Curious as to your opinions on this game.

Be as vague or specific as you wish as I'm trolling for info prior to purchasing it.

Also, apologies if this subject has been covered before; I didn't find this specific topic when I did a thread search earlier.

Thank you.

Having played 3rd edition for a long time, and played the game since it's inception I can tell you that I was given the fourth edition book as a gift-which is good, because I'd have never bought it.

Maybe the system is great but the meat and bones of Shadowrun has always been the setting, and should always be the setting. The rules should be an after thought, neither conflicting with the fun of the game or eclipsing it.

Now it's so anime furry,that I hate what they've done with the game. They've been building up towards that since YoTC. Add in reprinted crap, and well I've been an unhappy fan for some time now.

We switched to SR4 after having played 2 and 3, and haven't looked back?

The setting is still the same except that the matrix is now blatantly wireless and pervasive, instead of being stealth wireless and invasive. What I mean by that is that SR3's matrix was wireless in one of the sourcebooks, but mostly hardwired in the core. SR4's matrix is wireless in the core.

The rules have been greatly streamlined. A switch to fixed TN vs. floating TN has removed a lot of the unneeded complexity. It does have the downside that in the corner cases (i.e. where your die pool approaches 0) tasks become impossible without Edge, whereas in SR3 the same tasks would have been practically impossible instead.

Edge vs. Karma Pool is a fairly big debate. I like edge as a stat, although having it start out high is a huge different from KP growing as your experience grew.

Serious Paul: Where are the anime furry parts in SR4? SURGE gets a brief mention, but it was an SR3 construct and has so far been almost completely ignored in the new edition.

My only big complaint with SR4 is that the supplements have been few and far between. For whatever reasons WizKids only printed a few SR4 books: Street Magic, On the Run (an intro adventure), and Runner Havens. There's also a GM Screen with a contacts and adventure hooks book, but it's not really a full book IMO. The game was recently bought by Catalyst Games Labs though, and their release schedule is much more aggressive. Some time in the next few weeks we'll get an idea of how close they can stick to it with the release of Augmentation.

I like it.

It's a pretty modular game. If you don't use the standard setting verbatim, you can really tweak it in a variety of ways. It's easy to eliminate magic altogether if you want a more traditional cyberpunk game. Or, you could tone down the technology a bit and do more of an occult modern game.

I never played any of the earlier editions. I'm really struggling with learning SR4. The rules are poorly disorganized and in dire need of some coherent examples. After spending a lot of time on the dumpshock forums and reading other people's solutions (and some very helpful fan PDFs), I'm slowly starting to get the hang of it.

I don't think there really is anything that doesn't work, or is broken, just a lot of stuff that is poorly explained.

I was always a fan of traditional sci-fi and cyberpunk, but lately I've been warming to the Shadowrun concept. Adding the magic stuff opens up a whole different angle to use when making adventures/telling stories.

In the end, I've got problems with the game, but I still enjoy it and play it.

Quote from: James McMurraySerious Paul: Where are the anime furry parts in SR4? SURGE gets a brief mention, but it was an SR3 construct and has so far been almost completely ignored in the new edition.

The look and feel of the game has changed since right around YoTC, and the people who responsible for that change are still writing the game. The Punk aspect of the game has been stressed far more in the feel and look of SR4, and that's not what I'm looking for.

All in all the quality of the game has gone down, with little for me to see as an upside. Street Magic was supposed to be oh so impressive, but really it was a bunch of recycled materials-yet again. (Gee the SOTA books did that too. And so did a lot of the Shadows of books.)

Whatever SR4 is supposed to have in the way of mechanics- I don't care. I wasn't looking for the rules to be reinvented, and have no preference one way or the other. Add in once again I'm expected to purchase a gun book, a magic book, a cyberware book-it's the same formula all over again. And again. And again.

Screw that. I dropped a lot on this game, and now some crappy reinvention of the rules is supposed to make me buy in?

More than that read here.

Depends on if you have experience with former editions of Shadowrun and what you liked about them.

Personally, I don't like SR4: They slaughtered too much unique points like the tactical pool management or the mechanical tied differences between the magical traditions. It isn't as tactical as it used to be before - gameplay feels rather dull to me.
Even if you aren't a tactics buff as me, even the "streamlined" advertising isn't all that true: Essence rules with halving either essence loss by Bio- or cyberware are a needless complication, combat still takes 4 rolls to resolve (ini/attack/evade/soak), and they seriously fucked up chargen without gaining anything else of value like added realism, balance or what-not - really pointless with all those different limitations and point-costs.

And not to forget: All the retro elements as bigass mobile phones are gone. Definitively a matter of taste - I'd consider it as negatively, as it pushes SR more in the direction of the new kids on the block as Corporation or Ex Machina, instead of leaving it at an unique and own flavor.

Sure, they finally turned matrix rules and vehicles rules into something usable, but that is about all what I'd consider as objectively positive.


If I wanted a less tactical and more streamlined cyberpunk game with elves and wizards and actually working matrix and vehicle rules, I'd rather try one of the many SR=>CP2020 conversions on the net.

And I have to fess up: the punk elements of Shadowrun have never appealed very much to me. I see Shadowrun as Ronin meets Heat, with some John Woo thrown in for fun on ocassion.

I pretty much dislike a lot of the punk elements, I hate any all anime and furry references with in the game-it has no place in Shadowrun what so ever.

The wireless matrix thing is supposed to be some sort of big draw, but we must be one of the few groups who pretty much hates most of the Matrix rules, and how the matrix has been dealt with. I see nothing in fourth edition that makes me happy.

I played 1E back in the day, then picked up 3Rd quite a bit more recently, it was a horrid rules heavy mess that looked like they took 1E and kept stacking stuff ontop of it.

4th Edition seams to have gone in and thought about the why's of both the setting, and the system, and how to make even someone who is un cybered, and non-metahuman effective and cool in play. (You can have non-magic, non cybered, human gunslinger whose good at it because of skills and edge now)

It's still a bit rule-heavy for me, but I feel having mostly come from 1E that they did a good job of portraying the setting both on paper and in play.

In the core book there really are almost no "furry" references that I recall, other than a brief mention of the comet, and the few anime influences have always been there. (The look of some of the world, owes a huge nod towards Appleseed, but I'm pretty sure it always has had that nod)

I write for the game, so I'm biased.

QuoteThe look and feel of the game has changed since right around YoTC, and the people who responsible for that change are still writing the game.

Of the people who wrote Year of the Comet, about three or four are actively writing in Fourth Edition. I don't think that's a fair or accurate statement.

Which ones? Is the person responsible for SURGE still around, and does the creative environment lack enough opposition tot hat sort of thing that it could happen again?

Quote from: James McMurrayWhich ones? Is the person responsible for SURGE still around,

Bull (Surge I think gets laid at his door step, but I could be wrong. He's always taken the hit publicly ). Yeah, Steve's still around.

And frankly I pretty much blame Mike and Rob-they had the final say as line developers and still went down those roads.

Quote...and does the creative environment lack enough opposition to that sort of thing that it could happen again?

I say yes, but Jong and Bobby both sing a different tune. So does Adam when he and I talk. (Which isn't often these days.) But I keep seeing recycled products, and more and more leaning towards bubblegum punk, and I personally hate that crap.

The wireless matrix may be cool, but it's not enough to sell me. They've stuck to the same formula in the 4th Edition so far-Main Book, Gun Book, Cyber Book, Magic book, etc....

I don't see them stepping outside any boxes any time soon. Add in that they keep stating publicly that they need to hook a younger crowd, and what this younger crowd likes-well I have grim hopes for my game.

Jay Levine and Rob Boyle, mainly.

I wasn't involved in the writing for YotC so I don't know who exactly is responsible for SURGE. I don't guarantee you'll never see SURGE again, but the freelancers are aware of the issues and concerns about it.

All that said: I love Shadowrun. I have played since 1989. I have met a lot of the guys and gals writing the game, and developing it at various functions, and they are good people. I don't like how they run DSF, or how the game is going but that's not to say they are bad people, or I have something personal against any of them.

In fact I've had a few up over the years at my annual bonfire and BBQ's.

Quote from: Ancient HistoryJay Levine and Rob Boyle, mainly.

I wasn't involved in the writing for YotC so I don't know who exactly is responsible for SURGE. I don't guarantee you'll never see SURGE again, but the freelancers are aware of the issues and concerns about it.

Any personal issues I may have with Ancient aside, he is a skilled writer-and his presence, and Jong's are my two bright lights. (Okay I have a few more, but I think these guys love the game, and will work hard for it.)

Quote from: Serious PaulThe wireless matrix may be cool, but it's not enough to sell me. They've stuck to the same formula in the 4th Edition so far-Main Book, Gun Book, Cyber Book, Magic book, etc....

I don't see them stepping outside any boxes any time soon. Add in that they keep stating publicly that they need to hook a younger crowd, and what this younger crowd likes-well I have grim hopes for my game.

In their defense, the fans are constantly screaming for their next boiler-plated book. Nobody seems to want anything outside of the box (including me for now). I like all the changes SR4 has brought, and want my updates.

Also, according to Adam (I think it was him) Augmentation (aka Man and Machine for SR4) will have at least 75 things new to the game, as well as updates for older stuff.

For out of the box stuff: they did that with Technomancers and got hammered by a lot of people. Emergence seems to have gone over well though, so maybe we'll see more stuff in that direction.

All-in-all I prefer SR4 to SR3, except for the lack of material. The unification and streamlining of the game means that if I'm playing a mage, hacker, or gunbunny adept I don't have to learn three different systems anymore. SR3 was horrible about having what felt like completely different games slapped on top of a dice pool vs. TN system for all the disparate sections of the genre.