If the 4th feel doesn't bother you, go with it if you already know it.

System-wise, I think the biggest change is in the character creation. I created a character in 4e once for a game that never took off and rather than prioritize the different aspects of your characters, you simply get a big pool of pts to spend on everything, kinda like Mutants & Masterminds.

But like I said, the game never took off so other than that, I'm not really sure what other differences there are.

2nd, 3rd, and 5th all have point based systems to make characters (which I prefer because it adds more realism to the game, imo).  3rd is definitely my favorite, I despised 4th ed, but 5th seems to be ok.  Although systemwise so far it seems to me that 5th ed characters fail more often than third ed.

why do you despise 4th edition?  it has a point based character creation as well.

There's the whole priority thing of A-B-C-D-E like if you put money in A you get a million, if you put skills in B you have more pts there than the one who puts skills in D, and all that.
4e didn't have that, it was just, have points, spend them, no prioritizing.
Unless I'm misremembering.

so the not prioritizing points, and just spending them to buy abilities, was not as good?  Is it because it lends itself to min-maxing?  I ask, because I can see where the priority thing could be frustrating, too.  If I wanted to make a troll mage in 3rd edition, he's going to start fairly subpar in most things, since you have to use your high priorities just to make him a troll mage.  But is the priority creation generally better, in your opinion?

I looked through the 4th ed book and I did not like it.  I don't even remember why but to me it didn't feel like shadowrun to me.

5e balanced a lot of the problems with regard to races/magic/money, in my opinion.

What problems did it address?  Just trying to understand the differences.

In 1e, 2e, & 3e how strong a magician you were was based on you lr respurces, at least at the beginning, was directly related to what priority you used for Magic. Meta humans used higher priorities for race and magic, so their resources were usually a very low priority.  Making them unable to hang with a Human mage.

That's why I preferred the point method of character creation in 2nd and 3rd, it fixed many of the problems with the priority system.

I would likely default to 5th edition rather than the earlier ones, if no one likes 4th.  I think, in a lot of ways, 4th and 5th edition included technology that actually exists today, so it doesn't make a lot of sense for it not to exist in 2050.  I guess it also lends itself a bit more toward the black trenchcoat, which I'd lean a bit more toward than pink mohawk, at least in flavor.

My favorite edition was 3rd, with the caveat that it didn't scale well to high power levels.

I prefer the background from 2050, and I ignore pretty much all of the metaplot development.

I currently run a game that uses the 5th rule set, set in 2050, but adding all of the things that should exist by then (AR, wireless, self-driving cars), and it's working pretty well. I prefer a heavier chrome load in my cyberpunk, so bioware is largely non-existent.

I think the 5th ed rule set is pretty good, with the caveat that it is heavily slanted towards mage in the balance. I've been part of two or three games now, and with the rejiggering of availability, is has become hard to impossible to make a samurai that can even come close to going toe-to-toe with a mage. In 3rd, that was not a problem, even though the mage would win out in the long run. Especially the mental attribute boosting spells are balance destroying; just boost Will to 7 or 8 and never suffer drain again from the average spell.

I think it is really important to make sure that the power level between players is balanced. It's no fun if one character can stomp any opposition that the rest of the party can barely handle.

I like the idea of a GM imposed dice pool cap. (and suggested minimum for important rolls) Thus far, I haven't been party to a GM who put it in writing. L5R fourth edition introduced me to the suggestion of limiting the number of separate bonuses that can apply to one dice pool, which is another way to keep things level.

looking over the priority thing, it still looks like it is very slanted to certain types of characters.  My previous example still fits in 5th edition.  If you make a troll mage, he's going to have sub par stats, no money, and few skills.  Am I missing something on how that balances out?

The priority system does tend to push you in certain directions, at least a bit, because it's "all or nothing" in some respects.

But since 3rd edition each edition has had rules for both the Priority system, and a point buy, so you can go either way you want.

I see plenty of GMs that rejigger the priority system as well, so that's an option.  Or you could give out karma that can only be spent in certain areas as determined by the concept.

Really character balance is something best done on a case by case basis, and honestly is secondary to having a game actually get up and running and not immediately trip and die as is usually the case on RPoL when it comes to Shadowrun.

just trying to figure out the best choices to give a game the best chance of success.

I do feel that 5th edition really leveled the playing field with the races.  In previous editions I used to hate it when players played trolls, because I knew exactly what kind of character I was going to be dealing with and what arguments I was going to have in the future.  5th ed made it so that all the races can play together and don't necessarily get placed in a niche.

I guess my question is, if you're using the point buy system instead of the priority system, what are the differences between 4th and 5th?  what makes 5th superior, aside from tone and fluff in the books?

In reply to gladiusdei (msg # 35):

This would have been an easier question back when fifth was doing prerelease pdfs / soon after release, and people were still writing up in detail how fifth improved on fourth.

Initiative, firearm modes, augmentation costing, spell casting & drain, among others differ between 4e & 5e. For the most part, I'd say the rules are an improvement.

Good grief this thread has me dreaming about Shadowrun, lol.

I couldn't say what the difference is between 4th and 5th I looked through 4th and didn't want to play it.

If you build it, they will come.  More than likely.

I think the choices you should be concentrating on are what's going to make things easiest for you to keep the game flowing, and keep yourself interested and sane.

The last SR game on RPoL I was a part of was pretty standard 5th edition, Metatypes from the core book only, but rules and equipment from everything else.  Pretty standard in terms of player expectations, 3-4 posts per week, recommended posting conventions, etc, etc.  The GM decided to take whomever wanted in and then group people up.

The game had 17 players and 15 completed characters and about two weeks of active IC posting when the GM ghosted due to what they later informed us was a combination of RL issues and perhaps biting off a bit more than they could chew.

That's not an unusual thing either.

So as long as you set it up so you can be in it for the long haul, keep the story flexible so you can bring characters in and out as players fall off the face of the planet (as always happens in every game) and you have to recruit more, I think your game will succeed as well as any, no matter what mechanical system minutia you decide to go with.

The main thing with early editions of Shadowrun was that it was easily backwards compatible. The later editions aren't. 3rd and 2nd had a both a point buy and an ABCDE chart. I tend to stick with 3rd personally as it didn't have technomancers. Otaku sure which were the beginnings of technomancers. The biggest difference is balance. Otaku are the only wireless users, but it was with a cost. Namely the time you put in. Of course most decking was handled by NPCs in the games I played so there is that.

Apart from systems keeping the posting going is pretty important I have found.  Needless die rolling bogs down the story nit picking rolls really becomes a drag for players.  With how glitchy the die roller appears to be on a regular basis requiring
die rolls that aren't drastically necessary but could potentially cause major problems isn't going to endear characters to the game.

In reply to PCO.Spvnky (msg # 40):

Keeping the posting up is super key.

Something one of my current GM's is doing that I just adore is that they *always* post every couple of days at the least, even if they don't have time for an IC post. Having regular updates from the GM along the lines of "Hey, really busy right now, will have a post up tomorrow or next day." or "Want to wait on X to post before moving forward, will post anyway if X doesn't get one in by tomorrow." and so on is really reassuring and makes it feel like the GM is still active and involved even when they aren't moving the plot along.

So yea, big advice for GM's: Post! Even if you don't have time for a full post or are waiting on a player before moving the plot, tell your players that!

Good advice, Knarfy.

One thing I have found useful is to make heavy use of routine for die rolls. 1/4 of dice as successes often works to knock out tasks you might have rolled for in Tabletop.

Actually, my standard policy is to use first whatever die rolls a player might provide pro actively. If I need a die roll that was not provided, I just take 1/3 of the dice pool as successes.

In combat, I provide pertinent information on the opponents so the players can roll out entire exchanges, and post appropriately.

The main thing is that I never ask for a die roll. That does really streamline things.