Shadowrun 5th Edition

[Jordan]

Okay, so it's been a bit and I have a report on my Shadowrun game. Sad to say but it's been shelved for the time being. One of the big problems was, as many people might guess, the Matrix rules. Specifically the VR side of the matrix. That wasn't the only problem but it certainly was a major one.

What can I say about the matrix? while it is cleaner and easier to understand than 4th edition, that really isn't saying much. the rules on performing matrix actions are much clearer and work quite well however putting them together can be non intuitive, particularly if you are doing something that the designers of the rules didn't anticipate the characters doing. Add to that other little quirks of the system and it leads to frustration and breaking of immersion. Worried about your gear getting hacked? just buy 200 Stealth RFID tags (and keep your PAN in Stealth Mode) and watch as the enemy hacker rapidly descends into Madness as he has to randomly pick and choose which stealth signal to try and crack hoping to get yours. The bag guy is slapping on a Trauma Patch? Hack it 'cause it's Wireless! Want to hack a Host to control every camera in the joint your team is breaking into? Ummm okay how exactly does that work?

Basically we found that every 20 minutes we were stopping to take a half an hour to try and figure out how things worked or what the designer's intent was. And then the book even states that certain things were left out of the rules for the upcoming Matrix slat book.

Add to that all the little immersion breaking inconsistencies between the rules and the fluff, the group just lost it's taste for the game. So we will wait a while, check their forums to see how other people handled the issues we had (or even if they had the same issues) and maybe pick it up at another time. Preferably when a few more splat books have come out. In the mean time, we've decided to try Numenera.

[jameson (ST)]

That sucks, but unfortunately it seems as though Shadowrun's rules continue to be its own worst enemy.

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In the mean time, we've decided to try Numenera.

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Awesome! Let me know how it goes.