shadowrun4.com
I have all the other rule books and several of the supplements and I am not currently playing soooo I may not be picking the new edition up.
(clipped from wiki)
Fourth edition changes
With the new edition, major changes to the rules system were adopted.
Out of the original six attributes (Body, Quickness, Strength, Charisma, Intelligence, and Willpower), Quickness was split into Agility and Reaction, while Intelligence was broken into Intuition and Logic. A new attribute called Edge was introduced to replace Karma Pool. Instead of starting from a base, characters buy their Magic attribute like a normal attribute. The statistic originally called Reaction has had some of its functions taken over by the new attribute by the same name.
The initiative system was modified to affect only the order of actions, not the number of initiative passes. The number of initiative passes taken by a character is now determined solely by external influences, like implants, magic, and drugs. It is no longer possible for an unmodified character who is not under the influence of magic or drugs to have more than a single initiative pass, except through the use of Edge.
Several of the archetypes were modified. Deckers were merged with riggers and renamed hackers. Many distinctions between shamanic and hermetic magicians were removed, and the magic system was designed to allow many other variant traditions. Otaku — individuals who have the same roles and abilities as deckers, except without a cyberdeck — were changed into technomancers. With the addition of the Resonance attribute technomancers function like magic users in the matrix calling up sprites as opposed to spirits and dealing with fading as opposed to drain.
Skills were changed from the target number system to a "hits" system. The target number is fixed at 5; to make a skill test, a player takes a number of six-sided dice equal to the skill and its linked Attribute, and rolls them, counting the number of dice that show 5 or 6 as "hits". The number of hits is compared to a pre-determined amount (or Threshold) set by the GM for the roll. If the number of hits equals or exceeds the threshold, the roll is a success. This mechanic, not coincidentally, happens to very closely match the new World of Darkness system. In addition, dice pools were removed, eliminating most of the tactical allocation of dice during combat, spellcasting, hacking, and other activities. These changes were intended to speed up the resolution of skill tests and combat.
The "Rule of One" of previous editions has been changed. A "glitch" is when at least half of the rolled dice come up 1s. A glitch results in a minor inconvenience or setback for the player, though it does not necessarily mean failure as long as enough hits were still scored. However, if a person rolls a glitch while scoring no hits at all, it is considered a "critical glitch", and is substantially more serious or potentially even fatal.
Rules for combat, magic, hacking, and other activities were changed to accommodate the new skill system. The modified rules are typically similar in outline, but the details are necessarily different.
Since the rules in the Fourth Edition are mechanically dissimilar to those in earlier editions, balance issues differ between editions. Characters from previous editions do not easily convert to the new edition with their strengths and weaknesses intact.
There were a few changes to the fictional setting in the Fourth Edition. The main premises remained unchanged while the timeline advanced by five years. The largest change in setting was the addition of a global wireless matrix that allows people to have augmented reality displays: visual overlays on real-world scenes. This encourages hackers and technomancers to join their teammates physically rather than provide matrix backup from a remote location, a change designed to make coordinating and integrating online and real-world actions easier for the GM.
There were also other changes to Shadowrun society at large, as illustrated in the flavor text. For example, up to this point, cursing had been illustrated with a variety of colorful made-up words, such as "drek", "frag", and "slot". FanPro eschewed these in SR4 (to some player complaint, as many fans believed this added social color to the game[citation needed]) and decided to use their contemporary, real-world counterparts.
Fans of previous editions have often leveled accusations[citation needed] regarding the new magic rules as "causing magic to lose its flavor." In previous editions there were two baseline "traditions" for magicians—hermetic and shamanic—with other traditions making use of elements of either or both in new ways, such as voodoo houngans and mambos using largely shamanic elements but summoning unique loa spirits that could possess the summoner or serviteurs to work their powers in the physical world and mindless zombies that could be used for manual labor, cannon fodder, anything the summoner could think of. In SR4 the various traditions—and "styles" that were cultural, religious, or even simple flavor variations of a tradition—were standardized so each tradition learned and cast spells and summoned spirits (five per tradition, all drawn from a "pool" of standard spirits) the same way, causing magicians to be seen as the same regardless of tradition, seemingly by players and the game's authors alike[citation needed]. Where once there was a continuous feud between mages and shamans over the nature of magic that often manifested itself in the fiction as much as the mechanics, the two traditions are so largely similar now that there has been little to no mention of this feud in any official SR4 books.
That said it does look good. I was hooked on shadowrun due to the art and the new artwork while different looks nice.
I was looking through my collection and the third edition is my favorite so far link especially the Paul Bonner cover…one of my favorite covers for an RPG.
I didn't get to secure all the supplements…did Shadowrun pursue a post apocalyptic future beyond the "current setting" or the one that the standard Shadowrun game is set in?
A classic ruined Earth setting…civilization is broken, limited supplies/resources, and other elements.
I know the Shadowrun setting is dark and near collapse but it is still functional.
As I type this I think back to anther FASA game, Earthdawn. A fantasy post apocalyptic game…great art in the main book and most of the supplements. A great PA setting because it was so different, as it was all fantasy based.
So does the new edition entice you? And did any of the supplements deal with a post apocalyptic future?
Sorry for the ramble…was flipping through my third edition at the same time :)
here as I am a playtester for this (not author), but I also liked the rough rules so much already, I became a Kickstarter too.