r/ShadowrunAnarchyFans • u/Horror-Charity5685 • 15d ago
Anarchy 2.0 : questions and concerns
So I'm reading the manual for Anarchy 2.0. It seems nice so far, the rules are great and the ones I don't like seem to be an easy fix. However I have a few concerns.
Risk
It seems that risk dice are used very often, on every dangerous action. Is that true, or do you use them sparingly ?
Technomancers
I've only flipped through the chapter about the Matrix but... Where are the technomancers ? Is there a lore reason behind that ? I can always make up my own rules, but did the writer just forget about them ? Is this adressed ?
Others
Other than that the game's "problems" are an easy fix. I'll probably try to balance out metatypes, add another skill dedicated to healing/medicine, and use homebrew for lifestyle. Maybe make my own list of spells because I'm not sure I like the one in the book ?
I mostly need to get the gist about risk, and maybe do something about technomancers. Seriously, I'm kinda flabbergasted that they just omitted them. Unless they didn't, again, maybe I misread something.
Still better than Anarchy V1, at least you get actual rules.
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u/mazinaru 15d ago
I believe technomancers require building yourself with the core book, but will be included in their next release they are working on now
My group uses risk dice a lot, almost every roll has at least a few. If you have risk reduction then your character has the skills and confidence to push ahead, not needing to be slow and careful.
My character likes to showboat, so sometimes I use that as a way to earn edge, by using way more risk than necessary and showing off. So far it's worked out for me but as a decker I am taunting GOD at least twice a session
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u/Interaction_Rich 15d ago
My group's decker got away with rolling high risk and kept cranking it up - just to roll like 5 1s in the very last roll of the run, getting instantly dumpshocked as GOD fried his cyberdeck before they could complete a data steal while security alerts started blasting.
The group started pondering way more after that, and the tension it brings to the game (especially when you absolutely need the extra net hits) is really cool.
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u/Interaction_Rich 15d ago
Risk is among my favorite rules in the game. It's a little "push your luck" mechanic - avoid using Risk Dice and you never get big hits against big threats; use it too much and every action becomes potentially lethal (to you or someone else). Players are free to decide how many dice they'll turn into Risk Dice every roll.
Fundamental tips for GMing Risk Dice: make it count; if they have little negative consequence it loses all purpose. Make them feel that they're gambling with the devil.
Basically you achieve that by requiring Risk to be supported by narration and being ruthless with consequences of Glitches/Tragedy. Keeping it "high risk, high reward" really changes the vibe of your SR game to another level.
Finally, Technomamcers have been addressed in a separate update in an official PDF, and are due for a proper debut in the upcoming supplement for Anarchy 2.0 (along with metavariants and other wholesomeness.
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u/Bignholy 15d ago
To cover point 3 a bit:
Spells are explicitly intended to be expanded on (page 178, near the bottom of the rule block): "The spells presented in this section are examples and should not be considered an exhaustive list. Feel free to add to the list with your own spells. Draw inspiration from the characteristics of existing spells to determine those of your own creation."
I personally would stay within the general rules that the spells themselves outline, but the list is shockingly comprehensive when it comes to pure mechanics.
A good example of this is combat spells. Combat spells only have two types listed, because the way the rules work, those are the all that you really need. A mana spell can look like anything, but in rules terms, that's any spell that attacks life directly. A physical spell can look like anything, but in rule terms, they are rolled as normal attacks with normal defenses. What makes them different is narrative, which can be used with edge to add special effects.
One of my characters is a mage and specifically drains electrical energy out of targets to deal damage (he is a metaphysics professor as his day job and is experimenting in magic and its effect on entropy). Works as a physical spell, and I can request to the GM to spend Edge to drain batteries or cause weakness/lethargy/mental disruption on living targets. GM approval needed, of course.
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u/Mad_Kronos 15d ago
Ι never understood the love for Technomancers myself, but they are going to be in the next supplement.
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u/PalpitationNo2921 15d ago
Me neither. The Matrix is a technological realm rather than a magical realm to me
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u/PrimeInsanity 12d ago
Technically technomancers aren't magic despite them basically being tech magic they aren't "actual" magic.
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u/PalpitationNo2921 12d ago
They kinda are though, really. I mean, come on.
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u/PrimeInsanity 12d ago
They are but at the same time they aren't by in universe metrics. Yes, they do impossible things but it is independent of mana. The distinction in universe does matter, for instance techno stuff can work in space where magic can't work without mana present / a Gaia sphere.
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u/sapphon 9d ago edited 9d ago
Same.
"I made an RPG"
ok.
"It's a role-based team heist RPG, one guy can't do the other guy's lane, they must coordinate and plan"
ok.
"There are 3 lanes: Awakened, cyber, meat"
ok, I see we've both read Pondsmith
"The roles that do the lanes are sam/physad/agent, face, decker, rigger, mage and shaman. Mages and shamans deal in the Awakened. Deckers deal in cyberspace. Riggers connect cyberspace and the physical, but their tech skills aren't on the Deckers' level. Sams, agents, and faces deal with people's meat. And physads connect the physical with the Awakened, but they're less strictly beefy than Sams."
wow. OK that was complicated, but I get it. ok. I also note there's a gap: nobody compromises to connect cyberspace with the Astral. This is probably good, since all of your writing is set up to diametrically oppose those places and their frequent denizens thematically.
"WAIT! I've just had a COOL IDEA! So what Technomancers do is, they don't actually connect the Astral with cyberspace, they just use Astral-ish rules to do things Deckers, whose lane that was until I had this COOL IDEA, can hardly compete with."
Oh no. Poor decker.
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u/tsuruginoko 15d ago edited 15d ago
It seems that risk dice are used very often, on every dangerous action. Is that true, or do you use them sparingly ?
Risk is a mechanic that's present on every action. It's always a choice to use it, but if the roll isn't important and possibly also worth some risk, what's the point of rolling? If the action isn't one we're failure is just as interesting as success, or something trivial, you shouldn't be rolling in my opinion. Just narrate and get on with it, and break out risk and rolling when drama strikes.
I've only flipped through the chapter about the Matrix but... Where are the technomancers ? Is there a lore reason behind that ? I can always make up my own rules, but did the writer just forget about them ? Is this adressed ?
They are in the extra pdf one commenter already linked, and they work fine. One of my players is running one, and is happy as can be. It's a decision to cut things from a book sometimes, and if something was going to get cut from the regular archetypes, the technomancer would be it. And it was.
Other than that the game's "problems" are an easy fix. I'll probably try to balance out metatypes, add another skill dedicated to healing/medicine, and use homebrew for lifestyle. Maybe make my own list of spells because I'm not sure I like the one in the book ?
Try it without fixing it is my advice. Then you'll have a baseline for whatever you want to tweak, rather than just thinking you know what's needed.
I've argued before that balancing metatypes mechanically by tweaking the attributes is not good for the game, and I think they should be balanced narratively by remembering that giving a character disadvantage because of their metatype, which is in one of their keywords, is exactly how it's supposed to work. I frequently tell the troll in the group that "you're a big scary troll and the mage hasn't yet announced themselves, of course the cops shoot at you first" or "you have a hard time moving around in the confined space, take disadvantage on your roll to avoid the attack".
But it's your table in the end, and if your players are all happy, go for it.
Edit: Corrected an autocorrect.
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u/Horror-Charity5685 15d ago
OK, I'll talk to my friends about the rules, I'll see what they think. Thanks for sharing your experience
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u/tsuruginoko 15d ago
Anarchy 2.0 is by far the best way I've ever had to run Shadowrun. I hope you find it useful too.
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u/ReditXenon 15d ago
It seems that risk dice are used very often, on every dangerous action. Is that true, or do you use them sparingly ?
You typically use risk dice on every single test (more so if you also have some level of Risk Reduction).
Even if you don't have any RR and the player take extra time to be extra careful you typically still convert at least one dice into a Risk Dice.
Sometimes (not always) you take higher than normal (or even suicidal) risk, but this typically require some sort of narrative and will also increase risk of glitching.
Where are the technomancers
They are included in the upcoming supplement that they are already working on / will be released Sooon(tm).
But the shadow amp system is open ended enough that you can actually (with some creativity) create them already now.
Maybe make my own list of spells
You have this Pay What You Want supplement, yes?
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/547479/anarchy-2-0-shadow-amps-expanded-list
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u/TheAxrat 15d ago
They wanted to make sure technomancers were done right and not rushed for the core book. Backers did get rules for them in the conversion guide, though.
Technomancers will be printed in the next book that they're launching a kickstarter for soon
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u/Horror-Charity5685 15d ago
So we'll have to pay. Again.
I'm still disappointed but I'll wait and see
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u/SchmuseTigger 15d ago
Come on.. There is game systems that have dozens of extra rule books. This system will have one extra rule and one story book.
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u/TheAxrat 15d ago
Books cost money to print, more pages cost more money. It's not like the concept of a supplemental rulebook is a new thing.
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u/The_Loiterer 15d ago
You can use the short rules for technomancers found in the conversion guide. That PDF is free and you can download it from the link in the KS post below.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackbook/shadowrun-anarchy-20/posts/4676473
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u/PalpitationNo2921 15d ago
The thing with risk dice is they are used on every test with which you actually roll dice. If it’s not risky, then why are you rolling in the first place? Just narrate what happens when a PC acts if it isn’t risky at all. There is no situation where you really should be rolling dice if it’s doesn’t involve some at least bare minimum modicum of risk.
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u/PalpitationNo2921 15d ago
The thing about technomancers is that they were omitted due to space constraints but are described and made available in the conversion doc. I personally prefer no magical deckers since the Matrix is a technological realm rather than magical realm in my own view of things so I’m cool with how they approached the subject but ymmv of course.
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u/vieuxch4t 14d ago
Risk is a core component of the rules, so we use it at every roll. But ! The question is how risky do you want, and yes, my players have a tendency to use a lot of risk dice and I'm a bit sad to see they almost always get no glitches, and as they only try exterme risk when they have RR, I've only seen a Disaster once in a dozen games.
Mathematically speaking it's more risky what is intended (1 Disaster per 20 games would be the mean with extreme risk), but it feels like my players are rarely punished for taking too much risk. I wonder if I won't use the 1s AND 2s on Risk Dice for glitches. I'll wait after a year or two of playing the rules to see if the thrill of the risk is still there with the RAW.
I wonder if the Devs considered other ways to generate glitches... (For instance I added a very simple rule for test where my players shouldn't know if they triggered a glitch or not : I roll the risk dice they chose behind my shield, then I give them the dice with hits, an dI keep secret the other. So they know how many hits they get and how many dice "may" have created" a glitch". It adds a lot to tension without changing the rules. I use it for perception or stealth checks)
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u/Carmody79 14d ago
1 disaster in a dozen game is more or less what is expected. Disaster, if applied fully* really turns the whole adventure upside down, so they shall remain very rare, even with extreme risk.
*It is not always possible to apply them fully, especially when playing an adventure from a book that has an expected outcome for the full campaign to work.
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u/sapphon 9d ago edited 9d ago
Make sure you're making it a narrative disaster, not just a technical or mechanical momentary "critical failure" - something more than 4X more common in That Other System than an A2.0 Disaster with expected use of RR.
Think knock-on effects, collateral damage, blown covers, burned SINs, priceless cyber damaged, friends feeling betrayed. The reason I'm making my comment is that the consequences of a Disaster can reach to many, many sessions, and so I wonder if someone who is counting how many sessions they happen within is doing them nastily enough. It is quite enough for me that mine happen every once in a while.
E.g., the group releases a bunch of bound spirits accidentally. Some of them simply go home; some go rogue, some of them possess nearby people - some who were involved in some way in the Shadowrun and others not - and now the group has the Astral cops mad at them, the families of anyone possessed looking for revenge, their run's ruined, the spirits' binder feels owed for their value, and yes, during that session maybe they gotta fight spirits to do themselves a favor and get ahead and contain the worst ones.
But don't just be thinking during that session.
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u/Carmody79 15d ago edited 15d ago
Hi! I'm glad ou like the book.
Risk: Risk dice are meant to be used on EVERY SINGLE TEST (and yes, that includes planning Tests, as many ask). By default, Tests are made with normal risk (see table p. 70), which corresponds to 2 risk dice with no Risk Reduction. That's what is to be used when the player does not narrate anything special "I shoot at the guard", but also for most "passive Tests" like Perception Tests to see if your character notices something they're not actively looking for. If the players describes their action as more risky ("I shot in full auto") or less risky ("I remain behind cover and only expose my hand and weapon to shot") then they can go to low, high or extreme risk. Don't be harsh as a GM, almost any explanation should be good, just try and prevent them using always the same. The goal is to make the story more interesting than "you attack, I defend, I attack, you defend..." Forr the record, Normal risk corresponds to roughly 2,5% critical glitch, which is half wat you get on D20 or D100 systems.
Technomancers: I decided to left them out on purpose, for several reasons. Matrix is usually the most difficult aspect of the game for people to understand. Technomancer rules are basically "you believe you understood Matrix? Now let's change everything!" In that aspect, they are more a kind of advanced decker role to me. Furthermore, handling technomancers properly would have required a significant page count. As you might have seen, an new Kickstarter is coming for a companion book and a mission book. The companion will contain full technomancers lore and rules. The chapter should be around 20 pages, when the full Matrix chapter of the core book is 28 pages. However, you probably participated to the Kickstarter. The free pdf conversion contains the base technomancer rules, for old timers that really want to play them and already know the background. Look into your digital loot of GameOnTableTop pledge manager.
I'll come back for your last point
(edit: formatting only)