Shadowrun

Shadowrun was the shooting star of the last couple of years. There was no convention where not at least one or two game masters offered Shadowrun sessions all of which were occupied soon.

What it is about

Like Cyberpunk and Cyberspace, Shadowrun takes place in the near future, when cooperations took over the power of former governments. Life is short and cheap. Incredible technology pervades society, ranging from cybernetic implants to hovering grav tanks. Contrary to the other hard SciFi/near future settings, Shadowrun combines the "standard" dark future scenario, which has been preached by Gibson, Sterling and others, with classical fantasy elements, such as mysterious races and the use of magic. Giving their audience the possibility to dive into both worlds at the same time, mixing technology and fantasy, FASA, the game's publisher, managed to attract thousands of players.

Setting

In the first part of the 21st century, when technology started to pervade society and the daily life of people more and more, evolution once again reached one of its bifurcations. While most humans continued their ordinary lives as human beings, some mutated and became dwarves, elves, orcs and trolls, adopting the external and internal traits of the new race. At the same time, some people developed the ability to use magic. Step by step, society as we know it got in contact with strange circumstance, caused by people, their powers and a new, yet alternate reality. Some of the newcomers integrated fluently into their environment, while others kept to themselves, last but not least because their appearance was not appreciated and tolerated by all commoners equally well.

A society which harbours so many different races, cultures and ideologies so closely to each other sooner or later erupts inevitable tensions - in the very center of which the player characters usually find themselves. They have to choose sides and have to find a way to stay alive long enough to comprehend the great picture, making up the world they live in.

Like in Cyberpunk, it all boils down to this:

1. First, get a gun. The bigger, the better.
2. Second, get some implants. The more sophisticated, the better.
3. Then rock the world and don't get caught.