Just wanted to know how much new players there is ...

Personnally, I started with the first edition... I picked it at my local game store and it quickly became one of my favorite RPG universe.

I played Cyberpunk 2013 (1st edition) before and it hooked me to the dark future thing. At first I was not really interested by elves in a futuristic world... but peoples change and tastes too... ^_^

Started with first but prefered Cyberpunk because of the greater and much much cooler cyberware variety. Got into it for real when 2nd launched and been playing ever since.

Looks like we're all ancient or newborns. I'm among the "soon to be senile" majority.

...still have the actual character sheet for the original Kyoto Kid (then simply nicknamed "The Kid" since she was only fifteen at the time). Yeah the damage codes were a bit odd in SR1, but the skill web was fun ("I default from my Japanese Cooking" and make up a couple kilos of C6") and an adept could buy auto successes as a power.

I sooooo remember those 6M2, 10D4 damage and such... and the dreaded Turn-to-goo spell that was re-introduced in SR4... ^_^

I voted 2nd because I started with first, and then second came out very shortly afterwards and that was what I really got in to playing. So if there was an option for 1 & 1/2 that would be the most accurate for me. Skill Web was great, mandatory Allergies, wacky damage codes, Astral "grounding" all good times.

Put me down for being an old-timer as well.
Ah, for the days when an armored jacket could almost stop anything short of an assault cannon.

I played my first game of SR in 2nd ED. I remember the very first meet, we had all been called seperately to meet in a ware house, I stood at the door while every one else looked around the building. When the door opened, the man behind said "Where's every one else" to which my character replied "They chickened out". It was pretty funny at the time, but maybe that was because I was like 14.

I bought 1st in the game store, but couildn't find anyone who wanted to play until 3rd came out. So an I an old coot or a teen? An old teen?

For those who remember SR1, what did you think of the different Staging numbers for weapons? I felt it gave variety for weapons, rather than just looking at each weapon as the same damage (or similar) and the only difference is the way they look.

For those who don't know, staging numbers were a number that each weapon had determining the number of successes required to stage the damage to the next level, up or down. So, here's a few examples:

The Walther Palm Pistol was 3L1 (so it did 3L, with each success staging it up or down).
The Ares Predator was 4M3.

So, Palm Pistols were somewhat useful since they staged easier, but they were also easier to stage down. Basically, they made good surprise weapons and such, as opposed to pea shooters they are today.

Turn to Goo has been in all editions IIRC, just not in the core book.

The variable staging was ok, but it was pretty annoying, and the higher staging weapons could get really nasty because of how hard it was to stage the damage down. <scurry to bookshelf> Assault cannons (10D4) and AVMs (12D8) were da bomb!

I've been collecting every CP2020 book I can get mu hands on. I have pretty much every book, adventure and sourcebook both. Been using them for ideas, sometimes even taking the runs from the corebooks and running them in SR, using the screamsheets as handouts and such.

Might have to sit down with some people and convert things to SR and post it somewhere, like other people have.

I think that Gurth also did blackhand's weapons.

Too bad you are not closer I would be interested.

Depends on what you count from. The seed was first sown by Second Edition way back in '94 or so, but I didn't get into the game seriously until about 2000-2001 and Third Edition.

~J

I remember it quite well. I was burned out on playing AD$D, MSH was still fun but lacking something, CP 2020 just didn't look like fun to me....then, on a trip to a comic shop in Wantaugh (NY), I spotted the first flyer for a new RPG, made by the guys who did a great job on the first Star Trek RPG.....it had the elements of Cyberpunk (which I had just gotten into, thanks William Gibson!) &...magic? A magic system that actually COSTS damage no matter what happens? I was hooked.

Yes, it was SR1. I still have all my SR1 books.

I got hooked on 2nd Edition, made a character and played only once. After that I couldn't find anyone else who wanted to play, and at the time I couldn't make heads or tails enough of the rules to run a game myself. It wasn't until a friend introduced me to SR3 a few months after it's release, that I really started playing. I found SR3 to be so much more organized and better layed-out, made it so much more easily understandable than SR2. I fell head over heals for it and have no intention of giving it up for the FUBAR SR4.

I won the SR2 BBB and some more old sourcebook and after reading the BBB in two days, I was hooked. Hadn't played much rpgs back then, but SR got me started. Played more or less regularly SR since 10 or more years. 12 I think.

Started with a friend's 2nd ed. So I have been playing since the 90s. More than 10 years I think.

I began with SR2 in 1994.

2nd ed. in '93. My GM had been running 1st, and my first game was also his first forray into 2nd ed., so I missed the 1st ed. boat by about a week...

I started with SR1 right at the very beginning, very young. I enjoyed it a huge amount and we carried on playing into SR2. Those who raise eyebrows at the newbie posts I've been making, what happened is that we stopped early on in SR2 (I recall we were part way through the first Harlequin adventure which was new out at the time) and then didn't pick it up again until SR4. I vaguely recall Dunklezahn as a media friendly dragon that owned a theme park in northern UCAS.

I loved the magic system which was vastly superior to any other I'd seen until WW's Mage was released. I really liked the damage codes on weapons because they were so intuitive and a medium machine gun was bad. I also really loved the way you could divvy up your combat pool and your magic pool to weight different preferences. Do I keep some of the dice back for drain or do I really go for it? Do I need to lend some dice to my friends for counterspelling? From such a simple set of rules it expanded out into a wickedly wide range of tactical options.

I do recall the mages eventually outstripping the mundanes because of better things to spend karma on, so no change there, then.

Rules aside, one thing that SR1&2 had over SR4 was immediate accessibility to the setting. There was chaos, a crash, magic and new races, but nothing a player couldn't digest in a quick skim or during the game. SR4 has a huge backstory of characters, dragon presidents, comet stuff, insect stuff, Aztechnology stuff, collapsed Megacorps, Immortal Elves, yada yada. If you're familiar with the setting then you probably don't notice it, but if you come to SR4 from scratch, you're going to be really really lost. The initial history section in the SR4 book has a crack at covering it, but it still sometimes feels like a list of things you don't know.

1st.

Ah the memories of Food Fight. A simple combat encounter that lasted 5 hours or so because we started playing before reading all the rules. That and the opposing street sam had the 6/4 partial mil-spec armor, Body 6 and nobody knew any mana-spells (if it's in the book it has to be true)!

First ed. hardcover. Christmas '88. (Or was it 89? My memory is failing these days.)

1st ed, first printing. I don't feel old though.

I started while SR3 was out, but my group does a mish-mash of 2 and 3 (mostly 2, using all 2 sourcebooks).

Hence, I voted 2 simply because that's what we play.

Hm, me in highschool dodging cars to cross the street in the icy Canadian winter to make it to the comic/hobby shop alive during my lunchbreak...all to buy a 1st edition used hardcover of Shadowrun : Where Man meets Magic and Machine...then making my Dodge rolls to survive the trip back to class.
It was a good day to die.

Ah, 1ed, my first game after D&D-and I am still playing Shadowrun (the same can not be said for D&D). I suppose, if you can remember when the first Grimoire came out, and what hot shit it was that PhysAdds could get Automatic Successes to a firearms roll, then, in game terms, you can't describe yourself as anything other than an Old Timer. And I guess that that counts double if the entire foundations of your gaming world were turned on there heads when the Ares Predator II, with its 6m2 damage, reactive triger, and a mag loaded with some weird new type of ammo called APDS-came stomping down the street and the good old CorpSec Pigs just diddn't have a chance anymore-not when your Elf with his reflexes juiced to the max got four attacks before they even knew anything was going on.

The Good old Days.

I started playing right when SR2 came out fresh and we still had to convert all of our SR1 books to get all the extra source material. Since that time I have done some SR1 (sort of a "know my roots" kind of a thing), but I technically started with SR2.

Started playing 1st edition about a month or two before second edition came out, so I'm used to shelling out for new editions.

I started with Second edition and pretty much fell in love with the setting right off i just really liked the thought of this type of future

1st edition (as anyone who pays attention to my constant bitching knows ). Traded four or five basic D&D books (Glantri, etc) to a friend for his hardcover BBB, Sprawl Sites, and Street Samurai Catalog back in '90 because he decided he didn't like SR. Best trade ever

First edition back in 94 or 95 or so. The reason is that I couldn't read English that well at that age so we settled for the translated 1st ed. since there was no translation of the 2nd edition.

I started with first edition shortly before the release of Second Edition. I was in sixth or seventh grade, I can't precisely remember. I only really got into the setting and rules in Second Edition, however.

Third, but I'm in my mid twenties now so I'm hardly a 'teen'

*sigh* Oh yes, those old BT days. Haven't played it ofr years now... still missing the nights spend with that game. 3025 tech ruled so much. Made some good friends in the game scene whom I lost contact to over the years...

Yeup, I started with 1rst edition. Right when it came out. I was allready really into the cyberpunk. Loved the books and though even while reading them who cool a setting for a role playing game it would be. Turns out I was not the only one. Out of my choices, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun and Cyberspace I felt the Shadowrun, with the elves and magic, would be easier for my D&D player to adapt too. Turns out that wasn't quite true with dome confusing points about rules. But the setting really won me over and at the time I felt it had the best magic system I had come accross.

I started with one game of 1st edition when I was (I think) 12 (or thereabouts). It was also my first roleplaying experience and game.

I was hooked by the monofilament whip.

First Edition.
I pre-ordered it from my FLGS based on the promotional pamphlet thing that made the rounds before it's release.
I still have my first edition hardcover signed by Tom Dowd, Bob Charrette, Jordan Wiesman, and Paul Hume which I got for winning the Origins '91 Shadowrun tournament. I later got it signed by Larry Elmore as well.

My favourite edition, however, is third.
I'm trying with fourth, I really am, but it ain't happenin'.