I like SR. Is it perfect? No, but to make it perfect for me would make it suck for you. These forums are great for discussing problems with SR and possible solutions. This can lead to an unbalance of "negative" topics. I think it's implied that if you're a member of this forum that you think SR is the whip, but sometimes it's nice to hear (read) it.

I started this thread just to give a place for people to shout "Hooray for SR!" Against all Temptation I will not offer a criticism here, constructive or otherwise.

So:

I love the classless system. My buddy's rigger/conjurer has all kinds of mechanical and magical beasties.
I really dig the variety of game styles that can be played. Pirate, Merc, Punk, Power Player, it's totally wide open.
I like the quality of the material. When I browse through or read books from other game systems, I am impressed by how well the SR team puts something together. FASA started making supplements for Traveller back in the 70's and I can see that the lessons learned over the years have been inherited by the current team.

What do you love about Shadowrun?

just about damn near everything mate. And if I start to list them all I won't have time for my end of week beers....

Yeah... I like shadowrun too. Probably my favorite system. I like the absence of levels, I like the skill system with its degrees of success and multiple ways of modeling difficulty (# successes as well as inc. TN). I adore its lack of hit points and armor class (no set-in-stone hit miss probabilities! yay!) I like the magic system (memorization? spell levels? pshah!) I like the range of campaign types you can run (from close to pure fantasy to close to pure cyberpunk to low-down street level games, with all the flavors in between).

I could go on, but I think thats enough for now.

The lack of an alignment system. Beyond the most basic of guidelines or possibly a code of honour the idea of trying to put rules on how a given character will act just never made sense to me. Also I can't describe how annoying it is to have a GM say "You can't do that, it's against your character's alignment" after you come up with what has the potential to be a great idea.

Shadowrun is teh winnar. Best combination of realism and quick play I've seen. Certainly the most believable world and setting - just familiar enough to seem like reality, and just weird enough to make it interesting.

And Horrors. Can't forget the Horrors. They'd make a good game all on their own. Oh wait, that's Call of Cthuhlu. My bad.

It is interesting that people like the things that shadowrun doesn't have. Alignment, class, hit numbers, hit points.

I agree, best modern to sci-fi system ever.

Viva la Shadowrun!

I agree. I think it's one of the best systems and genres out today. While D&D can have it's moments, and WOD games have thier goth side, Shadowrun still beats them all in the areas of long term character development and diversity.

Where do you want to run today?

The sex.

~J

Cute trolls in school girl dresses.

I love the inclusion of both fantasy and sci-fi/cyberpunk aspects. The freedom to balance the two to fit your taste and such as well is quite nice. I think the amount of possibilities that the SR world presents and the 'closeness' to the real world of it makes it all the more fun to explore.

I think the real reason for alignments was to allow the group to use specific magic items.

Now, if every magician can bind any focus....

I agree with connor about the fusion of cyberpunk with fantasy. The whole plot of Shadowrun is what makes it a true Gem. Someone else could have made a game with Cyberpunk and Spells but shadowrun has been excellently executed, tied-in with a host of RL myths, not to mention the ED background (AFAIK, I'm no ED expert though). I like the Dragons, the Megacorps, the awakened oddities (well. perhaps no SURGE), the Astral Plane, the Essence system... I like Shadowrun.

Allignments suck.

Remember though that one of the things that The Other Game was drawing on was stuff like Michael Moorcock's Elric series. Alignment is a real thing in that world - not in terms of "do you like to do Good or Bad things" but "are you aligned with the Powers of Law or the Powers of Chaos." They were actual beings, and they were fighting, and people had chosen sides. They actually described themselves as the Lawful and Chaotic powers.

Without such black-and-white, supernatural beings with clear sides, yeah, alignment kinda sucks. And even then it sucks a bit, but it might be a necessary evil. Elric woulda been pretty poor without those Powers.

Alignment worked with Elric, it didn't translate to DnD very well at all if that's what they were indeed going for. I suppose it might work with the Elric RPG for the same reason, but I've yet to have a chance to look at it.

only 6 sided dice !!! YEAH!!! ease of adapting players to the locales, cause it is an exaggerated today, so you can describe things by saying "it's like the quickie mart on East 12th" instead of spending inordinate amounts of time setting the mood, it can be found locally if you need references...

I love shadowrun... and I've played lots of others, but this is my hands down favorite.

-Mike R.

I like the setting.

Especially since I live in Redmond. I can bury something my character needs in my backyard today, in 2004, and my character can find it on Sunday in 2064.

To tell the truth My favorite part of SR is the fact that the characters are worthwhile from the start. I can take a 0 karma character to a 200karma game and still be useful. Sure I won't be as good, but I'll be much more useful than a level 1 fighter in a level 10 game. Then again character creation is my favorite part of the game it's self. I remember when SR2 first came out I use to spend my nights just making new characters and new concepts.

-The Eggman
Comming out of my Shell

the dice system... staging makes alot of sence to me

the range combat system... because joe security guard is a threat!

the world... cool cyberware, dark, hopless just the way I like it, even if the system was unplayable I would adapt the world to another system, especialy the 1st edition world where the metas were more about genetics

the play... the infiltration is a puzzel I love to solve rather than "ugh me got stick hit hard" not that you cant play the same style in other games. Just that shadowrun lends its self toward that style of play.

don't classify me baby... yes your mage can wear armor and I can pick pockets because I wanted to.

The 2nd Edition Inititive System... he's faster than me, I better not draw my gun.

There's two things I like about Shadowrun: The system and the world.

I have to agree with everything that everyone has said. If only I could get my D&D group to see all these great points and stop putting it down.

Shadowrun has the most believable world I've seen in all of my (admittedly limited) gaming experiences. In fact, I often find myself, in RL, thinking in terms of SR (sad, I know). The most enjoyable thing is seeing all of the parallels in SR to RL, that really helps to make the setting real.

Wow. This brings a tear to my eye. Thanks guys and gals, this is exactly what I was looking for. I feel good about liking SR again.

The setting. That's pretty much it, but I really like the setting...