Monday 26 August 2013

Shadowrun 5th edition quick review


I had the chance to get a review copy of Shadowrun 5th edition for a while now and I'm still waiting for my copy of the physical book to arrive it didn't stop me at trying it. Without internet at home I had plenty of time to read and plan my game and I'll probably start a play log soon but first let's get a quick review done.

Disclaimer: This is a short review. If you want to know what's different from the previous editions or more detailed reviews I suggest looking at the RPG.net review or visit rpg.stackexchange.com for the list of differences between 4th and 5th edition.

What's Shadowrun 5th edition

I started a "What's Shadowrun in a nutshell" so you should look at it. I'll post part 2 soon, I promise. But let's just repeat some of the basics here. It's a roleplaying game set in a distopyan future where magic came back in 2011 and megacorporations rule the world. There's magic, cybernetics, augmented reality and races of lord of the rings and dragons ran for president (how awesome is that?). The 5th edition is the most recent one and 4th edition just before that added lots of upgrades on the technology side of the setting.

First impressions

The art and tone of the book is way better. I should avoid comparison because I assume you know nothing of the previous books but in 4th edition they had these entries of text mixed with blocks of comments from people living inside the setting. So let's say the paragraph would describe the city of Seattle as a great city a comment below could say: "Yeah it's cool but you forgot to mention the acid rain and frequent gangers encounter". This is a cool way (I guess) but I think it's just noise when you try to find a specific piece of info. 

In 5th edition there's no such things. The humor is right in the content but it's not too much. Like the following parapgrah:

Theoretically, a detonating explosive’s blast could rebound repeatedly off each of the six surfaces in a small,
well-built room, raising the effective Damage Value of the blast to a value far higher than the original damage of the grenade. This is known as the “chunky salsa effect.”<

What's cool about it

The rules have a lot of crunch but they are straight forward enough to be enjoyable. My biggest advice is don't worry too much about the rules. I adopted a read the rules once and play. Then if a player wants to do something and you're not sure how to deal with it, just make him roll something that makes sense and deal with it. Later you can look at the book. On my first game a player wanted to open a door with brute force. I didn't know how to deal with it so I said: Well you have a 4 in Unarmed combat right? Just roll that. Quick and advantageous to the player.

The setting itself is why I play Shadowrun. I like distopian future mixed with magic and cybernetics. The setting knowledge empowers you so I suggest digging it. The core book itself answered questions I had before when I was playing 4th edition. 

I like the return of the priority system. Basically when you build your character it takes a couple of minutes to build the big parts and then you only need to shop. It was a major complain from a couple of my players but the only reason they have issues with that is it cuts their mix-maxin fun. 

Being a hacker is just awesome in this game. Since technology is everywhere you can hack almost everything.

What's meh about it..

The only complains I had was from min-maxers and power gamers. They feel the character creation rules won't allow you to play something less defined. It is true that 5th edition asks you to choose between money and being a great mage, but for me it's just for the best.

The current model won't allow you to play weird races like Goblins and Drake. It's not a problem for my group but there's no entry for weird races in the priority table and it's hard to figure where I'd put those since they are way above the regular guys. In the point-buy system it was kind of easy.

I don't like that hackers MUST be with the party. One of the key aspects of being a hacker before was being able to "work from home" or stay in the van and guide the players. With the new "Noise" rule, distance penalize you and I think it's just sad. No smart hacker would put himself in danger except if he has to. It's not a deal breaker but I really like that aspect of hacking being the cool guy in a coffee shop plugged and assisting the party at safe distance.

Conclusion/TL:DR;

I love it. The game flows better, combat is interesting and dangerous and the setting is worth a read. I'd recommend everyone who are not intimidated easily by big games to give it a try. I also suggest trying Shadowun Returns (the computer game) so you can get an idea of the setting if reading is not enough.

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