Now in an attempt to make this post in any way related to tabletop games, if you had to pick a system to be your daily driver what would it be?
My friends and I have been between systems for a while an d just haven't really gotten to play, we were thinking of trying Pathfinder 2e but I don't know what the consensus is on it. Is it fine if you modify the setting and just ignore all the woke shit they include or is the system itself lacking?
you probably should mention in what genre and what your group likes. I can recommend pf2e cause the rules are mostly solid all the way through, but it might be too crunchy for some (although on paper and play are two different things) and to make everything work can be a bit too rigid depending how much your GM wants to homebrew. the pozz can be ignored since the rules are freely available.
like every other system I'd recommend a oneshot, if it doesn't click no harm done and with the right group can still be fun. maybe split it in lvl1 and lvl6 since that's where everybody gets more tools and especially casters play
worse different on lower level.
Speaking of Star Wars, it's been funny watching discourse around Shadowrun 5e change, because it seems to exist in the same sort of space as the prequels do now. Where just because we have an example of an even worse system (6e) you have people talking like 5e was actually good in retrospect. It wasn't. The exact same problems you see in 6e are there in 5e just to a lesser extent, when it released it damaged the Shadowrun community and perception and it's only due to time and familiarity that people have sanded off those rough edges to create something playable. People don't play 5e, they play their own homebrew system based on 5e.
they might be talking about 5kraut tho. germans love shadowrun, and pegasus did a lot of fixing. not sure how much of that made it's way back into the english version.
however rumor has it they have to follow much stricter rules when it comes to 6e, so there most likely won't ever be a "fixed" or at least salvaged 6e till CGL goes under and someone else picks up the IP (at which point it might not be worth much anymore).
First off, I hate the American cultural export of highschool clichés, especially when carried into adulthood. As if Jocks and Nerds were some real life character class that you pick have to pick.
jocks and nerds are what the archetypes are, I didn't even think of highschool tropes, besides I watch enough anime where it's opposite. for gameplay reasons the street samurai isn't the decker, while also being a shaman and whatever.
ZMOT doesn't really understand 4th Hacking. It adds to what is possible, not takes away. But in doing so moves you away from the Matrix Dungeon approach. Subscriptions, wireless, clearer distinction of user levels. The hacking in 4th makes more sense, not less.
I understand it just fine, I just don't like it. this also doesn't mean 1-3rd ed was "better".
the point I'm trying to make is 1-3 was an abstraction into gameplay which was crap to play for most groups (tbf only an issue if you have someone who really really wants to play a dodger OC), but "made sense" in terms of source. 4th plays better, by making the source worse. shadowrun for me is blade runner with orks and elves, not the total recall reboot or I, robot. even today you have people buy business notebooks instead of doing everything by phone via push of a button in an "app" like in watch_dogs (there's a reason no one writes on a virtual keyboard besides social media shit). same way there's a reason companies still put cable down instead of plopping a wireless router in the middle of the room and be done with it.
basically when I think of shadowrun, I don't think of this:
as for the IT argument, it's assuming no on else has a similar background. the USB example literally happened where a parliament got "hacked", I'm fully aware there's a constant struggle between security and convenience. however governments aren't private companies (or even glowies) there's a reason companies hate WFH (besides the "drop in productivity") because it opens your internal network to a degree that a direct link to the japan office would never have. and that's before going into how that super secure data your team of runners is supposed to grab obviously isn't available otherwise it obviously wouldn't be super secure in the first place.
that's where the flying example comes from, which yes was made in terms of dnd - a world needs a consistent internal logic to work. or another example is the necromancer one from a while back, any society which has people running around raising dead would take steps to prevent that making an issue. shadowrun and it's IT is the same, even with the technobabble like the matrix dungeon crawl. or how no exec would fuck with security for convenience in a setting where this would get him a bullet instead of getting fired...
in the end it's moot anyway, because either you have the decker sit somewhere and grab that data/access security remotely, or you have to drag him on site so he can access the closed loop behind the physical security. could you have the decker bluff/fight his way through on his own? absolutely, but it obviously wouldn't be much fun for the rest of team.
