Shadowrun Shadowrun PnP VS Harebrained's Shadowrun

[Darth Canoli]

TLDR Jump that first introduction part if you must, you won't miss much

I first played Shadowrun first edition and then bought the second ed. rulebook which, for once, wasn't streamlining previous rules but adding content.
It's a great PnP RPG, and i had a lot of fun with it, mostly as a player but also as a GM with a different group.
My first character was an orc shadowrunner, high quickness, medium STR/CON aiming for high heavy weapons skills (Vindicator minigun/auto-canon for another player's car).
He also had some skills in guns for lower profile missions and was aiming for a lot of cyberware, weapons datajack, monofilament whip, retractile claws in case he's disarmed and more.

That said, I played Shadowrun Returns a couple of years back and recently Dragonfall DC and Hong Kong just now.
Played a mage in Returns and my original PnP character (without the whip but with a shitload of cyberware) in Hong Kong (can't remember Dragonfall one).

At first, i absolutely hated Returns but eventually completed it.
Couldn't complete DF last year and completed HK just now.
I kind of like HK in spite of all the engine's retardation and rules streamlining and missing rules.

I gave away my 2nd ed. rulebook and scenarios years ago to someone that i hope used it so i can't compare.
I also heard about a 6th edition for shadowrun that came out in 2019 streamlining the PnP RPG.
The streamlining process already started during 3rd to 5th version, not sure when exactly but the differences between 2nd and 5th are quite important.

Harebrain's Shadowrun is probably using 3rd or 4th edition, i'm not sure, didn't search really hard but couldn't find the info and the game is uninstalled already (wikipedia and wikia don't provide the info as far as i know)

/TLDR

So, what's missing from the PnP ?

The character creation system

• The individual initiative system is missing (one team first, then the other one)
• The Priorities (cf. picture from 3rd ed. is already simplified from my memories of the 2nd ed.)
• Skills, a lot of them from stealth to demolition, language, knowledge (etiquette is just the basic knowledge and how to behave), all the driving skills
• Creating your own skills
• Flaws (light to severe allergies, racism, any psychosis you could come up with or weaknesses, ... ) giving more skills/char creation points and perks costing skill points and giving some bonus.
• Spells, the mana pool is gone, instead, you get spell slots, of course, way less spells are available and you can't have half as many spells than in PnP
• Hermetic magic
• The Astral Plane
• Contacts, an interesting part of the game, you could spend starting money to develop trusting contacts you can use further during missions and keep on working with them if you pay them and treat them right.
• Lifestyle, cost of life, loging, medical care, you had to spend some money on it initially and keep on paying monthly bills
• Racism, some NPC or aven PC are racists and all the rolls with them are modified depending on who's interracting with them, it made the game richer as well but you know, we live in denial now.

Spoiler

Sample characters from 3rd ed. rulebook

So, that was just a part of what's missing from the character creation and i'm not talking about character development and gear nor all that's lost because of that in-game.

Add to that corridor maps, linear missions and depressing town hubs and you get the picture and even with all that streamlining, they had to add quest compass...

I think that's enough for now, i might add something about how retarded their implementation of the matrix is and how streamlined is the combat too but it'll have to wait.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I wanted to add a more in-depth analysis but it's pointless, character creation alone with full party development control would already improve the game immensely, then, a non linear level design and last but not least, a more interesting and complex town hub (fallout/Arcanum like)

About the Matrix

Harebrained make it a drag, in SR (Shadorun Returns, 1st one) and DF (DragonFall, 2nd one) there's way too many fights and you stay in combat mode all along, too many maps and objectives to trigger while in the PnP not only it's way faster but also way more interesting with less combat.
More importantly, you don't have to care about it because the decker deals with it (it's the least interesting part for me)

In HK (HongKong, the third one) you only get in combat mode in the matrix when you encounter hostiles but there is 3 counterparts, their retarded stealth "maxi mini-game" and both decryption "mini-games".
The stealth mode gets old real quick, the remember the number game is fun at first but get really old as well and the last mini game as in finding the right hieroglyph sequence is just autistic.

The Combat

In SR dead man switch (main campaign), early missions are fun and then you get missions with combat only and almost never get out of combat, it's more and more autistic from the moment you encounter your first bugs.

I like HK better in this regard and there is way more weapons and cyber-ware variety.
There's nothing better than exploding your opponents with a Vindicator mini-gun or an auto-canon, aside from hearing the lamentations of their women, of course.

It's probably the least botchered part, it could have been way better but it's not bad, even satisfying at times and encounter design is alright at the highest difficulty level available (very hard on SR and DF, hard on HK)

UI, Team & Town hub

For some reason, the UI is worse in HK, but it's a real pain to manage your team and hirelings, you have no control over anyone's build but your main character, this is mobile game level of design.
In SR dead man switch, the hub is not fantastic but at least, you have all the vendors in one place where in HK and DF, you get to run all over the useless town hub to get this and that and of course, mostly in HK, you never know if whatever you want to buy for your hirelings is going to fit, sometimes, they have a datajack but can't equip linked weapons, sometimes, they just automatically already upgraded their weapon and you just wasted your cash because, of course, you can't access companions/hirelings skills or inventory in the town hub ...

And as you gathered, no full party creation, you'll have to deal with whatever companions the game throws at you and endure.
They're not bad in HK though and their unique skills are nice, at least for the the original 3 ones (decker & shaman you first encounter and your cop friend), even surprisingly good at some point, when the cop get the auto throw incoming grenades, nothing can hurt you, even when they get some grenadiers with the same upgrade to fight you (you just shoot them first) and the decker's grenade launcher is amazing while the shaman can throw mass buffs at the party when she's on some ley-lines...

So, overall, it's alright, even good, at times but the source material is so great it's an insult to make a mediocre game out of it, it's just not right.
With the 2nd or third edition, an inspired dev and a competent team could just make one of the best cRPG ever made.

1. Win the lottery
2. Invest 1-5 millions to hire the best team you can get
3. Make a Full party creation/ Turn-Based/ sandboxy/ open-world CRPG combining Prelude to darkness quest design, ToEE/Colony Ship combat and a faithful adaptation of the shadowrun rules
   
4. Profit

 

[Alex]

I haven't played any edition after 4th, but the tendency towards streamlining began on it. I believe 5th and 6th just further it more. Until 3rd edition, Shadowrun was one of the strongest games with a big focus on "simulating" an imaginary world I know. While they didn't have much focus on realism, they took pains to make the game world seem real and be interactive, and the few adventures I've seen from them assumed the players would try to find a solution by interacting with the said world rather than waiting for the GM to shove them along with the plot. In 3rd edition you had things such as rules for how a shotgun's blast spread over an area (not surprisingly, they assumed it did so a whole lot); rules for rebounding explosions from closed areas causing more damage; description of what the internal computer system of a Lone Star patrol car look like, how it connected to a mainframe via satellite and how the security systems of the car would kick in if it was stolen; etc, etc, etc. Later editions tried to focus more on how people usually play these games, rather than being so detail driven, sadly.

 

[DeepOcean]

Man, not only streamlining 2ed and 3ed books have awesome art and good writing but 4ed, 5ed are just awful, with amateur art and terrible writing that gets more woke by the day , seen kickstarter indie pnp games with better art. Didnt try out 6ed but I dont believe they fix that shit, now it seems second rate PnP people are working on the cheap for Shadowrun, only that explains the drop in quality.

 

[Sykar]

I had a serious disike for the uneccessary changes Harebrained introduced.

 

[V_K]

If you want a reasonably authentic (though still limited) recreation of PnP rules, play Shadowrun on Sega Genesis.
As for Harebrained's Shadowrun games, it's just better to treat them as their own thing, unrelated to PnP. They're very streamlined, but they still do a lot of things right.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I wanted to add a more in-depth analysis but it's pointless, character creation alone with full party development control would already improve the game immensely, then, a non linear level design and last but not least, a more interesting and complex town hub (fallout/Arcanum like)

About the Matrix

Harebrained make it a drag, in SR (Shadorun Returns, 1st one) and DF (DragonFall, 2nd one) there's way too many fights and you stay in combat mode all along, too many maps and objectives to trigger while in the PnP not only it's way faster but also way more interesting with less combat.
More importantly, you don't have to care about it because the decker deals with it (it's the least interesting part for me)

In HK (HongKong, the third one) you only get in combat mode in the matrix when you encounter hostiles but there is 3 counterparts, their retarded stealth "maxi mini-game" and both decryption "mini-games".
The stealth mode gets old real quick, the remember the number game is fun at first but get really old as well and the last mini game as in finding the right hieroglyph sequence is just autistic.

The Combat

In SR dead man switch (main campaign), early missions are fun and then you get missions with combat only and almost never get out of combat, it's more and more autistic from the moment you encounter your first bugs.

I like HK better in this regard and there is way more weapons and cyber-ware variety.
There's nothing better than exploding your opponents with a Vindicator mini-gun or an auto-canon, aside from hearing the lamentations of their women, of course.

It's probably the least botchered part, it could have been way better but it's not bad, even satisfying at times and encounter design is alright at the highest difficulty level available (very hard on SR and DF, hard on HK)

UI, Team & Town hub

For some reason, the UI is worse in HK, but it's a real pain to manage your team and hirelings, you have no control over anyone's build but your main character, this is mobile game level of design.
In SR dead man switch, the hub is not fantastic but at least, you have all the vendors in one place where in HK and DF, you get to run all over the useless town hub to get this and that and of course, mostly in HK, you never know if whatever you want to buy for your hirelings is going to fit, sometimes, they have a datajack but can't equip linked weapons, sometimes, they just automatically already upgraded their weapon and you just wasted your cash because, of course, you can't access companions/hirelings skills or inventory in the town hub ...

And as you gathered, no full party creation, you'll have to deal with whatever companions the game throws at you and endure.
They're not bad in HK though and their unique skills are nice, at least for the the original 3 ones (decker & shaman you first encounter and your cop friend), even surprisingly good at some point, when the cop get the auto throw incoming grenades, nothing can hurt you, even when they get some grenadiers with the same upgrade to fight you (you just shoot them first) and the decker's grenade launcher is amazing while the shaman can throw mass buffs at the party when she's on some ley-lines...

So, overall, it's alright, even good, at times but the source material is so great it's an insult to make a mediocre game out of it, it's just not right.
With the 2nd or third edition, an inspired dev and a competent team could just make one of the best cRPG ever made.

1. Win the lottery
2. Invest 1-5 millions to hire the best team you can get
3. Make a Full party creation/ Turn-Based/ sandboxy/ open-world CRPG combining Prelude to darkness quest design, ToEE/Colony Ship combat and a faithful adaptation of the shadowrun rules
   
4. Profit

 

[Darth Canoli]

Man, not only streamlining 2ed and 3ed books have awesome art and good writing but 4ed, 5ed are just awful, with amateur art and terrible writing that gets more woke by the day , seen kickstarter indie pnp games with better art. Didnt try out 6ed but I dont believe they fix that shit, now it seems second rate PnP people are working on the cheap for Shadowrun, only that explains the drop in quality.

I've read 6th ed. is streamlining the rules.
So, when 4th and 5th edition already streamline it and you read somewhere 6th ed. is starting to seriously streamline them, it's starts to smell funny...
As for the art, everyone can see for themselves from the few examples in the first post vs Harebrained's art...
It could have been worse but it's not good, aside for a few portraits.

Until 3rd edition, Shadowrun was one of the strongest games with a big focus on "simulating" an imaginary world I know. While they didn't have much focus on realism, they took pains to make the game world seem real and be interactive, and the few adventures I've seen from them assumed the players would try to find a solution by interacting with the said world rather than waiting for the GM to shove them along with the plot. In 3rd edition you had things such as rules for how a shotgun's blast spread over an area (not surprisingly, they assumed it did so a whole lot); rules for rebounding explosions from closed areas causing more damage; description of what the internal computer system of a Lone Star patrol car look like, how it connected to a mainframe via satellite and how the security systems of the car would kick in if it was stolen; etc, etc, etc. Later editions tried to focus more on how people usually play these games, rather than being so detail driven, sadly.

Exactly, there is so much attention to details it's painful to see it streamlining so hard in a cRPG.
Also, there is a lot of additional rulebooks for subclasses, for example, if you want to play something original, you can, and powerful too as long as you're willing to dive into the rules and your GM is alright with it.
And that's even without your own handcrafted skills, look like the Ganger in the first post has a prostitution rings skill ...

If you want a reasonably authentic (though still limited) recreation of PnP rules, play Shadowrun on Sega Genesis.
As for Harebrained's Shadowrun games, it's just better to treat them as their own thing, unrelated to PnP. They're very streamlined, but they still do a lot of things right.

Easy to say when you haven't played Shadowrun PnP, impossible otherwise.

As for the nes version, it's not the first time i hear about it, can you elaborate?
Is it TB or RT?
Full party creation?
What about character dev, equipement and cyberware?
Interesting quests/missions?

Also, i've heard of 3 interesting mods for Harebrained engine, Anumbra part 1 & 2 and more importantly, SNES Shadowrun port into DF engine and Shadowrun unlimited, a sandbox mod which is supposed to emulate PnP "better"

Anyone tried these mods?

 

[V_K]

As for the nes version, it's not the first time i hear about it, can you elaborate?

Not SNES, Genesis (known in Europe is Mega Drive). They're two different games for two different platforms. SNES one is even more stripped down that SRR.

Is it TB or RT?
Full party creation?
What about character dev, equipement and cyberware?

Here's a manual. And here's a strategy guide (spoilery). Enjoy.

Interesting quests/missions?

Main quest is a highly non-linear investigation. Side quests are procedurally generated runs - nothing special in themselves, but can be solved in different ways (generally, combat vs. non-combat) depending on your build, hirelings and gear. It's not unlike Daggerfall or Darklands in that regard. Generally, it's quite similar in design philosophy to those two - open-ended, sandboxy and heavy on simulations.

 

[Darth Canoli]

My bad, i mixed it because of the mod, oh well, here goes down my interest in the SNES mod then.

Action then, hum, i might try it either way, funnily enough i owned a megadrive (and a couple of friends too) back in the days and still had it in 1994 but hadn't heard of the game back then, would have been right up my alley.