The lore and setting are perfect.

The decking/net-running problem is definitely a thing, tho. Doing it well requires the GM to build a really tight scenario, which is hard to do on a regular basis.

I fucking love Shadowrun.

My group doesn’t like magic with their cyberpunk dystopias, so I’m stuck playing Cyberpunk RED. Which is fine. I’ve picked up a bunch of the fun non-magical stuff from SR, and borrowed a few of the megacorps.

We’re still having fun, but I still want metahumans and magic.

Honestly tragic to find out this wasn’t an ironic Jon Lajoie post.

Oh yeah, the setting is fine, but the rules of the RPG itself are tough to get into.

I knew he was who the original was about, but I didn’t realise that was him in the picture. My bad.

Yeah, I like it a lot better with an outside ruleset

He is some kind of dystopian

Ok, but do you have a Shadowrun tattoo like I do?

Ok, but do you have a Shadowrun tattoo like I do?

So, I regularly run Shadowrun as a “My first RPG” and as a “Wait, D&D isn’t the only game?”, but I do it by replacing the mechanics entirely.

If you want something official, Shadowrun Anarchy is actually pretty good. Otherwise, look at The Sprawl, or Runners in The Dark (A Blades in the Dark hack). And I guess at some point I’ll get around to actually releasing the custom system I’m using to run it for my current games.

It looks so good! Now I want one too

If you “run Shadowrun” by “replacing the rules entirely” you aren’t running Shadowrun. You’re running a different system with Shadowrun’s setting.

I’ll stand by until the day I die that Shadowruns magic allows for some of the best punk aspects for Cyberpunk. Just like the Fantasy genre uses supernatural and extreme settings to explore things easier than real life, a magic system that’s foundationally opposed to the technological exploitation of Cyberpunk has amazing storytelling potential.

A lot of folks want a cyberpunk fantasy game with decent rules. Good luck

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.