Mechanics

Roleplaying

In a cyberpunk dystopia spiced with magic, there are prototypes to steal, data havens to infiltrate, executives to extract, relics to unearth, and more. How will you do it? With the raw power of a brawler or the grace of a street samurai? With magic that breaks through barriers or helps you sneak around them? With the power to bend the Matrix and its devices to your will? Maybe you’ll use charm, driving ability, or some other combination of skills to get your way.

Shadowrun, like other roleplaying games, lets you take the role of a character in a tough situation and figure out what you’d do. You’re only limited by your imagination—you can try anything, then roll dice to see if you can pull it off. With the assistance of a gamemaster helping the plot develop, you unfold an ongoing story where you challenge authority, help the underdog, and try to find a way to do the hardest thing in the Sixth World—survive.

D6

If you’re going to do difficult things in Shadowrun, you have to roll some dice, and those dice are going to be D6s (six-sided dice). After you roll, instead of adding up the total, you generally count up the 5s and 6s you roll (those are called “hits”) as well as the 1s, because if more than half your dice are 1s, you’ve glitched, and weird things are about to go down.

Dice Pools

If you want to do something like punch a creep in the face, you need to know how many dice to roll—which is called a dice pool. To make one, you add the value for a particular skill (in the case of throwing a punch, Close Combat) to the value for a connected attribute (in this case, Agility). Once you have a total number, you roll that many D6s.

Difficulty

If you want to succeed in your dice roll, you need to get certain amount of hits—the harder the test, the more hits you need. On some tests, the number is a set threshold, while on others, it’s the amount of hits another character rolls on a parallel test. For example, if you roll to attack, the target rolls a defense roll, and you need to roll more hits than them in order to land your blow.

Edge

Hopefully, when you’re in a tough situation, like fighting, Matrix hacking, spellcasting, or conning a mark, you do something right. Maybe it’s a small thing, such as choosing the right weapon at your current range, or making the mark think you’re sympathetic to their cause. That small thing might not be enough to win the day by itself, but if you do enough small things, they can add up to a big thing—and a chance for victory.

In Shadowrun, Sixth World, Edge represents your accumulated advantage from doing the little things right. Maybe you’ll spend it as it comes in, taking a small gain each time you get one, or maybe you’ll save up your advantage and spend it in one fell swoop, delivering the big smack or dramatic tactic that blows away the opposition.

Just remember—if you’re not gaining and spending Edge, you’re probably falling behind!

Teamwork

In this business, you don’t just hire one shadowrunner; you hire a team. Not only do most jobs need a range of skills, like hacking, spellcasting, conjuring, punching, and so on, but they require smooth coordination and teamwork to accomplish objectives without raising the ire of the cops, corps, or any rival criminals who might be watching. Shadowrunners can help each other in many ways, from providing a distraction to concentrating fire on a single target. They can even pitch in on a single task, using one runners’ abilities to help another player roll more dice.