What system to play Shadowrun "setting"?

By that I mean:
Many people are saying that 6th edition(the newest one?) is overly complicated. I heard similar voices about the earlier versions. I tried to read QuickStart rules for 5th(or was it 4th...? ) and 6th edition... and they really seemed like too complicated for their own sake. There is this Shadowrun: Anarchy version, tried to analyze it too... but also was put off somehow. And it's not that I have problem with complicated rules in general, as I play Vital Lacerda boardgames or like what Infinity RPG provides. So there is probably some merit to the claim that original Shadowrun rules "aren't the greatest" ones - at least it seams like to me. So, my question is:

What ruleset would you use or are using to play in Shadowrun setting other then "original" ones? Can be everything - not very well known hacks of other systems(I think I have seen something like that for Genesys?) or other system that would be easy to adjust for the setting? Or some exotic not well known system in general.

Do you think one could make a good hack of Year Zero Engine(my recent interest) for this setting? Cyberpunk 2020 or Red would be any good(not having any magic and races)?

I would like to exclude from the discussion: very general and simple system like FU, Reitus and so... it's cyberpunk after all: we need some crunch, but in reasonable dose - I think:)

@witchdoctor is preparing a Shadowrun campaign that uses the White Wolf Chronicles of Darkness engine, I believe (the ruleset powering Vampire the Masquerade, etc)

Dr_B is correct, as usual. I'd been looking at converting ShadowRun into another system and finally hit on Chronicles of Darkness as a great compromise. The systems really aren't mechanically that different but the CofD ruleset changes the dynamic in an interesting way and is so much smoother and more elegant than any edition of official SR rules.
I'm planning on a mid-February launch for the game. I'm still fiddling with Magic and the Matrix but should have that ironed out by then.

That's very interesting! Will you accept some players for it? Or you are already full? Also: are you planing to publish your work somehow?

Lastly:
I presume that includes the Anarchy variant too?

Anarchy is a PbtA variant, or similar to it, I think... I'm not super familiar with it but I know it's rules-lite.

I haven't opened the game yet so it's definitely not full. I'm looking at maybe mid-February for opening it up (post Valentine's Day) so if you're interested, I'll keep you in mind if you're interested.

I am interested! Sing me up for this:)

I played 6th edition online at GameholeCon in the fall, and loved it. The initial document was a hot mess of poor editing, but the game is solid enough and played wonderfully even with a team of newbies.

Anarchy isn't PbtA, but is rules-lite. Uses the Cue system. The best port I've seen is the one Genesys one you mentioned. I think it is actually too big and detailed (something like 600 pages) but the Genesys rules system works very well with Shadowrun.

Has that improved? I have not looked at it again since that initial, disappointing release.

I don't think so. The rules were so fundamentally broken I don't know how they could fix it without a new edition. It's definitely the prettiest edition though!

There is also a Fate hack for Shadowrun, if you wanna have a look: https://www.mithriltabby.com/shadowrun/

Thanks. But I still can't get my head around this "Fate system"... Nay good recommendation of short to the point introduction why it is so good system, how to use it and why I should try it?
But I will look into it. I presume it's only on webpages, there is no PDF for this?

A TinyD6 game, MINIMA UMBRA - A TINY D6 SHADOWRUN GAME, was started up by Agent 026 over on tavern keeper. He had started a conversion but I don't thick it was finished at the time and the game died during the wait.
It looked interesting and as rules light as TinyD6 is it should work with a bit more effort

I have played a Blades in the dark adaptation to Shadowrun

Looks amazing. How it went? Will you use for the next Shadowrun campaign/adventure?

We had a good game with several missions. This adoptation worked really well as Blades has mechanismes that handles heists adventures very well. Shadowrun are often some sort of heists where MrJohnson asks you to break into to X and steal Y

It would be my suggestion for future Shadowrun games

Interesting... as it is like folding complexity 10/10 game into game that is 2/10 - but I guess when rules are so simple you just say what you want to do and check if your PC managed to do that? Not too much more? But I always felt that cyberpunk should have some crunch.... in rules.

Yeah it was pretty simple. I've never actually played shadowrun though I did do some cyberpunk back in the 90s. I remember resource tracking bring pretty important.
There are some TinyD6 options that could up the crunch to maybe 5/10.

I haven't tested this myself in an actual game yet, but looks promising. Reasons to try it would include the same reasons to try Fate in general: if you want a narrative game, that gives some narrative power to the players to have their say in the world and the game (not as much as PbTA, but definitely more than traditional games). It's in the rules-lite/medium crunch spectrum.

And what I love about Fate is that you can slot in ANY piece of rules you find missing very easily. :-)

You don't like the magic system, or want to add options to the existing one? You got it. Want a more deadly combat system? Easy peasy. Hacking rules, vehicles, character options... Everything uses the same baseline and it's easy to tweak thanks to the Bronze Rule.

There's a setting for the Savage Worlds system called Sprawlrunners that I hear is basically Shadowrun with the serial #'s filed off.

Cy_Borg is supposed to be pretty good, a cyberpunk spin on the popular Mork Borg.

Interesting. Can you give any brief examples what you mean by that? Are there any hacking rules available as modules in this system?

And... I think that:
WE HAVE A WINNER
at least for me. I once saw this expansion, but didn't get it so far and forgot about it. I like SW ruleset a lot so it would be a perfect fit to have some crunch but in still reasonable dose.

Did anyone played/used/read this expansion?

I have the book but haven't played it. SW is a bit too simple and "heroic" feeling for Shadowrun to me. The great appeal to Shadowrun is how gear and stats and cybernetics increase your dice pool, but SW has a very limited dice range and you just don't get the granularity. But that's just how it feels to me, opinions could differ. Genesys comes the closest because it also has dice pools and there are dice upgrades from green to yellow, so it is easy to see the impact of all your gear and such.

Savage Worlds, for me, is really inconsistent with how the dice function. The exploding die mechanic can make for exciting possibilities but the due progression really doesn't make characters more competent as the progress. SW is a good 'pick up game' or one with limited progression and ShadowRun is all about the fiddly details of gear and implies that the Runners are at least consistently competent.

This is a sample list of some hacks out there (some of the links are dead, as they used to link to Google Plus content):

Important FATE links

There you can find several examples of almost anything you can imagine, like:

57. Dresden Files Hack

59. Allomancy...the basics

60. Discussion on how to do the Matrix in Fate

62. Magic Of Krynn

65. Avengers(pregens)

75. Magic:The Gathering

77. Rogue Trader Fate Hack

81. Marvel Heroes Statted up in Fate and FAE

82. Dinosaurs

84. Rules for Lost Civilazations

91. Shadowrun Ten Archetypes for Fate Core

Those were fan-made, another (more official) example is the Fate System Toolkit, with some example Subsystems:

https://fate-srd.com/fate-system-toolkit/subsystems

Those are really interesting remarks about SW. I didn't think about that in that way. And it seems very important. You are right, what is a point of installing an artificial arm if your chances of ripping some monster head will be almost the same? Or you could do it with your previous dice for the stat?
I wonder if Sprawrunners have addressed it even in slightest degree. But it indeed seem hard to do with SW rulesets.
As for Genesys I like a promise of the narrative dice A LOT, but I'm just trying the system in one of the games I'm participating in... and building the dice pool(probably without possibility of having live conversation with GM....) seems like quite a chore right now. Maybe it will go away with time.
From the other side: d6 pools in Shadowrun also seam ridiculous in the number of d6s you will be rolling and compering with other big pools of d6. I haven't ever played it, so it is only my theoretical observation/fear but isn't it that way? But indeed it allows for nice granularity of rising chances with each new bonus from stuff.

So what other rule system could provide proper granularity for such needs of Shadowrun setting?

It looks that Cyberpunk 2020/RED with its stat + d10 AND many numerical modificators can provide enough things to make a proper influence on the chance of each roll, without going "big dice poll" way? Do you agree guys? Or d20 could provide even higher granularity?

And there is this Cortex Prime with more granuality then SW, but would this be enough for Shadowrun? Apart from that it still seems a little convoluted/general for me as system. Will have to check how it works in Firefly RPG... someday.

The point is flavor. Plus potentially in Savage Worlds, you could have fun little bonus effects, like edges ic you really want.

I don't see how this kind of granularity like in SR adds any fun, but through a number of debates on the topic of SR replacements and mech games, I have realized that I am by far in the minority there.

SR does indeed get to pretty high dice pools where some characters are basically guaranteed success, while other characters have almost no chance of success. You'd need to introduce caps (which I believe some editions of SR uses) that limit the amount of dice any pool can get. You could also limit stats as well. I don't know of many systems that can handle SR other than SR. My best advice is to find one of the many editions that seems the most useful and then add some house rules to fix whatever doesn't work for you.

I once considered doing a splice of Modern AGE, Fantasy AGE and Cyberpunk Slice (a Modern AGE sourcebook) to run Shadowrun but as most such ideas I never got further than buying the books and reading them (well... some of them... Modern AGE at least... Skimmed it).

Interesting as... from the QuickStart rules for Modern AGE:
Doesn't seem as too much granularity - that we are talking here about?? So where have you seen it? In stunts and stunts points? Hmmm... seems as possible to work out. How did they approach it in this Cyberpunk Slice book?
I mean: The granularity of incorporating many kinds of augmentation at once in one test?

And there is this Fragged Empire system - that seems a little similar in setting assumptions to what we have in SR - and it also use 3d6 + have interesting combat, so maybe they figured it out in this system for "just" 3d6 ruleset?

Having strongly tried as many cyberpunk games as I can get my hands on, my resigned conclusion is that nothing really replicates Shadowrun. But that's an answer I personally dislike, so I've rationalised that which setting to play SR with depends on what you're hoping to get out of an SR game.

If it's the crunch that matters most in giving the full flavour of a cyberpunk game, it's best to play something like Cyberpunk Red (or an older edition of it). If it's the classes and archetypes that give the most feel, (ie street sam, hacker, decker, adept, etc), then most of the PbtA variants work pretty well, especially if it's one whose character moves define and characterise distinctly what those characters mean.

It's the magic part that I find hardest to attempt to replicate from another system. A powers-based system like Savage Worlds I feel puts too much focus on the distinctness of the powers, ie, the crunch is in the customising of the powers, not so much the gear and equipment. Lots of GM restrictions are needed just to say what is allowed to work and what is not. I like your example about installing a cyberarm: functionally in SW it makes no difference whether we call it a cyberarm or not, it's just a strength or speed boost of some sort.

Having most recently tried to run 6e, I'd fall back on 4e/5e, but be very specific about what to allow and what not, and I'd throw away a bunch of ovely specific rules. The complexity of too many rule interactions and number of splatbooks make it very hard to play a 4e/5e game enjoyably.

Splatbooks are often the downfall of many systems. They usually add too many new systems and rule interactions to incorporate into already complex systems.

Maybe try 2e or 3e!

And now - coincidentally - we have this Cities Without Number campaign on KS. Do you think it could be any good for Shadowrun? It is supposed to have magic also. Anyone played Stars Without Number?

I saw the KS for it advertised and now I'm curious about how SWN plays as well.

It runs very rules light and set up to play it hexcrawl style with tables to randomize most everything the group comes across. I got the chance to play in a sadly short lived SWN game last year. There's also Worlds Without Number as a fantasy version which can be a source for metatypes. I don't know how compatible the three games will be.

Savage Worlds also has a setting called Interface Zero 3.0 for SWADE. It’s a very cyberpunk game with oodles of high tech gear, human augmentation, hacking, and all of the other good stuff. The only thing missing is magic and meta humans. This being Savage Worlds, however, you can very easily port those elements into the game. Obviously, SWADE is nowhere near as crunchy as Shadowrun, so it won’t really feel the same. Still, it’s a setting that I recommend checking out. Might be able to combine it with Sprawlrunners to get the most out of the SW cyberpunk material.

Savage Worlds also has a setting called Nova Praxis which has strong cyberpunk and transhuman elements, though that game is much closer to Eclipse Phase than Shadowrun.

I even have Interface Zero 3.0 for Swade. When did I get that? Sept 2021. Interesting...

1. One more question about Genesys and its Shadowrun hack: there is this official Android setting for Genesys. Apart from lack of magic: how good is for cyberpunk settings? Does it provide the right amount of mentioned here granularity ? Did anyone here used this book?

2. Researching the subject some more: I have found some nice videos about Shadowrun 3rd edition. And many people call it as their favorite edition. And it really seem having some neat aspects: dice pools seems not to grow to ridiculous sizes, it's rules seem to be quite simple, but still have enough granularity with its changing TN and some "effort" aspects in the form of Action Pool for each fight round.

And from 4th edition the authors seem to go into direction of overcomplicating things. But yet again: it is also mentioned as favorite edition of many.

And all of this: are only my impressions from watching quite a few tutorial videos:D

And... I love those old-school Art! :)

That's way I'm asking the veterans/practicians: what do they think about 3rd edition? Maybe they could correct the book, to make it a better read. Streamline a little the rules and go evolution way from that point? Could it be the best edition to start with Shadowrun?
Right now I would be really excited to try 3e - indeed! Any experiences with it?

Not personal experience but I have the all the books and I've read through it! 3e is the edition I'd most like to try someday.

3rd was my favorite iteration of the ShadowRun systems. It struck the balance between being the most complete of the systems without being bloated.

So I hope there will be an opportunity to play it together someday! As so far - as stated here - I didn't found the other ruleset that could be a nice replacement. Apart maybe for this Genesys edition, but it seems to have it's own quirks... And still looking forward to this WoD conversion.

3rd edition to... rule them all... ? ;)