Some folks over at Rpgnet posted this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByF9qkt14FlURFMtU0dyclNFN2M/view?usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByF9qkt14FlURFMtU0dyclNFN2M/view?usp=sharing)
It's a Shadowrun hack for the Sprawl, a Pbta game. They've used Tim Bradstreet art from the old editions. Looks neat.
Btw, have someone tried the Sprawl yet? Did you like it?
Never owned or played Shadowrun, never heard of "PTBA," don't know what "The Sprawl" refers to. Tell us about it.
LOL you're quite a character Dumarest. :D
Long story short: Shadowrun is a cyberpunk game from the 80s (google it). Through the years new editions came out but it seems the rules only worsened with each new one. Add to that the fact that it's art style got .. different, in the new editions, making fans of the originals miss the old vibe. Then comes Apocalypse World, a very fast and light set of rules, in 2010 and with it a bazillion "hacks" (adaptations to other themes and genres), which are called PbtA - Powred by the Apocalypse. One soul called Hamish Cameron, an old Shadowrun fan himself, releases The Sprawl, an adaptation of Apocalypse World for Shadowrun, but with the serial numbers off (and magic, which was an element of the original setting). Then some other folks decide to adjust it even more, bringin magic back together with the art style from the old times, and people rejoice.
And that's it. Not a native speaker here, so maybe it didnt' make sense. haha
Cool. Was Shadowrun the one with elves and orcs?
Yep. And mermaids, wendigos and dragons. With Uzis, and big, brick sized handphones. And mullets.
Mullets make everything better. Especially sci fi.[ATTACH=CONFIG]1781[/ATTACH]
I've run a lot of The Sprawl and it's great fun if you are in to cyberpunk games. It's very much in the style of Gibson as written (rather than Shadowrun).
Disclaimer: I get a mention under my real name as I helped with the hacking stuff (I dealt with a lot of that when working as a Sysadmin for NASA).
That's cool. I would have many chicks and booze if I was a SysAdmin at Nasa. :D
Do you think it's matrix play is better than it's fathers? SR and CP2020 are notorious for being slow and convoluted in this aspect.
That's cool. I would have many chicks and booze if I was a SysAdmin at Nasa. :D
Do you think it's matrix play is better than it's fathers? SR and CP2020 are notoriously bad in this aspect.
What differentiates it from the Sixth World hack for Dungeon World? Other than the obvious differences between AW/DW.
The Sprawl is a much more focused, mission based game.
Yeah, I've played a game or two of Sprawl - as well as a homebrew shadowrun PBTA game. Both worked well, but we had a rule of "no more than 10 minutes discussing plans"! Not sure how sprawl would hold up for a campaign (or even a mini-campaign) though.
Don't legwork rolls increase the mission alert clock in the Sprawl? If that's true, then the planning phase must be shorter than what's seen on Shadowrun, otherwise the group risks hitting the mission with alerts, reinforcements and lockdowns in place.
I can see how people who love this type of roleplaying enjoy it, the author of the Sprawl clearly knows his Cyberpunk and cyberpunk games, and the person who wrote the Shadowrun hack did a pretty good job.
With a good GM though, most of the cool stuff Sprawl adds through metagame can be handled IC.
It's a good hack though.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1000923I can see how people who love this type of roleplaying enjoy it, the author of the Sprawl clearly knows his Cyberpunk and cyberpunk games, and the person who wrote the Shadowrun hack did a pretty good job.
With a good GM though, most of the cool stuff Sprawl adds through metagame can be handled IC.
It's a good hack though.
Hamish Cameron is a Kiwi, I think. The Sprawl is a NZ game, at least in part.
That's okay, some of my favorite people are Kiwis:
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Guy posted a new version. New archetypes added:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByF9qkt14FlUeHBRTTFCZGxZTVE (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByF9qkt14FlUeHBRTTFCZGxZTVE)
Quote from: CRKrueger;1000923With a good GM though, most of the cool stuff Sprawl adds through metagame can be handled IC.
I have some reservations against this kind of statement. In my experience, it's true only in theory, but in practice not so much.
See, I think rules influence the direction a game goes. When you have rules for combat that expand dozens of pages constiuting the biggest chapter, like in Shadowrun, you're saying "combat is very important to this game". And when Sprawl shifts that over, with just half a dozen lines for combat, instead presenting whole chapters for tracking corporate heat and legwork noise and mission alertness clocks and fallout from jobs etc, you're saying "this game is not about combat, it's about managing survival under omnipresent corporation presence". Of course, this won't be transparent if you just use those rules as randomizing resolution for whatever ideas the GM have in his head. But if you them as intended by their authors to approach the experience they had in mind when created them, then yes, I think this will be evident.
(note that I never played Sprawl, so I don't know if it actually achieves what it aims for)
Shadowrun, all editions, was always hamstrung trying to present "real world" combat and gun-porn in a world that is inherently non-sensical. So you ended up with these massively convoluted rule-sets (chunky salsa!) that really hampered play. Hence the desire for games that focus more on the actual genre and less on the gaming math of the John Wick movies.
Thanks for the brief description Voros.
Nicely put KingCheops. Yeah, "Genre over pointless math" is the key here.
How is Shadowrun Anarchy, btw? Does it scratch that itch too?
Quote from: Itachi;1001856How is Shadowrun Anarchy, btw? Does it scratch that itch too?
If that's at me I stopped with Catalyst at Unwired (for being absolute shit) and the management controversy.
Quote from: Itachi;1001856Nicely put KingCheops. Yeah, "Genre over pointless math" is the key here.
How is Shadowrun Anarchy, btw? Does it scratch that itch too?
Nope, it ends up just as complicated as the original engine powering SR5. And SR5 is NOT complicated in the slightest (it's just people have an aversion to mental math, even hardcore nerds -- which itself should
really be an oxymoron)) . One of the funniest bits is in trying to make the math more friendly, they make a shift into putting way more emphasis on the Gear you use than your base stats and, as a result, make things even more granular.
Quote from: KingCheops;1001927If that's at me I stopped with Catalyst at Unwired (for being absolute shit) and the management controversy.
Say what the controversy actually was. The shit is juicy as fuck.
And why was Unwired crap? Need some preliminary reading on this.
Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1002489Say what the controversy actually was. The shit is juicy as fuck.
And why was Unwired crap? Need some preliminary reading on this.
Please do!
Quote from: Itachi;1001634I have some reservations against this kind of statement. In my experience, it's true only in theory, but in practice not so much.
As practiced by you, and your experience is far from universal. Sorry you had lousy GMs.
Quote from: Itachi;1001634See, I think rules influence the direction a game goes.
Heh, of course you do, based on your game choice, that's obviously apparent. The thing that people always fail to comprehend about Shadowrun is that it was a
game line, put out by a major RPG publisher, not one book put out by an indie guy. If you wanted in-depth rules for internet searches and legwork footprints, you got them. If you wanted in-depth rules on the Music Biz, the Simsense Industry, Law Enforcement, Security Technical Measures and Countermeasures, Magic of all types including Enchanting, and yeah eventually even Piracy, you got them.
But see none of that really was necessary when you're not someone who thinks it's the designer's job to tell you what your game is about. The original game didn't have rules for how successful and failed Shadowruns could actually affect a Corporation's rating with it's rivals either (although some of the modules did), but it's a hallmark of the genre, so any GM who was actually running a living setting factored that in...and then later actually
had rules for that too. :p
Quote from: Thanos;1002520Please do!
In one word: Embezzlement.
To the tune of? Almost a million bucks!
Whodunnit? One of the managing partners of the company before he ejected his ass out of the place (but, of course, got caught in the end).
Who got fucked over? Who DIDN'T...
Now that I've whet your appetite: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=30231
Quote from: CRKrueger;1002706As practiced by you, and your experience is far from universal. Sorry you had lousy GMs.
Heh, of course you do, based on your game choice, that's obviously apparent. The thing that people always fail to comprehend about Shadowrun is that it was a game line, put out by a major RPG publisher, not one book put out by an indie guy. If you wanted in-depth rules for internet searches and legwork footprints, you got them. If you wanted in-depth rules on the Music Biz, the Simsense Industry, Law Enforcement, Security Technical Measures and Countermeasures, Magic of all types including Enchanting, and yeah eventually even Piracy, you got them.
But see none of that really was necessary when you're not someone who thinks it's the designer's job to tell you what your game is about. The original game didn't have rules for how successful and failed Shadowruns could actually affect a Corporation's rating with it's rivals either (although some of the modules did), but it's a hallmark of the genre, so any GM who was actually running a living setting factored that in...and then later actually had rules for that too. :p
Krug, half of the OSR'ers on this forum are crap at the very style of play they espouse. Much less GM em'. If this guy's GMs are crap at his theorycrafted style , leave 'im alone. There aren't enough of us fantastic GMs go around -- we're a
rarity, you know.
And their already shitty output got even shittier as the last batch of half decent fan authors walked/were expelled from the company in witch hunts. The next batch of fan authors were terrible and exacerbated the problem of having a shitty line developer/editor.
It was mostly fatigue from the 4th edition rules being crap. Unwired exacerbated everything. 4th edition was supposed to have streamlined the matrix. It quickly became apparent that it was impossible to create a difficult challenge for a dedicated hacker so the big solution in the book was to go back to having everything wired and create matrix dungeons just like the "bad" old days. They added a lot of pointless complexity to create hurdles for the hacker which were nothing but more book keeping.
Quote from: KingCheopsIt was mostly fatigue from the 4th edition rules being crap
Did Shadowrun ever had a non-crap ruleset? Honest question.
I'm glad things like Anarchy and Sprawl (and Blades in the Dark) are happening. Sooner or later one of these will hit the right spot (if it didn't already hapenned) and I will rejoyce the possibilty to play in SR setting without ever touching one of it's official rulesets again.
Quote from: Itachi;1002931Did Shadowrun ever had a non-crap ruleset? Honest question.
I'm glad things like Anarchy and Sprawl (and Blades in the Dark) are happening. Sooner or later one of these will hit the right spot (if it didn't already hapenned) and I will rejoyce the possibilty to play in SR setting without ever touching one of it's official rulesets again.
I kinda liked 2e. These days I'd rather run The Sprawl.
Quote from: artikid;1002940I kinda liked 2e. These days I'd rather run The Sprawl.
personally I rather like 3e but it's also the only one I have any real knowledge of and have sadly never been able to run.Needless to say if I was to pick A game to run I'd probably run 3e.
Quote from: kosmos1214;1003012personally I rather like 3e but it's also the only one I have any real knowledge of and have sadly never been able to run.Needless to say if I was to pick A game to run I'd probably run 3e.
Ditto for me. But also ditto that if I was going to run it ever again it'd be with a different system -- so many can do it so much better depending on what you want to highlight.
Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1002732Krug, half of the OSR'ers on this forum are crap at the very style of play they espouse. Much less GM em'. If this guy's GMs are crap at his theorycrafted style , leave 'im alone. There aren't enough of us fantastic GMs go around -- we're a rarity, you know.
I don't think it's a matter of good or bad GMing. I think it's a matter of having good tools at disposal to help address themes the group wants, with little to no work. I don't expect that my fellow gamers - all adults with wives, kids and work - waste precious time prepping/planning for a weekly friday-night game. But then I'm far from being the "professional GM" CRKrueger and RPGPundit seem to advocate around here. Not even interested in that, really. I've got a life, you know.
Yeah, that whole embezzlement scandal really fucked up Shadowrun fandom. I don't think it was ever the same after that.
Quote from: Itachi;1003471I don't think it's a matter of good or bad GMing. I think it's a matter of having good tools at disposal to help address themes the group wants, with little to no work. I don't expect that my fellow gamers - all adults with wives, kids and work - waste precious time prepping/planning for a weekly friday-night game. But then I'm far from being the "professional GM" CRKrueger and RPGPundit seem to advocate around here. Not even interested in that, really. I've got a life, you know.
As does every GM, some of them I'm sure more productive than mine or yours. Being a good GM doesn't mean being a professional GM who allocates no time to anything else. All you need to do to fully engage your imagination is actually assume your setting exists, is a real place somewhere and then try to figure out how it works, especially with regards to cause, effect, and consequence.
For example, how many movies, books, tv episodes hell even modules, have characters being made aware that someone is after them because they have friends or contacts who are plugged into the streets and they are told someone is hitting the streets looking for them, or the PC's are monitoring communications or the internet to catch searches on them? All you have to do is stop thinking of the PCs as the center of the universe and simply being a part of a living setting to get the idea that "Hey, maybe if the PCs hit the streets and the Matrix asking about Mitsuhama's new research facility in Bellevue, there will be a similar ripple effect."
It hardly takes hours of prepwork to figure out that what happens in real life as well as in other fictional worlds might actually happen in an RPG setting. It just takes an act of imagination to pretend that your setting exists as something outside the expression of a game's mechanics.
You're totally right, CRKrueger. I was having a bad day and talked outta my ass there.
My apologies, pal.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1004350"Hey, maybe if the PCs hit the streets and the Matrix asking about Mitsuhama's new research facility in Bellevue, there will be a similar ripple effect."
And as was mentioned (by you I think) up-thread the crazy rules bloat of Shadowrun meant that they actually made rules for how to simulate that. IIRC it was the Sourcebook so it was quite early into 3rd edition.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1004350"Hey, maybe if the PCs hit the streets and the Matrix asking about Mitsuhama's new research facility in Bellevue, there will be a similar ripple effect."
And as was mentioned (by you I think) up-thread the crazy rules bloat of Shadowrun meant that they actually made rules for how to simulate that. IIRC it was the Sourcebook so it was quite early into 3rd edition.
Yeah you can have rules to "fence the loot" or "do a matrix research", etc in Shadowrun but it will take half a dozen rolls and take into consideration a dozen factors. While in the Sprawl moves are just 1 roll. This means in a 4 hours session the signal to noise ratio in Sprawl will be much better than Shadowrun. (I know it, I've spent 2 hours in a single SR combat more than one time, and it's not an absurd thing if you follow the RAW).
Ok, played The Sprawl recently. It was a blast and is my default Shadowrun system from now on. I recommend everyone frustrated by SR default rules give it a try, even those who don't like PbtA, as Sprawl is a pretty trad implementation of the engine.
I'm really really happy that I've finally found a system to run one of my fave settings ever. :)
It is in the latest Bundle of Holding right now.
I'd have really liked Shadowrun if it system wasn't the diametric opposite of what I liked.
You know what would work for Shadowrun? OSR. I'm not joking. Owl Hoot Trail already did it with gunslinger and fantasy races. Just take it up a notch to include cyber implants.
Shadowrun is basically D&D so I'd second just reskinning things. Cyberware can just be magic items that are implanted in the body. Proceed with techno-dungeon crawl as normal.
You don't even need rules for matrix. Just dictate the Thief/Decker can disarm traps wirelessly.
Quote from: Itachi;1009206You know what would work for Shadowrun? OSR. I'm not joking. Owl Hoot Trail already did it with gunslinger and fantasy races. Just take it up a notch to include cyber implants.
I bet you'd be right about that.