>>96314020
I've had fun playing 2020, but I also had a great GM, so I can't tell where his expertise ended and the game's merits began. In the end I'd say it's a good game, but it got some serious flaws.
I think the difference lies in crunch that serves a purpose and crunch that is... just there. F.e. in 2020, if your attack hits, you also need to roll an additional d10 to see what body part got damaged. It adds time but also matters because
1) the hit body part may be cybernetic
2) it's supposed to be a deadly system, so you want the danger of a lucky head-shot looming over the players.
On the other hand, this system fails whenever someone decides to use automatic fire, because resolving one attack now takes several minutes as each bullet needs to roll both damage and hit location, not to mention the target's stun/death saves.
Mekton Zeta solved this issue by rolling only for the first location and then going up or down the body part table (or rather mech servo table) when an attack is made out of multiple projectiles.
And à propos Mekton Zeta, that system got crunchy combat that takes a while to resolve, but the reward is that a lot of different things can happen: critical failure of the nuclear reactor, shield that saves the pilot just in time, mech with a melted off arm delivering one last desperate melee attack, an energy sword cutting off the other mech's wings, etc. So there's a reason for that complexity.
And to not be overtly negative on Shadowrun, there are subsystems where complexity is used to make choices that matter, off the top of my head, the specialisations of skills makes the skill system more complex but for a reason, even if that reason is min-maxing.
The initiative pass system is complex and frankly unbalanced, but it serves its purpose of making street sams extremely lethal.
