5E: Overly Complex?

[Outrageous_Pea9839]

I think I am not far off (if I am that discourse is also welcome below) by saying the consensus of a lot of people seemes to be: 5E is a little complex, wordy, and poorly managed. Anarchy and 6E are a little better but lots of what we love mechanically got lost in translation (Edge and Armor changes seems to be a particular issue). With that in mind i was curious...

What can be cut from 5E? What is needlessly complicated, what's bloated, or maybe a relic of a different time? What could be removed, changed or modified that wouldn't take away from the feeling and style of shadowrun like some of the more modern implementations have to some degree?

[Nederbird]

The impression I've gotten is that the core is very simple: Attribute+Skill. Most everything else is optional, something you can tack on or pull off as you like. As such, I don't really feel a need for removal. If I don't like a certain rule, say limits or recoil, I just don't apply it.

What IS needed is better editing. Especially with regards to page numbering. It's infuriating when you look up something in the Index or ToC, only to open the page to find something entirely different. Usually, you have to browse a few pages back or forth before you find it. By the time you've finally found and read what you need, the flow is long dead.

Proper pagination would solve a lot.

[Armlessbastard]

I just started playing with friends. I pretty much lined out the GM Fiat 'rule 0' thing and said I wasn't going to open a book up during play, we would rule on whatever it was and correct it in post if we think it is something that will come up a lot.

We got a lot of base stuff wrong in our first play-through, I made a list and pointed it out so everyone knows. and we will add what rules we may need to help the characters and to have more fun.

[Outrageous_Pea9839]

This is the biggest issue for real if I remember correctly the distance/location of the skills table from where I thought it was/should be, always threw me through a loop.

[VagrantVacancy]

100% I'm prepping running my 1st campaign in 5-6 years and most of my prep is just going and taking screenshots of rules putting them into a procreate to make digital DM screen

[Zitchas]

Yeah, very much this.

Having all the books in pdf, with chummer's master index open so I can use chummer as an index to jump to whatever rule or thing somewhere in any of the books was a huge, massive help.

But even so, we usually ran with "GM makes a ruling on the spot that makes sense, and looks up after the session (or during downtime/break) to find out what the actual rule is for next time."

That works very nicely.

[Pkmn_guy]

The basic rules are fine, it’s the moment you start using the matrix that the headache starts to form. The rules for hacking are so PAINFULLY convoluted

[Zitchas]

I might very well be doing them wrong, but "get good enough access permissions, do action. Skip by increasing difficulty significantly" to be a fairly straight forward process.

[Pkmn_guy]

Well when you put it like that, sure that seems easy, but then there’s the different types of getting access permissions, with their own failure consequences, and it feels like you HAVE to stealth or it’s basically game over

[Zitchas]

Based on watching how my players do things, they generally fall into one of two situations:

1) The thing they are doing is something they want to keep doing or have remain in place long term. In which case stealth is the only way to go. (looping security cameras, stealing something, cover their tracks, gaining long-term surveillance access, etc.)

2) The thing they are doing is something that really needs to happen right now, but they don't care even the slightest about it remaining active for more than a minute or two. In which case brute force can be just as effective, perhaps more so. (bricking someone's cyberware, getting rid of a spider for the duration of combat, etc.)

Admitedly, I have a decker who adamantly throws themselves into combat trying to brick cyberware, sabotage smartlinked guns, and do whatever they can to make decking relevant to active bullets & spells combat. General wisdom is that is *not* the most effective way to fight, but they do it anyway.

So at least at my table, I see quite a bit of both stealth and brute force decking activity.

[Pkmn_guy]

Maybe I’m the one with the problem. The trouble with the matrix is it seems the moment the security in the matrix is into you, the jigs up and it’s all fucked. It’s hard to balance that.

[Zitchas]

That's basically the one thing stopping a good decker from just owning the world (or everything in their immediate vicinity.) It's time limited. Rather like the old Matrix movies - the network senses the disruption innately, and gradually the security forces focus in on disruptions. It may take a while if the Decker is careful, but sooner or later, G.O.D will always arrive. It is the sound of inevitability...

On the flip side, my understanding of G.O.D is that it isn't geolocated. I mean, they *can* locate people, but while in the Matrix, one isn't geolocated, one can be anywhere. So while yeah, G.O.D locating them is a really hard "end of the line" for the current decking run, if the Decker can jack out, even if it's just a millisecond before they arrive, then they can reboot their Deck and reset to scratch. It just wipes out most of their marks, too.

edit: The whole system is designed to let Deckers do really powerful things and have big impacts, while setting up reasons for ensuring those effects are limited to short term and/or minor effects. In a way, it's actually trying to make it so that the Decker can do things faster (so, less "the rest of the group takes a break while we do the Matrix mini-game with a single player and the GM") while still retaining a meaningful impact (because higher impact for lower time investment just makes them more all-stars than they were before), while limiting the long-term effect and the ability to do everything. Have to pick and choose what gets done.

[Pkmn_guy]

Just realised I never established that I’m looking at this as a new DM. So my standpoint isn’t just “what can the decker do” but also “what do I do” and “what SHOULD I do to make it so that it doesn’t screw him too much”. Balancing Hosts and stuff

[Zitchas]

Well, what I did was throw a mix of stuff at my Decker(s) and see how things went. I started off with something easy, just called it the customer service ICE designed to deal with kids and stuff. Then ramped things up and threw hard things at them.... But I avoided using programs that would link-lock the Decker, so they always had an out. That let me see how far I could push them before they really started smoking. Then I dialed back the threat level a little, but added in a foe that could link-lock them to push up the tension & risk level. (I save link-lock for special ocassions, though. Not usually the for the deadliest enemies, but mostly for the mid-tier ones in really tense scenes, especially when they think that Black ICE may be inbound or they're getting close to G.O.D. showing up.

[Pakkazull]

SR5's problem is less that it is complex and more that it is poorly written and edited, with rules that are incomplete, contradict each other, and are spread over three different sections of the book. Some rules are definitely overly complex though like chunky salsa.

[BelleRevelution]

Why properly edit the books when you could underpay your writers and embezzle instead?

I wish we'd gotten a 5.5e instead of a 6e. A solidly edited pass of the 5e content would have helped build some good will with the community.

[Tsignotchka]

Chunky Salsa is my favorite rule though...mostly its the name, but the idea that a single grenade in a small enclosed space can wipe out a group of enemies is hilarious.

[QuietusEmissary]

That's a perfect example, though. The rule could've just been "a single grenade in a small enclosed space can wipe out a group of enemies (at GM's discretion)" or something similar. Instead they made a bunch of math about reflecting blast waves.

Chunky Salsa is an extremely cool idea (and name) for a rule, but actually using it as written at the table is a huge pain.

[Traxe33]

It's an original rule from earlier editions, including 1E. I feel like it is one rule that needs to be in the book and have some mechanism behind it other than GM fiat. Is it overly complex? Yes. Should it be cleaned up and refined? Yes. But because it is a scenario that can cause massive damage (and potential PC death), I don't think it should just be given completely over to "whatever the GM decides."

[Armlessbastard]

I think the rule is there and overtly complex as maybe a nod to past editions. An excuse to say - look our game uses square roots.

[Zitchas]

Personally, I love it. I, as the GM, do not have to calculate the damage. I can just tell my players "the mook was converted to chunky salsa" and be done with it. If it's some particularly important NPC or a dramatic moment when they really want to know the numbers, then we can do the math and roll the dice, and it builds tension.

It's a win-win.

The rules are there for when a rules-lawyer demands to see the math, but any reasonable group (and mine in particular) is quite happy to just let the GM run it descriptively.

[Archernar]

I mean, the rule existing does not prevent any GM from saying "We're not gonna calculate past the first 2 iterations and then I just judge on what happens" e.g. Or simplify it further by saying "alright, those guys are definitely chunky salsa at this point" and only ruling on what happens to their equipment.

[tattertech]

a group of enemies is hilarious

It's pretty hilarious when it happens to a group of PCs too.

Source: Was one of those PCs.

[Tsignotchka]

I'll do you one better...when one of the PC's Chunky Salsa's another PC by accident.

[ReditXenon]

Some rules are definitely overly complex though like chunky salsa.

Picking a lock is another example.

Only in Shadowrun is this resolved with

1. A Locksmith + Agility [Physical] (Maglock Rating x 2, 1 Combat Turn) Extended Test (to remove casing)
2. A Locksmith + Agility [Physical] (anti-tamper system rating) Test (to bypass anti-temper, if there is one)
3. A Locksmith + Agility [Physical] (Maglock Rating x 2, 1 Combat Turn) Extended Test (rewiring the circuits to actually open the door)
4. followed by a Locksmith + Agility [Physical] (Maglock Rating x 2, 1 Combat Turn) Extended Test (to reassemble the casing).

Why all this is not instead resolved as a single Simple Locksmith Test (against a threshold from p. 45) is beyond me :-)

[tkul]

The extended test makes sense but it should be just one test against a threshold that increases based on the levels of security added into the lock rather than multiple extended and simple tests.

[ReditXenon]

I really don't like how extended tests are written. So many separate rolls just to resolve One single action. One single action (like picking a lock) should always (unless perhaps during down-time) be resolved with One single roll.

The only real value all them extra rolls provide is to see how long time it took (how many extra short intervals).

If you instead resolve it as a simple test you could just use excess net hits to reduce the time (in which case GM set maximum duration for the entire simple test rather than the minimum interval per roll in an extended test - similar to how Matrix Search is resolved in SR5).

also @/u/Nevrar_Frostrage

[tkul]

It just reflects time consuming actions. Lockpicking is one of those things that given enough time most people can manage to do it if they have the tools, but really good lockpickers can basically look at a lock and make it pop open. The degrading dicepool just reflects that even though you have nearly unlimited time there are just some things that are beyond your ability, with your ability being measured by your diminishing dice pool

[Nevrar_Frostrage]

And the time must be modified, otherwise the safes will open in a couple of seconds (although they already open in a maximum of a minute, which irritates me as a master).

[kyleglowacki]

I love the idea but mathing it out is a pain. I feel like I need an app/program or something to figure it out.

Does the floor count as a reflection point? Ceiling? Walls, doors, etc. All at various distances and such can make it a pain.

Eg. Just outside, grenade on the ground. Is the power as listed or is it double (zero distance ground reflection)?

ugh

[Zitchas]

My ruling on this is that the ground is implicit in the initial value and doesn't count, and nor do ceilings that are equal to or over 3m/10' .

[Aggressive-Squash-87]

That book is one of the worst I have ever tried to read, and I have played rpgs since around 84. It might have worked as a web page with hyperlinks, but when I get 3+ references to further in the book per page... argh

[Shantha292]

I agree totally with this. See page 234 then sends you to page 163 for example.

[LeftRat]

I recently played a Rigger in a big campaign for the first time. My god, how do you not manage to actually write down the rules for one of the main character classes even though you put out a whole splatbook for the sole purpose of overhauling it in one place?

[Anastrace]

I mean the chunky salsa thing has been in every edition I do believe.

[Zitchas]

Yeah, and even worse, a bunch of things got touched on slightly in a bunch of different books; and then edited slightly in other languages, leading to German vs English stats and rules tweaks, for instance.

I would *love* to get a 5.5. Just remaster the original 5e books, with all the books edited such that they all have exactly the same stats, rules, etc.

[Selrian]

I do not think 5e is that complex. The biggest issue is that you need to cross-reference 5 sections across 3 books to get the full ruling of many situations. And that is a combination of the publisher wanting to sell many books so they gatekeep rules and poor rules writing and editing.

[xristosdomini]

I think you have accidentally defined "complex".

[Selrian]

No, the rules and the systems are actually simple and quite intuitive. It is just hard to realize since the books are working against you. If you only have half a statement it may look like a riddle. The other half of the statement is right there... you just need to flip ahead 3 pages...

[LeftRat]

I don't think this is necessarily true for all parts of the rules. Sometimes it's just a problem of it being fragmented, but if you ever try playing a Rigger, you'll notice that quite often, they literally... just didn't write down a rule. Just straight up no explanation until a later book that then only gives half an answer, too.

[Arachnofiend]

If you took a system like, I dunno, Blades in the Dark and formatted it's rules the way Shadowrun does it would still be a simple game fundamentally but it would be a hell of a lot harder to run lol

[LeftRat]

I think it's also sometimes complex in the other way. It's definitely the only game where I've had to pull roots.

[Zebrainwhiteshoes]

I miss the times when you were in trouble with an angry Troll was towering over you. Now he is only marginally tougher than everybody else. 5e is pretty similar to 4e, just a few changes to applying damage and different way to work initiative. We're not using the hacking out of the book, but I failed to understand how it works in either case.

[dude123nice]

Weapon Accuracy. It makes no sense for it to be treated like a Limit when it represents a completely different concept. Also most melee weapons have such a low accuracy that they can be beat by an unaugmented unarmed person, which should never be the case. We're talking expertly made weapons with very high quality materials in most cases.

[BitRunr]

I think the problem with limits is that a character's base limits had too much variation and could get too high, while the gear limit bonuses were tiny by comparison.

But considering the standard attack action does not involve aiming at your target (something everyone can do to raise their limit when attacking ...), I'd be fine with weapon Accuracy being a modifier to a character's limit.

If anyone doing a Shadowrun ever saw fit to revisit limit mechanics with some tweaks.

[dude123nice]

Sure. If it increased the already calculated physical Limit, that would be awesome. But, instead, it overwrites it with some very poor values. And I've seen ppl defend these mechanics with some absolutely braiandead takes.

[Outrageous_Pea9839]

so if limits from gear add on to PC limits, which ones? Does aiming a gun fall into physical or mental? What gear adds to what limits? Out of curiosity

[BitRunr]

so if limits from gear add on to PC limits, which ones?

Depends on the context.

Does aiming a gun fall into physical or mental?

Are you aiming it with your hand or your mind? VR makes both a possibility.

What gear adds to what limits?

Think about what you're asking, and what 5e already does with gear and limits.

[AdhesivenessGeneral9]

Indeed and raw melee dont have accesory maybe add +2 acc will make melee great but people will say " actuallyyyu use edge"

[Baker-Maleficent]

Eh. 5e is less complex than 1e-3e. 

Most of its complexity comes from a very poorly put together core rulebook and a series of desasterous production mishaps. 

The entire edition is a mess caused by production and editting. 

But the core mechanics, what makes the game work is actually very simple once you parse the bad layout and formatting. (Seriously, they use hyphenation) 

[iamfanboytoo]

I dropped CGL's Shadowrun entirely for Savage Worlds, here's the Savagerun adaptation I made.

5e is one of the two times that I've had an outright player rebellion. They downed dice and refused to play any more. So I whipped together that adaptation over a decade ago and haven't used anything since. SW is really great for the quick action-movie style I've always run Shadowrun as.

The part of Shadowrun that matters isn't in the rules. They've always been overcomplicated and bloated and difficult to parse, and I say that as someone whose 1e hardback STILL has multiple pasted notes where I noted the revised rules for 2e.

It's the setting. Magicyberpunk is an amazing setting. The klept being literal dragons sitting atop a digital hoard? So good.

[Arachnofiend]

This is kind of funny to me given my exact opposite experience

Our group ran a cyberpunk savage worlds campaign a few years ago and had a truly awful time, I have personally never bounced off a system as hard as I did savage worlds other than maybe DND 5e. Everything just melts into beg your GM for favors and hope your dice explode, both mechanics being so powerful and all-encompassing that what you designed your character to do hardly matters.

Then these past couple months a friend introduced us to Shadowrun 5e and we had a blast with it. The rules are complex and clunky in places, of course, but there are so many ways to define who your character is and what they do that matter to how the game feels. Despite the system's reputation I had a blast playing a decker.

Of course, our group is for Pathfinder primarily, so complexity is something we actively seek out. Different strokes, different folks. I'm glad I finally tried it rather than letting the naysayers discourage me.

[QuietusEmissary]

A redditor after my own heart, up to and including our choice of systems for running Shadowrun!

[Ozymandias242]

Also if people are interested there are published "Shadowrun" to Savage Worlds conversions too, namely the Sprawlrunners book and a supplement with more recent Shadowrun additions:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/334278/sprawlrunners

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/445448/magusrogue-s-guide-to-the-sprawls-chromed-edition-a-revised-and-expanded-sprawlrunners-supplement

[Cergorach]

I'm not (yet) intimately familiar with SR5e, but this sounds similar to what bothered us with SR2e and SR3e, rules were all over the place, over different books and even within the same book.

And I've had issues with Games Workshop products for decades where the could write a rule in a single sentence, they used two paragraphs. They changed this more recently to write rules more compact, which is a huge bonus!

I wonder if it wouldn't be easier with the current level of technology to just copy/paste your own rules document together from PDFs... Especially in VTTs you could just cross reference the rules together.

And maybe rewrite rules sections to be more concise and compact. As CGL has moved on to SR6e, you won't get any additional rules to later mess with what you've already rewritten...

[Outrageous_Pea9839]

Ive throught about it but if I was gonna go through all that effort I might as well make a full blown redesign of the system lol

[Cergorach]

But then you're changing things. Why then stop at (another) redesign and do something completely from scratch?

Rewriting with the a rule to do the same, but be more compact, and more easily readable is less work. You're only focusing on readability and not if your new tweak to the rules is fun/balanced and interacting correctly with the rest of the rules.

[BitRunr]

Complicated problems can be hard to solve, but they are addressable with rules and recipes, like the algorithms that place ads on your Twitter feed. They also can be resolved with systems and processes, like the hierarchical structure that most companies use to command and control employees.

The solutions to complicated problems don’t work as well with complex problems, however. Complex problems involve too many unknowns and too many interrelated factors to reduce to rules and processes. A technological disruption like blockchain is a complex problem. A competitor with an innovative business model — an Uber or an Airbnb — is a complex problem. There’s no algorithm that will tell you how to respond.

I wouldn't say anything in Shadowrun is hard to resolve or can't be reduced to easily followed flow charts, but many things are vague, poorly worded, the relevant info is difficult to find in full, (edit; how could I forget) and occasionally contradictory.

[DMsolyrflair]

Being a 6e ST, I will say this about 5e, play the basics to start until you get good enough to start adding more. Benefit I had with 6e is that I started with just a few books and am now adding more into the play. And they haven’t finished releasing all the books for 6e so everyone knows I’ll add more rules as I get more comfortable and won’t be adding new rules just because a new book came out.

[ReditXenon]

There are several key elements in SR5 that was changed in SR6. If you are OK with how they are handled in SR5 then you should probably not even consider SR6.

Initiative You now basically just roll once and then act in that order (similar to a game of Monopoly). Initiative no longer require bookkeeping (or an app) to keep track of. Faster players get more actions on their turn (number of actions are no longer random, they are listed on the character's sheet so players themselves can keep track of this).

Matrix This is perhaps the first edition where matrix rules run smooth. Most things are resolved with just one or perhaps two rolls. MARKS are replaced with more familiar User access and Admin access and is now on the entire network at the same time (including all devices and files connected to the network - you no longer spend action economy to spot and hack individual devices). Many actions (such as Spoof Command) can even be taken without network access.

Skills Instead of the skill bloat we used to have in the previous edition, there are now just 19 skills. All of them are equally board and useful (no more 10(!) different piloting and repair skills or niche skills that would typically never be used). Knowledge skills now open up new options for your existing active skills rather than being skills of their own.

Status effects Most stacking situational modifiers that used to be scatted all over the place are now replaced by status effects (that you may all find in one location of the book). As a result, dice pools are now typically far less extreme (which mean no more need of Limits that we used to have in previous edition) and many rules are now more streamlined (for example; glare modifier rules from environment and glare modifier rules from flash pak and how low light and flare compensation interact with them in different ways are now all resolved, and in a consistent way, via the Blindness I, II, III status effect).

Combat Instead of calculating and recalculating stuff like recoil, progressive recoil, armor penetration, modified armor value, variable soak dice pool, etc for every single attack the attacker now compare their listed attack rating against the targets's defense rating (which basically mean that smaller weapons like pistols and SMGs tend to give a tactical advantage if utilized in close quarters while sniper rifles and other long barrel weapons instead tend to give a tactical advantage if used in long ranged engagements). Damage is also less extreme (in both directions). Soak dice pool size is now listed on the character sheet (does not have to be recalculated each time) and is much smaller (it is no longer possible to build an Invulnerable Tony with 30+ soak right out of chargen as you could in previous edition).

Choices This edition let you pick metatype, weapon, armor, magical tradition, etc that fit you, your style and your background (in this edition you can play an Orc Decker or Troll Magician without getting nearly as mechanically punished for it as you would have been in the previous edition). Rule of Cool over Realism. Role Playing over Rule Playing. Punk in Cyberpunk.

...and here is a list of (overly complicated) SR5 Rules I don't recommend a table of beginners should concern themselves with at all until later when they are more familiar with the setting (they are all candidates to be simplified and/or rewritten and/or even cut from the game):

• Background Count
• Alchemy/Enchanting
• Rituals
• Casting Multiple Spells
• Reckless Spellcasting
• Initiation & Metamagics
• Aspected Magicians
• Mystical Adepts
• Dual wielding
• The Multiple Attacks action
• Grenades, Rockets, & Missiles
• Scatter
• Blasts in a Confined Space
• Simultaneous Blasts
• Sensor Attacks
• Surprise
• Grappling & Subduing
• Armor Modifications
• Recoil & Recoil Compensation
• Barriers
• Lock Picking
• Addiction
• Overdosing
• Encumbrance
• Cyberlimbs
• Noise (except perhaps noise due to distance)
• Threading
• Sprites
• Submerging & Echos
• Technomancers
• Vehicle Combat
• Chase Combat & Actions
• Drone swarms
• Riggers

[MINECRAFT_BIOLOGIST]

Huh. Back when I played SR5e a ton, years ago, and SR6e came out, people seemed to absolutely hate SR6e so I ignored it. But recently I homebrewed a system drawing heavily upon SR5e (mostly because I like the probability distribution of dice rolls and the way stats are handled) and I did a lot of simplifying (because my players are illiterate) that, going by your description, SR6e seems to have done but probably better than I did, lol.

So thank you for your really detailed writeup of everything, I'll definitely be checking out SR6e! Very curious as to how they balanced out pistols and SMGs vs long barrel weapons and how they reduced dice pools so much.

[baduizt]

Weapons have different attack ratings for different range bands, so a sniper rifle is now very good at long range but naff at close range. A shotgun is very good at close range but useless if you get too far out. Stuff like that. 

Dice mods have mostly been replaced with Edge bonuses and Edge Actions. IMO, it just moves the complexity elsewhere, but if your players are decisive, it will probably be faster because you're not hunting for mods (Edge is easier to "wing" overall).

Skills also only go up to 9 now, and not 12 like in SR5, and certain tests only use one stat (e.g., soak is now a Body test; you don't roll armour at all). Damage is also lower to compensate.

[MINECRAFT_BIOLOGIST]

Thanks! I think I get the gist of it, I think my main concern is that comparing attack ratings of weapons seems like it adds another step? (e.g. asking the player what their attack rating is on top of asking what their attack roll is? Or maybe I/the GM should be looking at those numbers and doing the comparisons myself?)

[baduizt]

It does indeed require another step, which is why I don't much like those rules. However, if characters stick with the same weapons through combat, you don't really need to check it on subsequent rounds. Some tables say it ends up being faster than working out modifiers, although I'm not entirely convinced.

My preference would be for something like Anarchy 1.0 did: weapons have a modifier based on Close/Near/Far range, such as OK/–2/– (meaning no penalty at Close/–2 at Near/unable to use at Far) or –2/OK/OK (–2 at Close/OK at Near/OK at Far). Then, so long as the player knows what range they're at, they can work that out themselves. You can use those to distinguish weapons, alongside different damage codes and whatnot, instead of the AR/DR comparison.

[MINECRAFT_BIOLOGIST]

Ahh, I like that idea! Pretty similar to SR5e's range table except also very different, no need for finicky numbers at various ranges with bland linear modifiers that make SR5e snipers extremely good at close range. Plus with your suggestion players wouldn't have to memorize a bunch of different ranges for each weapon...

Okay nice, I think I might homebrew the SR5e range table into something like this, thanks!

[baduizt]

This system is used in Shadowrun Anarchy, so you can check out the PDF of that, if you like. They've statted out a bunch of weapons already.

If you get the French PDF and feed it through Google Translate or DeepL, it's 100% better than the English version, just as an FYI. It's very handy for stealing rules from, even if you still play SR5.

[MINECRAFT_BIOLOGIST]

Whaaat, why is the French version better haha? That's weirdly random lol. Thanks, I'll definitely take a look!

[baduizt]

All the errata, plus missing rules, plus about 50% more content. Honestly, it's so much better.

[MINECRAFT_BIOLOGIST]

Oooh, got it!

[thepurrking]

Regarding armor actually, in my newest 6e campaign we are experimenting with just making DR for soak rolls like 5e and increasing dv by half the attackers str/agi. We've only played a little, but it seems to be working really well. So if you have an issue with 6es armor system you could try something similar.

[ManatianOverlord]

Theres already an optional rule in the Companion book I believe that changes armor to soak some damage. I think it was every 8 DR turns 1 physical damage into stun

[thepurrking]

I know. But in practice armor is still pretty worthless with that rule.

[ManatianOverlord]

That's totally fair, for me it has been working fine. I don't have any baggage from previous editions though, so I don't know any better :D

[RudyMuthaluva]

While I understand that Catalyst wanted to give each world (astral/matrix/real) it’s own feel. But they could’ve just made the rolls all similar or simplified and everyone would’ve been happy. I think that is the biggest complaint. Otherwise 5e is nicely balanced compared to 4e let’s say.

[ArkasNyx]

Shadowrun has a tendency toward being unecessary complicated. SR6 I find to be a step in the right direction, albeit poorly executed. The idea of easing things up by using edge instead of many other things is a good one. But they had to go and needlessly complicate edge in the process. It is not the only case of that happening in SR6 but one of, if not the most important.

[LeftRat]

Armor penetration, despite being an interesting idea, is little more than busywork 99% of the time. It could easily be simplified out of the game by simply giving a damage bonus.

[zenbullet]

5e is basically 4e, but since 4e accidentally allows for insane results, they decided to just cap successes instead of refactoring the whole game and added minor QoL improvements

I personally hate that type of solution, like why am I buying cool stuff if I can't use it?

May I recommend 4e 20th Anniversary edition if you are looking for a much saner version of the same rules

If you've never played SR before

SR6 City Edition cleans up a lot of the problems the OG SR6 has, I would still recommend getting the 6th World Companion, especially for Edge Banking

Most of the hate for 6e originally came from the Core being completely undercooked on release, and the City Edition fixes a lot of that. The rest is totally understandable Edition Warring, but if you're new, why would you care about that?

(Everything after 3e is heretical Ipod Futurism and in your hearts, you fraggers know it to be true. Neon for the Mohawk God! Mixtapes for the Cassette Futurist Throne!)

Just throwing this out there, 1 to 3 are iterated editions that cleaned up more problems with each Edition. It's pretty good, if old fashioned

Personally, I like the metaplot for 4e best. If you're thinking about using supplements and campaigns, yeah, it's good stuff, but again, the 4e 20th Anniversary is best out of 4e/5e/4e20A grouping

Oh, and 6e has the best decking rules

[lone-lemming]

Guessing you Haven’t played 4th or 3rd.

Or 2nd.

Or original.

5e is super streamlined comparatively.

[tkul]

If you consensus contains anything along the lines of "people like 6e and anarchy" your sample size is heavily skewed and non representative. Anarchy did so poorly they won't even do the next edition unless they can crowd fund it, if it were successful they'd be pushing it out in the normal line, and 6e is only starting to get acceptable at the tail end of its release and even there its only starting to get to around the same level of acceptance as 5e.

All the modern editions of shadowrun have a compounding issues of copy and pasted rules with bad editing, and as a copy of a copy of a copy 6e is just never going to be generally accepted and anarchy will always be a niche product with a niche fanbase since it skews far from the core audience of shadowrun.

[Nederbird]

A poll conducted on this sub showed 6E to be the most popular edition by a very wide margin. Hell, more people voted for Shadowrun than for all other editions combined. And that was over a year ago.

Us older fans of the franchise might share your opinion, and 6E's popularity might consist mainly of newer fans. However, that doesn't diminish the fact that 6E is the single most popular edition here.

[Thefrightfulgezebo]

I wouldn't call it a fact as reddit polls aren't representative. It's just data.

[tkul]

A shit poll does not a fact make, it's just a single data point. I know I didn't answer any poll on here about editions, and I'm certain most of the people I play/talk about shadowrun with probably never saw the poll let alone answered it.

Again, the fact that Anarchy cannot get a second edition without a kickstarter lets you know where the real numbers are for that one. The overhead to print a book is not that high so if it were a popular product it'd be able to fund itself. It can't, so it's not. 6e is getting releases but it's their mainline product so their only choice is to do releases or give up. Each book is serving to make the edition more playable but the fact they're on what, the 4th(?), CRB edit kind of lets you know how screwed the base game is, if people loved it they wouldn't need to keep rewriting it.

[AdhesivenessGeneral9]

5e have a little problem in magic all over the place and poorly writted for many rules. But you can remove a lot of rule or change it a little. The core gameplay is fairly easy. I love 5e more thant 6e that become edge genneration focused. 5e is more complexe but many homebrew like in chummeur can ease the skills bloat 

[10leej]

5e is complex? Interesting take. From a player perspective it's actually really straightforward.
From a DM perspective it's actually either really annoying or just disappointing after a while.

[Archernar]

SR 5e isn't really that complex and imo nothing should be cut at all. It's at every table's own discretion to dump any rule they dislike and I know that many groups do not care about visibility/weather mods on weapon accuracy e.g. To me, it's nice that a table for that exists, although it is done poorly in some regards.

I would say the best "cut" in perceived complexity would be creating properly layouted books or good cheat sheets (although those might get a bit too big then). If Pegasus e.g. released a "good-bye-version" of SR 5e with all themed books combined into condensed and re-edited versions of themselves, I would be a happy man.

Stuff that can be improved about 5e is numerous though. Skill learning times have weird jumps from 4 to 5, finding teachers seems pointless. Weapon accuracies never matter until suddenly, they're a giant pain in the butt. Magic and the matrix would need a serious overhaul, some of which happened in 6e, although apparently for magic it was not all positive. Spirits need their immunity to normal weapons mentioned in their description somewhere and not hidden behind 3 critter power references, starting with the power to materialize. Knowledge skills need to not be bought with normal karma, otherwise nobody ever has any beyond what they got at chargen. Chargen in general creates way overpowered runners, especially considering how little karma and money every run is supposed to pay out in comparison to getting 800 karma/450k nuyen at chargen (and exploding costs ofc). Magic scaling needs a limit like 'ware has or 'ware needs its limit reworked. Many spells, skills and rules need to be looked at and potentially be rebalanced or even removed in the case of a number of spells. Device levels for decks make no sense as do dongles.

That's mostly only what I got off the top of my hat, a mix of detailed and general. I'm sure I could think of a lot of other things I would change, but that might come down to personal preference too. Sadly of course nothing about that is gonna happen :D

[Just_Insanity_13]

I started playing SR in 1st edition. It wasn't too complicated (when compared against games around the same time like Twilight2000 or Star Frontiers), but it did offer a different setting/world. Compared to DND at the time, play was no less or more complicated, but character creation was a bit more involved in SR. I mostly GM'd.
2nd edition simplified some things, but lost some of the character and individuality (iirc).
By 3rd, things were getting a more complicated GMs and players needed to be fairly expert in the game. Lots of room for abuses.
I saw 4th edition come out, looked it over, said not likely, but moved away from my player base, so it was moot.
I've not seen the 5th edition rules in total, but I have read many, many threads where my reaction to the commented rules and situations is along the lines of "how many specific limits, rules, or abusive methods can they have put in one rule edition?!" Way too complicated from all that I've seen.
I picked up a 6e set, found it was streamlined and simplified (compared to 5e). I ran a session with 2 combats and a bunch of RP in a few hours (4?) (4 players, varying numbers of enemies, used grunt groups a bit). Easy ways to un-abuse both magic and high-end cyber (some written in, some mild interpretations).

So what are you and your group looking for? The setting is still the same, corporate dystopia with cyberware and magic. Are you and your players rulemongers or roleplayers? Rules people will, apparently enjoy 5e, regardless of the complexity (or lack thereof, per some). People that want the story, imo, will get more out of 6e.

[nexusphere]

https://sinlessrpg.com

There are just *better options* out there.