tenbones;892778LOL but will it still be cyberpunk!?!?!?!

It won't be a cyberpunk roleplaying game, because it won't even BE a roleplaying game.

YOUR ARGUMENT IS MOOT.

:p

Quote from: Celestial;892700Shadowrun is getting a new edition called Shadowrun Anarchy by the end of the year, but from all accounts it will be a narrative storygame version of Shadowrun.  Rules are supposed to only be about 40 pages, and rumor is that there will be no GM at all.

Link to the petty purple. (https://forum.rpg.net/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=19985753)

Normally I try not to link to RPGNet threads on here, but since Celestial is just posting some random crap that some fans over on RPGNet said with no basis whatsoever, I figure it might be useful to link to someone who actually knows what they're talking about directly contradicting him.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;892807Link to the petty purple. (https://forum.rpg.net/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=19985753)

Normally I try not to link to RPGNet threads on here, but since Celestial is just posting some random crap that some fans over on RPGNet said with no basis whatsoever, I figure it might be useful to link to someone who actually knows what they're talking about directly contradicting him.

And for those of us who are banned from the place?  Can we get a synopsis or something?

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;892764At least all the debates will be over: THIS will be the shittiest edition of Shadowrun ever.

Thought that was the action figure edition? :jaw-dropping:

No. Im not joking. It was real and in stores. 150mm (6in) action figure game via WizKids.

(http://www.mwctoys.com/images/review_shadowrun_1.jpg)

To be fair they were well made figures and pretty articulate. But it never caught on.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;892828And for those of us who are banned from the place?  Can we get a synopsis or something?

Weird link. This is what the link read.

QuoteCritas:
Jason's a busy dude so I promised him I wouldn't toss any more questions his way, but (just speaking for myself, here), it likely won't be for official SRM events, no.  Right now, Anarchy is being built where a GM can take a Mission, run some quick numbers, and turn all their NPCs into Anarchy-appropriate (and then, voila, run a Mission with Anarchy!), but not so much so that you can run Anarchy and SR5 at the same time, at a mixed table.  Unless we have some mega awesome breakthrough during playtesting or something, they won't quite be that level of compatible.  

I don't wanna say "hard no," because -- again -- maybe we'll stumble across a really elegant way to do it, but with what we've done so far...that's not quite what we're shooting for.

Quote from: tenbones;892778LOL but will it still be cyberpunk!?!?!?!

Narrativispunk obviously. :cool:

Quote from: RPGPundit;892560RIFTS has had a single game system for nearly 30 years now, and while parts of it are cumbersome it's clearly served the game well.

Shadowrun has gone through four (or is it 5) editions now, and every single one has been crap. Buckets of Dice, stupid subsystems, and UTTERLY Appalling character creation ("here's 400 points, and now here's 50 different things you can put those points into. Good luck over the next 8 hours while you try to decide what to make your character, newb, though it doesn't really matter at all since the guy who knows all the tricks to game the system will have a character a thousand times better than yours").

If I have to decide between systems, there's no contest. The Palladium system, warts and all, is better by a thousand fold than ANY game that ever called itself 'shadowrun'.

well i cant speak for every edition but i know 3e was a priority system not a true point buy.
and that i figured it out and made my 1st pc in an hour or so thats with no help and my 1st time reading the book

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;892764At least all the debates will be over: THIS will be the shittiest edition of Shadowrun ever.

yep

Quote from: Christopher Brady;892828And for those of us who are banned from the place?  Can we get a synopsis or something?

yah that link is weird

3rd edition took a long time too because of all the gear.  No where near as bad as 4th edition but it wasn't a smooth process for the technology based characters.

Quote from: KingCheops;8933663rd edition took a long time too because of all the gear.  No where near as bad as 4th edition but it wasn't a smooth process for the technology based characters.

ahhh that might explain it i made a mage hermetic and like i said in hour or so at the 1st crack .

and welcome to the rpg site

Quote from: kosmos1214;893370ahhh that might explain it i made a mage hermetic and like i said in hour or so at the 1st crack .

Yeah not quite as straightforward as a Shaman but pretty darn close.  Mages are pretty easy to make unless you mess around with focuses.  Hilariously 4th even managed to complicate basic spellcasters.

I really wish that Third Edition was still in print, or there were at least better quality PDFs.

Quote from: Celestial;893378I really wish that Third Edition was still in print, or there were at least better quality PDFs.

me to

Quote from: KingCheops;893374Yeah not quite as straightforward as a Shaman but pretty darn close.  Mages are pretty easy to make unless you mess around with focuses.  Hilariously 4th even managed to complicate basic spellcasters.

that explains it so the cyber sets that much worse? it it all the essence calculating ?

It's a new option, not a new edition, FWIW, it's not nearly as narrative as plenty of games out there, and this is the first I've heard we won't have GMs.

If y'all want to ask me stuff, instead of sharing rumors (and then just finding stuff I posted somewhere else), I'm right here.

Quote from: kosmos1214;893385me to
that explains it so the cyber sets that much worse? it it all the essence calculating ?

Yeah pretty much.  You're trying to balance 2 numbers -- Essence and nuyen.  Although I'd say that street samurai are easier than other technical characters.  After your wires there's not usually much Essence or money left.  It's a weird bell curve where it doesn't take long when you first build one because you have no idea what you're doing so you just randomly grab useful looking stuff.  As  you get to know the system better it takes longer as you're trying to eke out that extra edge.  Once you master it things get easy again because you know it all.

Things get really fiddly with gear and whatnot.  Riggers and Deckers have it the worst.  If you think people hand waved and ignored decking you should see what happened with Electronic Warfare.  There's like 3 or 4 subsystems for all the different components of EW (not counting the MIJI system in Rigger 3) plus the Flux rules on top of that.  No one ever bothered -- just roll Electronics and let me know what you get.  Okay sounds good you listen in to their radio/intercept their drones.

The more you guys talk about these systems in Shadowrun the less interested I am in playing the official game. I'm really interested in the setting... but that system. It sounds crazy-messy.

Quote from: tenbones;893707The more you guys talk about these systems in Shadowrun the less interested I am in playing the official game. I'm really interested in the setting... but that system. It sounds crazy-messy.

It's been a good 20 years since I played (back in the 2nd edition days I think), but I don't remember it being a terrible system, just one requiring buckets o' dice. I recall liking how they did chargen though. Probably wouldn't be my first pick these days.

Personally I always preferred Cyberpunk 2020, but that had more to do with me preferring a fantasy-less cyberpunk genre than it did with the system.

I think the biggest thing stopping me from doing using either system now would be that despite some of the bigger themes of cyberpunk still being very relevant, the trappings of the genre have a Buck Rogers / John Carter zeerust feel to them for me.

Quote from: tenbones;893707The more you guys talk about these systems in Shadowrun the less interested I am in playing the official game. I'm really interested in the setting... but that system. It sounds crazy-messy.

Try the Third Edition core rulebook.  No longer in print, but you can find it available in PDF on DriveThruRPG.  Without all the splat, it's not bad.

Quote from: tenbones;893707The more you guys talk about these systems in Shadowrun the less interested I am in playing the official game. I'm really interested in the setting... but that system. It sounds crazy-messy.

They're talking about SR3 with a bunch of splats.

Use SR2, Street Samurai catalog and the more than a dozen adventures for second edition.  You'll be good for a long time.

Quote from: jgants;893709It's been a good 20 years since I played (back in the 2nd edition days I think), but I don't remember it being a terrible system, just one requiring buckets o' dice. I recall liking how they did chargen though. Probably wouldn't be my first pick these days.

About the same here. But about 15 years now as a GM and about 5 as a player.

I have 1st ed and keep wondering where people get this "buckets of dice" thing from? Think the worst I ever saw as a player in 3e was a maxed out Troll in full heavy body armour. 19 dice of resistance to ballistic vs my Minotaur lugging the Ares MP-III Laser, 14 dice for medium range.

That is not buckets of dice... :nono:

That is a cup of dice! :cheerleader:

Get your terms right man! yeesh! Kids these days. :cool:

My main issue with 1e was that the general rules are spread scattershot through the book and some things are not adequately explained.

Quote from: tenbones;893707The more you guys talk about these systems in Shadowrun the less interested I am in playing the official game. I'm really interested in the setting... but that system. It sounds crazy-messy.

Which is, FWIW, exactly the sort of comment/feeling that Anarchy is trying to tackle.  We want to present the (fantastic) setting in a way people can play more quickly and easily.

Quote from: Omega;89373619 dice of resistance to ballistic vs my Minotaur lugging the Ares MP-III Laser, 14 dice for medium range.

Had some min-maxed magician players of mine score a low 20 dice once. Pretty sure that was the most.

Quote from: KingCheops;893629Yeah pretty much.  You're trying to balance 2 numbers -- Essence and nuyen.  Although I'd say that street samurai are easier than other technical characters.  After your wires there's not usually much Essence or money left.  It's a weird bell curve where it doesn't take long when you first build one because you have no idea what you're doing so you just randomly grab useful looking stuff.  As  you get to know the system better it takes longer as you're trying to eke out that extra edge.  Once you master it things get easy again because you know it all.

Things get really fiddly with gear and whatnot.  Riggers and Deckers have it the worst.  If you think people hand waved and ignored decking you should see what happened with Electronic Warfare.  There's like 3 or 4 subsystems for all the different components of EW (not counting the MIJI system in Rigger 3) plus the Flux rules on top of that.  No one ever bothered -- just roll Electronics and let me know what you get.  Okay sounds good you listen in to their radio/intercept their drones.

ahh  that explains a lot thanks

Quote from: Critias;893741Which is, FWIW, exactly the sort of comment/feeling that Anarchy is trying to tackle.  We want to present the (fantastic) setting in a way people can play more quickly and easily.

Color me interested. Where can I find more info about this ?

Quote from: Itachi;893936Color me interested. Where can I find more info about this ?

Not really anywhere yet, because it's not out (and actual preview material comes from the higher-ups).  If you've got a specific question that wasn't addressed in the linked conversation, I can try to answer it, but there isn't really any other general info available yet.

Oo! So how is die-resolution handled basically?

Quote from: tenbones;893707The more you guys talk about these systems in Shadowrun the less interested I am in playing the official game. I'm really interested in the setting... but that system. It sounds crazy-messy.

Playing absolutely RAW is pretty tough sledding but that being said actually playing the game and just focusing on making up stuff we thought would be cool works wonderfully.  Pick a TN, roll some dice, and go!  Each class has some resource management so there is some thinking to the game but Dice Pools and Karma replenish quickly (unless Karma gets burnt -- go Humans!) so think of it as all being tied to the Short Rest mechanic in D&D 4/5.  There's a learning curve but it is definitely quality gaming once you get over that initial hump.

I'd second the sentiment that just playing 3rd edition core without any splats is probably best.

Quote from: Omega;892839Thought that was the action figure edition? :jaw-dropping:

No. Im not joking. It was real and in stores. 150mm (6in) action figure ...

To be fair they were well made figures and pretty articulate. But it never caught on.

I have the first set still in packaging. :-)

I think with better marketing and a smaller scale it might have caught on. As was. No.
100mm/4in would have made them to scale with GI Joes and other standard 100mms.

I think another part of the issue was that there are no really iconic SR characters, at least none that are Adventurer class.  Now, if they made several variants of generic Ork, Troll, Elf and so on and so forth, it might have worked better.

The setting was always much more awesome than the system.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;894664I think another part of the issue was that there are no really iconic SR characters, at least none that are Adventurer class.  Now, if they made several variants of generic Ork, Troll, Elf and so on and so forth, it might have worked better.

Whaaa ? What do you consider Fastjack, Hatchetman, Neon Samurai, Matador, Dodger, Sally Tsung and Ghost-Who-Walks to be ? :eek:

The Iconics used somewhat in D&D and much more successfully in Pathfinder are more than just Named NPCs.  They are a character template, a living archetype.  Yeah you can build fighters a lot of different ways, but Regdar and Valeros as character builds are meant to be the go-to build, the meat-and-potatoes PC of that type.  Pathfinder embraced this to a greater degree by having pre-built Iconic builds where you customize maybe a couple things on the rise to 20.

While the Named NPCs in Shadowrun that you name above are all important NPCs within the setting, we never really see their stats.  As such, they don't really qualify as "Iconic PCs" which are meant to be there not as much for their setting impact, but for their system examples.

[pedant]BTW it's Ghost Who Walks Inside :cool:[/pedant]

Quote from: Itachi;895766Whaaa ? What do you consider Fastjack, Hatchetman, Neon Samurai, Matador, Dodger, Sally Tsung and Ghost-Who-Walks to be ? :eek:

Inconsequential one offs that rarely show up in more than one medium (often they're handled as posters on a 'forum' topic in a book.  Or in rulebook fiction that a lot of people skip.)  They never actually overshadow the PC's in this regard (which in my maybe not-so-humble opinion is a good thing.)  But for making an iconic line of character figures or dolls?  Not memorable enough.

There has been a recent (SR5, so "the last couple years") move towards introducing some iconics.  The crew from the cover art of the SR5 core book (and the intro fiction) show up lots of other places;  they're the sample characters detailed and dossiered in the Beginner Box and Alphaware Toolkit (and featured in fiction in there), they're the intro fic for the Crossfire card game (and feature in artwork there), the intro fic for the new Seattle Sprawl box set features them, and they're going recurring characters in at least two novels (and counting, they'll likely appear in Anarchy as sample characters, for instance).  

So it's a lacking that we're aware of, and one we're trying to patch over a bit.  They're not overshadowing anybody (they're actually pretty close to starting characters as presented in the Beginner Box, for instance), but we are trying to go for that 'iconic' feel, with recurring characters from each archetype and metarace.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;894664I think another part of the issue was that there are no really iconic SR characters, at least none that are Adventurer class.  Now, if they made several variants of generic Ork, Troll, Elf and so on and so forth, it might have worked better.

How so? They had the Elven Decker, the Orc Mercenary in 1e? 1e could have done with more diversity I thought but they had at least some iconics there. What did 2 and 3e present or not?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;895880Inconsequential one offs that rarely show up in more than one medium (often they're handled as posters on a 'forum' topic in a book.  Or in rulebook fiction that a lot of people skip.)  They never actually overshadow the PC's in this regard (which in my maybe not-so-humble opinion is a good thing.)  But for making an iconic line of character figures or dolls?  Not memorable enough.

Dodger, Ghost, Kham and Sally appear in the first three novels. If you missed them consider yourself fortunate. Some of THE dumbest characters put to pen. Especially the protagonist. Kham appears in a later novel.

Quote from: Omega;896105How so? They had the Elven Decker, the Orc Mercenary in 1e? 1e could have done with more diversity I thought but they had at least some iconics there. What did 2 and 3e present or not?

I jumped in at 2e, got some 3e stuff, but I can't actually remember any interesting characters.  Even the newer computer RPGs I don't remember more than a couple of the NPCs and I admit I need to go back and play those, lot's of fun.  If lacking in certain things.  Again, I think it's a strength of SR, to not have a Morgan Blackhand or Elminster or the Drizzle...  Uh, Drizz't Do'Urden that can take up the players mind, it allows players to BE their own iconics.  No nagging thoughts of who lives where, and should they visit them or not.

Quote from: Omega;896108Dodger, Ghost, Kham and Sally appear in the first three novels. If you missed them consider yourself fortunate. Some of THE dumbest characters put to pen. Especially the protagonist. Kham appears in a later novel.

I read a few, back in the 90s.  Don't recall much, other than one dealt with an ex-Lone Star operative.

Yeah. Each novel author had their own character/s. But none ever took off that I was aware of. Ghost, Dodger and Striper are all I can recall. Sally early on was being hyped for some odd reason. Wizkids apparently put out some books to promote the action figure game. But fairly obscure.

Quote from: Omega;896108Dodger, Ghost, Kham and Sally appear in the first three novels. If you missed them consider yourself fortunate. Some of THE dumbest characters put to pen. Especially the protagonist. Kham appears in a later novel.

Yeah Dodger joining the team in Brainscan was the biggest let down of that whole campaign path.  The people who slavishly loved the fiction were all drooling and kowtowing and the people who had no idea who he was were like "who the hell is this asshole? we aren't a Ren Faire."  For those who don't know Dodger is positioned as an Elven decker who is just better than you'll ever be and always speaks with thees and thous.  Also by this point in Brainscan the team has done some pretty incredible things and are pretty much in Prime Runner territory themselves.

I thought Dodger was ok overall in the books at least. Ghost was ok. Just underused. Sally for some reason just got on my nerves and Kham seemed to get screwed over alot. Dysfunctional families/relationships seemed to be Charrette's shtick in the SR books.