Jumping into Shadowrun

[Windjammer]

Hi everyone,
First of all - a belated Happy holidays! Hope you're all having a great time.
Earlier today, I lucked out and bought cheap copies of two SR supplements: Seattle (1st edition) and Grimoire (2nd edition).

Which basic ruleset would you recommend me to pick up, to go alongside these supplements? I've ruled out 4e and 5e as belonging to a later generation, and would prefer to immerse myself in an earlier - perhaps more naive? - era of the game. Now trying to decide whether to buy 1e, 2e, or 3e base rule set.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations and pointers to further threads I should look at.

Edit. I'm proficient in English and German, and happy to look at either language version of any SR edition (in case one language edition is clearly superior to the other).

[Whipstitch]

The 4th edition corebook w/ no supplements and a no sustaining focus houserule is straight up better than any of the bullshit you're currently contemplating. Pirate that and import fluff from whatever edition you want. The only thing you'd miss is proportional damage codes and as nice as that was it's not worth dealing with variable target number bullshit and skill webs. I'd recommend trich before I'd recommend those.

[Hicks]

And ignore the matrix chapter in basically every edition of shadowrun. Use the Ends of the Matrix stickied above.

[phlapjackage]

4th edition corebook had a few other exploits that you'd want to houserule, like the "spirit storm" exploit (spirits on remote tasks don't count against summon limits)...and that's all I can remember atm.

But I definitely 2nd the 4th suggestion

[Username17]

4th edition is best edition, although in general it does get a lot worse after the first couple of supplements. Unwired is unplayable gibberish, and the Player's Companion would be better if it was.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

For what it's worth, Seattle is still compatible with 2nd edition, and Grimoire is really only compatible with 2nd edition. So if you started with 2nd edition, I wouldn't blame you.

I'm proficient in English and German, and happy to look at either language version of any SR edition (in case one language edition is clearly superior to the other).

German-written supplements for 1st and 2nd edition are a bit notorious for being overpowered and/or silly, even by Shadowrun standards, not sure what their translations are like. Later translations by...think it was Pegasus Spiele...were fairly good, as I recall.

[Windjammer]

Thanks for everyone's replies so far. For the record, I own 4A and that edition's core supplements, and will happily base my game on that edition when we actually start playing.
I've always found 4A very wordy and wondered if a Wiki (or readers guide) exists that shortcuts the learning curve. Also, what do people make of the runners kit boxed set that allegedly came with charts by way of rules overviews - worth it or drivel?

Also, I'd still like to explore the game's earlier versions - and, in light of AncientHistory's remarks, I'll likely settle on 2E. Thanks again for your help.

[Username17]

Shadowrun 4A is not really an improvement on Shadowrun 4. It's... wordier. There are more pieces of flavor text. The unplayable Matrix chapter has been replaced with a longer, but still completely unplayable Matrix chapter. There's a couple wall-bangers where they offhandedly throw in a rule change completely unplaytested that actually destroys a part of the game and had to errata it back to the SR4 standard (for example: they tried to recalculate combat spell drain to something completely unplayable and no one has ever come clean as to whose idea that was or why anyone thought it was a good idea - it was not a good idea).

For all that, the only actual advantage of the book is that it puts some expansion material into the core book. But they don't even bother fixing real problems like the unplayable cyberlimbs. And if you have access to Street Magic and Augmentation, you don't even need those things to be in the core book (and they don't put everything you want from Augmentation and Street Magic into SR4A). Oh, and SR4A is a variety of colors, so if the Green and Black of the original SR4 hurts your eyes, that can be a big plus. But the rules aren't better.

SR4 was a big step forward in Shadowrunology in most ways. The most important issue was that the core mechanic of Skill+Stat dice against a fixed target number was much faster and easier to ad hoc results from than skill only dice against a variable target number. Characters were able to do "stuff" in a much more predictable way and resolving whether they succeeded or failed at tasks was much quicker and less prone to favoritism and butt hurt. In a game like Shadowrun, the ability to extemporize and MacGuyver things is very important, and SR4 is simply better at doing that than other editions. Combat also moves much quicker, with a lot of steps like pool assignments being simply removed with their equivalencies calculated into basic dice pools - and that's a huge help.

But it's not all sunshine and roses. SR4 moved away from the LMSD damage system, which was a huge mistake that created the "two shot problem." Quite simply, any damage calculation that ends with you taking between 4 and 9 boxes of damage is very likely to drop your ass in axactly 2 hits. With the exponential curves involved in fixed target number dicepools, that describes almost all attacks, so it ends up with Trolls being essentially unplayable - being "real tough" is basically pointless and melee attacks of any kind are essentially worthless. Another issue is that they moved away from exponential starting cash, and the linear starting cash makes a lot of the street samurai you'd want to play very hard to make. And the third issue is that the overall reduction in attributes and increase in their utility makes medium and high Force spirits considerably more powerful. Overall, 4th edition was best edition. There were clear low hanging fruit of things that could be rolled back or improved to make a better game, which is naturally why SR4A and SR5 addressed precisely none of that and were just slightly and massively worse versions of SR 4 respectively.

If you want to play 2nd edition, my strong suggestion is to use the point-buy character generation system from the 2nd edition Shadowrun Companion. Not to be confused with the Shadowrun Companion with exactly the same name that was "revised for 3rd edition" and also includes some bizarre rants about how players are allowed to play Ghouls but only if they accept special rules that make them absolutely nothing like Ghouls.

-Username17

[Windjammer]

Shadowrun 4A is not really an improvement on Shadowrun 4. It's... wordier. . . . the only actual advantage of the book is that it puts some expansion material into the core book. But they don't even bother fixing real problems like the unplayable cyberlimbs. And if you have access to Street Magic and Augmentation, you don't even need those things to be in the core book

Thanks, that's good to know, and helps to solidify an impression I've had for a while.

If you want to play 2nd edition, my strong suggestion is to use the point-buy character generation system from the 2nd edition Shadowrun Companion. Not to be confused with the Shadowrun Companion with exactly the same name that was "revised for 3rd edition" and also includes some bizarre rants about how players are allowed to play Ghouls but only if they accept special rules that make them absolutely nothing like Ghouls.

Found it! Pages 20-21. Excellent advice, thanks. What's your experience with the edges/flaws system on p. 22ff. - recommended or prone to abuse?

[Username17]

People love the Edges and Flaws. They are not remotely "balanced." While there are a number of Flaws which make you unplayable and would be terrible no matter how many points they gave, what people actually do is load up on minor flaws that amount to character quirks in order to get extra points to buy real abilities. This makes character creation more work, but the result is that player characters end up with more distinguishing features and players take more time and care crafting their characters.

Now I will fully admit that Edges and Flaws went to a very weird place. That is, support for Edges and Flaws only ever showed up in a few books and those books in turn did not have a particularly even distribution around character concepts or mission goals. A large amount of the further Edges and Flaws that ever saw print are nautical, because Cyberpirates! is a book that happened after the Runner's Companion was internalized by the Shadowrun community, but Fields of Fire is a book that came out earlier and doesn't have any Edges or Flaws.

Obviously Edges and Flaws could have and should have been done better. But as-is, they are a net improvement for the game.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

Shadowrun's Edges and Flaws owe, for better or worse, a debt to GURPS and possibly even the World of Darkness (which also ripped them off from GURPS). The point-buy character system (GURPS again) was initially seen as munchkinny, but was eventually embraced over the Priority System simply because it was a lot easier to create the character you wanted with points.

[Guts]

Shadowrun is a wondergul setting married with such poor and slow rules that by the third combat turn, everybody will be yawning on each other faces and considering an excuse to get up and go home. It's an 80s product and it shows.

My suggestion: get the corebook that most strikes your fancy (I'd recommend 4th Anniversary for a good modern take, or 2nd edition for a retro, dirty feel), then run it with your favorite ruleset. I'm sure there are Fate, Savage Words, Gurps, etc conversions out there.

Oh, and the latest German Seattle boxset is really, really good. It's booklets cover the main topics well, and it has the best printed map of the city ever. But do NOT get the english version, as it's map is poorly made. Here is the boxset I'm talking about: https://www.amazon.com/Shadowrun-Seattl ... un+seattle

And here is a preview of the map:https://sirdoomsbadcompany.files.wordpr ... -promo.jpg

[saithorthepyro]

SR ruleset is no worse than any modern ruleset really, and this is from someone who started playing RPG's four years ago. I certainly get more mileage out of it than I do FATE or GURPS.

In a more general Shadowrun sense, I was talking to an acquaintance and apparently the latest matrix book has revealed that the wireless matrix has a weird origin. Something about one hundred technomancers dying after being experimented on by NEONET, with their consciousness forming a resonance realm that is now the wireless matrix.

[Stahlseele]

I liked Shadowrun 3, even though i technically never really played SR3.
NOBODY has ever really played SR3. It's got too many rules for that <.<
For a beginner, as much as it pains me to say this . . SR4 or 4A . .

[Korwin]

The 4th edition corebook w/ no supplements and a no sustaining focus houserule is straight up better than any of the bullshit you're currently contemplating. Pirate that and import fluff from whatever edition you want. The only thing you'd miss is proportional damage codes and as nice as that was it's not worth dealing with variable target number bullshit and skill webs. I'd recommend trich before I'd recommend those.

There is Frank's alt.WAR with proportianal damage for 4th.
Never got to play it, but one of this days I'll GM it.

Edit: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51934& ... sc&start=0

[Guts]

Some adaptations I know:

Runners in the Dark, for Blades in the Dark.

Shadowrun in The Sprawl, for The Sprawl, a powered by the apocalypse cyberpunk game.

Gurps Shadowrun. For fans of Gurps. Not my case, but here you go.

SR ruleset is no worse than any modern ruleset really

I would say it depends on what you want out of a ruleset. If it's slow subsystems that take too long to accomplisht too little (like taking 2 hours of your real life to resolve a 30 seconds engagement in-fiction), go for it.

But in all seriousness, Shadowrun official rules are not bad at a basic, tasks resolution level. Once you dive into it's subsystems though (combat, hacking, vehicles, etc) it gets reaaaally slooooooow and complex. Specially so when you mix and match them, something encouraged by the rules.

[Stahlseele]

If you WANT rules for literally every last little thing, then SR3 may actually be the one for you . .

[Iduno]

Once you dive into it's subsystems though (combat, hacking, vehicles, etc) it gets reaaaally slooooooow and complex. Specially so when you mix and match them, something encouraged by the rules.

You almost need to put a cap on hacking actions (I usually required one opposed extended test to log in, and one roll to do whatever the task was, but I changed it up based on the situation). But RAW doesn't seem to have seen full playtesting.

Combat definitely doesn't take too long in modern versions. It's weird to see complaints of both "almost everyone can be 2-shot, and you get 2 shots per round" and "combat takes too long." Are you running 100-person melees or running SR1?

[kzt]

Just use the actual SR hacking rules exactly as written and have intelligent adversaries. After one Hall of Mirrors run they will be willing to talk.

[Stahlseele]

@Iduno
Same strangeness that people are both disappointed and relieved that there is no hit location system in the game.

[Whipstitch]

Are you running 100-person melees

When it comes to hacking, the situation is actually worse than that if you take things to the logical extreme. As has been discussed several times on this site, the rules never quite grappled with the implications of the matrix ubiquity the setting proposes and as such there's never an unvarnished discussion about the sheer amount of abstraction that is needed to keep things playable.

Basically, saying shit like "I'm going to hide the paydata by disguising it as several gigapulse nodes/icons worth of softcore elf porn" is completely fine if you make up your own house rules and treat such statements as flavor text for Decking stealth and perception tests that are actually just relatively simple opposed rolls between the hider and the seeker. Unfortunately what SR4 does instead is allow people to declare they're creating X number of nodes disguised as their Important Shit and now people trying to find the Important Shit have to roll X number of times plus more rolls for all the other Unimportant Shit that just happens to be floating around as ambient matrix traffic. That's so obviously unworkable that I've never met anyone who didn't instinctively pare things down to a more manageable number even though the rules are written as if you have to account for every node in the system you're searching potentially being a fucking mimic.