So, I am considering stsrting a Shadowrun campaign with a group of first time players, group has middling to high amounts of experience with other games, lots of DnD and older WoD, and I have played shadowrun a little, and run alot of different games for too many years.
The question is which edition of the game do I want to use? Mostly I am lokking at the core mechanics, how well are they explained and how smoothly do they flow?
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So, I am considering stsrting a Shadowrun campaign with a group of first time players, group has middling to high amounts of experience with other games, lots of DnD and older WoD, and I have played shadowrun a little, and run alot of different games for too many years.
The question is which edition of the game do I want to use? Mostly I am lokking at the core mechanics, how well are they explained and how smoothly do they flow?
Go with Cyberpunk 2020 edition. I may be biased though.
So I dig cp2020, alot, but given what I know of it, and d20, gurps, Hero, WoD, Palladium, old Cthulu, and some others, Shadowrun is what I am looking at for this game, with this group, this time.
I'd go with second or 3rd edition. 4th.and 5th are a bit nutty.
I prefer 4th edition over the earlier editions. 5th ed is kinda borked with errors, and I hate what they've done with the metaplot/canon.
My preference is a mix between 1st and 2nd (mechanics-wise, at least; the setting backstory needs some major revision).
The biggest issue with 1st (it's too hard to do damage using weapons, with shotguns being especially pathetic) is pretty much fixed by using the weapon stats (and, IIRC the autofire staging rules) from 2nd. My biggest issue with 2nd (physical adepts are pathetic compared to the basic street samurai, unless a high-grade initiate) is fixed by keeping the physical adept rules/costs from the 1st ed Grimoire. I prefer the character creation system from 2nd. And so on.
3rd is good if you like math. If a player uses explosives, you need a calculator (unless you can do square roots in your head).
I prefer 4th edition over the earlier editions. 5th ed is kinda borked with errors, and I hate what they've done with the metaplot/canon.
What did they do to the metaplot?
I've really only played 4th and 5th edition, which are similarish, so I don't have a lot to go on, but I think I like 4th edition better. 5th edition may have done a few things better, but overall 4th edition is better detailed with better sourcebooks [I like Arsenal and Runners Companion MUCH better than their 5th edition "equivalents"] and 5e is just really sloppy compared to 4th edition.
Not really what the OP wants (probably), but there's a hack of a different system that produced Sixth World. I've played it a couple times, I like it. It feels like Shadowrun, even though it's not Shadowrun. I accidentally played a troll mage both times (it wasn't until halfway through the second session that I remembered I had played it previously too). It was fun.
Things to remember, each edition push the timeline forward, so magic and technology are not as common/evolved in the first editions than in the later.
i.e. difference between 2e and 3e: the creation system in 3e make it easier to create non-human character with lesser penalties. And alphaware and bioware are easier to get than in 2e.
So depending on what kind of campaign you are looking for, some editions may be a better fit.
Note that you can always retrofit something you like from an other edition.
Backpedaling. New matrix protocols mean that cyberdecks are back. Some stupid out-of-nowhere problem with nanomachines worldwide means nanotech and genetech have taken huge steps back, cyberware costs way too much, bioware is almost prohibitively expensive, there's a brain virus that was born on the matrix, a bunch of other stuff no one cares about. Oh well, at least it's not Harlequin.I prefer 4th edition over the earlier editions. 5th ed is kinda borked with errors, and I hate what they've done with the metaplot/canon.What did they do to the metaplot?
A bullet point on the "stuff nobody cares about" would be cool.
What's wrong with cyberdecks coming back?
How have the nano and gene tech taken steps back?
I read 5th Ed just this past week, and had played a few years of 1e and 2e SR. The new edition looked decent enough on my end, fixing the 1e rule of 6 problem in game mechanics. If you are looking to start up fresh, i don't see any reason myself to not go with the current edition. I liked the wireless matrix change, which keeps up with the extrapolation of the modern (real world) wireless era.
Well, there was a bit of bloat from 3rd about what you could shove into your body. Keeping track of it all for one player was possible, though a bit of work. Keeping track of the entire group as GM was a little ridiculous (we regularly had people go around the room naming equipment asking if their various modifiers applied to a test, it got old).
Scaling back all that stuff makes sense to me from a game mechanics perspective. Simplify and reduce so that characters are highlighted more by the few things they do have, instead having giant laundry lists.
As a player, I love the giant laundry lists (I never GM'ed 3rd edition), but I can easily see how they'd get bothersome and unwieldy.
In 5th ed did they fix the issue with rockets and explosives where you had a better chance of hitting yourself than the thing you were aiming at?
Have to say 4th Ed, all the way; the build point system makes character generation both simple and balanced in a way prior editions can't match, and -- in my opinion -- 5th Ed is an hideous backslide into bad "systems" (using word advisedly).