On December 21st, 2012, Catalyst Game Labs announced the Year of Shadowrun, the most ambitious release of games for Shadowrun in its almost twenty-five year history. With convention season set to begin, it is time to start getting these games to the players and fans. Read More

The third free preview of Shadowrun, Fifth Edition is now available! To review, the first preview had fiction and flavor text to help convey the look and feel of the game, while the second preview contained the Game Concepts chapter, giving the basic structure of the game. Read More

There are five different metatypes in Shadowrun: Crossfire: dwarf, elf, human, ork, and troll. Each metatype determines your starting cards in hand, starting nuyen, and starting and maximum hit points. Relatively minor variations in these three statistics end up providing a surprisingly large amount of variance in how each metatype plays. Read More

When we were planning the changes we were going to make in Shadowrun, Fifth Edition and we were thinking about what we wanted to do to magic, we decided that it did not need changes as extensive as the Matrix (see this post and this other post for info about those changes). The system essentially worked, and it was consistent with rules in the rest of the game, so a major overhaul did not seem to be in order. That’s not to say everything was perfect. Read More

We told you yesterday to be looking out for a new free preview of Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, and that preview is now available (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG). While the first preview focused on the look and feel of the game,  this one provides more rules content. It has a big load of the Game Concepts chapter, laying out the basic framework of the game, including tests, limits, attributes, uses of Edge, and so on. Enjoy!

Most deck-building games rely on competition for cards and victory to keep the action moving. Stalling on your turn in a competitive deck-building game is death. Heck, there’s even a mini-cottage industry commemorating Dominion’s fail-by-1 outcome of 7 coins. Read More

There is nothing that can make a fantastical setting feel more immersive than a really good setting shot. This is an incredibly effective way to help viewers instantly imagine what the world looks like, and it works very quickly. Whether it’s a simple camera shot showing the Ark of the Covenant being carted away into a warehouse full of treasures in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Syd Mead’s amazing matte-painted scenes of the cities for Blade Runner, all it takes is a couple well-designed shots to immerse the viewers to a world of intrigue and shadows. Read More

All right, you heard the announcement. You’ve seen the video. You’ve read some of the development blogs we’ve posted. You want more. You want to see what Shadowrun, Fifth Edition is going to look like, you want to read some of the text, you want to see some of the art we’ve been talking about. And you want it now, and you want it free. Read More