[EccentricOwl]

I adore Shadowrun.

The setting is fantastic. The writing is top-notch. The short stories are clever mixes of action and writing.

No other setting has ever, EVER made me want to play 'everyone'. I want to play a Saeder-Krupp contractor. I want to play a blogger. I want to play a blood mage, or street shaman, or Red Samurai, or graphic designer, or Horizon news anchor, or professional overwatch runner, or a hard-boiled ganger... you get the idea.

Here's the issue: my players want to play Shadowrun in a different system. A session or two using the system didn't go well. players didn't enjoy the rules and they didn't really enjoy the mechanics. The "core concept" was good but past that any individual rule system seemed to go above their head.

As such, I really want to play a Shadowrun campaign in a different system. What system, well, that much I don't know. Does anyone have any recommendations for other, preferably simpler systems I could run Shadowrun in?

D6 system? Savage Worlds? (Don't you dare say GURPS xD ) d20?

Also, has anyone heard of any good adaptations for Shadowrun?

[EccentricOwl]

I adore Shadowrun.

The setting is fantastic. The writing is top-notch. The short stories are clever mixes of action and writing.

No other setting has ever, EVER made me want to play 'everyone'. I want to play a Saeder-Krupp contractor. I want to play a blogger. I want to play a blood mage, or street shaman, or Red Samurai, or graphic designer, or Horizon news anchor, or professional overwatch runner, or a hard-boiled ganger... you get the idea.

Here's the issue: my players want to play Shadowrun in a different system. A session or two using the system didn't go well. players didn't enjoy the rules and they didn't really enjoy the mechanics. The "core concept" was good but past that any individual rule system seemed to go above their head.

As such, I really want to play a Shadowrun campaign in a different system. What system, well, that much I don't know. Does anyone have any recommendations for other, preferably simpler systems I could run Shadowrun in?

D6 system? Savage Worlds? (Don't you dare say GURPS xD ) d20?

Also, has anyone heard of any good adaptations for Shadowrun?

[WSN0W]

Mutant and Mastermind 3e
Very open, covers Tech powers, magic powers, gadget and gear, etc all very simply. Start up would be some work (templates for how things need to work) but actual task resolution is nice.

D20 Modern/Future could also work.

[TheNarrator]

We actually had a thread on the subject a while back. Here you go.

Suggestions made included the FATE system (like the Dresden Files RPG), Heroes, Hero System and Savage Worlds.

(EDIT: I've read the Dresden Files RPG book, and I dig it. It's a very rules-simple, story-driven system.)

What kind of games has your group played before? SR4 isn't particularly complex as systems go (especially compared to SR3) but it is different from other games people might have played like D&D or MMOs.

[FuelDrop]

well, it'll depend on which aspects of the game you want to make use of, but for my money i'd suggest going with the latest edition of traveler and limiting all the tech to level 8-9 and removing a couple of skills (Specifically the battledress skill, as power armour doesn't come in at this tech level. flying spacecraft is a lower priority in the sixth world as well.

Pros: Already has a decent list of gear and computer skills, including the remote operations skill and combat drone rules for riggers and psionics rules for magic. rules are simple and fairly streamline, requiring only 2 dice and having varying degrees of success already in the rules.
Cons: It's not the most detailed system. if you adopt it then you're going to have to do a ton of legwork to get anything like the level of detail shadowrun has (EG: Traveler core rulebook has: Combat drone, Ground car, Automatic rifle). 

[FastJack]

Duplicate thread. Merging in 3... 2... 1...

[FastJack]

Topics have been merged. You may now continue with your discussion. Thank you.

[Teknodragon]

Ouch! Sounds like the group could have eased into things a little more slowly rules-wise. May I ask what the problems your players had with the rules? Even if it may be too late for your group, I'd like to be able to ease new players over speed bumps before they learn to dynamite them.

On to the actual question:
This may bottom out my rep score, but a mix of D20 Modern and D20 Future would be able to approximate most of the gear and archetypes, though some house-ruling would be necessary to prevent spellcasters from loading up with cyberware.

Too bad GURPS is also ruled out, as I probably have all the supplements necessary to put together the tech and magic for Shadowrun.

[EccentricOwl]

The system itself, my players felt, was decent and rich; maybe a little TOO rich. We've played other games before; games like Savage Worlds, D&D, and the FATE system. However, they just found Shadowrun's focus on minute details to be cumbersome. Maybe it's the way it's presented, but my ever-changing players didn't really want to go to the trouble of figuring out how much recoil compensation all their guns had. The player who had drones just wanted to control drones, not worry about the differences between hotsim. My hacker has played in many of my games before, and he's an experienced D&D player, but he was dumbfounded by the Technomancer rules.

 The consensus around the table was that they liked many of the individual systems - like the Contacts system or choosing your housing with the safehouse system (like in the Runner's Handbook). They even liked the core combat system - rolling to hit, dodging / damage resistance, etc.

However, when combined together, all of these sub-systems ended up being too much, too fast... and I'm inclined to agree. That really ended up being the issue; when they look at the cover of SR4A, they see all this cool stuff. Once they look at their character sheet they see stat blocks for everything from their vehicles to their PDA. More than a few players (including myself) revelled in 'neckbeard' jokes.

Maybe I'll come back to the core SR4 rules, but for now, I think I'd rather start with something a little bit easier.



As for other systems, you're very right - d20 modern/future certainly could work. Has anyone ever read the Cyberpunk book? I'd like to take a look to see if I could capture some of the effects; for example, a slightly more robust hacking system than what's presented in d20 modern would be really cool.

I really loved the FATE system, so I'll look into that. One of my players has an incredible aversion to it (he's not much of a roleplayer, see) but the rest of us wouldn't mind it, I think. Thanks for the tip.

Mutants & Masterminds I've heard is good, but seems like it would be a big dent in start-up time. I'll keep it in mind.

is GURPS that good? I mean, I've played it before and it really seemed like something of a hassle. Now, I only played one session so I can't make full claim, but the game just seems very cumbersome. Your thoughts?

[All4BigGuns]

The system itself, my players felt, was decent and rich; maybe a little TOO rich. We've played other games before; games like Savage Worlds, D&D, and the FATE system. However, they just found Shadowrun's focus on minute details to be cumbersome. Maybe it's the way it's presented, but my ever-changing players didn't really want to go to the trouble of figuring out how much recoil compensation all their guns had. The player who had drones just wanted to control drones, not worry about the differences between hotsim. My hacker has played in many of my games before, and he's an experienced D&D player, but he was dumbfounded by the Technomancer rules.

 The consensus around the table was that they liked many of the individual systems - like the Contacts system or choosing your housing with the safehouse system (like in the Runner's Handbook). They even liked the core combat system - rolling to hit, dodging / damage resistance, etc.

However, when combined together, all of these sub-systems ended up being too much, too fast... and I'm inclined to agree. That really ended up being the issue; when they look at the cover of SR4A, they see all this cool stuff. Once they look at their character sheet they see stat blocks for everything from their vehicles to their PDA. More than a few players (including myself) revelled in 'neckbeard' jokes.

Maybe I'll come back to the core SR4 rules, but for now, I think I'd rather start with something a little bit easier.



As for other systems, you're very right - d20 modern/future certainly could work. Has anyone ever read the Cyberpunk book? I'd like to take a look to see if I could capture some of the effects; for example, a slightly more robust hacking system than what's presented in d20 modern would be really cool.

I really loved the FATE system, so I'll look into that. One of my players has an incredible aversion to it (he's not much of a roleplayer, see) but the rest of us wouldn't mind it, I think. Thanks for the tip.

Mutants & Masterminds I've heard is good, but seems like it would be a big dent in start-up time. I'll keep it in mind.

is GURPS that good? I mean, I've played it before and it really seemed like something of a hassle. Now, I only played one session so I can't make full claim, but the game just seems very cumbersome. Your thoughts?

Just like with getting started with any new system, it takes time to fully get a handle on all of it. Instead of trying to shoehorn things into some other system, my advice is too just give it that time. There are a few flaws here and there (though far less than what I've heard some people trying to claim), but no matter what system one uses, there will be flaws of some sort--it comes with the territory of having a system created by human beings, with the only way to get a truly perfect system being for the system to be designed by a truly perfect being.

[FastJack]

There's a pretty cool way to get away from the minutiae like RC Compensation and such. Go for a more cinematic game. For instance, instead of figuring out Recoil for every round, set it up so that Recoil Compensation removes all recoil when installed. If they don't have compensation, then give them a flat -3 on Burst Fire and -7 on Full Auto fire when they are firing.

Another example is Hacking/Decking. Cut back on the total rolls needed and instead simply give them a single roll to get hack the system, and further rolls only on complex actions. BE CAREFUL with this though, if you toss out too many rolls, the hackers can abuse the hell out of you.

Remember too, that the Buying Hits rule can be used to to get "automatic" successes.

[TheNarrator]

I really loved the FATE system, so I'll look into that. One of my players has an incredible aversion to it (he's not much of a roleplayer, see) but the rest of us wouldn't mind it, I think. Thanks for the tip.

Well, if your players felt that SR4 had too many bells and whistles for them, then perhaps FATE would be right up their alley. I'm only familiar with the Dresden Files RPG incarnation of it, but I felt like it could be used to put together a decent quasi-Shadowrun game. The Inhuman Speed power works just as well if you're a steet sam with Wired Reflexes or an adept with Improved Reflexes as it does for a monsterous critter. Bone Lacing and and Dermal Plating become Inhuman Toughness. Muscle Augmentation becomes Inhuman Strength. Strange Senses for cybereyes and cyberears. Item of Power for foci, especially weapon foci. And so forth. The full set of Wizard powers pretty much covers everything an SR mage can do. The details are in the aspects each character chooses. Stunts can cover most anything that Powers can't. Guns and armor are covered (really simplified and generalized, but they exist and are decently potent).

The rules for tech are pretty thin and general and there's no Matrix, obviously, but you can work around that, I'm sure. The truth is that every group I've ever played with has ignored cybercombat as needlessly complicated and taking too much time away from the rest of the group, and did the same to hacking as a whole prior to SR4 (simplifying it or outsourcing it to an NPC). A few stunts and maybe a custom power, along with the computer-hacking skills already in the game, should cover your technomancer's abilities, albeit mostly simplified down to a few rolls.

Rigging is trickier, but perhaps it could be treated like Shapeshifiting: you change "bodies" as the situation demands.