Quote from: RPGPunditSR4 is a vast improvement over SR3

Hmmm.... I've had a long love/hate relatiosnhip with Shadowrun.  I like to see game systems evolve.  I like to see settings grow and develop.  I appreciate it when I see a game system move from one development house to another upon the implosion of the first...

...what I really despise is the complete re-invisioning that takes place when a second-rate game developer completely ... revamps ... (I had another phrase in mind, but I'm not sure if I know you all well enough to use something as strong as my original thought) a mechanic and setting to such a degree that it is hard to call it Shadowrun anymore.

I have every Shadowrun book produced by FASA.  I had made it my mission in life to own every Shadowrun book produced.  And then Fanpro came along and I rethought my mission in life and reprioritized it such that I've not purchased a single Shadowrun book since prior to the release of SR4 (and I only purchased SR4 on the hopes that they had done something better instead of completely ... revamping ... the world.

I am not a fan of SR4, as a Shadowrun product.  As a completely different "cyberpunk-esque" game in a different universe that bears some marginal resemblance to Shadowrun, okay.  It's decent.  It ranks just above that cybrog game that bears Gygax' name but has none of his writing in it (which, itself, ranks higher than D&D and D20).

"...vast improvement..."  Eh...  I don't see it. YMMV.  You have a right to your opinion.  As a longtime player of Shadowrun, who loved it, hated it, loved it, it's just ... not.

Quote from: VellorianI am not a fan of SR4, as a Shadowrun product.  As a completely different "cyberpunk-esque" game in a different universe that bears some marginal resemblance to Shadowrun, okay.  It's decent.  It ranks just above that cybrog game that bears Gygax' name but has none of his writing in it (which, itself, ranks higher than D&D and D20).

I think we really need a different thread to point out how very wrong you are.  Or at least how my experience of year reading the rules and about 8 months of playing an actual weekly campaign plus some other other games on the side has shown me that this is very much the Shadowrun world I'd played for years. But without the eye-gouging cluster-bang of rules that drove me to mothball SR3 from playing (but curiously not give up on casually following the setting metaplot), inspite of my like of the setting (goofiness included), about 2 years before SR4 was released.

P.S.  We definately need another full thread to cover off all of SR4's flaws. But the deep sixing of that festering pile of crap known as "Priorities" character creation certainly wasn't/isn't one of those.

Quote from: blakkieI think we really need a different thread to point out how very wrong you are.  

Oooh!  That'd be cool!  "The Thread In Which We Prove How Very Wrong Vellorian Is."  I like it!    

In all seriousness, I don't want to come across as some know-it-all whose soul desire is to dictate to everyone else how they are to have fun and declare everything else crap.  

(We already have one of those on this forum.   )

I would be very happy to read your thoughts on the various iterations of Shadowrun, so long as you don't mind me poo-pooing the Fanpro fools that totally destroyed my love of the world.

Quote from: VellorianI would be very happy to read your thoughts on the various iterations of Shadowrun, so long as you don't mind me poo-pooing the Fanpro fools that totally destroyed my love of the world.

Do you read/post over at Dumpshock at all under a different name?  Probably not if you don't recognize my handle.  If you don't I am curious, in another thread I guess, what exactly you find missing? Because often I find some serious misconceptions floating around. But also just out of curiousity.

Quote from: RPGPunditReally? Could have fooled me. If they did that, they've done a really top notch job of hiding it. Because what I saw was fuck all for priorities. Unless you call a mere points-expenditure-cap a "priorities" system, which I guess it is if everyone has the same priority.

The priorities are more directly applied to the character. What's your problem with a starting character point cap, other than you simply want to be as insulting as possible about a game you don't want to like.

QuoteNo, there are 16 SAMPLE CHARACTERS in the book, in lovely full colour, that are just about fucking useless for anyone who doesn't want to play that exact character exactly as written, or with the tiniest most cosmetic of changes.

Yes, archtypes. Just like every other game that uses archtypes.
God for-fucking-bid that a game allow you to customize characters like you want.  You do realize that you can write in whatever cyberware/magic or skills or attributes you like, right.

'Cause NOT knowing that is dumbass.

You aren't a dumbass, right?

QuoteAn "archetype" is more like what you see in Feng Shui, where you have a guy ("Kung Fu Cop") and in every step you are told "choose A or B", for skills, or "You get kung fu A, but can substitute it with GUNS A and Kung Fu B", etc etc.

Jesus fucking christ, you must be the hardest person on earth to roleplay with.

QuoteIn other words, something that gives you a structured build for a character skeleton that can then be filled in. Not a fucking pre-made character that you pretty much have to play as is, because the alternative (of trying to recalculate everything to make changes) would take longer than making the fucking character from scratch.


RPGPundit

:axe:

Quote from: blakkieDo you read/post over at Dumpshock at all under a different name?  Probably not if you don't recognize my handle.  If you don't I am curious, in another thread I guess, what exactly you find missing? Because often I find some serious misconceptions floating around. But also just out of curiousity.

A long time ago, in a realm far, far away, I visited Dumpshock.  I totally forgot it existed, to be honest, until you just mentioned it.  I don't even recall what handle I used when I was there.  (Back in the heady days of space piracy, when I was shy about using my real name.)

I'd be happy to talk about it with you sometime.  I'm sure I'd have to dig out the books and skim through them again to be able to discuss with anything akin to cogent thought.  I used to eat, drink and breathe Shadowrun.  It's probably been a year since I cracked a book and much longer than that since I've played.  

To be perfectly honest, I probably do have some misconceptions.  It may be an eye-opening discussion.  I just hope I can keep my emotions in check so that our discussion doesn't degenerate into a morass of broken dreams and hurt feelings.  

(Not from or about you, but from and about what Shadowrun devolved into...)

Quote from: SamarkandII've gotten interested in FATE because the Aspect system sidesteps the Advantage/Disadvantage system.  The Aspects can be both depending on context at a given moment of the game, and you get the same amount of skills per phase in Fate 2.0 whatever you pick.  The intention is to force a player to pick the traits for a specific character and not try to choose stuff for what it can give him for trait points.

Doesn't work. The munchkins just choose only "good" Aspects, like Strong, Agile, Ninja Master, or whatever. FATE is even more munchkinable than (say) GURPS, because at least in GURPS, the bad stuff is explicitly described as such, so that when the GM says, "aha, but this happens because..." they're backed by the RAW (rules-as-written). In FATE, each and every time the GM invokes the Aspect as a negative thing, the munchkin will argue with them.

Remember that munchkins rarely argue with rules, only with GM rulings. And FATE calls on the GM to be constantly making rulings. So as a way to deal with munchkins, FATE sucks, all it adds is more arguments from them.

Yes, I am speaking from bitter experience. How could you tell?

Munchkins can rip up any systems. Munchkins were the kids playing Cops & Robbers saying, "no! no! I'm not dead, I'm only wounded!" The only protection from them is completely random character generation, which makes them cry like little girls. Pre-generated characters are another good tool, but lead to much weeping and wailing and cries of GM oppression.

Quote from: JimBobOzMunchkins can rip up any systems. Munchkins were the kids playing Cops & Robbers saying, "no! no! I'm not dead, I'm only wounded!" The only protection from them is completely random character generation, which makes them cry like little girls. Pre-generated characters are another good tool, but lead to much weeping and wailing and cries of GM oppression.

Which is to say the only good protection from munchkins is a locked and bolted door, and the only true cure is the process of maturation.

Quote from: blakkie...and the only true cure is the process of maturation.

Yes, but what do you do if they're 40 years old and show no signs of maturation (and not just in the gaming environment)?

It was fun to live life from paycheck to paycheck, to stay up till all hours and stagger into our jobs with little to no sleep on a continual basis.  It was a blast to roleplay and homebrew to the exclusion of all else.  Even when we got married ... started having kids ... got "real" jobs ... we held on and held on to our familiar delights.

Gradually, we all "grew up" and "faced reality" (instead of jumping into our roleplaying realms to hide from it).  We relegated gaming to its appropriate niche in our lives, whatever that niche might be (once a week, twice a week, every other weekend, whatever).

But what do you do if you look around at your friends and realize that several of them (most notably those who are munchkinesque) are 40+ and still living life as though they are 19?

Quote from: VellorianBut what do you do if you look around at your friends and realize that several of them (most notably those who are munchkinesque) are 40+ and still living life as though they are 19?

At 19 I was the lead singer/guitarist in a rock band and livin' la vita insanita. If I lived life as though I was 19, I would have died before I hit 25. Maybe these guys are undead? Do you ever see them in daylight?

-mice

Quote from: VellorianYes, but what do you do if they're 40 years old and show no signs of maturation (and not just in the gaming environment)?

That's where the locked and bolted door comes in. :cool:

QuoteBut what do you do if you look around at your friends and realize that several of them (most notably those who are munchkinesque) are 40+ and still living life as though they are 19?

Get new friends? Or at least new people to game with. Or just crank back the oxygen to your brain, join their wallowing in the mud, and find your "adult" side fun somewhere else.

Quote from: blakkieThat's where the locked and bolted door comes in. :cool:

Get new friends?

I've been avoiding facing that conclusion.  (Don't flatter yourself that I'm going to make such a life-changing decision based on a comment from some guy on an internet forum, regardless of how much I'm starting to appreciate his thinking processes.)

It's good to have a little "external validation" on my thinking, though.    Thanks, Blakkie.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadWhat do you think about a system like Spycraft 2.0, wherein the structure applies mainly to players, and the GM pretty much gets carte blanche?

(Speaking for myself, I find it a bit curious, but I don't exactly have to police myself as GM, and I can still use existing classes as "templates" for NPCs.)

I don't know Spycraft--but for the most part, I'm okay with templates for PCs and not for the GM if the game works that way. I mean, I was always annoyed at "NPC classes" for AD&D in the Dragon magazine--I wanted those added (in a balanced fashion) to the PC roster!

But if Spycraft works (and by accounts it rocks) then I'm alright as a player with having the GM have fewer restrictions than I do.

And really, the structure is more, IMO/IME to help than to "restrict." I know, in AD&D, that if I play a Fighter, a Magic User, a Cleric, or a Thief that I have a role in the party (maybe not so the Illusionist ... but heck). That's nice to know--it's cool when a game works out that way.

For GURPS games, we would make those "roles" part of the campaign design (if, for example, someone on a dungeoneering party wanted to be an "Engineer" who could structurally assess buldings and stuff the GM would have to figure out if that had a place in the adventure and let the guy know).

-Marco

Quote from: JimBobOzDoesn't work. The munchkins just choose only "good" Aspects, like Strong, Agile, Ninja Master, or whatever. FATE is even more munchkinable than (say) GURPS, because at least in GURPS, the bad stuff is explicitly described as such, so that when the GM says, "aha, but this happens because..." they're backed by the RAW (rules-as-written). In FATE, each and every time the GM invokes the Aspect as a negative thing, the munchkin will argue with them.

   I never argued that the Fate Aspects were a defense against attempts at munchkining/power-gaming.  As you said, a dedicated munchkin will find a way to hack any system to his or her benefit.  What I do like about the Aspects is that they represent an interesting alternative to the benefits-cost/penalties-provide model used in many point-buy systems.  It's a structural method of seeing traits as "cool defining characteristics" rather than sources of points for getting the kewl stuff you really want.

Quote from: RPGPunditPoint-buy non-class non-level systems are my least favourite system of RPG.  I prefer something structured like D20, or something almost entirely random like WFRP2e, then a point-buy system.

In my experience, "point buy" is just an invitation to "min-max".

RPGPundit

Any system can really do this but its not always the case with point buy system.

For example: The Mecha RPG I am working on is point based for character creation.

There is a set amount of points to buy both skills and stats.   With the revision I have made stats a very important part of the character creation system and made them work with the skills (Therefor a Mech Pilot with a low dexterity will not be a very good Mech Pilot).

I have made it where characters who try to load up in one area (stats for instance) will be hurt in the skill section because they will have less points for improving skills AND their stats factor into the skill so its a double whammy.   Not to mention I am going back and adding basic skill levels and stats that the character has to have in order for them to perform their job.

What I am getting at is that its really the system (and the Game Master who allows it) that is the problem.

Besides, in my Mech game its fast and deadly.  A character with an excellent strength but low Mecha Pilot skill (because they want to be a muscle bound bad ass) will get killed very quickly.