|
Post by Jet on Jan 17, 2011 15:11:38 GMT -5
I found a good gm In real life who does Earthdown and Shadowrun games. I already played his ED game and it was pretty good, but I lost interest in it (my character died and I dont feel like making another or reusing the same), so I thought that I might try out Shadowrun. I already have all the books (all hail filestube.com ) and Im reading it and so far doesnt seem bad. I never liked cyberpunk settings, but Im willing to give this one a chance, if only becouse I love the idea of combining Deus Ex with Magic (loosely saying).
Anyone played it?
|
|
|
Post by WildKnight on Jan 17, 2011 15:36:37 GMT -5
If you can choke down the awful system, then you might enjoy Shadowrun.
The thing about SR is that you WILL spend hours planning your missions. Probably vastly disproportionate to the time you spend actually playing through them. If you're not down for that, don't play Shadowrun, because that's what the game is all about.
Well, that and massive firepower. Most Shadowrun players think the word "overkill" is a compliment.
|
|
|
Post by Dhark on Jan 17, 2011 16:25:33 GMT -5
I love the flavor, but never got to try the crunch.
|
|
|
Post by dorkknight23 on Jan 17, 2011 17:13:35 GMT -5
Setting's great, the mechanics... a tad too complicated for my taste.
|
|
|
Post by malice on Jan 17, 2011 17:19:43 GMT -5
For a first character I find mages are actually simpler in Shadowrun than other characters, and are better-designed than mages in other systems. I LOVE Shadowrun's magic system! It's the best I've seen for magic. Stun-bolt is your friend man.
I love Shadowrun. It's a default for my group. I have actually been trying to make a Shadowrun-style set of rules for MURPG (It will only be slightly more complex than regular MURPG, and allow you to do more things).
In reality, while you DO roll a lot of dice and there is a rule for a lot of what you can do, the system isn't that hard to pick up. It works on a effort-resistance system like MURPG, only instead of spending stones you roll a bunch of d6s and your amount of 5s and 6s is how much effort you've applied. Whatever you're targeting with your effort does the same thing (Rolls dice and their successes are compared to yours).
Wildknight isn't completely off with his assessment, but he's clearly speaking from a perspective of a non-Shadowrunner.
Part of being good at Shadowrun is figuring out how things tend to go, and then assuming certain eventualities. You get better at planning and accounting for unknown variables so with experience players you spend a lot LESS time planning.
First off, for about a third of the modules, you're getting betrayed. Now you're on the run.
Second, for another third, you'll succeed in your mission, but the guy who you're reporting back to usually disappears or dies before you can collect payment and now you're on the run.
Third, for the final third of games the mission WILL go as planned as long as you play it smart. Part of the fun of Shadowrun is making a plan and executing it well. 90% of a successful operation is preparation.
Shadowrun slows down in combat, when most other games speed up. For me I imagine this less as "the game is moving slow" and more as "my character is moving extremely fast and accomplishing a great deal in a short amount of time".
The latter is what's actually happening. MURPG panels take 30 seconds game-time. D&D rounds take 6 seconds game-time. Shadowrun rounds take about 3 seconds game time, and a very fast character can act as many as four times in that 3 seconds. In MURPG this would be equivalent to everyone getting 2-4 allocations in a single panel). The panel takes longer to resolve, but much more happens in it.
Around the table this means you will feel like you've played 3-4 rounds of another RPG (You will have spent the time and taken as many turns) when 3 seconds of game time is all that has passed.
Also feel no shame in attempting to make the best character possible. It takes a LOONG time to make a Shadowrun character even once you're good at it, so it sucks a lot to have to make a new one. Almost everything in Shadowrun is shooting to kill, so don't bother playing nice.
|
|
|
Post by WildKnight on Jan 17, 2011 19:45:16 GMT -5
DK has a gift for understatement, and Malice has one for sugar coating a turd.
Magic in Shadowrun blows. Hard. Combat in Shadowrun is similar to ironing your ballsack. And Shadowrun is ALWAYS a game where nothing goes right. If you enjoy success, don't play Shadowrun. If you don't like playing games where one of your supposed team will eventually screw up your carefully planned mission with his itchy trigger finger, don't play Shadowrun.
It's laughable that Malice refers to me as a non-Shadowrunner. I've spent countless hours playing this game; it may be the game I've logged the third most hours in (after D&D 2nd Edition and Vampire: The Masquerade). I've played it with a variety of groups in a variety of forums, and I've played it at more than enough Conventions to know that my experiences are not a fluke derived from "playing with the wrong people."
There ARE enjoyable aspects to the game. The setting is fun. The fact that there is a spell to make a target have an orgasm is fun. The wide variety of character concepts that are actually viable is fun.
Then you have to roll dice. And the fun goes out the window.
|
|
|
Post by malice on Jan 17, 2011 22:10:36 GMT -5
Yes, there are issues with Shadowrun. There are problems with every system, and Shadowrun is unlike a lot of games out there. The system is definitely on the higher end of complexity, and it's not always to its benefit.
It seems odd that you played it so much, considering you dislike it. It seems like your reasons for hating are at least partly to do with your personal style rather than the game itself.
Also you obviously played with the wrong people, despite believing otherwise. Playing on forums and at conventions is playing with strangers. I have my plans ruined in those environments all the time. In a high-complexity high-lethality game you want people you can count on, and strangers (or "randoms" as I usually call them) ain't people you can count on.
Everyone I personally know who has given the system a chance has enjoyed it. The tables in the Shadowrun room at Origins were constantly full. My group loves the game. Obviously something in it is sweet past the sugar coating, and I don't sugar coat things, especially turds.
And the magic really is excellent. I can only guess that you haven't seen well-built and well-played mages. They don't require excessive optimization, but at my first Origins game with strangers we had a summoner who nearly knocked himself out summoning an elemental that my current character can summon in his sleep without even elevating his heart rate. Shadowrun needs optimization to be worth playing, which IS a problem with the system, but a fact nonetheless.
|
|
|
Post by WildKnight on Jan 17, 2011 22:16:35 GMT -5
I've also spent tons of time playing MURPG, and I have very little good to say about that system, either. While we're at it... the same applies to D&D 2nd & 3rd Editions...
You seem to be under the impression that I've played only at Cons. I was in a Shadowrun game (I won't say campaign, because campaigns have a point and some degree of continuity) with the same group I played D&D and other games with that lasted for over a year. In fact, I played a mage in that game, which pretty much blows your "you just don't understand magic" idea out of the water too (if anything, it's the decker/hacker/netrunner/whatever the hell they call it that I've never figured out how to run).
Just because I think the system is trash and you disagree, doesn't mean I don't understand the system very well. There are tons of systems I'm proficient with that suck. Actually Shadowrun is only mediocre as far as sucking goes. Palladium... now THERE is an utterly worthless and irredeemably bad system.
|
|
|
Post by malice on Jan 17, 2011 22:29:09 GMT -5
It's confusing to me that you would both know how magic works and dislike it. That's why I suggested you didn't know how it works. I understand you have a different opinion that's just different though. Some people like toting a f***ing spellbook around, and they bewilder me as well. (if anything, it's the decker/hacker/netrunner/whatever the hell they call it that I've never figured out how to run). I haven't figured those bastards out either. Actually I believe I understand how they work I just have zero interest in ever playing one. I've played combat operatives and mages, and since mages are just magic combatants... My current mage is pretty awesome and largely non-combatant, but still "in it", whereas a good hacker just rolls their dice from far away. No interest in something that far-removed from the action.
|
|
|
Post by WildKnight on Jan 17, 2011 22:57:12 GMT -5
Actually I believe I understand how they work. That puts you one up on me. My experience with the newest edition of the rules (admittedly limited to two sessions) is that they cut out a lot of that "from a distance" stuff... they went out of their way to make deckers have to go "on site" for jobs by making a lot of systems "closed" (just like they've done in more recent versions of Cyberpunk)
|
|
|
Post by malice on Jan 17, 2011 23:33:49 GMT -5
My experience with the newest edition of the rules (admittedly limited to two sessions) .... That... sort of explains a lot. MOST of my experience is with the 4th edition, which last I checked is still the latest. I said it "sort of " explains a lot because I didn't have as much experience with the older editions, so don't know about most of what you said. I also don't know whether you'd enjoy the new edition any more than you did the old ones. I thought this whole time we were talking about 4th edition. I am mostly confused about how much of our conversation was worth a damn, but I can inform a bit about 4th edition hackers. Often when your job is confined to a site the system IS closed and your hacker will have to take a risk, but infiltrating compounds and stuff is just one kind of mission you can have. I think hackers spend most of their time commanding their drones, and can also use their drones to go "on site" so to speak. The drone or a party member makes the hard connection, and the hacker still stays away. We've definitely had the hacker on site plenty of times though. Usually I think it's just the hacker's preference, how they've built their character, and the restrictions of the job. There's no rule that says they all play alike, and a lot of the modules we've played take you well outside the cities so there isn't as much wireless support. I think they also must've toned down hacking in 4e so that you don't have to focus on it as much to be good at it. It's all feeling more variable and uncertain the more I type though, because I've never played one long enough to learn about their variations. I understand how they work mechanically, just never played one. Jet: Are you playing 4th edition or something else? Because I confess this whole time I was speaking from a perspective of 4th edition.
|
|
|
Post by Jet on Jan 18, 2011 6:01:41 GMT -5
Yes, we are playing 4th edition. Havent read much about the mechanics yet, other then the basics. Everytime WK says something, anything, is "mediocre", I always, ALWAYS read it as pretty good, but could've been better. So Im fine with that
|
|
|
Post by WildKnight on Jan 18, 2011 6:52:38 GMT -5
Yes, we are playing 4th edition. Havent read much about the mechanics yet, other then the basics. Everytime WK says something, anything, is "mediocre", I always, ALWAYS read it as pretty good, but could've been better. So Im fine with that That's a really poor way of going about things. Particularly when I'm not the only one pointing out how awful the mechanics are. But really more than the mechanics, my real point was that Shadowrun can be a very frustrating experience for the wrong kind of player. I'm the kind of guy who sort of enjoys it when everything falls apart. I love sitting around planning heists in character and that sort of thing. But its not for everybody. I've never been on a mission, ever, that lasted as long as it took to plan it. Just as an example; a Convention block (game period) is 4 hours typically. The best Shadowrun game I ever played at a Con consisted of roughly 2 1/2 hours of planning, followed by slightly more than 40 minutes of actual game play. The net result was that after we'd gotten our target out (the mission was an extraction), one of our own betrayed us because his special goal was to reduce the number of members of the team (and thus the number of ways he had to split the reward). He succeeded in getting all but himself and one other guy caught or killed, and then the NPC we'd rescued used the gun he'd taken off MY body to shoot and kill both of the remaining party members. Some people may not enjoy that sort of thing.
|
|
|
Post by malice on Jan 18, 2011 15:20:36 GMT -5
By "special goal" do you mean one he just decided he had or one given to him by the GM?
In our home group our GM has worked with players to create such situations in D&D, but never in Shadowrun.
Since our GMs work closely with players at character creation, each character represents several hours of their own time invested. For this reason they don't want to see us die any more than we do, and while we still can die and do die occasionally, it is not because the GM wanted to kill us.
We don't turn on each other because we work as a team that has worked together awhile.
I've never played on a forum, but when I've played with strangers at a Con players are either all hampered by playing pre-generated characters or no one seemed quite as competent as we were.
It DOES help to be paranoid though, and we are, just not of each other in our home group. With strangers I'm constantly paranoid, even if they don't foil me intentionally they'll likely do it accidentally. Xbox Live has taught me to have zero faith in strangers, and to assume all "randoms" are so invariably stupid and worthless that their impact is devastating on a good day.
|
|
|
Post by WildKnight on Jan 18, 2011 16:06:50 GMT -5
By "special goal" do you mean one he just decided he had or one given to him by the GM?. If I recall properly, each of our characters had a special goal that was part of our pre-gen. The person who accomplished it was supposed to get some kind of reward IF the team succeeded in the mission. I've talked to the guy that runs this game on a few occasions, and he says the success rate for that mission at Conventions is something like 10%, because typically players will go after their individual goal without (much) regard to the fact that it does them no good if the mission isn't also a success. Of course, this is partially intentional; it helps keep the game under 4 hours.
|
|