Shadowrun Run Faster SC *OP

If you are planning on making a Shadowrun character, then you should get this book. If you already have a character, and are just looking for more gear and options for existing characters, then it might not be that useful.

The biggest thing for existing runners is the expanded Lifestyle section. A couple of new Lifestyle levels, and a lot of options to expand on the details of your Lifestyle. Mostly background stuff and things that would only matter between sessions, but still cool. The problem is that bringing this stuff into an existing game could screw over some characters. It introduces a mechanic to punish characters further for taking lower level lifestyles, and/or allergy qualities. As such, a GM should make it clear from the start that it's going to be used, or make it completely optional on a character by character basis.

The single best part of the book is the section on new qualities. There are a bunch of new positive and negative qualities. Mostly useful for making new characters, but you could buy a lot of them later with Karma if you wanted. I really liked this section, there seemed to be a lot of good qualities both positive and negative. This is the single biggest selling point for me.

There's a couple of optional ways to make characters that can make it more or less complicated to construct one. These range from pure point buy to a lifepath system. There's also a host of new metahuman options for when you don't think an ork or a troll is strange enough. There's even options for non-metahumans like shapeshifters and centaurs, and even playing HMHVV infected characters in case you want to mix a little Vampire into your Shadowrun.

There's also a lot of pre-defined gear packs in 2,000 nuyen chunks (ie the amount 1 Karma buys you in char gen). That could be useful for those of us who don't always like the catalog shopping involved in equipping a beginning character. I didn't look too closely at these, but they seemed reasonable, and could really speed character creation in some cases.

There's a section on contacts that's quite good, with a lot of new stat blocks for contacts, as well as fluff and rules on how to use contacts in the game. Along the same lines, there's a lot of fluff on how different kinds of Mr. Johnsons operate based on who they represent, and the differences between a Johnson and a Fixer.

There are a couple of annoyances. The first is the many references to the CFD virus. This is apparently the new major metaplot element of the Shadowrun universe. There is eventually some explanation of what it is given, but it's largely assumed that the reader is already familiar with it despite it only having appeared in one prior product, the Stolen Souls sourcebook that is largely of interest only to GMs. It's a bit annoying for the "Core Player Handbook" to constantly be referencing something from a "Deep Shadows Sourcebook" likely to have only been read by GMs.

The second is the way one of the writers seems to be rewriting the nature of Triads in the Shadowrun universe. There's a throwaway paragraph about Triad loyalty being ensured by magically enforced oaths that kill the oathbreaker. I can't find any prior reference to this in Shadowrun material, and if true it would completely break my home campaign set in Hong Kong. It's not supported by either the mechanics or the prior background of the game, and I wish whoever is trying to insert it into the canon would just stop.

A third is a minor issue with the way that commercial properties are handled in the lifestyle section. Getting a commercial property in the game is just buying a front location, not an actual business. Mechanically they are only going to cost money, despite a roll to find out how much they bring in each month. Rules for running a real business was probably beyond the scope of the section, but it seems a little costly for what you get as it is.

Other than all that, it's a great book, and a worthy addition to the 5th Edition line.