WHICH IS EASIER TO PLAY BETWEEN THE SHADOWRUN OR STAR WARS CURRENT EDITIONS?

SilverBeetle

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to run a monthly sci fi (Star Wars) or cyberpunk (Shadowrun) game session that is not a campaign, but is more 1-2 game sessions adventures/missions.

I don't want to build my own world or design long drawn out adventures.

I want a prebuilt setting and short adventures I can customize quickly and on the fly.

Something that allows players to make new characters whenever they feel like and build them quickly.

Something that plays and feels more like a good comic book adventure, sci fi TV episode, or sci fi short story.

A game system lots of players know and want to play.

I want the RPG to be something that is easy for myself and players to learn, easy to run, easy to build characters and doesn't have the enormous d20 character build option massive campaign world feel of D&D and Pathfinder.

I've tried putting together a Savage World's sci fi or cyberpunk game like this but I could only find 2 players in my area despite advertising for months on multiple forums.

So this thinking brought me to Shadowrun and Star Wars.

I know players love both games and it should be easier to find and recruit players.

I know there are beginners box sets for both as well as full core rulebooks.

I'm looking to hear from GMs and players who have played either or both as far as:
• Ease of learning the rules
• Ease of teaching the rules to new players
• Ease and quickness of character builds
• Ease of putting together a game session

I'm hoping to be able to GM something that is quick fun and spontaneous so no matter what level of RPG experience you have you can show up at a game session, play and have fun.

Thanks

Grimjack

Unknown

To my knowledge, though I haven't actually player or run a session of the latest Star Wars RPG, both of the systems are what could be considered "crunchy." The degree of this can be controlled somewhat in both systems based on what all details and supplements you decide to include and cover as a GM.

Either one should be able to make a pretty good framework like what you're talking about, but from my personal experience I would lean towards Shadowrun. Assuming you have the players make the standard runners, the Runs they take would fall perfectly into your 1-2 session framework. As you collect these up over time, you could even look at it as a Campaign, assuming you give some central theme to it (same MegaCorp hiring the runners each time, same runners being used, etc).