Shadowrun 6e: I Was Wrong..

When it was announced years ago, I wasn’t sold. Not even close. I even did a video speculating about it.

I’ve been running Shadowrun since the ‘90s. Second Edition was the real deal for me. Gritty. Crunchy. Complicated in all the right ways. Then 4e Anniversary came along and smoothed out a few bumps without losing the cyberpunk bite. I stuck with it and enjoyed it.

So when Sixth Edition dropped?

I brushed it off. Something about it just felt… off. Too light. Too fast. Like it was trying to be cool instead of functional. I flipped through it, didn’t like how it was presented, the mistakes, the poor editing… I dropped it. Years passed..

Then Berlin happened.

The Berlin City Edition for Sixth World wasn’t even on my radar until I caught a “demo” at a Gencon. Just a casual moment, really. The line developer was there, offering short intros. I figured I’d be polite. Told him, straight up, that I wasn’t a fan. That I’d been in the game long enough to know what worked. He smiled, said nothing dramatic, and just offered thirty minutes of table time.

That’s all it took.

He didn’t pitch me with buzzwords or a list of fixes. He showed me the game. Showed how fast things moved. How Edge came alive when you stopped trying to treat it like Karma Points and started playing it as tactical momentum. How rolling fewer dice could still be exciting when the choices mattered more than the pool size.

Everything that felt abstract in the book made sense when I saw it on the table. The system finally clicked. I wasn’t juggling spreadsheets, I was playing. Characters felt quick, deadly, and punchy. The tension returned. I was impressed a bit.

I’m not saying it’s perfect. Nothing ever is. But it ran smooth. The rules faded into the background and the story kicked in. That’s when I knew it’s time to give this another shot. With this newer, revamped book, it showed that they took the time to listen to fans.

So now I’ve got the core book open and I’m reading. I’m mapping out runs and re-learning the flow. I’ll be the first to admit it: sometimes all you need is the right perspective. Or thirty minutes with someone who knows what they’re doing lol.

Shadowrun 6e deserves another look. I’m in. Yeah, I was wrong, I’ll admit it.