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Shadowrun Fourth Edition as a physical entity – SR4 has 352 pages of heavy paper and a sturdy binding with heavy covers. After accidentally dropping the book off my second story balcony, there was some cosmetic damage but nothing more. While FanPro may have contracted with some mendacious jerks for printing and binding, they do at least make a good book when finally ships.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as something that has game fiction in it – The game fiction contains no crucial setting information, is readable, and is clearly italicized. Characters in game fiction do not do things that are impossible to do with the rules as written. One can read it or ignore it as one chooses. Thus the game fiction is almost as good as it gets.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as something that has art in it – Here we run into a problem. While the grayscale art never intrudes, it is frequently uninspired and lacks a coherent aesthetic. A couple of pieces are recycled from previous Shadowrun books, but they’re some of the better ones and so are welcome. The pictures of the sample characters are both a cut above and in full color, and the standout pieces in the book make the rest worthwhile.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as a manual and rulebook – The typographical conventions used in SR4 are unassuming and clear. There aren’t any unreadable fonts, background images, art, and tables never intrude on the flow of the text, and the various typefaces are used consistently and unobtrusively. The broad organization of the text is good, with most of the information exactly where you’d expect it. The index is good but less structured than one would like; it doesn’t differentiate between main topics and passing references. Perhaps in a future printing the pages for the definition or major explanation of terms might be bolded. The only major organization fault is the “Running the Shadows” chapter, ostensibly the chapter for game master advice. “Running the Shadows” separates some information that should be known (and used) by players from where it would better fit. Some system information like healing and poison resolution would be better placed with combat information, lifestyle information would be better placed near character creation, and information on SINs (SR’s Social Security Numbers, more or less) belong with the rest of the setting briefing. There are a few summary tables in the book, but they’re more sparse and scattered than one might want. If FanPro has a hankering to publish a GM screen with all the listed modifiers in the core book on it, I’d buy it in a second.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as a basic task resolution system– It is very clear that the talk of unified mechanics was more than just talk. Almost all actions are given a test from a dice pool of attribute + skill, and transitive actions are opposed with a similar test. Target numbers are fixed at 5, and most tasks require between one and four successes (referred to as Hits). Extended tests, which govern things like long rituals or building a locomotive, are just a bunch of individual tests with their successes lumped together to beat a higher required number of hits (referred to as Threshold). Tests are modified by equipment modifiers, situational modifiers, subsystem modifiers (e.g. recoil for the combat subsystem), wound modifiers, a menstruation modifier (I shit you not, but it’s tasteful and only applies to pheromone scanners looking for invisible people), and so on. Each and every one of these modifiers is an integer, usually between –3 to 3, that effects the dice pool used for a test. Given that one doesn’t have to worry about whether modifiers stack, the basic resolution is slightly simpler than d20, only without the flat, unexciting probability curves. No, with variable number of required hits, degrees of success, and dice pools, these probability curves are soft and mysterious, begging to be touched.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as a source of wacky fun, as it applies to generic metagame resources – New to SR4 is edge, replacing the karma pool. FanPro says it’s replacing the karma pool, anyway. In point of fact, the two act very differently, so it’s a misleading statement. Edge is a purchased attribute, ranging between 1 and 7 for PCs and some important NPCs. A character’s edge can be spent on a test, granting one of a number of benefits, like increasing one’s dice pool by the permanent edge and making all dice explode. A high edge thus can have an enormous effect, especially on tests where extra hits carry over or for open tests. Edge regenerates at the end of every session, and it has some interesting effects in terms of character generation, which will be covered in the enthralling character generation section below.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as something with largely similar, in respect to previous editions, initiative and magic systems — Well, they are. They’re both cleaned up a bit and have some interesting changes, but without detailing the specific rules, there’s not much to be done here. Unaugmented people are left in the dust less without nerfing wired reflexes and their adept equivalent. Summoning is more useful and detailed, enough so to make a focused summoner a viable character.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as something with technomancers and a wireless matrix in it – Technomancers work almost exactly the same as mages in their respective areas, with simple ‘sprites’ (think UNIX daemons) substituting for spirits and the wireless matrix becoming a coterminous type of reality similar to the astral plane. The decision to make the infosphere such a robust and independent entity makes for fertile ground in developing sessions and the setting, but the overwhelming similarity between the mechanical underpinnings of magic and technomagic make the wireless matrix a bit flat at times. In a joyous turn, however, futuristic storage is no longer tiny and expensive. Say goodbye to robbing a bank to finance a hard drive and a dozen walkie-talkies.
Mercer Island High #17: Shadowrun Fourth Edition visits the Isle of Character Creation – Gone is the unique priority system in favor of a point buy build. Starting characters are required to generalize somewhat, and a short list of merits and flaws are right there in the core book. Only half of one’s points including points had from flaws can be spent on attributes, and thus the most naturally talented and powerful people living will be profoundly screwed up in a number of ways. Starting characters are less tied to archetypes, as Edge allows many previously disastrous character ideas to be not only viable but also genuinely useful. A competently constructed mundane human with little or no cybertechnology can participate on an equal footing with a mage or street samurai.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as a genuinely new edition – Any long awaited new edition of a major game cannot avoid comparisons to D&D 3.0, and those comparisons are a bit more valid than usual. Shadowrun has been reinvented, and the effort put into designing a new edition is obvious. Shadowrun remains a crunchy game, but it is now a coherently crunchy game. Character archetypes are both more balanced and redefined, and while SR4 doesn’t have the nutball gamist resource management focus of D&D3.x, it clearly has marks of a reinvention focused on making a sustainable, focused playstyle that springs from the text. Aside from noticing a slightly greater focus on resource management and more flexibility in terms of PC niches, I haven’t been able exactly to identify that playstyle. The core of the game remains, however. SR4 is a game in which, by default, Players will play Shadowrunners, who are Horrible People that Shoot People Right in the Face for Money. They will form Extravagant Plans, something will go Completely Wrong, but they will Improvise and get Paid Anyway. The Shadowrunners will then Fence the Loot to feed their Crippling Drug Addictions that they acquired so that they would have the build points to better Shoot People Right in the Face. In this new edition, however, the Decker will play with Everyone Else, so groups should get food before the game starts instead of just waiting for matrix combat to go to the grocery store.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as continuation of the metaplot of previous editions – The year is 2070, and some crazy goings on have, well, gone on. The Matrix is entirely wireless, the otaku are gone, replaced with the vastly less annoying technomancers, and vast earthquakes, tsunami, and flooding have unmercifully hosed southern California. Since I dislike almost all metaplot, my main response to what I’ve seen in SR4 is to marvel at how unobtrusive and properly subdued it is.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as an analog of various historical periods – Information technology and the awakened in SR4 have matured and integrated with daily life. This means one can diminish the cyber in cyberpunk and experiment with a wider range of social dynamics. The feeling of Shadowrun as a game taking place during an era of great change is somewhat diminished, if only because not everything is changing. In terms of social mobility, crushing poverty, and dense urban areas full of monomolecular swashbuckling, it would be trivial to cast the setting as having a spirit akin to that of late 1600’s – early 1700’s western Europe. When Aztechnology becomes the British West India Company, one can have all sorts of fun. This similarity has been present in earlier editions, but the presentation in SR4 makes it especially clear. Given that the 2070’s are referred to as the ‘70’s and Orxsploitation entertainment is on the rise, Shadowrun can be given have some elements of the American 1970’s, especially if one wants to examine the death of unskilled labor and traditional manufacturing jobs. Using metahumans as analogs of real world minorities is positively fraught, however, and will require a mature and thoughtful group to execute. Some very unpleasant subtext is unavoidable.
Shadowrun Fourth Edition as a unified whole – SR4 wholly deserves the moniker as a new edition. Most fans of previous editions will be able to find what they liked form previous editions, but the feel of the game has inexorably changed. All in all, SR4 is more polished and whole than Shadowrun has ever been.
