Shadowrun 1st Edition To Be Reprinted

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1988's 1st Edition of the near-future urban fantasy game Shadowrun is being reprinted, according to publisher Catalyst Game Lab who tweeted the announcement this weekend.

Shadowrun is currently on its 6th Edition, which came out in 2019. The game features a dystopian fantasy cyberpunk future with elves, trolls, dragons, cybernetics, megacorporations, and automatic weapons. Characters include technomancers, mages, and street samurai.

Coming soon, Shadowrun 1st edition reprints!Relive the classic fantasy of the Sixth World with all of the dystopian action that entails!

You can currently buy the game via print-on-demand at DriveThruRPG for $11.99.

 

[Reynard]

To be clear, I'm referring to which edition of the WEG Star Wars they reprinted. Not other Star Wars games entirely. I'm stating that that there would have been far more interest in the reprint if they had chosen to reprint second edition or revised from the WEG version.

I'm not sure that's true. I don't think most people bought it to play it. It's largely a shelf piece. The same is going to be true with any venerable game: reprinting a 1st edition is an appeal to nostalgia and a collectible, not an attempt to revive play in that 1st edition.

 

[Mannahnin]

I'm in the "Why didn't they just reprint 2e instead" camp.

Same.

 

[evildmguy]

Wow!

I had 1E SR but wasn't old enough to grok the rules. Or some things that I'm still figuring out today. I do prefer a bit more rules than less, finding it easier to ignore than add, but this was a bit much. Whenever they went to the current die pool is what I would want. 3E? For me, I would use SR5 as a base and then pull in other things as needed. I usually reduce hacking to quick things to make it faster.

d6 Star Wars certainly had the flavor of Star Wars in ways I didn't understand back then. The ideas in it, decide when a clip is out of shots due to drama, fit it well. Even the roll to check skills is "do or do not." However, if I was going to play it today, I would use SR5 mechanics. I like SR6 skill list a bit better as they shortened it but the rest was glitchy. I haven't seen the new Seattle edition of it to know if they fixed that. Oh, I did get the reprint books. Regret for having sold them earlier. I wouldn't want more, though. Today, that would be enough for me.

 

[evildmguy]

I mean, they seem to have an audience for it. And would drastic changes to the game scare away more players than they'd attract (see also: D&D 4th edition)?

That said, I think it's the same thing as with Exalted. If you want mechanical depth, you need complexity – complexity is the coin which buys said depth. So do you want a game that has ten different SMGs and good reasons to choose either one over any of the others? Then you're going to need enough complexity to differentiate between them. Alternately, you're happy with differentiating SMGs from assault rifles, and then you don't need as much complexity.

While I agree with what you are saying, I'm torn on these ideas. As you said, you need to vary things so that you can have game mechanics on why one gun is better than another gun. (I had this problem as I kept using Alternity and soon there was nothign new anymore.) Maybe the base game has the rules but basic weapons and equipment, then the specific expansion books add more? Keeps the core rules clean? Of course, SR1 exists already, so too late for that.

Having played Exalted 1E/2E, I love the setting, HATE the mechanics. I would use d20 before using those things. In 3E, the ideas in combat must be based on something I don't know because I find them a hot mess.

 

[MGibster]

I'm not sure that's true. I don't think most people bought it to play it. It's largely a shelf piece. The same is going to be true with any venerable game: reprinting a 1st edition is an appeal to nostalgia and a collectible, not an attempt to revive play in that 1st edition.

That's pretty much it. While I didn't play a lot of Shadowrun back then, I was more of a Cyberpunk kid, I have some fond memories and like looking through the book. The color templates within the pages were something novel for the time, and setting a game in Seattle was kind of a neat idea. It's been more than 30 years since I last played the 1st edition of Shadowrun, so I can't quite remember what most of the problems were other than Deckers taking too long when going to the net. I really did like the priority system used for character generation and wouldn't mind seeing it in more games.

 

[Staffan]

Having played Exalted 1E/2E, I love the setting, HATE the mechanics. I would use d20 before using those things. In 3E, the ideas in combat must be based on something I don't know because I find them a hot mess.

The idea behind Exalted 3e combat was to avoid the rocket tag/perfect defense cycle combat could easily devolve into in 1e and 2e. Instead of being potentially lethal, most attack rolls in EX3 are about getting an advantage on your opponent and once you have enough of an advantage you can go for a potentially killing blow. The intent is to be more cinematic and exciting, but I don't know if they actually managed that.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

Having played Exalted 1E/2E, I love the setting, HATE the mechanics. I would use d20 before using those things. In 3E, the ideas in combat must be based on something I don't know because I find them a hot mess.

Does Exalted run on Storyteller or was it its own thing?

 

[Crusadius]

Does Exalted run on Storyteller or was it its own thing?

Storyteller. But 3E really changed the combat system as @Staffan says.

 

[Crusadius]

That's pretty much it. While I didn't play a lot of Shadowrun back then, I was more of a Cyberpunk kid, I have some fond memories and like looking through the book. The color templates within the pages were something novel for the time, and setting a game in Seattle was kind of a neat idea. It's been more than 30 years since I last played the 1st edition of Shadowrun, so I can't quite remember what most of the problems were other than Deckers taking too long when going to the net. I really did like the priority system used for character generation and wouldn't mind seeing it in more games.

I think if I choose to get it it will be for nostalgia only. I still recall purchasing the 1E book and reading through it.

As soon as 2E came out we switched over to it, and the major difference I recall between the two was the staging of damage going from variable to a fixed 2.

 

[Staffan]

Does Exalted run on Storyteller or was it its own thing?

Each edition runs on a Storyteller modded to various degrees. For example, Exalted 2 does away with combat rounds in favor of "ticks", so when you do a thing in combat you get to go again X ticks later, where X is the action's speed.