[Chromed] A Shadowrun to Donjon Conversion

[CodexArcanum]

The title about says it, but I'll let my introduction say just a bit more.

As a college student, I'm blessed with a fair bit of free time, good friends, and a healthy desire to game. Sadly, I often find myself buried in too many games. It doesn't help at all that I love making them too.  So it came to pass that my friends were basically begging me to run Shadowrun for them, but I had just read and was intoxicated with Donjon.  So I did the only sensible thing I could do:  I tried to slam them into each other.

I'm not sure on the legality of such a thing.  It's mainly for my friends and I, but I'd love to share with all my friends on the internet.  You need Donjon and Shadowrun to play, as I only go over the barest of rules in reference to how I changed them, so I don't see how I'm doing anything but encourage sales of both. Also, it's based on SR3, so the new SR4 will outdate most of the info in this little mod anyway.

I have it in a word doc right now, but I can convert to PDF when I get home, or just post bits of it straight to forum.  I don't have a website yet, so I can email to anyone that wants it.  I'd love feedback on this idea and help working out what else I need to complete it.  I plan on playtest/running it pretty soon.

So far, it's working out very easily and surprisingly fun sounding.  SR is basically just a cyberpunk dungeon crawl anyway, so it ports to Donjon really well.  I hope it works out great, because my friends really want some SR but I'm really not fond of the system.  Too complex and bloated with minutae.  

Anyway, thanks for your time and I hope to hear from some people who might be interested in this project.

[b_bankhead]

I think Donjon is an interesting game, I have it and I'm always curious about new varients of successful games.

It would be even more interesting to see what you did with the netrunning aspect of cyberpunk. A Donjon based netrun would be very dungeon like and a very interesting variant concept off of the cyberpunk idea

[CodexArcanum]

Well, I've gotten the netrunning aspect worked up.  It actually does turn out pretty much like a dungeon crawl, with a few thematic changes and a couple extra bits.  What's really neat is that Shadowrun's concept of a system's security level overlays perfectly with Donjon's dungeon level.  

I'm mostly just porting ideas from SR into Donjon, but I did make a few big changes to Donjon.  Tell me how these sound (The doc is mostly written up into a decent first alpha form, but who wants to read all that on a forum at one time):

Dice - Yeah, I don't have enough d20s so I have to resort to an alternate dice system.  I'm basically using the regular Donjon mechanic with d6s.  Gasp! I know, but hear me out, it's all in the presentation.  First you count sixes, most sixes wins. If sixes are tied or not there, you count five, then fours, and so on.  Howevery many of whatever non tied number you have minus the GMs amount of that number is how many successes you have.  It seems to work well in practice.  I also fiddled out a neat way to do initiative that doesn't have everyone trying to squeeze twenty actions into 6 flurries.

Range - Due to gun combat, I expanded the Donjon range system.  Now you have Melee, Short, Mid, Long, and Extreme range.  Different types of gun operate best at different ranges, but it's all fairly intuitive.  Guns in melee have a penalty, shotguns work less effectively at mid range and not at long range, only a sniper rifle can shoot in from extreme range.

Cyberware - Is an ability.  Makes it more flexible without require you to munchkin down into long lists of cyber-limbs. Starting cyberware will probably be free, new cyberware is only available at the levels you can get new abilities and you have to pay wealth for it.

Gear - Provisions and Wealth are still there, but Provisions is slightly modified.  For one thing, runners don't always wear backpacks.  But they pull stuff out of their long, black trench coats all the time, so I've noted that provisions should be mostly pocket sized.  Since most goodies in SR are already pocket sized, not a big change.  In addiition to Wealth and Provisions, I've added a pool called Edge.  Edge dice can be added to any test and represents a runner's built up experience and reputation.  It's equal to the character level.  I felt it was a good way to let runners use their "street cred" as a form of currency for calling in favors and what not.

Magic - Is mostly unchanged.  If magic is a primary stat, you can Summon and Cast, but must choose Shaman, Hermetic, or Somatic traditions.   If magic is a secondary, you choose shaman or hermetic, and which you want of summon or casting.  All other magic rules are the same as Donjon.

Vehicles - Are kind of neat, but mostly just cool items.  A car would be a neat permanant possession.  Riggers are in there, and I think I've provided a neat enough bonus to encourage their use.  

Hacking - I've mostly gone over.  There's a few other neat bits, but they're in the doc.


Does that sound interesting so far?  I'm new to the Forge, so go easy on me (or don't, I can also use constructive criticism).

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Can I just say that this is awesome? I love Shadowrun for some reason, and Donjon/Shadowrun mash-up - wow.