After first replaying the old shadowrun Nintendo game a few years or so ago, then playing through the new Shadowrun Returns games, I have really grown to love the shadowrun setting and game.  That led me to run a few Shadowrun games on rpol, but none of them panned out.  I know that it probably mostly my fault combined with the normal drop rate of players on RPOL.

I'd really like to try again, but I'm not sure what the best way of going about it is, to make the game last.   I've only played 4th edition, though I have access to 3rd and 5th, and I'm sure I wouldn't have a hard time transitioning between them.

My question is, what are the types of shadowrun games that draw the most attention and the most likely chance of success?  What keeps a shadowrun game going?

I loved 3rd edition.
I thought 4th was kinda weird and 5th has a very confusing ruelebook layout.
I haven't played shadowrun in play-by-post but I think the greatest danger is that it can be really slow to start,
In tabletop, a lot of players tend to spend hours making plans for the run, so that translates to weeks of nothing actually happening on a play-by-post.
Again, that's just speculation, but my best advice is to keep things rolling.

Having played a game of Shadowrun via PbP; one of the big dangers is that the clatter of dice isn't as fun in PbP I don't think. And all the various modifiers you have to keep track of. It's really quite complex a system, which isn't necessarily good for PbP.

Also, the inherent nature is that a lot of people do their own things from time to time; and that is bad enough in tbaletop, it's a nightmare in PbP.

Shadowrun's system is honestly just a bit much for PBP. What I would suggest is the excellent and free Sixth World game. It's a Shadowrun hack for Apocalypse World. I haven't gotten a chance to play it personally but it looks real solid. If you're interested it can be found below.

http://nerdwerds.blogspot.com/...ll-of-playbooks.html

As a veteran of Shadowrun (I still have my hard cover 1st ed book) I have found that the fun games are the ones that have strange concepts.  Having played 27 years in many different games my two favorite characters were a gang member and a drummer, although I am quite enjoying the 5th ed character I am playing now.  The secret is to get characters that have a personality to them.  Anyone can make a number stacked character, it takes a true love of the game to make a beloved character though.

One of the things to remember about system heavy games in PbP is to not let the system bog everything down. Sometimes just don't make the players roll for things, or roll for them, only wait on players to roll dice in combat or other _MAJOR_ events. In other words keep the game flowing.

Also, loners and the like bog a PbP game down even more than a TT one. Don't accept those concepts, or heavily modify them, so that you're dealing with a Shadowrunning team and not a whole bunch of individuals. Take time during char gen to have interlocking backstories. or have them all be together and the Fiat them into a situation where they need to co-operate and tell them that up front.

And if we're voting on systems, I like them in this order 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 4th. Unless I'm playing the mage, then I'm all for some 1st edition.

Also, if you get a game up, I'm _VERY_ interested.

I have to echo some of the system hate for the more recent editions. I never played 1st or 2nd, and only a little bit of 3rd. But if you liked the old SNES game and Shadowrun Returns, you are likely to be disappointed by most of the tabletop.

Shadowrun's various editions have systemically been stripping the 'punk' out of their cyberpunk with each iteration, and the actual reality of the numbers and equipment costs clashes violently with the supposed setting and themes. You run into weird situations where your 'broke and hungry' street ganger gets into shadowrunning to pay the bills. Good thing he has his million nuyen suite of cyberware to give him an edge...

I guess we know why he's broke at least :P

I honestly think my favorite edition of shadowrun is cyberpunk 2020. :3

Grognarding aside, one of the things I think is important is to take some time to properly 'set the dials' on what you expect and what your players should expect.

There are a lot of different ways to play SR, and a mismatch between your expectations and the players can be disastrous. For example, your players might be expecting a pink mohawk game where the streets are in perpetual anarchy and bodyarmor and shotguns are considered 'about town clothing', while you're wanting to run a mirrorshades game that's all about the terror of the surveillance state.

And it can clash in smaller ways too. A lot of SR is about preparation and clever planning backed up by brute force and shenanigans. If the players don't know what they should be planning for, they will either miss something you think is painfully obvious and then get butthurt when you use it to 'gotcha!' them, or they will over-prepare for every possible thing and waste a bunch of time worrying about nothing.

My recommendation for how to get around this is to ease everyone into the setting using a very tightly controlled environment to start. Basically, they don't plan their own runs to start. They get recruited as contractors by an experienced runner who does all the planning and legwork and just tells them "you go here, do this."

That introduces them to the system and to how you expect a shadowrun to go, and it also gets them right into the action. Then on the next run, they get to do some of the legwork. They still aren't making the plans, or deciding what to look for, but they're doing the looking.

And so on and so forth. Don't hit them with the whole thing all at once, ease them in piece by piece so they know what everything is supposed to look like in your version of the 6th world.

That's my thoughts anyway. Never have managed to put it into practice, so it might be terrible :P

I like what Knarly is saying.

You mentioned enjoying the Shadowrun Returns series, I don't know if you played Dragonfall, but if you did, think about Paul Amsel and the team. Your players are the team, you have a "Paul Amsel" NPC to do most of the planning. Don't railroad them into a plan, but give them options and let them pick one.

They'll change things on the fly because no plan survives contact with the enemy but they'll at least have a plan so that will reduce the endless planning problem.

are your recommendations for the earlier editions from ease of play, or fond memories of games run in those editions?  I'll be honest, my preference runs more toward mirror shades than pink mohawks, though I'm not a huge fan of the 12 hour prep ocean's eleven style heists 4th and 5th edition seems to lend itself to.

and yeah, my initial idea, which is probably a long way from implementation, was the group be various people pulled together by circumstances, to work for a fixer somewhere like the Redmond barrens.  That way, the targets are less corporate, and therefore less structured security wise, to begin with, and lend themselves easier to a smash and grab style of run.  Then progress to higher profile targets if thegroup seems to work well together.

another problem I've run into is the importance of the hacker/decker, and the difference in pace needed between the player in the matrix and the rest of the team.  It seems like you almost need a player that can post at a much higher rate than the rest to be the decker, so they can get the information/fight the security without the rest of the players waiting for weeks.

Mine are for ease of play and for setting.
Both the SNES Shaodwrun game and the Shadowrun Returns game happen in the 2nd-3rd edition era of the 2050's, and 5th is in the 70's with all kinds of new tech and new magics. Technomancers who can magically interact with some dude's cyberware for exemple, add another layer of complexity. While that can be fun for some, I prefer the old school SR approach of keeping magic and tech separate.

In a TT game a Decker slows things down incredibly, less so in PbP because you can run things concurrently in separate threads. But, you are correct,t they have to be able to keep up post and timing wise and such, it takes a more effective player in PbP.

A Barrens style game lends itself more to Pink Mohawks, in my opinion, because you don't care about the cops as much, just don't get shot. Mirror Shades is the Ocean's Eleven style heists, meticulous planning and don't get caught... and is a more corporate environment. However, characters can grow from one to the other as their reputation grows.

And Cappadocious covers my opinion on settings, I do not like Technomancers.

from what I've read and played, technomancers aren't ass effective as you seem to be making them out to be, especially in ease of accessing someone's cybernetics.  It just seems like a different style of hacking, it takes quite a lot of karma to get a technomancer to the point where he can effect technology outside the matrix in any meaningful way.  But that doesn't really matter much.


To me, the difference between pink mohawks and mirror shades is attitude and approach.  In any game I'd run, I'd prefer runners who understand the need to be discreet and can operate in a more civilized setting without drawing huge amounts of attention, but can also cause havoc if needed.  If we're using the newer SR games as reference, dragonfall and hongkong have closer to the desired idea I'd want, with the runners very capable of fighting if needed, but also able to walk into a dinner party in Repulse Bay and manipulate a corporate stooge.

To me, it's stuff like that, that separates Shadowrun from many other games.  That air of legitimacy and criminality that shadowrunners have, as opposed to any band of armed thugs wandering the world for coin.  I can run a game like that in almost any setting.

Technomancers harsh on my fluff for SR. Magic and Machine are antithesis, they aren't supposed to cooperate. That a there's a magician who can affect machines? Doesn't jive with what I like. Personal opinion, I realize they operate just like a Decker.

Sounds like you want a James Bond style game, Mirror Shades, they can be a lot of fun. You just need straight forward runs to start with so the players and GM get in tune.

technomancers aren't magicians. It's a totally different thing according to the books.  they are two separate traits that can't mix.

I just want to not go too far down the mirror shades hole, which leads to too much independent action and prep time.  So somewhere toward the middle of the combat vs spy spectrum.

Never said it was easy but the fact it's a possibility still adds a level of complexity to the game. Then there's the wireless stuff, which makes complete sense since it's technology we currently have but when your decker can hack the enemy's cyberware too, well... things get out of hand.

All in all, the OP mentioned wanting to get into SR based on 3rd-edition-based SNES and PC games, so 4th and 5th will bring a different feel.

the cyberware hack is pretty difficult due to cybernetics being hardened, and not something you'd run into every day.  And honestly, it isn't much different than a mage with a spell that paralyzes his opponent, or takes control of them.  Just different system-wise.

what is different, system wise, about 3rd and 4th edition?  having learned 4th edition, I'm not bothered by the wireless matrix or the newer technology, since I don't have years of previous experience to make that seem unusual.  I'm more wondering if one system is better in terms of game balance and play, as opposed to setting.
This message was last edited by the user at 18:57, Fri 17 June 2016.

System wise I believe 3rd and 4th are nearly identical, just re-skinned when the property was bought. 5th is the new system. However, I could be wrong.