Running a game in the era of the Internet is hard. Even assuming your players have enough self-control not to read every splatbook ever written (spoiler: they don't), you have to weave your storytelling around plot holes large enough to pass the Renraku Arcology.

I am lazy. Ergo, I will fab some modern-day setting in the style of D20 Modern or GURPS, and let players commit crimes without the benefit of chrome or magic. Only the bad guys get those, and they'll hopefully be terrifying in the way that finding your unarmed captive has a submachinegun in his wrist can be.

Can anyone suggest what rules tweaks might serve to account for the absence of cybernetics, magic, technomancers, and wi-fi that works properly? I'm a little rusty on the rules, and would not be opposed to upgrading to SR5.

I would recommend against upgrading to SR5 if you are flat out removing magic and augmentations (and possibly metatypes, too?). SR5 uses a Priority system instead of build points. Plus, SR5 is still new enough that it is riddled with errors and lacks the other core rulebooks. And there are obvious holes in the main book that they left for later books.

If you have unaugmented mundane human PC's, I would give them a generous amount of build points. Even so, fights will be a lot more dangerous. Shadowrun is designed so that magic and augmentations make the characters superhuman. Without that, they will be fighting on much more even terms with everyone - and 50/50 odds can quickly result in dead shadowrunners. You might want to explicitly let the players know that fights will be a lot more deadly, and that planning, using tactics, and sometimes trying to talk their way out of trouble are all good ideas.

Hooray for my bank account!



Given that everyone I know just plays Pathfinder, I look forward to amusingly rapid character replacement.


This is not a bug. This is a FEATURE.

Godspeed.

Remember to keep the laughter to yourself in front of them.

As for metaplot, I largely (ie pretty much completely) ignore it. If there is a metaplot (or much more likely, a small chunk of the metaplot) that I like for whatever reason, I will use it in my game and twist it to meet my needs. To be honest, I have found the various metaplot story arcs to be the weakest part of Shadowrun over the years.

As for the removal of cyberware/metatypes/magic/etc...I'm all for it. Just be aware of the fact that making SR characters can be a rather lengthly process as they are done now so tearing through them like Kleenex can get very annoying, very fast.