Shadowrun: Mindblown is a new novella by Aaron Rosenberg, out now from Catalyst Game Labs on DriveThruFiction. It’s a 75-page PDF for $3.99, which works out to about a nickel a page. That’s a low price for a full-length Shadowrun story.

The setup: street samurai Payas, mage Hitoshi and rigger Zurita make their nuyen running escort jobs for two rival South American cartels. Then the two cartels find out about each other, and the trio is on the outs with both. Short on cash and stuck in the city of Tarapoto, they take a drug run from a mysterious stranger named Cort. Cort turns out to be far more than he seems, and his cargo is Mindblown, the deadliest new drug on the market. When the run goes wrong, the team goes after him for revenge, and stopping him may cost more than they want to pay.

Rosenberg’s name also turns up on several other Catalyst titles, such as Shadowrun: Magic, Machines, and Mayhem, and Shadowrun: Drawing Destiny, so I’d say he has some experience under his belt. Check it out…

Cover art is by Takashi Tan.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of role-playing games out there – maybe even tens of thousands. They all look and act differently, but at their core they are all about gamers sitting around a table, taking on the roles of larger-than-life characters. Dice and character statistics are involved to mitigate actions fairly, while the act of role-playing is largely left ungoverned. When I say ungoverned, I’m referring to the game system’s rules – individual gaming groups (and GMs in particular) often step in to referee the act of role-playing, based on personal preferences.

In this article, I’m going to suggest a way to role-play your character, based on his inherent abilities, stats, or attributes. If you refer to the article’s title, it says “The Easy Way.” Nowhere today will I say what is the best, or the correct way, only what I feel to be the easiest.

I’ve been gaming for decades, and I’ve run the gamut of play-styles from fast and loose to strict and straight. In some games, the GM (myself included) has said that players need to play their characters according to their stat ratings, while others have said that it doesn’t matter what the numbers are – just play how you play.

You know what I’m talking about: the character with a low Logic or Charisma (perhaps a dump stat), played by a gamer who portrays them with exceptional Logic or Charisma.

“That’s a great plan, but according to your sheet, your character’s Logic is a 1.”

“That’s a smooth way to talk Mr. Johnson into upping the pay, but your Charisma stat says otherwise.”

I know you’ve come across this, because I’ve seen it over and over again. Well, I gotta say that I’ve grown pretty tired of it. After talking with a buddy the other day, I’ve decided that from now on I’m going to handle “playing by the numbers” the easy way.

There are rules in place to show how well your character fires his rifle, scales the wall, or rigs his drone. You simply roll the dice, count your hits, and the result determines your level of success. Well, what about trying to convince Mr. Johnson to help your cause? Roll the dice, count your hits, and the result determines your level of success.

Now, since this is a role-playing game, you’re going to need to actually speak (otherwise, you’re not playing a role). Where it gets muddy is in your oration – how much and how well you actually role-play it out can (in some groups) modify your roll. Oftentimes, a player is penalized (via house-rule) for not putting much effort into his oration, even if he has built his character to be the grandmaster face. Other times, the player gains a bonus to Con or Negotiation if he spits out some great soliloquy, even if he’s playing the tongue-tied troll.

When your bulky, super-strong street samurai kicks in a door, all that is required is a stat roll. By that token, the same simple process should be required to solve a puzzle, or intimidate a group of NPCs. But it isn’t. This is a role-playing game, and most of us want to see at least some effort of role-playing when it comes to our mental stats. The problem is that everyone has different views on how the role-playing aspect of the game should be played.

Your version of “below average Logic” may be different from mine, and you simply may wish to portray that differently than I. I may not wish to portray that at all. Intelligence can be described many ways. I may have sky-high SAT scores, but in actuality, be dumber than a stone. There are simply too many character characteristics and player opinions to dictate how a stat should be played.

And that is why this part of the game is not covered in the rules. It simply can’t be governed universally from player to player, group to group.

“So, how do you solve the puzzle so everyone is happy?”

Well, first of all, if this is not causing any kind of problem in your group, and isn’t a puzzle, then it doesn’t need to be solved. Take the rest of this article as a flavor tool to spice up your character, and that’s it. If this does need to be addressed in your game, then take the following idea to heart.

Some players like to role-play their stats religiously (to a scale that they feel is appropriate), while others don’t care what the number is – they’re going to play how they’re going to play, and the numbers are simply there to build dice pools. Neither way is right or wrong; it’s just preference.

So, here’s a compromise. Players, pick one or more of the following aspects for your character for any mental attribute that you feel is below average. It’s completely up to you to decide on how many, as well as what attribute they fall under. Instead of playing a not-so-smart character “like an idiot,” or an uncharismatic character “like a social dipstick,” apply one or more of the following:

• The character has trouble with memory. The player never writes down any game notes, so the character is forced to work off of his player’s memory.
• The character has trouble with math (and keeps getting his cut of the nuyen wrong).
• The character has trouble with reading.
• The character has a twitch in his eye, one that the player shows at the table, often.
• The character simply dresses like he’s definitely not from the sprawl, perhaps even from another continent.
• The character spits in the face of authority at the slightest provocation, especially corp security and Lone Star.
• The character has a weak spot for beautiful women (or men!).
• The character is very gullible.
• The character sees conflict in only black and white.
• The character is too stubborn for his own good.
• The character has an irrational fear of something common, like elevators or rain.
• The character simply does not think in terms of strategy. Simple and direct is the way to go.
• The character is rude and crass. Good manners are beyond him (or it’s simply easier to not care).
• The character periodically has conversations with his invisible friend (probably a spirit; probably).
• The character is a bit snobbish, especially around the SINless.
• The character is well-balanced – he has a chip on both shoulders.

I like using quirks and traits (like those above) because they’re a good compromise in how I role-play my character’s mental stats. Also, as an added bonus, they add to my character’s character in fun and creative ways.

Wrapping it up…

If a player has the most fun role-playing his stats one way, and another player has the most fun role-playing his stats the complete opposite way, who am I to say either is right or wrong? For me, the attribute + skill + dice roll determines the outcome. Let the player add whatever roleplaying correlation that he’s comfortable with.

If a player character has a low Logic, I don’t cry foul when his player comes up with a great idea or solution in-game – if it’s a good idea that should work, then it works. But, for something that requires a die roll, I simply let the stats and dice figure out the results. His low Logic will affect what it needs to, which is the dice pool. Role-playing can certainly affect any given situation, but it’s the final number that settles any unresolved issues.

I have completely obliterated one part of gaming that has been stressful, because I no longer feel it is my job to police how others play their characters. Understand that everyone gets enjoyment out of the game in different ways, which is why the rules really never try to govern role-playing.

This is a gamer’s reading of public policies, not legal advice. If real money is involved, ask Catalyst or an actual lawyer.

You’ve thought about it. A homebrew adventure, a better character sheet, maybe a wiki or a whole VTT. Then a little voice asks whether you’re even allowed. The honest answer is “depends,” which I hate as much as you do. It depends on whether you’re selling it and how much of Catalyst’s material you copy.

Who owns the toys

Shadowrun, Sixth World and Matrix, along with their logos, are trademarks of The Topps Company. Catalyst Game Labs licenses the game from them, and the Catalyst logo belongs to InMediaRes Productions. Catalyst spells this out in a legal notice that has to appear on any fan product sold through their program. It’s worth keeping in mind for everything else here.

The front door

If you want to sell Shadowrun fan material, Catalyst has a program for it called Holostreets, hosted on DriveThruRPG. It’s open to any edition, from First through Sixth World, and any year of the timeline from 1999 on. Your work is non-canon, so you can tell the stories you want without touching the official setting. You can even use established characters, though that doesn’t make your version official.

The rules are what you’d expect. Nothing explicit, with Catalyst’s test being “Blade Runner 2049 or John Wick” rather than anything harder. Nothing that promotes discrimination. Nothing from other settings, and they name BattleTech and Earthdawn specifically, which surprised me. On art, you can only use the packs Catalyst provides or art you have rights to, and AI-generated art can get a product pulled. Every product carries the Shadowrun and Holostreets logos plus that legal notice. Revenue splits three ways between the host site, Catalyst and you, so you do get paid.

Everything else

Free fan content is where the map runs out. I looked and couldn’t find a Catalyst policy covering free sheets, wikis, tools or blog posts. Their AI statement says they can’t control free community content that uses AI, but that’s about AI. Nobody should read it as a blanket permission slip, and I’d be wary of anyone who does.

What fans actually do is pretty consistent. Fan-made Foundry VTT systems for Shadowrun Anarchy call themselves unofficial, repeat the trademark notice and tell you to own the rulebook. The system supplies the tools and you bring the content. Fan-made sheets and hacks credit their sources and write their own text.

That points to a simple rule. A tool that starts empty and lets players type in their own stuff is a very different animal from one that ships with Catalyst’s gear tables or rules text inside it. The same goes for wikis. Your own summaries, your own house rules and links to the official books are one thing. Copied book text is another.

My rules of thumb (rule of thumbs?)

These are habits, not official policy. Write original material and explain rules in your own words. Use your own art or art you’re licensed to use. Put an unofficial-fan-project notice and the trademark text on your pages, and don’t suggest Catalyst endorses you or borrow their logos as your own. If you plan to charge money, take it through Holostreets or ask first.

That last part is the main reason to email Catalyst, and there’s no need to wait on it before you start building. A free site is one thing. A site that earns money while wearing their trademark is another, so ask before the money shows up. Catalyst has a contact page, a short polite note costs nothing, and a written yes is worth more than any amount of guessing.

Every heist movie has the moment. The guard opens the vault, finds it empty, and the film cuts back to three days earlier, when the crew swapped the shipment out from under his nose. Flashbacks let your table pull the same trick, and they solve one of the oldest problems in roleplaying: planning.

Most groups have lived through it. The team spends two hours planning a run, argues over every detail, and still misses the one thing that matters. Flashbacks let you skip most of that. Start the session at the front door and fill in the preparation when it becomes relevant.

The Heist Flashback

This is the big one, and it’s the reason flashbacks caught on. Blades in the Dark built its whole heist system around it, and the idea works in almost any game.

The job starts mid-action. When the team hits a problem, a player calls a flashback and describes what their character did earlier to prepare: memorizing the patrol route, copying the gatekeeper’s key, hiding a sedative in the guard dog’s dinner. If the prep was risky, they roll for it. Then play cuts back to the present with the problem solved.

Shadowrun is practically built for this. Legwork is famous for eating whole sessions, and a flashback lets it happen in the moment instead. As a house rule, let a runner spend a point of Edge to flash back to the legwork: the security tech they bribed, the maglock passkey they bought from their fixer, the floor plans the decker lifted last week.

Three rules keep it from breaking the game:

1. It costs something. Edge, stress, or a limited number per run. Free flashbacks solve everything.
2. It has to be plausible. Nobody flashes back to “I already had the vault code” unless someone could actually have gotten it.
3. It can go wrong. A failed roll means the prep happened but went badly. The guard took the bribe and then sold you out.

The Backstory Flashback

Players love writing three-page backstories that nobody else reads. Flashbacks get that history into play instead.

When a moment calls for it, a player can set a short scene from their character’s past that ties to what’s happening now. They say where and when, the other players take on the NPCs, and the whole thing lasts a couple of minutes. In return, the player gets a small bonus on the roll at hand.

The street sam about to take on a ganger twice her size flashes back to the first fight she ever won. The decker facing nasty ICE remembers the first system that nearly fried his brain. The table learns who these people are, mid-fight, at exactly the moment it matters.

Keep the scenes short and the bonus small. Players will limit themselves, since a flashback is only fun when there’s a story to tell.

The Life-Changing Moment

Save this for the big stuff. Each character gets one or two defining moments from their past, written down at character creation. When a roll would kill them, the player can spend one: play out the moment that made them who they are, and the failed roll becomes a survival. It’s rare, it’s dramatic, and the table remembers it for years.

The GM’s Flashback

GMs can use flashbacks too. Open a session in the middle of a firefight, then cut back to the meet with Mr. Johnson to show how the team got there. Or reveal a run’s real story gradually, one flashback per session, until the players realize the job wasn’t what they thought.

Be careful with the “this stranger is actually an old friend” reveal. It works once. After that it feels cheap.

The Stakes Are Still Real

A character can’t die in a flashback, since we already know they made it to the present. That doesn’t make flashbacks safe. A contact can get burned, gear can get used up, and a fear that wasn’t faced in the past can follow the runner into the present. Death isn’t the only thing on the line.

A flashback is like a fixer’s favor: you don’t need it until you really do, and it always costs something.

Try one next session and see what happens. You may never plan a run the old way again.

Chummers, the new rules-light take on the Sixth World is here. Shadowrun: Anarchy 2.0 hit DriveThruRPG this week as a PDF, and the print edition hits retail on November 11…

It was built by Black Book Editions, the team that has handled the French edition of Shadowrun for over 20 years, with Catalyst Game Labs publishing in English. It funded on Kickstarter earlier this year.

What you need to know:

• Standalone. The book and a handful of six-siders are all you need to run it.
• Newcomer friendly. It includes a setting primer, so you don’t need decades of metaplot.
• A big NPC gallery to fill out your sessions.
• A four-part campaign for beginners and veterans alike.
• Works with every edition. Shadowrun books from any edition can be used alongside it.

How it plays

Anarchy 2.0 keeps Shadowrun’s signature pools of six-sided dice, with 5s and 6s counting as hits. You build a pool from an attribute plus a skill, then roll against an opposing pool or a set number of dice. It’s built to cut bookkeeping compared to the full Sixth World rules. New to this edition are risk dice, where a 5 or 6 counts as two hits, but a 1 is a critical failure.

The bigger shift is how the story gets told. The GM sets the scene, then each player narrates what their character does, and the dice help decide how well it works. Players steer the story with a personal narrative resource, earned through legwork and spent mid-run to overcome obstacles on the fly. The group can also build a shared pool during planning. The default is classic GM-led narration, with optional rules for shared narration or even playing without a GM.

At the table, that means less book-diving and more “what do you do?” Expect fast action and loose scene structure. It isn’t exactly rules-light, but is a lot easier to learn than any of the core editions of Shadowrun, so think of it as the middle ground.

PDF: DriveThruRPG

We’ll be digging in and sharing more soon. Stay frosty out there.

I’ve been into RPGs for a while, and I’ve enjoyed both playing and running. I’d split it about 50/50, so I’ve had my share of game masters to learn from and plenty of time to settle on my own style.

I recently sat in a game with a brand new GM, and (as usual) I had a grand time. It was his first session running. He’d played in the game for a couple of years, and he’s one of those people who can read a book and remember everything, so he knows the rules well. He did a good job.

Except for one moment.

Right in the middle of combat, a player interpreted a rule in their favor, and the GM interpreted it another way. They went back and forth, even citing forums, and both were getting frustrated, especially the player. I wanted to chime in with my own two cents, but I and everyone else just waited. After a couple of minutes, the player gave in and the game resumed.

There are a lot of ways to handle this, and it depends on what your table prefers. Some say the player and GM should talk it out right then. Others say the GM’s word is final and the ruling should be immediate. Some look up the rule and parse the wording on the spot, or search forums and social media for a consensus. Sometimes there’s even a group vote.

To be clear, I’m not talking about a player who is unsure of a rule. I’m talking about a player and a GM who disagree and are both sticking to their guns.

After many years of gaming, I’ve seen one solution turn up at table after table, because it works best:

Rule in favor of the player… immediately.

Then research it later, after the game or after a good night’s sleep. When you rule for the player who’s digging in (even if you suspect they’re wrong), you’re telling them their enjoyment matters to you, and you’re helping them get it.

We sit down to play a roleplaying game. Rules arguments pull everyone out of character, interrupt the story, and kill the mood. So what if a rule gets bent for one scene? Figure it out later, when nobody is under pressure and the player is more likely to listen. You might even find out you were wrong. And if you were right, you can show them the correct reading then.

The GM isn’t there to rule over the players like a god. The GM is there to help everyone have fun, fairly.

There’s a bonus, too: if you tend to rule in the player’s favor, they’ll trust you more, and they’ll accept it better when you do have to rule against them.

Shadowrun: Anarchy

The Shadowrun setting, however, lends itself to “splitting the party” more-so than a lot of other RPGs. Team members have distinct roles. The Rigger and Decker stay in the van, the Sniper scales the building across the street, and the Face tries to infiltrate the facility dressed as a nun, etc. These are heists after all, and you cannot always run around in a murder ball during a heist.

This juxtaposition of abstract distances and archetype specialists can sometimes lead to one of four pitfalls:

• Nobody knows where anybody else is in relation to themselves or their goals. Is the Street Sam in position to intercept security? How many narrations until the drones catch up? Does the sniper have LOS at this angle? You can spitball, or say yes to everything, but saying yes to everything robs the player’s choices of gravitas just as much as saying no to everything.
• Spreadsheet Distance Accounting (that only the GM can understand). Alice stayed in VR while Billy used 2 Narrations to move. Alice is 2 Movements away from Billy. Billy is Far from the getaway van. Security is Far from Alice but they used the last 2 Narrations to get closer (so 2/3 Near?). Charles is Near the Van but coming from the other direction, (so 4 movements from Billy?), etc. In a lot of situations this doesn’t matter, but it could be important in maintaining narrative tension.
• Distance is meaningless, time is meaningless, action is meaningless. Imagine your runners are infiltrating a secure facility to find a secret lab. Everyone is in position and the GM has set the scene.

Narration 1: “I move to open the first door I see; behind it is the secret lab.”

GM: “…”

• Screw it; let’s just use a map. A lot of Roll20 maps or Googled floor plans can help the players get an idea of positioning but then you are mixing your abstract movement with measured distances. Can one Movement get you Near your target? Can one Movement get you down the hall, through the door, and up the stairs to your teammates? Using traditional maps can push toward de-abstracting movement; now your Movements are equal to a certain distance because the hallway through which you are moving is a certain length.

Using a traditional map can also detract from the shared-storytelling of Anarchy. When a player looks at a floorplan map, they tend to look for the doors rather than imagine where doors could be. This is where node maps come in.

Non-Traditional Node Maps

Node maps are not a new concept. Node-based Scenario Design has been expanded and elaborated upon by others extensively. These nodes generally refer to metaphorical points in a plot (Node A: discovering the murder, Node B: uncovering the first clue, Node C: uncovering the second clue, Node D: putting the clues together to solve the murder). The players could hit Node C before Node B but they need to uncover both clues to continue to Node D.

Node maps are also used for geographical place settings in an adventure (Node A: the sleepy village, Node B: the scary woods, Node C: the haunted castle in said woods). The players cannot find the castle without traversing the woods but the distance and direction are not precisely defined nor important.

Consider these examples as “macro-nodes”; each node represents a great potential of space or time. The clues in a mystery plot could be miles apart or weeks between. The haunted castle could have twenty rooms in it or a hundred. Node mapping is very useful in designing non-railroad runs, but it doesn’t alleviate the pitfalls above. For this, we need “micro-nodes”.

These nodes represent the discrete, interconnected areas of a macro-node. Imagine the haunted castle above. Each of the castle’s rooms, its courtyard, its rooftops, and its moat would all be represented by a node. Each doorway, hallway, or secret tunnel would be represented by a connection from one node to another.

In a more shadowy example, imagine a corporate lab facility. It has offices, security checkpoints, several lab areas, mechanical (HVAC) room, etc., each represented by a hex on the node map. Each area or node is furnished with what the players might expect (the lab has test equipment and vats with green goo, the security checkpoints have bored CorpSec NPCs). They are connected by lines that could represent a door, a hallway, an elevator, or a stairwell. Some nodes have more connections than others. Some nodes act as barriers to other nodes (you must pass Security Checkpoint 1 before moving to the offices). It doesn’t matter to the map if the labs are square or circular. It doesn’t matter to the map if one room is above another or adjacent to it. The node map shows themes and connections, not dimension.

Applying the abstraction from Shadowrun: Anarchy becomes easy after this. The following would apply:

• Moving from one node to another takes one Movement.
• Moving from one node to another might entail combat or require a Skill Test, such as hacking the mag-lock (Hacking), or forcing open the door (Strength), or rappelling down the elevator shaft (Athletics).
• Moving to a specific spot within the node takes one Movement (such as taking cover behind a crate, closing on a specific enemy, or moving to a jackpoint).
• Moving between unconnected nodes might require a Plot Point or a Perception Test (such as finding a ventilation shaft, or climbing out one window and back in to another).
• Weapon range within a node or to an adjacent node is considered Near (unless you have moved to a specific spot, then it might be Close).
• Double-Time It (the Plot Point) allows you to move two nodes OR it could allow you to bring along another PC during your Movement.

In Shadowrun, where hacked AR maps and prior surveillance are common, feel free to draw out the entire node map when appropriate. Adding to the node map is as easy as drawing a circle and connecting it to the other nodes, so correcting a mapping oversight or adding a player’s new idea is simple and quick.

Minis (or icons for online games) work well on node maps to track relative positions. Draw the nodes on your map large enough to hold a few minis, but not so large that you are tempted to draw a detailed map inside the node. If you want to represent a particularly large area, such as the east and west sides of a parking lot, simply cut the node in two, use two adjacent nodes, or label the node as Far (it takes 3 movements to traverse).

Node maps should probably be avoided if you are not mitigating one of the pitfalls. If the players are not splitting up or splitting up would cause no added danger, no need to track relative positions. If the pacing of the Scene is not important relative to the objective of the Scene, then the number of Narrations (and therefor Movements) is unimportant. If the setting of the Scene is vast or uncomplicated (like a parking lot or a stretch of street), it might be best to avoid the nodes and just call the distance Far. If slogging through the nodes takes up more time than the action of the Scene, you have probably drawn too many nodes. If you look at your node map and you have essentially drawn a straight line, it might be better to reevaluate the entire Scene. As the GM, you will need to decide when a Scene will be enhanced or hindered by use of a node map.

Editor’s Note: This article by Brad Murray was originally posted here.  I loved it so much that I asked to repost it on Stuffer Shack.  Thanks, Brad!

+Cam Banks got me thinking about layout and thinking about it from my usual location, 10,000 meters above looking down. So I think there are three things layout serves and hitting any one of them is probably enough to be good layout. To qualify as great layout, I think it needs to hit all three. And let’s take legibility as given — if the layout makes the text hard to read, nothing saves it — it goes in the bin. Rule zero is: the layout serves the text.

Marketing: I put this first because however crass it feels to think about marketing, visually stunning layout is primarily in service of marketing, and if a book doesn’t get from shelf to till, it failed. Doesn’t matter how great a game is if no one plays it – and if no one buys it, no one plays it. So how do we best serve this master? Let’s take it in stages.

The first impact of the book in most stores is, sadly, the spine. Few stores can afford to display cover first. So this is the least considered and arguably most important (since first) contact with the potential buyer. Here is where you get weird synergies with other parts of book development — a 1000 page book takes up more space on shelf spine-out and gives you more space to play with in design. The spine needs to stand out from the other books. High contrast, an eye-catching type-face, a well-known (or stunning) logo, an unusual book height (on a shelf of 6×9 books, a 9.5 inch high book has a significant advantage), are all things that can be leveraged. So, good layout in service to marketing puts special attention into the spine.

Next is the cover. The cover primarily delivers an emotion for role-playing games since what we’re going to wind up doing is turning the handle on this machine (the game) to get a target feeling(s) out of it. So that front cover needs to deliver the feels. Glory through violence? Sneakiness? Fear? Lust? Nostalgia? A bad cover doesn’t know what the game is trying to deliver. It’s usually a group of adventurers looking out at you from a posed group photo. Conan atop a heap of fallen foes slashing out with his scimitar to fell the second-to-last enemy tells me way way way more.

Then the back cover. The prospective buyer is probably going to turn it over hoping for a blurb about the game. This is the textual equivalent to the front cover: explain what this machine makes. Layout’s job is mostly to activate the text here. Wash out the background in a text box if it’s noisy. Keep the theme but amplify the text. It’s doing the selling now.

Then we get into the book. By now you may already have made the sale, but if not, this flip-through (not a read) is the last chance. Good art, consistency, clarity, smart use of white-space, and cleverness pay off here. Later, your cleverness is not so important, but here in marketing it is.

Teaching: The next master you serve is the first major purpose of the book: teaching a player how to operate this machine. Once purchased, this is your first opportunity to generate more sales — when this is done well, the first read from a new owner is fun and not frustrating. They finish feeling excited about running the game. This is a place that is not very well examined with layout, in my opinion, and so all I can say is lean in, layout artists. Think about this. How can your organization of visual material serve this objective? The text may already be well-organized with this objective in mind, in which case your job is easier: facilitate the textual choices. If the text has not considered this objective, you can still help.

Reference: The most important function of the book (as a tool for play — as a way to generate sales I’m not sure how important it is) is how the book gets used in play. It will speak to replay. Now the book is being used as a reference. None of the special tools in there to teach the game are interesting. Instead you need to support helping the owner of the book teach the game to others and making the job of finding a half-remembered rule easier. You will be thinking about landmarking critical pages and adding visual cues for section start points. When a player says “I grapple it” and no one remembers the grappling rules, your job well-done means the grappling rules are right at hand. Flip to that awesome wrestling pic, or that memorable sidebar, or recall it’s at the end of the red-edged-pages section.

Note how often we are supporting or even supplanting the functions of the text. Only before we open the book are we irrelevant to the text. And even then, only for two-thirds of that. Everywhere else, layout is in the same line of work as the text: part of the machine that generates play. In its simplest most subtle form, layout is the lubricant. In more ambitious layout, it is also part of the clockwork.

Shadowrun: Anarchy is the new, rules-light, narrative-focused, alternate ruleset for the world of Shadowrun (You can read my review Here). It allows GMs and players to get into the action and intrigue of Shadowrun much faster and to stay there much longer without reference to rules and charts and extensive calculations of Shadowrun 5th Ed.

There are rules, however light, and every game with rules deserves a GM Screen. Players unused to narrative-heavy roleplaying may also need a little more on which to cling while they get their sea legs. Shadowrun: Anarchy, the book, also leaves a lot up in the air regarding some rather simple mechanics. For all of these reasons, I created a Narrative Aid for myself and my players to help us navigate the alternate ruleset and the meta-game that plays on top of it.

Download the PDF

Attached is a 4-page document (fan material) that is intended to be printed 2 Pages per Sheet and Print on Both Sides (flip pages on short edge). It could easily be printed on 4 pages to create the quintessential quad-fold GM screen. Below are details that I chose to include or add:

Section 1 (Narration Aid)

• Contains some definitions and reminders of what could be included in a player’s Narrative.
• Contains the basic Dice-Rolling Mechanic and how Modifiers, Shadow Amps, and Edge affect it.
• Contains a list of uses for Plot Points.
  • Renames a few Plot Points for ease of use.
  • Adds Swap it out, which adds temporary flexibility and scene preparation.
• Ends with a reminder to avoid negating previous Narrations and to add to them instead.

Section 2 (Optional House Rules)

• Uses Live Dangerously, a Plot Point, to perform certain traditional but extraordinary tricks in Shadowrun, such as Called Shots, Diving for Cover, Overcasting, Oversummoning, End Runs for chase scenes, etc. without adding cumbersome new mechanics. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of actions and options, but just a sample of cool ways to implement Exploits and Glitches. This also doesn’t replace the Glitch Die one might add simply to make the story more exciting.
• Introduces Montage Rules, a stylized, narrative-only method of handling Legwork and Investigation. The dice roll simply helps determine effectiveness and the order in which the Narratives are given. This can be a fun way to skip to the action (when appropriate) or to get from one Scene to another. I suggest a further rule of playing 80s synthpop in the background when montaging properly.
• Introduces Flashback Rules, a stylized, narrative method of handling Flashbacks and Preparation. This is another way to skip to the action, without getting bogged down in the minutia of planning. This gives non-combat characters something more on which to spend Plot Points. It also allows players to fix situations in which a Player forgets something a hardened criminal Character would not forget.

Section 3 (Skill Tests)

• Contains a list of common Skill Tests for the physical world, the Astral, and the Matrix.
• Uses Take the Hit, a Plot Point, as a mechanic for Counterspelling combat spells. Essentially, your Sorcery + Willpower will defend for you (or a teammate) instead of your normal spell defense. This maintains Counterspelling as a limited resource but keeps the dice rolls and dice pools in check.
• Sets Cybercombat Damage at [Logic/2]S, since it is never described in the book. Think of it like cyber-punching and certain programs like cyber weapons that increase this damage.
• Sets Threading and Complex Form actions as Tasking Skill Tests, as described on pg. 32.
• Offers options for summoning Lesser Spirits and compiling Simple Sprites (Stats published in a previous Stuffer Shack article). Note that Greater Spirits and Advanced Sprites are summoned/compiled by using Live Dangerously as well as a higher difficulty level.
• Sets the opposing dice for Banishing Attacks (Willpower + Edge) and Decompiling Attacks (Logic + Edge) since they are never described in the book. Through playtesting, this seems a balanced and scalable dice pool.

Section 4 (Attribute Tests)

• Contains a list of common Attribute Tests.
• Added Falling and named the “not dying” test Stabilizing.
• Added Resisting Physical, Resisting Mental, and Resisting Social Tests. These can be used as opposing dice for certain spells or other effects as well. I use Resisting Physical for direct combat spells or torture, Resisting Mental for illusions and mental control spells, and Resisting Social for Fear or Intimidation.

Section 4 (GM Reference)

• Contains Opposing Dice pools for different difficulty levels.
• Added an option for NPCs to use Simple Hits rather than opposing dice for some tests (like NPC vs the environment or NPC vs NPC). This lets the GM avoid rolling against themselves while their players watch (always awkward). Obviously this option should never be used in an NPC vs PC roll.
• Contains a sample list of suggested Modifiers for many actions.
• Contains an expanded list of Environmental Effects like Cold, Electricity, and Fire.
• Offers optional rules (some might say Universal Rules) for Lava.

Download the PDF

Thanks to the Anarchy forum community at forums.shadowuntabletop.com/index.phb?board=32.0 for inspiration and vetting of some of these points. Obviously not all of these points will be agreeable to all gaming tables, but I hope this inspires you to make your own and tailor it to your needs. Good Luck!