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Message no. 1
From: l-hansen@*****.tele.dk (Lars Wagner Hansen)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 10:24:41 +0200
From: "Lars Wagner Hansen" <l-hansen@*****.tele.dk>
> From: "Graht" <graht1@*****.com>
>> You guys are vastly understimating the voice you/we have ;p
>
> Well so far I have not said a single word about SR4, except for a single
> "D6?" on dumpshock. But here goes:

Sorry but nothing after this was written by Grath, it was taken from the
SR-page.

Lars
Message no. 2
From: u.alberton@*****.com (Bira)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 09:38:20 -0300
After seeing the third FAQ, all I have to say is: w00t! I'm now pretty
sure I'll buy the corebook when it comes out. I've tought of using
rules similar to these myself, the next time I ran the game.

>How do you handle easyer tasks? In Fusion you are granted automatic
>successes in addition to the ones you roll on your test.

I suspect it will have something to do with the number of successes
you need. Easier tasks require less successes than harder ones. Either
that, or they give bonuses/penalties to your basic die pool.

> What's wrong with BeCKS?

Too much work for someone new to the game, and creating a character
without a calculator or a spreadsheet takes too much time. The
calculations themselves aren't hard at all, but there's quite a lot of
them.

If the new edition uses a XP system similar to SR3, it won't be to
hard to create a compatible implementation of BeCKS for it.

--
Bira
http://compexplicita.blogspot.com
Message no. 3
From: korishinzo@*****.com (Ice Heart)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 10:38:50 -0700 (PDT)
> Q. What is the basic mechanic?

> A. Basic success tests are made rolling your dice pool against a
> fixed target number of 5. The target number never changes. So each
> 5 or 6 that you roll equals a "hit." Success is determined by the
> number of hits rolled. More difficult tests require a higher
> number of hits to succeed.

*sigh* Great. I don't own any SR4 books, and already I know I have
to convert everything back to SR3 mechanics. Why? Why can't
something that works be left alone? Eliminate pools is good. Very
good. But this? One of the charms of SR was always the fact the
anything could be attempted. Sure, you might have to roll a 17 to
pull it off, but you could try. Now, a player will be faced with the
reality that some things simply cannot be attempted. "Sorry pal, you
have 5 dice and need 7 successes to pull that off. Try again." Even
if you include a 'Rule of 6' for rerolls (which makes the statistics
really wonky) you end up with a situation where some things simply
CAN'T be tried. And what do we gain? You still have to do all the
modifier math, but now it affects # of dice instead of TN. Big deal.
Before, dice were fairly fixed and TN changed. Doing it the other
way does NOTHING to simplify the game, and in many ways sacrifices a
chunk of what made SR uniqe from say WoD. Vampire tried a D6, dice
pool system back in its first edition and abandoned it. They moved
to D10 for a wider difficulty and success curve. What happens when
you get modifiers that take away all your dice? You get shot and now
can't do things even thought you are conscious and mobile? Do you
always get at least one die? Do you have recourse to bonus dice or
bonus successes?

I know that the standard answer from everyone in favor of the new
edition will be something like: "Wait till the books come out and
then you'll know." Well guess what... I don't want to know. There
have been dozens of house rules and modifications posted on such
venues as TSS. All of them tended to keep the core concept of SR
mechanics intact while fixing little problems. I am very
disappointed to hear that SR4 plans to sweep aside a mechanic most
all of its curent players are familiar with through its previous 3
editions.

The way I have always viewed the game, you try very hard to make the
# of dice rolled something the PLAYER can calculate, and the
modifiers to TN something the GM calculates. Thus, the # of dice
rolled is based off information readily available to the player, i.e.
located on the character sheet. The TN is the purview of the GM, and
the modifiers to it are her responsibility. In my games, I have the
player picking out and rolling their dice while I am still figuring
the TN. Under SR4, those calculation have to be made before any dice
are rolled. I don't see how anything is being simplified, let alone
improved.

I am a skeptic, not a thorough opponent, of the new edition. But, I
must say, I am thus far quite chagrined at what I am hearing. It
sounds like a group of people went into the lab with the task of
smoothing the bumps on a wheel, and chose instead to invent a whole
new wheel. Speaking from personal experience, the new wheel is going
to just as flawed as the old, if not more so in this case. Afterall,
the old wheel has been a work in progress through 3 editions. The
new wheel is moving away from the initial design enough that in many
ways, we are headed back to square one.

======Korishinzo
--Throws a variable number of dice at the fixed TN...

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Message no. 4
From: u.alberton@*****.com (Bira)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 15:40:06 -0300
>
> *sigh* Great. I don't own any SR4 books, and already I know I have
> to convert everything back to SR3 mechanics. Why? Why can't
> something that works be left alone? Eliminate pools is good. Very
> good. But this? One of the charms of SR was always the fact the
> anything could be attempted. Sure, you might have to roll a 17 to
> pull it off, but you could try.

Exploding dice solve this handily. And they're easy to put into the
new system even if they're not already there.

As for the current system working, I found the number of people
disagreeing with that is surprisingly large.

--
Bira
http://compexplicita.blogspot.com
Message no. 5
From: paul@*********.demon.co.uk (Paul Squires)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 21:33:39 +0100
Lone Eagle wrote:
>
> I'm not as skeptical of SR4 as I am of the proposed "new WFRP" yet
> (especially not having seen certain information pertaining to The Enemy
> Within campaign in White Dwarf that could not exist within the scope of
> the campaign). Plus there's the fact that it's going to be made by a
> company whose sole goal is to sell cheap miniatures to twelve year olds
> at stupidly over inflated prices...
>
I find it somewhat ironic that the two games that I love are both doing
this to themselves and almost at the same time...

Oddly, when BI took over WFRP I was happy that the game was being
resurrected and would once again have official support (though, if you
ask me the material produced by the fan community was pretty
impressive), but it became apparent that things were drying up /simply
because/ of the announcement of the new edition. Having read the first
reviews of the new product I've become skeptical... look how quickly the
liber fanatica supplements have been produced to get the game to how
the playtesters wanted it!

I don't see anything in SR3 that *requires* a new edition. I, to be
frank, would have preferred a SR3redux (deliberately avoiding numbering
a game 3.5 seems to be a good idea). Sure, tidy up some of the rules
(god knows some of them need it), but /DON'T/ destroy 15 years of gaming
history just because it seems like a cool idea at the time.

I really do suspect that not only will a lot of people not migrate, but
there could be a backlash which actually takes people away from the game
altogether. I've pretty much lost interest in SR already (apart from
arguing about it here, natch). In a few months time, I'm pretty sure I
won't care at all. I bet I'm not the only one.

I really do hope that SR4 is successful. The loss of a few curmudgeons
is nothing compared to the potential influx of new gamers and I'd like
to see the hobby return to the "golden days" (just before D&D players
started killing themselves...)

I also hope that I'll remember to check out SR4.

As a famous politician once said - "I'll be back"

:D

--
Paul Squires
paul@*********.demon.co.uk | OpenPGP Key ID: 0x423003E0
MSN: pa_squires@*******.com | ICQ: 318471677
Support the campaign against UK ID cards - www.no2id.net
-=-=-
Disclaimer: Any errors in spelling, tact, or fact are transmission errors
Message no. 6
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 11:36:21 +0200
According to Arclight, on 06-04-2005 22:10 the word on the street was...

> Nicht dass es notwendig wäre, Daten noch
> abzuspeichern, weil sie nämlich über die allgegenwärtige Matrix
> jederzeit abgerufen werden können"

LOL! I guess that means deckers (hackers, whatever) are definitely out
of a job ;)

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Kemen (keemde, h gekeemd): het spelen van computerspelletjes
-> Possibly NAGEE Editor & ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Site: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 7
From: pentaj2@********.edu (John C. Penta)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 09:23:53 -0400
----- Original Message -----
From: Gurth <gurth@xs4all.nl>
Date: Thursday, April 7, 2005 5:36 am
Subject: Re: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
troll ninjas!)

> According to Arclight, on 06-04-2005 22:10 the word on the street
> was...
> > Nicht dass es notwendig wäre, Daten noch
> > abzuspeichern, weil sie nämlich über die allgegenwärtige
Matrix
> > jederzeit abgerufen werden können"
>
> LOL! I guess that means deckers (hackers, whatever) are definitely
> out
> of a job ;)

Translate, please?
Message no. 8
From: The_Sarge@***.de (MatthÀus_Cebulla)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 15:28:47 +0200
Translation for Mr. Penta:

> Nicht dass es notwendig wäre, Daten noch
> abzuspeichern, weil sie nämlich über die allgegenwärtige Matrix
> jederzeit abgerufen werden können"

"Not that it still would be neccesary to save data, 'cause it will
always be available through the omnipresent Matrix."

HTH,
Matthäus
Message no. 9
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 19:19:17 +0200
According to John C. Penta, on 07-04-2005 15:23 the word on the street
was...

>>LOL! I guess that means deckers (hackers, whatever) are definitely
>>out of a job ;)
>
> Translate, please?

See Matthäus' post. If the Matrix is omnipresent and all data can be
retrieved from it anywhere and anytime, who needs deckers? :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Kemen (keemde, h gekeemd): het spelen van computerspelletjes
-> Possibly NAGEE Editor & ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Site: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 10
From: mattgbond@********.com (Matthew Bond)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 19:42:20 +0100
Gurth wrote:
> According to John C. Penta, on 07-04-2005 15:23 the word on the street
> was...
>
> > > LOL! I guess that means deckers (hackers, whatever) are definitely
> > > out of a job ;)
> >
> > Translate, please?
>
> See Matthäus' post. If the Matrix is omnipresent and all data can be
> retrieved from it anywhere and anytime, who needs deckers? :)

That doesn't follow at all. Just because the information is stored on
the matrix, doesn't mean that it will be given out to anyone that asks,
or that it is readily found. You still need 'Hackers' to decrypt
encrypted files, and to root out 'hidden' data.

Lets face it, there are an awful lot of people who find it hard to use
Google without getting inundated with porn sites.... there is still
skill involved in knowing where to look, how to phrase your search
request and and how to filter the responses.

All the press blurb meant was that you *can* access the matrix from
anywhere at anytime, and you *can* find the information you want *if*
you are good enough at looking for it.

In any case, I'm getting a bit cheesed off with all the negative
speculation that is usually based on someone eles speculation about what
a given FAQ/Press release might mean...

And the people who could actually correct this speculation heaped on
speculation can't because of NDA's... so the rumourmill just keeps on
turning, and as per usual everyone leaps on anything they percieve as
remotely negative and blow it up out of all proportion without even
knowing exactly how or why it has been implemented.

Bah, Humbug!

Matt



--
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Message no. 11
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 20:54:14 +0200
According to Matthew Bond, on 07-04-2005 20:42 the word on the street was...

> All the press blurb meant was that you *can* access the matrix from
> anywhere at anytime, and you *can* find the information you want *if*
> you are good enough at looking for it.

Yes, but I have the habit of taking statements literally if that makes
it even a half-decent joke :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Kemen (keemde, h gekeemd): het spelen van computerspelletjes
-> Possibly NAGEE Editor & ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Site: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UL+ P(+) L++ E W--(++) N o? K w(--)
O V? PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 12
From: justin@***********.net (Justin Bell)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 13:55:23 -0500
Arclight wrote:
> At 21:05 06.04.2005, Lone Eagle wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> I like decks, yes it's awkward to find jackpoints and put yourself
>> into a stupor for the sake of opening a door. but a cellphone link
>> mitigates the problem and an electronics toolkit and sequencer allows
>> you to bypass it after all. I like the way you have to be careful with
>> them...
>
>
> Well, I can understand why they moved to wireless. Fiber networks leave
> the decker isolated from the rest of the group for most of the time.
> With all characters moving together, the decker (ok, hacker)
> automatically gets more into the action.

I still don't see why it has to be deckless to be wireless

You could already jack into the matrix without a deck, and I use a
variety of input devices to compute, why would I all of a sudden stop
using a keyboard? I even have a wireless one. Yes, I know a deck is more
than a keyboard, but it has to have some advantages over no deck, as
well as some disadvantages...
Message no. 13
From: u.alberton@*****.com (Bira)
Subject: SR4 comments (Was: SR4 will time-traveling immortal miniature
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 21:03:27 +0000
On Apr 7, 2005 6:42 PM, Matthew Bond <mattgbond@********.com> wrote:

> In any case, I'm getting a bit cheesed off with all the negative
> speculation that is usually based on someone eles speculation about what
> a given FAQ/Press release might mean...


It's sort of amusing... I've seen lots of roleplayers claim they don't
play Shadowrun because the rule system is "too clunky". Even die-hard
fans of the game complain about everything from the basic die rolling
mechanic to the metaplot, and the "die-harder" among them have created
entire websites full of house rules that completely rework the system.
Yet, when the people who make it their job to listen to the player's
complaints announce a new edition...

So far, very little has been revealed about SR4. Would you say you had
a comprehensive grasp of D&D rules if I told you a test is made by
rolling a d20 and adding some modifiers in order to beat a certain TN?

One of the reasons I liked the Matrix changes that have been hinted at
is that they remind me of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Any
setting that reminds me of GitS:SAC cannot be bad unless the authors
screw it up badly (and, in my book, making it different from SR3 is
not screwing up at all).

I also liked the changes to the die-rolling mechanic, because that
particular mechanic always appealed to me. It sure beats seeing a
blank look of confusion every time I try to explain dice pools to a
newbie player.

--
Bira
http://compexplicita.blogspot.com

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