Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN num: 9781555603717
ISBN number: 1555603718
Label: FASA Corp.
Manufacturer: FASA Corp.
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 334
Printing Date: 1998-11
Publishing house: FASA Corp.
Sale Popularity Level: 91871
Studio: FASA Corp.
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This third edition features a completely new look and feel for today's science fiction and fantasy fan. The core rules remain the same but are written in an easier to use style to help new players understand the game yet keep older players interested. of colour illustrations.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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One of a series of cyberpunk role-playing games that is also crossed with elemental summoning and magic. This Third Edition bring more clarity and speed to the players who enjoy this game, and to the referees who need quick resolution of tasks and combat.
While speeding up the character creation and combat systems, Jordan Weisman and his cohorts put together an awesome resource for the proliferation of this gaming series: "Shadowrun".
Bringing the Second Edition into the Third, there are tables for use to convert some of the basics from the 2nd edition to the 3rd. Magics and summoning have been refined and added to, to make this new 3rd edition a much more fluid and viscous gaming system.
This is also one of many games in my RPG collection, and a MUST HAVE if your are planning to purchase 4th Edition "Shadowrun." And grab some of the supplemental material for any of the previous iterations, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. This additional information is invaluable for extended play in the "barrens of Seattle" and the twisted convolution of the world that we so knew. Science fiction at its finest!
I play. I have friends who play. I am looking forward to playing the "Shadowrun" game for the XBOX 360, based in part on the 3rd Edition and grounded sharply on the 4th.
Rated by buyers 
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I love the Shadowrun setting, and like the rules, and can say that if you are a fan this is a great book to own, with rules changes and flavor/background text that make it worth having. However, if you want to start playing Shadowrun this is not the book to get. Produced during the final disintegration of FASA as a functioning company it is riddled with major errors and inconsistancies. It is painfully obvious that the editors were the very first people layed off, and they couldn't even be bothered to offer a copy of the book to a dedicated fan to look it over before the print run. There are many small errors and huge, glaring ones, like half the text on one page being repeated, suddely and exactly, on another page. If you want to start playing the game, I recommend either the Fourth edition, for a preference, which is a new, well edited, book with a sturdy binding, produced by FanPro, along with a set of improvements and innovations that does make it better than previous editions. Alternately get the old second edition, a much more usable book than third, although with a classic FASA disintigrating binding.
Rated by buyers -
Despite complaints from other reviewers this game plays very well for both new and old players alike. Adjusting the rules to fit any groups taste is easy and smooth, as the rules share little dependance on one another. The setting is varied enough to allow for play as heros, villians, neutral factions, or any thing imaginable. Play from the grimy urban, to the slick corps, to the lightly associated tribes of the north west.
Rated by buyers 
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Like lots of game books, this one includes two main elements, an introduction the Shadowrun setting and the rules. The setting is a creative mix of "cyberpunk" technology and fantasy, in a grim dystopic world. The rules are an awful mess.
What I like about the setting is that it offers a detailed future history that explains how all the technology and fantasy elements ended up in the same setting. It feels reasonably self-consistent. The only serious hole is the idea that a mishap with a computer plugged into a character's brain could injure the character. Who would build a computer-brain interface without the firewalls and surge protection necessary to prevent a software-domain mishap from causing physical harm? Who would use such a product? Temporary disorientation makes sense, but physical harm doesn't. That's a common cyberpunk convention, however; even _The Matrix_ follow it.
Along with the technology and fantasy ideas of the setting, there is the social system. The world of Shadowrun is an amoral dystopia where corporate power eclipses all governments. Money can buy anything, even military might, without meaningful restraint of laws or governments; the police are corporate employees who protect corporate interests, but protect ordinary citizens only incidentally. In short, it is pure Libertarianism.
In the typical campaign style, player characters start as ordinary low-lifes, with just enough extra power to allow them to take jobs as deniable corporate covert forces. They take jobs that their corporate backers prefer to keep clear of their acknowledged employees -- in other words, thuggery that would be illegal in a setting where law meant anything -- in hopes of gaining greater powers with their corporate payola. There are alternatives to that campaign style -- one could even be a noble "street doctor" out to elevate the quality of life of the masses -- but the setting material doesn't offer much support for such alternatives. In short, player characters are likely to be hoods, not Robin Hoods.
A player's liking for the setting will depend on a few things. Some people will like the fantasy-cyberpunk hybrid; others will not. The gloomy dystopia of the social setting will appeal to some players, and be depressing to others. The opportunity to be a small-time villain struggling to become a big-time villain will appeal to some, but put off those who want to be heroes. A game-master with the creativity to offer heroic opportunities to players can avert the villain issue, but removing the fantasy-cyberpunk and social dystyopia elements would make something that is no longer Shadowrun.
While the setting is a question of taste, the game mechanics are a wreck of cumbersome rules. Anyone who likes the setting should ignore the rules, substitute something playable. GURPS, FUDGE, Hero, and even d20 are all improvements on the native Shadowrun rule set.
The rules are extremely elaborate -- more complicated than GURPS or Hero -- but also very abstract, along the lines of d20. Normally, elaborate rules are meant to provide a feeling of detailed simulation. For example, GURPS tries hard to give every rule a justification that improves the feeling of realism, and does a pretty good job of it. In contrast, abstract rules are meant to favor quick, simple play, at the cost of leaving a lot of details to the imagination, or even reducing them to statistics without a clear connection to the world of the characters. The d20 rules do a good job of this, offering fairly simple game mechanics, but offering no quantitative connection between game-mechanic statistics and measurements in the world of the characters.
The standard Shadowrun rules provide the worst of each rule design style. They are even more complicated and detailed than GURPS or Hero. It's difficult to reduce the complexity of the rules by dropping optional rules, because cutting rules is likely to break the rules that remain. But beyond comparative differences, the game statistics lack any perceptible connection to the characters. (For example, in GURPS one inch of steel armour equals 20 Damage Resistance, and in Hero each 5 Strength doubles the weight a character can lift.) The sole exception is money, which means the same thing to the characters as to their players.
The standard Shadowrun rules also suffer in comparison to d20. The absence of a strong link between game statistics and the statistics a character could perceive makes both rule sets abstract. But in d20 the abstraction does a good job of speeding game play. One rolls to hit, then rolls damage, with addition-only arithmetic and a linear probabilities that are comprehensible to a math-shy child; all non-combat tests are resolved with the same one-roll mechanism. With Shadowrun, one assigns dice pools, rolls initiative to calculate the number and order of actions in a round, assigns ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
I liked the idea of shadowrun very much, and once I learned how to play I enjoyed the simple runs that we had; however, the advanced aspects of shadowrun (e.g. magic, decking, rigging and vehicles, etc.) had very complicated and convoluted rules. First off, the magic section makes very little sense with regards to the drain and mana system, and the aspected magician isn't explained at all. Secondly, the Matrix uses overcomplicated rules for even simple tasks. The technical jargon used was quite confusing. Another nuisance was the shotty binding (mine plus two other books are falling apart). I reccomend waiting for the subsequent edition to come out because of these reasons. The game is fun, just not very clear.
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