"Which Edition of Shadowrun is Easiest for Beginners?" 

I bought and played every edition from 1-4 as they were published, a friend bought me 5, and you're 100% right. 2 is the best. I liked 3 as well, but 2 is better. I say this as another angry ginger. What made third good was going to it from second and already used to the advanced rules in the sourcebooks. It was written for people who were already playing. First edition was wonderful but had huge gaps and bad rules that forced people to create house rules just so some parts could function.

No "idiot" has a painting of Peter Venkman on his wall, my friend. Arguably one of the bravest heroes in all of supernatural fiction, and I stand by that. Dude talks to ghosts and demi-gods like he's at an airport bar.

I used my imagination, and I gotta say the production quality and special effects in this video are off the charts.

Shadowrun is a great game. Good setting. I started with 1st, played 2nd, skipped 3rd, played a little 4th, some 5th and recently bought 6th. Its not as bad as it was when it launched with companion and street wyrd. I like *every* edition of SW. Some stuff never changes, Matrix runs always takes too long, Magic is always complicated, etc. But I will admit I houserule a lot of stuff in every game. For example ... I don't use Edge at all like it was outlined in 6e. I use my own system for how Edge works. But I mean I also create my grunt/mooks/what have you on index cards for the game. We also follow the house rule of "I think it works this way, so it works this way and we will look it up later. Write it on an index card and I will look them up later."

Second edtion is fun unless you play a decker, but we need something entry-like Anarchy. What are your thoughts on Sixth Edition?

What about the book shadowrun 3rd revised? Does that actually get you refined second edition?

About a year back, I got an assload of Shaodwrun 5e books from humble bundle. I have a tight group of friends that all run their own D&D5e games and since we started I've wanted to bring that kinda Tech-Fantasy twist, but the wordings of SR5e just kept me grinding to a halt. This video has rekindled my interest and I've already downloaded a PDF of 2E, more hopeful than ever to try something old, but new. Thank you so much!!

0:33 r/Shadowrun summed up pretty perfectly.

I enjoyed 3. 4 is good. 5 complicated 4 unnecessarily. 6 will not be bought because I don't want it to infect the rest of my collection.

Haven't played Shadowrun in about 25 years. I have so much affection for that game. This encourages me to finally play again with the rulebook I played with back then.

I've always described 3rd ed as 2nd ed with a decade of playtesting backing it up. I see your point, they really did try and cram everything that was introduced over the course of 2nd ed's run into the start of 3rd ed. the thing i miss most from 2nd ed was the initiative rules. it feels so right in the setting that a street sam, wired up to the max should be able to take a pair of ingram smartguns and mow down and entire biker gang before their turns on initiative. (yes the penalties will get pretty insane, but 10S damage will make many reconsider if they want to keep fighting, and all it takes is 1 success to land that) PErsonally my favorite edition has become 4th ed. the dice pool change just feels good to me. 5th tried to bolt a bunch of shit onto 4th (limits, accuracy, wireless bonuses)

Well, this sucks. I only have the 4E and 6E rulebooks in digital format.

I played 5e and HATED anarchy. I tried to like it but it felt so incomplete and cyber ware as edges or whatever they’re called. I saw a lot of recommendations for 3e and 4e. I ended up using savage worlds for new players to the world. Doesn’t 2e hardwire all tech no Wi-Fi or cell phone tech

Well this is awkward. I haven't played shadowrun in over 20 ish years. I didnt know they made editions past the second. So all my shadow run boooks are second edition. just sitting on my book shelf. I may just crack them open for nostalga

I personally love 4E, especially with Chummer. I even put the work in to tke the Rigger rules from 1E through 3E and shove them into 4E. So now my Minotaur Go Ganger has an infinitie amount of options to tweak out his motorcycle and the APC. It started as a simple project to give the APC a ramp like the Spy Hunter truck, but it ended up as a pretty clean matrix to tack on whatever. God I love Shadowrun, it's such a weird setting.

I'd so love to play this game or find a group that plays on the regular. But I can't find anything that isn't way overpowered in character development where inevitably one person runs the character that can do everything better , quicker and more efficiently than every other character.

I’m so guilty of that thing you said at the beginning 😂 I may not go with 2e but your points are really well taken. I GM and I think honestly there’s no substitute or book to read that will equal a real well thought out session zero. Read as best you can, liberal house rules. No matter the system, my players and I are going to get some stuff wrong. Nobody knows the answer in 30 seconds? Boom, GM discretion. Just stay in role and read up on it later. I hate when something that’s supposed to be fun ends up becoming a UN Security Council meeting.

Your concession to SR3 is why it’s my preferred Shadowrun. I want all of that in my game, and I want all the enhanced core parts collected and refined in one place. I will state this caveat though. If a player wants to play a magician, rigger, or decker, they have to read and understand their chapters, gear, and abilities. Otherwise, they have to play something else and let the GM fill those roles with ally NPCs and likely abstracted play on the GM’s part. However, SR2 is more evocative - in its art/aesthetic, verbal style, ideas, and maturity. That’s great though since those all port over to SR3 easily because they go into the heart of the player/GM.

I've been running Shadowrun since 2nd editon came out (92?) and I completely disagree. 4eA with PACKS is the easiest for new players. 2e has the friggin spirit rules across multiple chapters! Go ahead lookup how to have a mundane fight a spirit... (ill give you a hint its hand to hand combat using willpower) The reason people say 3e is the layout is way better for finding rules. Then you also also have everyone gets to go on the first round of combat rather than wait wait wait for the street sam to finish. There is also more internal consistency in 3e like having the magic pool come off the attributes rather than 2e spell casting where its your force plus your skill to make your die pool. And how long do you spend buying gear if you take resources A or B? 4eA still has a couple flaws and the point build without PACKS is terrible for new players but with PACKS and the cheat sheets its super easy to pickup. Well for a Shadowrun game... The only reason your game seems easy is your not having magic or matrix which are both complex in the 2e core rules.

I started on 2e, and it was amazing! Got me and my friends (all of us still love Shadowrun to this day) and we transitioned into 3e. It was pretty great, but was an easy move from already knowing 2e. Then we got 4e and kinda stopped playing. It was ok, but we all went our own ways in life. Had kids of my own. Played 5e with my son. Had a blast... But it was very complicated and we just made up rules or ignored rules as we needed to Then 6e hit and all I saw was it was a dumpster fire. I may get Anarchy though. Because I own a ton of 5e stuff.

What you're describing with 3e adding sourcebook material to the detriment of the core rulebook is exactly what you see in a lot of RPGs from that era. You saw the same in West End's Star Wars RPG 2e and GURPS 4e (and to a lesser extent 3e). The books just become this unwieldy mess for newcomers and usually become poor reference guides, too. They're better than having to flip through multiple books, but they are not examples of prime rules organization.

My first RPG was Shadow 2E when it just came out and only 1E source were out. Been playing it for 30+ years. 4e has the best Decker and net rule, but they are chrunchy. I any was get stuck play the Mage as I was that understood the system for magic. The system is basicly the same with a few tweeks up till 5e. They tride to streamline the rules but hurt the feel of the game. 1e set the basic rule with a few silly Ideas (Trolls have one point of Vehical Armor) 2E cut out the silliness and focused more on lore. 3e first major try at give player more character options, made the damage system easier. 4E cleaned up the Net and Hacking/ Rigger rule to the best they have ever been. 5e tried to streamline and be more Video Game like, Net rule suck big time. 6E basicly 5e but with trying a play it forword narative system for gain bonuses but made it clunky for older players, but beter Net rules. I would sugest 2e with 3e damage system and character options, 4E net rules. Fasa era is best, Catalystok is ok. The is great all way though. Maybe not the whole Immortal Elve argument, the are they or are they not, see the Harlequin story line. Sorry for Grammer and spell errors.

I do prefer 3rd ed, because I can teach players easier, and I can houserule it a lot easier, due its internal consistency (Riggers aside. Good grief maneouvre score is irritatingly abstract). But 2nd ed is my first love, for sure. Hated everything from 4th onwards, I just don't like the tgt#5 system.

Shadowrun 2nd edition is always the best to me. I’m going to admit something… I love Virtual Realities. There, now you’ve met someone who does. VR 2.0… mmm heretic! HERETIC! Loved the video!

I will definitely look into second edition. Thanks for the video!

2. Ed is the easiest but it's to powergamie (A friend had a streetsam that could run Mach 1 and i had a mage that could hunt dragons and sink warships) . I think 3. Ed is the best.

Great video, applicable to some other games as well. When tell me older editions are bad I remember "if it was unplayable, it probably wouldn't have got another edition." I like your podcasts approach of introducing the more completed stuff thru NPCs.

I'm old....I've only storyteller 2nd when it first came out. It blew my receding hairline back when I seen they had new edition.

Fresh sub here just kuz of this vid, interested in hearing your thoughts on Lowlife 2090 since it seems to be one of very few alternatives to Shadowrun, it is class based though.

I really like 6th

I love and still play 4th honestly, the previous version were awesome but 5th and 6th... No thank you

Of course Catalyst publishes a product without the rules in it. Peak CGL.

Just Fill out a Character Sheet and Wing it. corpos, Johnsons. we got it. shoot shoot bang bang

You're right, 2e is the easiest core book to get into it. I'd say the Anarchy rules are easier, but that thing isn't a complete game on it's own.

Second edition was my first ttrpg. I love it so much. I would say the one thing 2e does 100% better than 3e was threat ratings. As a GM keeping track of of dice pools for every NPC is a book keeping nightmare. Threat ratings are so much simpler and let the GM tweak NPC power levels quickly and easily. The initiative change is kinda meh, don't really like one version over the other. 3e does do some combat rules better though, like making using combat pool for defense its own step instead of having to roll the combat pool and Body dice together and keep track of which ones were from the combat pool. Overall I'd pick 2e over 3e, but I'm not sure if that's just my nostalgia or not.

2nd was the best and my favorite. Till 3rd came out. I like skills lol

I have ChatGPT running a game for me. I love every version.

Last time I had fun playing Shadowrun was 2nd edition.

11:51 "You wouln't start playing d&d as a 10th level mage" My first character was an epic 3e half-fiend doppelganger rogue, ecl in the mid 20s

My issues with Shadowrun is that it felt like a square peg in a round hole. It really strived hard for realism in a very clunky rules system. Netrunning felt like a completely seperate game, which resulted in party split. 6e really did fix this while breaking others.

Thanks for your video. As a fellow idiot, I started with 3rd edition and ran a few games in my youth but now as an old man coming from 5e DnD in the last decade the rules seems very complicated, overly complicated, which lead me down this rabbit hole of which version is best. Turns out, everyone hates everything (laugh).

Don't forget to consider the back story. SR2 is much easier to get into, because there is much less crazy s**t happening, at least in a basic game. Just using the basic rules, you start before the insect spirit influx, toxic mages/shamans are not in the picture, the matrix belongs to Deckers (no otakus or technomancers in sight), no comet aftermath with it's magic spikes and shapeshifters, no playable rogue AI or free spirits and that is just the stuff that affects the rules. Then there is no Dunkelzahn aftermath, no dragons' war, no tempo crisis etc. I know there is a lot more i left out, but I am only current to Sr4 and don't hassle myself too much with Canon.

Open second edition and get ready to crush some bones. Honestly I had only play 5th, but second sounds awesome after listening your podcast

Ahhhh, 2nd ed. The best thing about 2nd ed, was every ref book had a lovely set of character templates. They where awesome, always a character idea you'd never think of 👌

Ive been exposed to shadowrun via shadowrun returns and tried the old shadowrun games (nintendo and sega, not sure which old console tho) but i also somehow got a free supplemental book from dtrpg for shadowrun 5e. I find it funny the shadowrun reddit didnt say "play cyberpunk instead". Although i might try a shadowrun hack that uses a d20 and see how it goes. Can't afford drek in this economy. Sadly i cant follow your advice since i have a bias for riggers and deckers.

I have only played 4th edition, and the character creation hits you in the face like a brick wall. Would have given up if not for the priority system in the Runner's Companion.

I was going to write an angry retort about how wrong you were. I loved 3rd ed! But! I played 1st-3rd, so 3rd was a big improvement for all the reasons you mentioned; it rolled it all into one book. If someone's starting out, 2nd probably is best, then they can add the books they want or move to 3rd if they want that same streamlining.

I played 1st e. I am just returning now with 6e. I am not digging it. All I want is my 1e back. But there's no VTTs that have 1e support.

I think 5e is the best edition. it's not the simplest but I think best edition. I love crunch. and hell no, anarchy is nothing like 5th. you play Anarchy if you hate 5th. Anarchy is for the people who think 5E is too crunchy.

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I for one do love SR4. (although I have to admit that that is also the edition i started with long ago, so i may be a tad biased) What I particularly cherish is the absolute creative freedom you have in character creation - which is also the principal reason why I did not bother with SR5: I loved the build-point system and the basically limitless creative freedom it offered, whereas the priority-approach of SR5 just turned me off hard. Sure, SR4 has its issues (technomancer-balancing predominantly) and a few odd stylistic choices (hacking with commlinks?), but those are minor hiccups at best. As a matter of fact the group i am currently running is comprised of two complete SR-novices and one veteran. Yes, character creation took a while. But once that was out of the way, all of them are having a blast. And little by little i am immersing them deeper in the lore, hinting at various events that have once happened. Some of them a very long time ago indeed.

5e is supported on foundry vtt. So that's the one

Oh,also,you not know how to RU-vid but you hafe great sound,which is so fucking important.

We still play 3rd Ed every month!

Truth be told, as a first time Shadowrun DM and player I've got recommended "Runners in the Dark" ruleset, and I like the simplicity of that so far. But maybe the second edition is also a way to go.

Pretty good editing for a small channel I wish more people played shadowrun so people like this guy could get more attention, ngl

Killer video dude. Playing in 5th feels a lot like what you are talking about. I am sure there is more crunch in 5th and some of the rules are highly questionable. But when we were setting up the game we talked with our GM about what we wanted to play and he started bringing in some of the other books based on what we wanted to do and it made the game feel so much more accomidating while you can still trim off the fat of hyper crunchy mechanics like making drugs and shit. Again awesome video. Love the vibe of understanding what players want and need in a game.

of the editions I have played to me 4th is the best

I've been playing Shadowrun since 1993. Second edition is near and dear to my heart. I have 1-5 and completely agree with this. I give a nod to 4th just for the wifi rules. I think my old gaming group got way too deep into 2nd and 3rd because we, at one point, new the decking and rigging rules so well it didn't slow the game down at all. Riggers are one of my fav areas to run. I've only gotten to play 5th once so i'm not really familiar with the rules. I"ve been "stuck" playing D&D 5e for years now since most people just want to play that. I'm trying to get one of my groups to actually play Shadowrun.

Im old school i played first edition

second edition is completely broken, matrix gameplay is completly seperated and halts the game for everyone else, magic is incoherent at best etc, but back in the day we just were more tolerant for broken systems (bc all system were) and every table did its on moding and everything was fine - game system provides for the basic mechanic and shows you some examples of what the OG designer wanted the feel of the crunch to be and you just made shit up as you when adjudicating situations and making sure everyone were having fun at some point (D&D 3rd? probably the vide was there earlier as SR3 tries to do this for SR2 and just adds alot of noise) somehow we lost the point that a GM is actually half game designer and big part of the job his to make the game work for your table and ppl started expecting rule books to cover each and every situation, if you remove this assumptions then the merit of SR2 becomes apparent

You just said what I've been saying so much more eloquently. Spot on with the critique of 3rd edition

Man this was so spot on. I started with 3rd edition and felt like it was a full time job to try and learn the rules well enough to run it. I played a bit of it back in the day but it never really clicked with my group. Currently I run a Cyberpunk 2020 game for my wife, sister inlaw and two brothers inlaw. One of my brothers in law loved the SNES version of Shadowrun and always asks why I dont run that instead of Cyberpunk which we all love. I always say the system was more work then it was worth. I picked up 4th edition when it came out and I was not as into the wireless world as I was the old wired world with giant monitors and huge guns. I think I may have stumbled upon the same reddit thread about which system to play and 2nd popped up saying it was the most streamlined of the first 3 editions and that caught my attention. I picked up a copy and have been enjoying it thinking I might be able to run it for my family. Pouring over the book reminds me why I was obsessed with 3rd ed back in the day. Ill see how it goes in comparison to Cyberpunk with my family and hope the world is cool enough for them to get over the crunch. Great video new sub here.

If y'all want a cleaner, more tight version of SR, check out Sinless. It's a cleaned up, slightly modernized version of the FASA rules. Sort of a semi-retroclone of 2e. It's really solid, I'm a big fan. Personally, I've been looking at porting my Shadowrun stuff to Cities Without Number. It's the first version of ANY Cyberpunk game where the hacking rules didn't feel like a fucking threat. Like, I look at this game and think, "Oh shit, I might actually play a Decker at some point."

I absolutely agree. 2nd Edition is the best overall edition of Shadowrun. I personally run 1e, but that's because I re-learned it for a convention that specializes in old games, so I figured I'd go back to where we started. But objectively, from a combination of lore and rules, Shadowrun 2nd is the best edition for the Shadowrun "feel" with smoothed out rules. 1e was, for better or worse, the purest version of the original vision, but the rules had some bumps. 2e didn't change the timeline or lore much, and managed to fix some of the glaring rules errors. My sole complaint is the way Magic was nerfed between 1e and 2e.

Shadowrun Anarchy is a good start for newbs

There's three ways to fix decking in Shadowrun 2e. (1) don't try to 'fix' the bits that ain't broke - run it vanilla. (2) the GM and Decker _need_ to get together outside the regular game and run the Decker through a bunch of 'standard' mainframes. (3) if you both know that your Decker can spank Orange 4 systems, don't make them roll for Green 3. The Decker _needs_ to run into trace IC, and they need to understand that it's really bad to have their meatworld location traced. And they need to understand that bouncing their signal around a bunch of telcos in advance (see point #3) is going to pump the traceroute's target number sky-high. I know 1e had a bunch of sample systems, (I think with various trigger points when the system had a certain number of successes against the Decker?) and a map of NA and the Caribbean telcos - so that you could do that. (Not sure if 2e had something similar or all of that) Riggers are great because the player is guaranteed to have something that they lust over but which is totally unrealistic as a goal - the Panzer. Also, Riggers are super easy to accomodate because they roll a shit-ton of dice, but in a field that is very specific and very predictable. When they jump in the get-away vehicle it's the Rigger's chance to shine - and you should _want_ them to shine. In the same way that a Street Samurai is going to shine in a firefight, and a face is going to shine during the information gathering phase of the run. And the great thing about them rolling a bucket of dice is that you're practically _guaranteed_ that _something_ in there is going to be amazing. So you _can_ throw seemingly overwhelming odds at them. "You casually drive around the corner, trying not to look suspicious, and give me a perception roll everybody (then whoever rolls highest) you spot a chain-like thing lying across the road (they slam on the brakes obviously) as you do, there's a sea of red and blue lights that suddenly come on and light up the night. How many Lonestars are there? //noise of sucking in air over teeth// yeah I'd say ... pretty much all of them? It's ... a lot. (another group perception roll, highest person notices) There's two cars trying to sneak up on you and box you in. What do you do? ... etc. etc. And then at some critical moment you make the decker roll. And either they'll roll some stupidly high number like a 16 or a 30, and you can just stare at that in disgust and go "well, sheeit" (and the players get away), or you can look at the massive pile and go "you rolled enough successes to stage it up ... _TEN TIMES_?!?!?!?!?!!!!". // toss book aside like your whole night is ruined// Well _I guess_ you get away. The other thing you can have riggers do is really amazing stunts that nobody else could even dream of, but not even make them roll for it, because they're _just that good_. Don't make them roll for normal stuff, make them roll for the stuff that makes it seem like 'you've had enough of their shit' and now you're basically cheating by trying to kill them in a grossly unfair way. E.g. 'roll to dodge missile' or 'roll to avoid rocket barrage'. ---------- You can also bring home some of these points in a narrative way. E.g. I had a decker, and I offered to run him through the tutorial of how decking works but he swore he either knew it or could figure it out on the fly. And I'm like okay, cool story bro. Naturally he fails to deck into some mainframe somewhere and then I ask them where they're doing the decking from. And then a couple of minutes later I drop into the conversation that they can hear the sound of helicopters in the distance. A couple of minutes later I tell them the sound of the helicopters is getting louder. Eventually the penny drops and the Decker is like 'wait, they can't trace me can they?' and I go 'there is, in fact, a kind of IC _specifically_ for that. And then we have a frantic discussion about how the telco is itself a megacorporation, and that means that their extra-territoriality rules apply, and that means that the phone sockets _belong_ to a megacorp that _hates_ hackers with the blazing passion of a thousand fiery suns. ... whereupon the decker gets the bright idea that he was actually 'boosting' his net access from the neighbour across the street ... Old Man [________] (I forget his name), and so ... since no players will be harmed and this is a teaching moment (life is cheap, the megacorps are not your friends), they hear the whoosh of a rocket and Old Man [_____]'s house or apartment or whatever explodes in a mid-sized fireball. ---------- Same thing with Mages. Everyone who comes to Shadowrun from D&D is like 'wait, I can get fireball at 'level 1'???? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Fear me foolish mortals!!!!!' ... and then they fail their drain roll and die. I had one guy who thought he was the cleverest in the room do this three times (different characters). Drain bad. Fireball bad unless you can soak the drain. Also, you can't soak the drain (as a starting character). Put 200 points of karma into the character and then let's revisit that. Same guy (different Mage) thought it would be a genius move to treat body as a dump-stat. Problem was, they went on a wilderness adventure, they 'forgot' to guard the Mages body while he was astral whatevering and they ended up taking a deadly wound (or whatever puts you in a coma). So now he needs to roll 10 on _two_ dice to heal down to a serious wound and stop being .... luggage ... and he's only got _one_ dice to roll. Kind of hard. So he burns all the party karma, and (entirely unsurprisingly) utterly fails to get like the 1 in 200 chance to recover. D'oh!!!

4 th edition is the best ....

I'm an old hand with Shadowrun. I own and play every edition up through 5e. Shadowrun's greatest asset is its setting, and deciding which setting you're getting into will determine what edition you are playing. The FASA editions (1-3) had horror attached to magic, which played off the cyberpunk themes. Earthdawn was a crossover setting from FASA Shadowrun to help explain what had happened in earlier ages, but it uses a different game system (it's on its 4th edition). The later editions of Shadowrun abandoned horror and cyberpunk because the new owners didn't buy Earthdawn, so they retooled the setting with a transhuman theme with magical flavor. They also retooled how the tech works. The rules changed to fit the theme and tech changes. Some of the developers of the later editions broke off and created Eclipse Phase, a transhuman sci-fi game (d% system on its 2nd edition - it's the best running system of anything associated with Shadowrun). Some of the developers of Earthdawn broke off and created Equinox, which continues magic in a later sci-fi age - futuristic Shadowrun (they wrote the book with the setting and how to apply it to other game systems and then wrote a book with a built-it narrative game system). For simulationists, Shadowrun is a great system, once you figure out your house rules, because every edition has problems (including with combat). Shadowrun is slower than any edition of D&D, and I've had an endless number of game sessions that were 5+ hours of combat - to the effect that the in-game time elapsed in those sessions was less than 1 minute. For newer players or modern gamers interested in Shadowrun I suggest: Play Shadowrun with the Without Number's books. The Without Numbers books use the d20 system and are quicker to run than D&D 5e. Each book is self-contained, but modular with the other books. There's one book for fantasy (Worlds Without Number), one for modern-style games - including cyberpunk (Cities Without Number), and another for sci-fi (Stars Without Number - not needed for Shadowrun). This plays like an OSR version of Shadowrun and is extremely new player friendly. WOiN (What's Old Is New) works great for Shadowrun. WOiN is like Open d6 crossed with D&D 3e plus life paths but simplified (d6 dice pool system). It's a modular system, and you'll need the books titled OLD (fantasy) and Modern (firearms, mutations, superpowers, vehicles, cyber) to make Shadowrun work. You also might need the book titled NEW (psionics, future tech, aliens, sci-fi) because rules are spread out weirdly between the books. A new printing came out and it may have changed what books you need, I haven't checked. Making a character is easier with this system than in Shadowrun, and I found that players get more invested in WOiN Shadowrun characters than in Shadowrun because of the lifepaths. The hardest part is that the magic system is free-form, so you'll need to either convert the spells over or leave it be. Depending on your playstyle, the psionics system in NEW might work better but is also much more limited. I've used this system to run just about everything. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it fits Shadowrun very well.

Im into SR1e with bits from Sr2e but yeah for sure good recommendation. I will add that Cities without number has a very good OSR Shadowrun hack not as good as SR2e but good. Im loving that there is a real Old School movement for Shadowrun happening.

So the reason everyone puts down 2e, is because while its the most rules light, its super crunchy, and its also a dry read. I love 2e, but the read is very dry. Gamers today are used the style of writing of today, which is kind of dumbed down.. and made super simple with more examples. This is kind of why anarchy was made. Sorry if this truthful statement is offensive to whomever is reading it, but its what I noticed. edit: Shadowrun 2e was also made during the time, a lot was up to the GM to decide things and make judgement calls and were not fed all the stuff and if it wasn't in the book, it wasn't possible. We always made up stuff for games. Book didn't have a rule, the GM would figure out. Unlike today, where most GM's wont allow it or stumped on what to do.

For funzies, I actually just started running a small single-player campaign. First time I've ever GM'd anything. I basically just took the story of "The Dead Man's Switch" (minus the Brotherhood) because, love or hate it, it's a great way to introduce someone to the world... and it's single player, and for my first GM, I can remember and call up the main story when needed, without railroading. Rules-wise, I modded quite a bit... It's basically a Frankenstein's monster of 1e, 2e, and the videogame mechanics. In fact, I could honestly say I've "cracked the code" (at least roughly 70% of the code) for those people looking to play out the Hairbrained videogames on a tabletop. I won't go into all the details here, but so far it works for me, it works for my player, it is a great amalgamation of mechanics while keeping the dice rolls and chance, and it's fun. VERY simplified. As far as lore goes, I've been learning everything in order from the first edition, and the more I find out, the more I fall in love with the Sixth World. If and when I join a Shadowrun group on reddit (I tried the official forums, but got no reply) and AFTER I have covered all of my rule changes and any issues that arise, I will post a master list of every mod and adaptation, for any who are curious. ...and yes, for all the issues I had with 1e rules at the start, pretty much all of them were fixed and simplified in 2e.

I play the heck out of Shadowrun back before there were editions and stopped buying books when the brought out Physical Adepts because I thought they jumped the shark at that point. Eventually popped back in during the transition from 4th to 5th probably as a combination of Shadowrun Returns nostalgia and there was 4th edition in the 1st edition timeline thing that came out that tweeked my interest... anyway bounced of both 4th and 5th as needlessly complicated and way too full of trap builds and stupid OP builds that would make the game unfun. Took a peek at 6th which seemed like it had good intentions but shipped half baked and kind of a mess. I think I might take a peek at core 2nd to see what I think - I do wish somebody would convert the really clean Shadowrun Returns rules for a table top game that would probably hit a nice sweet spot

I’m on the rope on this one, I came into the game learning second edition. Gotta to agree it’s a solid book with the best cover. With that said I liked that third gave you all that other stuff.

Thank you for your thoughts. I'm a strategist, not a roll player, but I've been playing dnd with a group and one of the players, we rotate DM\GMs, is introducing us to SR 4th edition. I remember the Fasa adds for 3rd edition in my old Battltech (3rd & 4th edition) boxes but had never played it. I'll have to ask my friend his thoughts on 2e.

The veginning was a little too accurate lol😅

Shadowrun!! Been playing shadowrun 2016. Started with 5th. Rigger and shaman are favorite archetypes.

4th Edition. Hands down. I'm still on 4E.

Hi, I've played 2nd edition long time ago, I mastered at Anarchy several times and now I'm masterizing at 3rd. The rules are good but it's dense (not complicated).

I come from only reading the books and never even seen the game in real life and played DnD once back in 1993ish. The learning curve is probably a little steep.

I've not played 2E in years, but would love to play it again one day. The GM at the time made it really easy for us all one of the players being totally new to RPGs as well. For my own game I'm using 4E which once you get the core concepts down is fine, but again we started with just the corebook and then added books over time. now the game has been going three years and we're using stuff out of almost all the 4e books and having great fun with it. But we built up to that. if we had just jumped in like that right away everyone including me would have just found it WAY too much.

Before watching this i would say Shadowrun Anarchy for the easiest but i always thought 2E was simple chummer.

Please cover SINLESS. It's like an OSR game for Shadowrun 1E-3E

You've won me over on this! I was in the 3e camp - but I realised that that's only because it consolidates a lot of the expansion content from 2e (and that makes it more daunting to get into). Totally agree 2e core has the better vibe, the cooler lore, and even the rules are more simple and easier to get stuck into. Good fun. Also, most content in 1e or 3e are very transferable, so you have a HUGE trove of content and lore to draw from. It's a capital crime that it's one of the hardest editions to actually buy a PDF of!

Man, you saved me from dropping coin on Anarchy! Thanks :)

All of this aside, you buried the lede on that HAT. I mean, I have the Jack Burton shirt (obviously) but the Nostromo HAT?! Mad respect. Also SR4A-4-Life…everyone else is having fun wrong (seriously though love you guys)

I've been introduced to SR with the 5th Edition and really fell in love with the game, eventhough the Core Rulebook hast some weaknesses and you definetly have to play a couple of encounters to get the rules flowing. I currently bought all of the 6th Edition books and am looking forward to playtest it.

Instant sub & Like ♥ty

I tried to learn how to play shadowrun with 5e, it didn't go well i'll may give it 2e a try again. I just wish i wasn't the eternal DM of the group on all the TTRPG we play -__-

I needed this after a DnD 5e session with overly prescriptive spell rules. Thanks for a path back to the 90s glory!

I got into Shadowrun back when it first came out because of the mix of sci-fi/fantasy and was instantly addicted to it. 2nd edition is by far the best edition all it takes is just reading the core rule book all the way through

So Shadowrun 2e was my run in to tabletop RPG's. I was in 6th grade and I loved it (simple enough for an 11 year old to figure out) . I ran it for a few friends. Yes, I was actively playing when the new supplements would come out and was so excited. Got back into TTRPG's lately and looking to do Shadowrun again. There was a sale on 5e. 500 pages. Daunting. Thanks for letting me know that 2e is just fine. I also really loved the adventures way more than DnD 5e campaigns.

I’m definitely partial to Blades in the Dark, but before that I played the CRPGs of shadow run and love the setting! I have been thinking about whether to get the Sprawl thanks to Friends at the Table’s Podcast, but now I feel empowered to look into Shadow Run 2e!

Had 2nd ed since it came out. Still love it the best

The first time I ever played shadowrun was that one weird shooter game on Xbox or whatever it was, then I played shadowrun returns around the time that came out and I thought it was way cooler than the shooter game, and then the first time I ever played the ttrpg was 6th world, and boy I’m loving this system so much compared to any other game I’ve ever played, except maybe Savage Worlds. I think those two are my go-to systems, might try the older editions of shadowrun someday though, my old man’s gotten me into the setting and now I can’t stop thinking about it!

I can't say you're wrong about 2e, but it is written for an audience that existed 30 years ago. For all 6e's foibles at launch, I don't think anything works better today with gamers used to playing D&D 5e or Alien or Altered Carbon and other modern games.... than the updated 6e.

I have 2e, 3e, and 4e, and 2e really does feel the most approachable to read. Obviously it's the one I haven't played yet! Hopefully one day I'll fix that, although I've only really got the splat books for 3e and 4e. Also I recently started listening to the podcast, and I'm loving it!

i started with 5e, and have just started playing 6e. i love crunch almost as much as i love neatly designed, tight systems, but i'm also a very hardcore ttrpg nerd and like reading tons of books very closely just for fun. this, of course, doesn't work for most other people so i came here to see what i might go for if i ever was trying to introduce shadowrun to a new table.

I’m not going to tell you that you are wrong, you nailed it with take the different archetypes in Shadowrun a few at a time, you don’t have to explore all the settings narratives at once. Much love for saying that. As a relatively new player (after having a session 0 from hell with 4e and not trying again for a few years) who had fallen in love with the magical dystopian setting of Shadowrun through novels I found in the library in the late 1990s but found almost no groups to play D&D with let alone other games growing up: 6e has been freaking great to get into and finally had more chance to play by hooking up with other players and GMs from all around the world through a Shadowrun 6e LC called RunnerNET

I started out with SR2 yet enjoyed 4 the best, what burns a lot of newbies SR start is if you know what you want you can start out really well off. That since it does what D&D in the modern day doesn't respect you're not really starting out level 1, since level 1 is honestly a child. You should have something from what you did all your life until that point and it's means more than some ribbon "skills" the DM really doesn't understand. SR to me always felt more like a refinement of what D&D started with. This is from somebody that just loves to roll a Troll Archer

I just listened to the episode you joined on shadowrunning on empty and while looking up what edition should I run your the first person I stumble upon AND this video was amazing to help me choose. Also I have run second edition since I was a kid since it was my dads and I loved it ever since.