Hey Man, well this is Babylon

I can hear the unwashed thousands of die-hard old-schoolers right now, screaming cries of “blasphemy” and “heresy” at my entitlement of this post – but then again, I doubt any of them actually read this blog, so perhaps I’m just hallucinating. But for a second round of added emphasis, I will repeat: Shadowrun is finally awesome again.

That’s right. I said it. Shut up.

I first started playing the Shadowrun role-playing game in 1994, when the second edition rules were still in their prime. I remember my first clue that the game even existed was when I rented the Sega Genesis game cartridge of the same name because I recalled seeing the awesome logo on a few books in the sci-fi aisle at Books-a-Million. I ate that video game up like it was momma’s special garlic mashed potatoes with the skins in, oh so deliciously slightly lumpy. While devouring the awesome that was (and still is!) that video game, I learned that it was directly based upon a tabletop role-playing game of the same name. Being a gamer-in-the-making at that time, I rushed out and grabbed a sweet shiny copy of the core second edition rules, and was hooked ever since.

(Author’s Note: avoid the SNES version of the Shadowrun game if you are at all a fan of the setting. It really butchers it, and quite mercilessly so. And keep the Xbox 360 version away with a sharp object.)

The art on pages 9, 77, and 237 of the Second Edition rules book have forever been stuck in my mind as images of exactly what Shadowrun should be: hard, gritty, dirty and penultimately bad ass street-level cyberpunk grime. From the moment I started devouring that book (and all the supplements!), the art and writing style all cemented within my mind this vision of a dirty dystopian future, a vision of four days after tomorrow where an outright apocalypse never happened, but by all rights should have. To me, Shadowrun was about edge, cool, racism, bullets, blood, grime, and those three bad ass pictures drawn by the legendary Tim Bradstreet.

Somewhere along the line, that edge got dulled down, and instead of keeping it sharp, the designers replaced it with a purple inflatable hammer. Now don’t misunderstand me, here: I am actually one of those long-time devoted players who has truly felt that with each new edition of the game, the rules of play have done nothing but improve. Right from the release of each new edition, I embraced the changes and improvements, and eagerly pranced forth and bought all the new core supplements. No, the rules have only gotten better over time, and I will rarely say otherwise.

The dulling I speak of is entirely a matter of style. Shadowrun started as a game world rooted very firmly and obviously in the 1980 Gibsonian cyberpunk mythos, with a whole lot of weird fantasy thrown into the mix for flavor. But despite the presence of the mystical and the ready availability of traditional fantasy gaming tropes, the earlier supplements and novels all held true to that gritty cyberpunk edge. But over time, the style changed. The developers realized that the popularity of that 1980s dystopian vision of the future was fading, and they did what they felt they needed to do to keep making money off of Shadowrun: they turned it into a fucking anime.

I almost gave up on Shadowrun entirely when the Year of the Comet book was published. Published in the final years of the Third Edition lifespan, this book took the last vestiges of whatever waning elements of gritty style were left, chewed them up, and shat them out into the pages of a weeaboo-dripping book of pure and utter feces. The short version: Halley’s Comet comes back around, and in its wake a giant spirit dragon flies out of a rift and takes over Denver, the world is beset by zombies (ahem, “shedim”), and now every player has the option of playing furries (oh, excuse me, they call it “SURGE”). I paid cash money for that book, and felt violated after reading it. How did FASA go from publishing my favorite gaming supplement ever (Bug City – hell, I still have nightmares about that mosquito picture) to this drivel? After giving that book to Goodwill in disgust, I turned my back on buying any new Shadowrun products, clinging lovingly to those I already had and holing up like the crotchety old grognard I felt I had become.

When Fanpro published the Fourth Edition rules, I risked ending my Shadowrun hermitage for a chance at potential change. Alas, while I loved the amazingly improved rules system, I saw that the developers had even further strayed from the original core themes of the game. Hell, the art in the Fourth Edition core rules is some of the worst art I’ve seen in a long time for a book of that supposedly-high production quality. I fully believe that when you buy a gaming book, you’re buying not only the rules of the game, but also the complete imaginative experience that those rules are supposed to facilitate at your gaming table. When you pay forty or more dollars for a book, that book had better rock your rocks. The art in this book just didn’t evoke the Shadowrun I had grown to love – the Shadowrun of 4th edition was tight and smooth, but utterly devoid of soul. It was like really terrible fan fiction. My solution: port the newer, more playable rules to the old established style, and root all my games firmly in 2055.

This new 20th Anniversary edition of the 4th Edition rules has fixed all of that for me. From the moment you open the book and see the original First Edition cover staring back at you on the first page, you know that actual love was poured into the creation of this book. Each piece of artwork in the book is either brand new and perfectly styled for the feel of the setting, or pulled from the pages and covers of products as far back as the very beginning. Seeing visual shoutouts to the covers of both Shadowtech and Downtown Militarized Zone almost brought tears to my eyes. This book took the new rules, which I love, and combined them with a visual feel that once again (finally) returned to the grittier, less-ridiculous cyber-grunge feel that I loved from my very first encounter with the game, way back when.

So I repeat: Thanks, Catalyst. Someone finally got it right again, and I’m glad it was you. I look forward to more awesome products like this.