So what the shit is so bad about Shadowrun?

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Trill
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Post by Trill »

PrometheanVigil wrote:Too arbitrary. Mechanical consequence is best. Otherwise, it's down to the GM and in my experience, most GMs are shit at or cowards about coming down on stupid shit. At least if you give them this, they've got something to lean on or we've now just confirmed they're a shithead and shouldn't be hosting games at all.
see, this is where we're going to disagree. It being dependent on the GM? I see that as a good thing. Because as seen in the Role-play rules thread, how exactly and for what they are punished, should be in the hands of the GM.
Want to play a dark version where murder and strife are a daily occurrence, where the Dystopia is clearly visible? Go for it.
Want to show a world half full, where the people have survived multiple apocalypses (what's the plural of Apocalypse anyway?) and where they have managed to build a (slightly dysfunctional) but working system? Go for it.
Want to have a game where there are pockets of darkness around, but which is otherwise not much more grim than our world; a world where murder is investigated and seen as deplorable? Go for it.
The GM himself should decide how he approaches the response, from it being ignored to CSI going after you. And rules wouldn't help much, since a GM wanting them can just ignore them, an undecided GM won't be able to apply them satisfactorily and a lazy GM just won't apply them unless necessary.
To be clear, "bad thing" here is rape, murder, torture, GBH... to tell me this wouldn't fuck with you unless you were a psychopath means we exist on two separate planes of reality here.
People have an amazing ability to rationalize such stuff if they want/need to. "That's not a human being, that's just CorpSec. Either he goes down or I do and I definitely value myself more than him." of course there are non-lethal means available (and I run it that using them gives you a lighter response than going "let god sort you out"). But in the spur of the moment, when you have to decide "Risk grabbing my non-lethal weapon or just killing him" they'll likely decide for the second and likely won't even feel bad about it.
since you'll lose precious EXP because you knocked over a homeless person's tent/shopping cart accidentally.
No, you don't. Where do you see that you would?
See, there was no need for them to make Karma also be EXP here.
And again: Karma (the Experience points you get) =/= Karma (the concept of how good a person you are)
You can be the definition of a Saint and still have no Karma to spend, or the definition of a Monster and have tons of it to spend on stuff.
My problem is that the game has inextricably linked morality with stuff core to the system
and again: Where?
This game just gets more broken the further on your level up your build, jesus...
not really. A Character with 300 Karma down his belt is not that much better compared to the same character at the beginning.
Compare that to 3.PF where a lvl 1 Wizard is weaksauce and a lvl 20 Wizard a threat to gods.
Direct reply: everyone should be penalized
Direct Answer: no
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Post by Krusk »

Trill, asking the gm to decide who roleplays good and who roleplays bad results in heavy bias everytime, and very quickly just becomes about blowjob skills. If you put the rules down on paper and give guidelines at least you can point to something and call the guy a cheater when he says you didnt use enough spit so you get a penalty.

Add that onto the idea that every gm ive ever met for real was terrible, except maybe 3-4 who were “ok”. And things get bad quickly.

Im sure your groups dont have that problem, and you are totally the exception.
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Post by Trill »

Krusk wrote:Im sure your groups dont have that problem, and you are totally the exception.
That may be it. I just don't see a good thing in the rules saying "you should roleplay this way and not that way", because that either leads to people trying to game it or it being ignored.
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Post by Nath »

Trill wrote:And again: Karma (the Experience points you get) =/= Karma (the concept of how good a person you are)
You can be the definition of a Saint and still have no Karma to spend, or the definition of a Monster and have tons of it to spend on stuff.
Actually, no. The concept of karma in eastern philosophies is ambivalent. Karma can be good or bad. The word just designates the action and its influence, whichever way it goes.

Shadowrun 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions called "good Karma" the Karma points you were spending on improving attributes and skills, learning spells and so on. That was the only definition of the term as far as the rules went. In 1st edition, Karma was good Karma when you decided to spend it that way. In 2nd and 3rd editions, 9/10th of all human Karma was good Karma and 19/20th of metahuman Karma was good Karma. Here ya go, moral imperative.

Besides, the other Karma points were not "bad Karma": it was "Instant Karma" or "Karma Pool" and was used to boost your roll. If instant ought to be the opposite of good, maybe we could have labelled them Darkside karma and Lightside karma instead.

Instant karma was functionally replaced by the Edge attribute in 4th and 5th editions, thus removing the need for the term "good Karma" who became the only Karma.

The 5th edition is the first to involve a seemingly moral component in Karma rewards (though it leaves entirely up to the GM to interpret what they meant by "cold-hearted bastard run" and "good feeling run").
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Post by Trill »

Nath wrote:Actually, no. The concept of karma in eastern philosophies is ambivalent. Karma can be good or bad. The word just designates the action and its influence, whichever way it goes.
Huh. Guess you learn something new every day.
The 5th edition is the first to involve a seemingly moral component in Karma rewards (though it leaves entirely up to the GM to interpret what they meant by "cold-hearted bastard run" and "good feeling run").
That and the fact that it only refers to the intended purpose of the run, not what you actually do there. While they are directed towards certain actions (they give extraction, espionage and expropriation as neutral runs; assassination, exploitation and slavery for puppy-kicking runs and hooding, helping the downtrodden and sticking it to the man as feel-good runs) you are still somewhat free to decide how to act on it. Maybe instead of assassinating the target you make it look like he did and help him escape. Maybe you stick it to the man by blowing up a factory, workers included. And with the neutral runs they may be both (maybe the extraction target is willing and the target corp is better. But maybe you're just bringing him into even deeper slavery to the corps)
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Post by Longes »

Stahlseele, "two-handed weapon" is an undefined concept in Shadowrun. If you want to dual-wield polearms or gatling guns - the RAW doesn't stop you.
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Post by Stahlseele »

I think i remember a bit of text on Pole-Arms and Heavy Weapons, especially the PAC about that . . And in the advanced melee combat rules from the SR3 Gun-Book. But i am at work and have no access to nothing right now <.<

And then there is, of course, still common sense . .
If the trigger of a gun is not close enough to the handle of said gun, it has to be a 2 handed firearm . . And i wish to see you shoot an arrow from a bow with only one hand. And not using your feet or teeth either.
Last edited by Stahlseele on Thu Feb 08, 2018 3:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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Post by Trill »

Stahlseele wrote:And i wish to see you shoot an arrow from a bow with only one hand. And not using your feet or teeth either.
Does Mage Hands count?
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Post by Stahlseele »

See?
Even more reason why magic is OP! :P
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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Post by Iduno »

I bought SR5 when it came out, because I make poor decisions. Then I read it and GMed a 4th edition game, because I'm capable of realizing when something is bad.

Am I wrong in thinking SR5 is SR4 with extra rules bolted on to "balance" things, and that they "fixed" the same problem 3 different ways (except magic and agility - meaning elves), nerfing everything other than magic and elves?

Edit: Also, you talk about how bad the people are who now control the game, and didn't mention the run to kill Jewish ghosts and steal the scalpel the Nazis used to cut up Jewish people during the holocaust? I mean, I would be surprised if you could name anything that is too terrible for at least one of the current devs to have done, but that's a hilariously terrible example.
Last edited by Iduno on Thu Feb 08, 2018 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Smirnoffico »

Iduno wrote:Edit: Also, you talk about how bad the people are who now control the game, and didn't mention the run to kill Jewish ghosts and steal the scalpel the Nazis used to cut up Jewish people during the holocaust? I mean, I would be surprised if you could name anything that is too terrible for at least one of the current devs to have done, but that's a hilariously terrible example.
All in all, it's just one example of bad writing, it has nothing to do with Shadowrun in general
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Post by Trill »

Iduno wrote:Also, you talk about how bad the people are who now control the game, and didn't mention the run to kill Jewish ghosts and steal the scalpel the Nazis used to cut up Jewish people during the holocaust? I mean, I would be surprised if you could name anything that is too terrible for at least one of the current devs to have done, but that's a hilariously terrible example.
I think everyone willingly forgot that WAR! even existed.

PrometheanVigil: this is an example discussed late in the CGL Affair thread. A book so shitty that it defines shittiness
Highlights (or rather Lowlights):
A spell that can affect electronic systems and crack encryption.
A spell that slows down everything in its radius, and whose threshold is only dependent on the total mass of stuff in it.
A spell that's a movable cloud of your favorite elemental damage. Yes, you can make people take continuous Sound damage (which completely bypasses Armor)
A adept power that let's you use a mental attribute for a corresponding physical one. Push LOG to maximum and shoot like the best.
Thor Missiles for 1.2 mil. and Avail 45F, so go buy yourselves some.
Barrier Foam: 30¥ and you can make your own fortifications. Just spray it into a form no bigger than 1mx1mx10m, wait a CT and you have your own barrier harder than most walls. And the best part? Avail 7. This shit is easier to acquire than most weapons. And completely legal.
Retarded Vehicle armor rules: 20 DV against a naval cruiser? nothing happens. 21 DV? better learn to swim if you are not able.
A metaplot of Aztlan planting magical carnivorous trees on the border to Amazonia in order to enrage them. Keep in mind that
  • They planted them on their side of the border
  • Amazonia doesn't give a wet fart about the concerns of metahumans
  • the trees hinder Aztlan from raiding Amazonia
  • Amazonia love magic, trees and magical trees
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Post by ScottS »

But do they love tree magic?
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Post by Nath »

Trill wrote:A metaplot of Aztlan planting magical carnivorous trees on the border to Amazonia in order to enrage them. Keep in mind that
  • They planted them on their side of the border
  • Amazonia doesn't give a wet fart about the concerns of metahumans
  • the trees hinder Aztlan from raiding Amazonia
  • Amazonia love magic, trees and magical trees
There are many things that can be said about War!, but the "Look, carnivorous trees!!!" is an overblown one.

First, the book specifically mentions that those trees spread outside the Aztlan territory. A territory that, besides, the Amazoniens consider as lawfully their anyway. And the fact that the Amazonians could be pissed off by that particular type of tree is actually in line with FASA/Fanpro's Year of the Comet indication that the Sangre del Diablo was the result of Toxic corruption.

To be fair, it doesn't even try to be a metaplot. It's the given explanation for an increase in Amazonian-backed sabotage and terrorist attacks that took place... in 2063-2064, a decade ago in-game The fact the aztlans spread those trees is relevant to the game setting. The Amazonian reaction is not. It's just one event in a border conflict that started in the late 2040s. People are so used to those pointless historical chapters that they complain when half a page is silly, instead of complaining that that half-page is useless.

Now, you could also mention War! features a "magically enhanced sniper rifle", how it wrote "archeology" instead of "arcology" twice, or how they titled "Bogota Culture" a chapter that features 17 pages on political factions, half a page with a box on cultural festivals, and a larger box on rainforest survival tips.
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Post by Stahlseele »

Wasn't there also something about a submarine and / or harbour in bogota somewhere?
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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Post by Iduno »

Stahlseele wrote:Wasn't there also something about a submarine and / or harbour in bogota somewhere?
Also War!

The correct answer to the OPs question is probably "War! got published, got defended, and those incompetents/assholes are still in charge."
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Post by Nath »

Stahlseele wrote:Wasn't there also something about a submarine and / or harbour in bogota somewhere?
Iduno wrote:Also War!
No. It was in the Deadly Waves PDF, page 18.
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Post by Iduno »

It's also difficult to balance primary skills (magic, decking/hacking), skills everyone should be able to do to some degree (stealth, perception, combat, talking), and stuff that you can be good at but might not come up (athletics, art, driving, animal handling, etc.). Especially when there are only 2 primary skills, one of which is given to an NPC in a lot of games because the matrix system isn't great.

So your character might be a big, tough person who is good at athletics (climbing, running, swimming) and fights by hitting stuff good. Another player is the only one who can overcome magic threats, fights with magic, can levitate, and has a stealth spell. The GM needs to plan runs so they're both useful about equally often. I can't personally think of a lot of problems that can be solved by a single person swimming or climbing well, which also cannot be solved by levitating. Computers person can control computers to gain information or keep cameras from seeing you, and fights by sending expensive murder drones at enemies. They are balanced differently because nobody else does computers, but the drones are probably either getting blown up all of the time and costing the character too much money or taking all of the spotlight in combat by breaking the action economy (although it is somewhat possible to find a middle ground). The computer splat book for 4th edition also was bad in many ways, including (in my opinion) making the rules worse instead of just handing out toys to make your job more interesting.

The balance point between magic and not-magic is as bad as D&D, which is to say unacceptably bad. Also, like D&D, the solution has been to nerf not-magic.
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Post by Trill »

Iduno wrote:Also, like D&D, the solution has been to nerf not-magic.
What.

Are you honestly advocating taking the mundanes, which have high costs, slower advancement and things they simply can't do,

and then nerf them?
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Post by Coldstone »

I think he means that the company policy was to nerf not-magic, not that he votes to nerf not-magic.
Last edited by Coldstone on Fri Mar 02, 2018 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Iduno »

Correct. I'm not advocating making problems worse and calling them solved. I'm saying the devs though it was a good idea, as an explanation of why the game doesn't work like it should.
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Post by Trill »

Ah, okay.
Mord, on Cosmic Horror wrote:Today if I say to the man on the street, "Did you know that the world you live in is a fragile veneer of normality over an uncaring universe, that we could all die at any moment at the whim of beings unknown to us for reasons having nothing to do with ourselves, and that as far as the rest of the universe is concerned, nothing anyone ever did with their life has ever mattered?" his response, if any, will be "Yes, of course; now if you'll excuse me, I need to retweet Sonic the Hedgehog." What do you even do with that?
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Post by OgreBattle »

Would it help to have skills and attributes compressed while magic skills are broken up more?
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Post by Coldstone »

Yes and no - Frank actually did talk a bit about skills in SR in other threads, but the overall jist I think was there are a couple too many that are of questionable use and skills cost a bit too much overall in comparison to attributes. I forget the exact details though.

In the case of magic-based skills, it may be partly a case of of the ones that exist for more active use they have limited value in using, and several others are effectively 'background skills' and thus don't do much good because of how Internalized and painstaking crafting is.

So, whether you're a conjurer or a spellcaster or both, you only need 2 skills to 'fight', one skill to play defensive, and that's about it (Assensing is magical equivalent of perception, so useful if you need to know things, but only if it's astrally related). However, due to the karma intensity that is a mage, you'll spend a fair amount in comparison to others at start up, but you will probably get an increasing advantage over the flat rate cost of a new spell versus training up a new skill or the like.

The world at large in Shadowrun reflects the fact that those with power or money can make use of that to create opportunities (and thus, advantages) for themselves. The average mundane metahuman can't really compare to a state of the art combat drone, cyberized footsoldier, or wage mage - that's sort of the point. If you play a mundane mortal with only your wits and your gun, you are living on the edge - but if you can accomplish the amazing while doing so, you will carve out a legend for yourself.

That said, temptation is around every corner. You can make yourself smarter, faster, better, stronger, if you are willing to carve out your flesh to implant cyber or bioware. if you somehow have the gift for it and wake up late, you could divert your training into the magical arts, be it a spellcaster or an adept...

But with the rules as written, if you weren't a mage to start with (and otherwise don't take latent awakening which is a pitfall of a quality anyways), you can never take that route. Which just leaves the choice of chrome flesh or living on the edge against cyberized hellhounds.

...And then there's hacking, which is a whole different can of worms, but it requires the least amount of flesh carving for a mundane, at least until a technomancer comes along and steals all your wireless gear.

it's not easy being vanilla!
Last edited by Coldstone on Mon Mar 05, 2018 5:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by OgreBattle »

What impact would it make if guns was one skill and then Combat, Detection, Illusion, and Manipulation* magic were made different skills?

*Manipulation bloat is also divided into the other categories so you don't just end up with every mage only taking manipulation
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