On today’s Shadowrun Sundays, it’s contest time!
During GenCon, I had occasion to purchase the Mayan Edition and regular Collector’s Edition of the Shadowrun Fifth Edition rules. As part of the occasion, Catalyst Game Labs was giving away certificates for a free PDF version of the Fifth Edition core rulebook with each purchase of a special edition copy of SR5. Only now I’m in a bit of a bind.
As a freelance writer for CGL, I already have a PDF version of the book for research purposes. So I don’t actually need two more copies. Then I hit upon this wonderful idea. Why not give away these certificates to a good home?
Hence this Shadowrun Sundays contest. Two lucky people, randomly drawn from those who respond to this post will get themselves a free copy of the PDF version of Shadowrun Fifth Edition rules. Here’s the catch.
Your response must contain one of the following:
1) Your favorite part of the Shadowrun world (and why it’s your favorite thing).
2) Your favorite gaming group Shadowrunning story (what you and your fellow PCs did and why it was so wonderful).
3) For new players (or those who haven’t played Shadowrun before) what it is about Shadowrun that makes you want to play it.
You only have to pick one of the three. Entries will be accepted through Sunday September 15th. Winners will be announced via my blog on Monday September 16th. Only one entry per person will be considered, though you can post as many stories and thoughts as you want.
So what are you waiting for? What do you like most about Shadowrun? Why do you want to play it?
7 Responses
Shadow Run Rules
So, I have been hearing my husband go on and on about Shadowrun. He’s played the game Shadowrun Returns. He’s been talking it up, and it seems like a lot of fun and the type of setting I would really enjoy!! I love urban fantasy!
There is no point in my buying the paper edition–I would simply have to scan it and get lukewarm output at best. Reading a PDF of the rules would make it much simpler for me, and fun, to learn about this and get a game going. 🙂
Bug City
My favorite part of the Shadowrun world has to be Chicago. Being a resident of northern Illinois, I’m a big fan of the nightmare that was Bug City. I took great joy in the fact that Chicago became a bug spirit infested cesspool that was so awful, it was quarantined and nuked… and survived. Go Chi-town!
I’m over a decade removed from the Shadowrun universe, but will be getting back into it for 5th ed.
How Shadowrun got my attention…
Back in the Olden Times, we had to make our own water by getting hydrogen and oxygen liquored up and hoping they’d get all menagie-minded. (Had to be a threesome, because 2&2 just got us peroxide, which wasn’t all bad because Billy Idol, Berlin, and Blondie were all still big.) We also had a lot of games that were real uptight and specific about which genres they’d get giggly with. There was some sci-fi, like “Traveler” and “Cyberpunk.” There was some horror, all eldritch and wigglesome. And fantasy was ruled by His Gygaxian Majesty, who said “Elves can’t be druids, because they’re too in touch with nature to, oh, well, they just can’t be druids.” Them some folks said, “Dude, like, let’s, like, give orcs, you know… motorcycles. And my elf wants a a submachine gun… and a robot girlfriend, maybe.” The chocolate got in the peanut butter, and it was good. Urban fantasy, cyberpunk, myth and magic and nanotech… it was like a brain-buffet of geeksnackery joy. That’s why I liked Shadowrun.
The shadows in shadow run.
I had until recently been a lapsed RPG gamer for about 10 years. But I always had favourite systems which have brought me back into the fold. Call of Cthulhu being one, paranoia being another and the third being shadow run. What shadow run did so very well is provide a futuristic background, full of dangerousness nooks and crannies and allow you to develop a very cool character that fitted into it. But what it also did extremely well was create a team of rather different misfits that alone could never complete the mission … But together at least had a chance.
Rigging
Since I started with my first round of Shadowrun I was fascinated by a human combining his mind with a vehicle, effectively becoming the car. My very first character which I will convert to fift edition once I get grip on a copy was a rigger. And he is still my favourite. The idea of a badass guy with a shotgun, accompanied with some roto- and dobermann drones always let’s me smile and I am very happy to play him again in 5th (With decks! And cords!! They are all back. WOHOO). I think he will feel like my character again, once I leave the complete wireless world of 4th edition behind and just take the good stuff aka rule mechanics over to 5th.
And as a bonus, my favourite story.
My Rigger Gadget wants to storm an appartement and stands before a metal door with high class Maglock. As we all now, walls in the UCAS aren’t such a great threat to, well, anything. So I blasted the walls away with controlled shotgun blasts and automatic fire from the LMG hanging from my rotodrone. After the dusts settles and quiet moaning and coughing echoes through the hall my character looks through the produced hole and says: “I just wanna talk”.
My table and I had a good laugh and that was one of the cooler situations with him. 🙂
Greetz
TecnoSmurf
World of Shadowrun
I’ve always been fascinated with the world of Shadowrun. In a dystopian future where magic has reawakened. Ruled by heartless and corrupt Megacorps who only care about their public image and the bottom line.
Where the cybered up ork samurai, the elf mage, and dwarven decker are out to to get themselves a piece of the action. Distributing their own brand of justice or maybe just making their mark in the shadows.
There’s no better blend of fantasy and cyberpunk in any game I’ve ever played.
All through university I was in a roleplaying society. The shadowrunning group was tight knit and never let anyone new in, and yet I was always enamored by the setting. Everything I heard about it spoke to me – the down and dirty idea of getting the job done, no matter what, the high fantasy mixed with the high tech, the tight knit group of nerr do wells united to try and make a quick buck.
But I never got a chance to play, and so I never had a reason to buy the book. Now I have my own gaming group, and we love the dystopic future rogue style settings (We have a long running Rogue Trader campaign full of shady dealing for money and status!)
I would love the chance to give the rules a try and bring something I had missed previously into the gaming group.