Shadowrun has been an indelible part of our gaming culture for more than twenty-five years. From the tabletop RPG to novels and computer games, players simply love to experience the Sixth World, where man meets magic and machine. Two years ago Catalyst began to embrace that concept more fully, publishing Shadowrun: Crossfire, a deck-building game. We’re now taking the next step on a journey that will let you experience Shadowrun no matter the type of game you’re in the mood to play with the publication of Encounters: Shadowrun.

Encounters: Shadowrun is a fast and fun push-your-luck dice and card game for up to eight players. You take on the role of a ‘Mr. Johnson’, a powerbroker who specializes in taking care of a megacorps’ dirty work. To accomplish that goal, you build a team of shadowrunners — deniable and disposable assets that megacorps fire at each other for datasteals, personnel extractions, or even wetwork.

How does that actually play out on the table? Well, each turn a player flips an Encounter card. It could be an Ares Rigger Team, an Ancients Captain, or even a Spirit of Air.

You then roll six D6s and try to exactly match the rolled dice with the Encounter Value on the card. If you do, those dice are locked onto the card, and it’s defeated. The player can simply end their turn and take their cash reward (called nuyen), or they can push their luck by rolling up another Encounter card, and taking the remaining dice and re-rolling and trying again to match dice to the Encounter Value to defeat the new card. If at any point all the dice are locked onto cards, the player can Escalate by rolling Encounter cards up into a new column, which now may score more nuyen. All the formerly locked dice come back into play, and the player rolls them anew to try to defeat the card. However, regardless of how many cards have been defeated, if the player ever rolls and cannot match dice to the Encounter Value of a card, they lose everything!

Those are the basics of play, but there’s a lot of great tactics in the game to make sure its not just rolling dice.

First up are the all-important shadowrunners. Players start with one Shadowrunner card, and subsequently they must pay nuyen they’ve won by defeating Encounters to acquire more Shadowrunners. It may seem counter-intuitive to spend the nuyen you need to win the game on Shadowrunners, but you get far more out of them then you put in if you use them correctly. Shadowrunner cards allow you to manipulate the dice in a variety of ways — such as “All rolled 2s are wild,” “Apply a +2 to a single die roll,” “Re-roll all dice not already locked on Encounters” — increasing the chances of locking dice onto an Encounter and defeating it. What’s more, every Shadowrunner has a keyword that can potentially line up with a keyword on some of the Encounters, increasing your chances of defeating the card.

Of course, since players are taking the role of Mr. Johnson, that means they have the backing of a Megacorporation. It could be Saeder-Krupp, Ares Macrotechnology, Renraku, or other notable corps from Shadowrun lore. Each megacorp has its own flavor to bring it to life, with the player paying nuyen to activate a given ability each turn. For example, Saeder-Krupp’s ability is the following: “Pay 2 nuyen: At the start of the Active Player’s turn, before they roll dice, Saeder-Krupp may remove one die from that’s player’s entire turn.” An appropriately powerful ability for a megacorp run by a dragon!

\Finally, there are five over-sized District cards. Each of these represent five of the city districts that make up the imposing Seattle sprawl, the quintessential city setting of the Shadowrun universe. As Encounter cards are flipped up, some include a District icon that rotate the players into new districts, moving them about the city, and changing the rules that apply. Sometimes for better — often times for worse. The shadows can be harsh.

While the Shadowrun RPG will always be there for the full Sixth World experience, when you want a quick game for a light step into the shadows, Encounters: Shadowrun fits the bill!

Randall N. Bills has lead the creation, writing, development and publication of hundreds of novels, sourcebooks, rulebooks, box sets, game aides and more, covering everything from tabletop RPGs to miniatures, casual games to off-the-deep-end gaming experiences. He’s currently the Managing Developer for Catalyst Game Labs.