"Risk it all!" That's the tagline for this new edition. In 5e, it was, "everything has a price." I think the design team must come up with a pithy sounding phrase and build mechanics around it. Wouldn't be my choice. But hey, we've reached part five of my assessment of Sixth World (6W) edition of …
Category: Catalyst Game Labs
Shadowrun Sixth World, Part Four
Matrix The wireless world and the 'runners who manipulate it are often some of the most complex characters in any Shadowrun game. I know that one of the goals of the new edition was to try and improve the play-ability of the Matrix and hackers. To a certain extent, they did achieve this goal. Many …
Shadowrun Sixth World, Part Three
Magic! I want to clarify something. Shadowrun is a complex game. Personally, I think that a certain level of complexity is vital to the experience, considering that you have a game that wants to encompass near-future mercenaries and criminals with advanced technology while also maintaining the trappings of a full-fledged fantasy game. It's a balancing …
Shadowrun Sixth World, Part Two
Combat The combat system in Sixth World (6W) Edition does not resemble previous editions much at all. The changes are pervasive and make me wonder again about the amount of play testing behind the system. Aside: the tone of the writing in this book really bugged me. The book is clearly written as aimed at …
Shadowrun Sixth World, Part One
I got a copy of the core book for Sixth World from GenCon this year. So I've spent some time with it and, now that the PDF has been released, I thought I'd discuss it. There's a lot to take in so I'm devoting this whole week to my assessment of Shadowrun Sixth World (Edition). …
Shadowrun vs. Pathfinder: Complexity and Cognitive Load
I recently wrote about my disaffection with gaming – something that’s been creeping over me for a while. There has been a more tangible example recently of my struggles to enjoy my at-the-table experience and how it manifests in game systems. We’ve been playing the Pathfinder 2e playtest. Now, I played a lot of Pathfinder …
Continue reading Shadowrun vs. Pathfinder: Complexity and Cognitive Load
Back to the Shadows
I recently posted about my frustration with some of the oddities of Shadowrun 5e on Facebook and was asked to elaborate on some of the specifics of what I'm encountering. This is a much easier medium to write a long post in than Facebook though, so I'm putting it here - where it will post …
Battletech – A debate (part two)
The newest Battletech videogame, from Harebrained Schemes is now officially released, so it seemed like a good time to return to Battletech. In my previous post I mentioned that there were two significant debates I see crop up about Battletech and that they were both somewhat intertwined. The first was about why Battletech never achieved the …
Battletech – A debate (part one)
I follow a pretty decent Battletech group online. They have their squabbles, and there is plenty of old vs. new debate... But by and large it is a quality group that helps spread the lore, provide good updates, and occasionally engage in an interesting debate. There have been two debates that I've seen recently that …
The Decker (Shadowrun)
This little post started out as a message to one of my players who was struggling with playing the Decker. She felt like her options were actually rather limited as the Decker, because they always seemed to come down to "I throw a data spike." So, I was thinking about the issue... This idea that …
The Rhetorical Gamer 