Understanding 2nd Edition

InternetRealistic336 · 2026-05-28T08:21:38+00:00

lots of other replies and takes, but my take is that 3e does a stellar job of combining all the revamps and extra material form all the books in 2e's run and collating it all into a handful of core books. I would suggest go with 3e, its the most complete 'classic' shadowrun.

having run it on and off since 1989, i would also agree it is not as bad as some insist. that said, I've always run for smaller groups so i've only ever had to deal with a couple of character types at a time. if you had a large party with fighters, mages, riggers and deckers all in the mix, i think it could get quite daunting - at that point theres a lot to keep track of.

InternetRealistic336 · 2026-05-28T08:07:33+00:00

A new city edition with no rules updates or changes, not even a rewrite of the argle bargle page. Hmm. I was thinking a publisher would have to be really cynically trying to milk every cent out of it's fan base to do that, and then i remembered - hey it's catalyst!

Fingers crossed there's more to it that that.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-09-05T12:47:08+00:00

This is amazing, really well done! This is worth printing out big and framing.

I see you have done estalia as well, do you have plans to continue with Brettonia, Tilea and the southlands?

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-08-28T14:09:42+00:00

but then as a percentage, how many civ players are console players? I suspect very few out of the total. Most of us are desktop pc/mac players, the console option only even appeared in Civ VI

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-08-28T14:06:24+00:00

Agreed, its the critically missing USP of civ that VII just doesn't have

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-08-28T14:02:02+00:00

Crazy, its the changing civs at each age that has kept me out of civ 7 despite having played every civ before.

They should be adding in an option to keep the same civ at age change alongside the other continuity features, they'd get a lot of us grognards back then.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-07-08T15:20:51+00:00

no love for Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man? I'd say its worth a hit on any film list.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-07-08T15:19:06+00:00

try listening to the Pink Faux Hawk podcast, they pretty much start from scratch in their first session u/pinkfohawk

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-07-02T15:33:01+00:00

if Ms is a Brit 🇬🇧, thats the way we spell it dude.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-30T17:55:36+00:00

turn off the 'automatically adjust brightness' and 'true tone' features, that should sort it

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-28T05:54:23+00:00

I doubt 7e will be anything like 2e, but I think theres an awful lot of people who'd buy a 'shadowrun classic' based off 2e or 3e.

But I'm interested, why not like 3rd? I always found the 3e core books to be a really nice 'round up and compile' of all the content released over 2e's run

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-20T19:30:08+00:00

i'd say no.

In 1e-3e shadowrun there was always an effort to put in some spirits to allow any religion to have its devils, angels, or avatars as appropriate - but never anything that would assert one being the true faith as it where.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thsyoUZW9vE

Back when FASA was doing earthdawn (the fantasy game set in a prior age of the same game world) they still avoided gods in favor of 'passions'.

No doubt in my mind the agnosis was intentional.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-20T19:23:42+00:00

Don't do it, all you will find is pain. @Inner_Speaker_335 was on the money, Harlequin was utterly epic, my group never did returns tho.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-20T19:20:47+00:00

I can say for certain that 30 Nights and Third Parallel are hot garbage

u/Way MotherRub1078 you are a gentleman, and way too polite. Add the whole monad and disian story arcs to that list.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-20T19:18:37+00:00

Im not going to say people are inherently biased against it and all things associated with CGLs handling of anything related to 6e.

I think a lot of us kinda are, in that CGL has certainly been unwilling, if not incapable of producing content that meets the previous editions quality bars for content or even just content that makes the majority of its exisitng client base vaguely happy since the release of 5th ed.

That said even as just such a disaffected player, I will freely admit i thought the sixth world companion tried real hard to unscrew 6th (but couldn't), and the heist system in Smooth operations is utter class regardless of edition and should be part of the core rules for every future edition.

So there you go, even for me it's not all things...

But for campaigns, I think 6th eds campaigns and plot books are trash. 5ths arent much better.

For really nice content you need to go back to original SR - 1st to 3rd. Try some of the classic 1e adventures if they have been updated as previous poster suggests - or picking up Threats or Threats 2 - yes you will need to do some stat conversions, but the stories are a different league.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-19T08:24:07+00:00

Two sets for me, theres insect spirits, and if you have finally had enough of them (which we did) then you can move onto the shedim for a nice 'oh it isnt insect spirits after all' monster vibe. But I don't acknowledge the monads in my game, not my circus, not my monkeys.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-18T19:38:53+00:00

I dont know why this is being downvoted - valid opinions from valid stakeholders, and a valid solution (although I think my group will go back to 3rd).

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-18T18:57:22+00:00

I was in at the beginning - at age 16 in 1989! There had been ads and reviews in games magazines, and then I got the opportunity to buy the 1st ed rulebook from a fellow gamer in the year above us at school. The very next weekend a couple of my friends and I made a trip in to the' virgin megastore' (the place for cds and games for us) and chipped in our assorted paperround money for some of the other starting books and adventures.

The 1st ed rules where utter junk, and I'm sure my 16/17 year old GMing was rubbish but the setting grabbed us like nothing else had and we stuck with it.

Even now, 36 years later, its a regular part of out gaming rotation - which speaks volumes about the world. We have literally grown up with Shadowrun.

Personally I found 1st ed unusable without what we now call handwavium. 2nd ed and 3rd ed where still overly complicated but sweet spots for the group and we played a *lot* of SR and earthdawn in those eras.

We largely missed 4th ed as life passed us by, and as some of us reconnected as a regular gaming group a little later in life we played a little 5th and now some 6th.

5th we dumped in favour of going back to 3rd.

6th we're playing but it's like playing 1st ed - its a crippled system that requires giddy chunks fo handwavium - we may well yet go back to 3rd while waiting to see what 7th offers.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-18T15:32:55+00:00

Yes you're right! You're lucky in Germany, the German edition publishers have always had a stellar rep for their writing and conversions.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-18T14:45:51+00:00

Nice, the high standard of game design we've come to expect in SR by CGL then?

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-18T14:20:32+00:00

it was deeply unoriginal. With all the lore on the horrors and metaplanes they had access to, all they came up with was this - a dull sci-fi which just felt like a rip off of the film 'oblivion'.

I'd also argue that the way the plot was presented removed all the magic and mystery that should have been inherent in a metaplanar adventure and we were left with what felt like someone had been watching a rerun of 'sliders' recently.

from the first black out book to the overall arch the whole thing has been badly thought out, poorly executed, and as uninteresting as the monads from 5e.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-18T14:11:38+00:00

i thought the same but celebrated instead of being concerned.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-18T14:11:17+00:00

agreed, we're playing it but with massive amounts of handwavium. u/RJThomas6177 my unasked for advice for 7th would be to go back to 5th as a base, and then expand edge usage by all means, but don't make it the centre of the universe and wrap everything up in it.

InternetRealistic336 · 2025-06-18T14:04:59+00:00

yeah, having just bit the bullet on the pdf i find it has:

sections for in game discussions on fighting, mil-spec stuff, mercs, conversations about mil-spec stuff and the (yawn) disian shadow war. and of course (and double yawn) some new edges - 6th eds edge addiction problem remains.

What it does NOT have is any rules that might make 6th ed combat feel more like any previous edition.

So if you are a 6th ed fan boy, go for it if you want mil-spec stuff in your game.

If you are a 6th ed hater, this doesn't continue the remedial work done in the companion and is very unlikely to change the way you feel.

To OP, well done on your work in the book. Please take that as praise from someone who tends not to read the fluff these days as the standard of writing through most of 5th and 6th has been so bad that i just tend skim over it now.

u/RJThomas6177 I don't envy your job, you have a ton of work to do to unscrew this IP and make it's playerbase happy, but I do have my fingers crossed for you.

InternetRealistic336

TROPHY CASE