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Shadowrun 4th edition is a radical departure from all the previous editions. They decided to chuck the entire core mechanic, and tried to create a totally new system from scratch. And naturally, this has caused all kinds of controversy, both on RPG.net and the Dumpshock forums, the official-unofficial Shadowrun forums. So, for the purposes of this review, I'm going to try and keep the comparisons to a minimum; let us try and treat Shadowrun 4th edition as if it were a totally new game, which in many ways it is.
Introduction:
The book opens with a fictional piece: Buzzkill, which is supposed to serve as an introduction to a shadowrun. Now, some may like the writing style, and some may not-- personally, I'm indifferent to this story. As far as it goes, it does an adequate job of introducing many Shadowrun concepts, although not everyone will enjoy the actual story; still, it deserves a passing grade.
Let's skip ahead to the good parts. As I said before, Shadowrun 4th edition introduces a totally new mechanic: attribute + skill in d6, versus a fixed TN of 5. Multiple successes-- now called "hits"-- improve your success level. Penalties are assessed in either the form of dice-pool penalties (reducing the amount of dice you have to roll) or threshold modifiers, increasing the number of successes you need.
Sound familiar? Yes, this is an almost direct rip-off of the White Wolf system. To make matters worse, you need to track two different kinds of penalties, instead of just one. In my sample runs, this proved to complicate matters and slow down play-- but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The game mechanics chapter goes on to explain how you use the dice in Shadowrun 4th. And here, the game deserves massive props-- everything is laid out in a very clear, concise fashion. The main test rules are easy to read and understand, and they look as if they're very fast and streamlined. This section does an excellent job of introducing the dice mechanics to complete novices as well as veteran gamers.
Character Creation:
Shadowrun has dumped all the previous character creation methods, and now offers you a 400-point build system. Here's where I started to have serious troubles. In order to experiment with the system, I took a SR3 character concept-- a straight mage-- and tried to recreate her in Shadowrun 4th. Since the character didn't depend on gear, I thought that I could avoid the inevitable slowdown that occurs with any cash-detailed game-- buying stuff has always been the biggest chokepoint of any game.
Well, my "simple" character took me over four hours to make. Part of this was due to my unfamiliarity with the system, but the chapter itself didn't help; it forced you to deal with many concepts long before it introduced them. (For example, in order to create a mage, the book told me to select the "Magician" quality at a given step, before they got around to introducing Qualities in general and that one in specific.) This section has multiple layout issues that cause unnecessary complications, especially for new players.
Part of this problem is that Shadowrun 4th doesn't provide you with any overview of character creation-- it throws you directly into a step-by-step procedure that goes over every section in exhaustive detail. While this may sound like a good idea, it actually throws you off-- for example, in order to get an overview on Qualities, you had to read through the descriptions for each and every one. I found that to be remarkably distracting-- by the time I finished reading that section, I had almost forgotten what I was trying to do. What the book desperately needs is a one-page description or sidebar that quickly summarizes the character creation process; the detailed path they give is simply too much to deal with.
But the biggest problem is that character creation is now "fiddlier" than ever before. On a comparative scale, Shadowrun 4th's system is about equal to Champions or GURPS; there's a wide assortment of things to buy, demanding a lot of attention to detail. Screw up on one section, and you have to start all over. To make matters worse, there's a lot of arbitrary limits imposed on characters-- no more than half your points on basic attributes, sharp restrictions on what levels of skills you can buy, only one attribute at your racial starting max, and so on. Surprisingly enough, all these options don't allow the exceptionally wide array of characters you'd expect from such a detailed system; my experiment with several other character types all came out rather "generic". These limits force characters to be very generalized, with fewer of the exceptional highs and lows that help bring our roleplay. This would be more forgivable if it also prevented system abuses; however, it doesn't even do that. All it does is make certain that your character will have a lot of mid-range skills.
To complicate matters, there are three "special" attributes that your character may or may not have to deal with: Edge, Magic, and Resonance. Edge is a "luck factor" that allows your character to do many different things, but they include adding bonus dice equal to your Edge, avoiding fumbles, rerolling failures, and so on. The problem is that it's fairly easy to get at a high level, so there's nothing preventing chromed combat monsters or destructo-mages from loading up on it as well-- it costs exactly the same as raising any other attribute.
The other two attributes are specific for if you want to play a magically active character (a mage or physical adept) or if you want to play a technomancer, a psychic computer hacker. In order to buy these attributes, you first need to buy the appropriate Quality; then you have to buy up the attribute normally. As you can guess, this introduces all kinds of needless complications; it would have been much easier to have the special attributes bought straight, instead of doing a little two-step dance. And oddly enough, despite the fact that they went over every option in exhaustive detail, they don't give a list of adept powers here, not even as an overview-- you're forced to go flipping back and forth through the magic section for that.
Skills:
Next, we have the skills chapter. Here, things go back to a clearer, easier style. Each skill section is given a brief overview, followed by a capsule description of each skill; and, if needed, a detailed section on how to use some of the more complicated systems. This section is very easy to understand, and does a much better job of explaining skills and skill groups than the character creation section did.
The only problem here is a mechanical one: the top level of skill, "Legendary", is capped at 7 dice. For example, Fastjack, the best of the best when it comes to computers, would have Logic 7 and Computers 7. So, when competing with Joe Average (Logic 3 and Computers 3), Fastjack would have an average of five successes, compared with Joe's two. The problem is, in order to score a critical success, you need to have four net successes over your opponent's score plus threshold. So, the super-legendary will tend to only score moderate successes over the average Joe. This just doesn't seem to be believable-- Michael Jordan in his prime should stomp all over Joe Average, even if Michael took a handicap.
How to make friends and kill people:
Next up: Combat. Combat has always been the heart of Shadowrun; despite everything else, it's a very violent game at heart. And here, things begin to fall apart again. Instead of giving us a unified combat system, Shadowrun 4th gives us three different ones-- ranged, melee/unarmed, and vehicle-- with notations about two other systems they'll introduce later. Ranged and Melee combat are pretty close to one another, but are still incompatible; Vehicle combat follows its own set of rules. (In fact, it offers us another two kinds of combat: one for vehicle-only, and one for mixed vehicle/pedestrian combat. However, the rules don't do a very good job of combined drone/character combat when there's drones on both sides-- the rules for closing and escaping run on a totally different time scale, making a combination impossible.) Don't be fooled-- while the rules say that everything is just opposed tests, you're given huge tables of modifiers for each different type, and different skills that apply. Needless to say, this is very complicated, and hard to keep track of; the rules shift from section to section.
That old black magic:
After this, we go to magic. Once again, the writers switch back to a much clearer, easier to follow format. The magic rules are much more unified, and are simple to use. About the only problem with this section is the adept section, stuck in the middle of the chapter-- once again, we're treated to an extensive list of powers, which proves to be somewhat distracting from the rest of the chapter. An overview of adepts would have gone much better if the powers had their own separate section, like the spell lists; additionally, a quick powers list would have been very nice to have in the character creation section. Also, we're introduced to the fifth combat system-- astral combat, for those interacting with astral space. (Think of the Umbra from original Werewolf.) For some reason, this has all of two paragraphs dealing with it, and it goes into absolutely no detail as to what you can and cannot do. It also doesn't list what defensive skills apply, which is supposedly a key part of the "unified" combat system. With this astounding lack of detail, all you can do is hope nobody gets into astral combat at all. Still, the magic rules are very nice overall-- they look very smooth, and very functional.
I got no strings:
Now, we go into the Wireless World-- an introduction to the wireless Matrix, the super-Internet of 2070. We're introduced to the concept of Augmented Reality: much like the movie Minority Report, when you go to the mall, information is overlaid onto things you look at. The book goes into exhaustive detail on how this can be useful to shadowrunners-- in fact, it makes it perfectly clear that everyone has to deal with the Matrix in order to function at all. It does a good job of introducing you to the commlink; a combination PDA and cellphone that also functions as your ID, your credit cards, and all-purpose computer. This device is absolutely essential for everyone in 2070, so don't forget to get one!
We're then treated to the new hacking rules, which are different from the rest of the rules: most of the time, it's now a skill + program roll. This wouldn't be too bad, if there was a bit more consistency about what skills were to be used with what program-- sometimes, it's the Computer skill, other times, it's the Hacking skill, and occasionally it's the Data Search skill. Then, we're introduced to the Electronic Warfare subset of hacking, which suddenly doesn't have programs at all-- you go back to skill + attribute. This is somewhat jarring, but not terrible, since the book does separate the two a little bit. However, the book then goes on to describe how you can use Electronic Warfare to hack any wireless-enabled device, ranging from commlinks to smartguns to cyberarms; but what it doesn't do is give you any solid rules for doing so, or what you can expect to happen if you succeed. There's about a paragraph mentioning a few vauge details, and that's about it. A sidebar says you can avoid this by shutting off the wireless option on some of your devices; it says you'll suffer "a substantial loss of functionality", but never explains what that actually means. There's absolutely no reason why you wouldn't want to keep as many devices as possible with the wireless features off; it appears to be the only protection against being hacked, and getting some unspecified but extremely bad effect.
After this, we're treated to a handful of paragraphs on Matrix combat. For some odd reason, there isn't a long list of attack options here: once again, we're given an extremely vauge description, with few actual rules mentioned. In fact, your choices are pretty much restricted to attack or full defense-- those are the only options listed. So, we've swung from one extreme to another: from too many options to keep track of, to: "Uh, I try to hit him again".
Now, we go into the section on Technomancers. Technomancers are people with the ability to manipulate the Matrix with their minds alone, no commlink required. Sounds like magic? Well, guess what, it might as well be: the Technomancer rules look like they've been cut-and-pasted from the magic chapter. The writers may as well have saved themselves a few pages, and simply referenced the appropriate magic rules, that's how identical they are. This is terribly jarring; Technomancers are supposed to be different than mages, so you'd expect rules with a different feel-- unfortunately, they come off feeling like Matrix-only magicians.
Finally, we have a section on "Rigging" and drone combat. Riggers are people who specialize in using drones and vehicles-- a very important part of the game, apparently, but only treated to about a page and a half of rules. For some reason, more vehicle combat rules are introduced here; why they couldn't integrate them into the vehicle combat section is beyond me. It also doesn't specify which vehicle combat rules they're meant for-- they could go either way.
RPG Potpourri:
Next up, we reach the "Running the Shadows" chapter: a hodgepodge of rules to cover all kinds of situations. If you can't find it anywhere else, it's probably here-- you'll find the healing rules here, along with the security system rules, the experience system, and the generic gamemaster advice section, among many, many others. The individual sections are pretty good, but the overall chapter layout looks like it was drawn out of a hat.
The last two chapters deal with NPC's and gear, respectively. Shadowrun is really dependant on NPC's; they range from summoned spirits to the grunts you fight to the bartender you go to for information. The chapter gives you a set of quick-resolution grunt combat rules that look very nice; it also gives you quick-scaling rules for "lieutenants", grunts with slightly-improved abilities. They then go into contacts-- how to use them, how to lose them, and what they will do for you. The contact list is very short; but one very nice feature is that each description also lists "similar" contacts-- so a GM can easily adapt one contact's stats into another. For example, the Blogger can be converted into a Reporter with ease. And finally, you have the critter rules-- capsule descriptions of various monsters and beasties your shadowrunner might encounter. Overall, this chapter is quite well done; you get a lot of information in a hurry, but it's all very easy to deal with.
Last of all, we have the Gear chapter. Shadowrun is a gear-intensive game, where what you have can be just as important as what you can do. Under such a game, there is no such thing as a "simple" gear section; every item has to have its own writeup, along with detailed stats. It's very easy to mess up, and either offer too much or not enough gear in this sort of system; Shadowrun, however, does a pretty good job of balancing those extremes. Many items even have a unique feel to them: quite a few have "brand names", instead of generic labels. For example, you don't just buy a heavy pistol; you buy an Ares Predator, or a Ruger Super Warhawk. Each pistol has different statistics; you might think that this would get confusing, but it actually works very well.
Then, we reach the augmentations section. Augmentations are split up into two types: cyberware, machinery that is implanted into your body; and bioware, artificial improved organs. Here, things begin to get slightly confusing-- both have an additional stat, an Essence cost. Your character only has 6 Essence to use for augmentations; a nice straightforward limit. However, bioware and cyberware's essence costs aren't totaled together: they're calculated separately, then you add half of the lowest total to the highest one, to get the total cost. Apparently, the writers didn't consider what would happen if you later add cyberware or bioware, because your remaining essence score would suddenly jump around. Still, they do a good job of covering a wide array of options for a character; you certainly won't lack for choices here. The actual selections themselves are well-depicted, with enough choices to be interesting, while not enough to be overwhelming. Other than the mechanical blip, this section is quite good.
Overview:
I'm going to take a moment and break my rule-- let's do a quick comparison between Shadowrun 3rd edition and 4th. Many of my favorite elements from that game are gone, some without replacement at all. Many other things were pointlessly renamed: Otaku became Technomancers, Deckers became Hackers, successes became hits, Quickness became Agility, Edges and Flaws became Qualities, Karma became Edge, and so on. These name changes don't really do anything but make the transition even more difficult for old players. It doesn't look like there were many moderate changes-- they were either totally dramatic shifts, or meaningless name changes.
This is not Shadowrun anymore, just like the old World of Darkness is not the new one. We may as well call this nShadowrun, instead of 4th edition; the changes are that dramatic. Some people may like it, and others may not; but let's face it, this is not Shadowrun anymore. It's New Shadowrun, just like New Coke; don't expect it to taste the same.
In summary: I wanted to like Shadowrun 4th Edition, I really did. However, after going through it, I just didn't find it to be special enough to be really worthwhile. There are some real gems here, but they're buried under a lot of heavy crunch. Most of the smooth parts of the game seem to be lifted wholesale from the new World of Darkness, so you might as well play that instead. Don't get me wrong-- it's a good game. It's just not an excellent one.
So, if you're into the Shadowrun world; if you're a big-time fanboy, then Shadowrun 4th edition is well worth picking up. But if you're just in the market for a new enjoyable game, go ahead and push this one down on your list: it's far too crunchy for a pickup game or a few short sessions, you'll only get your money's worth if you intend to start a long-term campaign. You can find other games that are just as enjoyable, with more special things to offer, that are more accessible and unique.
This is a good game, and it'll give you lots of fun afternoons; but so will many other products out there. If you've got money to blow, then this is a worthwhile addition to your shelves; but if you've got to stretch your gaming dollars, make absolutely certain you're getting your money's worth.
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