Hi all,

I would like to play/run  a Shadowrun game., I've only read about it and found the genre interesting but never played in one. . I'm looking for advice as to which edition is a good to start with and buy.

I know that this will generate varied responses as to which edition is more superior than the other, but I would prefer the edition that has the "simplest" or most "straight-forward" rules without detracting or diluting the genre. An example would be I prefer DnD 5e over 4e.

I  would go to the game store to flip the books and see which one I like best, , unfortunately none of the games stores here have Shadowrun! So I can only buy it online which means I can't checkout the inside. So, im hoping to get some advice from people who own the books and have experience comparing the editions and recommending it to someone with no experience in the genre. .

Thanks for reading!

Honestly, you will likely just get a variety of opinions based upon personal preferences of each person and the experiences they have had with each edition.  A bad GM can ruin the best system.

While 5th edition has some issues, it is the current edition supported.  I have also played and GMed every edition that has been published.  I personally prefer this edition as a GM because it is among the best balanced and the task resolution allows PCs to be quite successful compared to 1st through 3rd rather than just getting lucky.

They have limits in 5th edition which balances out a number of the issues in 4th but a vocal minority don't like it because they can't quite be the special snowflake they once were able to be and dominate the game.

If you do a search for "Shadowrun 5th edition QSR" it should provide a link for a free pdf of the Quick Start Rules for this edition and an accompanying scenario.  This will at least give you the basics.

There is also a free version of the QSR on drivethrurpg but I am not certain which version this is as CGL has released three QSR's to date with different scenarios and the most recent errata for Free RPG day.

If the links do not come up for you rMail me and I will post them to you.

Fourth edition has a lot of supplemental material, with nearly everything you can think of covered in one book or another. Fifth edition is rapidly catching up, though, and they're making sure to cover high-priority options quickly. (Older versions got a reputation for treating riggers as a lesser option.)

If you don't want to worry about new material turning up and throwing a wrench into your game, go with v4, because you can then pick which books suit your game and leave it at that. You could even just play "Core Rules Only" and be just fine.

Whichever edition you pick, I'd recommend staying away from the official forums until you've had a chance to play the game yourself for a while, and have a hang of the rules. The people there can be very helpful when it comes to answering questions -- you won't get called a noob for asking for basic advice -- but they can really over-analyze a problem.

Granted, once you've gotten familiar with the rules, the official forum is a treasure trove of house rules, new material, and advice. They have people playing every edition, even the first. (Back when "rocker" was a valid archetype, if that helps set the date.)

I'll always miss SR3.  That's the edition I liked best out of all of them.  It was balanced in a Rock, Paper, Scissors sort of fashion, though, so it was pretty easy to end up dead if you were Paper and Rock decided to ruin your day.

Of course, I played SR4 only briefly and haven't touched SR5, so I can't say a whole lot about them.

Er... Paper beats Rock every time.  :)

I'm going back to bed.  Today is shot and I need a do-over.

I had the most fun with 2nd and 3rd editions.  I got a very limited introduction to 4th and don't know anything about 5th.  While my group never had much of a problem with out-of-balance characters, we were all people who enjoyed making quirky, but well-rounded characters, so min-maxing was never really a problem in our group and we didn't generally have people who tried to break the system or exploit loopholes...whatever we did was intended for the fun of the game and the group as a whole, we didn't have anyone that felt like they needed to 'win' or be better than anyone else in the party.  So my preference for which edition to play is based largely on which one involved the least complexity for the players to get into playing, as I have no negative associations with any of the 'problems' that people cite as reasons for coming out with a new edition.

I've played 3rd through 5th and I would say that overall the rules for 5th edition are probably the best of them all in terms of overall playability.

It doesn't have the volume of supplemental material like 4th and 3rd does but then again that isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're new because you don't get overwhelmed with options and rules that cost hundreds of nuyen and hours to figure out.

That being said, personally I prefer the 3rd edition setting. I'm not the biggest fan of the metaplots going on in 5th ed and because it's now set in 2070's instead of 3rd eds 2050's a lot of my favorite characters are getting too old and retiring which makes me sad.


On a side note if you want to dig into the setting more, the new Shadowrun Returns games do a great job at that. I would start with Dragonfall. Otherwise they release these fairly cheap short stories that you can pick up off of DrivethruRPG. I personally love Nothing Personal but Fire & Ice also works well. Haven't read too many others though...