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Author Topic: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk  (Read 9939 times)

Batjon

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Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« on: December 02, 2020, 03:50:53 AM »
Which setting is your favorite between Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2013/2020/RED? What is your reasoning for your choice?

Omega

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2020, 05:01:04 AM »
CP2020 has a setting?  :o

ahem.

I liked Shadowruns original setting, but it seemed to lose track with each successive edition.

CP2020's setting I have actually never seen. All I have seen was the weird theme park kingdoms version for Im not sure what version.
But I really like the Nights Edge setting for CP2020. A techno-horror/Supernatural setting for CP2020.

SR has the richer setting though. But it is totally YMMV and some like it, some hate it and some jettison the magic part and play it as a straight-up cyberpunk setting.

CP2020 feels more like D&D in that its a "make of it what you will" system and has a rather generic setting as its foundation.
Nights Edge takes things in all sorts of directions and plays with various techno-horror themes in particular. Sometimes with a bit of added supernatural to the mix.

Then theres one most overlook. The Cyberpapacy of the Torg RPG. And the Nippon Tech setting as well. The Cyberpapacy one in particular is an interesting mix of religion and cyberpunk combined. 

Another obscure one worth a glance is Chromosome for the Amazing Engine system. A biopunk setting overall. Needed a little more fleshing out. Bu theres enough there to build off of.

HappyDaze

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2020, 05:39:18 AM »
CP2020 has a setting?  :o

ahem.

I liked Shadowruns original setting, but it seemed to lose track with each successive edition.

CP2020's setting I have actually never seen. All I have seen was the weird theme park kingdoms version for Im not sure what version.
But I really like the Nights Edge setting for CP2020. A techno-horror/Supernatural setting for CP2020.

SR has the richer setting though. But it is totally YMMV and some like it, some hate it and some jettison the magic part and play it as a straight-up cyberpunk setting.

CP2020 feels more like D&D in that its a "make of it what you will" system and has a rather generic setting as its foundation.
Nights Edge takes things in all sorts of directions and plays with various techno-horror themes in particular. Sometimes with a bit of added supernatural to the mix.

Then theres one most overlook. The Cyberpapacy of the Torg RPG. And the Nippon Tech setting as well. The Cyberpapacy one in particular is an interesting mix of religion and cyberpunk combined. 

Another obscure one worth a glance is Chromosome for the Amazing Engine system. A biopunk setting overall. Needed a little more fleshing out. Bu theres enough there to build off of.
Shadowrun's setting has had some real ups and downs. I really started losing my love for it in 3e, with the constant metaplot like the Renraku Arcology Shutdown (birth of not-Skynet) and the Year of the Comet (freaky shit all over). The 4e and 5e times just kept adding to this in ways that didn't really appeal to me.

One thing Shadowrun did was to take social issues and make them less real. For example, racism was everywhere in Shadowrun, but written in ways that made it feel cartoonish. Shadowrun racism felt as much like real world racism as Cobra (from GIJoe) felt like a real world terrorist organization.

OTOH, much of Cyberpunk 2020 (and now Red) feels like a grittier setting which can have a more nuanced approach to real world issues if you want it to, and it is my preferred medium for dark & dingy (but with chrome) stories. Please note that this does not apply to Cybergeneration or Cyberpunk 3 (Dollpunk) where the setting itself went very...strange.

I too like Torg, but mainly the newer Torg Eternity version. Cyberpapacy has lots of cyberpunk elements, but with the social setup of the middle ages. You don't just take a stand against the corps, you're a heretic opposing the One True God (in the machine--the matrix here contains both heaven and hell) and his rightful servants. Pan-Pacifica (the replacement for Nippon Tech) is cyberpunk in attitude (Electric Samurai are totally cyberpunk) in a Resident Evil setting that lacks cyberware (but has biotech). And, lastly, there is Tharkold with it's occultech (demon-crafted implants) and a post-apocalyptic slant similar to Terminator's dark future or the physical world of the Matrix (outside of the computer simulated Matrix). Lots of different options in Torg Eternity for a variety of cyberpunk flavors.

lordmalachdrim

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2020, 06:55:00 AM »
Shadowrun. Once it left FASA and went to Fanpro during it's 3rd edition it started to go off the rails but it was stuff that could still fit with the existing cannon to that point. 4th ed and on it lost me.

Torque2100

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #4 on: December 02, 2020, 07:40:15 AM »
As someone who has played both Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun extensively, I'm going to have to go with Cyberpunk.

Shadowrun is a fun setting with lots of crazy things that can happen, but it has a way of taking real issues and making them feel less real as has been noted.  Not to mention that the game has not aged well.  The 2012 thing meant that, as a setting, Shadowrun already had a built in expiration date. 

Cyberpunk has always felt grounded and more real.  I really appreciate an RPG setting that doesn't feel like it's obligated to crowbar in magic or equivalent magic powers such as the ever popular Psionics. 

Friday Night Firefight is a far, far better ruleset than any edition of Shadowrun IMHO.  R Talsorian games are always fun to play.  They aren't balanced by any means, but Interlock is always a blast.  Shadowrun's rules I didn't like quite as much. They were really clunky and full of contradictions.  The system pretends to be open-ended for character creation, but specialization is so rewarded and generalization so heavily punished that it might as well have a class system.


Ghostmaker

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2020, 08:21:53 AM »
One of the major issues CP2020 suffered from was that their sourcebooks were nowhere near as entertaining as SR's. FASA, and even later FanPro and Catalyst books kept eating their lunch from a fluff standpoint.

The whole style of 'postings on a BBS/forum' was surprisingly immersive for an RPG sourcebook. I'm still astonished Pondsmith and company didn't do it themselves. Surely people in the Cyberpunk universe have opinions about Arasaka, kibble, or their favorite pistol.


HappyDaze

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2020, 08:41:22 AM »
Shadowrun has also suffered from a split take where some people want the gonzo "pink mohawk" style while others want the more serious "black ops pros" feel. In Shadowrun, these two don't blend very well, whereas CP always went with something in between (you had to have style AND substance, if you went too into style > substance, you just died looking good).

Mechanically, CP net running was, while not great, at least faster than the SR Matrix. Of course, in practice many considered deckers/hackers to be NPC only. I saw this in both games, but the feeling was far stronger in SR.

CP bad guys tended to know how to use their toys, but the lack of magic kept the arms race to a more narrow range. Conversely, SR bad guys had to regularly forget some of the things that their magic and tech should bring to their fingertips. Hell, by SR5e, runners were encouraged to make covert intrusions into secure sites while maintaining active wifi networks that were hooked into all their gear.

VisionStorm

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2020, 08:48:53 AM »
CP2020 has a setting?  :o

Yes.

It's called Real Life, and we're living on it.  ;)

My preferred setting is Shadowrun.

Because it's fictional.  :P

jeff37923

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2020, 08:59:24 AM »
I find Shadowrun so bad that I would not insult my ass by using it for toilet paper. The "High Tech Low Life" theme of the cyberpunk genre gets parasitized  by the Gross Conceptual Error of adding elements of fantasy to it. Orcs, elves, shamans, and hackers - it takes a delicious wine and turns it rancid and vinegary.

The setting and metaplot for Cyberpunk 2013/2020 and Cybergeneration gives just enough of a skeleton for Players to get immersed without having their characters become mooks for the major NPCs running around. It was pretty open ended and I found I could do a lot with it that my groups enjoyed. Omega already mentioned Night's Edge, which added a wonderful aspect of supernatural horror to games at a time when VtM was taking over game groups and turning them in to LARPs.
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Godsmonkey

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #9 on: December 02, 2020, 09:17:36 AM »
From a background/mythology standpoint, I found Shadowrun to be far more interesting. And as a young GM in the early 90's I played and enjoyed both. However, the Man meets magic and machine concept had a far broader appeal.

However, the rules for CP 2020 were elegant (save netrunning of course). Rolling a D10 plus stat+skill is far more intuitive than rolling 20D6 to hit. (exaggeration, but not by much) the background for 2020 OTOH just felt clunky to me, and already a bit dated.

I recently got my copy of CP Red, so that may change my opinion once I grok the new history.

Godsmonkey

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #10 on: December 02, 2020, 09:21:22 AM »
One of the major issues CP2020 suffered from was that their sourcebooks were nowhere near as entertaining as SR's. FASA, and even later FanPro and Catalyst books kept eating their lunch from a fluff standpoint.

The whole style of 'postings on a BBS/forum' was surprisingly immersive for an RPG sourcebook. I'm still astonished Pondsmith and company didn't do it themselves. Surely people in the Cyberpunk universe have opinions about Arasaka, kibble, or their favorite pistol.

This was a big selling factor for my group when the games came out. I presented both as options, and a quick flip through both books sold my group on Shadowrun 1e. as a reader, and BBS user at the time, I ESPECIALLY loved the forum posts, and arguments. It felt grounded, and added so much to the flavor of the game.

Ratman_tf

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #11 on: December 02, 2020, 09:36:57 AM »
Which setting is your favorite between Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2013/2020/RED? What is your reasoning for your choice?

Cyberpunk's setting always felt tacked on. Which is good if you're using the system to do your own setting. Not so much if you're looking for the game to do the heavy lifting for setting.
Shadowrun's setting is the opposite. Great if you're looking for lots of lore hooks, but you're stuck with the meta story, or you have to twist it to fit your campaign, which defeats the purpose of having a shared setting where you can theoretically jump into a new group and know what's going on, lore wise.

What bothers me about Cyberpunk's setting is that I think it's on the horns of a dilemma. So much of the setting is based on 80's asthetics, and either you play it "future retro" or you try to make it something else, like Cybergeneration, where it leaves Cyberpunk behind for some kind of post-cyberpunk.

I guess I'd go with Shadowrun if I had to pick which is my favorite, but it's not a clean decision.

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Chris24601

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #12 on: December 02, 2020, 10:05:34 AM »
Cyberpunk, because it had rules to let you plug Mekton into it (powered armor, drones, automated cybertanks... you don't even NEED to build giant robots).

RandyB

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2020, 11:10:48 AM »
Cyberpunk, because it had rules to let you plug Mekton into it (powered armor, drones, automated cybertanks... you don't even NEED to build giant robots).

This. Oh, so much this.

thedungeondelver

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Re: Shadowrun vs. Cyberpunk
« Reply #14 on: December 03, 2020, 12:42:25 AM »
Cyberpunk, although it was already becoming laughably dated by the early 1990s and not even in a wholesome alt-history way.

I had Shadowrun but I found it to be very very "meh".
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