Talked my friends to trying out a new system. I've been a cyberpunk kick recently since the new Bladwrunner has reignited my love of the genere. I've most played/GMed D&D (5e, 4e, AD&D 2e had no huge issues with either system just nitpicks) and a handful world of Darkness so GM tips are welcome.
Also happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Murka fags.
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4e is Trap Options: The Game
5e is equally crunchy but harder to fuck up unless you're playing a technomancer, WHERE'S THE BOOK AMY/MAC, YOU WHORE, I KNOW YOU'RE READING THIS
If you're asking about Shadowrun in general, it's fine though the fantasy shit tends to be extremely love-it-or-hate-it if you're going in looking for cyberpunk.
Good starting point would be reading the core rules and thinking is that really kind of game system you want? If you are like it, 5e is fine. If you you'd rather maybe not roll 4 time for every step, take a look at the sprawl or Karma in the Dark.
>This a good starting point if ive never played Shadowrun before?
No part of shadowrun is a good part to start at. It's all the deep end. [/spoiler] but fourth or fifth are more modern styled rules sets and somewhat straightforward at their core. I prefer fourth personally.
>I've been a cyberpunk kick recently since the new Bladerunner has reignited my love of the genere.
You'd be better off with the game Cyberpunk 2020.
Despite what everyone says I never really think of Shadowrun as the cyberpunk game. It's a game of crazy bullshit. It's A-Team meets Bakshi's Wizards, it's D&D set in Escape from New York, it's Big Trouble in Little China or From Dusk till Dawn but in the future, it's Akira but no one matures or comes of age, it's grundgy Adventure Time.
It's a wacky game. It takes itself seriously enough and it is deadly and involves all kinds of planning and politics. But those plans have to account for angry ghosts and those politics will eventually lead to dragons.
If you want Bladerunner you will want a different system, Shadowrun is complex and silly. If you don't like the silliness then the complexity isn't worth it.
>Shadowrun is complex and silly. If you don't like the silliness then the complexity isn't worth it.
Silly has and will work fine for me and my group.
How complex are we talking? A small example?
>not roll 4 time for every step
How true is this?
You do a lot of rolling.
It's not so much complex as that there are a lot of options to take into account. Every class has their own set of powers and drawbacks. Every piece of equipment has is own unique quirk.
But the core mechanics are simple enough, roll skill+attribute plus or minus dice for situational modifiers. Every 5 or 6 you roll is a hit. Lots of hits are good.
Just stick to the core rules and you won't have any difficulty
>not roll 4 times for every step.
>how true is this
Most checks are either vs GM set minimum successes (thus 1 roll) or opposed (2 rolls by two different people, so can be done at the same time unless you habe npcs face off)
Sometimes you wanna figure out how long an activity takes, this is called an extended check. This usually leads to a single character rolling 3-6 checks over several in-game hours or even days. Only comes up with long tasks and when time is of essence, so rather rarely.
Lastly there is combat and magic, which are the wordt offenders. An attack is handled as follows, with some more obscure steps left out:
>Attacker rolls to hit
>Defender rolls to evade
>if hit, Defender rolls to reduce damage taken
Same thing with magic
>roll to cast spell
>if target is able (and intending) to resist roll for resistance
>caster rolls to resist drain. Might get skipped with low-power magic, but anything worth a dime triggers this roll.
Also I forgot Matrix an hacking. Where doing the most simple shit might take between 2 and 6 or so rolls. Not during the same action, but doing anything in the matrix takes a bunch of actions.
Let's say you want to hack the lighting systems of a building and trigger a blackout.
>roll vs firewall to access host (2 rolls)
>roll to locate light controls (1 or 2 if system is actively hiding those)
>roll to get two access marks vs firewall (4 rolls over 2 actions or 2 rolls over one very difficult action)
>turn off light (no rolls, but an action)
>fight off the system trying to regain control of the light (full on matrix combat, so a fuckton of rolls)
Hacking, while being an intricate mess with a lot of potential depth, is still a mess.
Thank you my man.
Sounds similar to D&D. Those extended checks i use (dont remember if i house ruled em) in my D&D games. Bard wants to compose a new song for a patron he gets to roll over the couse of say a week to see how good it is. Im i on the right track?
It's about as complicated as a dice pool system can get. If you can keep track of shit in Warhammer 40K army games then you'll probably be fine. It's, of course, harder if you're GMing it.
Players: Learn what your shit can do, know it to a T. Keep track of your money, pay attention to the plot.
vs
GMs: Have statlines for everything, especially things connected to the Matrix. Remember the heavily AR-overlaid nature of the world. Have ongoing plots/stories for the denizens, corps, businesses, etc of the city if you're playing anywhere near civilization, which you always will be. Factor in what the team is doing to these said ongoing plots. Try desperately to prevent the players from trying to contact a dragon, no GM is intelligent/devious/wise enough to portray them well. Keep weeaboo shit at a tolerable level. Try not to go crazy.
My first PC was a brutish ogre (oni variant) with a thing for living the race he was born into, his pet shiba inu, and the cute hacker girl on the team, and my second was a gay technomancer who once hacked a combat helicopter while it was holding him at gunpoint, while battling a regular hacker who was helping to pilot the thing.
Is the something like the fire wall a set number the player has to beat? Or is it my roll against he's and higher wins?
And I've heard horror stories of matrix battles. Hell they were a mess in the Dragonfall and Hong Kong games.
The firewall basically sets the threshold, yes.
So lets say you want to shoot some motherfucker.
(Successful) attack encompasses 3 rolls, applying a bunch of modifiers for each. And there is a lot of supplementary options to go with your action that would modify rolls further. You do that for few initiative passes for a group of four PCs fighting few hostiles, and 5 seconds of in game time turn out to be tens of minutes irl. And god help you if your players don't know how their stuff works.
Hacking and magic/astral follow similar formula, and often times it can take 5+ minutes or rolling for you hacker / mage to do a thing, where in other games you would probably can get away with a single roll.
It's not rocket science hard, but it is very granular simulationist resolution system with a lot of options.
Thanks for the advice man. Really good to know that about dragons
>Keep weeaboo shit at a tolerable level. Try not to go crazy.
Is this a common issue? I mnow cyberpunk inspired settings often show Asian countries and cultures being dominated and having influence on wastern culture but is this a heavy issue with shadowrun gms? Also im sensing a story here. If you do and dont mond sharing id love to hear it
That helicopter scene sounds lile it was amazingly fun. The kinda thing that makes players jump out of thier chairs with joy/despair
Sounds like theres a learning curve. Good thing my players are not all that stupid. Thanks for the play by play!
Sorry about my grammar. The holiday drinking may have started early for me *wink wink*
Thanks for the clarification.
The monetary unit is the "Nuyen" and one of the primary player role archetypes is "Street Samurai." It is entirely possible for shit to get weeb-y. My first character was in part because I wanted to dive right into that shit head-on. Make a .jp-variant ogre that's of .jp descent, works for the Yakuza (big player on the west coast USA btw), and has a pet Shiba named "Hime."
Oh, also, the USA is basically a Balkan state in Shadowrun. Shit's busted, divided into a few major areas that matter.
>Yakuza (big player on the west coast USA btw), and has a pet Shiba named "Hime."
>Oh, also, the USA is basically a Balkan state in Shadowrun. Shit's busted, divided into a few major areas that matter
Just got to what the book calls
>"the crazy american quilt we all know and love"
Playing Dragonfall leads me to believe that Germany/Europe isnt be much more stable.
What are technomancers and who is Amy/Mac?
>Germany/Europe isn't much more stable.
I'm no expert, but yeah the face of SR-germany is very warped. Less of a federal state and more of a loose bond of allied territories, just as it were pre-Bismark.
But it amuses me that my hometown, nowadays the local laughing stock of a city, is listed as the capital of a major south-west german area in Shadowrun.
Parts of Europe are doing okay. Czech is basically functioning extremely well as a real nation with actual rights and protections for its citizens, for example.
That's a terrible idea. Shadowrun 4th to 5th edition are like the worst cyberpunk game around. If you want a system that sucks less, play Zaibatsu, Cyberpunk 2020, Ex Machina, Savage Worlds: Interface Zero 2.0, GURPS Cyberpunk/Cyberworld/Cthulhupunk, Wyred, Sprawl, TechNoir, Digital Shades, Hunter/Seeker, Remember Tomorrow, Underground or SLA Industries - they all suck less.
That said since you mostly played 5e and 4e, you must like games that suck, so Shadowrun might be a good choice for you after all.
Speaking of which.
Got my hands on the limited run spiral bound 5e from Origins in 2012, and the 20th anniversary edition when it was still fresh off the press. I've played nor GM'ed neither, but now that both have been a few years on the market, what are the strengths/weaknesses of both, and which do you prefer?
Also "trap options" are we talking RPG traps or Veeky Forums traps?
I don't know if he's got a legitimate beef (Nor am I implying he doesn't), but there's a common belief among shadowrun players that if you're rolling less than 20 dice for something, you suck at it, and some archetypes can't easily beef up their dicepools. Most of the time this is from the GM creeping the difficulty of stuff up above what the game is actually supposed to be at though.
Is Cyberpunk 2020 the go-to for a cyberpunk system without all the fantasy bullshit that Shadowrun has?
If you don't mind laughably dated tech concepts and don't run an all combat game with a group that isn't comprised entirely of Solos. Has the same problem as most systems where hacking more complex than "see device in meatspace, make device do thing right now" is a convoluted minigame that cuts everyone except the hacker right out.
Says the guy who most likely never played Cyberpunk 2020 and only parrots what he has read on Laotian silk painting forums.
I've played CP2020 since the 90s. Games that are all combat all the time are not fun for people who aren't Solos. Hacks that aren't for immediate and local results requires you to use the data fortress system, which is a minigame that only the Hacker gets to play.
But hey, you can send me a whopping 1mb image over fax, assuming you wire up to the public net terminal out near the corner.
>see device in meatspace, make device do thing right now
Try harder.
Chapter: The Menu (Cyberpunk 2020, Sourcebook, page 149 to 150)
Yes, that's literally the one I was talking about. Congratulations for finding it, I'm sure your parents are very proud.
See the thing, make it do a thing. That's all fine and well and works great. Go any deeper and it's time for the hacking minigame, which doesn't work great.
>Go any deeper and it's time for the hacking minigame
If doing a quick minigame is too much for you, maybe you should indeed play something simpler.
Here are some resources for you: recreationtherapy.com
A quick minigame where you have to explore a literal dungeon-esque area while moving 5 spaces per round and rolling multiple extended tests to either not be caught or to fight the system's defenses while you dig around for whatever it is you're looking for.
You have an actual argument for why playing a minigame entirely by yourself without the rest of the party getting to do anything is not an issue or are you just conceding?
Why is this always the strawman you use when people say the hacking minigame doesn't work out well? Nobody ever said it was too complicated or hard to understand. The complaints are always about the fact that it takes time and leaves everyone else sitting on their thumbs.
It's not an issue because it used to take me 10 min. at max to do it. If your players aren't mature enough to wait for 10 minutes, get better players.
Ah, so you only hacked into baby fortresses to get girl's phone numbers then, gotcha.
>If someone does something better than me, it must mean they're not doing it in the right way
Fox and the grapes, everyone.
If it only took you 10 minutes, it's because the GM was making it easy to cut down on time. Proper datafortresses for actually important data have guard programs and traps and probably a lot of trash data that you aren't even interested in, and those all take time to deal with.
It's more that you're too fucking slow - to slow for the 21st century. How about you learn a system before embarrassing yourself as GM?
Your baby bitch fortress with 1 guard out in the open and a linear corridor to the paydata is not normal.
It's not even me, faggot. Seems I'm not the only one doubting your GMing skills.
Anecdotes, anecdotes.
Why are the ones you think are "true" datafortresses the only ones that should be used? And why do you point-blank reject the idea that someone can do something better and faster than you?
Instead of flailing your arms and blubbering, you could have accepted that you might be wrong and asked the guy how he did it, getting better at GMing in the process.
Sure it isn't. I never claimed that the system was hard to learn or difficult to use. Rolling is not instantaneous, building a map is not instantaneous, moving 5 squares a turn is not instantaneous.
I know how he did it. He used easy ass fortresses with no traps, probably only 2 or 3 squares deep, and with a basic guard dog program. A few rolls and then probably just fade to black on the way back out. That's a good way to do it in a few minutes, but it relies on underpowering the opposition.
You can stop polluting the thread with your nonsense. You're one of those GM that suck. You don't know the rules. Whatever the characters are doing, you have to look it up because you don't know it. Had enough GM like that during conventions - never again.
And here we see the only argument you have. "Oh, you're just bad at the game."
Nah. The hacking minigame sucks, and even if you do use tiny little fortresses that you can walk in and out of without any resistance, that's still time being taken away from everyone else. It's clunky and there's no benefit to it.
I find it amusing that you're "not" the same guy, but you "both" jumped to the conclusion that I am the GM. Post some more replies no less than 1 minute apart, why don't you.
Yes, you suck. That's the cold hard truth. You show up to the game unprepared, you don't know the system, you think and act too slow. Why are you even GMing???
>Actually defending mandatory single player minigames
what the fuck, why
Eat shit, faggot.
I don't GM, but I know the system. I've been the hacker, I've had other players as the hacker. The hacking minigame is slow and leaves everyone else out of it.
I actually don't think you know the system that well, really. All you're doing is attacking a strawman.
Boy, that was hard.
Because too many people have called the hacking minigame shit, so they have to be contrarian and defend it.
In all honesty, it's not that bad, it just takes time.
I'm not saying the minigame is good - I'm saying it's not as bad or as slow as he makes it sound. Ex Machina has a much better and much simpler hacking system.
And how slow is he making it sound exactly? You've been overblowing the argument badly and not really defending your points.
Reading his comments I assume 20 to 30+ minutes per run - which indeed is too long. From my experience it's more going to be around 10 minutes - which is humane. But that's assuming the GM is somewhat prepared and knows his shit really well.
Even 10 minutes is too long when it can happen more than once, and there are always possible complications. He's not wrong about movement speed or the possibility of obstacles that will objectively increase the amount of time because of cybercombat.
Ok. It's too long for your taste. Then just play something else. I'm not receiving any money from convincing you otherwise.
Technonmancers are a special class of hacker that doesn't need a cyberdeck implants to work. They can manipulate the digital world in much the same way magic users can control the physical world. They can even conjure up virtual spirit's to helpout
Jesus Christ, this is horrifying.
Shadowrun: Not Even Once.
>It's not so much complex as that there are a lot of options to take into account.
That are poorly arranged and explained.
>Every class has their own set of powers and drawbacks.
That are poorly arranged and explained.
>Every piece of equipment has is own unique quirk.
That are poorly arranged and explained.
The Anniversary Edition version of 4th (the OP's pic) is *slightly* better than base 4th in this regard, but only slightly.
Ohh Veeky Forums half a thread of just 2 spurgs spurging out over the rules.
Never change
It’s a Shadowrun thread. So not a big loss.
...
...
Technomancers were a mistake.
>Let's make empathic Matrix sorcerers
What's wrong with that?
CGL's extreme allergy to indexes certainly doesn't do them any favours
In 5th edition the rule is you roll either cybercombat+logic (limited by attack rating on cyberdeck) or hacking+logic (limit sleeze attribute on your cyberdeck) vs host rating+ host firewall rating. The hits the host gets adds to overwatch score (if this gets to 40 the host is alerted). If you succeed you gain a mark on the host (and the host is alerted if you used cybercombat). If you fail the system knows it's under attack if you use hacking or you take matrix damage if you used cybercombat.
(I play a Decker a lot.)
Rules are complicated but if you play with people who know what they are doing and do it right it is really really fun.
In all honesty it's just a personal issue I have with Technomancers when I've played since 2nd ed and it just really doesn't fit with how I envision the setting of SR.
Are there any goos setting/ campaign books and or module for shadowrun?
Heard splintered state was good. Never finished it because I had a falling out with my group over personal shit.
Yeah, Shadrowun isn't actually cyberpunk. It's D&D Eighties.
4E's decent, and you can speed character creation up a bit with Chummer. There's an absurd amount of content, though, so you might want limit which books players can pick equipment and character options out of.
Be prepared to use the Rule of Cool a lot, Shadowrun's a VERY crunch-heavy system
>It's not so much complex as that there are a lot of options to take into account.
Entirely correct. Shadowrun is Kit-out: The Game. If you don't like that, OP, please avoid Shadowrun.
You know what? It's okay to occasionally sideline the rest of the party for 5 to 10 mins. Sometimes a Solo will sneak ahead of the party in the real world as well, leading the others to get sidelined for a couple of minutes. And you know what? He might have to make a couple of perception and sneak checks and even a short fight to knock out a guard.
Literally no difference to netrunning/decking. This is all just fine and valid. You're just too lazy to learn rules aka a filthy casual.
>The complaints are always about the fact that it takes time and leaves everyone else sitting on their thumbs.
Yes and these complaints are retarded. It's a meme that some kinds have spouted and other neckbeards are repeating uncritically.
For what it's worth, GMing Shadowrun is a tall order. This is mostly because you have to keep track of three parallel worlds running at the same time: meatspace, the Matrix, and the Astral Plane. Juggling between those three planes is a struggle.
I have been running it throughout 1E/2E and dropped out because I didn't like the metaplot. It's manageable in gameplay, just a bitch to learn.
So would the third edition be better?
Not necessarily. 4e is when the system (and the universe) embraces modern strides in technology and acknowledges that we currently live in a mobile world and can get our internet through the fucking air, so it now has rules for wireless tech. 5e just tries to build on that while trying to acknowledge old-school decking at the same time.
Some of the older ones are really good and some of them transition easily but the more older ones will have a bit more difficulty converting. My favourite older setting book that I have converted for 4th and 5th ed was Renraku Arcology Shutdown.
There's a reason why they didn't actually make a sneaky archetype, and that's because splitting the party up like that sucks. They got it right in meatspace. And I find it really funny that you literally resorted to the same baseless argument that you always do, in response to a post talking about the same argument that you always use.
>weaboo
Because Seattle isn't one of the largest concentrations of Japanese outside of Japan, I guess?
It's not like there's software to do that stuff automagically, right? Oh wait, this isn't 1991 anymore.
When Cyberpunk's author refers to the design challenge of the hacker minigame it isn't just a meme. If you've structured your group to be tolerant of one guy rolling a gazillion dice across a huge decision tree over ten to fifteen minutes of real time but between two combat rounds for everyone else, hey, more power and all that.
The rest of us are trying to avert boredom and prevent the hacker character from having his head explode from something none of us can do a damn thing about.
>modern strides in technology
One side effect of which is that shadowrunners have to be superhuman from Day Fucking One. The Man has too many resources available for PCs to be flippant about lawbreaking.
The modern setting still has data balkanization and closed border corporate enclaves to the point where you can probably shake the cops by driving full speed through two or three different corporate areas until you find one that won't bother giving chase outside of their facility borders.
There are in Pacific Rim, for example. Also, fuck the players who cannot wait 5 fucking minutes and who always need to be the center of attention! And fuck the DMs who don’t know the system they’re DMing. This counts for every game and every setting.
Most matrix/netruns don't take place during real world combat. Even when they do, they don't necessarily mean unlimited matrix/net runs inbetween. Most matrix/netruns happen during investigations/research phases of the game. Or prior to entering corporate facilities.
And you don't need gazillion dice when you structure a matrix run similar to a simple real world break & entry by the stealth type.
That sneaky archetype exists in every game.
>you literally resorted to the same baseless argument that you always do
You must have confused me with somebody else, user. I joined the thread late with these posts:
In Cyberpunk their capabilities are usually downplayed - for the sake of adventure.
Correct.
The argument is always that anyone who doesn't like the netrunning minigame is just bad at RPGs, completely ignoring what's being said.
I find it amusing how the amount of time the netrunning minigame supposedly takes to complete keeps going down and down.
Weirdly enough, my favorite set of rules I've ever seen for netrunning stuff was in an indie game called The Robotic Age. It's rules? 'This is the fucking future, everyone at least knows enough to do the basics. Everyone get your ass into the matrix'. Everyone got their choice of a basic avatar (Using it's stats) or they could get the implants needed to plug their brain into the matrix and use their meatspace stats instead.
Out of pure curiosity, where are you from?
what do you mean? If you're talking about sites, I'm pretty much only here.
Trying to make personal attacks, are we? It's true though. The last thread that talked about this had the defenders say that it only took about 20 minutes, and in this very thread, it's gone down to 10, and now 5. Next it'll only be "a few minutes", I bet, and anyone who can't do it in a few minutes supposedly didn't read the rules and didn't come prepared. Hey, then maybe it'll be doable in just a minute, or maybe 30 seconds if you're good enough to make all your rolls and counterrolls for LDL scams, stealth programs, cybercombat(s), and trace rolls all at the same time!