That seems to be entirely missing the point of RPGs, to my mind. What exactly are the limits of this logic? If I use house rules, am I “not running Shadowrun”? What about if I use an older system? Shadowrun has 6 editions, some of them very different from each other, plus a complete alternate rules set. Anarchy is at least as different from 6E as anything I’m doing with it, so why does Anarchy get to be canonically Shadowrun, but my game doesn’t, even though neither of them are using anything like the mainline rules?

Cities Without Number’s paid version has what is very clearly “Shadowrun without the Shadowrun rules.” I haven’t tried much of the system, and none with the magic stuff, but it might be pretty good?

I really like the treatment of metahumans in the earlier editions. I really like orcs getting the short end of the stick in terms of lifespan and appearance. It makes a dark setting even darker.

Ok, tbh what I really want is something closer to cyberpunk starfinder

Shadowrun Anarchy v2

If you use an older edition of Shadowrun, you’re running an older edition of Shadowrun, like how people say they run PF2e. Or you saying you’d run Shadowrun Anarchy. But you wouldn’t say you’re running Shadowrun at a LFG forum and expect nobody to ask or care what edition.

House rules are house rules. They’re expected, but usually minor in the scope of the system.

Both are a far cry from “replacing the mechanics entirely”. There’s only so much you can replace or scrap before you cross a line of it not being the same system anymore, and “replacing the mechanics entirely” definitely crosses that line. It’s like when you see someone say “Yeah I’m running D&D5e but I replaced the combat rules and added Draw Steel’s negotiation system and reworked all the proficiencies and changed to Vancian spellcasting”. At that point, you’re basically playing your own system where the stats and classes are inspired by D&D5e, but nobody would call that “D&D5e but with house rules/homebrew”. There’s more stuff that isn’t D&D5e than that is.

This is exactly the kind of thing that people get annoyed at D&D people about, just sort of in reverse; D&D people run different settings with a 5e ruleset and call it a “new system”. You’re running a system’s setting with a different system and calling it “the same system”. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pasting Shadowrun’s setting onto a new system, but if I run a campaign in Shadowrun’s world but I replace the mechanics entirely with D&D5e, I’m not running Shadowrun. I’m running D&D5e.

You’re running a system’s setting with a different system and calling it “the same system”.

But I’m not.

At absolutely no point did I say it was the same system. At absolutely no point did I say “I’m running the Shadowrun system.” My exact words were “I run Shadowrun.” You added “system” entirely in your own head.

Yes, obviously, if I was advertising a public game at an LGS, I would state up front that I’m not intending to use the Shadowrun system. I wouldn’t want people to be caught off guard by that. And even when I run these games privately, I still tell people ahead of time that I won’t be using any of the stock mechanics. Even for players who’ve never played Shadowrun, I still put that information out there so that they don’t wander into another Shadowrun game expecting the same experience.

But the thing you objected to was me saying “I run Shadowrun.” And you immediately assumed I included the word “system” and launched your entire objection on the basis of that.

And this is where I think we have fundamentally different philosophies about what roleplaying is, as a hobby. Because when I say “Shadowrun” I mean a fascinating world of alt-history near future cyberpunk mixed with Tolkien-esque fantasy that really shouldn’t work, but somehow manages to actually use the disparate elements to reinforce one another, turning magic and monsters into new layers on cyberpunk’s existing themes.

And when you say “Shadowrun” you apparently mean “One or more entries in a very specific list of different d6 dice-pool based systems”.

Yes, obviously if someone said they’re running D&D and then it turned out they were running Dungeon World, I’d be kind of perplexed. But that’s because D&D itself isn’t a setting, it’s a system. On the other hand, if someone said they were running Eberron, and then it turned out they were running it in the Gumshoe system, I’d be fucking psyched. That would be such an awesome way to explore that particular world. Imagine how cool it would be take the 1920s vibes and shades of cosmic horror and turn them into an investigative mystery story, without all the combat heavy D&D mechanics getting in the way.

In the case of Shadowrun, yes, it is both a world and a system. But of those two things, the world is far more important. The system only exists as a framework through which to explore that world. Shadowrun as a world can exist in any system (that doesn’t mean it will feel the same in any system, but it can exist), as evidenced by the fact that its official systems have taken so many different forms over the years. But the Shadowrun system without the Shadowrun world is nothing. It’s meaningless. A useless appendage lacking the story that gives it form.

This is not to say that changing the system will not change the world in certain ways. Systems shape the rules of a world. They are instrumental in defining many elements of tone and genre. But lots of things change the feel of a world, first among them being the GM. Even if you and I both run Shadowrun using the same edition, with scrupulous attention to exact implementation of the rules as written, we won’t be running the same Shadowrun. We’re each going to have our own ideas about how that world operates, about what is and isn’t possible, or normal. We’re going to describe characters in different ways, play out interactions in different ways, put emphasis on different things. There is no pure, unadulterated version of a setting in roleplaying. So why get so hung up about adherence to specifics of the mechanics, when everything else is already up for grabs?

I think at this point I need to ask you to take a step back and remember where this conversation started.

I opened by saying that Shadowrun is not an entry-level system because the rules are hard to understand. What it seems you did was take me saying “Shadowrun is not an entry-level TTRPG” and append “setting” to that, which is ironic given this post.

I never meant to imply that the setting was hard to understand. It’s the rules that were the problem, and I apologize if that wasn’t clear enough. But from my perspective, I said “The rules are hard for a new player to understand” and - again, from my perspective - your response was more or less “The rules are fine if you change all the rules”. So you can imagine why I was blunt in my responses. This whole thing has been in the context of the rules system from the start, so yes, I am focused on the rules at the moment.

But I do stand by the fact that Shadowrun’s setting with different rules is not “running Shadowrun” the same way running a D&D5e ruleset in a modern setting is still “Running 5e”. It’s the rules that matter in the context of statements like these, not the setting. You don’t say “I’m running Forgotten Realms” You say “I’m running D&D.” Sure, sometimes you specify modules but those modules are known to exist in a specific system so saying “I’m running Rime of the Frostmaiden 5e” is redundant. What you’re doing is “Running [system] with Shadowrun’s setting” or perhaps “Running Shadowrun’s setting with another system.” The distinction is still important, and anyone who reads “I’m running Shadowrun but I changed all the rules” will likely interpret that in their heads to mean “Shadowrun['s setting] with different rules” anyway.

Or TL:DR; you “Run” rulesets, and your campaign takes place in a setting.

What it seems you did was take me saying “Shadowrun is not an entry-level TTRPG” and append “setting” to that, which is ironic given this post.

I applaud your attempt at an Uno Reverso here, but if you take a few minutes to think about this, your gotcha really doesn’t work. If I was responding to the imagined claim that Shadowrun is a bad setting for new players then the last thing I would do would be to suggest keeping the setting and losing the system, right? Quite the opposite, in fact.

What I actually did is respond to the claim that “Shadowrun is not an entry-level TTRPG” (which I read as clearly intended to mean the total package of the rules and the setting) by simply pointing out that you can jettison one and keep the other, and that when you do it actually becomes a great entry level game.

The problem here keeps coming back to the fact that you have this weird originalist dogma about roleplaying games where replacing systems is in some way sacrosanct. So when I pointed out that Shadowrun works great without it’s legacy of clunky systems, that statement caused some kind of divide by zero error that you could only read as “The rules as fine if you change all the rules” because the notion of separating a system from it’s setting seems to be utterly verboten for you.

By your own admission you feel that “It’s the rules that matter in the context of statements like these, not the setting.”

Why? I’m sorry, but that’s a rule that you made up in your head, not something that’s actually inherent to the medium. You’re the one who lives in a world where it’s more important to say “I’m running D&D” than it is to say “I’m running Eberron.” When I think of my adventures in Eberron, I think of my Warforged archaeologist fist-fighting dinosaur riding Halflings on top of a speeding train. I could not, for the life of me, tell you exactly what feats and class features I was using to do it.

I’ve literally never said the words “I’m running D&D” in my entire life. I’ve never found it more important to specify a system than to specify a setting. “I’m running D&D” is as meaningful a statement as “I’m running GURPS”. OK. So what? Why do I care. Tell me “I’m running Illuminati University” and now I’m excited. Leading with a system is like if I asked you what you thought of a movie you just watched, and the only thing you told me is what cameras it was filmed on.

Whether I’m playing or running, I’m here to tell a story. A story needs a world. The mechanics are completely optional. I honestly don’t really care if my character does or does not have a base attack bonus. What I want to think about is why my Warforged archaeologist wears a hat, because that’s interesting.

I get that this is not a universal way of thinking about RPGs. For a lot of people they’re a set of mechanics to operate and master in the same way that you learn to play something like Magic: The Gathering, where the setting is a backdrop and the cards can be reskinned and re-themed without changing anything about how they play. But I’m gonna be honest, I think it’s genuinely sad to see people approach roleplaying that way. It’s a hobby with so much boundless room for imagination. To reduce that to mechanics first and foremost is an unspeakably dull way of thinking in my opinion.

I would burn D&D to the ground if it meant my group would actually play Shadowrun.

Let me clarify; there’s nothing wrong with mixing and matching settings and rulesets. But I wouldn’t say I’m running Shadowrun if I’m just running a D&D5e ruleset in a Shadowrun setting.

I think at this point we have to agree to disagree, because we clearly have different ways of looking at this. I’m of the opinion that communicating the ruleset you’re running is important because if I go to a D&D5e game with a PF3e character, nobody is going to enjoy that. Specifying the setting is important too, but the rules aren’t an unimportant thing you don’t need to specify.

Regardless, when I say “Shadowrun is not an entry-level TTRPG”, I am referring to the ruleset and not the setting. There is nothing wrong with the setting. I guess you’d parse it better if I said that the Shadowrun ruleset isn’t an entry-level ruleset?