I bought and played every edition from 1-4 as they were published, a friend bought me 5, and you're 100% right. 2 is the best. I liked 3 as well, but 2 is better. I say this as another angry ginger. What made third good was going to it from second and already used to the advanced rules in the sourcebooks. It was written for people who were already playing. First edition was wonderful but had huge gaps and bad rules that forced people to create house rules just so some parts could function.
Us angry gingers have to stick together! Totally agree - 3e is a great edition to play once you know the game and want to bring all the extra stuff to the table. I didn’t touch on tone in this video, but I also think 2e is the winner there as well 😊 Thanks for watching!
Correct! 👏👏👏if you had never learned 2e then 3 would have been impossible. It was super complicated to me and I had run 2e weekly for over 5 years!? (Man I’m old 😄)
I’ve had both the first and second edition books on my shelf for a couple years now, picked up cheap at a secondhand bookstore. It’s daunting, but I’m finally getting around to it, and as I’m making plans to try 2nd, I see this video. It’s perfect. Thank you!
No "idiot" has a painting of Peter Venkman on his wall, my friend. Arguably one of the bravest heroes in all of supernatural fiction, and I stand by that. Dude talks to ghosts and demi-gods like he's at an airport bar.
Ah, you are a man of impeccable taste, I see. Dr. Venkman was my hero and was extremely influential in my formative childhood years due to all the reasons you just mentioned.
About a year back, I got an assload of Shaodwrun 5e books from humble bundle. I have a tight group of friends that all run their own D&D5e games and since we started I've wanted to bring that kinda Tech-Fantasy twist, but the wordings of SR5e just kept me grinding to a halt. This video has rekindled my interest and I've already downloaded a PDF of 2E, more hopeful than ever to try something old, but new. Thank you so much!!
Haven't played Shadowrun in about 25 years. I have so much affection for that game. This encourages me to finally play again with the rulebook I played with back then.
Fuck yeah! That’s great to hear - it’s been great to see Shadowrun veterans come back this game decades later, it’s a great game and a great edition 🤘🏻
I personally love 4E, especially with Chummer. I even put the work in to tke the Rigger rules from 1E through 3E and shove them into 4E. So now my Minotaur Go Ganger has an infinitie amount of options to tweak out his motorcycle and the APC. It started as a simple project to give the APC a ramp like the Spy Hunter truck, but it ended up as a pretty clean matrix to tack on whatever. God I love Shadowrun, it's such a weird setting.
I've always described 3rd ed as 2nd ed with a decade of playtesting backing it up. I see your point, they really did try and cram everything that was introduced over the course of 2nd ed's run into the start of 3rd ed. the thing i miss most from 2nd ed was the initiative rules. it feels so right in the setting that a street sam, wired up to the max should be able to take a pair of ingram smartguns and mow down and entire biker gang before their turns on initiative. (yes the penalties will get pretty insane, but 10S damage will make many reconsider if they want to keep fighting, and all it takes is 1 success to land that) PErsonally my favorite edition has become 4th ed. the dice pool change just feels good to me. 5th tried to bolt a bunch of shit onto 4th (limits, accuracy, wireless bonuses)
4th was my first and I have like, all the books for it. I'm about to run another game for the first time after many many years. I'm still probably gonna run 4e but I'm always up to hear other people's opinions on things like this
Shadowrun is a great game. Good setting. I started with 1st, played 2nd, skipped 3rd, played a little 4th, some 5th and recently bought 6th. Its not as bad as it was when it launched with companion and street wyrd. I like *every* edition of SW. Some stuff never changes, Matrix runs always takes too long, Magic is always complicated, etc. But I will admit I houserule a lot of stuff in every game. For example ... I don't use Edge at all like it was outlined in 6e. I use my own system for how Edge works. But I mean I also create my grunt/mooks/what have you on index cards for the game. We also follow the house rule of "I think it works this way, so it works this way and we will look it up later. Write it on an index card and I will look them up later."
Great video, applicable to some other games as well. When tell me older editions are bad I remember "if it was unplayable, it probably wouldn't have got another edition." I like your podcasts approach of introducing the more completed stuff thru NPCs.
Agreed - unfortunately there just isn't a lot of info on why they are playable, so a lot of newcomers get steered completely away from them. Hopefully we can help even out the scales! Thanks for watching!
Your concession to SR3 is why it’s my preferred Shadowrun. I want all of that in my game, and I want all the enhanced core parts collected and refined in one place. I will state this caveat though. If a player wants to play a magician, rigger, or decker, they have to read and understand their chapters, gear, and abilities. Otherwise, they have to play something else and let the GM fill those roles with ally NPCs and likely abstracted play on the GM’s part. However, SR2 is more evocative - in its art/aesthetic, verbal style, ideas, and maturity. That’s great though since those all port over to SR3 easily because they go into the heart of the player/GM.
For funzies, I actually just started running a small single-player campaign. First time I've ever GM'd anything. I basically just took the story of "The Dead Man's Switch" (minus the Brotherhood) because, love or hate it, it's a great way to introduce someone to the world... and it's single player, and for my first GM, I can remember and call up the main story when needed, without railroading. Rules-wise, I modded quite a bit... It's basically a Frankenstein's monster of 1e, 2e, and the videogame mechanics. In fact, I could honestly say I've "cracked the code" (at least roughly 70% of the code) for those people looking to play out the Hairbrained videogames on a tabletop. I won't go into all the details here, but so far it works for me, it works for my player, it is a great amalgamation of mechanics while keeping the dice rolls and chance, and it's fun. VERY simplified. As far as lore goes, I've been learning everything in order from the first edition, and the more I find out, the more I fall in love with the Sixth World. If and when I join a Shadowrun group on reddit (I tried the official forums, but got no reply) and AFTER I have covered all of my rule changes and any issues that arise, I will post a master list of every mod and adaptation, for any who are curious. ...and yes, for all the issues I had with 1e rules at the start, pretty much all of them were fixed and simplified in 2e.
I'm an old hand with Shadowrun. I own and play every edition up through 5e. Shadowrun's greatest asset is its setting, and deciding which setting you're getting into will determine what edition you are playing. The FASA editions (1-3) had horror attached to magic, which played off the cyberpunk themes. Earthdawn was a crossover setting from FASA Shadowrun to help explain what had happened in earlier ages, but it uses a different game system (it's on its 4th edition). The later editions of Shadowrun abandoned horror and cyberpunk because the new owners didn't buy Earthdawn, so they retooled the setting with a transhuman theme with magical flavor. They also retooled how the tech works. The rules changed to fit the theme and tech changes. Some of the developers of the later editions broke off and created Eclipse Phase, a transhuman sci-fi game (d% system on its 2nd edition - it's the best running system of anything associated with Shadowrun). Some of the developers of Earthdawn broke off and created Equinox, which continues magic in a later sci-fi age - futuristic Shadowrun (they wrote the book with the setting and how to apply it to other game systems and then wrote a book with a built-it narrative game system). For simulationists, Shadowrun is a great system, once you figure out your house rules, because every edition has problems (including with combat). Shadowrun is slower than any edition of D&D, and I've had an endless number of game sessions that were 5+ hours of combat - to the effect that the in-game time elapsed in those sessions was less than 1 minute. For newer players or modern gamers interested in Shadowrun I suggest: Play Shadowrun with the Without Number's books. The Without Numbers books use the d20 system and are quicker to run than D&D 5e. Each book is self-contained, but modular with the other books. There's one book for fantasy (Worlds Without Number), one for modern-style games - including cyberpunk (Cities Without Number), and another for sci-fi (Stars Without Number - not needed for Shadowrun). This plays like an OSR version of Shadowrun and is extremely new player friendly. WOiN (What's Old Is New) works great for Shadowrun. WOiN is like Open d6 crossed with D&D 3e plus life paths but simplified (d6 dice pool system). It's a modular system, and you'll need the books titled OLD (fantasy) and Modern (firearms, mutations, superpowers, vehicles, cyber) to make Shadowrun work. You also might need the book titled NEW (psionics, future tech, aliens, sci-fi) because rules are spread out weirdly between the books. A new printing came out and it may have changed what books you need, I haven't checked. Making a character is easier with this system than in Shadowrun, and I found that players get more invested in WOiN Shadowrun characters than in Shadowrun because of the lifepaths. The hardest part is that the magic system is free-form, so you'll need to either convert the spells over or leave it be. Depending on your playstyle, the psionics system in NEW might work better but is also much more limited. I've used this system to run just about everything. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it fits Shadowrun very well.
Man this was so spot on. I started with 3rd edition and felt like it was a full time job to try and learn the rules well enough to run it. I played a bit of it back in the day but it never really clicked with my group. Currently I run a Cyberpunk 2020 game for my wife, sister inlaw and two brothers inlaw. One of my brothers in law loved the SNES version of Shadowrun and always asks why I dont run that instead of Cyberpunk which we all love. I always say the system was more work then it was worth. I picked up 4th edition when it came out and I was not as into the wireless world as I was the old wired world with giant monitors and huge guns. I think I may have stumbled upon the same reddit thread about which system to play and 2nd popped up saying it was the most streamlined of the first 3 editions and that caught my attention. I picked up a copy and have been enjoying it thinking I might be able to run it for my family. Pouring over the book reminds me why I was obsessed with 3rd ed back in the day. Ill see how it goes in comparison to Cyberpunk with my family and hope the world is cool enough for them to get over the crunch. Great video new sub here.
Hell ya chummer! I mean in a way it’s pretty amazing we have 6 editions to choose from, and that they’re all very different ways to play. 2e just happens to be the best 😉 Happy to hear you found it too, and good luck with running it at your table! Just FYI - if you’re looking for inspiration or just more 2e goodness, you might dig our podcast or the 2e Bookclub, both on this channel!
Great video. Great breakdown, very insightful. I’ve loved the Shadowrun setting my entire life and I’ve been in the same boat. I really can’t stand the rules crunch at all. I’m going to check out 2e sometime soon, what was the issue with matrix and rigging? I can’t remember off the top of my head. Honestly I’m still brainstorming a very stripped down basic osr dnd version of Shadowrun at some point, D20 based and easy.
I'd so love to play this game or find a group that plays on the regular. But I can't find anything that isn't way overpowered in character development where inevitably one person runs the character that can do everything better , quicker and more efficiently than every other character.
To be perfectly honest, for the Shadowrun 2e game we run for our podcast we actually use 3e initiative/combat dice pool rules. I *love* the attitude 2e brings to initiative and fasts characters cutting everyone down before anyone else moves, but in practice we enjoyed 3e’s solution where: fast characters go first, then everyone else gets one turn, then the fast characters clean house with their multiple turns at the end of that phase. It’s helped round out that steep curve for unbeatable PCs.
Killer video dude. Playing in 5th feels a lot like what you are talking about. I am sure there is more crunch in 5th and some of the rules are highly questionable. But when we were setting up the game we talked with our GM about what we wanted to play and he started bringing in some of the other books based on what we wanted to do and it made the game feel so much more accomidating while you can still trim off the fat of hyper crunchy mechanics like making drugs and shit. Again awesome video. Love the vibe of understanding what players want and need in a game.
That’s awesome - kudos to your GM for working it out with you guys and making Shadowrun an enjoyable experience! Nothing makes it easier than a GM who knows the game well and can help pair it down to where it’s easy to understand! We honestly need more GM’s with that attitude and ability to help spread the glorious game of Shadowrun to new folks. Thanks for watching man, and keep kicking ass in those shadows, chummer! 🤘🏻
You've won me over on this! I was in the 3e camp - but I realised that that's only because it consolidates a lot of the expansion content from 2e (and that makes it more daunting to get into). Totally agree 2e core has the better vibe, the cooler lore, and even the rules are more simple and easier to get stuck into. Good fun. Also, most content in 1e or 3e are very transferable, so you have a HUGE trove of content and lore to draw from. It's a capital crime that it's one of the hardest editions to actually buy a PDF of!
Thank you for your thoughts. I'm a strategist, not a roll player, but I've been playing dnd with a group and one of the players, we rotate DM\GMs, is introducing us to SR 4th edition. I remember the Fasa adds for 3rd edition in my old Battltech (3rd & 4th edition) boxes but had never played it. I'll have to ask my friend his thoughts on 2e.
I bought the second edition book recently, but it was in such a bad condition. I haven't found one that is in good condition. I even found first edition in mint condition on a convention, but wanted to 2nd. I think this really supports your point which edition is the best, because everyone who played 2ed just completely wore out the book. Wish there were a digital version of it. Couldn't find one yet. Also when I played 2nd edition I was like 16 or something, I didn't read book and I had BAAD reading retention. But for some odd reason after I read through it I could actually play the game.
I've been playing Shadowrun since 1993. Second edition is near and dear to my heart. I have 1-5 and completely agree with this. I give a nod to 4th just for the wifi rules. I think my old gaming group got way too deep into 2nd and 3rd because we, at one point, new the decking and rigging rules so well it didn't slow the game down at all. Riggers are one of my fav areas to run. I've only gotten to play 5th once so i'm not really familiar with the rules. I"ve been "stuck" playing D&D 5e for years now since most people just want to play that. I'm trying to get one of my groups to actually play Shadowrun.
Im into SR1e with bits from Sr2e but yeah for sure good recommendation. I will add that Cities without number has a very good OSR Shadowrun hack not as good as SR2e but good. Im loving that there is a real Old School movement for Shadowrun happening.
Shadowrun 2nd edition is always the best to me. I’m going to admit something… I love Virtual Realities. There, now you’ve met someone who does. VR 2.0… mmm heretic! HERETIC! Loved the video!
I've not played 2E in years, but would love to play it again one day. The GM at the time made it really easy for us all one of the players being totally new to RPGs as well. For my own game I'm using 4E which once you get the core concepts down is fine, but again we started with just the corebook and then added books over time. now the game has been going three years and we're using stuff out of almost all the 4e books and having great fun with it. But we built up to that. if we had just jumped in like that right away everyone including me would have just found it WAY too much.
Truth be told, as a first time Shadowrun DM and player I've got recommended "Runners in the Dark" ruleset, and I like the simplicity of that so far. But maybe the second edition is also a way to go.
I never played Runners in the Dark, I have read the PDF tho. It’s probably simpler, but I still highly recommend 2e. Shadowrun just has a certain feel that the SR clones just can’t quite pull off IMO, and 2e has the most basic rules out of all the editions
Ahhhh, 2nd ed. The best thing about 2nd ed, was every ref book had a lovely set of character templates. They where awesome, always a character idea you'd never think of 👌
My favourites where, the, street mage, a mage with cyberware! Genius idea The ork street samurai, he had a int of 5! and talked posh. Plus what little cyberware he had was very hidden. All genius ideas that our group of 15 year olds would never have come up with. I've looked at the new source books and they've dropped those luscious pages of ideas...shame. So yes, 2nd ed I feel was the better version.
I got into Shadowrun back when it first came out because of the mix of sci-fi/fantasy and was instantly addicted to it. 2nd edition is by far the best edition all it takes is just reading the core rule book all the way through
I absolutely agree. 2nd Edition is the best overall edition of Shadowrun. I personally run 1e, but that's because I re-learned it for a convention that specializes in old games, so I figured I'd go back to where we started. But objectively, from a combination of lore and rules, Shadowrun 2nd is the best edition for the Shadowrun "feel" with smoothed out rules. 1e was, for better or worse, the purest version of the original vision, but the rules had some bumps. 2e didn't change the timeline or lore much, and managed to fix some of the glaring rules errors. My sole complaint is the way Magic was nerfed between 1e and 2e.
So Shadowrun 2e was my run in to tabletop RPG's. I was in 6th grade and I loved it (simple enough for an 11 year old to figure out) . I ran it for a few friends. Yes, I was actively playing when the new supplements would come out and was so excited. Got back into TTRPG's lately and looking to do Shadowrun again. There was a sale on 5e. 500 pages. Daunting. Thanks for letting me know that 2e is just fine. I also really loved the adventures way more than DnD 5e campaigns.
Rock on! That’s great to hear and really happy to help bring you back into the 2e shadows, chummer! If you haven’t checked out our 2e Actual Play, you might dig it! It’s also on our YT channel and on all podcast platforms - we’ve been told it reminds people of the early days playing Shadowrun 😎 Thanks again for watching!
There's three ways to fix decking in Shadowrun 2e. (1) don't try to 'fix' the bits that ain't broke - run it vanilla. (2) the GM and Decker _need_ to get together outside the regular game and run the Decker through a bunch of 'standard' mainframes. (3) if you both know that your Decker can spank Orange 4 systems, don't make them roll for Green 3. The Decker _needs_ to run into trace IC, and they need to understand that it's really bad to have their meatworld location traced. And they need to understand that bouncing their signal around a bunch of telcos in advance (see point #3) is going to pump the traceroute's target number sky-high. I know 1e had a bunch of sample systems, (I think with various trigger points when the system had a certain number of successes against the Decker?) and a map of NA and the Caribbean telcos - so that you could do that. (Not sure if 2e had something similar or all of that) Riggers are great because the player is guaranteed to have something that they lust over but which is totally unrealistic as a goal - the Panzer. Also, Riggers are super easy to accomodate because they roll a shit-ton of dice, but in a field that is very specific and very predictable. When they jump in the get-away vehicle it's the Rigger's chance to shine - and you should _want_ them to shine. In the same way that a Street Samurai is going to shine in a firefight, and a face is going to shine during the information gathering phase of the run. And the great thing about them rolling a bucket of dice is that you're practically _guaranteed_ that _something_ in there is going to be amazing. So you _can_ throw seemingly overwhelming odds at them. "You casually drive around the corner, trying not to look suspicious, and give me a perception roll everybody (then whoever rolls highest) you spot a chain-like thing lying across the road (they slam on the brakes obviously) as you do, there's a sea of red and blue lights that suddenly come on and light up the night. How many Lonestars are there? //noise of sucking in air over teeth// yeah I'd say ... pretty much all of them? It's ... a lot. (another group perception roll, highest person notices) There's two cars trying to sneak up on you and box you in. What do you do? ... etc. etc. And then at some critical moment you make the decker roll. And either they'll roll some stupidly high number like a 16 or a 30, and you can just stare at that in disgust and go "well, sheeit" (and the players get away), or you can look at the massive pile and go "you rolled enough successes to stage it up ... _TEN TIMES_?!?!?!?!?!!!!". // toss book aside like your whole night is ruined// Well _I guess_ you get away. The other thing you can have riggers do is really amazing stunts that nobody else could even dream of, but not even make them roll for it, because they're _just that good_. Don't make them roll for normal stuff, make them roll for the stuff that makes it seem like 'you've had enough of their shit' and now you're basically cheating by trying to kill them in a grossly unfair way. E.g. 'roll to dodge missile' or 'roll to avoid rocket barrage'. ---------- You can also bring home some of these points in a narrative way. E.g. I had a decker, and I offered to run him through the tutorial of how decking works but he swore he either knew it or could figure it out on the fly. And I'm like okay, cool story bro. Naturally he fails to deck into some mainframe somewhere and then I ask them where they're doing the decking from. And then a couple of minutes later I drop into the conversation that they can hear the sound of helicopters in the distance. A couple of minutes later I tell them the sound of the helicopters is getting louder. Eventually the penny drops and the Decker is like 'wait, they can't trace me can they?' and I go 'there is, in fact, a kind of IC _specifically_ for that. And then we have a frantic discussion about how the telco is itself a megacorporation, and that means that their extra-territoriality rules apply, and that means that the phone sockets _belong_ to a megacorp that _hates_ hackers with the blazing passion of a thousand fiery suns. ... whereupon the decker gets the bright idea that he was actually 'boosting' his net access from the neighbour across the street ... Old Man [________] (I forget his name), and so ... since no players will be harmed and this is a teaching moment (life is cheap, the megacorps are not your friends), they hear the whoosh of a rocket and Old Man [_____]'s house or apartment or whatever explodes in a mid-sized fireball. ---------- Same thing with Mages. Everyone who comes to Shadowrun from D&D is like 'wait, I can get fireball at 'level 1'???? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Fear me foolish mortals!!!!!' ... and then they fail their drain roll and die. I had one guy who thought he was the cleverest in the room do this three times (different characters). Drain bad. Fireball bad unless you can soak the drain. Also, you can't soak the drain (as a starting character). Put 200 points of karma into the character and then let's revisit that. Same guy (different Mage) thought it would be a genius move to treat body as a dump-stat. Problem was, they went on a wilderness adventure, they 'forgot' to guard the Mages body while he was astral whatevering and they ended up taking a deadly wound (or whatever puts you in a coma). So now he needs to roll 10 on _two_ dice to heal down to a serious wound and stop being .... luggage ... and he's only got _one_ dice to roll. Kind of hard. So he burns all the party karma, and (entirely unsurprisingly) utterly fails to get like the 1 in 200 chance to recover. D'oh!!!
Hi, I've played 2nd edition long time ago, I mastered at Anarchy several times and now I'm masterizing at 3rd. The rules are good but it's dense (not complicated).
🤘🏻🤘🏻null sweat, chummer! There is so much creative freedom in Shadowrun magic, 90% of them are “can you see them? Then you can hit them!” - balanced of course by, “think you’ll be able to withstand the drain from a spell that powerful?
i started with 5e, and have just started playing 6e. i love crunch almost as much as i love neatly designed, tight systems, but i'm also a very hardcore ttrpg nerd and like reading tons of books very closely just for fun. this, of course, doesn't work for most other people so i came here to see what i might go for if i ever was trying to introduce shadowrun to a new table.
gotta say though, the extra sourcebooks for 6e kinda suck so far. i haven't read street wyrd but the rigger and combat books are very meh and the companion book is only ok. kinda pissed me off
regardless of any of that though, i should really read the older books just to get a feel for them :) thanks for the video and the more historical lens of why shadowrun developed the way it did!
@@orinking8064 thanks for watching! And yes I highly recommend checking older editions out - the biggest problem I see with current editions of Shadowrun (hell even 3e), is the assumption that readers already have an understanding of what Shadowrun is and how it works. 2e core really does consider new players and makes an effort to keep things as simple as possible, but also gives rules (chunky salsa anyone?) for when you want to get deeper into the weeds
I’m so guilty of that thing you said at the beginning 😂 I may not go with 2e but your points are really well taken. I GM and I think honestly there’s no substitute or book to read that will equal a real well thought out session zero. Read as best you can, liberal house rules. No matter the system, my players and I are going to get some stuff wrong. Nobody knows the answer in 30 seconds? Boom, GM discretion. Just stay in role and read up on it later. I hate when something that’s supposed to be fun ends up becoming a UN Security Council meeting.
I’m on the rope on this one, I came into the game learning second edition. Gotta to agree it’s a solid book with the best cover. With that said I liked that third gave you all that other stuff.
I've been introduced to SR with the 5th Edition and really fell in love with the game, eventhough the Core Rulebook hast some weaknesses and you definetly have to play a couple of encounters to get the rules flowing. I currently bought all of the 6th Edition books and am looking forward to playtest it.
I started on 2e, and it was amazing! Got me and my friends (all of us still love Shadowrun to this day) and we transitioned into 3e. It was pretty great, but was an easy move from already knowing 2e. Then we got 4e and kinda stopped playing. It was ok, but we all went our own ways in life. Had kids of my own. Played 5e with my son. Had a blast... But it was very complicated and we just made up rules or ignored rules as we needed to Then 6e hit and all I saw was it was a dumpster fire. I may get Anarchy though. Because I own a ton of 5e stuff.
I’m not going to tell you that you are wrong, you nailed it with take the different archetypes in Shadowrun a few at a time, you don’t have to explore all the settings narratives at once. Much love for saying that. As a relatively new player (after having a session 0 from hell with 4e and not trying again for a few years) who had fallen in love with the magical dystopian setting of Shadowrun through novels I found in the library in the late 1990s but found almost no groups to play D&D with let alone other games growing up: 6e has been freaking great to get into and finally had more chance to play by hooking up with other players and GMs from all around the world through a Shadowrun 6e LC called RunnerNET
I’m gonna tell you what no one seems to have the balls to on Reddit: I’m glad 6e exists. I’ve heard very good things since the recent (and much-needed) errata, and I’m really happy there is a self-contained edition that newcomers feel they can get their heads around. I’ll admit that I still haven’t checked 6e out, it didn’t exist when I was delving into the Shadowrun TTRPG and it seemed everything Shadowrun was a convoluted crunchy mess. The saying “in order to learn Shadowrun, one must first be an expert at Shadowrun” comes to mind 😣. It was real. But it seemed folks had forgotten about the edition that existed *before* all the mess started - and once I found it I have never looked back. Bottom line: I just want people to play Shadowrun, I don’t care how or what edition - crunchy or not crunchy, theater of the mind or battle maps… I don’t care. From experience I can say 2e debunks the “all of Shadowrun is too hard” argument, and from hearsay it sounds like 6e does that too. And that is just wiz, chummer. That’s wiz as hell.
All of this aside, you buried the lede on that HAT. I mean, I have the Jack Burton shirt (obviously) but the Nostromo HAT?! Mad respect. Also SR4A-4-Life…everyone else is having fun wrong (seriously though love you guys)
Hell yeah brother!! Space truckin’ and running these shadows everyday, my man! SR 4A….. TECHNICALLY old school Shadowrun still I GUESS… 😂 No worries man, Shadowrun is Shadowrun and I just love to see people keeping it alive! 🤘🏻
If y'all want a cleaner, more tight version of SR, check out Sinless. It's a cleaned up, slightly modernized version of the FASA rules. Sort of a semi-retroclone of 2e. It's really solid, I'm a big fan. Personally, I've been looking at porting my Shadowrun stuff to Cities Without Number. It's the first version of ANY Cyberpunk game where the hacking rules didn't feel like a fucking threat. Like, I look at this game and think, "Oh shit, I might actually play a Decker at some point."
I just got my copy of Cities Without Number. Holy crap, it's nice. Even if you don't want to run Shadowrun with a B/X engine, all the tables for random mission and sprawl generation are going to be worth the purchase.
What you're describing with 3e adding sourcebook material to the detriment of the core rulebook is exactly what you see in a lot of RPGs from that era. You saw the same in West End's Star Wars RPG 2e and GURPS 4e (and to a lesser extent 3e). The books just become this unwieldy mess for newcomers and usually become poor reference guides, too. They're better than having to flip through multiple books, but they are not examples of prime rules organization.
I just listened to the episode you joined on shadowrunning on empty and while looking up what edition should I run your the first person I stumble upon AND this video was amazing to help me choose. Also I have run second edition since I was a kid since it was my dads and I loved it ever since.
Oh awesome! So glad you were able to find us, and happy the video helped! If you’re into 80s ridiculousness, I recommend our actual play which is also on our UA-cam channel as well as in podcast form on all platforms 🤘🏻 Thanks again for watching - and happy running in your 2e adventures as well chummer!
@@PinkFohawk just started listening to it and this is the shadow run that I’m into! I remember as a kid making the craziest shit happen and having that wacky 80s feel because all I knew was the torn up ducted tape book of second E that I had. Loving your guy’s show!! Oh and I wanted to ask if I had fanart where can I send that
@@AngeloAnderson646 alright!!! So happy to hear you’re digging it man! We’re having a blast and are working to get Season 2 going soon, so there will be more! Oh man - you’ve got fan art for us?? 😍 we have a Pink Fohawk subreddit and a Discord if you want join? Folks have sent stuff they made to those platforms and we try to pin it for the world to see 🤘🏻
I was going to write an angry retort about how wrong you were. I loved 3rd ed! But! I played 1st-3rd, so 3rd was a big improvement for all the reasons you mentioned; it rolled it all into one book. If someone's starting out, 2nd probably is best, then they can add the books they want or move to 3rd if they want that same streamlining.
Haha I totally get it man! The passion for this game is hard to contain 😂 Thanks for the comment, and thanks for listening all the way through to see that we agree 🤘🏻 I actually run 2e with 3e houserules for initiative and dice pools, so I’m not too far off from 3e proper!
I’m definitely partial to Blades in the Dark, but before that I played the CRPGs of shadow run and love the setting! I have been thinking about whether to get the Sprawl thanks to Friends at the Table’s Podcast, but now I feel empowered to look into Shadow Run 2e!
Hey, everyone has their own idea of what works best! I’m glad there are alternatives out there for folks who have given Shadowrun a fair shake and have decided to try it a different way - I just really get bugged by the people who say “every edition is way too hard” when they’ve only ever played 5e and maybe dabbled in 4e or 3e. Thanks for watching and happy to hear this helped, if even just a little! I really just hope to encourage people that Shadowrun isn’t the boogeyman everyone has made it out to be over the years, you can do it!
EDIT - sorry realized you’re talking about 3rd printing of 2e. I’m not entirely sure the difference in printings, but as long as you have 3rd printing or later then you are working with the most up-to-date rules. Later printings may have corrected typos or misspellings but the rules weren’t changed. The biggest thing to lookout for is in the 2e hardcover, which had mistakes in the full auto and recoil rules. ----- I would say 3e is great if you want the whole collection of rules, but while I they refined a few things I liked, I wouldn’t call it more refined overall. Just my opinion tho! Shadowrun has this problem many times where they go to fix something and wind up “fixing” bunch of things that don’t need fixed, then wind up adding a bunch of stuff that didn’t need added 😂
Second edition was my first ttrpg. I love it so much. I would say the one thing 2e does 100% better than 3e was threat ratings. As a GM keeping track of of dice pools for every NPC is a book keeping nightmare. Threat ratings are so much simpler and let the GM tweak NPC power levels quickly and easily. The initiative change is kinda meh, don't really like one version over the other. 3e does do some combat rules better though, like making using combat pool for defense its own step instead of having to roll the combat pool and Body dice together and keep track of which ones were from the combat pool. Overall I'd pick 2e over 3e, but I'm not sure if that's just my nostalgia or not.
My issues with Shadowrun is that it felt like a square peg in a round hole. It really strived hard for realism in a very clunky rules system. Netrunning felt like a completely seperate game, which resulted in party split. 6e really did fix this while breaking others.
@@jaysw9585 IMO, 3e and on were the editions that strived for realism, especially 4e. The game was written (1e & 2e) to feel cinematic, the drama of all those dice hitting the table, re-rolling 6’s - it was all meant to feel like a bullet hell scene from Hard Boiled or some action movie. The moment they strived for simulationist rules, it became something else other than SR. I agree about matrix tho, it’s tough to run. But later editions trying to run it like a real computer system made things worse IMHO. It should feel like a fever dream, like astral space but in a computer to nail that Neuromancer vibe. I was reading Virtual Realities for 1e recently, there’s a lot more explanation on when to skip things and when to get granular - the rules from VR1e made it into 2e core but the explanation was trimmed which is a bummer. Thanks for the comment! Appreciate the debate!
Thanks for your video. As a fellow idiot, I started with 3rd edition and ran a few games in my youth but now as an old man coming from 5e DnD in the last decade the rules seems very complicated, overly complicated, which lead me down this rabbit hole of which version is best. Turns out, everyone hates everything (laugh).
Idiots unite!! 🤘🏻🤘🏻 I’m glad I could help! I went through the same exact torture and really just hoping to end the cycle of disappointment. 2e is soooo much simpler, but it takes discipline to keep it that way!! The splat books are all so amazing they’ll tempt you to add more shit to your game…and then you’re in the same boat again 😂 Good luck with your future runs, my man!
I have 2e, 3e, and 4e, and 2e really does feel the most approachable to read. Obviously it's the one I haven't played yet! Hopefully one day I'll fix that, although I've only really got the splat books for 3e and 4e. Also I recently started listening to the podcast, and I'm loving it!
Oh nice! Thanks so much for listening!! Yeah, somewhere along the line (3e 😉) they stopped focusing on bringing newbies into the game, and focused more on adding more complexity for Shadowrun fans that already understood the game. That’s my opinion anyway! Hope you get a chance to play it one day, chummer! Thanks again!
@@PinkFohawk I was introduced to Shadowrun with 3e by a friend who had been playing for years. He knew how everything worked, and had no problems fitting it all together, but it made it difficult for me when everything else was in play. Many years later another friend ran a 3e campaign, but it was so loose that it was much easier to get into, and I suspect he could have just used the 2e corebook instead and we wouldn't have spotted the difference.
@@spacelem It could have been 2e! Honestly though, any edition can be run fairly loose if the GM knows what they’re doing and where to trim - but I love that 2e core goes that route from the get-go. Except for Matrix of course 😅, but I’ve almost got a system worked out that I like and will share once I’ve played it a few times.
Fresh sub here just kuz of this vid, interested in hearing your thoughts on Lowlife 2090 since it seems to be one of very few alternatives to Shadowrun, it is class based though.
Don't forget to consider the back story. SR2 is much easier to get into, because there is much less crazy s**t happening, at least in a basic game. Just using the basic rules, you start before the insect spirit influx, toxic mages/shamans are not in the picture, the matrix belongs to Deckers (no otakus or technomancers in sight), no comet aftermath with it's magic spikes and shapeshifters, no playable rogue AI or free spirits and that is just the stuff that affects the rules. Then there is no Dunkelzahn aftermath, no dragons' war, no tempo crisis etc. I know there is a lot more i left out, but I am only current to Sr4 and don't hassle myself too much with Canon.
Very true. The lore is basically no different than 1e core. In fact, I don’t think they changed it at all except for changing the year from 2050 to 2053. Much, much easier to grok what’s going on as opposed to trying to absorb an extra 30 years of spiraling nonsensical lore 😂
Well this is awkward. I haven't played shadowrun in over 20 ish years. I didnt know they made editions past the second. So all my shadow run boooks are second edition. just sitting on my book shelf. I may just crack them open for nostalga
The first time I ever played shadowrun was that one weird shooter game on Xbox or whatever it was, then I played shadowrun returns around the time that came out and I thought it was way cooler than the shooter game, and then the first time I ever played the ttrpg was 6th world, and boy I’m loving this system so much compared to any other game I’ve ever played, except maybe Savage Worlds. I think those two are my go-to systems, might try the older editions of shadowrun someday though, my old man’s gotten me into the setting and now I can’t stop thinking about it!
There isn’t another game like it, for sure. I think you’d dig 2e if you like the SR Returns games since it’s set in the same timeline - but stoked to hear you’re enjoying 6e!
@@PinkFohawk been playing 6e for a few years now and my two favorite characters are my Troll Decker named Dot, and a human rigger named Nomad and they’ve both been a blast to play in their respective campaigns! One thing I love about 6e is that there’s a lot of options for things to do in combat than just “I shoot/stab this guy” compared to dnd, so iv been gravitating away from dnd to savage worlds and shadowrun because they’re more Freeform in character generation as well as just playing the game in general. I’ll certainly probe my father for insight on 2e sometime, I can’t remember which edition he enjoyed personally but I know it was either 2e, 3e or 4e, one of those three. Right now I’m playing Shadowrun Hong Kong actually, and in between level load times I’m watching snippets of your video.
I play the heck out of Shadowrun back before there were editions and stopped buying books when the brought out Physical Adepts because I thought they jumped the shark at that point. Eventually popped back in during the transition from 4th to 5th probably as a combination of Shadowrun Returns nostalgia and there was 4th edition in the 1st edition timeline thing that came out that tweeked my interest... anyway bounced of both 4th and 5th as needlessly complicated and way too full of trap builds and stupid OP builds that would make the game unfun. Took a peek at 6th which seemed like it had good intentions but shipped half baked and kind of a mess. I think I might take a peek at core 2nd to see what I think - I do wish somebody would convert the really clean Shadowrun Returns rules for a table top game that would probably hit a nice sweet spot
My first RPG was Shadow 2E when it just came out and only 1E source were out. Been playing it for 30+ years. 4e has the best Decker and net rule, but they are chrunchy. I any was get stuck play the Mage as I was that understood the system for magic. The system is basicly the same with a few tweeks up till 5e. They tride to streamline the rules but hurt the feel of the game. 1e set the basic rule with a few silly Ideas (Trolls have one point of Vehical Armor) 2E cut out the silliness and focused more on lore. 3e first major try at give player more character options, made the damage system easier. 4E cleaned up the Net and Hacking/ Rigger rule to the best they have ever been. 5e tried to streamline and be more Video Game like, Net rule suck big time. 6E basicly 5e but with trying a play it forword narative system for gain bonuses but made it clunky for older players, but beter Net rules. I would sugest 2e with 3e damage system and character options, 4E net rules. Fasa era is best, Catalystok is ok. The is great all way though. Maybe not the whole Immortal Elve argument, the are they or are they not, see the Harlequin story line. Sorry for Grammer and spell errors.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I for one do love SR4. (although I have to admit that that is also the edition i started with long ago, so i may be a tad biased) What I particularly cherish is the absolute creative freedom you have in character creation - which is also the principal reason why I did not bother with SR5: I loved the build-point system and the basically limitless creative freedom it offered, whereas the priority-approach of SR5 just turned me off hard. Sure, SR4 has its issues (technomancer-balancing predominantly) and a few odd stylistic choices (hacking with commlinks?), but those are minor hiccups at best. As a matter of fact the group i am currently running is comprised of two complete SR-novices and one veteran. Yes, character creation took a while. But once that was out of the way, all of them are having a blast. And little by little i am immersing them deeper in the lore, hinting at various events that have once happened. Some of them a very long time ago indeed.
This is the way chummer🦾 No matter what edition, it’s all Shadowrun. If your table is digging it, then you are doing things right 🤘🏻🤘🏻 If you ever do decide to give 2e a go down the line, it does have point-buy chargen rules in the Shadowrun Companion.
@@PinkFohawk Glad to hear SR2 also has something akin to build-points. But before I can get more books I need to find a new place to live where i actually have the room for them ;-) I just prefer physical books over PDFs. But since you are playing SR2, I think you may be familiar with the (formerly canonical) link to the Earthdawn setting (Earthdawn 1st edition to be exact). And this link is something I elected to revive for my campaign - and something my players may get to explore a bit deeper down the line. Helped by the fact that one of their team's contacts is a professor for archaeology. Initially he was introduced just as part of a side-gig, but as is so often the case, seemingly inconsequential encounters may get a whole lot more meaning down the line. Let's just say this professor is a lot older than he is letting on ;-)
@@ranekeisenkralle8265 100% with you on physical books, I can’t stand PDFs and only use if I’m at work or away from my books and just need to look up a quick rule for discussion. And yes, I LOVE the Earthdawn connection - although I haven’t ever played it and only know the surface-level lore. Pretty awesome that you’re incorporating it!
@@PinkFohawk To be fair, I never played it either, and getting the pertinent books is a bit of a PITA, but I am doing what I can - and thankfully i still have ample time till my players get to that stage. I just have the basics and from there flesh things out as i see fit - in part playing into the misconceptions resulting from the Atlantis-mythos. So far some of the characters may have a hunch as to what level of "oh drek!" they are dealing with when the free spirit they encountered called his 'liege' the "Last of the Magi" Especially the one character capable of assensing that spirit. Let's just say the otherwise rough-and-tumble pirate was ..rather disconcerted with what he saw. And i can hardly blame him. A force-14 free guardian-spirit is no joke whatsoever.
I played 5e and HATED anarchy. I tried to like it but it felt so incomplete and cyber ware as edges or whatever they’re called. I saw a lot of recommendations for 3e and 4e. I ended up using savage worlds for new players to the world. Doesn’t 2e hardwire all tech no Wi-Fi or cell phone tech
Ive been exposed to shadowrun via shadowrun returns and tried the old shadowrun games (nintendo and sega, not sure which old console tho) but i also somehow got a free supplemental book from dtrpg for shadowrun 5e. I find it funny the shadowrun reddit didnt say "play cyberpunk instead". Although i might try a shadowrun hack that uses a d20 and see how it goes. Can't afford drek in this economy. Sadly i cant follow your advice since i have a bias for riggers and deckers.
Hey man, as long as you’re playing Shadowrun, I am happy 😂 I personally love 2e the best, and it certainly has rules for deckers and riggers (VR 2.0 and Rigger 2 respectively, each sourcebooks that got rolled into 3e) - but I really recommend it for newbies that want an easier time learning. Folks that want more crunch can move straight to 3e - 5e.
2. Ed is the easiest but it's to powergamie (A friend had a streetsam that could run Mach 1 and i had a mage that could hunt dragons and sink warships) . I think 3. Ed is the best.
I have only played 4th edition, and the character creation hits you in the face like a brick wall. Would have given up if not for the priority system in the Runner's Companion.
Yeah, priority system was the default way back before that. It’s pretty telling too, they were leaning further and further into die-hard crunch-loving fans with each new edition, and forgot to keep things simple for newcomers.
I tried to learn how to play shadowrun with 5e, it didn't go well i'll may give it 2e a try again. I just wish i wasn't the eternal DM of the group on all the TTRPG we play -__-
I tried *several* times to learn over the years before falling upon 2e. It totally made it easier for me to figure the system out due to its leanness and it’s newbie-minded approach (it was still a brand new franchise when it was written). I say give it a shot!
It really is! And yeah - I really tried with Anarchy but you really have to be familiar with and/or love the 5e ruleset to get into it. When 2e was written, you can tell they were keeping new people in mind, but I believe every edition since was written for those already playing Shadowrun.
Roll20 has Shadowrun 2e character sheets and the dice roller can be set to exploding dice/variable TN! I don’t love Roll20, but it did help us at least get a game off the ground. Now we use Discord and run theater of the mind with physical dice
I've been running Shadowrun since 2nd editon came out (92?) and I completely disagree. 4eA with PACKS is the easiest for new players. 2e has the friggin spirit rules across multiple chapters! Go ahead lookup how to have a mundane fight a spirit... (ill give you a hint its hand to hand combat using willpower) The reason people say 3e is the layout is way better for finding rules. Then you also also have everyone gets to go on the first round of combat rather than wait wait wait for the street sam to finish. There is also more internal consistency in 3e like having the magic pool come off the attributes rather than 2e spell casting where its your force plus your skill to make your die pool. And how long do you spend buying gear if you take resources A or B? 4eA still has a couple flaws and the point build without PACKS is terrible for new players but with PACKS and the cheat sheets its super easy to pickup. Well for a Shadowrun game... The only reason your game seems easy is your not having magic or matrix which are both complex in the 2e core rules.
You know what? You've sold me. I've wanted to play Shadowrun for a long time, and I've accumulated ebook collections of 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th from bundles on HB and BoH. I've read most of the core of 5th on a few occasions but always walked away feeling like I didn't know how basic functions really progressed even after re-reading sections, and the "more on this later" style was everywhere and in everything. I tried 6th but it felt like it had full on copy pasted sections, especially with lore and contacts. I only lasted a few pages of 1st at the time but enjoyed The Universal Brotherhood. I'm going to give 2nd a genuine read, and if I like it, see if I can rustle any other fresh players together to explore it together.
Hell yeah! Glad to hear this helped, I really think you’ll find it much simpler to read and understand. 2e has a simple core mechanic that started with 1e but they streamlined it quite a bit, it unifies the whole system. Once you have combat down, you can play anything else in the game. Character creation in 2e is a fucking blast, it’s my favorite among any game system BUT it’s not super easy to learn right away. It took me looking it up a bit to understand how it works, and once I did I fell in love with it. I plan to make some tutorial vids soon for 2e, but in the meantime if you’re reading and feel like you would like a quick, concise breakdown, @RPGGamer has an excellent 2e Rules Breakdown: ua-cam.com/video/4YvNLITv1vk/v-deo.html Happy running my man! 🤘🏻
I do prefer 3rd ed, because I can teach players easier, and I can houserule it a lot easier, due its internal consistency (Riggers aside. Good grief maneouvre score is irritatingly abstract). But 2nd ed is my first love, for sure. Hated everything from 4th onwards, I just don't like the tgt#5 system.
Love it! I know tons of people who swear by 4e - I personally wouldn’t say it’s the easiest edition to learn but it’s definitely got hardcore fans. Whatever keeps us all running the shadows chummer! 🤘🏻
I can't say you're wrong about 2e, but it is written for an audience that existed 30 years ago. For all 6e's foibles at launch, I don't think anything works better today with gamers used to playing D&D 5e or Alien or Altered Carbon and other modern games.... than the updated 6e.
You may very well be right that 2e could feel antiquated by the standards of most modern players, but I will stand by the point that "too hard" is not a fair criticism. If they said, "I tried it and it felt too old", well I wouldn't be able to argue with that 😆 My biggest gripe is I see so many people say "ALL the editions are too cumbersome and convoluted" and that only tells me they never played 2e core. I just hope more people give it a shot. 2e can be called a lot of things, but "too hard" isn't one of them IMO.
@@PinkFohawk There's absolutely a market for the "Rolemaster-like" RPGs out there. If crunch couldn't satisfy, Pathfinder wouldn't be as successful as it is.
I come from only reading the books and never even seen the game in real life and played DnD once back in 1993ish. The learning curve is probably a little steep.
I tried but I just couldn’t keep the salt off 😆 In all honestly I LOVE that new folks are coming to Shadowrun and curious about where to start. The frustration comes in that Shadowrun doesn’t make that easy for them - and the full-on anger in when a vocal group of people in the forums that seem to try talking people out of playing it. Drives me NUTS! Anyway, thanks for watching chummer 🤘🏻 Happy running!
I think 5e is the best edition. it's not the simplest but I think best edition. I love crunch. and hell no, anarchy is nothing like 5th. you play Anarchy if you hate 5th. Anarchy is for the people who think 5E is too crunchy.
More power to you! I know lots of crunch-loving chummers who agree - they are super happy with 5e. But I hear so often folks lamenting that Shadowrun is impossible to learn, and most people think there are no simpler alternatives in the official pipeline. Meanwhile, 2e is sitting right there. And I hear what you’re saying about Anarchy, but my point is that the problem with it is that it assumes you know 5e already. I wish people would stop recommending it to newcomers because it isn’t a complete game, it requires you to first know 5e - and once you do then the book makes sense because it throws half of it out. Anyway, thanks for the comment my man - and keep running those shadows!
I bought and played every edition from 1-4 as they were published, a friend bought me 5, and you're 100% right. 2 is the best. I liked 3 as well, but 2 is better. I say this as another angry ginger.
What made third good was going to it from second and already used to the advanced rules in the sourcebooks. It was written for people who were already playing.
First edition was wonderful but had huge gaps and bad rules that forced people to create house rules just so some parts could function.
Us angry gingers have to stick together! Totally agree - 3e is a great edition to play once you know the game and want to bring all the extra stuff to the table. I didn’t touch on tone in this video, but I also think 2e is the winner there as well 😊
Thanks for watching!
Correct! 👏👏👏if you had never learned 2e then 3 would have been impossible. It was super complicated to me and I had run 2e weekly for over 5 years!? (Man I’m old 😄)
I’ve had both the first and second edition books on my shelf for a couple years now, picked up cheap at a secondhand bookstore. It’s daunting, but I’m finally getting around to it, and as I’m making plans to try 2nd, I see this video. It’s perfect. Thank you!
@@PinkFohawk I can't believe UA-cam didn't notify me of this reply forever ago! Thank you. I also agree about tone.
I used my imagination, and I gotta say the production quality and special effects in this video are off the charts.
Thank you! Between your imagination and me talking in front of a camera, nothing can stop us! 😆
No "idiot" has a painting of Peter Venkman on his wall, my friend. Arguably one of the bravest heroes in all of supernatural fiction, and I stand by that. Dude talks to ghosts and demi-gods like he's at an airport bar.
Ah, you are a man of impeccable taste, I see.
Dr. Venkman was my hero and was extremely influential in my formative childhood years due to all the reasons you just mentioned.
The Jack Burton shirt is pretty rad too🤘
About a year back, I got an assload of Shaodwrun 5e books from humble bundle. I have a tight group of friends that all run their own D&D5e games and since we started I've wanted to bring that kinda Tech-Fantasy twist, but the wordings of SR5e just kept me grinding to a halt. This video has rekindled my interest and I've already downloaded a PDF of 2E, more hopeful than ever to try something old, but new. Thank you so much!!
0:33 r/Shadowrun summed up pretty perfectly.
😂
Yeah, I literally lol'd at this.
ua-cam.com/users/shorts1vcMi7Mi2KQ?feature=share 🎉
Haven't played Shadowrun in about 25 years. I have so much affection for that game. This encourages me to finally play again with the rulebook I played with back then.
Fuck yeah! That’s great to hear - it’s been great to see Shadowrun veterans come back this game decades later, it’s a great game and a great edition 🤘🏻
I enjoyed 3. 4 is good. 5 complicated 4 unnecessarily. 6 will not be bought because I don't want it to infect the rest of my collection.
I personally love 4E, especially with Chummer. I even put the work in to tke the Rigger rules from 1E through 3E and shove them into 4E. So now my Minotaur Go Ganger has an infinitie amount of options to tweak out his motorcycle and the APC. It started as a simple project to give the APC a ramp like the Spy Hunter truck, but it ended up as a pretty clean matrix to tack on whatever.
God I love Shadowrun, it's such a weird setting.
Another 4E person! Greetings!
I've always described 3rd ed as 2nd ed with a decade of playtesting backing it up. I see your point, they really did try and cram everything that was introduced over the course of 2nd ed's run into the start of 3rd ed.
the thing i miss most from 2nd ed was the initiative rules. it feels so right in the setting that a street sam, wired up to the max should be able to take a pair of ingram smartguns and mow down and entire biker gang before their turns on initiative. (yes the penalties will get pretty insane, but 10S damage will make many reconsider if they want to keep fighting, and all it takes is 1 success to land that)
PErsonally my favorite edition has become 4th ed. the dice pool change just feels good to me.
5th tried to bolt a bunch of shit onto 4th (limits, accuracy, wireless bonuses)
4th was my first and I have like, all the books for it. I'm about to run another game for the first time after many many years. I'm still probably gonna run 4e but I'm always up to hear other people's opinions on things like this
Shadowrun is a great game. Good setting. I started with 1st, played 2nd, skipped 3rd, played a little 4th, some 5th and recently bought 6th. Its not as bad as it was when it launched with companion and street wyrd. I like *every* edition of SW. Some stuff never changes, Matrix runs always takes too long, Magic is always complicated, etc. But I will admit I houserule a lot of stuff in every game. For example ... I don't use Edge at all like it was outlined in 6e. I use my own system for how Edge works. But I mean I also create my grunt/mooks/what have you on index cards for the game. We also follow the house rule of "I think it works this way, so it works this way and we will look it up later. Write it on an index card and I will look them up later."
Great video, applicable to some other games as well. When tell me older editions are bad I remember "if it was unplayable, it probably wouldn't have got another edition."
I like your podcasts approach of introducing the more completed stuff thru NPCs.
Agreed - unfortunately there just isn't a lot of info on why they are playable, so a lot of newcomers get steered completely away from them. Hopefully we can help even out the scales! Thanks for watching!
I will definitely look into second edition. Thanks for the video!
Your concession to SR3 is why it’s my preferred Shadowrun. I want all of that in my game, and I want all the enhanced core parts collected and refined in one place.
I will state this caveat though. If a player wants to play a magician, rigger, or decker, they have to read and understand their chapters, gear, and abilities. Otherwise, they have to play something else and let the GM fill those roles with ally NPCs and likely abstracted play on the GM’s part.
However, SR2 is more evocative - in its art/aesthetic, verbal style, ideas, and maturity. That’s great though since those all port over to SR3 easily because they go into the heart of the player/GM.
For funzies, I actually just started running a small single-player campaign. First time I've ever GM'd anything. I basically just took the story of "The Dead Man's Switch" (minus the Brotherhood) because, love or hate it, it's a great way to introduce someone to the world... and it's single player, and for my first GM, I can remember and call up the main story when needed, without railroading.
Rules-wise, I modded quite a bit... It's basically a Frankenstein's monster of 1e, 2e, and the videogame mechanics. In fact, I could honestly say I've "cracked the code" (at least roughly 70% of the code) for those people looking to play out the Hairbrained videogames on a tabletop. I won't go into all the details here, but so far it works for me, it works for my player, it is a great amalgamation of mechanics while keeping the dice rolls and chance, and it's fun. VERY simplified.
As far as lore goes, I've been learning everything in order from the first edition, and the more I find out, the more I fall in love with the Sixth World. If and when I join a Shadowrun group on reddit (I tried the official forums, but got no reply) and AFTER I have covered all of my rule changes and any issues that arise, I will post a master list of every mod and adaptation, for any who are curious.
...and yes, for all the issues I had with 1e rules at the start, pretty much all of them were fixed and simplified in 2e.
I'm an old hand with Shadowrun. I own and play every edition up through 5e. Shadowrun's greatest asset is its setting, and deciding which setting you're getting into will determine what edition you are playing. The FASA editions (1-3) had horror attached to magic, which played off the cyberpunk themes. Earthdawn was a crossover setting from FASA Shadowrun to help explain what had happened in earlier ages, but it uses a different game system (it's on its 4th edition). The later editions of Shadowrun abandoned horror and cyberpunk because the new owners didn't buy Earthdawn, so they retooled the setting with a transhuman theme with magical flavor. They also retooled how the tech works. The rules changed to fit the theme and tech changes. Some of the developers of the later editions broke off and created Eclipse Phase, a transhuman sci-fi game (d% system on its 2nd edition - it's the best running system of anything associated with Shadowrun). Some of the developers of Earthdawn broke off and created Equinox, which continues magic in a later sci-fi age - futuristic Shadowrun (they wrote the book with the setting and how to apply it to other game systems and then wrote a book with a built-it narrative game system).
For simulationists, Shadowrun is a great system, once you figure out your house rules, because every edition has problems (including with combat). Shadowrun is slower than any edition of D&D, and I've had an endless number of game sessions that were 5+ hours of combat - to the effect that the in-game time elapsed in those sessions was less than 1 minute.
For newer players or modern gamers interested in Shadowrun I suggest:
Play Shadowrun with the Without Number's books. The Without Numbers books use the d20 system and are quicker to run than D&D 5e. Each book is self-contained, but modular with the other books. There's one book for fantasy (Worlds Without Number), one for modern-style games - including cyberpunk (Cities Without Number), and another for sci-fi (Stars Without Number - not needed for Shadowrun). This plays like an OSR version of Shadowrun and is extremely new player friendly.
WOiN (What's Old Is New) works great for Shadowrun. WOiN is like Open d6 crossed with D&D 3e plus life paths but simplified (d6 dice pool system). It's a modular system, and you'll need the books titled OLD (fantasy) and Modern (firearms, mutations, superpowers, vehicles, cyber) to make Shadowrun work. You also might need the book titled NEW (psionics, future tech, aliens, sci-fi) because rules are spread out weirdly between the books. A new printing came out and it may have changed what books you need, I haven't checked. Making a character is easier with this system than in Shadowrun, and I found that players get more invested in WOiN Shadowrun characters than in Shadowrun because of the lifepaths. The hardest part is that the magic system is free-form, so you'll need to either convert the spells over or leave it be. Depending on your playstyle, the psionics system in NEW might work better but is also much more limited. I've used this system to run just about everything. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it fits Shadowrun very well.
Man this was so spot on. I started with 3rd edition and felt like it was a full time job to try and learn the rules well enough to run it. I played a bit of it back in the day but it never really clicked with my group. Currently I run a Cyberpunk 2020 game for my wife, sister inlaw and two brothers inlaw. One of my brothers in law loved the SNES version of Shadowrun and always asks why I dont run that instead of Cyberpunk which we all love. I always say the system was more work then it was worth. I picked up 4th edition when it came out and I was not as into the wireless world as I was the old wired world with giant monitors and huge guns. I think I may have stumbled upon the same reddit thread about which system to play and 2nd popped up saying it was the most streamlined of the first 3 editions and that caught my attention. I picked up a copy and have been enjoying it thinking I might be able to run it for my family. Pouring over the book reminds me why I was obsessed with 3rd ed back in the day. Ill see how it goes in comparison to Cyberpunk with my family and hope the world is cool enough for them to get over the crunch. Great video new sub here.
Hell ya chummer!
I mean in a way it’s pretty amazing we have 6 editions to choose from, and that they’re all very different ways to play. 2e just happens to be the best 😉
Happy to hear you found it too, and good luck with running it at your table!
Just FYI - if you’re looking for inspiration or just more 2e goodness, you might dig our podcast or the 2e Bookclub, both on this channel!
@@PinkFohawk really enjoying the book club and the podcast thanks for all of the content!
You just said what I've been saying so much more eloquently. Spot on with the critique of 3rd edition
🤝 You and me? We're gonna turn the tide, my man!
Great video. Great breakdown, very insightful. I’ve loved the Shadowrun setting my entire life and I’ve been in the same boat. I really can’t stand the rules crunch at all.
I’m going to check out 2e sometime soon, what was the issue with matrix and rigging? I can’t remember off the top of my head.
Honestly I’m still brainstorming a very stripped down basic osr dnd version of Shadowrun at some point, D20 based and easy.
I'd so love to play this game or find a group that plays on the regular. But I can't find anything that isn't way overpowered in character development where inevitably one person runs the character that can do everything better , quicker and more efficiently than every other character.
To be perfectly honest, for the Shadowrun 2e game we run for our podcast we actually use 3e initiative/combat dice pool rules.
I *love* the attitude 2e brings to initiative and fasts characters cutting everyone down before anyone else moves, but in practice we enjoyed 3e’s solution where: fast characters go first, then everyone else gets one turn, then the fast characters clean house with their multiple turns at the end of that phase.
It’s helped round out that steep curve for unbeatable PCs.
Killer video dude. Playing in 5th feels a lot like what you are talking about. I am sure there is more crunch in 5th and some of the rules are highly questionable. But when we were setting up the game we talked with our GM about what we wanted to play and he started bringing in some of the other books based on what we wanted to do and it made the game feel so much more accomidating while you can still trim off the fat of hyper crunchy mechanics like making drugs and shit.
Again awesome video. Love the vibe of understanding what players want and need in a game.
That’s awesome - kudos to your GM for working it out with you guys and making Shadowrun an enjoyable experience! Nothing makes it easier than a GM who knows the game well and can help pair it down to where it’s easy to understand! We honestly need more GM’s with that attitude and ability to help spread the glorious game of Shadowrun to new folks.
Thanks for watching man, and keep
kicking ass in those shadows, chummer! 🤘🏻
You've won me over on this!
I was in the 3e camp - but I realised that that's only because it consolidates a lot of the expansion content from 2e (and that makes it more daunting to get into). Totally agree 2e core has the better vibe, the cooler lore, and even the rules are more simple and easier to get stuck into. Good fun. Also, most content in 1e or 3e are very transferable, so you have a HUGE trove of content and lore to draw from.
It's a capital crime that it's one of the hardest editions to actually buy a PDF of!
Thank you for your thoughts. I'm a strategist, not a roll player, but I've been playing dnd with a group and one of the players, we rotate DM\GMs, is introducing us to SR 4th edition. I remember the Fasa adds for 3rd edition in my old Battltech (3rd & 4th edition) boxes but had never played it. I'll have to ask my friend his thoughts on 2e.
I bought the second edition book recently, but it was in such a bad condition. I haven't found one that is in good condition. I even found first edition in mint condition on a convention, but wanted to 2nd. I think this really supports your point which edition is the best, because everyone who played 2ed just completely wore out the book. Wish there were a digital version of it. Couldn't find one yet. Also when I played 2nd edition I was like 16 or something, I didn't read book and I had BAAD reading retention. But for some odd reason after I read through it I could actually play the game.
I've been playing Shadowrun since 1993. Second edition is near and dear to my heart. I have 1-5 and completely agree with this. I give a nod to 4th just for the wifi rules. I think my old gaming group got way too deep into 2nd and 3rd because we, at one point, new the decking and rigging rules so well it didn't slow the game down at all. Riggers are one of my fav areas to run. I've only gotten to play 5th once so i'm not really familiar with the rules. I"ve been "stuck" playing D&D 5e for years now since most people just want to play that. I'm trying to get one of my groups to actually play Shadowrun.
Open second edition and get ready to crush some bones.
Honestly I had only play 5th, but second sounds awesome after listening your podcast
Hell ya! Thanks Rachel 🦾
Im into SR1e with bits from Sr2e but yeah for sure good recommendation. I will add that Cities without number has a very good OSR Shadowrun hack not as good as SR2e but good. Im loving that there is a real Old School movement for Shadowrun happening.
Shadowrun 2nd edition is always the best to me. I’m going to admit something… I love Virtual Realities. There, now you’ve met someone who does. VR 2.0… mmm heretic! HERETIC! Loved the video!
Second edtion is fun unless you play a decker, but we need something entry-like Anarchy. What are your thoughts on Sixth Edition?
I've not played 2E in years, but would love to play it again one day. The GM at the time made it really easy for us all one of the players being totally new to RPGs as well.
For my own game I'm using 4E which once you get the core concepts down is fine, but again we started with just the corebook and then added books over time. now the game has been going three years and we're using stuff out of almost all the 4e books and having great fun with it. But we built up to that. if we had just jumped in like that right away everyone including me would have just found it WAY too much.
Truth be told, as a first time Shadowrun DM and player I've got recommended "Runners in the Dark" ruleset, and I like the simplicity of that so far. But maybe the second edition is also a way to go.
I never played Runners in the Dark, I have read the PDF tho. It’s probably simpler, but I still highly recommend 2e. Shadowrun just has a certain feel that the SR clones just can’t quite pull off IMO, and 2e has the most basic rules out of all the editions
Ahhhh, 2nd ed. The best thing about 2nd ed, was every ref book had a lovely set of character templates. They where awesome, always a character idea you'd never think of 👌
My favourites where, the,
street mage, a mage with cyberware! Genius idea
The ork street samurai, he had a int of 5! and talked posh. Plus what little cyberware he had was very hidden.
All genius ideas that our group of 15 year olds would never have come up with. I've looked at the new source books and they've dropped those luscious pages of ideas...shame.
So yes, 2nd ed I feel was the better version.
I got into Shadowrun back when it first came out because of the mix of sci-fi/fantasy and was instantly addicted to it.
2nd edition is by far the best edition all it takes is just reading the core rule book all the way through
1000% my man 🤝
Thanks for watching, chummer!
I absolutely agree. 2nd Edition is the best overall edition of Shadowrun. I personally run 1e, but that's because I re-learned it for a convention that specializes in old games, so I figured I'd go back to where we started. But objectively, from a combination of lore and rules, Shadowrun 2nd is the best edition for the Shadowrun "feel" with smoothed out rules. 1e was, for better or worse, the purest version of the original vision, but the rules had some bumps. 2e didn't change the timeline or lore much, and managed to fix some of the glaring rules errors. My sole complaint is the way Magic was nerfed between 1e and 2e.
Pretty good editing for a small channel
I wish more people played shadowrun so people like this guy could get more attention, ngl
Thanks man! I wish more people played more Shadowrun too because it’s awesome 😎
So Shadowrun 2e was my run in to tabletop RPG's. I was in 6th grade and I loved it (simple enough for an 11 year old to figure out) . I ran it for a few friends. Yes, I was actively playing when the new supplements would come out and was so excited. Got back into TTRPG's lately and looking to do Shadowrun again. There was a sale on 5e. 500 pages. Daunting. Thanks for letting me know that 2e is just fine. I also really loved the adventures way more than DnD 5e campaigns.
Rock on! That’s great to hear and really happy to help bring you back into the 2e shadows, chummer!
If you haven’t checked out our 2e Actual Play, you might dig it! It’s also on our YT channel and on all podcast platforms - we’ve been told it reminds people of the early days playing Shadowrun 😎
Thanks again for watching!
There's three ways to fix decking in Shadowrun 2e.
(1) don't try to 'fix' the bits that ain't broke - run it vanilla.
(2) the GM and Decker _need_ to get together outside the regular game and run the Decker through a bunch of 'standard' mainframes.
(3) if you both know that your Decker can spank Orange 4 systems, don't make them roll for Green 3.
The Decker _needs_ to run into trace IC, and they need to understand that it's really bad to have their meatworld location traced. And they need to understand that bouncing their signal around a bunch of telcos in advance (see point #3) is going to pump the traceroute's target number sky-high.
I know 1e had a bunch of sample systems, (I think with various trigger points when the system had a certain number of successes against the Decker?) and a map of NA and the Caribbean telcos - so that you could do that. (Not sure if 2e had something similar or all of that)
Riggers are great because the player is guaranteed to have something that they lust over but which is totally unrealistic as a goal - the Panzer. Also, Riggers are super easy to accomodate because they roll a shit-ton of dice, but in a field that is very specific and very predictable. When they jump in the get-away vehicle it's the Rigger's chance to shine - and you should _want_ them to shine. In the same way that a Street Samurai is going to shine in a firefight, and a face is going to shine during the information gathering phase of the run.
And the great thing about them rolling a bucket of dice is that you're practically _guaranteed_ that _something_ in there is going to be amazing. So you _can_ throw seemingly overwhelming odds at them. "You casually drive around the corner, trying not to look suspicious, and give me a perception roll everybody (then whoever rolls highest) you spot a chain-like thing lying across the road (they slam on the brakes obviously) as you do, there's a sea of red and blue lights that suddenly come on and light up the night. How many Lonestars are there? //noise of sucking in air over teeth// yeah I'd say ... pretty much all of them? It's ... a lot. (another group perception roll, highest person notices) There's two cars trying to sneak up on you and box you in. What do you do?
... etc. etc. And then at some critical moment you make the decker roll. And either they'll roll some stupidly high number like a 16 or a 30, and you can just stare at that in disgust and go "well, sheeit" (and the players get away), or you can look at the massive pile and go "you rolled enough successes to stage it up ... _TEN TIMES_?!?!?!?!?!!!!". // toss book aside like your whole night is ruined// Well _I guess_ you get away.
The other thing you can have riggers do is really amazing stunts that nobody else could even dream of, but not even make them roll for it, because they're _just that good_. Don't make them roll for normal stuff, make them roll for the stuff that makes it seem like 'you've had enough of their shit' and now you're basically cheating by trying to kill them in a grossly unfair way. E.g. 'roll to dodge missile' or 'roll to avoid rocket barrage'.
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You can also bring home some of these points in a narrative way. E.g. I had a decker, and I offered to run him through the tutorial of how decking works but he swore he either knew it or could figure it out on the fly. And I'm like okay, cool story bro. Naturally he fails to deck into some mainframe somewhere and then I ask them where they're doing the decking from. And then a couple of minutes later I drop into the conversation that they can hear the sound of helicopters in the distance. A couple of minutes later I tell them the sound of the helicopters is getting louder. Eventually the penny drops and the Decker is like 'wait, they can't trace me can they?' and I go 'there is, in fact, a kind of IC _specifically_ for that. And then we have a frantic discussion about how the telco is itself a megacorporation, and that means that their extra-territoriality rules apply, and that means that the phone sockets _belong_ to a megacorp that _hates_ hackers with the blazing passion of a thousand fiery suns.
... whereupon the decker gets the bright idea that he was actually 'boosting' his net access from the neighbour across the street ... Old Man [________] (I forget his name), and so ... since no players will be harmed and this is a teaching moment (life is cheap, the megacorps are not your friends), they hear the whoosh of a rocket and Old Man [_____]'s house or apartment or whatever explodes in a mid-sized fireball.
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Same thing with Mages. Everyone who comes to Shadowrun from D&D is like 'wait, I can get fireball at 'level 1'???? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Fear me foolish mortals!!!!!' ... and then they fail their drain roll and die. I had one guy who thought he was the cleverest in the room do this three times (different characters). Drain bad. Fireball bad unless you can soak the drain. Also, you can't soak the drain (as a starting character). Put 200 points of karma into the character and then let's revisit that.
Same guy (different Mage) thought it would be a genius move to treat body as a dump-stat. Problem was, they went on a wilderness adventure, they 'forgot' to guard the Mages body while he was astral whatevering and they ended up taking a deadly wound (or whatever puts you in a coma). So now he needs to roll 10 on _two_ dice to heal down to a serious wound and stop being .... luggage ... and he's only got _one_ dice to roll. Kind of hard. So he burns all the party karma, and (entirely unsurprisingly) utterly fails to get like the 1 in 200 chance to recover. D'oh!!!
Hi, I've played 2nd edition long time ago, I mastered at Anarchy several times and now I'm masterizing at 3rd. The rules are good but it's dense (not complicated).
I needed this after a DnD 5e session with overly prescriptive spell rules. Thanks for a path back to the 90s glory!
🤘🏻🤘🏻null sweat, chummer!
There is so much creative freedom in Shadowrun magic, 90% of them are “can you see them? Then you can hit them!” - balanced of course by, “think you’ll be able to withstand the drain from a spell that powerful?
i started with 5e, and have just started playing 6e. i love crunch almost as much as i love neatly designed, tight systems, but i'm also a very hardcore ttrpg nerd and like reading tons of books very closely just for fun. this, of course, doesn't work for most other people so i came here to see what i might go for if i ever was trying to introduce shadowrun to a new table.
gotta say though, the extra sourcebooks for 6e kinda suck so far. i haven't read street wyrd but the rigger and combat books are very meh and the companion book is only ok. kinda pissed me off
regardless of any of that though, i should really read the older books just to get a feel for them :) thanks for the video and the more historical lens of why shadowrun developed the way it did!
@@orinking8064 thanks for watching! And yes I highly recommend checking older editions out - the biggest problem I see with current editions of Shadowrun (hell even 3e), is the assumption that readers already have an understanding of what Shadowrun is and how it works.
2e core really does consider new players and makes an effort to keep things as simple as possible, but also gives rules (chunky salsa anyone?) for when you want to get deeper into the weeds
Shadowrun!! Been playing shadowrun 2016. Started with 5th. Rigger and shaman are favorite archetypes.
I’m so guilty of that thing you said at the beginning 😂
I may not go with 2e but your points are really well taken.
I GM and I think honestly there’s no substitute or book to read that will equal a real well thought out session zero. Read as best you can, liberal house rules.
No matter the system, my players and I are going to get some stuff wrong. Nobody knows the answer in 30 seconds? Boom, GM discretion. Just stay in role and read up on it later. I hate when something that’s supposed to be fun ends up becoming a UN Security Council meeting.
I’m on the rope on this one, I came into the game learning second edition. Gotta to agree it’s a solid book with the best cover. With that said I liked that third gave you all that other stuff.
I've been introduced to SR with the 5th Edition and really fell in love with the game, eventhough the Core Rulebook hast some weaknesses and you definetly have to play a couple of encounters to get the rules flowing. I currently bought all of the 6th Edition books and am looking forward to playtest it.
I started on 2e, and it was amazing! Got me and my friends (all of us still love Shadowrun to this day) and we transitioned into 3e. It was pretty great, but was an easy move from already knowing 2e. Then we got 4e and kinda stopped playing. It was ok, but we all went our own ways in life.
Had kids of my own. Played 5e with my son. Had a blast... But it was very complicated and we just made up rules or ignored rules as we needed to
Then 6e hit and all I saw was it was a dumpster fire.
I may get Anarchy though. Because I own a ton of 5e stuff.
Man, you saved me from dropping coin on Anarchy! Thanks :)
I’m not going to tell you that you are wrong, you nailed it with take the different archetypes in Shadowrun a few at a time, you don’t have to explore all the settings narratives at once. Much love for saying that.
As a relatively new player (after having a session 0 from hell with 4e and not trying again for a few years) who had fallen in love with the magical dystopian setting of Shadowrun through novels I found in the library in the late 1990s but found almost no groups to play D&D with let alone other games growing up:
6e has been freaking great to get into and finally had more chance to play by hooking up with other players and GMs from all around the world through a Shadowrun 6e LC called RunnerNET
I’m gonna tell you what no one seems to have the balls to on Reddit: I’m glad 6e exists. I’ve heard very good things since the recent (and much-needed) errata, and I’m really happy there is a self-contained edition that newcomers feel they can get their heads around.
I’ll admit that I still haven’t checked 6e out, it didn’t exist when I was delving into the Shadowrun TTRPG and it seemed everything Shadowrun was a convoluted crunchy mess. The saying “in order to learn Shadowrun, one must first be an expert at Shadowrun” comes to mind 😣. It was real.
But it seemed folks had forgotten about the edition that existed *before* all the mess started - and once I found it I have never looked back.
Bottom line: I just want people to play Shadowrun, I don’t care how or what edition - crunchy or not crunchy, theater of the mind or battle maps… I don’t care. From experience I can say 2e debunks the “all of Shadowrun is too hard” argument, and from hearsay it sounds like 6e does that too.
And that is just wiz, chummer. That’s wiz as hell.
All of this aside, you buried the lede on that HAT. I mean, I have the Jack Burton shirt (obviously) but the Nostromo HAT?! Mad respect. Also SR4A-4-Life…everyone else is having fun wrong (seriously though love you guys)
Hell yeah brother!! Space truckin’ and running these shadows everyday, my man!
SR 4A….. TECHNICALLY old school Shadowrun still I GUESS… 😂
No worries man, Shadowrun is Shadowrun and I just love to see people keeping it alive! 🤘🏻
I'm old....I've only storyteller 2nd when it first came out. It blew my receding hairline back when I seen they had new edition.
If y'all want a cleaner, more tight version of SR, check out Sinless. It's a cleaned up, slightly modernized version of the FASA rules. Sort of a semi-retroclone of 2e. It's really solid, I'm a big fan.
Personally, I've been looking at porting my Shadowrun stuff to Cities Without Number. It's the first version of ANY Cyberpunk game where the hacking rules didn't feel like a fucking threat. Like, I look at this game and think, "Oh shit, I might actually play a Decker at some point."
I just got my copy of Cities Without Number. Holy crap, it's nice. Even if you don't want to run Shadowrun with a B/X engine, all the tables for random mission and sprawl generation are going to be worth the purchase.
@@TheOldDragoon I haven't picked up a physical copy, but I've been running one shots with the the playtest rules. Really fun.
What you're describing with 3e adding sourcebook material to the detriment of the core rulebook is exactly what you see in a lot of RPGs from that era. You saw the same in West End's Star Wars RPG 2e and GURPS 4e (and to a lesser extent 3e). The books just become this unwieldy mess for newcomers and usually become poor reference guides, too. They're better than having to flip through multiple books, but they are not examples of prime rules organization.
11:51 "You wouln't start playing d&d as a 10th level mage"
My first character was an epic 3e half-fiend doppelganger rogue, ecl in the mid 20s
@@DemoboyOot oh damn! I should have said “I wouldn’t” haha - more power to ya man! I was overwhelmed the first time I was learning 3.5
I just listened to the episode you joined on shadowrunning on empty and while looking up what edition should I run your the first person I stumble upon AND this video was amazing to help me choose. Also I have run second edition since I was a kid since it was my dads and I loved it ever since.
Oh awesome! So glad you were able to find us, and happy the video helped!
If you’re into 80s ridiculousness, I recommend our actual play which is also on our UA-cam channel as well as in podcast form on all platforms 🤘🏻
Thanks again for watching - and happy running in your 2e adventures as well chummer!
@@PinkFohawk just started listening to it and this is the shadow run that I’m into! I remember as a kid making the craziest shit happen and having that wacky 80s feel because all I knew was the torn up ducted tape book of second E that I had. Loving your guy’s show!! Oh and I wanted to ask if I had fanart where can I send that
@@AngeloAnderson646 alright!!! So happy to hear you’re digging it man! We’re having a blast and are working to get Season 2 going soon, so there will be more!
Oh man - you’ve got fan art for us?? 😍 we have a Pink Fohawk subreddit and a Discord if you want join? Folks have sent stuff they made to those platforms and we try to pin it for the world to see 🤘🏻
I really like 6th
I was going to write an angry retort about how wrong you were. I loved 3rd ed!
But!
I played 1st-3rd, so 3rd was a big improvement for all the reasons you mentioned; it rolled it all into one book. If someone's starting out, 2nd probably is best, then they can add the books they want or move to 3rd if they want that same streamlining.
Haha I totally get it man! The passion for this game is hard to contain 😂
Thanks for the comment, and thanks for listening all the way through to see that we agree 🤘🏻
I actually run 2e with 3e houserules for initiative and dice pools, so I’m not too far off from 3e proper!
I’m definitely partial to Blades in the Dark, but before that I played the CRPGs of shadow run and love the setting! I have been thinking about whether to get the Sprawl thanks to Friends at the Table’s Podcast, but now I feel empowered to look into Shadow Run 2e!
Hey, everyone has their own idea of what works best! I’m glad there are alternatives out there for folks who have given Shadowrun a fair shake and have decided to try it a different way - I just really get bugged by the people who say “every edition is way too hard” when they’ve only ever played 5e and maybe dabbled in 4e or 3e.
Thanks for watching and happy to hear this helped, if even just a little! I really just hope to encourage people that Shadowrun isn’t the boogeyman everyone has made it out to be over the years, you can do it!
What about the book shadowrun 3rd revised? Does that actually get you refined second edition?
EDIT - sorry realized you’re talking about 3rd printing of 2e. I’m not entirely sure the difference in printings, but as long as you have 3rd printing or later then you are working with the most up-to-date rules. Later printings may have corrected typos or misspellings but the rules weren’t changed.
The biggest thing to lookout for is in the 2e hardcover, which had mistakes in the full auto and recoil rules.
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I would say 3e is great if you want the whole collection of rules, but while I they refined a few things I liked, I wouldn’t call it more refined overall. Just my opinion tho!
Shadowrun has this problem many times where they go to fix something and wind up “fixing” bunch of things that don’t need fixed, then wind up adding a bunch of stuff that didn’t need added 😂
Second edition was my first ttrpg. I love it so much. I would say the one thing 2e does 100% better than 3e was threat ratings. As a GM keeping track of of dice pools for every NPC is a book keeping nightmare. Threat ratings are so much simpler and let the GM tweak NPC power levels quickly and easily. The initiative change is kinda meh, don't really like one version over the other. 3e does do some combat rules better though, like making using combat pool for defense its own step instead of having to roll the combat pool and Body dice together and keep track of which ones were from the combat pool.
Overall I'd pick 2e over 3e, but I'm not sure if that's just my nostalgia or not.
@@Jimalcoatl Yes! Threat ratings make combat so much simpler, and make it super easy to scale encounters on the fly.
My issues with Shadowrun is that it felt like a square peg in a round hole. It really strived hard for realism in a very clunky rules system.
Netrunning felt like a completely seperate game, which resulted in party split. 6e really did fix this while breaking others.
@@jaysw9585 IMO, 3e and on were the editions that strived for realism, especially 4e.
The game was written (1e & 2e) to feel cinematic, the drama of all those dice hitting the table, re-rolling 6’s - it was all meant to feel like a bullet hell scene from Hard Boiled or some action movie. The moment they strived for simulationist rules, it became something else other than SR.
I agree about matrix tho, it’s tough to run. But later editions trying to run it like a real computer system made things worse IMHO. It should feel like a fever dream, like astral space but in a computer to nail that Neuromancer vibe. I was reading Virtual Realities for 1e recently, there’s a lot more explanation on when to skip things and when to get granular - the rules from VR1e made it into 2e core but the explanation was trimmed which is a bummer.
Thanks for the comment! Appreciate the debate!
You're right, 2e is the easiest core book to get into it. I'd say the Anarchy rules are easier, but that thing isn't a complete game on it's own.
I have ChatGPT running a game for me. I love every version.
Thanks for your video. As a fellow idiot, I started with 3rd edition and ran a few games in my youth but now as an old man coming from 5e DnD in the last decade the rules seems very complicated, overly complicated, which lead me down this rabbit hole of which version is best. Turns out, everyone hates everything (laugh).
Idiots unite!! 🤘🏻🤘🏻
I’m glad I could help! I went through the same exact torture and really just hoping to end the cycle of disappointment. 2e is soooo much simpler, but it takes discipline to keep it that way!! The splat books are all so amazing they’ll tempt you to add more shit to your game…and then you’re in the same boat again 😂
Good luck with your future runs, my man!
Last time I had fun playing Shadowrun was 2nd edition.
I have 2e, 3e, and 4e, and 2e really does feel the most approachable to read. Obviously it's the one I haven't played yet! Hopefully one day I'll fix that, although I've only really got the splat books for 3e and 4e.
Also I recently started listening to the podcast, and I'm loving it!
Oh nice! Thanks so much for listening!!
Yeah, somewhere along the line (3e 😉) they stopped focusing on bringing newbies into the game, and focused more on adding more complexity for Shadowrun fans that already understood the game. That’s my opinion anyway!
Hope you get a chance to play it one day, chummer! Thanks again!
@@PinkFohawk I was introduced to Shadowrun with 3e by a friend who had been playing for years. He knew how everything worked, and had no problems fitting it all together, but it made it difficult for me when everything else was in play. Many years later another friend ran a 3e campaign, but it was so loose that it was much easier to get into, and I suspect he could have just used the 2e corebook instead and we wouldn't have spotted the difference.
@@spacelem It could have been 2e!
Honestly though, any edition can be run fairly loose if the GM knows what they’re doing and where to trim - but I love that 2e core goes that route from the get-go. Except for Matrix of course 😅, but I’ve almost got a system worked out that I like and will share once I’ve played it a few times.
Fresh sub here just kuz of this vid, interested in hearing your thoughts on Lowlife 2090 since it seems to be one of very few alternatives to Shadowrun, it is class based though.
Had 2nd ed since it came out. Still love it the best
Don't forget to consider the back story. SR2 is much easier to get into, because there is much less crazy s**t happening, at least in a basic game. Just using the basic rules, you start before the insect spirit influx, toxic mages/shamans are not in the picture, the matrix belongs to Deckers (no otakus or technomancers in sight), no comet aftermath with it's magic spikes and shapeshifters, no playable rogue AI or free spirits and that is just the stuff that affects the rules. Then there is no Dunkelzahn aftermath, no dragons' war, no tempo crisis etc. I know there is a lot more i left out, but I am only current to Sr4 and don't hassle myself too much with Canon.
Very true. The lore is basically no different than 1e core. In fact, I don’t think they changed it at all except for changing the year from 2050 to 2053.
Much, much easier to grok what’s going on as opposed to trying to absorb an extra 30 years of spiraling nonsensical lore 😂
Shadowrun Anarchy is a good start for newbs
...but it's not for everyone
Please cover SINLESS. It's like an OSR game for Shadowrun 1E-3E
Well this is awkward. I haven't played shadowrun in over 20 ish years. I didnt know they made editions past the second. So all my shadow run boooks are second edition. just sitting on my book shelf. I may just crack them open for nostalga
You were a rich man and didn’t even know it! 😂
Enjoy chummer!
The first time I ever played shadowrun was that one weird shooter game on Xbox or whatever it was, then I played shadowrun returns around the time that came out and I thought it was way cooler than the shooter game, and then the first time I ever played the ttrpg was 6th world, and boy I’m loving this system so much compared to any other game I’ve ever played, except maybe Savage Worlds. I think those two are my go-to systems, might try the older editions of shadowrun someday though, my old man’s gotten me into the setting and now I can’t stop thinking about it!
There isn’t another game like it, for sure. I think you’d dig 2e if you like the SR Returns games since it’s set in the same timeline - but stoked to hear you’re enjoying 6e!
@@PinkFohawk been playing 6e for a few years now and my two favorite characters are my Troll Decker named Dot, and a human rigger named Nomad and they’ve both been a blast to play in their respective campaigns! One thing I love about 6e is that there’s a lot of options for things to do in combat than just “I shoot/stab this guy” compared to dnd, so iv been gravitating away from dnd to savage worlds and shadowrun because they’re more Freeform in character generation as well as just playing the game in general. I’ll certainly probe my father for insight on 2e sometime, I can’t remember which edition he enjoyed personally but I know it was either 2e, 3e or 4e, one of those three. Right now I’m playing Shadowrun Hong Kong actually, and in between level load times I’m watching snippets of your video.
I play the heck out of Shadowrun back before there were editions and stopped buying books when the brought out Physical Adepts because I thought they jumped the shark at that point. Eventually popped back in during the transition from 4th to 5th probably as a combination of Shadowrun Returns nostalgia and there was 4th edition in the 1st edition timeline thing that came out that tweeked my interest... anyway bounced of both 4th and 5th as needlessly complicated and way too full of trap builds and stupid OP builds that would make the game unfun. Took a peek at 6th which seemed like it had good intentions but shipped half baked and kind of a mess. I think I might take a peek at core 2nd to see what I think - I do wish somebody would convert the really clean Shadowrun Returns rules for a table top game that would probably hit a nice sweet spot
My first RPG was Shadow 2E when it just came out and only 1E source were out. Been playing it for 30+ years. 4e has the best Decker and net rule, but they are chrunchy. I any was get stuck play the Mage as I was that understood the system for magic. The system is basicly the same with a few tweeks up till 5e. They tride to streamline the rules but hurt the feel of the game. 1e set the basic rule with a few silly Ideas (Trolls have one point of Vehical Armor) 2E cut out the silliness and focused more on lore. 3e first major try at give player more character options, made the damage system easier. 4E cleaned up the Net and Hacking/ Rigger rule to the best they have ever been. 5e tried to streamline and be more Video Game like, Net rule suck big time. 6E basicly 5e but with trying a play it forword narative system for gain bonuses but made it clunky for older players, but beter Net rules. I would sugest 2e with 3e damage system and character options, 4E net rules. Fasa era is best, Catalystok is ok. The is great all way though. Maybe not the whole Immortal Elve argument, the are they or are they not, see the Harlequin story line.
Sorry for Grammer and spell errors.
Well, this sucks. I only have the 4E and 6E rulebooks in digital format.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I for one do love SR4. (although I have to admit that that is also the edition i started with long ago, so i may be a tad biased) What I particularly cherish is the absolute creative freedom you have in character creation - which is also the principal reason why I did not bother with SR5: I loved the build-point system and the basically limitless creative freedom it offered, whereas the priority-approach of SR5 just turned me off hard. Sure, SR4 has its issues (technomancer-balancing predominantly) and a few odd stylistic choices (hacking with commlinks?), but those are minor hiccups at best.
As a matter of fact the group i am currently running is comprised of two complete SR-novices and one veteran. Yes, character creation took a while. But once that was out of the way, all of them are having a blast. And little by little i am immersing them deeper in the lore, hinting at various events that have once happened. Some of them a very long time ago indeed.
This is the way chummer🦾
No matter what edition, it’s all Shadowrun. If your table is digging it, then you are doing things right 🤘🏻🤘🏻
If you ever do decide to give 2e a go down the line, it does have point-buy chargen rules in the Shadowrun Companion.
@@PinkFohawk Glad to hear SR2 also has something akin to build-points. But before I can get more books I need to find a new place to live where i actually have the room for them ;-) I just prefer physical books over PDFs.
But since you are playing SR2, I think you may be familiar with the (formerly canonical) link to the Earthdawn setting (Earthdawn 1st edition to be exact). And this link is something I elected to revive for my campaign - and something my players may get to explore a bit deeper down the line. Helped by the fact that one of their team's contacts is a professor for archaeology. Initially he was introduced just as part of a side-gig, but as is so often the case, seemingly inconsequential encounters may get a whole lot more meaning down the line. Let's just say this professor is a lot older than he is letting on ;-)
@@ranekeisenkralle8265 100% with you on physical books, I can’t stand PDFs and only use if I’m at work or away from my books and just need to look up a quick rule for discussion.
And yes, I LOVE the Earthdawn connection - although I haven’t ever played it and only know the surface-level lore. Pretty awesome that you’re incorporating it!
@@PinkFohawk To be fair, I never played it either, and getting the pertinent books is a bit of a PITA, but I am doing what I can - and thankfully i still have ample time till my players get to that stage. I just have the basics and from there flesh things out as i see fit - in part playing into the misconceptions resulting from the Atlantis-mythos. So far some of the characters may have a hunch as to what level of "oh drek!" they are dealing with when the free spirit they encountered called his 'liege' the "Last of the Magi" Especially the one character capable of assensing that spirit. Let's just say the otherwise rough-and-tumble pirate was ..rather disconcerted with what he saw. And i can hardly blame him. A force-14 free guardian-spirit is no joke whatsoever.
Thank you, yes! 4E is the best.
2nd was the best and my favorite. Till 3rd came out. I like skills lol
I played 5e and HATED anarchy. I tried to like it but it felt so incomplete and cyber ware as edges or whatever they’re called. I saw a lot of recommendations for 3e and 4e. I ended up using savage worlds for new players to the world.
Doesn’t 2e hardwire all tech no Wi-Fi or cell phone tech
Ive been exposed to shadowrun via shadowrun returns and tried the old shadowrun games (nintendo and sega, not sure which old console tho) but i also somehow got a free supplemental book from dtrpg for shadowrun 5e.
I find it funny the shadowrun reddit didnt say "play cyberpunk instead". Although i might try a shadowrun hack that uses a d20 and see how it goes. Can't afford drek in this economy.
Sadly i cant follow your advice since i have a bias for riggers and deckers.
Hey man, as long as you’re playing Shadowrun, I am happy 😂
I personally love 2e the best, and it certainly has rules for deckers and riggers (VR 2.0 and Rigger 2 respectively, each sourcebooks that got rolled into 3e) - but I really recommend it for newbies that want an easier time learning. Folks that want more crunch can move straight to 3e - 5e.
funny and insightful video. i look forward to giving 2nd edition a shot.
Glad I could help! Let me know what you think once you’ve given it a try!
Thanks for watching!
We still play 3rd Ed every month!
2. Ed is the easiest but it's to powergamie (A friend had a streetsam that could run Mach 1 and i had a mage that could hunt dragons and sink warships) . I think 3. Ed is the best.
Oh,also,you not know how to UA-cam but you hafe great sound,which is so fucking important.
🙏🏻 thanks man! If you haven’t checked out our Actual Play yet, we play 2e and you might dig it! We’ve got a playlist on the YT channel 🦾
I have only played 4th edition, and the character creation hits you in the face like a brick wall. Would have given up if not for the priority system in the Runner's Companion.
Yeah, priority system was the default way back before that.
It’s pretty telling too, they were leaning further and further into die-hard crunch-loving fans with each new edition, and forgot to keep things simple for newcomers.
I tried to learn how to play shadowrun with 5e, it didn't go well i'll may give it 2e a try again.
I just wish i wasn't the eternal DM of the group on all the TTRPG we play -__-
I tried *several* times to learn over the years before falling upon 2e. It totally made it easier for me to figure the system out due to its leanness and it’s newbie-minded approach (it was still a brand new franchise when it was written).
I say give it a shot!
And people hate 6E for getting rid of all that crunch.
Just Fill out a Character Sheet and Wing it. corpos, Johnsons. we got it. shoot shoot bang bang
Before watching this i would say Shadowrun Anarchy for the easiest but i always thought 2E was simple chummer.
It really is! And yeah - I really tried with Anarchy but you really have to be familiar with and/or love the 5e ruleset to get into it.
When 2e was written, you can tell they were keeping new people in mind, but I believe every edition since was written for those already playing Shadowrun.
I played 1st e. I am just returning now with 6e. I am not digging it. All I want is my 1e back. But there's no VTTs that have 1e support.
Roll20 has Shadowrun 2e character sheets and the dice roller can be set to exploding dice/variable TN!
I don’t love Roll20, but it did help us at least get a game off the ground. Now we use Discord and run theater of the mind with physical dice
I've been running Shadowrun since 2nd editon came out (92?) and I completely disagree. 4eA with PACKS is the easiest for new players. 2e has the friggin spirit rules across multiple chapters! Go ahead lookup how to have a mundane fight a spirit... (ill give you a hint its hand to hand combat using willpower) The reason people say 3e is the layout is way better for finding rules. Then you also also have everyone gets to go on the first round of combat rather than wait wait wait for the street sam to finish. There is also more internal consistency in 3e like having the magic pool come off the attributes rather than 2e spell casting where its your force plus your skill to make your die pool. And how long do you spend buying gear if you take resources A or B? 4eA still has a couple flaws and the point build without PACKS is terrible for new players but with PACKS and the cheat sheets its super easy to pickup. Well for a Shadowrun game... The only reason your game seems easy is your not having magic or matrix which are both complex in the 2e core rules.
You know what? You've sold me.
I've wanted to play Shadowrun for a long time, and I've accumulated ebook collections of 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th from bundles on HB and BoH. I've read most of the core of 5th on a few occasions but always walked away feeling like I didn't know how basic functions really progressed even after re-reading sections, and the "more on this later" style was everywhere and in everything. I tried 6th but it felt like it had full on copy pasted sections, especially with lore and contacts. I only lasted a few pages of 1st at the time but enjoyed The Universal Brotherhood. I'm going to give 2nd a genuine read, and if I like it, see if I can rustle any other fresh players together to explore it together.
Hell yeah! Glad to hear this helped, I really think you’ll find it much simpler to read and understand.
2e has a simple core mechanic that started with 1e but they streamlined it quite a bit, it unifies the whole system. Once you have combat down, you can play anything else in the game.
Character creation in 2e is a fucking blast, it’s my favorite among any game system BUT it’s not super easy to learn right away. It took me looking it up a bit to understand how it works, and once I did I fell in love with it.
I plan to make some tutorial vids soon for 2e, but in the meantime if you’re reading and feel like you would like a quick, concise breakdown, @RPGGamer has an excellent 2e Rules Breakdown:
ua-cam.com/video/4YvNLITv1vk/v-deo.html
Happy running my man! 🤘🏻
5e is supported on foundry vtt. So that's the one
of the editions I have played to me 4th is the best
I do prefer 3rd ed, because I can teach players easier, and I can houserule it a lot easier, due its internal consistency (Riggers aside. Good grief maneouvre score is irritatingly abstract). But 2nd ed is my first love, for sure. Hated everything from 4th onwards, I just don't like the tgt#5 system.
4th Edition. Hands down. I'm still on 4E.
Love it! I know tons of people who swear by 4e - I personally wouldn’t say it’s the easiest edition to learn but it’s definitely got hardcore fans.
Whatever keeps us all running the shadows chummer! 🤘🏻
I can't say you're wrong about 2e, but it is written for an audience that existed 30 years ago. For all 6e's foibles at launch, I don't think anything works better today with gamers used to playing D&D 5e or Alien or Altered Carbon and other modern games.... than the updated 6e.
You may very well be right that 2e could feel antiquated by the standards of most modern players, but I will stand by the point that "too hard" is not a fair criticism. If they said, "I tried it and it felt too old", well I wouldn't be able to argue with that 😆
My biggest gripe is I see so many people say "ALL the editions are too cumbersome and convoluted" and that only tells me they never played 2e core. I just hope more people give it a shot. 2e can be called a lot of things, but "too hard" isn't one of them IMO.
@@PinkFohawk There's absolutely a market for the "Rolemaster-like" RPGs out there. If crunch couldn't satisfy, Pathfinder wouldn't be as successful as it is.
Of course Catalyst publishes a product without the rules in it. Peak CGL.
I come from only reading the books and never even seen the game in real life and played DnD once back in 1993ish. The learning curve is probably a little steep.
I love and still play 4th honestly, the previous version were awesome but 5th and 6th... No thank you
The veginning was a little too accurate lol😅
I tried but I just couldn’t keep the salt off 😆
In all honestly I LOVE that new folks are coming to Shadowrun and curious about where to start. The frustration comes in that Shadowrun doesn’t make that easy for them - and the full-on anger in when a vocal group of people in the forums that seem to try talking people out of playing it. Drives me NUTS!
Anyway, thanks for watching chummer 🤘🏻 Happy running!
Instant sub & Like ♥ty
🫶
I think 5e is the best edition. it's not the simplest but I think best edition. I love crunch. and hell no, anarchy is nothing like 5th. you play Anarchy if you hate 5th. Anarchy is for the people who think 5E is too crunchy.
More power to you! I know lots of crunch-loving chummers who agree - they are super happy with 5e.
But I hear so often folks lamenting that Shadowrun is impossible to learn, and most people think there are no simpler alternatives in the official pipeline. Meanwhile, 2e is sitting right there.
And I hear what you’re saying about Anarchy, but my point is that the problem with it is that it assumes you know 5e already. I wish people would stop recommending it to newcomers because it isn’t a complete game, it requires you to first know 5e - and once you do then the book makes sense because it throws half of it out.
Anyway, thanks for the comment my man - and keep running those shadows!