Required Resources for Shadowrun

Ganzidan · November 2006

Aside from my interest in getting into DnD, Shadowrun has garnered some of my attention as well, and I was wondering what resources I would need to start a game. This is for both DM/GM and as a player.

And what about dice sets? Which kinds and how many of each would I need.

Thanks for the info.

Echo · November 2006

One bucket.

Fill it with six-sided dice.

Gabriel_Pitt · November 2006

You need the core book, and at least a dozen six sided dice. That's all the players and the GM need for the basic game. All other books are gravy, expanding on cyber toys, or magic, or locations, or whatnot, but the basic stuff is all in the core book.

laughingfuzzball · November 2006

For third edition, the books for magic, rigging, decking, and cyberwera/guns really added a lot.

I don't think they have any of them for fourth ed yet, though.

Ardent · November 2006

Fourth Ed includes the bulk of the information that improved gameplay from those 3rd Ed sourcebooks.

Aside from the core book...and a LOT of time invested in reading it (it's important you be familiar with the geo-political scene, even if you don't plan on playing the traditional SeaTac campaign)...nothing but dice.

If you are planning on playing outside of SeaTac, invest in a sourcebook that covers the area you're interested in. I always set my games in Vladivostok, for reference, since it's a much more dynamic locale than SeaTac in my experience. There's about 12 powergroups crowding one city and the running is easy to find, hard to do successfully and usually very profitable.

Japanese megacorps, Chaebols, Shamanistic orders, the KGB...Vladi offers it all.

Raziel · November 2006

The problem with Shadowrun is it has a really deep, rich setting, which can be intimidating. Just remember that you don't need to be an expert on a lot of this, and feel free to make stuff up.

I've been running SR4 for months with nothing but a Chessex cube of dice (36 small six-siders) and the core book.

Street Magic fleshes out the whole magic side of the game (which is pretty limited) but useful if you have a bunch of people who want to play magical characters.

I'd also recommend reading the core rulebook (or at least skimming) from cover to cover at least twice. It's badly laid out and can take forever to find information.

Also, because I'm such a nice guy, here is a link to some really useful SR4 information, including cheat sheets for combat, hacking, and magic.

http://www.pavao.org/shadowrun/index.html

Best of luck.

Pkmoutl · November 2006

If you're going for SR1 SR2 or SR3, the core book is actually plenty. Although if you're getting into SR2, I would suggest the Street Samurai Catalogue and Shadowtech. They aren't necessary, but they do add some extra and interesting things (like BioWare and some of the better weapons and armor) to the game. The Grimoire is usually pointed out as a necessity, but I tend to argue against that and suggest that you find a way to just get the spell listing off of someone and call it good. All the Metamagic stuff is interesting, but I've only had one person ever really use anything beyond a Spell Lock (which is in the core book anyway).

Most of the other books, as people say, are just gravy on top of the meal. Yes, the Cannon Companion or whatever it's called from 3rd has some good stuff in it and all that, but it really isn't a necessity. I was introduced to SR1 by someone who only had the core book, Shadowtech and the 1st edition of Paranormal Animals of North America. The only reason anyone used Shadowtech was for the Bone Lacing stats (although I became a big fan of Orthoskin)

EDIT: Oh, and they aren't kidding about the dice thing. You need to get a cube of at least 24 d6's or raid the Yahtzee game of everyone you know within a 10 mile radius.

panksea06 · November 2006

I am also going to perhaps get started in a shadow run game to, the issue is at the moment for our first runs through we only have one book between the whole of the group doing the gaming. Since that is the case are there any http://www.d20srd.org/ esque sites out there to page through for shadow run?

mrcheesypants · November 2006

I'm doing the same thing and I have been working on getting a group together for the past month or so. I was smart and went to Dragon Con with a guy who had connections to a good DM. He told me that I need atleast 36 dice in order to play. After I've read through the book I'm starting to doubt that 36 is enough dice. The group I'm setting up is between 3-5 people and I'm starting to think 36 dice aren't enough to cut it.

So I kinda feel stupid for asking this on the account that I bought my dice at a convention but where is a good place for my group to buy dice?

Penny Arcade

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