The other day a friend mentioned that there’s a Bundle of Holding for Shadowrun Third Edition. This proved irresistible to me as I remember the game very fondly and did at one time play a little. Over the past couple of days, the desire to read and immerse myself in the world of Shadowrun (as was) has grown. This is surprising to me.
What’s going on? To be sure, I have tried to get into Shadowrun in recent years through both the Fifth and Sixth Editions. I collected the Fourth Edition but found myself essentially bouncing off all three. Reading Third Edition in the past couple of days, however, I’ve found myself drawn in.
Some say that there was a radical shift between the Third and Fourth Editions that somehow made them distinct. To quote the promo blurb for the bundle:
Shadowrun Third Edition is widely admired as the last version of the original rules before the 2005 Fourth Edition took the game in new directions.
I’m not expert enough to know what those “new directions” mean but I do know that the 1998 Shadowrun’s “Quick Start Rules” resonate with me in ways I didn’t expect. The blend of cyberpunk and fantasy has always appealed and perhaps it’s the mention of rules that are intended to bring the world to life that works.
Who knows if I’ll ever get it to the table but the interesting thing to me is that I’ve found myself drawn in. This hasn’t been happening for a long time – generally, I bounce off games that present a world plus specialised rules because I don’t want to learn myriad systems – but I have experienced a kind of calm curiosity for Shadowrun.
Perhaps my time in the Shadows has arrived.
Game on!
Roleplay Rescue’s Blog 
I started playing Shadowrun with 2nd edition and still think 2nd and 3rd edition are the best versions of the game (3rd is not very different from 2nd; it is a tad more complex and has a few balance changes here and there).
Editions 1-3 had a common ruleset that was iterated upon in small steps based on years of player feedback and the big changes were from 1st to 2nd edition.
4th edition saw a complete revamping of the ruleset with the goal of streamlining a lot of mechanics. Unfortunately, in my opinion this also threw out a lot of the unique charm of the game.
4th edition also tried to bring the setting to the then-current line of near-future SF thinking in terms of computing, augmented and virtual reality etc.
Shadowrun has chased the constantly changing picture of the future ever since and this has been a great detriment to a quite original and intriguing setting in my opinion.
5th edition is to 4th what 3rd was to 2nd, i.e. a very similar ruleset with a limited number of changes, not all to the better.
6th saw *another* complete restructuring of the rules and the final step to kitchensink gonzo worldbuilding (if you can even call it that). In my perception, Shadowrun has pretty much fallen off the edge of the world with 6th edition in terms of on- and offline presence at gaming tables.
I owned every edition of Shadowrun at some point in my life and have now reduced my collection to the core rulebooks and choice supplements of editions 1-3.
SR 2 and 3 do everything I want from the game.
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