My initial impressions of Shadowrun

Despite everyone’s advice, I went and purchased the Shadowrun fourth edition rulebook last night. I went for the PDF version, since I GM with my laptop, and a totally searchable PDF is a major time saver.

But then I decided that I needed a hardcopy, too, to make reading a little easier. So I printed it. Want to see what that looked like?

So far, I have a couple of observations:

• I love the world. It’s easy to see why Shadowrun has been going strong for 20 years — there’s something for everyone. It takes the gritty Blade Runner universe, borrows liberally from William Gibson’s cyberpunk world, and then throws in modern day Tolkien. If you ever wanted to see a dwarf in riot gear, or an orc wearing night vision goggles, then this is the system for you.
• This is high-quality stuff. Every spread is illustrated with gorgeous, full-color artwork. None of that 80s line-drawn stuff — I’m incredibly impressed with the book’s production values.

• The rules are blisteringly intense. Supposedly, the fourth edition rules are “streamlined” for faster playing, but man, I wouldn’t know it coming in cold. The core mechanic is pretty simple, but wow, there are modifiers upon modifiers. Keep in mind that this is coming from a guy who spent four years GMing the Serenity ruleset, where the core book consists of a bunch of movie stills and the basic tenet of “just make shit up” stated 500 ways.
• Combat alone is astonishingly thorny. I just finished reading the chapter on combat this morning; my wife remarked that I looked like it was “finals week in college all over again.” The system makes sense, and I appreciate that there’s a rule that covers everything, but combine this arcane system with a GM who’s never run it before, and you’ve got a recipe for molasses.
• I haven’t even gotten to the tough part yet. Part of what makes Shadowrun so cool is that, while the story is mired in the real world, the game can take place on three different planes. With 2/3 of the book staring me down and my brain already bulging, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to absorb the sure-to-be-numerous rules on the astral plane or augmented reality of the matrix.

That said, I love the universe, and I’m going to give this a go — I think some of the more fantasy-oriented players in my group will love the magic aspect. But they’re also pretty casual, so I don’t know how they’ll adapt to the complex equations involved with shooting a person in dim light.