Shadowrun 4th Edition

[cybertroll]

I think this edition went bad...
They removed things that made the shadowrun game system quite special and innovative (old dice pools, karma pool) and made it look like the new D10 from White Wolf.
Plus I didn't like much the artwork nor the storyline as it evolved... new Matrix? Come on, the writers run out of ideas?

I'll stick to the 3rd myself.

[TheElf]

From what I have heard I will probably do the same

[TheElf]

I think my last message haven't said much. One of the most often mentioned idea is Augmented reality, which can look like a nice idea, but has a few interesting problems: How do you control your online actions and your meat body at same time? Displaying data from various data sources were possible even before, so it isn't a big change, nothing that needs everything to be restructured, and yet, we got a new crash and a new Matrix.

Wireless links, cellular networks existed before, there were ways to remove RAS (like in many BTLs) overlay images, etc. while acting in real world (image link), so nothing realy new, but placed focus on a problematic idea, and not everyone is happy with reusing "unique" events.

Without knowing the new system: Even if 3rd edition, you had a chance to use some old modules, sourcebooks with minimal conversion, seen some technological advancement, and if you knew how things evolve from Ares Predator, to Ares Predator 2 and 3, and had a chance to use the pace of this technical evolution when designing your adventures. With the new system, we roll more dice, do just as much math, and don't get much better results. So we lost some value I consider important, and gained something that I don't see good or realy important. Such changes can lead to a question: If you have a LOT of shadowrun books at home, would you want to forget about them? Or would you want to see something new from the system, fixes, and expanding the existing universe? How one can judge the new system can depend on such questions.

[cybertroll]

I don't think we should place this discussion on this level. The problem with new editions and their compatibility with the previous ones is not the issue here. At least not for me, since without new editions we wouldn't have any evolution in the RPG systems. If that is your problem then the answer is simple: don't buy the books if you don't want to, stick to the old one.

The problem of Shadowrun 4th is that as a new edition it doesn't make the system better. It tries to simplify it at some points yet it brings more rules and thus making it more bulky. For instance they removed combat pool (which was kind of hard for new players to get it) and added the various combat resistance rolls. If you get to the heart of both rules, they are supposed to do the same thing and yet the new one is just a simple one-more dice roll whille combat pool was versatile and much more interesting as a rule.

I don't have a problem moving on to new editions/systems whatever as long as they have meaning. RPG books cost a lot to simply give away money to buy new editions that make things worse, at least imo. I moved happily from AD&D 2E to D&D3E, bought as many books as I had in the 2nd one and didn't regret it back then. I did the same from Shadowrun 2nd to the 3rd edition. But this one is simply for the trash-can.