[Ocule]

So just got my hands on shadowrun anarchy and wanted to ask, with a table full of people new to shadowrun barring maybe 1 or 2 players should i run anarchy and later transition to vanilla or just throw them in vanilla.
So does anarchy still feel like shadowrun

I care more about feel, excitement and story than other aspects. Feel is a huge one which is does the system reinforce the games themes, and it's atmosphere. Shadowrun does have that big themes in technology, action and pulp I think is the right word. Which is what I'm hesitant about anarchy is not sure how well it does it.What I didn't care for in 5e was mostly the matrix needed some streamlining and some rules needed better wording to prevent abuse. I tend to discourage power gaming but not making characters bad at everything. Nice balance between being capable but still making sense

[Beta]

They are very different types of game.  Anarchy isn’t just a more rules-light version of SR, or at least isn’t written that way (may be able to play it that way?)  It is designed as cooperative story telling game, with everyone (players and GM) taking turns at defining what happens.

Maybe easier to show than tell?  Below I imagine how things might play out with a GM and players Andrew, Beth, and Carlos (their characters are conveniently also A, B, and C names).  The party has just bypassed a lock to get into the lab where they expect to find the McGuffin.  The games might go something like this:

SR:
GM: OK, it is dark in here – you cut the power and there are no emergency lights inside.  Everyone give me a perception role of some sort, and let me know what you are using – low light, thermal, listening, whatever.  Then roll initiative, just in case *evil chuckle*

Players: (make rolls, announce results)

GM: OK, the lab looks empty, but you Blue Lynx notices one matrix signature nearby, and it seems to be labelled as “emergency lab cleansing device”

Beth: Blue Lynx fires an ARO to the team as her free action – her matrix initiative is 19 – then she’ll use sleaze to get a mark on the device (dice are rolled)

Andrew: Arconos goes on 25, but he won’t do anything until he gets that warning, then he’ll …(and on things go)



Anarchy:
(the last person to narrate was Andrew, so it passes to his left to Beth, and then will move to Carlos)

Beth:  At first the room seems dark, then our eyes adapt to the ghostly glow from control panels that are still lit up.  My character Blue Lynx starts checking for matrix activity from the room, then screams out “Defense drones are activating!”  She desperately tries to disable the buzz-saw on wheels that comes zooming towards the group to attack her”  (rolls some dice and has terrible luck) “Looks like it is time for a defense roll, and my armor was already all used up.”

Andrew (out of order): “I’ll use a plot point to take the hit for Blue Lynx.  Arcanos leaps in front of her, magical defenses flickering around him” (rolls dice, resolves damage)

Carlos:  “As the team scatters to cover, Cargill roars his battle cry and his Ares Alpha, blasting drones to shreds!  With his heightened reflexes he gets two actions, so he shoots first Buzzy the buzzsaw drone and then the, ummm, anthro drone that has stepped out from its charging station, and is leveling its shotgun at the team”

GM: “OK, I’m going to use a plot point here, as you are about to shoot the anthro drone, you notice that its chest is covered with the symbol for ‘danger – explosive.’”

Carlos: “Aw, drek, OK, I’m going to use my last plot point to make an aimed shot to blast the shotgun without hitting the drone.”   (rolls various dice, effects are figured.

GM: My turn!  OK, so equipment is waking up all over the lab, flashing lights, moving, making it really confusing to figure out what is a danger or not, so… (and on things go)…

[Ocule]

Ugh that second example. Yeah the players having that much control of the story idk if i could ever get used to it. I'd just be wanting to scream  to the players to stay in their lane the whole time. like why even have a gm at that point

[Reaver]

It could be that I'm old and grumpy but I have always called game systems like Anarchy:

Roleplay-Snowflake editon game system...

[Kesendeja]

Having copies of both, i prefer the regular game to anarchy.

[Rosa]

While i do allow my players a great amount of leeway with which to influence the story and how Things gets resolved, including sometimes surprising the crap out of me so i'll have to revise the story on the fly, i do reserve the right to step in and take control as GM whenever i feel it's needed and without having to use some artificial system such as plot points or whatever they are called. So yeah SR 5th ( or 3rd or 4th if you like ) anyday.

[Sipowitz]

I would stick to normal Shadowrun.


I totally understand the reasoning behind anarchy, I am a firm believer in it being a waste of time.

[Gingivitis]

Anarchy does have an advantage or focusing more on story/fluff and less on numbers/crunch.  Some GMs will see this as an advantage when trying to convey the Feel.

To be fair, every table is going to play Anarchy differently with different levels of Player/Plot engagement.  How you handle Plot Points, Perception Tests, Initiative, and Lethality Levels will largely determine your experience. 

- Anarchy does lay out options for GM-traditional game play.  Players can only play Plot Points on themselves and the GM gets 2 for 1 as the players spend theirs.  Try this first.
- If you determine that a Perception Test is an Action, then players can, during a Narration, either help create the world around them OR react to it, but not both at the same time.
- Options for Initiative let you choose from Traditional (go around the table), Cinematic (initiative jumps around to be exciting), or Rolling for it (like 5E).

I can speak from experience.  I converted two different gaming groups to Anarchy from 5E.  Out of 10 players I had 2 veterans, 3 with moderate experience (4-8 5E sessions), and 5 with little experience (2-3 5E sessions).  All of them enjoyed the game much more after we converted.  The games got more exciting and faster-paced.  Prep time was faster and we got a lot more done in a 5 hour session than we could ever do in 5E.  We didn't have to refer to the rules once during gameplay in 6 sessions.  That was important to me.

I recommend it.  But it is different.

[Edit]  I have yet to read a poor review from someone who has actually played it.  Maybe that is confirmation bias?  Still haven't found one though.

[Shadowjack]

Anarchy is far superior. 5th edition is slow and bogged down with too many rules. I'd say less than 1% of players knows how 80%+ of the rules work. Having played Anarchy I can confidently say that I'll never play 5th, 6th, 7th, etc, I will only play Anarchy and future editions of Anarchy. The strongest statement I can make in favor of Anarchy is that I've been running the shadows for decades and Anarchy is both exciting and addictive for me, much more so than standard. I get a reallly good rush from playing and I feel free and happy to immerse myself deeply into the game.

[Dwagonzhan]

If I get a chance, I'll give Anarchy a try. But I'm very much in love with the detail of character design in Shadowrun as a whole.
Rounding that off might simplify things, but I don't play tabletops for their "simplicity" (I have video games for that).

Fair warning: I'm a strict judge and not easy to please.

[Carmody]

You can find my whole review of Anarchy here.
However, if you really like to optimize your characters to the smallest piece of gear, to compare the benefits of this combination of implants compared to this other one, then you will for sure prefer SR5 over Anarchy.

[Jack_Spade]

My experiences with playing Anarchy are limited, but so far I'm not particularly thrilled with the mechanics and it does a poor job (imho) of conveying the feeling I associate with SR. For me SR is more like an intelligent heist movie whereas SRA feels like a dumb action flick. If I want to play with simple, cinematic rules I'd rather use the Feng Shui system.

And I have to say: 5e has a lot of rules, but you don't actually need to know all of them as a player. The system at it's core is pretty simple and robust. Sure it requires a lot of study to truly master, but you are also rewarded with great results if you do.

But each to their own taste...

[Stoneglobe]

For me both have their strengths and weaknesses and as with all things it actually comes down to the group that you play with as much as the rule system you use.

I have limited experience with Anarchy having only played one session so far but I found it enjoyable, definitely shadowrun and I was able to play to the level of detail that I wanted in terms of planning and execution of the plan whilst not having to interrupt the flow of the game every 2 minutes with lots of dice rolls as so often happens in 5e.

I'm drawn to the anarchy system as I'm more interested in the story than the minutiae and the system works for me in that respect. On the other hand I've also been playing shadowrun since it's inception and love the detail that you can go into with an individual character and execution of their specialties.

At the end of the day I will no doubt continue to play, and gm, both but I can see myself turning more to anarchy in the long run as the ability to create characters in a short space of time and the flexibility of the system, along with the speed of play, mean that I can accomplish more in a single gaming session and that to me has to be a bonus.

As a way of introducing new players to the 6th world I have to say that I believe anarchy to be the better option as I can take a group form nothing to having created their own characters and completed their first run in the same time frame I would have needed just to create the characters and explain the basic rules to them.

[Vormaerin]

I've played Shadowrun since 1st edition.  But I"ve converted my games to Anarchy, which the majority of my players much prefer.  The one hold out likes how its easier to do "cool stuff", but misses the min maxing gear porn of SR's full rules.

I like Anarchy because I find it is easier to add things I like from SR5 into Anarchy than to pare things I don't like out of SR5.  I also think that the character balance is better in Anarchy,  as the wizards and adepts don't get to faceroll the borgs the way they often can in SR5.  Not having to try to figure out how to give the gear centric characters enough money to keep them advancing comparably to the karma centric mages without the mages getting ultra rich is a nice perk.

That said, I totally go with the GM centric version of the rules.  I let the players expand on scenes, but not control any aspect of the plot, NPCs,or big picture.  I've always been a "There's always a chandelier" GM anyway and I find the players are more confident in doing stuff.  Most of them act like the function of the rules in SR5 is to tell them what they can't do, so they are always "can I do this?" or "what can I do about that?" no matter how much I try to convince them otherwise.  In Anarchy, they are suddenly "Right, I do this, that, and the other thing"  Its all psychological, because I would have allowed This, that, and the other thing in SR5 too.  But the six tomes of rules aren't crushing their psyches or something.

And when they want to do something from SR5, I just figure out how to do it in Anarchy.

The one thing I do not like about Anarchy is its character creation system, but that's not a problem with a conversion.  And I have worked out a char gen system I like better for the new player characters, though it hasn't been campaign tested yet.

[Shadowjack]

In my last Anarchy session we had two players and it was so much fun. The simplicity of the rules allows for cooler things to happen and people don't feel rushed or confused during their turns. We had a 2v2 fights, the pc's were samurai and the opposition was a pair of elven hitmen. The hitmen set an ambush and had a car to hide behind for cover, the pc's took a bit of damage from smgs and rushed the car, firing mid stride. A shotgun shell smashed the first hitman in the chest and a ruger super warhawk hit the other. Things got really dicey around the car when the mma trained samurai decided to rush the hitman he just  shot with his shotgun and attempted a single leg takedown. In retort, the hitman through a spinning roundhouse which was ducked by the samurai who then succeedded on the takedown. Another shot from the warhawk filled the brain of the first hitman, leaving the sole hitman in a 1v2 while also mounted by the samurai. His buddy lopped off his gun hand with a vibro sword and the the other samurai improved his position and choked the guy out with a d'arce choke.

The fight was very fast and pretty intense as in Anarchy you can lose a fight pretty quickly, it is very high stakes stuff. The mma style stuff was pretty nice to see and the rules made it very fluid. No complicated grappling or submission rules, it was fluid. When the samurai improved his position I gave him a dice bonus and on the initial take down I gave him a damage bonus due to  the windshield glass that was beneath him after it was previously blown out.