Like others have said, the rules are… bad. Especially the latest edition. A couple of the older editions are “favorites,” but still mixed bags, and lots of people just take the setting and use it in another system entirely.
There’s a Shadowrun actual play podcast called NeoScum that I loved (now concluded), and it began with “It’s like D&D mixed with Bladerunner!” and ended with “Fuck this, fuck Shadowrun, the universe rearranges itself so we can play a different game.” They even had a goofy recurring bit they would do whenever they had to stop play to look up rules or calculate something, which happened constantly. It’s also not a player issue, since they’ve switched to Call of Cthulhu for another story (Gutter) and just don’t have that problem.
I recommend Sprawlrunners, a Shadowrun/Cyberpunk ruleset for Savage Worlds. We had a game that had been Shadowrun that we converted to Sprawlrunners rules and it ran fantastically.
Look at older editions. 6th is hot garbage published with criminally low quality material and he didn’t pay the freelance writers that contributed to the game.
Returns is extremely linear and lacks a party though, in addition to the later games having improved mechanics. Also, there’s a mod for Hong Kong that remakes the Returns campaign.
![Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. Never make a deal with a dragon. [Shadowrun]](https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/5dd5c75b-be6f-42bc-ae88-2a495f91be16.webp){kind=link}
Goddammit another game to go on my wishlist apparently.
Goodbye, money
Like others have said, the rules are… bad. Especially the latest edition. A couple of the older editions are “favorites,” but still mixed bags, and lots of people just take the setting and use it in another system entirely.
There’s a Shadowrun actual play podcast called NeoScum that I loved (now concluded), and it began with “It’s like D&D mixed with Bladerunner!” and ended with “Fuck this, fuck Shadowrun, the universe rearranges itself so we can play a different game.” They even had a goofy recurring bit they would do whenever they had to stop play to look up rules or calculate something, which happened constantly. It’s also not a player issue, since they’ve switched to Call of Cthulhu for another story (Gutter) and just don’t have that problem.
I recommend Sprawlrunners, a Shadowrun/Cyberpunk ruleset for Savage Worlds. We had a game that had been Shadowrun that we converted to Sprawlrunners rules and it ran fantastically.
Look at older editions. 6th is hot garbage published with criminally low quality material and he didn’t pay the freelance writers that contributed to the game.
Nobody hates Shadowrun more than the people who love Shadowrun. :P
Also check out the video games Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong.
Shadowrun Returns is part of that trilogy, and pretty decent too.
They can be played in any order - they’re all standalone stories.
Returns is extremely linear and lacks a party though, in addition to the later games having improved mechanics. Also, there’s a mod for Hong Kong that remakes the Returns campaign.