Why is/was Shadowrun more popular than Cyberpunk?

[DarkCrisis]

I'm sure this may be different now thanks to CP2077 and I only have my own experiences and knowledge but it seems that as far back as I can remember SR was always the bigger brand.

Why is it Shadowrun flew while CP walked/crawled along?

Keeping in mind SR has had several video games going back to the SNES and Genesis days (they are great btw) plus the newer trilogy. And others....

Has that changed now? I hear good things about CP2020 and CPRed but nothing but farts when it comes to SR. Ive read and played every ed of SR including Anarchy and man the setting it great but the system is awful. Ive said in other threads they need to do a deep rethink for 7th ed. Right now, Anarchy is the best ed... and well...

I plan to play some CPRed soonish. Like in a month or 2.

And again I wonder, what was with its popularity and has it eclipsed SR at the tabletop?

 

[jdrakeh]

For the last two editions (5th and 6th) Shadowrun, by way of Catalyst, has developed a reputation for having some of the worst editing in RPG-dom. And deservedly so.

 

[billd91]

Hard to say if CP Red has eclipsed Shadowrun at the tabletop. Shadowrun has a pretty vibrant community in the area, and has for years, while Cyberpunk only just seems to be getting back in the game.
I think consistency of publication and support may have something to do with Shadowrun's level of success. CP was nowhere for quite a few years in the wake of a major edition change and all of its 3rd party support, which I used to buy back in the 1990s, dried up.

I have no idea if that's a bit of the cart before the horse and drove the differences in success or already present differences in success led to CP's design trajectory.

I do remember that when both were brand, spanking new, the college gamers I hung out with were pretty divided in interest - not in a way that they'd only play one or the other - but in which one they were much more excited about. I suspect the fantasy elements of Shadowrun may have given them the edge in harnessing the enthusiasm of people coming from D&D.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Hard to say if CP Red has eclipsed Shadowrun at the tabletop. Shadowrun has a pretty vibrant community in the area, and has for years, while Cyberpunk only just seems to be getting back in the game.

Shadowrun's organized play organization was pretty strong last time I checked, and put in the legwork at cons big and small. Though I think it suffered by not having any sort of tiers of play. Multiple times I experienced the equivalent of me sitting down to play D&D with my 3rd level character and someone else showing up with a 17th level character.

I think consistency of publication and support may have something to do with Shadowrun's level of success. CP was nowhere for quite a few years in the wake of a major edition change and all of its 3rd party support, which I used to buy back in the 1990s, dried up.

I have no idea if that's a bit of the cart before the horse and drove the differences in success or already present differences in success led to CP's design trajectory.

I do remember that when both were brand, spanking new, the college gamers I hung out with were pretty divided in interest - not in a way that they'd only play one or the other - but in which one they were much more excited about. I suspect the fantasy elements of Shadowrun may have given them the edge in harnessing the enthusiasm of people coming from D&D.

The whole William Gibson-meets-JRR Tolkien thing definitely hooked my group back in the day. We dabbled in Cyberpunk 2013, but dove into Shadowrun. These days I'm way more into Cyberpunk than Shadowrun. Absolutely a part of that is owed to 2077 and Edgerunners, but even before then, I was done with the complexity of Shadowrun's system.

 

[jdrakeh]

I think consistency of publication and support may have something to do with Shadowrun's level of success. CP was nowhere for quite a few years in the wake of a major edition change and all of its 3rd party support, which I used to buy back in the 1990s, dried up.

That's probably a big factor. After publications for Cyberpunk 2020 trailed off in the mid-90s, there was almost no support for the system until Cyberpunk V3.0 was published in 2005. And that was pretty much dead on arrival, being received very poorly by fans. In that same period of time, despite being licensed by multiple parties, Shadowrun never went out of print and had a ton of official support (even if Catalyst era products had poor editing, they were at least something).

 

[Willie the Duck]

Both SR and CP when they started were solid contenders for the back half of lots of peoples' top-10 lists. I think CP just petered out a little after the early 90s and didn't pick back up until recently. There might be some historical precedent in that it took CP 15 years from when CP 2020 came out to release the next edition (which was widely panned), while SR has put out a new edition every 3-7 years (and while pretty much every fan of the game is a fan except for the rules, there never was a specific edition that everyone agreed was bad).

I think there might have also been a bit of initial boost by being both magic and sci-fi. Although purists might have qualms, in general I think the notion "what's better-cyborgs with cool guns, or cyborgs with cool guns and magic?" probably holds true for a lot of people (certainly lots of other sci fi RPGs tend to wedge psionics in somewhere).

The whole William Gibson-meets-JRR Tolkien thing definitely hooked my group back in the day. We dabbled in Cyberpunk 2013, but dove into Shadowrun. These days I'm way more into Cyberpunk than Shadowrun. Absolutely a part of that is owed to 2077 and Edgerunners, but even before then, I was done with the complexity of Shadowrun's system.

That's one of my problems. If I want to do Shadowrun-like gaming I can 1) homebrew it with a generic system, or 2) play Shadowrun. If I want to do Cyberpunk-like gaming, I have 6-10 games on my shelf (of varying degrees of complexity) that can do it more to my preferred crunch level.

 

[Tonguez]

Shadowrun has the fun of magic and fantasy creatures on top of the cyberpunk melee, it also had a better setting and easier to understand rules. Cyberpunk was gritty netrunning Shadowrun was cyberD&D

At least it was 20 yrs ago, I dont know about the latest updates

 

[Jd Smith1]

I think the art and ties to D&D gave it an edge. I personally have seen no appeal in it, but obviously a lot of people do. And in fairness, it can be played as 'modern-day D&D', while CP is pure cyberpunk, a genre that I don't think has really aged well.

 

[Longspeak]

I think (with nothing but my own opinion to back it up), it's the combination of the cyberpunk attitude and aesthetic combined with the... novelty for want of a better word... of magic and a more fantastic setting.

That was certainly it for me back in the 80s when I first discovered these games.

Nowadays... well I haven't played either in 20+ years, so who cares what I think?

 

[schneeland]

Shadowrun also had the advantage of having a decent line of setting novels going. Naturally, not all of them are great, but even when re-reading some of them last year, they held up surprisingly well.