# Shadowrun Sixth World Core Rulebook Review



## Nate1970 (Aug 31, 2019)

Loved Shadowrun back in the day when it came out. Over the years I haven't really paid attention to it. Reading this make me want to play again


----------



## Vildara (Aug 31, 2019)

Did they still retain the 9,482 modifiers for every possible roll, or did the Edge system replace a lot of that?


----------



## Abstruse (Aug 31, 2019)

Vildara said:


> Did they still retain the 9,482 modifiers for every possible roll, or did the Edge system replace a lot of that?



The Edge system replaced a lot of that. There's still a few "+1 die, -1 die" rules and gear here and there, but not nearly to the amount from previous editions. The majority of that is replaced by "gain a point of Edge" or "gain a bonus point of Edge that can only be used on this roll", which doesn't get near the levels of stacking because you can only earn 2 points of Edge in a single round. So even if you've got a stack of gear that gives you Edge that may or may not apply, you stop checking once you get your second point of Edge because you can't get anymore.


----------



## Mercador (Aug 31, 2019)

Any Cyberpunk Red review planned?


----------



## Len (Aug 31, 2019)

Are there exploding dice? It just doesn't seem like Shadowrun if the dice never explode.


----------



## Abstruse (Aug 31, 2019)

Len said:


> Are there exploding dice? It just doesn't seem like Shadowrun if the dice never explode.



There's an Edge Boost that allows you to add your Edge attribute to your dice pool and causes 6s to explode. It costs 4 Edge.


----------



## ddaley (Aug 31, 2019)

I have always liked the idea of Shadowrun, and have even bought a fair amount of 4th and 5th edition material.  Unfortunately, my eyes always glaze over when I start reading the rulebook...


----------



## schneeland (Aug 31, 2019)

ddaley said:


> I have always liked the idea of Shadowrun, and have even bought a fair amount of 4th and 5th edition material.  Unfortunately, my eyes always glaze over when I start reading the rulebook...




I think that's a common problem. I started playing with 2nd edition (and stopped with 3rd) and even at that time, I think the major reason why we had fun playing was our selective ignorance of some part of the rules.

Unfortunately, even though 6th edition seems to be streamlined when compared to 5th edition, it doesn't really attract me. Admittedly part of that is that only part rules (I would prefer a streamlined 2e/3e version) and also part setting (I'm not a big fan of the meta plot past 3e and the most iconic period for Shadowrun for me will always be the 2050s). None of that is likely to change under CGL rulership, though.


----------



## thexar (Aug 31, 2019)

Shadowrun is that game we ALL want to love, but … it's hard.


----------



## Len (Aug 31, 2019)

ddaley said:


> I have always liked the idea of Shadowrun, and have even bought a fair amount of 4th and 5th edition material.  Unfortunately, my eyes always glaze over when I start reading the rulebook...




Heh, yeah. You could use a different system and keep the setting. We've played a Shadowrun campaign using Savage Worlds rules, or you could use Morrus' own W.O.I.N. N.E.W. for example.


----------



## Abstruse (Sep 1, 2019)

Len said:


> Heh, yeah. You could use a different system and keep the setting. We've played a Shadowrun campaign using Savage Worlds rules, or you could use Morrus' own W.O.I.N. N.E.W. for example.



Honestly, you might want to check out this edition of the rules. It feels a lot closer to Savage Worlds or WOIN in how it plays. The rules systems aren't nearly as overwhelming and the Edge system functions a lot like bennies in a way except the system actively encourages you to constantly use them rather than horde them.


----------



## mcosgrave (Sep 1, 2019)

You can’t be paying serious money for a hardback with editing issues like this. In future, publishers will have to think about this: maybe do a couple of editions in pdf first, get it all debugged before asking people to shell out for the hardback. 

I’m also not sure I want 300 pages even in a pdf, unless the TOC/index is really perfect:- all the scrolls! There has to be a better way to present 300 pages of reference material digitally?


----------



## Abstruse (Sep 1, 2019)

mcosgrave said:


> I’m also not sure I want 300 pages even in a pdf, unless the TOC/index is really perfect:- all the scrolls! There has to be a better way to present 300 pages of reference material digitally?



The table of contents and index are actually pretty good. Clearly describes where things are and the ToC is hyperlinked. I'd like the Index to be as well, but the text is a bit cramped so misclicks would be common especially on tablets or ereaders. But it actually has several pages of index that are properly listed with multiple ways to find what you're looking for without a bunch of "Spells, See Magic" cross-referencing. And the PDF is searchable as well.


----------



## SpideyBaggins (Sep 1, 2019)

The way the Shadowrun rules have been presented in the rule books has never been user-friendly, but I’ve got hopes for 6th edition based on this review.


----------



## Abstruse (Sep 1, 2019)

SpideyBaggins said:


> The way the Shadowrun rules have been presented in the rule books has never been user-friendly, but I’ve got hopes for 6th edition based on this review.



There are still some issues with organization, but it is much easier than it has with previous editions. Mostly because the systems are basically all the same with only very minor variations or one or two extra subsystems (drain for magic, overwatch score for decking, etc.). I mentioned the hard parts to find in my review, at least the ones I've run across so far.

But everything basically works the same - Determine what Skill + Attribute you're using, figure out who (if anyone) gets Edge, roll your dice and decide if you want to spend Edge to modify the roll, determine the results (if an attack hits and how much damage, if you manage to fast-talk the guard, if you summon the spirit and how many services it owes you, if you decrypted the file on the host, and so on). Everything else is just minor variations on that.


----------



## Yaarel (Sep 2, 2019)

@Abstruse

Great review. Whenever a product comes out that I am unfamiliar with, the absolute first thing that I want to know, is to get a good sense of how its gaming system works. I appreciate both the clarity and the detail of your description of the system of Shadowrun.


----------



## zhivik (Sep 2, 2019)

Great review. I am particularly grateful that it focuses on the game system itself and what it can offer as a whole, rather than resort to nitpicking as many on the official Shadowrun forums do. I do wonder why Shadowrun products still lack proper editing - one would think they have learned by now. I guess my recommendation would be to by only the PDF for now, which is easily searchable and can save a lot of page flipping.

At any rate, this edition looks much easier to get into, and the setting is worth it, as it is a unique blend of cyberpunk and fantasy that you don’t see every day.


----------



## evildmguy (Sep 2, 2019)

Great review!  Makes me want to play it!  

Like @thexar I have found running SR hard.  I'm used to telling a story, or running an Adventure Path, whether official or my own creation.  SR feels like it's more about mercenary work than taking down the corporations.  And I have never found a satisfactory way to make that work.  Does anyone have a good resource to help me with this?  Official Forums?  Good streams?  

I still have most editions of it, though, and do love to read the background, even if the rules can be tough at times.  

Thanks again for the review!


----------



## evildmguy (Sep 2, 2019)

I'm feeling the need to clarify my statement to help people help me.  

I'm used to running a fantasy game, PF or DND, where the characters start off with the usual struggle of inexperience.  Slowly, they gain contacts, levels, and magic, as well as learn what the danger they face is.  Then they work to defeat that danger.  At the end of it, the world is changed.  

For example, in my current 5E FR game, we are going into the final battle.  The group knows the dragon and its forces are going to attack and are getting ready to defend against it.  Win or lose, this will change the area.  Either they win, are the heroes, and have stopped the dragons.  Lose, and the new Dragon Empire starts here.  My next campaign will hear about what has happened and I keep building on that for usually a decade or so before resetting the world.  

I don't know how to do that in SR.  It doesn't feel like Shadowrunners takedown megacorps.  They are just mercenaries that run jobs.  Sure, they get experience.  They get better.  They can earn more and get better gear.  But at the end of the adventure, nothing has changed, outside of the PCs and the people they know.  The megacorps are still there because they are too big to be taken out by a small group of Shadowrunners.  

Is that how others run SR?  Or what are some ideas that I could use to do it differently?  

Thanks!


----------



## Len (Sep 2, 2019)

evildmguy said:


> They are just mercenaries that run jobs. Sure, they get experience. They get better. They can earn more and get better gear. But at the end of the adventure, nothing has changed, outside of the PCs and the people they know.




You could say the same of D&D adventurers who do nothing but run dungeons. Sure, they get XP and level up, but nothing else changes. That is, unless their adventures are part of a bigger story. There's no reason that PCs can't take part in world-shaking storylines in Shadowrun, just like in fantasy or other genres.

For example, one of our Shadowrun campaigns was based on an XCOM scenario in which aliens were infiltrating our society. Megacorps were involved of course but our main goals were to save Earth from the aliens, get rich doing it, and get our revenge on William Shatner. This wasn't exactly the standard Shadowrun setting but the principle is there - it plays out similar to a D&D campaign with a series of missions/quests tied together into a larger story.


----------



## Abstruse (Sep 3, 2019)

evildmguy said:


> I don't know how to do that in SR.  It doesn't feel like Shadowrunners takedown megacorps.  They are just mercenaries that run jobs.  Sure, they get experience.  They get better.  They can earn more and get better gear.  But at the end of the adventure, nothing has changed, outside of the PCs and the people they know.  The megacorps are still there because they are too big to be taken out by a small group of Shadowrunners.
> 
> Is that how others run SR?  Or what are some ideas that I could use to do it differently?
> 
> Thanks!



A shadowrunner team isn't going to take down any of the AAA megacorps. They _can_ stop the megacorp's evil plan, or unseat an especially evil executive, or expose the evils of a megacorporation to the world.

Think something like the first Robocop. At the end of the movie, OCP is still there. But Dick Jones gets fired. Then literally fired. Then turns into a really bad practical effect as he falls out of a skyscraper. And it ends on a line where Robocop figuratively flips off OCP's CEO: "My friends call me Murphy. You can call me Robocop."

Or Johnny Mnemonic which ends with the cure being sent out to the world, or the recent Dredd with the world still being a crapsack world but the Peachtree Apartments at least are free from their criminal overlord.

The Shadowrun world is a rather grimdark place that just happens to be lit by many bright neon LEDs. You're not going to save the world, but you can make it a tiny bit better. If you want inspiration for how to do so from adventures from older editions, I recommend Double Exposure, Harlequin's Back, and Survival of the Fittest as examples for how a runner team can be crucial to the events of the world.

Or watch the unofficial Shadowrun television adaptation, Leverage. Okay, it's technically not a cyberpunk/urban fantasy hybrid, but the format and structure of the show follows pretty much exactly what Shadowrun is.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Sep 3, 2019)

evildmguy said:


> I don't know how to do that in SR.  It doesn't feel like Shadowrunners takedown megacorps.  They are just mercenaries that run jobs.  Sure, they get experience.  They get better.  They can earn more and get better gear.  But at the end of the adventure, nothing has changed, outside of the PCs and the people they know.  The megacorps are still there because they are too big to be taken out by a small group of Shadowrunners.



Part of that is because Shadowrun uses the "evolving metaplot" style of setting detail, where it would ruin the viability of future products if your team is able to actually change anything. There's nothing to do about that, aside from not buying the setting books, and trying to not worry about it. I mean, if you're capable of having your Forgotten Realms diverge heavily from the canon, then it shouldn't be too much harder to do the same in future Seattle, right?

Some of the novels go into world-changing events, but since they are technically canon, those events get incorporated into the setting details of the next edition. The Dragonheart Saga, for example, gives most of the details behind Dunkelzahn's assassination. At least one of the books involved foiling an invasion from toxic spirits, which could have been very bad for the world, if the mission had failed; but it didn't really change anything, because they were successful, so nobody found out about it. It's not uncommon for shadowrunners to become swept up into events that are much higher that their pay grade. There's also no requirement that you have to play shadowrunners, though; if you play as government agents, or high-end mercenaries, then you can start acting on a global level right from the get-go.

Honestly, though, the parallels between D&D and Shadowrun are both strong and intentional. It may start out with everyone meeting at a tavern and accepting a quest to retrieve an item from a nearby dungeon, but it's easy to spin that into a world-ending catastrophe by considering _who_ wants that item and _why_. One trick for building an epic Shadowrun campaign is to design the whole thing in D&D terms, but then translate it into Shadowrun language. You could easily run Lord of the Rings as a Shadowrun campaign, where Aragorn turns out to be the legitimate heir to some megacorp, and the nazgul ride attack choppers (although standard caveats apply, in regards to scripting out a narrative when the players are ultimately the ones in control).


----------



## evildmguy (Sep 3, 2019)

Those are some great idea and thinking points!  Thanks!  

I think there are two sides to this.  My own inability to see how it can be done but the Robocop or slowly working up to something are good examples.  I think the other side of that is that I didn't see my players having that kind of motivation.  As in, that's long term thinking and my (previous) players like to figure out the problem then attack it head-on, not take the time to get there.  

I have the same problem with Exalted and I think it's the same reasons.  More to ponder!


----------



## Abstruse (Sep 3, 2019)

evildmguy said:


> Those are some great idea and thinking points!  Thanks!
> 
> I think there are two sides to this.  My own inability to see how it can be done but the Robocop or slowly working up to something are good examples.  I think the other side of that is that I didn't see my players having that kind of motivation.  As in, that's long term thinking and my (previous) players like to figure out the problem then attack it head-on, not take the time to get there.
> 
> I have the same problem with Exalted and I think it's the same reasons.  More to ponder!



If that's the case, you might be better off giving them a specific antagonist ASAP. First run, the Johnson set them up in a frame job and it gives them a specific face to put on the foe. That way they're less focused on taking down Renraku as they are the newly-promoted Vice President of Research and Development for the SimSense division Layton Kyle or whatever the same way they'd take on the Evil Lich Laytonkyle. If they know he's several levels higher than them, they're not going to go kick in the door to his lair as they'll have lots of adventures first, some involving disrupting his plans and some just unrelated. Same thing here, they work on bringing down Layton Kyle as they do side-jobs to make nuyen.

Or you can embroil them in a plot that's a threat to the existence of the world that's a bit more direct and immediate than the megacorps. The Universal Brotherhood storyline from the first edition is the quintessential example of this for Shadowrun in my opinion, running from Missing Blood adventure in the Universal Brotherhood sourcebook to Queen Euphoria and all the way through to Double Exposure and the Bug City sourcebook events.


----------



## Lord_Blacksteel (Sep 3, 2019)

evildmguy said:


> Sure, they get experience.  They get better.  They can earn more and get better gear.  But at the end of the adventure, nothing has changed, outside of the PCs and the people they know.  The megacorps are still there because they are too big to be taken out by a small group of Shadowrunners.
> 
> Is that how others run SR?  Or what are some ideas that I could use to do it differently?




That's how some people run entire campaigns of many RPG's, not just Shadowrun. Not every campaign has to have an overarching plot. Sometimes it's just about living/surviving in a fantasy world whether that's Greyhawk, the Realms, the Third Imperium, the Old Republic, or 2050+ Fantasy Cyberpunk America.

That said, there's no reason you couldn't run a Shadowrun game with an epic quest approach. You just have to decide what the end goal is and work backwards. Is it to take down a meagcorp? Or maybe replace their leadership and approach to the world? Replace the leader of a nation? Stop a war? SR tends to be run in a "mission" format so you just need to connect the missions with NPCs, locations, and organizations and it can go wherever you want it to go. It probably starts local - a corp is booting some friends out of their home. Digging deeper, this Corp A is maneuvering because they know Corp B is about to take action against them. Down the road it turns out that Corp C has instigated a conflict between A and B because of some agenda of their own - maybe they want to acquire one or both corps after they're weakened. Or maybe a state/national politician - probbaly a Tir Elf - has pushed all 3 of them into a conflict to settle some ancient score on the date of some magical conjunction that will elevate them to Xtreme Arcane Power. You never know with those ancient pointy-ears...

It's Shadowrun - the obvious reason is never the real reason and there's -always- another layer. You can have a lot of fun with it if you let your inner conspiracy theorist loose.


----------



## Ulfgeir (Sep 3, 2019)

Interesting review. The setting has always been the main thing about Shadowrun. FASA created some really cool worlds, but they really could not make good rules. 

Used to GM 1st-3rd edition. And it was a nightmare as every subsystem had it's own rules that did not mesh at all, and rules for magic changed in every extra splatbook that dealt with magic. That said, so far, I would have preferred 3rd ed char-gen (for the extra hobby-skills etc that fleshed out the characters), with 2nd ed rules (and 1st ed rules for Karma). Then put that in the 2nd ed setting. Yes, I want the initiative from 1st and 2nd ed as that meshed with the fiction of how stuff like Wired Reflexes worked (so in that case screw game balance)

I can understand why they did a complete overhaul of the rules in 4rth edition, but they really made a mess out of it as far as I can recall (and 5fth did not help). I do hope that this edition is playable. The comments about the editing makes me worry though.


----------



## coyote6 (Sep 4, 2019)

For me, Catalyst isn't good at editing or refining stuf. I thought 4e was almost great, and if 5e had been a refinement of 4e, I would have been deliriously happy. Instead, they added limits & the like, and basically replaced problem areas with new problem areas. I'm afraid 6e sounds like it's going to be the same.


----------



## Abstruse (Sep 4, 2019)

Ulfgeir said:


> I do hope that this edition is playable. The comments about the editing makes me worry though.





coyote6 said:


> For me, Catalyst isn't good at editing or refining stuf.



The editing issues are more nitpicks than anything else, and I think they just needed one more round of blind Q&A to fix those problems. The writing and design help a lot because the more conversational tone of the book makes it easier to read rather than your eyes starting to instinctively skim and miss stuff, while the fact that everything uses the same core mechanics with just some minor variations or different options helps a lot. Can't figure out exactly what the rule is for one action the player wants to do? Pick a skill and attribute that makes sense for the "attacker" and "defender" and have them roll off. It'll be the same process as an attack or casting a spell or hacking a host or commanding a slaved drone or whatever - Set the dice pool, determine who (if anyone) gets Edge, roll and spend Edge, determine results.


----------



## Ulfgeir (Sep 4, 2019)

Abstruse said:


> The editing issues are more nitpicks than anything else, and I think they just needed one more round of blind Q&A to fix those problems.




Ok, that makes it sound much less bad. I think we have all seen enough games where stuff were spread out all over the place, so you had to look around to find all the minutiae that affected the current situation (sometimes a lot). 



Abstruse said:


> Can't figure out exactly what the rule is for one action the player wants to do? Pick a skill and attribute that makes sense for the "attacker" and "defender" and have them roll off. It'll be the same process as an attack or casting a spell or hacking a host or commanding a slaved drone or whatever - Set the dice pool, determine who (if anyone) gets Edge, roll and spend Edge, determine results.




On paper it sounds simple enough. 

Another question, how is the art in the game now? It used to be very hit-and-miss with drastically different styles.


----------



## Abstruse (Sep 4, 2019)

Ulfgeir said:


> Ok, that makes it sound much less bad. I think we have all seen enough games where stuff were spread out all over the place, so you had to look around to find all the minutiae that affected the current situation (sometimes a lot).




There is some stuff spread out, but it's not nearly as bad as previous editions or other games. If you've read the book, you pretty much know where something is when you're looking for it and the index (an issue in previous editions) is actually useful this time around. Seriously, I think I covered all the editing issues I've noticed in the book in the review itself - Starting Essence isn't mentioned, Capacity doesn't cost Essence in cybereyes/cyberears, where to find the Rigger Command Console to buy, where to find the drugs/toxins, and how to calculate unarmed damage. That's the only things that weren't where they should be or left out entirely.



> On paper it sounds simple enough.
> 
> Another question, how is the art in the game now? It used to be very hit-and-miss with drastically different styles.



It is very much unified now. There's a few examples I put in the review, but pretty much all the art except that one banner piece fit a style that...I don't know what to call it because I'm not a big art person, but I've always thought of it as "digital dreamscape", as a sort of digital artwork meets watercolor style. Whether you like that style or not is up to your tastes, but it is more uniform and doesn't do what earlier editions did where it mixed really detailed and realistic art right next to more stylized and minimalist art. All the art in the book feels like it came out of the same book now. Here's a couple other examples:


----------



## Ulfgeir (Sep 4, 2019)

@Abstruse 
Thank you. I like that art style. It looks coherent, and something that fits the game.


----------



## Blue (Sep 4, 2019)

One of the things this review mentions is how magic and decking and rigging all use the same rules.  I know that one fo the complaints I see for other systems is that magic doesn't feel magical because mechanically it's so close to doing mundane tasks.  How about this - does magic feel magical, or are magic and (sufficiently advanced) technology just the same in terms of how they play out?

Oh, the only Shadowrun joke I remember from when I used to play:

"Why do you call the Street Samurai 'Jesus'?"
"Because he's going to end up dying for our sins."


----------



## Abstruse (Sep 4, 2019)

Blue said:


> One of the things this review mentions is how magic and decking and rigging all use the same rules.  I know that one fo the complaints I see for other systems is that magic doesn't feel magical because mechanically it's so close to doing mundane tasks.  How about this - does magic feel magical, or are magic and (sufficiently advanced) technology just the same in terms of how they play out?



Yes, magic users still feel magical. Spellcasting typically hasn't been all that different from the other systems the way decking or rigging were even in previous editions. But yes, you do still feel like you're channeling grand powers. Especially with the new ritual system which, for the first time I can remember in the history of the game, actually makes ritual spellcasting something that's worthwhile to bother learning how to do.

I will say that how much you get out of playing a magic user will depend on getting into things and realizing that the rules are a framework for you to customize your character. The book doesn't prescribe to you how your magic manifests or what you do to cast spells. It's up to you to figure out how your character approaches magic and effectively "skin" your spells and spirits and other abilities if you want.

I'll also note that decking also feels like decking, even with the simplified rules. I'm one of the weirdos who actually likes playing deckers regardless of edition (yes, even the old 1st/2nd ed style rules where you had to essentially map the entire corporate network), and even with the streamlines to the system, it still feels like decking.


----------

