Why do you play shadowrun ??

I’ve roleplayed for 20+ years, using a whole range of RPGs and [prompted by the carnage on some of these forum threads] wanted to ask the people of Dumpshock why they play Shadowrun.

There lots of RPGs available, many of them with cyberpunk settings, many of them with fantasy elements.

Some RPGs such as HERO, GURPS and FUZION have extensive customisability of character and equipment - far surpassing SR - with sourcebook, lots of hardware, massive amounts of fan support.
Some RPGs like Corporation and SLA Industries pit the characters as Corporate operatives, maintaining the status quo - with high levels of violence, lots of gear and little consequence, simple mechanics.
TORG has cyberpunk options involving cybered demons and corrupt religions, metaplots, multiple-genres.
Traveller has megacorps and metaplots, high tech in low-tech worlds, detail, number crunching, simple mechanics, lots of hardware, massive levels of fan support.
Equinox is the 8th world [as Shadowrun is the 6th world], officially sanctioned by FASA, with refugee humans, science fiction, powers, cybernetics [and is due from RedBick, the people publishing Earthdawn].
Dark Heresy has no-consequence Characters fighting demons from beyond the stars, in the far future, with cybernetics, psychic powers, detailed background, massive amounts of source material.

There are no "right" or "wrong" answers, it's just me asking questions.

Other RPG forums will get similar polls.

Now that WEG doesn't make Star Wars any more, what the hell else am I gonna do with all those D6?

I got into SR because of the background, thhis fusion of classic fantasy and Cyberpunk. I stayed for the background, a setting with exactly the right mix of depth and freedom, and the evolving story, even if at times it has made me cringe and the jury, for me, still is out if the Lonsing Dork Age is over.

I like the way magic and technology are mixed (save for the mancer). I really, really like the freedom in chargen SR offers; most other gaming systems feel terribly restrictive and dull compared to this. Also, I like the way characters progress. No levels, you buy things with XP at whatever time you choose.

Finally, as a long term player, it is just kind of difficult to let go.

The other CP systems you describe all lack something I find in SR.

HERO is too Supers.
GURPS is too generic for my taste and lacks any deeper story. Nothing is ever developed in depth, everything is just brushed over.
SLA tries too hard to be dark.
Traveller lacks magic and is space opera. I don't care much for space opera any more.
Equinox is ... well, not my cup of tea. Migfht make a nice setting for metaquests, though.
... and Dark Heresy is 40K, which boldly goes to the ridiculously "dark" kinds of gorn even SLA avoids.

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.

I remember buying an all new and shiny version of the SR3 bbb. That was even before I knew what role playing games were. It got me and over the next few years I literary ABSORBED any piece of SR fiction I could get my hands on. Then came the age of the internet and I got lost somewhere between all those d&d pc game adaptions which spawned also my first pen & paper experiences. After realizing that my life wasn't all about spell slots and magical swords I left for something more gritty.... the new world of darkness. It caught me because of it references to actual myths and the possibility to take part in sort of an underground community. But after some years I became tired of all those darkness and bitching about how the new one wasn't like the old one and the fact that over here in germany those haters actually killed the game line. That was back in '07 and destiny kissed me with a pal showing me the all new and shiny SR4. I again fell in love with this new edition and it's appealing mix of cyberpunk, fantasy and actual RL references, seemingly containing anything I went for over the years. Again, back then there were those haters of anything new, threatening the supremacy of their beloved older edition. But I was loyal and am now feeling rewarded by seeing it blossoming lately over here in ye olde germany. Finally.

"Easy to Identify Bad Guys" and "Lack of Difficult Choices," huh? Seriously? Who's your GM?

Always include an "Other" option in a poll. There have been several on this forum alone that I could not answer because they lacked the appropriate option. This is one of them.

Warhammer? That's where my 36d6 set comes from

Anyway, the main reason I like Shadowrun (and always have) is the setting. It's the perfect blend of fantasy and reality. It has a huge variety of character options. There's technology and magic working side by side in a more or less believable fashion (once you suspend disbelief on magic in the first place). It's set in the real world, but in a dystopian future. Players have the opportunity to be good guys or bad guys or, (and this is rare, I find) guys just out to survive however they can.

In short, it's made of win and awesome.

Back in 1977 I got interested in Dungeons & Dragons, coming from wargaming. I invested a lot of time and money in DMing. Buying not just TSR stuff but stuff from other companies to help with my DMing. I'd even buy other gaming systems and books to glean information to make my D&D game better. With AD&Dr2, I liked that there was a lot of good information coming from TSR that I thought improved the game. Heck, THAC0 made my program a lot easier to update

Being a computer geek from 1979, William Gibson's Neuromancer was a book I really liked. While I was interested in other systems for their information to improve my game, Paranoia was an RPG that I immediately liked for the computer type humor. I ran a one-shot for the fun of it. It was the first time I'd run an RPG other than D&D. I continued with D&D though.

One day I spotted Shadowrun 1st Ed and it intrigued me. After browsing through it, I thought it would be interesting to run. It was the first RPG I actually was interested enough in to want to run since D&D. I got the GM screen with Silver Angel, read up on it, printed out some character sheets and the group built some characters up.

The Street Samurai Catalog was excellent and I remember how excited I got when I spotted Rigger Black Book. It was weird. It was the first RPG I was excited about since I started playing D&D. Denver Boxed set, Virtual Realities, Sprawl Sites, Paranormal Animals of North America... Then Second Edition, Aztlan, New Seattle, DNA-DOA ,Mercurial...

I couldn't find anyone to play though. Even my D&D game was petering out, ending with my daughter's Rifts group.

I packed up my gear and put it away.

Back in 2006, my wife's pestering got me to go through my boxes of games. Coming upon my Shadowrun books was awesome. I'd lost interest in D&D but never lost my appreciation of Shadowrun. I set them aside and checked them out later. I found dumpshock and started gathering up the rest of the 1st and 2nd edition books I didn't get back before I stopped. Then I thought I'd get into playing a bit and found a local game. I picked up the 3rd Edition books with an eye to running it. 4th Edition was new and the group I was playing with wasn't interested in it.

When I finally started to GM again, it was 4th Edition. There were other gamers in the area that wanted to try it and since it didn't have a bunch of extra books to learn (well Street Magic), I was able to reasonably run the SR4 missions.

And a fun time has been had by all.

Carl

For me, it was just as I was fed up with what was coming out for AD&D, and I had just started getting into 'cyberpunk' fiction (I read the original story of Johnny Mnemonic well before the movie came out) and I spotted that first flyer, back in 1989, with all the great Elmore artwork, from FASA, in a comic shop I was frequenting at the time.
I decided to try the main book out forst, I could always get my money back (or a store credit) and I was hooked immediately. Especially with the concept behind the Magic system.

I've been gaming for as long as Freejack has, and I have much the same story to tell. I toyed with other games over the years, but I kept coming back to D&D, whatever version.

Then 1989 rolls around, and I find this Blue Book with an Elmore cover in my local toy shop, at Northgate Mall in Seattle. Intrigued, I picked it up. I read it, and was instantly whisked away into a future Seattle. I loved it.

But the big transformation had yet to happen. I was a bad GM, probably one of the worst you've even encountered. I got Harlequin, and suddenly I realized I didn't have to railroad players through plots. I started to grow and develop as a GM, gaining skills and learning how to construct a flexible plotline.

So, I play Shadowrun and find it hard to let go. SR4, and now SR4.5, are not the game I fell in love with, twenty years ago. But just enough of the "Soul of Shadowrun" exists in it.

I've played since 1st edition, but not so much anymore. The game system is just getting too cumbersome, especially with all of the add-on bits. Even worse, the game really is made to be abused and powergaming is almost a necessity in many of the SR4 groups I've experienced. In short, there's no good reason why I should play SR over other games...

Yep, me too. Not railroading though. I wasn't able to do more than run hack and slash games. The city was my favorite place to want characters to go to but I could never actually provide a good city type game. I bought Thieves World and Sanctuary to get background information on shops and NPCs. I bought several city type adventures from different game systems. Heck, I bought history books on cities. I even have a reproduction of a map of Rome framed in my room (packed now). But none of them had the adventures that getting a group of characters together and going out to rampage through a dungeon did.

Shadowrun then and especially now with the Missions modules has not only given me city type adventures, it's made me a better GM.

Carl

Because there are precious few other games where I can be an elf with a gun?

Honestly, for me, it's always primarily been the setting. I didn't realize how much the die mechanic mattered to me, too (particularly the flexibility and sense of control granted to you by Combat Pool), until the edition changed and that flexibility and sense of control got snatched away from me... but the fact that I still own SR4 stuff, still try to keep up to date, and still write short fiction (even if none of it's been published) tells me that it's the setting I've always loved, more than anything else. It's cyberpunk plus magic, and I dig that.


Go play Warhammer 40k, duh.

For me, I don't play Shadowrun over any other game. I might play Shadowrun one week, and something different the next. Might even enjoy two or three different games on the same day.

I clicketyd some options and hit vote, but to directly answer the initial question:


'Cause I like it.
I do play others.

Where's the choice for "my friends play it"?

You play what your group plays, and you shut the hell up. I happen to like SR, thankfully. But it was never a calculated move. One day my housemates called out "Hey, we're playing Shadowrun, want in?"

Like Freejack and Cain I started in 1st edition. The Timothy Bradstreet pictures, the Elmore cover and the runner speak in the sourcebooks roped me in. There was all these deep plots carrying through the books. The game felt alive.

3rd edition didn't seem to have a lot of this feeling to it so I only ran about 15-20 sessions and checked out for while. Even in 2nd edition the game started getting cartoonish in many ways, loosing its gritty realism to a point. Back then I probably ranted about the changes as much as some of you folks are about the new changes in SR4A edition.

4th edition seems to be bringing the ambiance back and I'm excited. So far I'm digging SR4A. All of the intelligent design from 4th edition in a pretty new package. God bless Catalyst for keeping this game alive long enough for me to come back around.

I play many other RPGs too....

I was roped in by the Shadowrun anthology "Into the Shadows", which I found in the Fantasy/SF section of my local bookstore (German Edition).

I also play D&D, Spycraft and 2300AD (and probably Eclipse Phase, whenever it's released)...

I was introduced to Shadowrun in 1989 with the 1st edition Big Blue Book. It was the first role-playing game I actually played (2300AD was the first I ever bought) and while I found the combat mechanics to be ridiculously complicated, I was sucked into the game world. Having just read Gibson's Neuromancer and Count Zero I loved the cyberpunk-lite feel mixed with the silliness of dragons and elves. It was a setting where I could close my eyes and actually imagine it. In fact I could taste, smell, and see it in my mind's eye! I remember having my socks knocked off playing through Dreamchipper (remember, this was the late 1980/early 1990s when cyberspace was still a new concept). Then I was introduced to D&D 2nd edition and Rifts (boooo!). After that I devoted more time to comics and sci-fi/Star Trek and dropped out of the whole RPG thing for awhile.

I checked in on 2nd and 3rd editions. While I thought all the setting, metaplot and fluff material was the bees' knees, the mechanics seemed to have grown even more convoluted. I wanted to play a game, not crunch stats.

After joining a D&D group, I had an itch to run Shadowrun for them. After picking up 4th Edition I felt that same rush of excitement I felt back in 1989. And as an added bonus, the mechanics had been streamlined which made it easy to play and easy to learn. Compared to, say, D&D 3/3.5, anyway. After that, my imagination ignited again in a way it hadn't since art school and I've been hooked since.

Before I got into RPGs, friends of mine wanted me to play AD&D but it never appealed to me. When I went to High School my roommate introduced me to SR. I loved the fact that a starting character was just as good as a character that had been playing for quite some time (they are just more specialized). This meant that I wasn't going to be the lone weenie in a group of vets. As I got into the system I grew to love its approach to dealing with dice roles (The SR system was always way more easy to understand then THACO).
When I went to university I started to play AD&D and D&D 3.0 . I still loved SR way more because it didn't have all the winy rules lawers that I saw on the D&D side. I have always played games for the fun of it. Anything more is just childish and distracts from the game at hand.

Dragon CEOs, AI CEOs, Japanacops, NAN, Humanis Policlub, Green War, GenePeace, MOM, Cybermancy, Geomancy, Ninjas...

Back in the days of the steam engine, I had been playing your average fantasy game for a while, and while it was fun and all, I felt something was missing.
Then, I saw a book at a local gamestore. It was blue and had this kick-ass cover, so I was intrigued. I flipped it open... and there was a picture of an Ork Mercenary, complete with stats and all. "Wait, so you can play this guy?!" I asked?
Thus began my lifelong love for this game.
I loved the setting, the gonzo-dystopian background, the mixture of tech and magic.
By the time 2nd Ed. rolled around, I also began to appreciate the mechanics.
By the end of 2nd, the shift to epic-level, high-magic world-saving quests began to put me off a bit, and when 3rd Edition upped the cartoon factor and introduced more and more convoluted rules, I felt it was time to move on.
I still dabbled a bit with my old 2nd Ed stuff, but it wasn't the same anymore.
Then, 4th Edition came along.
It was like meeting your old high-school flame at a reunion, and she looked hotter than ever.
"I am sorry for running off with Mike, I was to young and dumb and tried to be something I am not!" Shadowrun said to me.
"You better be!" I replied.
We got loaded, and one thing let to another.
This time, I think it will last.

I have played and still play other games from time to time, but in none am I as invested as in Shadowrun.

Technology and Magic together in the same setting is absolutely fantastic. I'd say this is my #1 reason for playing SR over other RPGs. Though I have seen some (Aberrant) that felt similar. I also like the mechanics, d20 just doesn't jive with me: there are some things you Just Can't Hit (despite being the size of a house) and magic quickly runs itself out of energy (ok SR mages do eventually knock them selves unconscious, but they can still cast small spells with some effect over and over and over without too much worry, which puts them on par with gunbunnies).

WoD I never got into, it just didn't capture my imagination. I was in one Mage game that I liked, but I joined so late, I never got to fulfill my ideas of where my character was going to go once he awakened.

Blue Planet was very techy (with some alternate races other than "Everyone is Human") though does lend itself to being easily modifiable to suite any purpose: Magic becomes just another skill that works the same as any other skill (though the GM I played with who did this was repeatedly confused at my question of "how does magic work in character" and either said the mechanics or "force of will;" not long after we got into a rather large argument about how he was a shitty GM and have since blocked each other on YIM (games were done over voice chat)). I'd love to play another BP game (there are no other systems that include Dolphins and Orca as base RAW races).

ShadowRun just continues to impress me and surprise me at its ability to allow ANYTHING (well, there are restrictions of course, but one of my friends who doesn't play TTRPGs asked if he could be "a brain in a jar cyborg who owned a robotic street urchin that followed him around with a backpack that contained his brain" under the idea that the main body would be expected to house what little of his meat was left, and get shot up, while everyone ignored the urchin, another ridiculous idea that came up was "an elf who rigs his own arms" and turned into a character who's cyberlimbs were all modular and drones with implanted guns).

Edit: another reason someone posted about in another thread that I also agree with: ShadowRun allows multiple options to solve the same problem: Skill, Tech, and Magic (sometimes only one or two of the three are available, but many problems can be solved in multiple fashions).

Like a lot of "not-as-young-anymore" gamers, I started with AD&D 2e back when I was about 10 or 12. My friends and I then went on to try a whole lot of different games (our main one being, in the end, HârnMaster.) I GMed SR2 for a few games in the early (?) 1990s, but, although we all loved the setting, and still do after all those years, we all agreed that the rules were not to our taste. Like, at all. I ended up being the "mainly WoD gamemaster", running Vampire: the Masquerade for about 5 years, and now Mage: the Ascension for a little more than 5 years now.

Honestly, I LOVE Mage: the Ascension, and so do my current players. However, their characters keep their big guns with them all the time, they are highly specialized in infiltration and wetwork, and they have developed a well-deserved reputation among local mages as the very best "troubleshooters" around (as in, you point at a problem, and they litterally shoot it to oblivion.) At first, I was aiming at the standard, "pseudo-philosophical" Mage: the Ascension, but looking at my players, you'd almost think they play Shadowrun.

Which brings me to my future campaign: I have decided to litterally run Shadowrun for them, since there is just no way they can't enjoy it. There's magic, high technology, big guns, etc. Plus, personally, I like the 4th edition rules, and would definitely enjoy going back to an old favorite, not unlike what Naysayer was telling us above. This is why I play, or rather will be playing soon, Shadowrun.

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 *

Gasp! Another Blue Planet player!

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 )
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.

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.

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

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.

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

-Josh

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 . 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
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!
btw, i've only played SR4, and i really like the system

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*

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.

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.

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...

I ran the Shadowrun game on Friday if that helps Hope I did a good job 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

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

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).

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.

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.

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.