Shadow Run

The year is 2072.  Science has advanced until robotic drones, cybernetic augmentations, enhanced biological organs are common place.  Nanotechnology is found in everything from glowing, shape-shifting tattoos to bleeding edge weaponry.  Parallel to scientific advances, magic has returned to  the world, bringing elves, dwarves, orcs, trolls, dragons, vampires, spells, enchanted weapons, spirits, and many other legends to life.  The maps have been redrawn; North America has been carved into at least six soverign nations (depending on how you define "soverign."

Many would argue that it's a moot point, because the world is truly controlled by the megacorporations - colossal financial entities that have extraterritorial rights on any property  they own, and they own almost everything.  But even these megacorps have legal limits that the public cannot see them break.  Therefore, they hire disposable, denial assets to conduct assassinations, sabotage, reconnaissance, kidnapping, subterfuge, and any other dirty deeds that  their agendas require.

These assets run in the long, dark shadows cast by  the towering skyscrapers and arcologies that house  the megacorps.  These shadowrunners are the characters that people play in the game, and they may be honorable robin hood types, ruthless killers, obsessed wit revenge, a true mercenary, or just trying to survive in a world that is always dangerous but almost never makes sense.

They may be street samurai - fierce fighters who rely on cybernetic or other technological enhancements to make them stronger faster, and dealier.  They may be mages - arcane individuals who can cast devastating spells, summon powerful spirits, or fight magical threats directly on the Astral Plane.  They may be hackers  - super nerds who can use the wireless world wide web to find information, plant false information, steal control of facility security measures, fight digital threats in the virtual reality world known as the Matrix, or commandeer a street samurai's cyber arm and punch him in the face with his own hand.  They may be riggers - a variation of a hacker  that uses his skills to pilot vehicles and robotic drones at the speed of thought.  They may be physical adepts - arcane warriors that use their magical power to increase  thier skills, strength, speed, and senses to superhuman levels.  They may be any combination of these broad character types, because  there are no classes, and few restrictions.  A character is defined only by what he knows how to do.

They may use any weapon imaginable.  Adepts may use their bare hands, augmented with magic to the point where they can shatter steel with a punch.  Mages cast spells that can bake a man from the inside out, or they may use spirits to to their fighting for them, or they may rely on an enchanted sword or a trusty rifle.  Riggers use a staggering array of weaponized vehicles and drones.  Street samurai use cybernetic blades, swords, stun maces, pistols, submachine guns, assault rifles, combat shotguns, laser weapons, heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, assault cannons, missile launchers, grenade launchers, and anything else  they can get their hands on.

Once the rules are understood, the character and equipment combinations are nearly endless.

Shadow Run has many incarnations and has been owned by a number of publishing companies since its introduction in 1989, but at it's core, it is a pen-and-paper roleplaying  game set in the not-so-distant future (version four, the most current, is set in 2072.)  I've played a number of RPGs over the years, but Shadow Run is the one I keep coming back to, because it's setting is so amazing, and the game system allows for so many different kinds of adventures, and there's almost no limit to the characters a person can play.  Shadow Run influenced my understanding of magic in my Heretic's Quest novels, and is a direct influence on Shadow Infraction.

I hadn't played in almost a decade, when a few friends told me that they'd like me to consider game mastering a pen-and-paper game for them.  I agreed to do it, on the condition that I picked the game.  The Shadow Run books came off the shelf, and we got started.  The Shadow Run pages on thsi site contain the player characters, non player characters, custom rules, adventures, and other files that I have created during our games.  Please feel free to use them if you like. I ask only that you give me some credit and a link back to this site.