The Shadowrun Situation

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue May 20, 2014 11:38 am

stolen souls is getting one hell of a beating on dumpshock

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue May 20, 2014 11:57 am

Stahlseele wrote:stolen souls is getting one hell of a beating on dumpshock

Thread link plox?

EDIT: Uniforms are 16F? WTF?!

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue May 20, 2014 12:19 pm

Here you go.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=40498

edit:
depends on the uniforms i guess

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue May 20, 2014 12:23 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Here you go.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=40498

edit:
depends on the uniforms i guess

They differ in price from 5k to 15k nuyen, but all have the same availability of 16F.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue May 20, 2014 12:24 pm

Who's uniforms are they?
You don't get genuine Uniforms anywhere aside from working for whoever uses these uniforms or taking them off of somebody working with these uniforms today either.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue May 20, 2014 1:34 pm

Dude. Uniforms come from uniform supply companies. Some companies will require you to give a story about how you need the uniform of a specific corporation or military outfit because your niece is in a school play, and some of them will just let you buy one no questions asked. Taco Bell makes tacos, not shirts. The Taco Bell uniform is provided by a third party contractor that gives zero actual fucks what anyone does with a Taco Bell shirt once they have been paid.

Further, lots of corporations force their employees to buy their own uniforms, which means they get to keep them after they stop working for that company. Uniforms show up in thrift stores all the time. If you had a day to hit the thrift stores and flea markets in a major city, you could sport the uniform of half a dozen corporations having spent less than twenty actual dollars.

Military uniforms are a bit more costly (due to higher demand, mostly), but are even easier to get. Military surplus stores have a variety of military uniforms in a multitude of sizes on the rack at all times. Your entire team could get completely authentic military uniforms for the locally relevant military outfits with a twenty minute shopping trip.

That's one of the reasons the entire world collectively face palmed when the Kiev government announced that their proof that the Russian separatists in Donetsk were Russian military was... that some of them had fifteen year old spetsnaz uniforms on. Of course, anyone in that part of the world can get a fifteen year old spetsnaz uniform in under an hour by going to a military surplus store and buying one that fits.

-Username17

Cyberzombie · Post by **Cyberzombie** » Tue May 20, 2014 2:55 pm

Schwarzkopf wrote: But it is terrible. It is known that it is terrible. Is it not a secret. Why did people buy it? Why are people buying it right now?

Someone explain humans to me. Explain psychology. Explain the RPG Market. Explain consumerism.

Nobody is satisfied with their current rules, so they buy the next edition, hoping it'll make the setting they love more playable.

The RPG community has become used to dealing with awful mechanics. Whether it's vast power imbalances like 3E caster vs. non-caster, or whether it's completely nonfunctional systems like the SR matrix. The Oberoni fallacy exists because the RPG community as a whole have all had to at one time or another see beyond some very awful rules. Saying the rules of one particular game suck isn't even a surprise to anyone familiar with RPGs, because there isn't a single RPG rules system that doesn't suck for one reason or another.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Tue May 20, 2014 3:29 pm

Nobody is satisfied with their current rules, so they buy the next edition, hoping it'll make the setting they love more playable.

But, but, but, but...SR4 is better than SR5. No one should buy SR5. SR5 is fucking terrible. It's like being unsatisfied with your penis because it's kind of smallish, and solving that by burning it off with a blowtorch and replacing it with a HIDEOUS SCAR.

Saying the rules of one particular game suck isn't even a surprise to anyone familiar with RPGs, because there isn't a single RPG rules system that doesn't suck for one reason or another.

I can think of a few RPGs that I don't think suck, but maybe I am using a narrower definition of suck than you are.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Tue May 20, 2014 3:33 pm

SR5 has finally matrix rules that work! Also rules how to fire bows...

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue May 20, 2014 4:34 pm

Schwarzkopf wrote:
Nobody is satisfied with their current rules, so they buy the next edition, hoping it'll make the setting they love more playable.
But, but, but, but...SR4 is better than SR5. No one should buy SR5. SR5 is fucking terrible. It's like being unsatisfied with your penis because it's kind of smallish, and solving that by burning it off with a blowtorch and replacing it with a HIDEOUS SCAR.

There are currently people in the world who think that SR3 is better than SR4, and probably people who think that SR2>SR3 and SR1>SR2. There are people in the world who think that D&D4 is the best edition, and people who think that AD&D is the best. The bottom line is: people are fucking retarded. I backed Exalted 3ed. Later I read TGD and ancient textss of John Chung on balance in Exalted, but it was already too late to pull the money out. The point is - before I felt the suffering of a Twilight caste sorcerer in Exalted and tried to find out why it was so, I was thinking that the system is great.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue May 20, 2014 4:47 pm

A relevant quote from the dumpshock:

I find SR5 clunky, unelegant, full of artefacts and mathematically not sound, with a heavy serving of wantonly introduced rules because someone wnated to correct some pet hate about SR4 (see the uselessness of knowledge skills and knowsofts, and how it's basically impossible to build a character who can speak more than one language).

Sure, SR5 is better than CPv3. It is also better than FATAL and Spawn of Fashan. But it is nowhere near what I consider a workable system, which is one that runs smoothly and facepalm-free without resorting to house rules.
I guess the question is, is it better than other SRs, i.e. 1,2,3, and 4? I only really know SR 1&2 myself, and I think that, overall, the 5 ruleset is better than them, but your definition of a workable system, which I am very sympathetic to, certainly does not apply to SR5, I agree.

I mean, back in the '90s, I would have laughed at the definition - almost nothing fit it, but in the last decade or so, that's really changed, and most newer game systems or editions do not require significant house-ruling (i.e. only aesthetic/taste stuff), whereas with SR5, I find I have several pages of house rules and growing (not dense text at all, but still!). Having come from D&D 4E (most recently), which required zero pages of house rules, that's quite a system shock, for me!

Run & Gun doesn't help matters - it doesn't look or feel like the elegant, setting-blended sourcebooks of SR1/2 (and 3, which I have, but have never run), it feels like one of those terrible "netbooks" from the '90s (i.e. "the netbook of guns" or "the netbook of cyberware"), where people just compiled giant lists of fan-generated content without regard for quality or consistency or style - only with nice production values - but the text is as questionable as ever.

Cyberzombie · Post by **Cyberzombie** » Tue May 20, 2014 5:14 pm

Schwarzkopf wrote: But, but, but, but...SR4 is better than SR5. No one should buy SR5. SR5 is fucking terrible. It's like being unsatisfied with your penis because it's kind of smallish, and solving that by burning it off with a blowtorch and replacing it with a HIDEOUS SCAR.

Yeah it is. But most people don't really trust the reviews and want to see it for themselves. The 4E core books sold really well initially, then sales rapidly crashed after that, so it's naturally to be expected that following a successful edition, the next edition will have pretty good sales to start.

And given how many problems 4E had, I don't find it too surprisingly that people will buy the 5E core to see if anything works better. Then they find it doesn't and get frustrated. Lets face it, Shadowrun has strung along people for 5 editions, where each one we keep hoping the Matrix actually works... and it never does. People will keep buying the game because they like the setting and the concept.

I can think of a few RPGs that I don't think suck, but maybe I am using a narrower definition of suck than you are.

Probably.

3E/PF D&D is probably the best there is out there as far as mainstream RPGs go, and the majority of the core classes (the non-primary casters) are underpowered garbage. Given that they've had 2 updates past 3.0 to get that right and haven't, I'd say that's pretty sucky. And sadly, d20 system is pretty much the best out there (and it's still not very good).

I guess 4E D&D is more or less sound if you can get past the agonizing boredom of grinding through it. Skill challenges also barely work and there's not much to do other than fight, but it's a minis game dressed up to look like an RPG, so I guess that's to be expected. I'd still say it's a terrible game because it's not fun for me, though I guess some people like it, so maybe that's very subjective.

Shadowrun (any edition) is just incredibly clunky, with matrix rules that are either totally nonfunctional or so slow that you ban hackers anyway. Don't get me wrong, I love the setting, but the rules are garbage. Even when they're not totally nonfunctional, they just take way too many dice thrown to resolve simple situations. I mean in the space of one attack, between dodging and soaking, you're going to roll at least 20d6 and that's way too many for such a simple action, especially since you're taking 2 shots per turn. If SR was just going to try to stand on it's rules set and not the flavorful well-detailed setting it has, it would collapse rapidly and nobody would use that rules set.

And those are more or less the mainstream RPGs out there. I guess you could add Call of Cthulhu and White Wolf in there too, but their systems aren't much better.

jadagul · Post by **jadagul** » Wed May 21, 2014 12:59 am

Schwarzkopf wrote:
Nobody is satisfied with their current rules, so they buy the next edition, hoping it'll make the setting they love more playable.
But, but, but, but...SR4 is better than SR5. No one should buy SR5. SR5 is fucking terrible. It's like being unsatisfied with your penis because it's kind of smallish, and solving that by burning it off with a blowtorch and replacing it with a HIDEOUS SCAR.

My computer has some hardware errors and has been glitchy ever since I bought it. Once I did an operating system update that made it much more stable. Since then I've done several more operating system updates. Each one has made it less stable than previously. But I still install all the updates hoping that this new one will make it all better again.

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Wed May 21, 2014 3:39 am

I posted this in its respective thread prior, but got little answer so....

Alright, I like Frank's rules on Recoil he made in a older batch of houserules. It seems to work and reward strong users, however it doesn't seem to allow Drones to wield automatic weapons without falling over. This is speaking of the biggest kind (Body 4), is there some ability to increase body that I'm missing in Arsenal, or the houserules?

Otherwise, looks like a decent fix is to make it armor instead, or add Body twice.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Fri May 30, 2014 1:52 pm

This is a great case for why wireless everything is not worth it. Ever.

Antumbra · Post by **Antumbra** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 5:24 pm

Whatever happened to all the perfectly functional equipment that didn't need always-on wireless anyway?

Did it fall prey to Rogue Nanomachines?

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 5:49 pm

It's still perfectly functional, but if you mention you would rather opt out of pointless wireless, your manhood might be questioned by apologists.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 6:34 pm

Wanna guess wether or not they are going to re-introduce the SOTA rules?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 6:40 pm

Antumbra wrote:Whatever happened to all the perfectly functional equipment that didn't need always-on wireless anyway?

Did it fall prey to Rogue Nanomachines?

Nothing "needs" wireless, because SR5 is supposed to be "all about choices" and they were trying to use what I defined as (and they obliged me in calling) a "carrot system." That means that turning on the wireless on an object gives you nonsensical benefits on every fucking object. And this is supposed to make you default to leaving enough wireless shit on that hackers have shit to do.

This has a lot of failure points, and SR5 managed to basically drive through all of them. But as far as things being perfectly functional without wireless, there are basically two ways that can happen. The first is that some items just straight up don't tell you what their wireless bonus is supposed to be - that line is simply missing on some items and apparently there is no bonus for turning their wireless on. The second is that a lot of items have wireless bonuses that are completely fucking pointless, leading the incentives for turning the wireless on so weak that sane people wouldn't do it.

So yeah, lots of things still function without wireless, but the devs have no idea what those items are because it's an emergent property of some really shitty writing.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 6:43 pm

The Smartlink for example.
Doesn't give bonus dice or whatever without the wifi.
And the reaction enhancers/wired reflexes are actually allowed to break the core game rules when wifi is activated and otherwise simply adhere to these same rules . .

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:22 pm

The silencer's wireless bonus is my all-time favorite. It tells you whether someone heard the gunshot or not.

Also quite amusing is the text on gillie shroud, which mocks anyone who tries to stealth with wireless on, while the stealth suit gives you wireless bonuses...

Antumbra · Post by **Antumbra** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 10:15 pm

So, glancing through Stolen Souls - some very unfortunate implications regarding magic and technology.

SS p93 wrote:A magician controls his magic the same way a mundane controls any of his skills: by using his brain. If the PF can control a magician’s brain, what’s to prevent her from utilizing her host’s magical skills to, say, cast a spell or trigger an adept’s ability? Assensing and spellcasting require three things: a link to the manasphere, innate magical ability—both of which are provided by the magician host—and magical skills, which are learned abilities. Add in a brain hijacker, and you’ve got a Matrix entity capable of casting spells.

The Matrix entity in question was also able to develop new powers while in its Adept host.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 11:26 pm

and this from the guys that shat their pants at the mention of brain hacking.

JesterZero · Post by **JesterZero** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:10 am

To add insult to injury, despite the fact that enabling wireless is supposed to be the new normal, both the guards and the named NPC opposition in the first SR5 Mission are explicitly stated to patrol with their wireless turned OFF.

It's a rather blatant case of "do as I say, not as I do."

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:30 am

Rawbeard wrote:This is a great case for why wireless everything is not worth it. Ever.

I disagree, in the comic apparently having remote access to a bomb through a networked monitoring app, lets you have full access to the bomb. So you can even make it explode remotely.
So if you can just add a wifi receiver to any device and then it allows you full access over all features of that device, then not having wifi enabled only matters for having products you can physically protect.
And even then, it depends on the range allowed between the wifi receiver and the device for it to become hackable.