Hello, everyone!

I have been a fan of Roll4it since the very beginning, watching the crew play since episode #1. Until now, however, I haven't really been a part of the community, watching from the sidelines and lurking in the shadows instead. (Bit of a semi-intentional Shadowrun pun there....) Now, that the group have switched over to Dark Heresy, I decided I would change that.

Seeing how many people here on the subreddit have never had any contact with the 40k universe whatsoever, I took the liberty of compiling a document containing all the pieces of lore I thought were essential for understanding 40k. A bit of a "quickstart guide" if you will. It can be found over here. I'm not particularly skilled at using Google Docs, so the format might be a little ugly, but I will be updating this document in the future. Also, if you feel something is missing from the guide, or would like to offer criticism, feel free to leave a comment!

Additionally, since the Blacksun story summary hasn't been updated in quite a while, I would like to volunteer to create a Dark Heresy story summary. (If that won't be necessary for some reason though, then nevermind.)

 

UPDATE:

Thanks to /u/blackbat24, you can now read an updated and revised version of the quickstart guide.

You can find it on issuu, if you would like some eyecandy with your grimdark: https://issuu.com/blackbat24/docs/warhammer-40k_v1.0.1

Or you can download it from dropbox for offline reading: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bahx786ufyiq6xw/warhammer-40k%20v1.0.1.pdf?dl=0

Huge thanks to blackbat for the amazing work! Stay tuned for the story summary, which is coming (hopefully) soon!

Shadowrun 4e is a pretty big ruleset with tons of rules for a lot of things, I'm hoping to look into aspects of the game that don't see a lot of play. Any ideas.

Die Hard, Oceans 11, and Murder on the Orient Express are but a few. What movies have you used or would you think could be used as ideas for in-game Shadowruns?

Would they be deemed too offensive for most situations? Perhaps refined to accomodate the new realities of the Sixth World? Or relegated to obscurity as younger generations lose interest in favor of BTLs and Trideo? Maybe a different fate altogether...?

See, I'm a fan of crunch. I unironically liked d&d 3.5, it was a bloated mess but you could play with the bloat if that's what you wanted. All the tales of Shadowrun I had heard implied it was like that, but more. So naturally, I wanted to test it out! Haven't yet, though.

Now, I have come across the notion that the system isn't that fun crunchy bloat, but plain bad. So I wonder: is this it? I get the taste I'm describing above is niche, so I get that most people will dislike the ruleset. But is this it - a cult classic with a tiny cult - or do even people of my tastes dislike it?

I've got a concept in mind for Shadowrun, and was looking to get an artist on it: Aiming for around 200$ USD for a bit of character art.

For folks who aren't into it, Shadowrun's all about mega-corporations and the deniable asset mercenaries they hire to do jobs off-the-books, with a bit of a fantastical Tolkien-esque spin to it. It's cyberpunk, but with magic, and such. Lot of punk rock, corporate espionage, cybernetic limbs and pink mohawk wackiness.

Concept: Down in South America, Elon Musk successfully managed through a combination of experimental gene-therapy, magical ritual, SURGE, or who-knows-what to create cat boys and cat girls. This one escaped and ended up running the shadows as a mage.

Sorta think Jack from Mass Effect 3, meets a Miqo'te from Final Fantasy 14.

Edit: Thank you all very much for the responses, as of now this post is closed! I'll be sure to contact you all again if I need more art! I've already sent a fair few of your portfolios to some friends looking for art of their own!

Okay okay, hear me out on this one!

We all know and hate loot boxes. They're the bane of modern gaming. Also, with trading cards and all, the idea has been around for a long time.
So really, it's just a matter of time until some fixer comes up with the idea of selling literal lootboxes to Runners.

I'd imagine while he stuffs in some things that are actually useful for Runners, I'd also wager he packs them with the stuff runners loaded off at his place and he just can't sell, so now he's cutting losses by putting very exclusive and unusual "Rares" into his boxes. Also a fun way to hand to your team some items that they otherwise wouldn't try out.

Now I'm calling on the Bullshittery Hivemind of r/Shadowrun to get ideas for more things that can be found in these boxes.

Common Items should be written in plain text. Those would be ammo, packs of glowsticks, any length of grappling line... it should be boring but generally useful, possibly even consumable*.*

Uncommon Items should be in Italics. Those are still nothing fancy but should still be useful to most runners. A Burner Kommlink, a spare Ares Predator (or Onotari Troublemaker, as we play in the ADL), a helmet, such things.

Rares should be bold in more than writing. These are the odds and ends that are technically valuable yet still just gathering dust in the fixer's shelves. A gold plated armor jacket, an expensive smartgun with an obnoxious (hardwired) personality, a hand-carved woode butt plug sustaining focus, a heavily armed Segway... these items might very well be completely unique as when they are opened, they are removed from the list alltogether.

I don't yet have a price in mind for these boxes, probably 1-5k, as to make them feel like a quick and painless purchase. Depending on what ideas you guys give me, this might still change.

Has anyone made up some police NPCs for a Lone Star style game?

What kinds of archetypes might be fun for a patrol-the-streets (like Nathan Filion's The Rookie) style schlubs?

I'm thinking that you've got two cops, one a mentor, the other a rookie, plus a matrix person on call, some kind of magical support? and one other. I need 5.

Lately i have found some time on my hands and started to come back to rpg games, so i have to ask if there is something similar to my favourite series Shadowrun. It dosent have to be turn based or same theme, it just needs to have vaguely the same feel for the nostalgia. I have found a similar game, Underrail, but i am not sure if its a good try. (Extra points if the game has cheats in it but not necessary)

I keep hearing that apparently there is exclusive content to Pegasus Press' german only shadowrun books(apparently also tie ins to Dragonfall and such), but like, are those canon and whether they are canon or not, is there resource that details what those tidbits are?

i love the cyberpunk style but im struggling to find games in the style cause of cyberpunk cloging the search results. mainly im looking for something easier than SR or CP for new players. i have a few people i want to DM for and i don't want to overwhelm them.

No, I'm not looking for some nice background tunes for my table (I actually greatly prefer no background music), I am looking for something else today.

I'm looking for songs or artists that look, sound, and feel like they are actually from the 6th World. Stuff that just doesn't quite sound like it's from our time.

Shower me in Links, Chummers.

For those familiar with the World of Darkness series, you likely know that around the release of VTM 20th edition there was something of a lore reset. The same is true for the Star Wars "legacy" cannon. The reason for both of these lore resets was creep and age. Simply put, overtime to much lore was generated that was contradictory, of wildly varying quality, and occasionally a bit troubling to modern sensibilities. Is it time for something similar in Shadowrun?

Shadowrun has similar problems as WoD and Star Wars. HMHVV has had 3 incarnations and is a pretty good example of what I mean by creep. Cities have been destroyed. The world has almost ended half a dozen times. The Matrix has crashed... 3 times? All in all, there is a lot of history to unpack in Shadowrun and despite my fondness for some of lore work a lot is not very good. This can be super intimidating to new players and limiting to experienced players. There are fewer and fewer blank slates for player creativity.

Equally, some of Shadowruns content is very 80s/90s. In forums online you can see players expressing a little discomfort with the exocitization of native populations and Asian cultures in the game. The portrayal of natives in the games is often simplified to the point of being nearly if not caricature.

Shadowrun also has something of a unique problem many other games don't have, that it's set in the near future while also being about cutting edge technology. First point, the Great Ghost Dance happened in 2017. We are already departing from the real world timeline which is not a great place for speculative fiction (even highly stylized spec fiction like SR) to be. Technology is a problem as well, for the world of the game to make sense (unless you are into the retrofuture elements) the writers keep having to crash the Matrix or come up with some new reason as to why the technology of Shadowrun shifted to better match whatever our current vision of the future is. THere were phone booths in this universe until like 2060ish.

So, is it time for a lore reset? If so what are the keepers and what must go? Do you mess with the lore in any big ways during your games?

Hi!

I been running my 20th anniversary Shadowrun game for about 6 months and it goes great but I do have an issue with a very over-armored Troll player. This guy has 3 times the armor of the other players. Last night, with an Armor spell, he had 27B / 26I!

So I'm wondering, aside from mages, how do you deal with that fairly? Thanks!

I'm curious about them, what are their ups and downs and what are people's experiences with them? Are they truly as game-breaking as I've heard or is it an overexagguration? How do most GMs balance around them? What makes for good plotlines for them?

So I'm reading all the fall out over the DND lore changes (tldr: not all members of evil races have to be evil) and I wanted to give a shout out to SR lore and how it was one step ahead on this issue. The way the lore evolves over the time and changes almost organically really just sets this world apart. And the best part it that it maintains the ambiguity to give you the choice on how to interpret it. I think of the way ghouls were handled. Ghouls used to be the mindless diseased cannibals you could hunt conscience free for a couple of nuyen. Then they became sympathetic characters fighting for civil rights and now they're...well they are whatever you want them to be. Dark heroes fighting a hunger, a nation of monsters striving for the light, criminals you work for or against, or mindless monsters you can kill for guilt free nuyen. Shadowrun's lore, especially in the Jackpoint and Shadowtalk is just so good at keeping the right amount of moral ambiguity while allowing you to change or grow the lore the way you want. Really just kinda special.

There was a lot I loved about Shadowrun when I was first introduced to it during the Sega Genesis era and read the core rulebook.

The latest edition I found on Drivethru was fifth edition. What happened to sixth edition? I had trouble finding it on drivethru or Amazon. For either of those editions, what are the basic esssentials, core rulebook and expansions, that I should get for a satisfying game? I don't make my own stuff well, so essentials for me would include a variety of creatures and gear as well as the core rulebook.

Is the Sixth Edition corebook Cutting Black?

Quick background: played a lot of shadowrun from 3rd edition (stopped right around 6th), and since then I have been looking to capture the same vibe within a video game. The groups I GM'd we usually did a lot of upfront planning and legwork before a few hours of execution, almost always going in a heist-like (ie stealth) direction. Shadowrun returns was great to capture the world and tabletop vibe, but I'm really looking to play a teamwork-based fps in such heist-like settings. As far as I know something that hits my laundry list of requirements doesn't exist yet, so I'd like to hear about your experiences with games that:

-capture the shadowrun universe

-capture a specific mechanic(s) that you think would work for a hypothetical SR game

To start off:

-Payday 2: the closet thing I've found to scratch the heist itch in general, particularly if you do high difficulty with only stealth. Has a perk tree that seems quite adaptable to a SR game, allowing each member to specialize. My only issue is the emphasis on shooting waves of cops: you either full stealth it (and restart if you fail) or you do waves with a different build. Having a slow progression of cops (less numbers, better AI) might be a good middle ground that could allow you to continue the mission from stealth to "shit hitting the fan." Lacks hacking and rigging.

-SWAT 4 & Ready or Not: teamwork, enemy AI and managing civilians. Fun game that forces heavy teamwork and coordination. Since you're not cops in Shadowrun, you could have your payout penalized by civilians shot/performance rather than your score in these games.

-Hitman 3 Blood Money and Dishonored: map options/choices. Lots of options to secure the objective in the maps if you do the legwork. Our shadowruns always encouraged thinking outside the box, and while that's difficult to code into a game, I think hitman does a good job of hiding lots of options for the player to arrive at the end goal.

-GTFO: hacking/decking. This was always a difficult thing to keep engaging in tabletop, having your decker work alongside the team in realtime vs doing a few hours of decking before the rest of the team does the real-world portion. Surprisingly, GTFO has a nice and simple solution that forces your decker to move with the team, doesn't make their work take hours (you work in realtime alongside the team shooting) and is a clever scheme. Skips the BS hacking minigames, uses simple commands and since you're typing, makes you feel

Could all three games actually be about the same one person between 2053 and 2056?

And what might this Prime Runner do after moving to Seattle if this were the case?

Does anyone have a good map for North America of 6e/after the events of Cutting Black? Trying to see exactly what changes have occured and if Illinois truly has Sioux troops on its soil.

Hi! So yeah I would be interested in trying out shadowrun.. but I 'm not sure where I could look for it. Both r/lfg and roll20 are flooded with dnd stuff, and the only discord server I found that had the shadow run tag was a westmarch which I am not interested in..

Sooooo yeah anyone can recomend a specific sub reddit, discord server or whatever else where I could have chance to try out the game?

I am a big fan of the Shadowrun world, but not the ruleset. So I tried to convert it to the Cypher System. I went in with the mantra of "if the Cypher System can do it, use that before changing anything." Afterwards I made some modifications to add to it to get some of the things I liked from Shadowrun, like a wide selection of gear and cybernetics giving you the ability to pick the right tool for the job. It's not complete but it's done enough to get an idea of the shape of it.

The first change is the inclusion of races after the descriptor, but this is not new as some of the Cypher System books have talked about this. The next is the inclusion of Cyberware and Magical Foci (Foci in the Shadowrun use of the word) limits for each type. These limits are further modified by which Character Foci you pick based on if it's magical or not. Cyberware is listed and just treated as high-tier purchasable abilities you can't change. Magical Foci are interchangeable and mostly provide bonuses to abilities if attuned to that Magical Foci. These bonuses are based on Cyphers from the book. Qi Tattoos are permanent Magical Foci that give a mid-tier ability can that be swapped around for other mid-tier abilities based on the tattoo.

The rest of it is defining The Matrix rules, which need it, and adding a selection of gear, which a lot of what the genre Cypher System books did (Stars are Fire, ect).

Criticism of where I could better use what's already in the Cypher System or concerns about balance would be good feedback. Really any feedback would be great, but those are the two I worry about.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XZ3e1dh93wRw6JuWX6xasCpir8PQiY2x2y-CAFGxko8/edit?usp=sharing

[effacé]

Hoi chummers,

So, I see we have two(!) fantastic Shadowrun in Genesys conversions. Paul M. N. Haakonsen’s version and Robert “Chaithi” Thayer and Surukai’s version.

Seems like Paul Haakonsen’s version brings the Shadowrun rules and setting into Genesys. While Robert “Chaithi” Thayer and Surukai’s version is more just bringing the setting and letting Genesys Core deal with its alternate magic rules and Shadow of the Beanstalk with its hacking rules run the show.

This leaves us with two very difference approaches and levels of crunch.

Anyone with experience with one version, or preferably both, wanna chime in on which you prefer?

(Edit: thanks to u/TheLovelyAlucard for linking both versions below)

I usually make video intros for my RPG campaigns by scrapping whatever source I can find and slapping a cool song over it in a video montage. Usually I take my sources from anime because I'm a weeb but any 2D animation will do.

While I have no problem finding anime sources to illustrate the Cyberpunk part of Shadowrun, I have a harder time for the urban fantasy part of Shadowrun.

Apart from Angel Cop and some Kawajiri Movies (Demon City Shinjuku, Wicked City, Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust) I have yet to find more anime sources that would illustrate the urban fantasy part of Shadowrun for my video montage.

I'd be grateful if you happen to know any.

Our current understanding of the rules indicate that a technomancer can not reset overwatch score without using cleaner over and over again. I'm guessing that the intention is that technomancers can use the reboot device matrix action to reboot their living persona but I can not find anything to back that up.

Can anyone help me out?

Only ran CP2020 once and no one was playing a netrunner. Is it really as bad as people here put it?

I got really disappointed by CP77 story and characters. It feels like a wasted setting to me. Shadowrun's world, especially Dragonfall's felt much more authentic, and the characters felt more compelling.

For example, Glory's story was very impactful and as a player, I cared about her more than most characters in CP77. What's more, her story fits the mysticism and cyberpunk setting where the game is set. While most CP77 quests don't.

What I mean by this is that the heart of Glory's story is part of the setting. Her installing old and bulky cyberware to hinder her magical abilities as much as possible. This is an inseparable part of the lore. While in cyberpunk, for example, much of Panam's story is centered around things that could have happened in any other setting. Someone stole her car, someone kidnaped her friend, you steal a tank.

The Dragonfall's quest of the remote control troll illustrated cooperate greed and cruelty far more than any quest CP77 did and more than all of Keanu Reeve's moaning about how bad Arasaka is.

The Cyberzombie troll was a significant moral dilemma for me, and nothing in CP77 made me as conflicted about what to do as this quest.

And not only that Shadowrun quests provided meaningful moral dilemmas, but they also provided meaningful roleplaying options. You can play the role of the good guy who does the moral thing. And you feel like a good guy who does the moral thing. Also, you can play the stone-cold professional who does the job he was contracted to do, no questions asked. And you'll feel like that. Shadowrun mostly archives this by your crew commenting on your actions.

In contrast, in CP77 no matter what you do, most of the time it feels the same. For instance, there is a gig where you are contracted to get a snuff tape from a father and son recording studio. YOu can just get the tape and leave. You can kill the father, kill the son or kill them both (And take the tape and leave.)

No matter what you do, no one will ever comment on it or it will have any significance. What you do is meaningless as far as the game is concerned.

EDIT: And again, the cyber zombie moral dilemma and quests are embedded in the lore of cyberpunk. It can happen only in a cyberpunk setting. On the other hand, most CP77 quests can happen in any setting and the CP elements are just window dressing.

I'm looking to have some someone do some digital art for me. I've got some reference material to work from, and I've got nuyen to pay for it. Serious interest only, and have the time to produce results in a timely fashion. Please have some prior work to show your skills and be prepared to offer a price quote after I give you the information on what I'm looking for.

I'm about to start a Shadowrun 4e campaign and was wonder what are some common House rules are and what assumptions you make where the rules/lore is unclear

Hey I'm totally new to Shadowrun, and trying not to read too much about it so as not to get spoiled on plot stuff. I made a cool fighter-type ork who's good with pistols, and she's been working well for me so far. I've made it to the part where I've been given a place to stay at the Seamstresses Union, and I bought some better gear, but I'll admit to feeling a little overwhelmed with options. Is this the kind of game where it's better to focus on a couple things, like guns and melee, or can I dabble in a bit of everything? There's so much tech and magic stuff, but I don't know what's worthwhile to use, and what I should hold off on for now and save for a future playthrough with a more techie or magical-type character. Are there any body mods or spells that are particularly worthwhile for a fighter? Is there anything else I should know, mechanics-wise, before assigning too much karma? I don't wanna end up with a broken character down the line. Thank you so much!

Shadowrun is already a dystopian setting. No matter how the players might try, the Corporations will always use them up, and discard them when they're no longer useful - and the Streets are no kinder, either - although there is often a sense of fraternity. You're a little fish, in a great big ocean. You can score little victories, but you're the few against the many, and in the end you're going to either fall in line with the powers-that-be, or you're going to go down.

My question is: Have any of you thrown another level into it? Ala "Aliens", you threw the paperwork back into the faces of corporate authority, and told them that they didn't understand that there were powers so massive and merciless that their spreadsheets didn't mean a damn thing? How does a Runner whom has faced down a Horror even tell Damien Knight about it, without sounding like a madman? And how long would you expect to live, once you do?

I'm curious to know your stories, Chummers. Write me some good stuff, and post it here.

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Ok so here's the deal:

I played 2e Shadowrun back in 1997 and loved it. But I forgot/didn't learn all of it. I want an Expert to talk to, to teach and go over the rules for 2e, so that one day I can GM for it. I am willing to pay $5 per hour, not sure how many hours I need, via Paypal. I want someone who knows the rules well, can explain them good and maybe even has some notes that he/she can share with me. I don't expect to need more than 2-3 hours and I just want to learn it well. I have the 2e book and a bunch of splats too. Mainly I just want to get enough rules down to have fun GMing it. It is so hard trying to understand the books on your own and its been 24 years since I last played it. Thanks in advance.

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Does the Vatican still exist in the Shadowrun universe?

If yes, how powerful and influential is the Pope? Same influence as the corps? Less influence?

Can metahumans become priests?

https://youtu.be/srIJ-tUHrME 1:52:30

He hasn't confirmed it yet so the developer is unknown, but he's been 'hearing rumblings' about it.

I'm curious what type of game it will be. At one point it was a first person shooter, and at another it's an isometric RPG lol

Edit - seems as though Arkane Lyon's creative director tweeted a few weeks ago about what title we would like to get brought back, and 1 of the 4 options was Shadowrun! Very convenient huh...

Earlier today Jez leaked a few projects names and info for some of them, one of them being Codename Vonnegut. So, on Grubbsnax, Jeff when hearing about it thinks that Vonnegut might be Shadowrun.