Why Do You Play Shadowrun ?, Why this RPG and not another ?? Options

[InfinityzeN]

I play/have played more RPGs then I care to think about. D&D, AD&D, D&D 3 (and 3.5), GURPS (3 was my old groups "Go Too" system), HERO, Ars Magica (3, 4 & 5), every WW system just about (love Aberrant), SR (2, 3 & 4), Runequest (2 and 3), Storm Bringer, CoC, Earth Dawn, Delta Green, Starwars (WEG version), CP2020, Wheel of Time, Toon, Bunnies and Burrows, Lot5R, Middle Earth RPG, Role Master (Dark Space is great), Blue Planet, etc etc etc to include lots of small press and ones that never made it.

SR however, has a special place in my heart. It gets into my top 5 systems/games due to its world/setting and very interesting setting. In case your wondering, the other four are: GURPS 3, Runequest 3, Ars Magica 4/5 (I like em both) and Aberrant.

*Edit: My votes were Setting, Mix and Long Time Player *

[Draco18s]

I play/have played more RPGs then I care to think about. ...Blue Planet...

Gasp! Another Blue Planet player!

[bluedragon7]

Started roleplaying mid eighties with one system (DSA), made a pause out of lack of local gamers, restarted in 1990 testing out many different systems including 1st edition SR, still have my first char (elven streetsam from ssc) liked it definetly more than cyberpunk (i like magic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )
Again made a pause till mid 90 and played since then mainly SR (2nd 3rd and 4th) and last few years DSA again (and tested a lot of others)
I mostly like the mix of magic and technology, if i am in the mood for more magic it is DSA, with more mood for technology i stick to mechwarrior.

[TBRMInsanity]

I really like the Mechwarrior RPG but unfortunately I hate when you have to include Battletech with it (the two rule sets don't mesh well together). It gets even worse when you throw in Aerotech units.

[Pendaric]

It covers humanity's spectrum including fantasy. Wondrous varity that is intimately familiar.

[TeOdio]

I started back around 1992 or so at the tender age of 16. At the time, a lot of cyber punk books and movies had came out, I started digging Industrial music. I had been playing a slew of games like AD&D, bunch of different Palladium stuff, and we were starting to look into Vampire. My friend had a 1st ed book and some supplements (which he used to come up with an elaborate way to shoe horn Mechwarrior 2nd Ed rules into). He ran that bastard for a couple of runs before devoting his GM time to Vampire. Since I loved the cyberpunk genre and loved the promise of Rifts (just hated the mechanics) I took up the mantel and started running. I was still running 2nd ed before moving to Colorado in 98 for what we joked was Shadow Army. (I had a hard time turning away players, and everyone was generally cool about it, but when you have 3 separate groups doing 3 separate things... sheesh)
After about 4 months in Colorado, my cousin and I decided we need to do some gaming, put up a Shadow Run note on the FLGS message board and had enough calls in a week to fill a game. I have been running steadily ever since from 2nd to 4th Ed. Don't get a chance to play much, but I take up a Con here and there, I think Freejack ran for me at last year's Ghengis Con. Even running at cons myself for relative newbs, I have to say 4th edition is the most friendly for getting folks back into or just into the game in general.
Things I love the most:
1. As a GM I can run whatever sort of story I want. The mix of Sci Fi and Science (add in Metaplaner Quests and now Resonance Realms) creates a setting unlike any other. The complexity of so many factions and the individual desires of folks in those factions allows me to craft as grey a setting as I can.
2. I love the randomness of the 4th Edition dice mechanics. I've seen 15 plus pools come up with only 1 or 2 hits (sometimes even after edge!) I've dropped 7 hits on my players with 7 dice. The uncertainty of the "lucky" shot is much more a reality than in other editions in my opinion (and from the experience of running a game almost weekly since it came out).
3. Light pistols are not the POS Jokes they were in 2nd and 3rd editions!
4. Critters are back baby! (Hey my hell hound still doesn't wear armor, but at least I can try and soak damage and get shot at least once or twice!)
3rd Ed hell Hound, "Shit, another Ares Predator, I give up!"
4th Ed Hell hound, "Hey, impact armor is still less than ballistic" then drools a bit thinking about metahuman snacks.

[evilgoattea]

I love the story and setting of the Shadowrun Universe. And while I like d20, I think Dicepool is a better system.

-Josh

[Artemis]

Apart from the obvious of the big guns and explosions I love the flexibility of setting. The players can truly tackle the chalengesin whatever way they see fit, from kicking down the doors and hosing the room to knocking out the waiter dressing in his clothes and poisoning the creme brule on the way to the target, and both fit the game. Oh and all the "postings" in the sourcebooks they just crack me up.

[ornot]

There are lots of RPGs I like, but the thing that sells me on a game is always the setting.

Noone can accuse SR of being generic or bland.

Equinox looks quite interesting, and visiting LRGs also reminded me of Fading Suns, another awesome setting I love.

I will take a break from SR when I reach the end of the adventure arc I'm running. If my players agree I'll run a western using my preferred generic system.

[toturi]

The only system I find similarily fascinating is CthulhuTech, but even with less cyber and more mechs, eldritch horrors, and a very different kind of metaplot, it feels very much like Shadowrun.

The Framewerks system struck me the same way. There are presumably no levels, no classes, all very similar to Shadowrun. The art is great. IMO, CGL made a good call publishing Cthulutech. If the owners of the C-Tech IP wanted to sell, I'd urge CGL to buy them out in a heartbeat.

But (a very big but) in Shadowrun, the developers and writers do not pontificate and attempt to preach to us "The One True Way" of playing their game. When the developers tell you that there is a certain canon way of playing their game and that number crunching is munchkinism, well, it just rubs me the wrong way. When there are "canon" (as opposed to RAW) reasons why some rules legal character concepts are homebrew, then to me, something is very wrong indeed.

I can take rules changes in stride, even things like the recent SR4A rules revamp, but I fervently hope that I will never see the day that Peter or Adam post why a pornomancer should not be because they did not envision it in their Shadowrun world.

[raggedhalo]

I'd started playing D&D, MERP and Rolemaster back in '92, alongside Games Workshop stuff like Warhammer and 40K. Then in late '93 or early '94 I picked up the Shadowrun SNES game, loved it, and shortly afterwards discovered it was an RPG. Win!

So I became an avid GM, player, etc. for pretty much all of 2nd Ed but then got really put off when they brought out 3rd Ed and stopped being interested so much. I had a bit of a revival in 2005 or so, running SR2 with some of the 3rd Ed rules plugged in, but since 4th Ed came out I've been totally sold on it again.

Most of all, it's the setting and the metaplot and the feel of a constantly-advancing world that I love.

[Blade]

I've started playing Shadowrun because my first GM GMed it (2nd ed). I vaguely knew Shadowrun from the SNES game.
I had a lot of fun playing SR back then, but no more than playing any other game.

A few years later, I read Neuromancer and fell in love with Cyberpunk. Remembering Shadowrun, I got hold of the newest edition (3rd) and started GMing. Since then, Shadowrun has been my favorite game. I do play other games from time to time, and enjoy them, but Shadowrun is still my favorite by a long shot (except for Dying Earth which also hold a special place in my heart).

I think it's mostly because of the cyberpunk part of the setting and the way characters can be fleshed out.
Even if I like the way magic and especially metahumans have been included into the universe, I would still play it if there was no magic.
I like how action scenes mix "realism" and superhuman abilities. I like the fact that you can play nearly anything you want in the same world. Even in the same campaign you can have a completely different atmosphere from one session to another.
But I think that above all, I like the way I can develop very interesting personal stories for the characters, how you can play the daily lives of the characters while still having an interesting game and not falling into stupid wangst or stereotypes as in other games.

[Metapunk]

I played roleplay for a long time and I only heard great stuff about SR, though I never tried it.
Then one day I walked into my bookstore and they had the core rulebook, I thought "what the heck" and bought the book, started reading it, only got more and more impressed. I ran my first game, and I was told I did a good job and that they liked the game. so now we had a group willing to play it, we all play it since we like the mix of tech and magic, we are all roleplayer with a few years of playing D&D 3.5, CoC, Vampire the masquerade, but nothing fitted at least my love of RPG's like shadowrun has done, now I have bought Augmentation, Arsenal, Unwired, Street magic and Runners companion:)

and we have started our first campaign:D

and I intend to keep going in this game

[Doc Byte]

SR1 was my first RPG ever in 1993 and SR4 is one of 3 RPGs I am or was seriously playing. (The others are SW D6 & DSA/TDE.) I bought some other games (Deciphers ST RPG, Moongoose's Traveller e.g.) and wanted to try others (like ED or Deadlands) but your first RPG's simply your first RPG. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

[crazyconscript]

I started out with wargaming, playing Warhammer 40k mostly(though fantasy was always my love, and i still enjoy it)
Then i came to college, and there were now longer any wargamers to play with (IMG:style_emoticons/default/question.gif) . There was however, an active gaming scene and i got involved in that, gorging myself on various and random board- and card-games before actually taking the leap and playing an RPG. I thought i knew all about role-playing games, since many of my college friends played them and i had always had an abstract interest in them, but when i started playing i couldn't get enough. My first game was Riddle of Steel (with an awesomeness GM) and although it only ran for a few games, it was a highly enjoyable and educational experience. Strangely, although i know many, many role-players, only 3 actually play D&D and i only met them last year so it has only been recently i was exposed to D20 system (which is OK if run right i think)
After playing a few White Wolf games, i got a bit tired of them. I didn't enjoy the camarilla and got bored with the whole WoD thing (Scion: Hero, however, i still like and GM. Not Demi or God though). It was then that i discovered Shadowrun. My first encounter with it was actually the old Genesis game while i was looking through my old emulator files that i had never played, and i was intrigued by the world (the game however left quite a bit to be desired...but it got the setting across nicely imo). After discovering that it was a role-playing game aswell, i was determined to play it and searched out everything i could on it. I just love the setting, the magic+tech melange, and the fact the corporations are all bastards in one way or another (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
From a GM perspective, I love how i can run the game whatever way i feel like, and from a player perspective i love how i can be almost anything i can think of! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
btw, i've only played SR4, and i really like the system

[InfinityzeN]

Gasp! Another Blue Planet player!

I'm surprised you missed me suggesting using Blue Planet's inititive system in the alternate inititive thread a month or so back.

I actually think the V1 inititive system is one of the best designed of any game since it requires stating your action then waiting a set number of passes (determined by how fast you are) before the action happen with interupts allowed for "Free Actions". Just added that little discription for the non-Blue Planet people.

*Edit: Add Fading Suns, Mechwarrior RPG (three different versions of!), and MERPS*

[ludomastro]

Because it is awesome. That is why I play SR.

The mix of magic and tech is right up my alley and the dark (or darkish - depends on the GM) future is always great.

[Draco18s]

I'm surprised you missed me suggesting using Blue Planet's inititive system in the alternate inititive thread a month or so back.

Given that the one game...er, two games, one more modified than the other (second game had magic) were both done online though YIM Voice Chat I never saw the dice, the GM did all of that, so I had no idea how initiative worked (most of the rest though, I understood the dice, and heard the results ("a 3, a 4, and a 9, you make it")).

The second game was one where the GM and I got into a fight. One character and I were on a rooftop waiting for the GM to reply to our chosen actions only to find that he wasn't reading the main chat and was single-posting with the three other people. My action happened to be based of waiting for another player who had gone idle and the GM decided to not let me decide to do something else or to GM-PC her character until she came back. He also decided not to say anything about it for four hours.

Apparently it was my responsibility to poke him in IM and ask for the results of my actions myself, rather than assuming he was going to pick up on it in the main window.

Basically imagine a TTRPG where everyone is passing notes to the GM under the table (that is, if notes are passed none of the other players even know the notes are being passed, only that note passing is occurring) and that if you say something out loud and declare to the whole group what you're doing (because it's not a secret) you get a table full of silence because the GM is too busy writing personalized replies to take notice of your actions.

(In the first game (by game I mean plot line/setting, not sessions) I fell asleep one time (because it was like 2am) and was asleep for a good three hours, I woke back up just in time to have missed everything that didn't relate to my character because it was all spent in a 1on1 man-a-mano fight: the GM's Favorite Player* vs. an invisible Giant Squid)

*Second game rarely got off the ground because we couldn't start until TGMFP showed up: once every 2 weeks at 10pm, everyone's heading to bed by midnight.

[Phylos Fett]

I've been pretty much gaming since 1985 when a friend introduced me to AD&D. I was pretty much a D&D guy from then on, even though I did pick up Marvel Super Heroes (another TSR product) from a local game shop in 1987 because I liked the comics. In 1992 I bought the SR2 BBB from a local retailer even though I was a poor student at the time. I read the thing with amazement - this was so much better than D&D!!! It wasn't until a couple of years later that I managed to get a group together and I gamed on and off for years (all the while collecting a variety of other weird and wonderful RPGs that take up a couple of bookshelves). I've been in a bit of a gaming dry spot of late, but who knows what is around the corner...

[Freejack]

Don't get a chance to play much, but I take up a Con here and there, I think Freejack ran for me at last year's Ghengis Con.

I ran the Shadowrun game on Friday if that helps (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Hope I did a good job (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I'm contemplating running something at GenCon since I still have time to submit and I'll likely be running two games at the upcoming Genghis Con if you want to drop in again.

Carl

[tete]

in 1990 IIRC I saw the 1e Street Samurai catalog at a book store. I had played D&D a couple times but not really into gaming but this odd looking guy on the cover and all the fictional guns inside fascinated me so I bought it. It sat on my shelf I never really knew what it was for... Fast forward to high school and I got invited to go play Traveller. We played that game for 6 months or so till our ship blew up in a blaze of glory. The GM said lets play Shadowrun, funny thing was I recognized one of the books, my street samurai catalog.

What I always loved about shadowrun was the cyberpunk and the gun combat rules. I liked the light, medium, etc damage bar and liked how even a small pistol could potentially kill someone in one shot. I also loved the cyberware and the grit. That grit where it seamed gloomy with acid rain almost every night and when it didn't rain you had red smog. Meta-plot also grabbed me. The Horrors meta-plot was AWESOME! Combat pools gave just enough tactical strategy for me, we never used minis or maps. Distances were always up to the GM, and living in Yakima it didn't hurt that Seattle was only a 3 hour drive away.

So for me...

#1 gun combat rules
#2 Horrors plot line
#3 The gritty world
#4 The cyberware

[Draco18s]

Semi-related side note:
Someone pointed me at Spycraft 2.0 the other day and I wanted to know if anyone had ever played it.
Think Action Flicks + d20 + Cyberpunk. The d20 rules are still clearly visible, though radically different than any d20 system I've seen (it has rules for a fluid initiative system: some actions cause your init to go up, others down). "Wounds" are more like ShadowRun, combat ranges from melee (fist) to swords to bows to guns. NPCs are minions and henchmen and supposed to fall over. And the setting is "near future" (you know, like James Bond: crazy underwater cars? Sure, but no full out cyberlimbs and such--that I saw).

[InfinityzeN]

Actually, I have played Spycraft, but not 2.0. I think Cain plays it though so you might want to ask him.

And initiative in BP boils down to a delay based on how fast your character is, from 1 (the fastest) to 4 or 5 (the slowest). You all declare your actions, then you delay in passes later you take your action. You can of course hold your action, drop your action, or switch to a defense. After your action you have to wait the delay before you can declare your next one. It makes fights very tactical.

[Socinus]

Im probably one of the anomalies here.

I dont play any other pen and paper games, I don't really like too many RPGs on the computer, I don't like D&D and I cant STAND Warhammer.

My fiancee and I picked up Vampire: The Requiem at a bookstore that was going out of business for like five bucks. I bought it because the story was kinda neat, not even really realizing what it was. We were bored and decided, hey, lets give Vampire a try. We both found it more complicated than it was worth (keep in mind our experience with pen and paper was zero) so we decided to pickup something else and try it.

By some miracle of commerce, a copy of the Shadowrun 4th Edition Core Rulebook was at Borders. We picked it up, saw that the game was contained in one single book, said "cool", and bought it. When I actually sat down and read it, I found I REALLY liked the story and premise.

Im a Transhumanist so the idea of posthuman body modification is very appealing and I feel that the Shadowrun world gives far more flexibility for storyline and characters than a strictly fantasy or strictly sci fi setting. Also, being a Pagan, I do actually believe that people were once very in-tune with the natural world and could do things that we today would consider magic but as technology began to play a bigger and bigger part in our lives, we forgot about that part of ourselves. I also believe that magic will re-emerge into the world at some point in the future (Albeit not nearly as dramatically or directly as Shadowrun) so I find resonance also with certain aspects of my religious belief.

One of the biggest draws, as I said before, is Shadowrun feels just far more OPEN than something like D&D where even with dozens of rulebooks, at the end of the day its still basically dungeon crawling which...yeah its fun but after a while I want a little variety. Im open to trying games like D&D but I dont seek out opportunities to play.

I just wish I had more people around here who played. Online games are kinda tedious and you don't get the spirit that you do playing it with friends IRL. Biggest hangup is time, a lot of the people I know who would be willing to play dont have time.

[ludomastro]

Semi-related side note:
Someone pointed me at Spycraft 2.0 the other day and I wanted to know if anyone had ever played it.

Without trying to threadjack, yes, I play. In fact I am GM'ing for my wife and two friends right now. Feel free to drop me a PM and I'd be happy to discuss.