Back to the Near Future: Shadowrun, First Edition Returns

When you get right down to it, it’s the cover.

That’s not the only virtue Shadowrun, First Edition had—far from it. But the greatest strength of Shadowrun has always been its dynamic, rich setting, and nothing has ever sold people so quickly on the setting as the Larry Elmore-created image on that First Edition cover. Cyberpunk atmosphere is all over the image, from the steam rising from a street grating to a devil rat chewing on a loose wire to the data terminal set in a graffiti-strewn building. Oh yeah, and the punk hair and face paint. The fantasy elements aren’t as dominant, but they’re still unmissable—the point of elf ears and the spellcaster who has magic glowing around one hand, a shotgun in the other.

Put together, they tell an immediate story of a world where all kinds of story elements can come together and blend—or maybe clash. I’ve talked to countless people during my fifteen years with Catalyst Game Labs who trace their first interest in Shadowrun to seeing that art, and I’m one of them. Two questions came immediately to my mind when I saw the cover: What is that, and how can I find out more about it? Now, decades later, I’ve probably written a million words of Shadowrun material and edited a few million more, and I’m not out of stories to tell or concepts to explore. I may not be the full-time line developer anymore, but as the creative director of Catalyst’ RPG division, I still get to be involved in the universe—and write more for it on the side. That speaks to the myriad stories of the Sixth World waiting to be told.

Catalyst is celebrating Shadowrun’s thirty-fifth anniversary this year, and we decided to commemorate it with a reprint of that classic First Edition book. The process of preparing that book for print led to at least two realizations. The first was how much atmosphere the book contains along with that iconic cover. There are classic art pieces (including many game-defining works by Jeff Laubenstein), the shadow slang, the history of the Sixth World, the first-person descriptions of the archetypes, and more. The Sixth World jumps to life off these pages, fully formed and ready to rock.  The attitude is everywhere, not just in the in-world text. The rules are not afraid to throw in a weird joke just because, since in the Sixth World, nothing is owed total reverence. One joke I loved came when the book is establishing rules for using Social Skills, including how to influence an entire group. It throws in this: “All attempts should be made against the leader of the pack (varooom).”

Is that a reference to a classic song from 1964, thrown in entirely for the hell of it? Yes! Is an extra “o” put into “varooom,” presumably for extra engine revving? Also yes! That’s a part of Shadowrun I love, and it was there right from the beginning.

I’m not as fond of my second realization, but that’s the fault of ever-evolving technology, not Shadowrun. The realization was the wide gap between printing techniques thirty-five years ago and printing techniques today. We had a PDF of Shadowrun, First Edition, but it was unsuitable for sending to a printer—it was a simple scan, with all the digital noise and other hallmarks of a scanned book.

So, the first thing we decided to do was a new scan to try to have a cleaner version, meaning we bought a copy of Shadowrun, First Edition and tore it apart for a good scanner (we appreciate its sacrifice). Then things got really fun.

It would have been one thing if we wanted to do some kind of new and updated version of the book, but that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to reproduce Shadowrun, First Edition as closely as possible. That meant re-scanning artwork we didn’t have digital files for and cleaning them up to remove any traces of digital noise. It meant telling proofers to leave certain errors in, because they were in the original book (that caused audible gasps of pain). And perhaps most challenging of all, that meant re-laying out the book, imitating the design and ornamentation of the original, and then painstakingly going line by line to ensure that each line ended with the word it was supposed to.

That was exactly as fun as it sounds, but that’s what making a First Edition replica required, so that’s what we did. And it was worth it, because it’s beautiful. Take a look at the old PDF side by side with the new one, and the results of all that work are clear to see. We have a crisp, clean version of the book, both in digital and print formats, ready for decades more of gaming.

Shadowrun will keep moving forward, trying different things and exploring new ground (for example, for the first time ever the game will have a core rulebook spherically for for socially oriented characters—it’s called Smooth Operations), but in an anniversary year, it’s a great time to remember where it all started and how the First Edition set the pattern for this great game.

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Jason M. Hardy is the Creative Director of Catalyst Game Labs’ RPG division; in his time as Shadowrun line developer, he led the development of Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, Shadowrun; Anarchy, and Shadowrun, Sixth World, and of course dozens of sourcebooks. He is a firm believer in six-sided dice, DIY attitudes, and throwaway jokes.