There, now peeps can voice their preferences and have a consolidiated place to debate the finer and grosser points.

My position:

SR1 had the merit of being first. True, back then it was viewed by some as little else than Tolkienized Cyberpunk, but no other game setting sparked my imagination more. I particularly liked some of the art. The rules were kludgy, but that's because they were trying some things that hadn't really been tried before.

SR2 had the best art, in my opinion. At this point the game had matured and gotten chock full of flavor. The rules tried to get a bit more streamlined, likely to support the additional options getting put in. Most of my Shadowrun career was spent in this edition. Understanding the Matrix became a part-time job unto itself, and repeated reincarnations of those rules hurt my brain. The rest of the game had a steep learning curve too, but we veterans considered the mastery of these difficult arts to be a badge of honor.

SR3 seemed promising, but didn't actually add too much as far as I could tell. I wasn't too pleased with the new art, and the system itself didn't seem to be any better. The fiction was able to build upon a very solid background at this point, and I liked that. The legacy rules and little fidgety complications overwhelmed me and my players to the point where a lot just got regrettably handwaved. Examples: decking and rigging.

SR4 holds the distinction of being a total rework for sake of sanity. Some regard it as "dumbed down," while some view it as "streamlined." Myself, I don't see the two labels as mutually exclusive nor undesirable. At the very least it lets the Matrix people sit at the table with everyone else now, and for that I'm happy.

My vote? SR4, mostly because it's the first edition in which I don't feel reluctant to recruit first-time players. Ease of play is a wise marketing strategy, as all of us old-timers are of course going to consider buying the new stuff, but no game survives for long without new blood.

This may (not saying it IS, but stating ahead of time it MAY) get a little slanted, on account of being in the "SR4" area, and all, instead of out in general discussion/Shadowrun itself.

Yeah, I considered that. There have been scattered debates to this effect in the Shadowrun 4 forum (because obviously the new stuff will get compared to the old) and I figured we could use some consolidation.

1 was ok i guess didn't play too much of it.

2 was the edition i played a ton of and got me hooked.

3 again ok but just wasn't for me even as i played 3 for years i still held tight to 2.

4 tis new i like it alot so far but it is still growing so well see i can say i like it better than 3. better than 2? still deciding hehe.

Your thoughts on the various editions mirror my own very closely; right down to the artwork preferences.

I say "all are good," and most of the editions have their strengths, but I'll be sticking with SR4 for playing. Riggers and Deckers that can play with the rest of the team (heck, decker rules that can be played at all) are the cincher.

Not that there aren't frustrating parts of SR4 that make me crazy; but those are almost exclusively things that just aren't made clear enough by the rules, rather than rules that get so long in the tooth I skim them at best (Rigger 2 and 3, I'm looking at you! Three channels per drone with separate electronic warfare on each, with a good half-dozen EW types? No thank you!)

While I have the most experience with SR3, I am really enjoying where they are going with SR4.

Yes, I've described it as Shadowrun meets WhiteWolf as far as mechanics go, but I think it will be a solid system that is easily accessable to both beginning players and the veterans who have been here through the ages.

I'd like to donate my toaster to the graviton project, as it is fond of leaving particles all over my kitchen counter.

I'm gonna go with Feshy here. The huge, huuuuuge selling point here is riggers and deckers meshing easily with the rest of the group. Having a stats curve that's less wonky than the earlier versions tended to get around TN 6-8 is also really nice.

Wow, zero votes for SR1 so far. No respect for the elderly!

Thats because SR1, at least in my opinion, was pioneering but very awkward. The rules didn't flow and alot of the game wasn't all that great compared to the later versions

I only found out about shadowrun when SR3 came out.
Still don't really understand the SR3 matrix rules and have meet several people who only will have Deckers as NPCs. I enjoy the amount of material out for SR3 but have a slight problem with the obtuse complexity of the rules. It seems that some of the rules were wedged in edgewise and just didn't fit the system as well as they should.
I have played SR2 a little at cons and read a few of the books for adventure ideas. Oddly enough I enjoyed this system a little more, although I can not honestly say why. Although from listening to a super munchlin player rant on about how such and such was done in 2nd and hearing about his uberman ideas in it I am happy to leave it behind.
SR1 - Seems to me like an ecliptic gathering of rules with a nice nostalgic feel to it. It has the same problem for me as AD&D 1st. source books in halfway decent shape are difficult to come by, and that several players want some type of reference material of their own.
SR4 - I have high hopes for this system. Only time will tell how it will mature.
SR5 - The way gaming systems are going now a days this is bound to come out eventually. Otherwise the entire SR universe might pass out from public view like other game systems before it. Hopefully, the discussion boards will be going on about how much SR5, and long live SR4.

SR3. 3rd ed managed to fix many of the problems of 1 and 2, although it still required work. SR$ is a baby-and-bathwater solution to SR3's problems.

i'm with cain here, baby and bathwater, yes there were things that needed fixing in SR3, and you know what some of them even got fixed in SR4, but SR4 broke a lot of the things that SR3 had finally gotten right, like dodging. i mean i'm sorry but whats most discussions on here seem to be about.....house rulings.....thats right people are so busy temporarily tweaking SR4 that they arent noticing that their having to fix things that worked in SR3

Sr4 for me, I just like the streamlining, and dumbing down for stoopid players...

Plus deckers work with the group yey!!!

Well I have used SR3 for most of my more recent groups!

I started in 1st edition and it was ok , 2nd made it a little easier and 3rd well i agree not much changed just alot of good source material to work with, soon i'll be starting with 4th.


So for now 3rd gets my vote dure to lots of Source books to work with.

Gotta say I prefer 2nd. Decking sucked, granted, but its the nostalgia of the book, the art, and all the old fiction. I'm having a lot of fun with 4th ed, but I can't undo years of history.

well, for me:

1e: Same thing as many say...AD&D1e syndrome. Nice feeling, nostalgia...but I came in at 2 actually...but still had a lot of 1 source material so I went and read more of it.

2e: Cleaned up a lot of 1, wasn't perfect, but it worked. Tho i(and from what i hear a few others), weren't too fond of what happened to adepts. But there was a lot more source material, options, etc. Matrix and rigging was still a pain in the ass.

3e: Prolly my fav, again cleaned up a lot of the previous problems, made some stuff more streamlined but rigging and decking still boggled my brain. I got it, but at the same time it was even still a pain. Loved all the source material, the options, and Adepts, whom I always loved, no longer were cannon fodder, but back to being respectable. Actually, everyone ended up a little more respectable in SR3...Im not one for needing a ton of points but 15 points for attributes in a priority, or 500 nuyen, was a bit ridiculous in SR2.

4e: Much more streamlined, and i am liking what they are doing. Rigging and hacking are finally doable ingame without a huge queue key adventure. IMO though, the new char creation system opens up a rather large minmaxing door. I just tend to see more of it here than in 3e(where you could just pretty much stick things where you needed them and were done with it with less picking around.) And of course, right now we are still awaiting errata and other unclear things in the book, it being new. But i really enjoy it and it's definately my second favorite of the bunch. After playing more, it might even tie for SR3.