[OOC] General Discussion

If that were a valid critique, it'd be a critique of nearly every system with spells that was ever made, not SR.

Well then in that case I think we ought to go with SWADE its as good as any other system out there

I think it is telling that Shadowrun has so many adaptations. The system sucks but the world is awesome. Hacking and house ruling to a new system can be even more cumbersome, especially if you want the keep all the details.

That is why I am advocating for a more abstract system like FATE or FATE accelerated, to go from a rules-heavy to a rules-light system. But in the end, it is the GM call, not mine.

GenSys might be viable and there is Mini Six which seems to be favored by some and JAGS RPG. The key will be getting a game system that flows nicely and easily supports the feel of Shadowrun. Yeah Generic systems are supposed to support all genres but frankly having played various versions from rules heavy/complex to rules light/simple I find some generic systems work better for some genres than they do for others. Also I do not think we want necessarily rules light but more rules simple. Some generic systems have lots of rules to cover all possibilities but when used for a specific genre much of it is not used however it is there to make it easier should you need something in that area. If the playing rules are simple that is where the win comes in. Character generation however is a one shot deal and once done its done, which is why when modifications to DnD2e and beyond I made most of the changes affect character gen rather than game play implementation. So for ease here is a list of those suggested.

I am currently playing FATE (and have played other systems similar to it) I while its interesting I am not sure it would work all that well for Shadowrun. The Gensys dice concept I find somewhat interesting and I am currently running a version of that right now. Not sure about the rest as I have not actually played with those. Still they might be quite viable.

1) SWADE (Savage World Adventure Edition)
2) FATE or FATE Accelerated
3) Blades in the Dark
4) Technoir
5) Gensys
6) Mini Six
7) JAGS RPG (Just Another Game System)

Is this the time to pop my Savage World cherry?

SW, BitD, and Gensys are not as rules light as they claim to be. I like BitD, but there's a learning curve there, and it's not going to be a quick one. Gensys could probably do it, but the dice... Technoir is interesting. bit of a learning curve there too, but nowhere near as much as the others.

Sixth World is maybe the way to go if we want pbta stuff, but I've never run it, so I can't say that 100%.

Note: One of the biggest items I think that is not going to be handled in any other system Generic or not (and I could be wrong on this) -- is the concept of Essence and how it ties so tightly into Cybernetics versus Magic.

I wonder -- what if we did a combo system -- tweak the character generation for SR6e just enough to allow it to use another game system's mechanics. That way the elements specific to Shadowrun portrayed within the character generation are not lost but we end up using a simpler game mechanic to play the game. Or just yank the concept of Essence and merge that into the game system of choice.

I would be more than willing to help with either of these endeavors assuming there is not already a Hack out there for the Generic system we choose that implements Shadowrun

This covers some of the Shadowrun settings but appears to missing the magic
Savage Worlds Interface Zero 2.0
To be fair there is a 3.0 but it was unclear to me if it is out yet or not and unclear if the magic aspect of this is out as well

This seems to be complete not sure how good though Gensys Shadowrun Hack

So basically unless we want to do our own complete conversion to one of the systems listed we are going to either need to find a Hack that is complete or at least mostly complete and then go with that and adjust where needed.

I think Essence is probably the easiest thing to add, since it's just basically keeping track of how many mods you have installed. Magic on the other hand is going to need more of a look. Going back to your statement about needing to able to build in missing pieces, Sixth World has most of the basic spells, but if we ever needed to add any in, it's just a matter of taking the SR spell, describing it, adding tags and you're done.

That Genesys hack looks like it improves several areas over standard Genesys that would make creating characters much less generic-feeling. It could be a good option too, but am I just missing the spell list, or doesn't it have one?

If you read this with the Green augmentations this will help you with that.

Also your statement assume we can use the Essence outlined within SR6e guidelines as is. Which is perfectly fine on the surface but what if their is equipment that exists in the new system that does not already have an Essence loss value attached to it within SR6e then we have to come up with one. Further there is how does the Loss of Essence affect the other games mechanics when it comes to Magic will this need to be handled as well and if so how? -- these were the things I was talking about mainly. If the concept of Essence does not exist within the destination game it has to be interpolated into that system in a balanced manner.

I'm not a fan of the magic as presented in base Genesys. It suffers the same way force powers do in the Sw stuff. At the low levels that's most usable, it's pretty bland. You can add effects to customize it, but those will fail most of the time unless we get to start with a good chunk of extra XP. That cuts down the amount of advancement we can do.

As far as Essence goes, you're making it more difficult than it needs to be. Every system already has some sort of bonus/penalty system in place, attaching Essence to that is pretty simple and uses the systems already existing balance.

Actually not every magic system has some sort of bonus/penalty system in place, I can probably name at least a half-dozen systems that have no such mechanic. I cannot speak to how GeneSys implements their magic system as I have not looked into that as of yet since it has not been determined whether we will be going in that direction or not. Are you saying you are fairly familiar with the GeneSys magic system enough to outline how the mechanic of Essence would be implemented within its magic system? If so can you share that methodology? Further are you familiar enough with all the potential additional equipment (if any) that GeneSys might add to the game that would not already be covered by SR6e Essence reduction values?

I didn't say every magic system. Just every system. In 6e, Essence reduces Magic, and Magic is used to:

-- Learn spells at character creation (MAG * 2). I'm assuming that Genesys has a way to deal with this one. I didn't see it, but I wasn't looking at the time cuz I usually don't play mages. If it doesn't, it's going to be problematic in Genesys as there's only 10 or so ACTUAL spells (they're really types). Instead, we could say that each spell Augment counts as its own thing to learn, so it makes it seem like there's more spells, and makes mages more unique.

-- Spellcasting. 1 essence loss equals 1 magic loss. The magic ability is used for other things, so best to leave that alone, but skills are maxed out at five, so each essence loss can simply lower the cap on magic abilities by one. No essence, no magic skills.

Which is what I was saying -- it would need to be interpolated -- as I highly doubt that GeneSys actually has something that works just like Essences does in SR6e and maybe not even something similar but that will come more to light if we end up going that route.

Here'S my two cents... The story is great (thanks to Bedzone), and shadowrun is simply a setting. We don't need to copy it, only to be inspired by it. One of my favorite setting is Rifts, but the rules were hell to play with. In the last years I have had the chance to adapt it to a lot of other rulesets (Gurps was the first and Savage Worlds the most recent...). Same goes with Darksun (from ad&d 2nd ed). I never had to completely change the rules to play in other rulesets, we only had to follow the spirit of the setting, and everytime we had fun. What I saying is, with this group, you can choose any system and I sure we'll have fun.

Doesn't need to be any more complicated than above. But, yes, deadpool, I agree. Changing less is always preferable to changing more, especially when that more is arbitrary (as anything we actually change would be).

Okay so is there a particular version of the PbtA (Powered by the Apocolypse) Sixth World you are looking at -- I found potentially 3 versions -- SixthWorldv32, SixthWorldRevised, and TheSprawl

Also it appears from what I have seen thus far is that Sixth World is specifically a Dungeon World by Powered by the Apocolypse Hack will we need those books as well?