As people may know, I am currently running a game here meant to demonstrate to people new to Shadowrun what the game is all about. However I realize that for every question I've gotten (ermm... 0) there are a hundred that are left unasked (so.. 0?) I've decided to write a "brief" introduction to Shadowrun for those who have questions, but are too afraid to ask. I do not plan on giving you enough background to actually play a game without any books (that would be illegal, after all), but enough that you can recognize what's going on when you see it, and know what you're missing out on.

RL Background: Shadowrun was originally created in 1989 by FASA. In 1998 Shadowrun 3rd edition was released. Because of unrelated trouble, FASA sold the rights to WizKids/Fan Pro, who currently produces it. Fan Pro has recently released its 4th edition, which is aimed at bringing in new players. I would highly recommend any person interested in getting involved with this invest in 2nd, 3rd or 4th (referred to as SR2, SR3 and SR4 respectively) edition (and ask me if you want to know the differences). If you go to www.drivethrurpg.com , you can download the Quickstart Guide for SR3 for free and play a "tutorial" with your friends, or order the main book both in e-book and physical format from a variety of sources online. All you need to play are pencils and six sided dice (here-on called d6's).

This tutorial will be using Shadowrun 3rd edition, my favorite. You'll see that I use the same rules in the game threads. Like I said, 4th edition is a little easier to understand quickly, but I like SR3 better.



World Background (in 601 words or less): I'll try to be brief here, since a lot of this has already been covered.

Shadowrun is mostly based in Seattle in the years 2050-2070. There are several major things that have happened to separate the SR world from our world:
- Magic has returned - about 1% of the population is capable of incredible magic. Unfortunately for us, the first people to learn this were Native Americans, who had been put in interment camps. As a result, they got to claim a lot of what was once the US because they could change weather patterns and summon tremendous spirits able to destroy tanks and jet fighters.

- Humanity has become metahumanity - for inexplicable (well, not really) reasons, people suddenly turned into orks and trolls. Dwarves and elves were born to otherwise normal parents. For the most part these individuals were just like humans, except they looked different (and had different lifespans). However try telling a frightened white supremicist that the tusked giant who can see in the dark and is dating his sister that. The rise of the new races has resulted in a rise of racism

- Industrialization has cost a heavy toll - over a course of twenty years, there was a series of tremendous floods, nuclear meltdowns, unheard of weather patterns, blizzards and fires - on top of the normal (and uncontrollable pollution that was already going on). The result - the Earth is a mess. The only places untouched by humanity are those that have since become magically protected and healed. People are regularly exposed to a bazillion poisonous chemicals, radiation and who knows what.

- Balkanization of the US, rise of the megacorporations - As the drek hit the fan, the US had a series of problems and bad presidents. Corporations continued to merge creating a number of megacorporations, monolithic global organizations with a life of their own. As major governments lost power, the corporations took it (at a nominal fee, of course). The result - megacorps have extraterritoriality, just like an embassy. When you're in a Renraku facility, Renraku law, not US law, applies. Corporations have tremendous sway over governments and have become the primary driver in global politics.

Meanwhile, most of the US is lost. The remaining parts (NE US and Seattle) join with parts of Canada to become UCAS - United Canadian American States. Texas joins Mexico to become Atzlan. SE US becomes CAS - the Confederate American States. Central US becomes NAN - Native American Nations (remember what I said before about the natives getting magic first?) California becomes California Free State and everything between central Cali and Seattle becomes Tir Tairginere (sp?) - the Elven nation (aka - land of the snooty people).

- Rise of the matrix. VR technology has allowed an entire Virtual Reality version of the internet, called the matrix. People with an affinity for computers, who know how to bend VR to their will, are called deckers.

- Rise of cybertechnology - the invention of Direct Neural Interface (DNI) has allowed for safe and relatively cheap cybernetics, which have become almost ubiquitous.

There are other major events, but right now I'm going for brevity (for your sake). These are just the basic events you need to know to grasp the game. Other events include the return of dragons (including one who owns a megacorporation), the rise of a number of different spirits who prey on people, a surge in mutations among humans, two crashes of the Matrix, the escape of an evil AI bent on destroying - or saving - the world, and much more.


Mechanics

This uses the d6 system. Everything involves rolling d6's. The basic mechanic is:

# of d6's based on skill vs. Target Number based on difficulty of the task.

I'll break this down one bit at a time.

"# of d6's based on skill"

If you have a skill of 5, you roll 5 dice. If you have a skill of 2, you roll 2 dice. The "cap" (it isn't a hard cap, but you'll find few people who surpass it) is 6. 6 is a professional.

"vs."

Roll that number of dice and look at what numbers come up. A number that is equal to or higher than the Target Number is a success. You count them.

"Target Number" - this is the number you have to beat. From now on I'll call it the "TN". TN is Target Number, remember that.

"based on difficulty of the task."

An average task is 4. Easy is 2. 6 is difficult. 12 is "impossible". Let's say you're shooting a gun. The base target number is 4. In poor lighting. The TN goes up to 8 (4 + 4 for poor lighting). With a laser sight (-1) the TN goes to 7. Firing 6 rounds on full auto while screaming the name of your dead wife with a Gas Vent 4 rigged Ingram Valiant (+2 from recoil), scanning the darkness with your Zeiss brand cybereyes with low-light capability (-3 for low-light), so on and so forth. Most of these are listed in the book, but once you get the hang of it, you can grab them on the cuff. (In this case the TN adds up to 6.)

Number of successes generally determines how well you did.

An example -

Joe the Street Sam has 5 in Assault rifles. He's firing 8 rounds (+7 for recoil) off an AK with a Gas Vent 4 (negates 4 points of recoil) and Smartlink cyberware (-2 to the TN) at a moderate range (TN 6) target.

So the base TN is 6 (based on Range) + 7 (recoil) -4 (recoil compensation -2 (smartlink) for a total of 7. In this case, since dice only have six sides, he simply rerolls all sixes and adds together the result.

He rolls 5 dice against a TN of 7

He gets 1, 2, 2, 4, 6 (reroll the 6, gets a 3. 6+3 = 9, a success). - 1 success. He hits, but doesn't do a lot of damage.

You following? No? Hrm... Well ask a question and I'll answer.


These tests apply to basically everything. The number of successes determine how much damage/how long it takes/how much he pays you/what prize you win, as appropriate.

On top of this we have pools that we can apply to a certain test. A pool is basically just a set of dice you can apply at your discretion to any test you want of a certain category. An example is Combat Pool, which can apply to any combat actions. Let's say Joe's Combat Pool is 7. He could, if he wanted, put 5 dice from his pool into his shot (or 3 or 1 or none at all). If he pus 5 in, he rolls 10 dice against a TN of 7. Now he's likely to get a lot more hits! The down side is he only has 2 dice left in his pool, so he better hope nothing more urgent comes up until his pool refreshes!


This is basically how it works for everything. If you're fast talking, you roll your Negotiation skill against a TN of the target's Intelligence (+ or - appropriate modifiers). If you're decking, you roll your Computer skill against a TN of how well protected the computer is - the rating of a program to overcome the computer (if you have one).


More specific mechanics questions -

How does cyberware work?

Cyberware refers to electronics installed in your body. Everyone (everyone, regardless of race) has an essence rating of 6. Cyberware reduces that essence by a set amount (a datajack costs .2 essence, for instance). Once you reach 0, you die. Sucks to be you, don't do it. However once installed, cyberware allows you to do things you wouldn't normally be able to do. They boost your physical abilities beyond the human maximums, they make you merge with your vehicle, let you surf the matrix, make you superhumanly fast. They give you a deadly edge. One of the costs of cyber is that it reduces your ability to do magic. Your magic rating can be no higher than your essence (and must be a whole number). So it starts out at 6, but once you've installed that datajack, it's down to five. Install a cyberarm? Now it's 4. The two are mutually incompatible.

How does magic work?

Magic is broken into two categories, mages and adepts.

Adepts are people who turn their magic inwardly - instead of creating fireballs and lightning blasts, they have superhuman strength and speed. Many of the magical abilities of adepts mirror things done with cyber. Many are otherwise irreproducable. Adepts are mostly the "ninja and Jackie Chan" type characters you see in movies. They jump off walls, have tremendous physical skill in martial arts and make for fearsome assassins, armed or unarmed. Every magic point is used to buy these physical powers.

Mages are again broken into two groups - hermetics and shamans. Hermetics are the "wizened wizards" who work off scrolls and do complex math calculations to predict the movements of energy. Their magic is a science and elementals are to be summoned and commanded. Shamans follow the Native American traditions of Shamanism. They each choose a totem spirit who confers certain advantages and restrictions, and requires a certain code of conduct. To them, magic is an art and spirits are to be respected.

Both are able to cast spells. Spells range from things like fireball and healing peple, to controlling thoughts and minds or dimming sight. Each time you cast magic it is draining, you resist stun damage. As long as you can fully resist the associated stun, you can cast as the day is long. There are no other limits on how many times you can cast a spell. A mage only knows a set number of spells (just like anyone else only knows a set number of skills), but can learn more. Spells are far more effective on natural things (like people) than against mechanical or electronic things. Spells can only NOT do a very select number of things - revive the dead, teleport across time or space or summon magic trees (and a few other rules I forget).

What is the astral plane?

The astral plane is a magical plane that overlays our own. There you only really see things that are alive or magical. Because it is insubstantial, you can fly around the earth in seconds. You are not restricted to normal laws of physics. You can cast spells, but neither you nor your magic can easily travel from the astral to the physical plane (so no casting across the planes). Only mages and spirits can leave their bodies to travel freely across the astral, however it is possible to travel through the astral to map out the layout of a building, or to follow someone and listen to his conversations (and read his emotions).

What is the matrix?

I already described this. It's a VR representation of the internet (although it's a different format from the current internet). In SR4 there's also AR, Artificial Reality. Basically everything has computers and makes heavy use of hologram technology (it isn't really holograms, you can only see it if you have a device that can read the computers and is hooked into your brain, but once you have the equipment, it might as well be a hologram), which allows for a digital overlay of the world, rather similar to the astral plane, but open toa nyone with the tech to interact with it (or hack it).

What are attributes?

There are 6 basic attributes in SR3 and a few derived ones. The basic ones are Strength, Body, Quickness, Intelligence, Willpower and Charisma. The only one that isn't obvious is Body. Body is used to soak damage. You roll your Body vs. a TN based on the power of an attack - armor. Successes reduce the damage done. All attributes are capped at 6, but you can go past that based on your race and with the help of cyberware or magic.

The derived attributes:
Essence - this is 6 to begin with, but goes down as you buy cyberware. It represents the holistic health of your body and spirit.
Magic - Represents magical ability. It starts at 6 for mages and adepts, but cannot be higher than your essence (barring optional rules). If you're not magic, it's 0. If it's 0, you can't cast spells.
Reaction - How fast you react to stuff, duh.
Initiative - this is a number of dice and is added to your reaction. By default it's 1d6, but can go up to 4d6 or more! This determines how early and often you go in combat. For instance, if your reaction is 4 and you have one initiative die (4+1d6), you roll that one die. You get a 3. Your initiative is 7. You go after everyone who has a higher initiative, and you only go once before everyone rerolls initiative (when you reroll initiative, you also refresh your pools).

Now let's assume you have 12+4d6 initiative. You roll 3, 5, 4, 3 - 15, for a total initiative of 27. You go after anyone who has a higher initiative (yeah right), but before everyone else. Not only that, you go 3 times! So if you were in a fight with that sucker with an initiative of 7, the order would be: You, Him, You, You (reroll initiative). It's good to be fast.

Hitpoints - you have 10 hitpoints. 10. That's it. Weapons have different damage levels that go up or down based on how good the hit is, (L)ight (1 point), (M)oderate (3 points), (S)erious (6 points) (D)eadly (10 points). When you're dead, you're dead. Just like successes in the attack increase the damage of a weapon, successes in the dodge (using Combat Pool) and damage resistance (using Body and Combat Pool) tests reduce damage. A troll with 10 body can soak a lot of damage.

What's the difference between the races?

The first difference is superficial. Dwarves are short. Elves are tall with pointy ears and no body hair. Trolls are very tall with lumpy skin and horns. Orks have tusks and are beefy. Humans look like us. The second difference is vision. Dwarves and orks have thermographic vision, elves and dwarves have low-light vision. The third is a minor difference in stats. Trolls get +4 to body, +3 to strength -2 to charisma and intelligence (or something like). Elves get +2 to Charisma and Quickness. Dwarves get +1 to body, +1 to strength, +1 to willpower, and +2 to resisting diseases and toxins. That's about it.

What is rigging?

A rigger is anyone with a Vehicle Control Rig (VCR) and vehicle skill. He plugs himself into the vehicle and it literally becomes an extension of his body. While jacked in, he has tremendous speed and ability, and can do things in a vehicle that would otherwise be impossible (hairpin turns in a semi trailer, barrel rolls at mach 3, etc.) simply because he is so in tune with the vehicle. On the flip side, any damage to the vehicle is reflected on him, he feels it and it hurts him. Riggers can plug into vehicles or unmanned drones.

Why do I keep hearing about dragons?

The return of magic and metahumanity is linked with a flow and ebb of magic. Apparently this has happened before. As magic rises, it allows certain creatures to survive again, among them dragons, spirits, shapeshifters, vampires and others. Dragons are very intelligent and apparently have been with us since the beginning (in fact, according to them, the first dragon made metahumanity). Dragons are very intelligent (one ran for president, another owns a megacorp), very powerful (all known dragons have a strength of 12 or above, magic of 8 or above, Intelligence of 6 or above), largely selfish, but ultimately know about bigger enemies than we do. As magic continues to rise, we may begin to see more of what dragons have been preparing for...

What is a SIN?

A SIN is a System Identification Number. It's like a mix between a Social Security Number, Tax ID, Credit Card number, phone number, passport number, voter registration and most other personal identifiers you can think of. The problem is only about half the population got 'em (yeah, mostly humans, and mostly middle class or above. If you're poor or meta, you're probably out of luck.) If you have a SIN, you're in a thousand databases across the globe. Everything you eat, buy, watch or talk about is collated, measured, tested and used for better marketing, tracking, indoctrination or whatever else someone with the right price wants to use it for. It's tough to escape a SIN, and it's used for everything.

Those without a SIN are called the SINless. They can't vote, can't own property, can't get medical care, can't travel and, by and large, don't exist as far as the system is concerned. For most people that's a bad thing. They have to rely on the gray market for most of their needs. The contracted police (Lone Star) have no interest in protecting them, since they don't pay taxes. However it also has the advantage that they don't leave a system trail. They aren't tracked and collated like the SINed workers.

What are the barrens?

Due to several unfortunate events (namely the crash of the internet and the bankrupcy of 90% of all IT firms, including Microsoft, and the eruption of Mt. Saint Helen's), Remond and Puyallup have been largely deserted. For the most part it's left to the SINless, who rely on gangs for protection. Drug abuse and violence are everywhere. The contracted police (police are no longer government officers, they're contractors) don't bother enforcing the law because the residents don't vote and don't pay taxes. Anything goes and gangs regularly get their hands on military hardware. Gang warfare tears up neighborhoods and kills countless innocent civilians. Poverty is rampant. It's a bad place to be.

What is a Shadowrun?

Shadowrun is made up of two words, Shad, a type of fish, and owrun, a made up word. No one knows where this word came from.

However Shadowrun basically refers to corporate espionage. It's work in the shadows. It's undocumented, hopefully unnoticed until it's too late.

As the megacorporations came to power, there also rose the Corporate Court, which enforces certain laws (laws written by the richest corporations to enforce their interests, and enforced when they apply to the same). Because of the backlash that would result from getting caught being responsible for corporate espionage, corporations began turning to third parties, shadowrunners. These people are anonymous, skilled, don't require life insurance, and disposable. Meet with them anonymously, pay them for a job, give them only enough information for them to complete it and leave them to it. If they're caught, no loss to the company. If they succeed, your enemy takes a hit and you get an edge.

Shadowruns, by and large, are meant to be completely secret, and are completely illegal. It is usually between two or more major players or their subsidiaries, which means if you play the game wrong (and sometimes that's the only way to play), you could be in some deep drek. However shadowrunners tend to be ghosts in the machine. SINless, skilled in sneaking and fast talking,a ble to overcome the greatest security systems, a good team can enter and leave a facility leaving nary a footprint. That's what they pay you for, to be smart, fast, deadly, and foolishly brave.

Who is Mr. Johnson?

Because of the necessity of anonymity, when a corporate representative meets with a runner team, he almost always goes under a false name. Since Johnson has come up so often, it has become a turn of phrase. Whoever he is, male or female, Smith or Kent, he'll say he's Mister Johnson, and that's what you call him. He's the J, the moneybags, who is paying you for the run, lying through his teeth, thinks your scum, but necessary scum, and would just as happily send you to your death as tell you the time of day. But he has the cash, so you need to keep him happy.

Do runners ever work for a corporation?

Almost every mission is for a corporation, but I think this means do they openly say they work for that corp (like in the computer game). The answer is yes, although rarely. Runners are oftentimes used as disposable assets. You give them the nasty jobs you don't give to people who you'd owe life insurance money to if they died. Lone Star will hire "contractors" to go into gang turf on behalf of the Star and clean up. The army regularly hires runners in war games. However, generally speaking, Shadowrunners have an independent streak, and are unlikely to sign a long-term contract for a single corp like that. Once they got you like that, it's just a matter of time before you're handed a job that smells wrong, but you can turn down because of the "contract".


I hope that has given people the basic background to start thinking about Shadowrun, and notice the differences between the RPG and the computer game. I do hope people will ask questions (oldbies, ask questions about stuff I missed). If people would like me to walk them through character generation, I can do that as well. If someone would like to start up a game using the Quick Start Guide, so "newbs" can play without any background, that would be an excellent project.