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Watch your back, shoot straight, conserve ammo, and never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.

A standard mission is 20 minutes of objectives, three days of planning, and 600 seconds of mayhem.

—Sokora

Shadowrun is a Tabletop Game that straddles the Cyber Punk and Dungeon Punk genres.

It's set Twenty Minutes Into The Future (first edition in 2050, second edition in 2053, third in 2060, and fourth in 2070), with one major difference; in 2012, on the "zero date" at the end of the Mayan calendar, the planets and the Astral Plane aligned just so, and magic returned to the world. Humans mutated into various other races (elves, dwarves, orks, and trolls), dragons awoke from eons-long slumber, and some people gained the ability to cast spells. The Native Americans were the first to regain magic, and they used their newfound power to re-take most of the North American continent; however, the real movers and shakers are the megacorporations, who have achieved extranational status and are now exempt from most laws. In this world, the players are Shadowrunners, freelance operatives who take jobs that corporations, governments, and other entities can't (or won't) handle themselves.

Probably the most popular Cyber Punk role playing game, which pisses off Cyber Punk purists to no end. Games were made for both the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo in the 90's. Both were very different from each other, and the Genesis version was considered a classic for its console, while the less-popular SNES version is thought of as one of the console's hidden gems. A recent adaptation for the Xbox 360 and PC, however, has been much less well-received.

It has a strict fantasy offshoot, Earthdawn. Throughout the continuity, it has been hinted that Earthdawn is actually a prequel to Shadowrun placed in the Fourth Age (Shadowrun being Sixth).

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This game contains examples of:

• Adaptation Decay - The Genesis/Megadrive game translates both the setting and rules faithfully. The SNES version is hailed as capturing the atmosphere perhaps even better, but dedicated tabletop gamers were annoyed by looser adaptations of some rules (say, Cybernetics NOT Eating Your Soul). The recent 2007 game has reunited the fanbase — in declaring how much it sucks due to abandoning both.
  • Oddly enough, the Genesis game is a partial subversion, since getting cybered would still muck your magic up if you'd started as a shaman.
• AI Is A Crapshoot - In 3rd edition, an insane AI shut off an arcology from the rest of the world and performed gruesome experiments on the people living there. It also sort of blew up the internet. It's mostly subverted in 4th edition. By that time, A Is are given the full rights of citizens and are as well-behaved as the rest of meta-humanity. That doesn't stop the public at large from believing in this trope.
  • 'As well-behaved as the rest of meta-humanity.' If that doesn't at least edge into this trope, hats will be eaten.
• Alternate Continuity - the 2007 videogame - according to the developers/ The Other Wiki, it should be considered Shadowrun In Name Only
• Ancient Conspiracy - The immortal Elves and Greater Dragons, together and separately
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit - Chinese Triads deploy their goon squads based on traditional numerology - Four and Five are unlucky numbers, Seven and Eight are particularly lucky.
• Balkanize Me - Large countries like China are split into many small countries, Russia is split in 2, Germany into a Confederation of 6, Africa into tribal nations no more then a few miles across. North America is similarly divided, see below.
• Big Brother Is Watching - If someone is in public, they're on several cameras at once. Everything they buy is put on file, every transaction they make leaves a datatrail straight to them, every ad they show interest in is monitored... All so that the corps get more of their money.
• Black Market - Hell, in the world of 2070, they're this close to advertising. Anyone up for a trip to the Crime Mall?
• Blade Below The Shoulder - Cyberspurs, which can emerge from wrists, elbows, and knees.
• BFG - Drool at the Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle. Then weep at its prohibitive availability rating.
• Canon Discontinuity - Many, many books.
• Chunky Salsa Rule - Trope Namer.
• City Of Adventure - Seattle, Hong Kong, LA, Neo-Toyko, Lagos, and the Insect Spirit infected ruins of Chicago.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe - While magical power is itself an inborn trait, shamans and Mages are strongly implied to derive their means to shape that power from belief; later supplements, especially Awakenings: New Magic in 2057, seem to make this even clearer, implying that one can base their magic on anything from ancient myths to the cartoons they watched growing up
• Corrupt Corporate Executive - the upper management of pretty much any Mega Corp
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul - if you install enough cyberware and bioware (performance enhancing thing-a-ma-jigs ranging from computer eyeballs to nanites and so on) to lose all your Essence, you die. That is, unless your Mega Corp of choice zombified you by intentionally overloading you with cyberware, but the subsequent necrosis, literal soul loss, suicidal tendencies, and cancer will force you to roll a new character two or three scenarios afterward under a sensible GM.
• Cyberspace - It's even called the Matrix. In 4th edition, it's wireless!
• Did Not Do The Research - Practically everything, but mostly Justified due to the Rule Of Fun. No one cares about physics when you're exploding heads with lightning bolts.
• Divided States Of America - The CSA, Quebec and California are back, plus many Native American states, but Canada joined with the remnants of the US more or less for convenience's sake, thus forming the United Canadian and American States
• Eldritch Abomination - The Horrors
• Everything Is Online - The transition from 3rd to 4th Editions brought about a complete overhaul of the Matrix in which practically everything is wireless and governed by RFID tags.
• Fan Haters - William Gibson famously stated he hates the game, despite being because he was a massive inspiration for the game. He feels that they fused Neuromancer with JRR Tolkien without getting permission from or giving credit to either party.
• Fantastic Racism - Elves against most everybody, humans against orks and trolls (though Strawmen like Humanis Policlub will extend it to every metahuman type), Japanese, Native Americans, regular Americans, and Aztlaners at each other's throats, and so on.
  • To be fair, most elves aren't racists. And the elven-ruled racist nations have effectively imploded in 4e, to the point where Tir Tairngire is now run collectively by a Great Dragon and an ork.
    • Just over half the population are racist in some way in 3rd edition. Every npc gets a racism stat of 2d6-6 (0 or less means not racist at all) and around 1/6th of all racists are biased against everyone not of their own race. Mostly this is just a bias though. It would be harder to persuade a shopkeeper to sell you a reserved item for example.
• Fantastic Science
• Five Races - though the breakdown isn't quite the same as the classic five
  • Also, Our Elves Are Better, Our Orcs Are Different, All Trolls Are Different, and Our Dwarves Are All The Same.
• Game Breaker / Elite Tweak - Third Edition has an Edge called "Connected" that, when taken for a vendor contact, allows you to buy from that contact at the list price or sell at the street price, which can be as much as three times more. Thus, taking that edge for two contacts (one to buy from, one to sell to) allows a player to get ridiculous amounts of money while the GM isn't paying attention. This troper managed to get over 1.7 million Nuyen before the GM looked over and realized what was happening.
  • Also the "pornomancer", a Social Adept that can throw 51 dice at any social check. Most grand masters in a skill will not throw more than 25. And Social Skills are opposed checks, where one character's dice pool must be thrown against another's.
    • True story — Catalyst Labs just released a new edition of the 4th Ed rules. One of the most significant changes was an attempt to kill the pornomancer: to cap Social skill dice pools at 2 x (Ability + Skill). This lowered it to a mere 46 dice, which also were far less dependent on circumstance. (Throws 40ish consistently, while the old threw about 30 on average.)
• Germans Love Shadowrun
• Gratuitous Japanese - English has picked up a lot of loanwords from Japanese. Justified, seeing how Japan took over the world.
• The Great Politics Mess Up - to its credit, the first edition of Shadowrun did predict the fall of the Soviet Union — but they predicted it in 2030.
  • This issue has been more or less solved in more recent editions by having the Shadowrun timeline explicitly deviate from our own in 1991. In Fourth Edition, the first true break is in 1999.
• Guns Are Worthless... Against anything supernatural.
  • Unless you're a skilled shooter with a enough firepower or a big enough gun. Then you can turn spirits into fine red mist just like anything else. (Of course, with such armament, "anything else" would include concrete walls and armored APCs.)
  • A Hollywood Cyborg can't do much to them either. You see, beasties can only be harmed by attacks fueled by Heroic Willpower, and "Cybernetics Eat Your Soul".
    • One sourcebook mentioned something called "Cybermancy", which produced cyber-zombies that kicked supernatural ass but rarely survived more than a year.
• Gun Kata - Ares Firefight is a martial art completely manufactured by a corp, wherein the practitioner kicks the crap out of people while holding a pistol in each hand. Which he uses. A lot.
• Happy Place - Lots and lots of people retreat from their depressing lives by using Simsense, to the point where Simsense addiction is more common than caffiene addiction.
• Heroic Sociopath - This would be you. I.e., the P Cs. In some cases, strike the Heroic part.
• Hollywood Hacking - Not only that, but in a different way in every edition!
• Human Sacrifice - Man, Aztechnology has some dirty secrets.
• I'm a Humanitarian - Anyone infected with HMHVV particularly the Kreiger strain will turn into some kind of monstrorous, cannabalistic version of themselves
• Japan Takes Over The World - Everyone speaks Japanese and uses nuyen. Including Chinese territories.
• Kill Sat - Thor shots and Giant lasers in space
• Ley Line - The Mana/Dragon Lines.
• Lighter And Softer - Surprisingly enough, during the transition from 3rd edition to 4th - it's still a cynical Cyberpunk game, and definitely Darker And Edgier than real life to be sure, but 4th edition shakes off the overly grunge-rock motifs of 3rd edition and actually mentions places where life doesn't suck.
• Luck Stat - Edge, a stat which only Player Characters and Dragons have. It's not so much "luck" as it is the little extra something that lets runners get away with what they do. Dragons have it because Catalyst Game Labs are cheating bastards.
• Magical Database - Lots of these that range from the SIN Database (Containing the identity, credit rating and purchasing history of every Citizen of the UCAS... Well, actual citizens that is) to the Actually Magical Databases produced by MagicNet, MIT&T, and various other factions)
  • Fourth Edition actually details the methods and limitations of the SIN Database(s) for the first time, so while they are still extremely accurate, there are now cracks to slip through.
• Mayincatec - Aztlan. Their corporations are even step-pyramids, and guards dress up like natives (with better armor, of course).
• Mega Corp - ...Let's just say that there are 10 main corporations, and they're all more powerful than all the state governments, and leave it at that.
• Mental Fusion
• Mexico Called They Want Texas Back - The country formerly known as Mexico invades and conquers large chunks of Confederate Texas and independent California
• More Dakka - The average character uses an assault rifle. The Weapon Specialist premade character, on the other hand, carries "Combat Axe; 2 Katanas; Medium Crossbow w/20 Bolts; 10 Throwing Knives; 10 Shuriken; 10 Fragmentation Grenades; Ares Predator IV [w/Quick Draw Holster and 10 clips of Explosive Ammo]; Yamaha Sakura Fubuki [w/ Smartlink, Concealable Holster, and 80 rounds of Regular Ammo]; Walther MA-2100 [w/4 clips Regular Ammo]; Aztechnology Striker ( a rocket launcher); Survival Knife; Stun Baton."
• Neural Implanting - Skillsofts are chips that can be inserted into implanted slots in the head to give characters skills.
• Nightmare Fuel Unleaded - Cyberzombies, which are metahumans implanted with so much cybernetics that they effectively die. Their souls are then forcefully tethered to their bodies through magic and technology. Few last longer than a year before cancer and necrosis rots their bodies away, and most of them aren't what you'd call sane. Oh, and all of this is done completely against their wills by corps who want a temporary asset.
• Only Mostly Dead - If you die in the tabletop game, you're dead. Not so much in the FPS, where you can be resurrected within the same round if your buddies care to do so and have the MP.
• Our Dragons Are Different - Good lord, the dragons. Occasionally, Our Dragons Are PRESIDENTS: Lofwyr's the big shot at Saeder-Krupp (BMW after a few good buyouts), and Dunkelzahn was President of the UCAS for a little over 10 hours before the bomb in his limo tore open a Negative Space Wedgie.
  • Dunkelzahn was also pretty net-savvy, too. Look in any of the first edition's sourcebooks- he usually goes by 'The Big "D"', though one occasion (in the Street Samurai Catalog) saw him use his real name.
    • The Big D wasn't the only Great Dragon on the Matrix. Hestaby was a Shadowland regular under the handle "Orange Queen", and Celedyr (who is also one of the two majority stockholders of a technology megacorp) was a lurker in many forums under the handle "Stone-Diver" or "Script-Diver".
  • This troper thinks Shadowrun's dragons are the only dragons you actually run away from. They aren't fightable: they're stronger, tougher, bigger, and smarter than you (human average stat: 3 (max 6), dragon average: 8, great dragon average: 13—except body/toughness and strength, those are 35+). Oh, and unlike every other NPC, they have Edge (the Luck Stat, only PCs have it) and great dragons can do some nasty things with it that you can't. There's a damn good reason why you never deal with a dragon.
    • Meh, they still die when you drop a 125 mm shell moving at 11 times the speed of sound into their heads.
    • No, they burn some Edge (permanently decrease the stat by a bit in exchange for something like a guaranteed critical success or surviving certain death) and let you THINK that you killed them, and then when you get home you discover that your entire family has been eaten, your SIN has been revoked, and there is now a bounty on your head that is so large that every shadowrunner in the time zone is now after you.
    • Maybe that's the reason for this entry in Dunklezahn's will:

• Our Vampires Are Different - Caused by a virus, and a flavor for every race.
• Our Zombies Are Different - Light sensitive and something of the intelligent Romero type. They are created by jellyfish from the "Deep Metaplanes" that possess corpses and seek to kill everything.
• Petting Zoo People - SuRGE from the passing of Halley's Comet late in 3rd Edition caused animal traits to manifest in certain people, called Changelings. It's mentioned that "cute" Changelings, such as cat-people, can use it to their advantage, while more radically-transformed Changelings - derogatorily called furries - are subject to discrimination.
• Razor Floss - Monofilament wires.
• Rule Of Cool - Monofilament CHAINSAWS
• Sealed Evil In A Can - The Horrors. Cthon in the Genesis Game.
• Shout Out - In Runner Havens 4th one of the top 5 movies is directed by a W. Ellis of Global Frequency studios.
• Space Is Magic - Inverted. It's more like Space Is A Complete Lack Of Magic - there's no Mana up there, so magic doesn't function, and Awakened characters tend to get antsy, to say the least.
• Steam Punk - Steampunk clothing is popular in the cyberpunk world of 2073. Wrap your head around that.
• Street Samurai - Trope Namer and common character archetype.
• Technopath - 3rd Edition's Otaku and their Technomancer successors in 4E
• They Changed It Now It Sucks and They Just Didnt Care - The 2007 Xbox 360 game.
  • Also, the changes from 3rd Edition and 4th Edition left a bad taste in some players' mouths. 4E's rules are more streamlined and balanced, but they needed to sacrifice some depth to do so. While most people happily made the switch over to 4E, there are still some fans who prefer the ultra-detail of 3E, even if the rules and pace are a little bit clunkier.
• The Triads And The Tongs - The Triads are in control of what bits of Hong Kong the corps aren't. In Seattle, the Yakuza is at war with them.
• Un Equal Rites
• Unfortunate Implications - People not familiar with North American history will naturally enough call a person from the CSA a Confederate. Never call anyone from the CSA a Confederate.
• Unusual Euphemism - The earlier editions used terms like "frag" and "drek" and others for the standard cusswords. In Fourth Edition, it's toned down a little, but you're still going to blank a few slots before the day's done.
• Unusual User Interface - Monitors are as dead as print. If you're a sissy, you can use non-invasive neural interface electrodes, like in Neuromancer. Real users have input/output jacks drilled in their skulls - it's the new HD!
  • Which have been replaced by electrode headbands and nano-paste, display glasses and ear buds. Everything old is new again!
• War For Fun And Profit - Hey, corps make weapons too. May as well ensure that the market's healthy.
• We Have Reserves - Killed a CEO of a Trip-AAA? Don't worry, there's thirty other CEOs-in-waiting that will take his or her place.
• Why Am I Ticking - Cranial bombs are very, very nasty - one's integral to the plot of the SNES game
  • This troper's GM pretty much disallows Area Bombs for good reason. It really sucks when they go off.
  • They're bad if you get a cranial bomb stuck in your head. They can be handy if you can find a trustworthy surgeon (good luck!) and have one wired to go off when you want it to. This is great for being a terrorist getting captured and holding everyone around you hostage (your mileage may vary with your willingness to actually blow yourself up), or having a dead man's switch that makes everyone want to keep you alive.
    • Unfortunately, the so-called "cranial nuke" is just an area bomb. You can't be Raven without the sidecar.
• Wretched Hive - Pretty much every city, especially the poorer sections; the default setting, Seattle, has the Barrens. Lagos is the worst.
  • This troper thinks Shadowrun's Chicago takes the cake. And that was before they nuked the bug spirits infesting most of the population.
    • 4th Edition introduces the Kowloon Walled City of Hong Kong. Its so horrifically bad that the insect spirits can't get a foothold there - the Yama Kings eat them. Yes, I said the Yama Kings. The only insect spirit that's gotten a chance is the Ebony Queen Vam Ly.
• Virtual Ghost - Ghosts in the machine, people who were logged in during Crash 2.0.
• Xanatos Gambit - Too damn many to count. Every country, megacorp, and two-bit astral spirit has a lot of irons in that particular fire. And then there's the dragons... In fact there is a negative quality you can take that gives your character a built in cranial bomb and the GM decides what corporation gets it.
• Yakuza - They're pretty damn successful, too. By accident, a Yakuza fake company was launched into a real one, and became one of the more famous triple-A corps.
  • And in true megacorp style, Mitsuhama Computer Technologies has thanked its Yakuza progenitors by largely forgetting that they exist except for doing them the occasional minor favor. As the Corporate Shadowfiles supplement put it, 'Why should the directors of MCT risk a multi-''billion'' nuyen corporation to help beef up a multi-million nuyen crime syndicate?'
• Your Head Asplode - Cranial bombs and Manabolt.
• Your Mind Makes It Real - Justified: In The Matrix, most legitimate users use Cold ASIST, which is noticeably better than current state-of-the-art interfaces and just as safe to use. High-end users such as deckers and computer security people use Hot ASIST, a form of Synchronization which turns them into Technopaths while making it possible to fry each other's brains with combat software.

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