OK everyone, this might be heretical, but has anyone thought of using Shadowrun's rules for a Mass Effect PnP RPG? This came out of the blue because I always thought that Mass Effect would make a great universe to role play in.

I would play in a ME in a friggin' heartbeat. It *might* be better suited to one of the cancer systems though. Regardless, biotics are relatively easy to adapt, gun rules are already in place. Just need to swap metatypes for alien species. (Troll = krogan actually works pretty damned well without much tweaking).

Damn you, now you have me thinking...

Elf is Asari. Give most of them 'biotics' with Charisma drain, and enjoy.

I....happen to be writing a set of generic far future science fiction rules that may be better suited to this than SR. (Like most of the homebrew games I've written, they borrow at least something from SR.) You'd still have to figure out how to muck with the rules to plug in your own things like the rules for races and psionic powers (I forget what they call them in ME, actually) but it'd probably be easier adding that stuff wholescale than figuring out how to reskin magic and the matrix. They focus on vehicular combat (kind of a weakpoint in SR) and starship combat (omitted from SR for obvious understandable reasons).

Naturally as a starving artist living in obscurity my homebrew game is in no wise done. As is so often the case, it is hanging for a perilously long time on the 60-70% complete mark while I move on to newer projects because I have creative ADD like whoa. But if it ever does get all the way finished, it will be free-ish, so there's that.

Of course, I'm not opposed to abuses of the Shadowrun rules to model other universes/genres. I enjoy doing it myself. : )

I don't think Shadowrun makes for a good generic sci-fi rules system; it's geared towards the whole three worlds concept, and removing that makes a lot of it meaningless.
If you insist on using it, however, I do not think conversion would be all that hard, actually. Add a couple skills here and there, change metatypes, maybe houserule some weapons.

I would actually think about using Mutants & Masterminds for a ME game.

Alternity works well for Mass Effect.

I've been playing a lot of Mass Effect 2 lately and it also occurred to me that the ME universe is rich enough to properly support a PnP RPG these days. So I was thinking about what system to use, and it did occur to me to look at the SR4 system. The SR4 system is closely tied to the SR world, but I think Mass Effect has sufficient parallels that the SR system could actually work okay. Biotics is basically space-magic, so that's a decent match. Conjuring is out, and you'd have to overhaul the list of spells and phys ad abilities to get the right feel for ME. (No fireballs, but things like Singularity and Warp need proper spells.) Some reworking of the Magic attribute to a Science! veneer would be appropriate - perhaps tying it to the rating of the biotic implant. VR probably wouldn't come up, but the standard matrix rules for AR would be good to go. Augmentation exists in the ME world, but only the villains seem to go for the obvious mods. Essence doesn't really seem to fit the ME universe, but you still need that mechanic for balance (maybe just say that other implants interfere with the biotic implant and Essence reflects that extent?). Gear might be worth revisiting a little to get into proper shape (e.g. all weapons get automated breakdown for free). The Races would need to be reworked, but at least the Asari really are space elves and the Krogan very near trolls. Batarians aren't too far from orcs. Quarians would get Allergy (Severe - Everything) as a racial quality which amuses me. You might have better luck with another system that's already receptive to the ME-style sci-fi, but I think SR4 would be serviceable.

You might try the d6 system, d6 Space specifically. The basic rules can be found for free (and legally too) on the internet and some people have put effort into a few ME conversions in various places. And best of all you don't have to change your dice out.

For a game like this, I might actually suggest my Hollywood houserule, also known as 'some of those adept powers aren't really very magical when you look at them' rule.

Its basically very simple. Everyone is an Adept for free, and recieves a small number of power points, either a flat value, 2-3, or possibly based onedge. Magic attribute doesn't really matter, and you can't upgrade it to mystic adept or any of the usual options.
This rather turns everyone into a hollywood hero, where the black belt who's been doing karate since they were 5 just kind of has abilities that reflect that(killing hands, combat sense), or a hacker who's really good at jamming and multitasking. Mass effect protagonists tend to be rather elite, and have skills/powers that reflect their background.(asari scientist, krogan warlord, shock trooper, etc) and are just better in some areas than others. And I think this rule fits. It does ramp up the power level a bit, so the gm should likely set the amount of freebie points fairly low.
But, really, there's an adept power for not getting sick when eating things. Thats not magic at all! Its called bein a man. That kind of thing.

I would also suggest a reworking of the IP rules and Edge for a game like this.
Instead of making the game ALL about IP and Passes and cheapest ways to get sustaining increase reflexes - make it much more about the protagonists Plot Fu:

When combat starts, everyone gets a fresh Edge pool equal to half their edge, round up. This Initiate pool is seperate from the main edge pool. These edge points may only be spent on initiative related things. Whether to automatically go first per the usual rules, take another pass, or reroll/add to their initiative roll. If you happen to have a pass from another source, add 1. And just kind of remove/make off limits extra sources of IP, or limit them to +1, maybe +2.


Regarding the matrix adjustments: Mass effectian devices, particularly omnitools, have demonstrated the ability to quickly mess with other devices over a good distance, whether its through manufacturing the techmines of the first game, or quickly hacking terminals remotely without even physically interfacing with them.
Signal is used, but capped at about 3-4 for personal comms.
Mutual Signal Range is tossed out completely. Its a big change, but Omnitools just have an ability to mess with things remotely. Its less about the path taken to get to a target, and more about the range and power of your own device.
It also seems that encryption is even EASIER to break through, so I'd change it from one Combat Turn to one Pass to try to break. And likely have the default systems try to dynamically re-encrypt themselves to stall out an attacker.(Firewall+whatever).
Mass effectian hacking also seems to be a LOT less about programs and crap. I would say that it DEFINITELY uses the 'Logic+skill' optional rule, but since the protagonists hardly ever bother with virtual programs, i'd say that their Hits are capped by their Omnitools Response(possibly System) instead of the Program Rating.

Just my 2 cents, having played the games.

Wow, that's a great houserule! I'll have to try that out!

I'm not sure whether that's sarcasm or not, but if you DO try it out, please tell me how it goes!

The point is kind of to make interesting advancements available to everyone, more for a casual game where everyone isn't minmaxing as hard as they can. You're basically handing out a couple of adept 'powers' to everyone - but ignoring the rest of the rules, like the limit on power ranks because they don't have a magic value, or taking it away in background count, or even letting them initiate.

Needless to say, it makes for more interesting characters, but does mess with the power balance somewhat. I'd be very interested to know how it holds up in other games with other players.

I don't want to clutter up the thread with personal chat, but yes, I do honestly think that your houserule is interesting. Particularly if it gets the PCs to go stranger instead of stronger, if that makes sense. I wonder...maybe it could be adapted to a Quality, something like 10BP/Magic? With the typical limit of 30BP in Qualities, that self-limits, and frankly fits in with Qualities that already exist like Lightning Reflexes and Hawkeye.

Traveller is the obvious choice, by the way. It would need some hacking, but probably not as much as Shadowrun.

Of course, I don't like Traveller's basic resolution mechanic, which is why I wound up writing my own scifi rules rather than just using it myself.

But Traveller is a pretty venerable game so I figured I should at least mention it.

This is my first instinct. Biotics/Tech powers can easily be handled with the Force system with some creativity (replace Control, Alter, and uh..whatever the 3rd one is) and it has the same over the top kind of action/combat, meaning it's not overly deadly to get shot several times in a fight.

Barriers can be replicated with the starship shield system applied to characters.