Separating Money from Reputation with “Cred” in The Sprawl

“So, we’re out, huh? I mean we’re out: this is retirement money. This is ‘go legit and buy an island’ money.”

-Hardison, Leverage, “The Nigerian Job”

One of the things I find Shadowrun and other cyberpunk “let’s be criminals” roleplaying games do poorly is the whole money thing. Shadowrun never gave good examples of what one would expect to get from a criminal gig, and they’ve got a whole economy built in the game, down to the cost of a combat knife. Yet in play, the protagonists seem to live paycheck to paycheck. There’s no real incentive to do criminal work when the same amount of income (or more) could come in from a safer job elsewhere.

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The Next Shadowrun Game: Decision Time

If you haven’t been following along these past few weeks, I’ve been going back and forth between Shadowrun: Anarchy and The Sprawl for my next Shadowrun game. ((Assuming there is a next Shadowrun game in the plans.)) The decision was surprisingly difficult to make. Initially, I was certain that The Sprawl was going to be the game for me, but the more I read Shadowrun: Anarchy, the more I was leaning towards that. Until I looked at The Sprawl again, then that looked better. But then I’d look back at Shadowrun: Anarchy and that one…

It’s close. But I think I’ve finally made up my mind.

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Shadowrun: Anarchy and The Sprawl Comparisons

“Can I play Shadowrun in it,” is the question I see asked when a new roleplaying game comes out. Now there are two that are vying for my attention to be my next Shadowrun game: The Sprawl and Shadowrun: Anarchy. I wrote 1300 words on Shadowrun: Anarchy on Thursday and a few more than that on The Sprawl on Friday.

While I tried to keep each post focused on each game system, a bit about Shadowrun: Anarchy seeped into the last post, comparing gear and how one gets it during the game. Here, I’m going to directly compare how the two systems handle certain tropes and note where I’m having difficulties.

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