Likewise, 5th Edition has limits and the like that tend to make play a little more difficult to pick up than it is in the earlier games. I don't think Mystic Adepts were even around back then (I believe they started in 3e with a supplement, but might be wrong), which probably makes the game a little more balanced and less confusing in terms of magic users. If you play 2nd, you'll never have to worry about technomancers, wireless hacking, wireless bonuses, and a whole host of things that got added after the fact. On the other hand, Shadowrun tends to bloat. The dice process is easier, and my players found not having to deal with floating target numbers a lot more fluid. You don't track two armor pools, for instance. Shadowrun 5 is a lot simpler in many ways than the earlier Shadowruns. Shadowrun Returns and SR4A have very, very, little in common.I started with Shadowrun 3, not Shadowrun 2, but many of the rules are pretty similar.

You may be thinking of Shadowrun Online, which is going to be much more similar to the current generation of tabletop (at least in terms of fluff and feel, sharing a timeline instead of being a generation earlier 'what if.?' the way Shadowrun Returns is, but which, even so, isn't going to be 'modeled directly' over any exact version of the tabletop rules). As much as I want folks to buy and enjoy Shadowrun Returns, and as much as I want them to buy an enjoy Shadowrun tabletop (not just the editions I've worked on), I don't want them to do so under mistaken pretenses, and be disappointed. Stats are different, skills are different, the core mechanic/probability curve/engine is different, and SR4A is years and years in the future, so even the timeline and feel are very different.

There is very little of Shadowrun tabletop in Shadowrun Returns, period, but there certainly isn't much of SR4A in there. It's a great game, I think, but that particular caveat is rather important to mention, I think.Д¬lick to expand.No, it absolutely wasn't (I don't say so with certainty to be a dick about it, but only because I really want to clear up this misconception). Be warned that if you like your games simple and rules-light, you will not like running Shadowrun. Worst case scenario, you'll have to simultaneously deal with street samurai, physical adepts, people fighting in astral, summoners, mages, hackers and riggers. Not because any particular subsystem is more than medium-weight, but because there's so damn many of them. Personally, I find the fourth edition to be my favourite edition - the rules are cleaner and the hacker rules make sense.ДЄ word of warning, however: Shadowrun is one of the crunchiest games in the market. 4e and 5e are heavily into ubiquitous computing and wireless technology, while the older editions are more retro in regard to technological assumptions the way the computer game is. This ranges from people's commlinks (smart phones) and mainframes to cybernetic implants, turrents, security cameras, cars, drones. Rather than jacking in to hardpoints, 4e and 5e hackers use wireless mode to hack into almost anything that has electronics in it. (In particular, weapon damage is simplified.) The big reason why you wouldn't want to go to the fourth or fifth edition is because the Matrix works radically differently there. The three first editions are fairly similar mechanically (to my understanding - I'm not an expert), but the latter ones are more refined. If you want to play Shadowrun that's close to the Shadowrun Returns videogame, I'd suggest third edition. Those worries aside, I'd still like to know which edition of Shadowrun is the most similar to the videogame Shadowrun Returns and its expansion, Dragonfall. I'm guessing that the availability of the different editions is a bit uneven, which may factor into finding an edition to play. Second, as far as I know there are currently five editions out there. Is there something about the system or the setting that lends itself to those kind of disasters? Seeing as how the videogame is an adaptation of a tabletop game, I got to thinking of maybe running a game of Shadowrun at some point.ДЇirstly, when reading the (often very amusing) threads about terrible gaming experiences, Shadowrun tends to crop up quite often. Before that I played the main game as well and found that I in both cases really enjoyed the setting and the surprisingly engaging plots. I've recently been playing a lot of the expansion to Shadowrun Returns, Dragonfall.

Which shadowrun game is best