In 1989, FASA came out with a game that is in my personal Top 5 roleplaying games of all time, Shadowrun. The world is great, the art is great, and the game is great. But the current setup in 4th Edition contains so many issues, I have had to force myself to even try and GM it for my players. So I thought about it for a little bit and came up with four of my biggest issues I have with 4th Edition Shadowrun.

1 – Characters start out too powerful – This actually is more of a gripe for my players. When you create your character, if you know the system well you can start out with pretty much everything you need to be powerful. There isn’t a lot of room for growth. Sure, you could upgrade the quality of your Street Samurai’s cyberware. Or, you could start making money and acquiring karma for those new foci your Mage needs. But bottom line, your main attributes and skills can easily start out at, or near, their max. If you take a character that has five sessions under their belt and compare him to what he started out at, often you’re not going to see a lot of change with the power level.

2 – Initiative passes – Although unique, the combat system is based around a system that can contain up to four initiative passes. Characters with one initiative pass are about 25% as effective as a character with four initiative passes. Not to mention the fact that a player with a character that has one initiative pass can pretty much go do laundry after his turn. By the time initiative pass two, three, and four are complete and he can actually do something again, that first load of laundry should be done. This pretty much makes cyberware or magical gifts that enhance your initiative passes a necessity. My players and I developed a one initiative pass combat system to test out. Every character received one ‘turn’ and those with multiple initiative passes from cyberware or magic received a dice pool award each turn, depending upon how many passes they were supposed to get. It actually turned out great and everyone loved it, but it required a complete retooling of the combat system.

3 – Being able to get 100+ armor – Okay now hear me out. This is more of a problem with too many modifiers than an actual armor issue. But when I read about this in the forums I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Now, the thought of a character sitting inside a vehicle, wearing full riot gear, holding two riots shields, with Gel-Packs, and various magic spells on him does seem ridiculous and completely implausible in a game where the GM has any control. However, I have had two different players in my campaigns each make characters (one Street Samurai, one Physical Adept) that consistently had between 35-45 dice to resist damage, depending on the circumstances. Each character was by the book and were plausible to encounter in the Shadowrun world. This can make it very difficult for a GM to challenge his players in normal combat, not to mention the issues with rolling 35-45 dice.

4 – Character play styles that don’t mix – This thought process is a little more abstract, but I think is one that is starting to go away with revisions in the game. Basically, having a group like a Technomancer, Street Samurai, Street Shaman, and a more normal character, say an Investigator. This seems like it could be a balanced group. However, the Technomancer wants to get lost in the Matrix and solve problems that way. A Street Samurai is going to want to muscle or shoot his way through everything. The Street Shaman may just go into astral space and do some scouting around while everyone else is busy. And the Investigator (or any other ‘normie’) doesn’t have the abilities or cyberware to follow any of these characters where they are going. Instead of being a well-balanced team, this can turn into four individuals trying to solve a problem four different ways just because of the way the system is setup.

With all of this being said, Shadowrun still remains one of my favorite roleplaying games of all time. I’ve owned every edition of the game since it came out years ago. I have dozens of gaming books and have read most of the Shadowrun novels. But as the game continues to grow, the game seems to be growing more convoluted and problematic.

I’d love to hear how other GMs and players have dealt with some of these issues in their campaigns!