Its no secret that Shadowrun is largely considered one of the best settings with one of the worst rulesets (although I would argue that RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is in the same league). In fact, its become something of a game for aspiring designers to convert Shadowrun into all kinds of different rule systems, just to see what happens. This is one of those attempts, this time into the Blade Runner version of Free League’s Year Zero Engine.

This is a simple and versatile system that has a little of the dangerous, gritty feeling I associate with the Shadowrun setting, but in an extremely small, efficient package. While Blade Runner is ostensibly a cyberpunk setting, it doesn’t have any hacking or rigging rule, nor does it have any of the fantasy elements that makes Shadowrun unique, so we’ll have to create all of that from whole cloth in this post.

Some changes are simple, though, such as Chinyen becoming Nuyen, Promotion Points becoming Karma, and Specialties becoming Qualities. Humanity points are good as is, I think, as some of the best stories in Shadowrun involve finding that line between survival and humanity.

Also note that this will be converting from Shadowrun 4e, which is my personal favorite version of the world and system.

Essence and Magic

One of the first major issues is the lack of Essence or Magic, which are critical components of Shadowrun. The push and pull between magic and technology is the central theme, and, because of the parallel nature of magic and technology, a lot of what I create here will inform the technology side of the equation later.

My first instinct is to make a new, fifth Attribute called Magic, which can have all of the magical skills under it. While this is a drastic departure for the Year Zero Engine, it does solve some additional issues like magical skills, and gives us an easy way to implement Essence as well. Obviously characters who are not Awakened don’t even have this new attribute, using the default sheets instead.

Essence will be a stat similar to Health and Resolve, in that it is tracked by points, however the points lost are permanent. Each full point of Essence lost reduces the maximum Grade of the Magic attribute by 1 level, and this is always rounded down to the nearest whole point. A character whose actual Essence is 0 (not the rounded, effective Essence) is no longer a playable character, as their spirit is extinguished and they become something akin to a robot.

Using Magic

Connected to the Magic attribute are Spellcasting, Conjuring, and Assensing.

• Spellcasting allows the character to both cast and counter spells, including ritual spells, and would be used for enchanting item.
• Conjuring allows the character to summon and banish spirits, as well as create fetishes.
• Assensing allows the character to perceive and investigate magical phenomenon and auras.

When casting a spell, the caster chooses the Force (note, I’m probably going to need to change the skill name to avoid confusion), which sets the power of the spell and is also the amount of Stress the character will take. Each success on the casting roll reduces the Stress by one. If the Force is more than the characters Magic, this is Damage instead of Stress.

Casting takes the entire turn, with the spell going off at the beginning of the caster’s next turn, which allows enemy spellcasters to attempt to counterspell and prevents mages from running roughshod over everything. Countering a spell simply requires getting more successes than the target on an opposed roll.

Similarly, when summoning a spirit, the caster chooses the Force, which determines the power level of the spirit. Each success on the roll reduces the Stress taken by one, although, like with spellcasting, if the Force is more than the character’s Magic, this is Damage instead.

The spirit takes a full round to materialize, and on their next turn character must make a Manipulation roll against their power to bargain for services, gaining a number equal to the successes. If the mage fails the Manipulation roll, the spirit becomes hostile. Another mage can counter the summoning before the spirit manifests, or attempt to take control of it after it manifests, by gaining more successes than the summoner.

Adepts

I definitely want to include adepts in these rules, which should be somewhat easy by simply treating their internal magic like cyberware, meaning they would have a limit to how much they could have active equal to their Essence, but instead of damaging their Essence, those adept abilities are merely a drain on Essence, which goes away once they are no longer focusing their magical energies into those abilities.

Technology

Hacking in Shadowrun has always been a problematic issue, taking some characters out of action while one gets all the attention. I really liked the AR hacking of Shadowrun 4e, as it got all the players in the same room, so that is definitely the direction I am going with this hack.

Again, because of the simplicity of the Blade Runner system, the way massive variety of commlinks and do-dads to make you go faster, do more, etc are just not going to work here. Instead, I envision four “grades” of commlink, basically mapping to its Processor attribute, much like Blade Runner vehicles have Maneuverability. They would also have Firewall, which acts like Armor, and Cooling, which acts as their Hull. It would be possible for players to build their own out of these parts, if the GM wanted to price out the upgrades, but I’m just going with a holistic approach.

Commlink	Processor	Firewall	Heat	Avail	Cost
Poor Quality	D (d6)	—	2	Standard	1
Standard	C (d8)	D (d6)	4	Premium	2
Superior	B (d10)	C (d8)	6	Premium	3
Cutting Edge	A (d12)	A (d12)	8	Rare	4

Hacking, Compiling, and Rigging are handled like Driving, with the attribute being their commlink’s Processor (or the drone’s, in the case of Rigging) and their skill being free-floating. Most of the basic functions would fall under Technology, like coding, searching, etc.

Using Hacking

• Hacking allows the hacker to deploy programs in order to manipulate the matrix.
• Compiling allows the hacker to deploy and control Sprites, which are special autonomous programs that can act without user input.
• Rigging allows the rigger to control drones.

The different programs that hackers can use strike me as an analogue for spells, and so I will treat them as such. To use a program, the player needs to determine the Bandwidth they want to allocate, which acts like Force in spellcasting. This determines how powerful the program will be, but any Bandwidth not soaked by the Hacking roll increases the commlink’s Heat. An enemy hacker can counter a program by scoring more successes in an opposed roll.

Compiling a sprite is much like summoning a spirit, except that it is a Technology roll to control it after it is created. Bandwidth is allocated and successes reduce the Bandwidth. Enemy hackers can counter or take control of the sprite similarly to to how an enemy mage can with a conjured spirit.

If the character gets into matrix combat, any damage dealt by enemy programs is also Heat, although the Firewall stat is rolled against it like Armor. If the Heat maxes out, the commlink overheats and dumps the user. This can cause Stress to the user equal to the remaining Bandwidth, or it can be Damage if the character was facing Black IC. Heat is reduced by 1 each round.

Technomancers

Technomancers are a cool addition to the Shadowrun lore, starting with 4e, and I think they can be fairly easily accommodated the same way I did magic. Resonance would be their 5th attribute, and like Magic, only Technomancers have it on their sheet.

Resonance has Hacking, Compiling, and Rigging under it. Any Heat is instead taken directly as Stress or Damage (for Black IC), although they can roll a Stamina roll to reduce the damage done, as a natural Firewall.

Character Creation

At this point we have enough to build a character. Use the following chart to replace the “Years on the Force” chart on Blade Runner page 28.

Description	Attributes	Skills	Qualities	Karma	Nuyen
Young Punk	+5	+8	1	1d3	1d3
Shadowrunner	+4	+10	2	1d6	1d6
Veteran	+3	+12	3	1d8	1d8
Old-timer	+2	+14	4	1d10	1d10

New Qualities

The following are just a few Qualities that are needed to get the setting playable. I will probably add more in a future post.

• Awakened: The character has the magic template, starting with a Magic of D. They can spend their starting skill points in Magic skills or take Adept Powers.
• Technomancer: The character has the Technomancer template, starting with a Resonance of D.
• Animal Empathy: The character has advantage when dealing with animals (including non-sapient para-critters).
• Human-passing: The character’s meta-characteristics are minor, allowing them to pass as human. Observers get a disadvantage to spotting their metatype.
• Mentor Spirit: The character has a mentor spirit (sometimes called a totem) that gives them certain advantages and disadvantages.
• Spirit Affinity: The character is naturally attuned to certain types of spirits (chosen when taking this quality), gaining advantage when summoning, banishing, and controlling those types of spirits.

Conclusion

This worked out surprisingly easily, with most of this coming from a single session of brainstorming. It might needs some tweaks here and there, but as it stands, it strikes me as a good mix of the crunch of the core Shadowrun rules and the super lightweight, narrative Anarchy rules, which is jut about perfect, in my honest opinion, without moving into the OSR territory of SINless or Cities Without Number. If inspiration strikes, I make expand on this in a future article with some equipment, spell, program, qualities, and vehicle lists. For now, I leave that up to inspired GMs who want to dive in.