OK you all this just might be where I live or whatever, but is shadowrun really as dead as it feels. roleplaying for that matter. I gusse its starting to get to me, haveing to go a epic quests to find sorce books,rule books, novels, TCG game. I love shadowrun so much, but it feels like im the only one in michigan who plays (excludeing my 9-10 players). AND the web. I remember when I first started playing the Archive was'nt in dissaray, Red skulls was up, Blackjack was updateing. shadowland was going strong. It feels this forum is my last safe haven. next to german sites I can barly read. maybe im the only person that feels this way, but anyone else does leave a post. your not alone.


P.S. We need new sites you all, Im working on one now hard core and it should be up in two three weeks.

It feels very much alive as far as I'm concerned. I'm constantly running into Shadowrun players here and there's plenty of material streaming out. There are also tons of website, many from members of these forums.

If Shadowrun was dead, would they be releasing a 4th Edition? It's certainly come down a long way from its peak, but it's still steadily moving along.

I felt very much the same way, Akai, until just recently when I found a site in my home town with a forum that included a half dozen "Wanna play Shadowrun anyone got a game going?" posts.

Personally, I think the web has actually hindered the development of RPG's and gaming groups. More people wanna play computer games. If I wasn't posting here right now, I'd probably be slurping coffee with my buddies, planning our next game.

And you have 9 players? That's pretty cool. Shadowrun is a difficult introductory game, but you could try recruiting. I don't think you need to though.

Gaming in general is experiencing a massive change. The massive body blow it has received from video games really knocked it pretty hard. Add to that the increased media presence in everyone's life and it's not the same small tight-knit community that it used to be.

It used to be that you could have people developing game lines out of their garage. Now, with the success of White Wolf and the arrival of WotC (as TSR), there's less room for the small developer. It's actually very similar to the process that video game developers have gone through.

That being said, Shadowrun I think is probably on a cusp. I've played since 1ed, and the game had the advantage of an amazing setting/story and an interesting and distinctive mechanic. The mechanic is a problem now though.

It used to be that people thought nothing of picking up a game book and then expecting to take a week or three to read through it before running a game with it. That's no longer acceptable to the general audience RPGs are targetting since the average kid can pick up a video game and be playing within 30 minutes. Don't believe that this is an issue? Check out the length of the average video game manual now, then think about how long they were 10 years ago. Then go read a recent article in Game Informer interviewing Robert Garriott about what a MMORPG needs to survive in the US.

As much as I hate it, the D20 system appeals to this by offering an easy system that need only be learned once. Back that up with a good old fashioned marketing blitz and lots of business saavy (which WotC has in scads) and you have the current state of the RPG market.

The reason why I said Shadowrun is at a cusp is simple. It still has the setting/background that attracts people. Even today people who've never played SR have heard of it and think that the idea is pretty cool. They just "know" that the system is difficult and clunky. If FanPro can streamline the system so people can pick it up and play within a couple of hours, and can generate the buzz, I think SR has a very good chance of being a major competitor. Believe it or not I think one of their biggest allies in all of this might be Microsoft. I suspect that there was a reason why MS renewed their rights on an SR video game, and if Microsoft brings out the game, that will add AAA marketing to FanPro's side.

Anyways, sorry for the long post, but watching the gaming industries is a bit of a hobby of mine.

The Other DSE...

Edit: Robert Garriott was the one interviewed (I originally put Richard)

Yes SR does seem like it's lost a good deal of steam in regards to general gamer culture. Yes it has a devoted if cranky fanbase and a relatively populous forum and a handful of sites that are regularly updated but it doesn't have as strong of a following as it once had. It's certainly not dead or even dying but it does deserve a shot in the arm.

Maybe with a new edition we will see an explosion of homebrew rules etc and return the fanbase to it's more rabid former self.

I will say, however, that computers have opened up an entire field of gamers that before had no chance to play. I post sometimes while at work. If it weren't for the internet, I would be in 0 games. Right now I'm in about half a dozen, and running three. This includes one that has my brother, who's living in Guatemala.

I can't remember the last time I table top gamed. But even though my rulebook is gathering dust, it doesn't mean that shadowrun is dying, it's just finding new homes.

Hell I'm waiting patiently for 4th edition to come out so I can begin making new tools for the streamlined system. The change int he mechanic (no more Rule of 6, etc.) will make it much easier to spreadhseet some of the tedious stuff, which I made a few for 3rd. My wife, a lovely little web sesigner is helping put together a site to hos tit, then, when I have some content, I'll publish it and probably put it in my sig.
The point is, there is new stuff comming out ont he web for SR, it's just taking time.

Its not dead, not by a long shot. Its just not D20. I swear the number of people that I talk to that express shock that I play a system thats NOT D20 scares the willys outta me.

I think Shadowrun is in a place very similar to where AD&D was right before the release of 3rd Ed. There's the flagging player base, the aging system, the new owners. The general malaise in the RPG market over CCGs in the mid-90's has been replaced by a malaise in the Shadowrun market over d20. The system is bogged down across a bunch of books, there are all kinds of loose plotlines and source material lying around. Anybody remember the old Player's Option line? The scads of empty splatbooks? So far, Fanpro hasn't pulled that kind of stupidity yet but some people certainly felt that SURGE was a big mistake. Some similar sentiments with SOTA 2064 over the new adept.

Right now, it's like a lot of longtime SR players finally got jaded enough that they lost steam and moved on to other things. Just burnout. If it could happen with venerable AD&D it could certainly happen to SR. Get word of the new edition out and there's definitely a chance for the same kind of renewal that happened with 3rd Ed.

A streamlined system and a mostly clean slate to put the world back in some kind of order has the best chance of bringing back the good old days of anything I can think of. Of course, right now I'm putting it at about a 40% chance that they totally blow it and ruin the game. That's what supposedly happened to Traveller: The New Era. You never run into anyone who plays that anymore, partly because it helped bankrupt the company.

And yet they are honoring the saito plot line.....

Um, I also live in the Detroit Area (Dearborn Heights) and I don't think RPGs are dead at all. SR is also alive in kicking, I see books being sold out of comic shops, hobby stores and even mainstream bookstores like Border's. But that might just be Downriver.

I know I've mentioned this elsewhere but lemme throw my two UCAS dollars in.

I got into RPGs when I was a kid based on games like FF6 (FF3 in America) and the like. I played text-based online where I ran a storyline for about 10 years. I played Baldur's Gate and loved it.

I picked up D&D and me and my friends sat there going "WTF?!"

Bottom line - Younger kids (and even older ones) want the quick fix, the game you can turn on and play in 20 minutes TOPS. Its bad enough that Shadowrun is a semi-mature game based on many of its pretenses (mass murder, race wars, prostitituion and other complex issues which often reflect our society) and that to have a great story you have to have some intellegence and thus astuteness behind it. Add to that the fact that character creation for any pen and paper game is riddiculously long (I can spend half an hour doing Cyberware for a character. That's a headache) and you see why things are a nuisance to 12 and 13 year olds who would rather learn Yu-Gi-Oh or another CCG then spend the time to learn SR.

That said, some ideas.

1: Microsoft renewed its license? Maybe there's hope! A compy/X-Box game (especially with online capability!) would make SR a much more marketable thing.

2: At the very least, and with all the props to NSRCG (who should definitely be consulted/hired for this), a character generator should be made available online for download by Fanpro. WotC did this for 3E D&D and it made my life infinitely simpler.

3: D20 is not my thing. I didn't like D&D 3E, simple as that. Oh yeah it could be fun if I had a group and the patience to make a character, but SR's character creation system is easier though longer. But on topic, SR's dice system is fairly simple, so they should keep much of it and make sure to explain it in a simple, easy way.

4: On the same vibe with point 2, I would reccommend a dice-rolling program, GM assistant, etc etc (again, see NSRCG) with a number of house rules (My favorite is the "divide target number into rolls" one where a roll of 8 with a TN of 4 leads to 2 successes, not one) available for selection or de-selection at a whim. For beginners, simple is simple. SR is often a hard game to introduce people to as anything made easily flexible is difficult to easily master.

Anyway go ahead, flame me

Shadowrun suffered Deadly Stun and Physical damage when Microsoft bought it from FASA. Fortunately Shadowrun had a Doc Wagon contract with our German friends. Wiz Kids and Fan Pro managed breath new life into the game. Fan Pro took a great risk in investing in Shadowrun but I am glad they did. These boards are more active now than they have been in at least year more fine sites are up and people like Ancient History, Talia, and McMackie have done as much for shadowrun in real life as Dunkelzahn did in the meta-plot. Sorry for the many unmentioned. There are new Anarachists guides in the works.

Fan Pro in an effort to complete the healing process is putting out System Failure and fourth edition.

Shadowrun is most definately not dead. The fact that you are having so much trouble finding copies of old novels and source books that nobody wants should say something.

If all of that isn't enough to calm your fears, I have consulted my Ancestor Spirits and they say that Shadowrun is going to make a come back.

Microsoft did not buy Shadowrun from FASA.

MS bought FASA Interactive, and with it came the video game rights to Shadowrun. WizKids bought Shadowrun and Classic BattleTech after FASA announced it was closing.

This is clearly covered in the FanPro Shadowrun FAQ.

SR is coming back. Slowly, but surely, FanPro's SR products (such as SOTA 64) have added greater scope to the game, while at the same time, more places are starting to run demos. SR has always been a second-tier game after those like AD&D, but in many ways it's just more...cinematic. For example, a character could put all his concentration into landing a slug between the trolls eyes (All of combat pool) to save his teammates, even though there's a street sam with some nasty cyber rushing twoards him. In AD$D, you did what you could; there were few really cinematic bits.
Whenever someone has asked "Why the heck do you play a non-D20 game?" (which has happened only once, for that matter), I promptly go into a mathematical explination of how a bell-curved system like the roll-six-D6 method in shadowrun is far more true-to-life than a linear system like D20. (You don't have an equal chance of doing max damage, middle damage, and minium damage; instead, they group around a more realistic number.) It also correlates success and damage; unlike D20, where your "to hit" roll might be the lowest possible but you roll max damage, in Shadowrun a glancing blow only does a tiny amount of damage, as a glancing blow would in real life.

All the reasons you just mentioned for playing a non D20 game are the same as the reason I and Friend had for writing up a god-awful long tome of house rules for D20. Each to their own I guess. We fixed all the problems you mentioned though, but players have a tendency of not liking having to read a rulebook and a homemade rulebook that changes half of the rules from the original one.


Shadowrun isn't dead, there are active groups and shops selling the books here in Norway, wich should be a sign of it's continued life. Alive and kicking.
I hope Shadowrun 4 will do the same for SR as 3rd ed did for AD&D, but I'm afraid of the opposite.

And, for the record, while I can understand the comment that Shadowland isn't "going strong," it's not like the place is gone. The fact that as many of us are posting here to discuss the changes to our beloved game shows you that we're still kicking and screaming and playing Shadowrun.

Parts of it are slow, we're always digging for players, and I'll be the first to admit that (like Shadowrun itself, I'd imagine) a decent portion of our fan-base is growing up and moving on, having less time to devote to on-line RPGing. But we're still there, and we're always looking for new players. We've got private campaigns popping up fairly regularly lately, and we've got activity springing to life in our open forum area on and off (as school semesters wax and wane, holidays come and go, and real life rears it's ugly head from time to time).

Anyone who's interested in play-by-post is more than welcome to swing by, hang out, and stick around for seven or eight years.

The only Traveller game I know of is one that a buddy of mine runs in PA. He played the original when it first came out. I bought the reprint of the original rules but haven't had a chance to run a game yet.

When I told my buddy I played SR, a game by FASA, he said "FASA? Like the company that made suppliments for GDW?"

I have only played in one game of Traveller, way back when it first came out ... and my character died during chargen!

Have you played the original Traveller game? Chargen was by far the best part, from what I've read and observed.

I game in Michigan. There's a healthy community, although fractured.I know 50 gamers I have personally played with out of Grand Rapids. Lansing and Novi have gamers I know, and Novi is home to one of my favorite Bulldrekkers.

Myself, 3278 and Uncle Jospeh are all west Michigan natives. We've had a number of Bulldrek denziens, and even a few of DSf's people, including Bull for BBQs and stuff. We're all kind of busy with life stuff right now, so our presence online has dropped, especially here.

I'm pretty tight with some of the Chicago crew too. Between divorces (In my case) weddings and what not, we just haven't had the time.

We also game with people a lot closer to our own age, and from immediate area. That might be why you have some difficulties locatin players. People gravitate towards like minded groups.

Shadowrun is suffering, very badly, and at times seems terminal. The way I see it, SR4 will be absolutely pivotal. I maintain my position that it is a terrible idea based on short-term economics rather than long time gain, but the test will be whether SR4 saves the game, or kills it.

For myself, every time a new edition of something comes out I feel gutted that all teh old material is useless. I look at the mountainous pile of SR2 books I have (and soon, my SR3 books as well) and think, damn, that's a whole lot of money I've spent. SR4 will undoubtedly change things a massive amount and will wipe the slate clean of all the old material.

I don't think the rules system was bad. I know it intimately and I've found it the most workable of any system I've run or played in, and I've done most of them. I think it found the perfect balance of simplicity vs accuracy/realism.

I would hope that SR4 does not change the character generation system, which is easily one of SR3's greatest strengths as well. As a long-time hater of games where you can nominate your character class, alignment etc, I like that if you want to make a character who is a sniper and also a decker, you can. You take a hit for two divergent areas of speciality, but you can really customise and flesh out your character, and that is missing in many other games.

I personally really liked SOTA:2064. I hated that adepts were melee guys, firearms guys or ninjas and nothing else. I like the spy rules, I love the new adept powers (that was a desperately needed breath of fresh air, in my opinion). I felt really optimistic about the future of shadowrun when SOTA:2064 came out.

And now I don't know. My opinion as a long-time fan is this - it had better be both very d*mn good, and very much worth it.

Instead of a full repost, I'll just link in a cross-post that might apply here: in the sense that I suspect all rpgs, approached from a business pov, has a natural boom-and-bust cycle. I'm not sure truly long-term gain is even possible, for an rpg business.