| From: | l-hansen@*****.tele.dk (Lars Wagner Hansen) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | SR4 FAQ, Part 5 |
| Date: | Tue, 17 May 2005 19:14:14 +0200 |
>Q. Will Magic skills be broken up like firearms in SR3?
>A. Magic is roughly divided into two categories for the core book, Sorcery
>and Conjuring. Rather than being skills of their own, however, those are
>general categories. The Sorcery skills are Spellcasting, Ritual
>Spellcasting, and Counterspelling. The Conjuring skills are Summoning,
>Banishing, and Binding. Those are the skills that do most of the heavy
>lifting for magic in SR4.
So now we are up to 6 skills for magical active characters?
I thought you wrote the following, in the first FAQ:
"SR4 is a new rules set - simpler, streamlined, and more accessible, but new
rules nonetheless."
I just don't see the deal. More skills, more attributes, simpler?,
streamlined?
Please enlighten me instead of confusing me.
But basically it seem like your are giving magicians the same deal as you
gave gun-bunnies in SR3, namely splitting their skill up in several skills.
So dec^H^H^Hhacking wil be split up in ??? and rigging into ???
Does this mean that you will be doing away with specializations?
>Q. Will there still be Metamagic?
>A. Yes, though it's not exactly the same. Rather than relying on a host of
>new additional skills, we've redesigned metamagic techniques to grant new
>abilities to skills the magician should already have access to. Metamagic
>does not make a huge appearance in the core book, however. There just isn't
>enough room to include it all.
I never expected metamagic to appear in the core rules. Matamagic is
advanced magic and should be in the advanced magic book (aka. Street Magic),
just like you should keep the advanced combat in the Gun/combat book, the
advanced tech in the tech book etc.
I want to be able to play with the core book, but I don't need everything in
the core book. Just make sure that I don't need to bring 5+ books whenever I
go to a convention, just because I want to play Shadowrun.
>Q. Do we still have Mages and Shamans?
>A. Yes. In addition, however, a flexible tradition design system has been
>included, allowing players to model existing traditions easily, or even to
>create their own along with their GM. Both Hermetic and Shamanic traditions
>have been created for the main book and are included as the default
>choices.
Yes, yes, yes. That mean that I will actually be able to make (and play) my
norse magician, which does not cast spells and does not summon spirits. I
realy look forward to this.
>Q. What are you trying to do with Magic?
>A. In setting out to design this, we had a few things in mind that we
>wanted to do as improvements over the old system. First, we wanted to make
>sure we were laying the groundwork for something we could expand upon
>later.
That's a good goal.
>One of the big problems with the Magic system up until now is that
>it simply didn't accomodate additions. It was built to be what it was, and
>if anything got added, it had to be an entirely new method of doing things.
What?
So adding Spirits of the Elements was not done with the same rules?
Adding Idols was not done like Totems?
Sure you added some rules for certain things, but I can't see that
everything was done with "entirely new methods".
>Nothing was ever built upon the existing mechanics, in large part because
>the original existing mechanics weren't built to accomodate other uses. The
>result was a system that accumulated rules detritus like a ship gathers
>barnacles. That's not good design.
Please explain what you mean. I just don't get this, and that is actualy
more confusing than having no FAQ.
>A second problem was that, despite three editions of the game, Magic was
>largely still a legacy system (to borrow a bit of computer terminology).
>Instead of using things that worked and discarding things that didn't, we
>largely had just kept it all and tried using tweaks and bailing wire to
>hold it all together. With SR4, we had the luxury of taking it apart,
>seeing what worked and what didn't, and reassembling it into a working
>whole, with new parts to replace the missing ones or damaged ones.
So basically you threw everything out, including the things that worked.
>We also
>didn't want the mechanics of the core game to work in a substantially
>different manner than Magic did, so we tried to find new ways to handle
>rules issues that before had given rise to special cases, created just for
>Magic. This is true of design all throughout the game, though, not just for
>the Magic system.
But more for other parts. I've always found magic to be the easies parts of
the SR rules, where as rigging and decking was the obscure systems that
didn't fit with the rest of the rules.
>The third goal we had for design with this part of the game was to
>eliminate unnecessary complexity. We didn't want to do away with the
>aspects of magic that gave the game its feel, like traditions, spirit
>summoning, drain, and so forth, but we did want to make sure we didn't have
>a dozen different systems trying to accomplish what one could do. I think
>we went a long way toward accomplishing that.
Well this FAQ hasn't proved it yet. I'm still optimistic, but sometimes
these FAQs confuse more than enlighten.
When can we see something substantial?
Lars
