Getting Eyes on Shadowrun

Shadowrun has been a problematic fave of mine for decades. I first fell in love with the game when I saw its cover and blurb in the FASA catalogue way back in 1992. I was deep into early urban fantasy at the time, and the simultaneous use of indigenous inspired art from the Pacific Northwest and having Seattle as a base setting were like fire for my imagination. After all, I was a kid in rural BC and this game was actually happening in places I was familiar with and had art cues I’d grown up around. In a world where everything focused on New York and Europe, this was amazing. Then I had a chance to read it. So, let’s get some eyes on Shadowrun, because I’m going to be writing more about it in the future.

Background

The 1980’s were a wild time in tabletop RPGs. Companies and games were sprouting up everywhere, TSR’s AD&D and BX were being challenged all over the place, and the concept of “cyberpunk” was taking root. Cyberpunk 2013 released in 1988, and in 1989, FASA followed that act with their science-fantasy take on cyberpunk, Shadowrun. The game was lauded for its layout and core mechanic, but was panned for its clumsy inclusion of fantasy elements into a cyberpunk setting. However, it was IMMEDIATELY popular, quickly becoming a staple game for the period and have six editions (SR6E is the current edition).

Understanding Shadowrun’s Popularity

Few games kickoff as hard as Shadowrun did, especially in the pre-social media early internet period it came from. But what made it so popular? To be frank, it was the setting. Shadowrun was released into near perfect circumstances. Urban fantasy was developing. Cyberpunk had become an established genre. The punk scene was thriving. And TSR was failing to provide a good option for people to play elves and dwarves in a modern or futuristic setting. Then on top of all that, FASA was a known entity to stores and distributors. It was right place, right time, right people, right audience.

Breaking Boundaries… And Not

Shadowrun, on its initial release, was both of its time and incredibly transgressive against the norms of world building.

On the downside, there were, and are still, a lot of aspects of the Sixth World that are deeply rooted in 1980’s xenophobia, anti-Asian fears, and midwestern USA stereotypes about the world outside of the USA and nearby Canada. Africa and Ireland standout as particularly egregious examples of this that have persisted forwards. There’s also issues around the thematic inspirations for the non-humans of the Sixth World that are a confused mess of mutually exclusive influences that were smashed together with little thought about coherency. That Gygax classic, bioessentialism, also raises it head in the design work for the world.

However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Of the mainstream cyberpunk genre games, Shadowrun arguably embraced the “punk” aspects harder than its competitors. It was also one of the first games to recognize the indigenous peoples of North America in a far less stereotypical way, granting them real agency and power within the setting. Shadowrun was also an early forerunner of LGBTQ+ representation. It also did significant work pioneering the unreliable narrator method of narrative building in the setting; in that many of the facts presented in the text were firm, but the in-world narratives around them differed and could even conflict if their were multiple ones. It all culminated to create an immersive world that’s still the game’s greatest strength.

The Good Stuff

In all honesty, science-fantasy is hard to come by. Dungeonpunk, magictech, or Star Wars style action is found at the extreme poles of the genre, but few properties try to actually live somewhere in the middle. Rifts is one, Shadowrun is another. So Shadowrun gets some well deserved props here for trying to balance magic and technology in a way that neither really overshadows the other, and that both aren’t strictly needed to play. And I mean that, you can go magic heavy or tech heavy and, broadly, the game still works. Things can get challenging, but they work.

Like many games set in near future settings, Shadowrun struggles with the increasing burden of being an alternate timeline. Unlike a lot of them, it does a decent job carrying that alternate technological timeline. It’s a bit janky sometimes, but it works and the designers deserve credit for that. They also never lost sight of the 80’s style consumerism that gave the game so much of its vibe, and that’s part of what keeps the game feeling right even as time passes.

Vehicles. Shadowrun has always had a place for vehicles in its core design and conceptualization, way past the “horses are motorcycles” issues that so many games have. And through every edition of Shadowrun, a concerted effort has been made to keep vehicles and drones relevant. This alone adds a very accessible dimension to the game that players can get into, even if they aren’t Riggers.

The Racism

Shadowrun’s Sixth World is a strong and immersive setting. It’s also got a serious issue with racism that has never really been addressed in a serious way. Instead, it’s been downplayed and retained as a core narrative component in the game. For all intents and purposes, the setting directly imported the racism Gygax wrote into AD&D and called it a day, replacing normal racism with an unpleasant blend of normal racism and fantasy racism. Now, I can understand tensions owing to how fantasy races arrived on Earth; I can get there being supremacist groups; I can even see the logic in setting (terrible as it is) in the whole “create an ethnostate” thing. But the game does too much to normalize this, and refuses to acknowledge what happens to ethnostates and similarly restrictive and regressive societies (hint: they don’t last long or thrive). I also can say from personal experience that there are players and GMs out there too happy to lean into it because it’s “part of the setting”. Also, between major events and conflicts, 25% of the planet’s population has died and it’s not a huge step to realize that cultures would change between 2011 and 2085 making these attitudes less acceptable and less normalized.

It’s unfortunate to have that as a baseline, and SR6e is still in that hole. But it extended from there to harmful stereotypes as well. For example, the game designers subbed in HMHVV (a virus that makes you a vampire/ghoul) for HIV and made it a big part of the paragraph describing Africa in 2085. It’s not good world building and it hurts the game’s ability to find new audiences in the modern hobby’s ecosystems.

Challenges Moving Forward

As I see it, Shadowrun has three challenges to overcome to thrive in the modern day.

The first is the evolution of its setting. Like Pathfinder, it’s a game that is deeply linked with a single setting. And it can’t be easily separated from it. And that’s okay, provided the developers are willing to drop problematic aspects and do needed retcons to drag the game’s setting forward culturally. I’m not saying it has to be a Star Fleet style, we’re all friends operation; but it needs to drop things like systemic racism as a major narrative and world building point.

The next is its mechanics. Shadowrun was applauded for its mechanics in the 80’s, because there weren’t a lot of other options at the time. But there are now and it doesn’t play as smoothly as it needs to. Crunch is fine, but the experience at the table needs to smooth. And Shadowrun has never been there. Whether its an extensive overhaul of the existing system or the development of a new one, something needs to happen to make the gameplay experience better outside the roleplay parts.

And finally, there’s outreach. Shadowrun has had a rough go, being passed between several publishers since FASA folded, and it’s not gaining new players at the rate it should be given today’s real world political and social climate. I think that contributing factors to this include things I’ve outlined in this article, and that the current owner, Catalyst Game Labs, doesn’t support the game in ways that will contribute to active growth. They only launched a community content program on DTRPG in April of this year, but they don’t feature content from it, and they also don’t spotlight the active Shadowrun live plays/actual plays happening that they aren’t affiliated with. So in essence, they aren’t doing much to develop the fanbase.

Can Shadowrun Evolve?

Sure it can. It already is. But it’s not going to be able to explode like it did before unless some big steps are taken at multiple levels of its operation. It needs some work to make it smoother mechanically. It needs to drop racism as a core component. And Catalyst Game Labs needs to cultivate, interact with, and spotlight the active fanbase. It’s a proven strategy that doesn’t cost them much but that can pay dividends down the road. All of these could, in my opinion, drive a lot more interest in the game.

Final Thoughts

Honestly, I never saw myself reading or writing about Shadowrun, but it’s cropped up enough lately that here I am. In its current state, it’s still in my “problematic fave” category, with a note that says I’ll play but only with certain people. I’m still going through content from SR1E to SR6E, and I’ll definitely be looking at the world building and lore of the place in future. And honestly, I hope that this game can evolve, because it’s still loaded with so much potential and is in a genre that’s underserved at best. So should you pick up a copy? Yeah, it’s the most heavily supported and developed science fantasy tabletop RPG out there! Just be aware of what you’re getting into, because like a lot of vintage IP, it carries baggage from its earliest development phases that aren’t in sync with the demands of the modern scene.