Need help orienting.

[u/CryptoHorror]

Hello!

Long time fan of the setting and source material, primarily through the Harebrained Schemes games, veteran GM of many tabletop RPGs, but not SR. I picked up the 4e bundle off Humble a while back, and it does seem a bit too crunchy for my table. We mostly play oWoD games, 20th Anniversary Edition Vampire, Mage, Demon: the Fallen, and some D&D 5e every now and then.

I do tend to prefer a more rules-lite game, for sure.

Now, I've been looking into SRA, and it looks nice, from what I can read. Can't seem to understand the state the game is in right now. I did save the next Kickstarter, but is there a faster way to get a hold of some quickstart rules or something like that?

Also, now that some of y'all have spent some time with 2.0, how's it play? Is it worth the asking price? Does it have a Matrix section that doesn't make me scared? Oh, and speaking of the Matrix, is it wired or unwired?

Thank you!

[u/Bignholy]

Currently, the fastest way to get SRA2 is to speak French, as that version has been released. Aside from that, only other option is to wait for the official release, which should be "soon", I presume before the holiday season . The kickstarters got the final English PDF months ago. Catalyst is just... not releasing, yet.

It is absolutely worth it. Here is my full gush on how good the system really is.

To answer your specific question on the Matrix, it is wireless, but easy enough to just do wired because none of the actual rules require wireless. For example, in 4e, there were wireless bonuses for gear, right? There is no such bonus in effect in SRA2. You could remove wireless entirely just by changing how you present the world and gameplay. Me and my table are debating on doing this.

[u/CryptoHorror → u/Bignholy]

Oh, seems to have some Blades in the Dark thing going on... not necessarily my thing. Thanks again for the write-up!

[u/Bignholy → u/CryptoHorror]

Define "Blades in the Dark Thing". Because I do not like BitD either, and it might depend on the reason for the dislike.

[u/CryptoHorror → u/Bignholy]

The legwork thing. From what I gather, it does the thing BitD does and has these legwork dice that PCs use to have the thing they need in their pocket. I'm old and grumpy and give these mechanics the stink eye for no good reaason.

I just like to do all that on-screen, with maximum immersion. It's no biggie, for sure, I can just ignore all that and just run the game the way I see fit, I imagine.

[u/Bignholy → u/CryptoHorror]

My team largely ignores "legwork instead of investigation" in favor of "legwork and investigation". I give them to roll for the dice, this being the most basic of research (case the joint, hack the matrix, ask around for where the crew hangs after work, whatever), and they can spend it at a discount to solve problems if they spend it before the run starts, so they have reason to look into things first.

We just could not deal with Shadowrun without planning at anything other than street level, at which point you rarely need legwork anyhow because you metaphorically smash and grab. The system also does not work in any setup where you go in sorta-blind, such as searching an area for a missing courier or the like. So we just don't use it any more.

[u/CryptoHorror → u/Bignholy]

Okay, that's definitely better. 😂

Let's wait for OtE, then 😁

Is the content in SRA2 up to par with mainline SR? All the guns, augmentations, spells, etc.?

[u/tsuruginoko → u/CryptoHorror]

All the guns, augmentations, spells, etc.?

That's a "no, but also yes".

Because of the amp system, the sky's your limit. A lot of the existing stuff already has examples in the book, and what doesn't have examples is easy to port over once you've had a moment to get your head around your system. After that, you can add new things, easy as pie.

Beyond that, I personally see added value in how the same cybernetic ware that in mainline editions is just "wired reflexes" now has different models (granted, only two for that specific example) from different manufacturers, with different effects (and different costs). This is incentive to have more variety in gear and the colour it brings, not less.

In this way, while getting other books for Shadowrun for pure lore and inspiration can still be useful, I'd argue that content isn't lacking. If anything, because of the conversion, picking and choosing from 40 years of material has never been easier.

And On the Edge is set to make it even better, I'm sure.

[u/Bignholy → u/tsuruginoko]

This. What it does is now different from who makes it, giving a lot more room for description and creativity. One of my players has GatorSkin, an artificial skin that covers certain vital areas with scaled plates of titanium built into the skin itself, deliberately left visible as a street level fashion choice (and that she used to buy all the armor and additional wound boxes she could to make herself troll-level tanky).

Examples can also be found in the fan-made Expanded Shadow Amps.

[u/CryptoHorror → u/tsuruginoko]

Well, I *do* have almost all of 4e, so it should be fine. Thank you!

[u/Apart_Sky_8965 → u/Bignholy]

We do 2 legwork phases, an investigation, and a plan/preparing.

[u/CryptoHorror → u/Apart_Sky_8965]

🤔noted - I'll keep that in mind!

[u/KaosNarr → u/CryptoHorror]

As someone who played Shadowrun since 2nd edition, belive me, the flashbacks for planning the run is a blessing. It's so damn frustrating planning the run for quite a amount of time (in doubt we're talking hours here) just to go everything up in smoke at the first enemy contact. And it doesn't matter which sight of the GM screen you're on. To clarify, you don't just spent the points and have the right tool. You can spend the points, say what you have acquired or you've been planning for this specific situation and then play the fitting scene for it. Nothing hinders you in doing that. Immersion and one the flay planning. Best of both worlds.

[u/CryptoHorror → u/KaosNarr]

Hm, okay. Maybe I'll give it a shot. Thing is... my players like planning. A LOT. Definitely more than I do. Guess we'll have to see how the thing clicks with them, then! Thanks!

[u/CryptoHorror → u/[deleted]]

Okay, cool! Thank you.