Alright, entirely too much Shadowrun Returns has put me in the mind of trying out a shadowrunner origin type story with an emphasis on the character and not the plot.  I'm looking at using Savage Worlds for this because my preferred SR edition is 3e, and it's too rules heavy for what I want to do in this case (by all rights, surviving to actually become a shadowrunner is a bit of a miracle).

I would be wanting a heavy amount of story development from PCs, and the stor(ies) would either be solo or an interwoven small group.

I'll be using some combination of rules from the Scifi Companion and the fan SR adaptation for Cyberware/magic/etc.

Well I know nothing of Savage Worlds.  I do love Shadowrun 3rd ed though.

I like the idea, I'm just struggling with a few concepts here.

I had a whole thing think typed up but realized it's all the same question, if you're going to abandon the SR3 system and go to one that doesn't have Essence or a way to handle Decker style hacking or Spell Fatigue or other such concepts you'd have to "hack" in, why not just do a generic cyberpunk universe with elves and dragons and magic in SW?

Your goal seems to be to tell this particular story and make stuff up, do you really need the Shadowrun World per se?

Those are just mechanical elements.  The style can be mimicked just fine without using those exact mechanics.  I like the Savage Worlds system... it's very simple and elegant... I'd be interested.

In reply to Verisimilitude (msg # 4):

With all due respect, the concept of Essence alone is endemic to the core theme of Shadowrun.  I'd hardly call it just a mechanic.  Resolving whether a gunshot hits is a mechanic, the relationship between technology and magic that defines the setting is something more.

There are a number of savage worlds supplements (3rd party, fan made, etc) that put in place some system to emulate the concept that the more chrome you have, the less human you become.

I'm sure if that was a point looking to be preserved it could be covered by one of those, allowing for some of the "essential" mechanical concepts that are a part of the genre to be preserved while utilizing SW's more streamlined pulpy feeling combat mechanics.

In reply to drewalt (msg # 5):

I'll be honest, SR3 did a terrible job of making essence anything more than a peripheral stat.  It was a budget that you used to determine how much gear you could stuff into your street sam or how much magic you were willing to sacrifice on your mage/adept in order to get more power.  It played a part in a few spells, but otherwise... it really didn't do much.

I much preferred CP2020's humanity stat.  As you sold away parts of your body, it became more and more difficult for you to function as a normal human being and not go insane.  It also had the benefit of being a variable stat.  Some people were more resilient against the effects than others, unlike in SR3.

Here's the way I'm going to work it:

Cyberware has a value that adds to your strain.  Your strain is the limit of your body and mind's ability to cope with being interfaced with a machine.  Your maximum strain is equal to the lower of your vitality or spirit.  You may exceed your maximum strain by up to two points, but doing so comes at the cost of your health and sanity.  Strain is added as a negative modifier to any magic skill checks.  Half of your strain (rounded down) is added as a penalty to social skill rolls.

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Anyway, this is an interest check to see if anyone wants to play out some starting out stories in the Shadowrun universe.  I see one clear interest so far.

I'll be using a lot from this book, but not everything:

https://wrathofzombie.files.wo...-shadowrun-final.pdf

Might also be of interest to set yourself a year date that you'll be playing in.  There's been quite a bit of change in the world and advances in technology over the course of almost 30 years.

Let's go with 2059.  I'm not familiar with anything after 2063 or so, anyway.

Oh I'd for sure be interested in this however you cared to take it.  I'm just playing devil's advocate with you to suss this out.

I'm interested. The second RPG I played was SR, many years ago. Now older, I tend to like more rules lite narrative style games and rules. Anyway, SW is about at the top of my crunch level, but depending on more information - I could probably go for something like this. Especially since it appears it would be more solo play with possibly some path crossing?

TB

I like the idea of a savage worlds based SR inspired game.

I saw rules once that used arcane background to model Deckers.  Obscure = killing security cameras.  Puppet was to take over vehicles, drones, and weapon systems.  Bolt/blast/etc only worked against gear, and modeled crashing their chips.  etc.

Well, that's all the interest I need.  I've set up a game here:

link to another game

Feel free to send me an RTJ.  I'm still working on the chargen stuff, and will also be including a very revised 20 questions (give or take) that I'll want worked up before we start playing.

Just as a reminder, this is going to be a very story driven game and I'll be expecting players to give me input on the plot both at the start and over time.