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Are there any Shadowrun "clones" to anyone's knowledge?

Red Aviator

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Hello there! I wanted to ask: Are there any Shadowrun "clones" to anyone's knowledge?
And I don't mean Homebrews by fans or game devs making something similar. I mean to ask: are there any table tops that come close to "copying" Shadowrun's style, setting, and gameplay?
 

Silva

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If you mean the tabletop rpg, then you should ask in the Gazebo.

Anyway, yes there are a bazillion tabletop rpgs of the heist/crime life kind: Leverage, Blades in the Dark and The Sprawl come to mind. And there's ye olde Cyberpunk 2020, which is getting a new edition with the 2070 book that's supposed to be based on the new videogame.
 

Red Aviator

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Thanks! I'll have to look into those! And oh! I totally forgot about that. I'm hoping the Cyberpunk tabletop game isn't as overtly complex when it comes to character creation. I keep hearing from friends both online and IRL that some Shadowrun Sessions are just them creating characters (which sounds painfully exhausting).
 

Bara

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Well I know you said no homebrews but there is a lot of people porting shadowrun to any other system they can think of as the current rules set is really unpopular apparently. So much so I recall hearing about a "popular" table top live stream group that was running the newest edition who canceled the entire project and dropped it like sack of bricks and went back to stars without numbers.

Like for example there was a hack to put shadow run in Blades in the Dark system called Karma in the Dark. I have no idea if it was any good though. Guy who was making it took it down for personal reasons but you can still find it around the net.

If you google "shadowrun in any other system site:reddit" you'll find a lot of threads and topics on trying to put shadowrun into anything else. And I mean A LOT.

That or you could hit up the earlier editions I hear they're playable if also crunchy.
 

Gregz

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Hello there! I wanted to ask: Are there any Shadowrun "clones" to anyone's knowledge?
And I don't mean Homebrews by fans or game devs making something similar. I mean to ask: are there any table tops that come close to "copying" Shadowrun's style, setting, and gameplay?
Neuromancer (novel) - Publication date 1984​
Cyberpunk 2020 - Publication date 1988​
Shadowrun - Publication date 1989​
 

Nortar

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Pathfinder: Wrath
I'm hoping the Cyberpunk tabletop game isn't as overtly complex when it comes to character creation. I keep hearing from friends both online and IRL that some Shadowrun Sessions are just them creating characters (which sounds painfully exhausting).

Try d20 Modern and especially Urban Arcana.

They have everything you wanted from a Shadowrun-like game:

- simple rules (the core d20 is well known to anyone familiar with D&D 3E+)
- magic and fantasy races in modern/near-future world, with classes like Techno Mage and Speed Demon
- easily adaptable to cyberpunk setting with a couple of additional books such as d20 Cyberspace and d20 Future Tech.
 

Red Aviator

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Thanks, all of you! I'll check these out. Side note, for those you who also play the video game take on Shadow Run (the Shadowrun Returns trilogy) there's this mod that adds more fan-made content:
https://www.reddit.com/r/shadowrunreturns/comments/4z44fl/shadowrun_unlimited/

I thought to contribute something (that's the only useful bit of knowledge I have on this). I'll have to check out Urban Arcana. I watch shows like Lucifer, Supernatural, etc. and I've got a thing for Cyberpunk stuff, so all of these seem right up my alley.
 

udm

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Make the Codex Great Again!
There is Interface Zero 3.0 for Savage Worlds. I would have wholeheartedly recommended it, were it not for the author going completely insane and changing stuff until it's now one big mess.

I don't know if CP Red is going to be any good, but word on the street is that hacking is still not fun.
 

Bara

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I don't know if CP Red is going to be any good, but word on the street is that hacking is still not fun.

Does any TTRPG have fun hacking in it that's more than a skill check?

It's an issue as it always requires a split party if you do the whole cyber space thing too and have long bits of one on one DMing while everyone else waits around.

The bests I've seen it done was one DM had the hacker base his "executable" as the other party members and let those players control them during those segments.

There is Interface Zero 3.0 for Savage Worlds. I would have wholeheartedly recommended it, were it not for the author going completely insane and changing stuff until it's now one big mess.

If you don't mind saying what off the rails insanity we talking about here? Like being "inspired" by other games and trying to take his square peg of a system and fitting it into a round hole?
 

udm

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There is Interface Zero 3.0 for Savage Worlds. I would have wholeheartedly recommended it, were it not for the author going completely insane and changing stuff until it's now one big mess.

If you don't mind saying what off the rails insanity we talking about here? Like being "inspired" by other games and trying to take his square peg of a system and fitting it into a round hole?

At first, there was pandering to BLM by re-writing the Sector Cops campaign and adding in "Corruption" to show how cops can be evil. The "Corruption" mechanic itself wasn't bad, but it was unnecessary. Then came hacking changes. The original hacking mechanics published in 2019 were problematic but not unfixable. The GM needed to handwave a lot of shit because of how poorly written it was, but at least it was handwavable. Then came a slew of updates which were touted as "optional" but really aren't because they're baked into certain Edges. Finally, the kicker was when the author decided to fix hacking by tacking on more shit, so that it's now one bloated mess. There are a lot of weirdly specific and fiddly mechanics to keep track of (like distance between hacker and team mates in GhostNet mode) when most of it could have just been incorporated into the fiction.

Examples of stupid additions include:
- Having "programs" work like "powers". You can only get new programs by levelling up. This was said to be optional, but it's absolutely not optional with the way it's baked into other mechanics.
- Downplaying the TAP which is this smartphone chip built into your brain (a step in the right direction) but including more stuff like Hacking Rigs with their own rules. I don't even know what to do with my existing campaigns anymore, now that there are all these changes, fluff- and mechanics-wise.

Oh yeah the author has also changed the cover multiple times for... reasons. I feel like he's reaching Cleveian levels of autism, except Grimoire is actually fun to play.
 
Last edited:

Alex

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(...snip)
They have everything you wanted from a Shadowrun-like game:

- simple rules (the core d20 is well known to anyone familiar with D&D 3E+)
(snip...)

Wat?

Edit: Shadowrun is the farthest thing from a simple game. I mean, you have rules for how to deal with grenade explosions that bounce off walls, a metric ton of cyberware, vehicles, weapons, spells and so on...

Also, not based on the same premise, but Burning Wheel had its rules derived from Shadowrun. Unfortunately, they chuck out target numbers, using a static 4 for all tests (well, in theory it can be different, but only if your character is somehow supernaturally good at the task in question).

2nd Edit: I just realised this isn't what the original poster is looking for at all. Apologies.
 
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There is Interface Zero 3.0 for Savage Worlds. I would have wholeheartedly recommended it, were it not for the author going completely insane and changing stuff until it's now one big mess.

I don't know if CP Red is going to be any good, but word on the street is that hacking is still not fun.
Yes, it's a goddamn shame, that. He did something similar for the Pathfinder edition of IZ, where he switched to Starfinder halfway (so I had to get the Starfinder core book). He usually has good ideas but tends to shoot himself on the foot by underpricing things (the original KS for IZ 2.0, I never got so much bang for my buck befire or ever since, even though he never fulfilled all of the stretch goals, mainly due to running in the red), by changing horses mid-stream, and the occasional bout of TDS (he almost remove the cop themes from IZ 3.0 due to the BLM chimpouts). I still hope it will turn out OK.

Compared to SR, IZ has much better worldbuilding, no new age mumbo-jumbo, it still has "magic" (psi powers) that do have a somewhat logical explanation and work in logical ways, and elegant magic and hacking systems that won't make you run 3 games at once. Guns are more stylish in SR, the art budget ran out by the time they got to the gun porn, but the rest of the art is top notch.
 
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Wat?

Edit: Shadowrun is the farthest thing from a simple game. I mean, you have rules for how to deal with grenade explosions that bounce off walls, a metric ton of cyberware, vehicles, weapons, spells and so on...

It is the only game that I can remember that calls for square roots to calculate explosion damage, and it gets more convoluted if there are obstacles around to bounce the shockwaves. Once upon a time, a friend of mine used a car bomb in a parking lot as a plot device, and he did everything he could to prevent us from moving it somewhere else, because he had spent half an hour pre-game calculating the damage.
 
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Oh yeah the author has also changed the cover multiple times for... reasons. I feel like he's reaching Cleveian levels of autism, except Grimoire is actually fun to play.

According to his complaints after the (at least for now) latest & final cover art change, it was because some backers complained about "muh diversity", and he was initially happy to comply, but I guess after multiple changes a lot of money has been squandered on that. He should have sent a poll to all backers to send those fags packing, but alas, he's a bit of an SJW himself.
 

Silva

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Compared to SR, IZ has much better worldbuilding
No fucking way. Shadowrun setting is best evah. Even with all the silliness.

Gimme Dunkelzahn, Aztechnology and Universal Brotherhood over whatever shit IZ (or any other setting) comes up with. You don't need to make sense when you got personality.

:dance::dance::dance:
 

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