I've played SR since second edition, and I prefer this one to all of them. The rules sytem runs a lot smoother, and the rules subsystems (decking, rigging, spell-casting) seem a lot more integrated than they do in other versions of the game.

If you've never played SR, the premise is simple - "Cyberpunk meets Fantasy". trolls and orks get beefed up with cyberware and fight evil megacorporations. You use your contacts to do legwork on your illegal shadowruns, and move around through a seedy underworld of drug dealers, gangers, and body chopshops in your pursuit of a corporation's goals. It's a fun game, and highly lethal at times - it uses a "Death spiral" system, so once you've taken a hit, it's easier to take further hits. Characters can go from fully healthy to dead in a combat round if they're stupid. Don't get shot.

About my only complaint about fourth edition SR is the character generation system; in old versions of shadowrun, you allocated priorities to the various aspects that make up a character. You would decide that "magic is my main priority, and my character's race is my least priority", for example. While it could be unbalanced at times, I found it was a quick and easy way to create a character.

In fourth edition, everything is instead based upon "build points". It's probably a more balanced system, but it's confusing for newbs. Also, Shadowrun is a game about gear - at least half of the design process will be spent buying weapons, cyberware, and commlink programs.

This is a good game. It comes with a lot of setting material (and 4e finally got rid of SR's "Cant", and now uses plain jane curse words; there's no more "chummers" and "drek"), and actually explains what shadowrunners DO - something we didn't always see in earlier editions.

While the system is fairly easy to use at it's core, being a simple attribute score + skill score resolution systme, it can get complicated at times. I highly recommend picking up the GM

Welcome To The Shadows Omae.

This new edition brings simplicity to the game. Combat has been streamlined and revised down to Attribute + Skill dice pools, and now most everything is an apposed test.

Most of the rules and terms have been given a facelift. It's very refreshing and somewhat less confusing than 3rd Ed.

Cyberpunk has been thrown somewhat out the window. The game has been trimmed down to it's fun and fast paced core. It's matured, from cyber punk, to cyber/magical/techno -warrior.

Definitely worth checking out. Pick it up, and run the shadows. Maybe, I should say, "Welcome Back to the shadows".

I'm a shadowrunner from way back as both a player and gamemaster. In the past the game was bogged down by Fasa's sometimes overcomplicated rules and had grown overweight and unfit. The fourth edition however has been stripped down to it's essenial core and while the rules are different the game's rich flavor is the same. The new game is streamlined and ready for the streets. Once again I'm ready to run the shadows and make some nuyen with the game back in fighting trim.