| From: | Marc Renouf renouf@********.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Why SR3 is worth buying |
| Date: | Tue, 14 Sep 1999 17:43:16 -0400 (EDT) |
> I personally would LOVE to love my copy of SR3. I spent a lot of damn
> money on it, SR2 isn't being supported anymore, and I'd love to get some
> use out it. I was practically begging people to help me like this book.
Okay, as an upstanding member of GridSec and duly appointed "Bad
Cop" I am inclined to smack people down when threads like this come up.
But Mark's question is a valid one, and as someone who has been playing
Shadowrun since it came out in '89 and on the list since '92, I figure
that I can give my impressions (both pro and con) concerning the switch
from SR2 to SR3. Contained herein are facts, opinions, and comparisons
between the two systems, though I make no assertion of any kind that my
way is the only way to play.
So listen up, but take me with a grain of salt.
SR1 was a godsend when it came out. From the perspective of
someone who'd been playing AD&D, Star Frontiers, Call of Cthulhu,
Paranoia, and Top Secret, Shadowrun had something to offer that the others
didn't - a refreshingly interesting blend of genres.
The system was pretty cool too. It was a little unwieldy, and
things like varying stagings and auto-successes could drive you crazy if
you let them. Magic was weird, but magic is supposed to be weird. We
played it a lot, and had lots of fun.
Then came SR2. I remember one of my players got the book before I
did, read through a little bit of it, and decided he hated it. He told me
about the changes that they made, and I must admit that hearing him talk
made me skeptical too.
Then I actually bought the book and read it, cover to cover. What
I discovered was that all of the changes that he had relayed to me were in
fact in there, but they weren't alone. Yes, there was only one type of
staging now, but armor worked differently. Yes, spells and drain changed
a little bit, but magic as a whole had been vastly improved. On the
whole, for every "bad" change, there was at least one "good" change
that
made everything make sense.
In short, the Shadowrun rules had discovered elegance. Things
were a little simpler, a little clearer, a little less arcane, and a
little more consistent from situation to situation. Over the years, new
sourcebooks came out to add to and expand upon this new elegance.
Grimoire II, Fields of Fire, VR2.0, Awakenings, Rigger 2. At some point,
I stopped bringing my main rulebook to sessions because a) there were so
few up-to-date rules actually *in* it, and b) those were easy to memorize.
But from the point of view of new players, it would suck. If you
bought SR2 in late 1997, you'd be right to feel cheated. So much of the
most basic information was out of date or in other sourcebooks.
Enter SR3. As a way to attract new gamers to Shadowrun, FASA
correctly deduced that they needed to make the game more accessible, i.e.
they needed to update it. But in the process of updating, why not fix a
few known problem areas as well? Why not just incorporate the old source
material with a few new tweaks and changes?
And that's what they did.
Why did they release a third edition? Because they felt like the
timing was right. What's different between SR2 and SR3? Realistically,
the answer is "not much." In other words, "if it ain't broke, don't fix
it." But just because something isn't broken doesn't mean it can't be
improved upon. Take my wife's cooking, for example...
Anyway, the jump from SR2 to SR3 resembles the jump from SR1 to
SR2 in that the changes have a subtle effect on the game, and taken singly
they look like they'll suck. Taken together they make a hell of a lot
more sense. If you want to know what's different in SR3, read the book.
Cover to cover. Don't go, "yeah. yeah, Astral Combat, I already know that
part" and skip sections, because it's the *little* changes that make the
cohesive whole hang together better.
As for what in specific has changed I can point to a few things in
particular.
The first one that leaps to mind is initiative. I'll point blank
state that I hotly dislike the SR3 initiative mechanic. I don't feel it
fits within the spirit of what it means to have "wired reflexes." I
understand why it was done (to make wires less of a factor in combat) but
I feel it was taken too far. When you consider that neither the Essence
nor nuyen cost for reflex enhancements were reduced, it seems like an
pretty extreme penalty to pay for an improvement that has been more or
less emasculated by the new game mechanics. My solution? I still use SR2
initiative rules in my SR3 game.
On the plus side, we have some alterations to skills. I was a
little bummed to see the skillweb go, but upon further reflection the
new system is much easier, much clearer, and means I don't need to come up
with any funky house rules to keep people from defaulting to their
Firearms skill to bake a cake. Yes, there's no longer a catch-all
"Firearms" skill, but you get more skill points to spend in character
creation to make up for it. This allows those who don't *want* to be
gun-bunnies a chance to really diversify their skills.
Further, the whole concept of free-form "knowledge skills" is
extremely cool. The concept can be clarified a little bit (and I have
already made a house rule to do so), but the flexibility that it gives
both the players and the GM is unparalleled in any other game I've played.
Also, they added mechanics for things that lacked them in older
editions. For instance, under SR1 or SR2, how does one actually *use* a
Stealth skill? Look all you want, you won't find it. This was the
subject of numerous house rules under both SR1 and SR2. In SR3, a
mechanic is clearly laid out. I'm not real wild about the "Open Test"
method, but it works with the rest of the system, and answers an
unanswered question. Bonus.
Even the "new" material from Rigger 2 was clarified and improved.
There's now a difference between active and passive sensors, something
that has been a long time in coming.
Magic works a little differently now, but now it works much more
like everything else. In order to make the odds balance out more or less
the way they used to, some changes needed to be made. The limitation on
low-force spells was something that was sorely needed to keep every
cheese-ball munchkin from casting lethally effective spells all day at
force 1 and taking no drain. Now a mage uses his magic skill like a
decker uses his computer skill or an adept uses his Unarmed Combat skill
(with the minor wrinkle that the mage can actually split his "skill" dice
to accomplish more than one thing at a time).
By far one of the most important improvements, however, is the
"Gear" section. Most people will look through it and say, "yeah, yeah,
Ingram Smartgun, I know what that is. Pocket secretary, mm-hmm, no
surprises there." Wrong. Actually *read* the entire gear section. There
are rules interspersed with it, rules for things that should have had
rules in the previous two editions but didn't. How hard is it to jam a
cell-phone? What the hell did a rating 10 white noise generator *do* in
SR1 or SR2? How effective was it? Did it have a range? Now all of those
questions and more are answered.
In a world where technology and cheap consumer electronics are
supposed to be pervasive, Shadowrun fell flat in its descriptions and
mechanics for these areas. SR3 fixes that. I actually found the gear
section to be the most inspiring part of the book, giving me all sorts of
"Sneakers"-esque adventure ideas. This section alone made the book worth
buying, IMHO.
I was disappointed that the critters section got cut, but
truthfully it was always the red-headed step-child of the book anyway.
There was never enough detail. It sucks that you can't look in the main
book for the stats on a simple guard dog, but I can live with that.
Matrix stuff didn't change much from VR2.0 (and is basically an
abridged version of same) but that's okay. At least you can actually
*play* a decker using just the basic book now.
All in all, I think that SR3 was worth the buy. There are a few
things that I'll keep from SR2, but on the whole I think the new system is
an improvement. I was against SR3 from the get-go, but reading the book
and taking a good hard look at what would change and how made me realize
that the changes are more or less for the best.
No system is perfect (and even SR3 didn't change the crappy
autofire mechanic that has plagued SR2 since its inception), but if you
actually *read* the book *carefully* you'll probably find that the
resulting system is pretty well balanced, preserves the "feel" of the game
pretty well, and offers both the GMs and players a lot of new options.
In short, read the book, and decide for yourself.
Marc Renouf (ShadowRN GridSec - "Bad Cop" Division)
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