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loved 2nd and 2.5, has issues but was still a lot of fun
everything that has come out since... honestly not into it. If I was going to get back into playing it would either be 2.5 or just create my own system
We quit on Horde too. It was poorly balanced and kept alternating battles that were too easy and ones that threatened to TPK us (and this is a relatively balanced five-person party). Mind you, we were also getting used to playing 5E characters at that point with the slightly different way things are rolled.
I was invited to play that, but it just didn't kick my imaginator into gear, so I said no.
...currently, Shadowrun 3rd edition is still my favourite.
Yeah it has it's oddities as well as needing a bathtub full of 6 sided dice to play but I liked the basic system pretty well. Combat was a bit slow, but if there were no rules lawyers in the group it could move along rather well. (we usually made a house rule to not debate the rules during combat even if something seemed a bit weird). Also we usually had a smaller group (3 - 4 players) which made it move faster I used my notebook computer as my GM's screen which helped a lot too as I developed GM's aids in Excel that kept track of things like player and NPC initiatives, my main NPC personalities, and also had all the major tables distilled into PDFs. ALso has all the books in PDF format with bookmarks as well (saved having to lug 20 kilos of books to sessions and worrying if I might have left one behind afterwards).
For myself, I think magic complicated the game the most as it not only wasn't as straightforward as mundane combat, but also in many instances somewhat of a game breaker in that it basically trumped tech and everything else. I ended up banning certain spells (both for the players and my NPCs) like Mindpobe and a couple of the other mental manipulation spells as I had seen them so easily abused. I ended up downplaying magic in my campaigns (save for adepts - heck Jackie Chan was basically one) as setting up major astral and magical threats/challenges on top of the physical ones was a heck of lot of work outside the gaming session and I also had things like a job and other responsibilities to deal with.
The one other part that many have issues with is Decking as it tends to leave most of the other players out of the loop. What i did was set up the matrix run in advance and simplified a lot of the mechanics so that it didn't drag on and timed it so the other players could go off on food run as a mission in the Matrix would appear to take only a few moments to anyone not jacked in even though in the game session, could take a while to resolve. A Decker doing overwatch (basically jacking into a facility's security system to assist the team by neutralising automated threats, suppressing alerts, opening doors, etc) during a mission was different as then everyone was reacting to the situation at the same time.
True, the game was still more complex than AD&D and even D&D 3rd ed. but one could develop a decent rhythm and pace to keep things moving maintaining the players' interest.
That said, a bit of a background on Shdowrun for those not familiar with it
Originally set in the Pacific Northwest (focusing on Seattle) the game merged high tech with magic and interestingly, Native American legend and lore. North America had fragmented after an event called "the awakening" where the old mystical powers returned. Following what was called the "Great Ghost Dance the Treaty of Denver was signed ceding much of the western US back to the native tribes. The Seattle Metroplex remained it's own enclave (similar to Hong Kong before the UK's lease expired in 1999) as well as California (proclaimed a "Free State") and Oregon (becoming the Tir Taraingire - basically "elfland"). Magic was also split long two schools of thought, Hermetic (the classic "wizard" steeped in a more academic approach) and Shamanic, which at first followed the old Native American totems and legends but in later editions branched out to encompass Druidism, Voodoo, Wicca, Asian mysticism, and even new 6th world beliefs like Technomancy.
Another event known as the "Data Crash of '29" ushered in the concept of The Matrix (basically the "new" world wide Net) after which the tech curve took a sharp upward climb with developments like cybedecks, cybernetic implants, and even cyber limb replacement (we actually have been seeing such development in RL today). Note this game was first published ten years before the Matrix film.
During this time, there was also the rise of the MegaCorporations which became just as, if not more, powerful than governments. Society was broken own into what were termed "SINners" and the "SINless," The SIN was your System ID Number (kind of like an SSN) which basically said you were a recognised citizen, could have job, a place to live, drive a vehicle, etc. It was also a means for the authorities, company you worked for, and even MegaCorps to keep tabs on you. Yep, a real "Big Brother" dystopia. The SINless on the other hand were those who fell though the cracks in the system and have no "official" or "legal ID. They are the "faceless" disenfranchised ones who lived on the streets, in the back alleys, and abandoned buildings. This is where people known as shadowrunners" are "born", some doing it just to eke out a living, some out of revenge, some looking to right wrongs and some to open society's eyes as to what is going on. In spite of differing viewpoints and goals, there is a degree of mutual respect among the shadow community and even rules to abide by. Break those rules and one becomes an outcast (at least in the original concept of the game)
Runners are often hired for missions that are too politically dangerous for an entity like a company, recognised political group or even MegaCorp to be publicly involved with. They are seen as deniable assets paid for with slush funds set up for covert ops that are 'off the record". Ongoing commercial and corporate espionage usually makes up the bulk of the "job" opportunities however individuals also hire runners in cases of abduction, recovery of stolen property (that maybe they stole themselves), or gaining important information they can make use of.
The time frame of the game's first edition was set in the late 2040s to early 2050s. Second edition as the mid to late 2050s and third 2060 to about 2064. With Fourth edition, the time frame took a 6 year leap to 2070 (following a second worldwide Matrix crash) and fifth is set somewhere in the mid 2070s.
One of the major setting changes in Fourth edition was the Matrix going totally wireless.(sort of fiction finally catching up with RL), which actually made a lot of sense though also introduced whole new level of complexity for the GM to deal with as pretty much any character with the nuyen to spare could now hack the matrix. The other downside of SR4 is like D&D 4th ed, the character archetypes became very homoginised to the point you were basically either a Street Sam or a Mage (the difference between Shamans and Hermetics became rather nebulous as well). The change to character generation, while claimed to discourage abuses like "Min Maxing " actually ended up encouraging it and like I mentioned earlier, took on more the feel of an MMO than P&P RPG. There were other undesirable features as well such as skill caps (maximum rating of 6, period), Adepts being seriously crocked by both the character generation and initiation system, having to spend build points instead of resources to acquire contacts, and magic becoming far too powerful.
Through the succeeding editions the Native American influences (which I felt gave the game a unique charm) also waned as the game took on a more global scope with expansions that detailed other areas of the world. The emphasis also seemed to shift to one more political in nature. By 4th edition, the Native American influence, which for myself was one of the attractions to the game, was all but gone.
I have playtested the latest version, and like D&D 5th ed, seems to have come back a little more to its roots, ditching the cumbersome build point system and retuning to old the priority based character generation grid but allowing for a bit more flexibility by having a base mount of Karma to spend for "fleshing out" and still having positive and negative character qualities. Likewise the Archetypes have become more defined again and there is a new form of magic, Artificing (basically alchemy). Cyberdecks are back (no longer just a "souped up" commlink), and there are new modifiers such as cumulative recoil (making it more difficult to hit the longer you keep shooting over successive actions/turns without taking a break) Other fixes include
---No more skill caps
.--Adepts can now gain power points for new abilities just through initiation and don't have to also raise their magic attribute as was required in 4th ed,
.--For mages who depend on a lot of powerful foci to augment their magic there is now a risk of "focus addiction" which has detrimental effects.
--Magic power was somewhat reined in .
Unfortunately there are still holdovers from 4th ed that I personally didn't like, such as the Edge Attribute (basically "luck"), Technomancers (still done wrong), and hacking of cyberware (though there now is an option to prevent this, however it limits the implant's performance).
Edition 5 does require a lot more dice than 3.5, apparently. My sorcerer's lightning bolt is 8d6 (4d6 if any given intended target makes their DC18 dex save), and that's not atypical for rolling damage on her spells (and she's only level 5 right now!).
The typical Chessex 7-die set doesn't come close to what you need to play most characters now, which is frustrating to someone who would like to collect matching dice (my one single area of type A personality-ness). If someone would put together a mega-set for a given character class, with all matching dice and enough to cover most attacks of that class, they could make some serious money. As it is I'm still trying to put together a full set of my beloved Borealis aquerples (you'd be surprised how fast trying to match dice gets expensive).
...one of the other reasons I don't play D&D much anymore, all the different types of dice required. For Shadowrun I could get by with two Chessex cubes of six siders (36 ea), each of a different colour for denoting skill and pool dice. Needing upwards of a dozen or so of each type of polyhedral dice (save maybe for D20s as not many spells or attacks did 1 - 20 points per level) could become rather costly (and you always seemed to lose a few now and then).
Do you actually have a Thri-Kreen model for Daz? If so PLEASE let me kow where yu got it - I have been looking for one for AGES!
Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but a nice, simple RPG system on two sides of A4, needing but 2d6 per player and is free: http://www.lizardsofthehost.co.uk/2.html Oh, and is fun! :)
When it comes to dice, the more and the more different dice, the merrier ;-)
You must love ... rats and the name of the game has just departed from my brain ... EarthDawn, that's it! :) I must admit I did.
Never played it. My fav games in different genres are (no particular order)
James Bond 007 by Victory Games from 1982
Operation: Fallen Reich by fallen publishing from 2009 (currently out of print)
Mutant Year Zero / Mutant År Noll by Fria Ligan / Mobious from 2014
Call of Cthulhu different editions
(A)D&D/DnD 1st, 4th and 5th editon
EarthDawn is, supposedly, the precursor 'world' for Shadowrun. For me it was quite a fun Sword and Sorcery/fantasy role-play vehicle. James Bond I have played, as well as varios variants of D&D (from the original booklets - Men and Magic, Monsters and Traesure, etc. on to 2nd edition, I think) and I know of Call of Cthulhu and, despite loving Lovecraft and having friends who like the game have never played it, nor liked the idea of it ;) The other two you memtion I have never heard of!
Mutant Year Zero won bunch of ENies this year, post apocalyptic RPG, and O:FR is like "Call of Cthulhu" without the Cthulhu mythos, could say it's like Achtung Cthulhu!, WWII era game, "Tze Germanz" are all demons...
Anyone try Dungeon World? It has some cool indie style approaches while still being structured in a fairly traditional way.
That is, you have a sort of meta level of abstraction for travel and for resolving conflict. Like, you roll to resolve any contested whatever, and a bad result means the enemy gets something, a moderate result means you and enemy get something, and then a great result means you get a good result (or you can get a great result while the enemy gets something).
But it's traditional in that it plays out pretty much as 'players declare what they are doing, GM calls for rolls' and so on. It feels like old style D&D, just in a fairly new wave way.
Free rules, too: http://www.dungeon-world.com/
(There's also a BUNCH of spin-offs from it)
I haven't played it yet, but if/when I get back into gaming, it's high on my list of things to try.
And lest I forget, come and play Gallant with the creator at Wyntercon!!!
...wow this thread appears to have made it's Resurrection Survival Check.
Maybe I'm a bit of a weirdo, but I prefer GURPS. That and the old Star Wars d6 system have to be my favorite RPG's, tho our group plays a fair bit of Pathfinder (formerly 3.5, and on back to 1st edition for a couple of us). And maybe Paranoia, but that's totally not a system...and, I mean, if it was I certainly wouldn't know anything about that probabaly-not-real system because that would be treason.
*sigh* Okay, back to contributing because I love tabletop but have little time for it.
Apocalypse World is da bomb. I cannot play D&D any more, personally. I don't like the style of game that it is now, even if it's great for other people.
Apocalypse World is the game from which Dungeon World is derived. I own both, although my favorite Apocalypse Engine game is Monsterhearts. Both Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts are "adult" games (whatever that means), and probably best played with well-grounded adult gamers. The closest thing to Monsterhearts would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer (if it were on HBO or STARZ, not FOX).
A rather British review of Monsterhearts... http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/blog/post/monster-hearts/ ;
Dungeon World is simple & good because the emphasis is about your Players and their stories. The dice will favor your Players (fully succeed on a 10+ on 2d6) until they don't succeed, and then the game master pulls a "Hard Move"... which can be all sorts of evil fun. It's all about the Players, really. Yes, the game can be about killing things and taking their stuff, in grand D&D style, but the Apocalypse Engine has so many other things going on with it that make for storytime fun.
Dungeon World works if you've played classic D&D, but "get" the Apocalypse World engine. If you can make the Storytelling effortless and "feral", that's what matters most. I could imagine anything from Keep on the Borderlands to Queen of the Demonweb Pits through the Apocalypse Engine/Dungeon World if only because I know what's going on there on both fronts, the engine and the old modules. There is fighting, yes, but also Bardic lore and communing with the gods and doing all the crazy things that you used to fudge with the 20-sided dice before there were crazy rules for everything under the sun in the post-d20 world of D&D.
There are other ways to do this thing we call Tabletop RPGs, and D&D should not be the alpha and omega of the experience.
I'm aware. ;) I've been gaming since the late 70s, and I've played: Theatrix, Nobilis, Amber, Torg (man, I love Torg), GURPS, Tri-Stat, Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green, FATE, just off the top of my head.
Apocalypse World read badly to me, because it sounded like it was a teen or early 20s guy trying to sound all hip and cool. And stuff activated by having sex? ... k.
I also have Dungeon Planet, which looks even more gonzo fun.
Edit:
It should be noted that one of the appealing things about DW, to me, is that it fits in that 'stuff like D&D' but plays a bit more meta and free-wheeling. or at least it reads like that.
Which is good, because while I've played most editions of D&D, I've, at best, tolerated the rules.
Monsterhearts also has "Sex Move", but it's intimately tied to the genre of the teenage/monster drama... and for all that it says about the teenage years, the game is not appropriate for teenagers. It's aimed at adults recalling all the awful glory of teenage monstrousness.
Sex Move in Apocalypse World does seem more mechanical, but it's not written in a way that makes it a necessary part of the drama IMO. AW definitely has a style to it.
In Monsterhearts, the whole style is very different. The whole Sex thing as well. It's gender ambiguous & gay friendly in a confusing mixed up teenage kind of thing. The whole concept of sex can be borderline devastating in Monsterhearts for a variety of reasons, if only because of the teenage emo drama that the game is meant to portray.
It's not a game for everybody, but it does what it does very well. It's just plain scary for a variety of reasons.
Yeah, the point of Dungeon World is to free the story, and keep things alive.
Dungeon World shouldn't be scripted, which is a pretty dead/flat style of gaming IMO. The Apocalypse World engine is meant to drive an "organic, "feral" game. The story should be alive, and it should thrive in the moment... whereas games like Pathfinder or D&D tend to rely on volumes of well-organized dungeon modules and scripted encounters. Feral storytelling is the name of the game with the Apocalypse engine. Make the game like a wild, hungry animal, always looking for the next ankle to bite. The more you script a DW session, the further away from the Zen of it you will go.
You do need a decent foundation in the rules, and you need to internalize the style of the game in order to do the Apocalypse engine well. The rules aren't difficult, though, and the point is to get you past the rules and into the players' sick heads in order to make their characters come alive.
For those without the book, you can read it for free online here... http://book.dwgazetteer.com/introduction.html
Victoria Cavanaugh ~ Mythos Seeker
One of the games I play is in a modern magic setting -- our everyday, normal world with some paranormal characters and activities hidden in the background.
Roughly a hundred years ago, Ms. Victoria Cavanaugh and a group of "magic seekers" set out on what they thought would be a bit of illicit fun by dabbling in the occult -- a very scandalous pursuit in that day. Unfortunately, something went very... wrong. Victoria and her friends were touched by something ancient, hostile, and larger than the universe. Victoria had been farthest from the artifact which brushed the edges of this malevolent being. Her friends instantly went mad, eventually slipping into catatonic states and falling into early graves. Victoria, however... She lived. Since that horrible moment a century ago, Victoria has not aged a day. She has spent her years studying the dark beings which killed her friends, and has come to the horrifying conclusion that the beings have noticed our world -- and they are creeping in. Victoria has learned to exercise great caution in her research, but has also come to learn that she has powers to resist the whims of the dark creatures looming near. This power has not come without a cost. Sometimes, Victoria finds herself waking to a conscious moment, with no recollection of how she got there, how much time has passed, or what she might have been doing while she was outside her consciousness...
Love that character Karibou!!!
...indeed.
Been out of the RPG loop for a while but recently took up an invite to join the local Shadowrun Missions group. teh new 5th edition rules are much better than the previous version and they finally figured out that getting back to the original gritty feel was a good thing. The time frame is still different (mid 2070s) than 3rd edition (which is where Leela's story is based in), but a lot of issues and just "bad" as well as "overly complex" mechanics were "cleaned up" and magic is no longer as grossly powerful. Been playing a con artist/face character (charisma based) from the Chicago Containment Zone (long story that goes back to the 2nd edition days, sugffice to say the "Loop" and most oc the crtnral part of the city to the lakefront is now pretty much an urban "badlands" with all sorts of fun things like toxic and even radioactive areas) and having a lot of fun. One doesn't need to be a combat monster or mega spellslinger to survive and they brought the concept of cyberdecks back for hacking into the Matrix (the "www" of the future).
You still need a pile of 6 siders (seems to be the game design's hallmark" but a lot of modifiers to tests (which were a pain in the bum to interpret in the past) have been more streamlined to facilitate smoother play (even decking which used to be so cryptic you almost needed a degree in IT management to understand it).
The best thing is they retained all the colour of the original setting.
Here's that little con artist of mine.
She's actually an elf but with a quality called "human looking", just one effect of the background radiation in the CZ where she grew up. Another is that her physical attributes are capped at a lower rating than than other characters. She usually dresses in "chic" armoured clothing (as she's the one who's job is to "sweet talk" the "Johnson" into payng the team more money for a mission as well as fast talking her way out of a tight spot or to gain an advantage) and has a biological enhancment that adds natural armour to her as well, just in case things don't work out as planned.