So when you first said the Second edition, I was like, nope, it's Third. but then I watched the rest of your video and caught that my bias of playing Third for so many years was coming through. To me, 3rd is easy, but it's because I play 3rd and have done so since I switched from second. This video is the most honest review of Shadowrun I have seen. You are absolutely correct in your assessment of what 3rd is compared to 2nd. For ease of picking up Shadowrun, you should pick up second and then add the things you like. 3rd was the company's attempt at trying to give all the players that had played tons of 2nd a possible single book option so you could have much of 2nds crunch all in one book. while cleaning up some things that might have needed cleaning up. Like they tried to make the matrix more accessible so you could play a decker and not get a no out of your ST every time you wanted to play one. I don't think they hit the ball out of the park, but for my group, we allow Deckers, which we would never do in 1st or 2nd, so they must have moved the needle enough for my group at least. So once you have played and explored second for a few years, then maybe look at some 3rd at that point, but I would say play 2nd to start out, and TBH, you won't really need to move away from it as it was a solid edition.

So lonely... where is the next episode you glorious people

1:03:30 "plas kuh change" 🤣

Great video. Great breakdown, very insightful. I’ve loved the Shadowrun setting my entire life and I’ve been in the same boat. I really can’t stand the rules crunch at all. I’m going to check out 2e sometime soon, what was the issue with matrix and rigging? I can’t remember off the top of my head. Honestly I’m still brainstorming a very stripped down basic osr dnd version of Shadowrun at some point, D20 based and easy.

Truth

Any news on reprint of 2nd edition?

Man. At first i was really confused. Than i got kinda upset. "Why is this fucking DM not telling them more details?! How did they get the job? How do they get here? Wtf is happening?" Than i listend on... and at some point it clicked. As a DM myself, i wanna complement you on that one! Really nice done! Well played! Also, the sound effects really elevates this even more! Love every episode of it! Good job Chummers! 🤌

I want this so much!!! I love the sr universe and want the 2e.

What is this "previously on" covering? I listened to the full season one I don't remember any of this!

And people hate 6E for getting rid of all that crunch.

I found you guys via Dork Day Afternoon, and I’m mighty glad I did. I was a “Shadowrun” player back in the first-edition days, and this episode had me laughing so hard I was crying. My co-workers were confused & concerned…

I bought the second edition book recently, but it was in such a bad condition. I haven't found one that is in good condition. I even found first edition in mint condition on a convention, but wanted to 2nd. I think this really supports your point which edition is the best, because everyone who played 2ed just completely wore out the book. Wish there were a digital version of it. Couldn't find one yet. Also when I played 2nd edition I was like 16 or something, I didn't read book and I had BAAD reading retention. But for some odd reason after I read through it I could actually play the game.

Any update on this ?

this would be great

can someone explain please what's the use for spell habilities?

the pt-br translation is full of mistakes 😢

thanks

That was a fantastic adventure! Great job 🤘

I snagged a 2e softcover for under $10 this week. Woot!

The best part of 2e is that it is only as rules crunchy as the group wants. Want better Matrix rules, add Virtual Reality. Want better rigger rules, add Rigger 2. More character creation, Runner Companion is there.

Your concession to SR3 is why it’s my preferred Shadowrun. I want all of that in my game, and I want all the enhanced core parts collected and refined in one place. I will state this caveat though. If a player wants to play a magician, rigger, or decker, they have to read and understand their chapters, gear, and abilities. Otherwise, they have to play something else and let the GM fill those roles with ally NPCs and likely abstracted play on the GM’s part. However, SR2 is more evocative - in its art/aesthetic, verbal style, ideas, and maturity. That’s great though since those all port over to SR3 easily because they go into the heart of the player/GM.

It’s funny you guys think that gamers back then might not have enough dice, but in 1997, I didn’t have enough. I was 13 and finally convinced my twin brother to play. I bought a few sets of dice, but he wanted his own set, so he swiped them from his Axis & Allies board game. I swear those dice were loaded, which helped win him over to RPGs.

"John has a looooottttttt of credit card debt he needs to pay off" He's just like me fr!

Catalyst Game Labs making baffling, if not outright iffy, business decisions? I am shocked etc.

Fun fact the "Unix system" from Jurassic Park was an actual UI that could be used on SGI workstations. It basically the one "science" thing in Jurassic Park that was actually real and it's funny that it's the one that gets memed the most.

I'd be up to remake a 2e PDF, love to work with 1-2 other people and we could bust it out over a few weeks

Jon screwing up his 14-dice attack would have been a perfect place to use a point of karma pool. Really fun episode.

Damn... that ending. It's hard for a GM to pull off something like that. Well done sir.

A response to the different adept types question. I remember that Grimoire introduced the Shamanic adept and Elemental adepts who could summon and cast spells, but only specific types of spells and spirits (for shamans you could only cast spells or summon spirits your totem gave you a bonus to). Awakenings also mentions the astral adept who couldn't cast or summon but could astrally project/percieve like a full mage. My memory may be failing me however.

As a GM, Ben is really good at including ally NPCs. They are helpful and add to the roleplaying but don't overshadow the player characters.

Minor rules thing, when Jon shot the troll, it should have done a deadly wound. The burst fire stages the damage up a level to S, then his two net successes woild stage it up again to Deadly.

To be fair the "people who don't play roleplaying games are just going to show up and will need dice that they have access to" isn't wholly wrong. I know a lot of people who started with Shadowrun and were kids who didn't have money for dice so we just raided the family board game collection. Some kids found it through the video games, I found Shadowrun through a novel I got from my public library when I was in sixth grade. Shadowrun 2nd Edition was very accessible to middle school kids who were heavy on free time, but super light in disposable income.

The font is "Fritz Quadrata"

Second edition was my first ttrpg. I love it so much. I would say the one thing 2e does 100% better than 3e was threat ratings. As a GM keeping track of of dice pools for every NPC is a book keeping nightmare. Threat ratings are so much simpler and let the GM tweak NPC power levels quickly and easily. The initiative change is kinda meh, don't really like one version over the other. 3e does do some combat rules better though, like making using combat pool for defense its own step instead of having to roll the combat pool and Body dice together and keep track of which ones were from the combat pool. Overall I'd pick 2e over 3e, but I'm not sure if that's just my nostalgia or not.

My issues with Shadowrun is that it felt like a square peg in a round hole. It really strived hard for realism in a very clunky rules system. Netrunning felt like a completely seperate game, which resulted in party split. 6e really did fix this while breaking others.

Shadowrun Anarchy is a good start for newbs

2. Ed is the easiest but it's to powergamie (A friend had a streetsam that could run Mach 1 and i had a mage that could hunt dragons and sink warships) . I think 3. Ed is the best.

I really like 6th

I started out with SR2 yet enjoyed 4 the best, what burns a lot of newbies SR start is if you know what you want you can start out really well off. That since it does what D&D in the modern day doesn't respect you're not really starting out level 1, since level 1 is honestly a child. You should have something from what you did all your life until that point and it's means more than some ribbon "skills" the DM really doesn't understand. SR to me always felt more like a refinement of what D&D started with. This is from somebody that just loves to roll a Troll Archer

5e is supported on foundry vtt. So that's the one

11:51 "You wouln't start playing d&d as a 10th level mage" My first character was an epic 3e half-fiend doppelganger rogue, ecl in the mid 20s

Fark. My brain hurts. Just binged the series in 4 days. Now I'm making bad life choices on eBay 👌

I’m so guilty of that thing you said at the beginning 😂 I may not go with 2e but your points are really well taken. I GM and I think honestly there’s no substitute or book to read that will equal a real well thought out session zero. Read as best you can, liberal house rules. No matter the system, my players and I are going to get some stuff wrong. Nobody knows the answer in 30 seconds? Boom, GM discretion. Just stay in role and read up on it later. I hate when something that’s supposed to be fun ends up becoming a UN Security Council meeting.

Ahhhh, 2nd ed. The best thing about 2nd ed, was every ref book had a lovely set of character templates. They where awesome, always a character idea you'd never think of 👌

They could do a preorder. This would satisfy their curiosity.

what is the txt formated data dump you go over around #2:27:00 ? i think this + chatGPT can make an instant charecter generator - is this open source? where can i find it?

I went on a brief hiatus on listening to these ppdcasts and now I'm back!

The only thing terrible is that routine

Thanks for your sacrifice, chummer! Because of you more people will be able to play the best edition of SHADOWRUN in print!!!!

After the fiasco that was Shadowrun: EdgeZone, CGL needs to get rid of Rem. She is a terrible project manager and terrible at community and customer engagement. If anyone wants a high quality and legitimate PDF of 2E, it's available for free on the Internet Archive.