Played the DW Shadowrun hack Sixth World the other day, and had a lot of fun.

Played the DW Shadowrun hack Sixth World the other day, and had a lot of fun. But the firefight pain on the PCs was much less than I expected. I think I’ve worked out why and it might be useful to people developing other hacks.

In Sixth World, like DW, there are (effectively) separate moves for melee and ranged attacks and on a 7-9 result for a ranged attack you don’t take damage. I remember arguing for this separate ranged move in the early days of DW so that monsters without ranged attacks couldn’t damage a player and it works well in DW, but maybe not in a firearms heavy game.

Plus in Sixth World when you aid (or from other effects) you don’t boost another players move by +1, you make anything less than a 7 equal a 7. Because my players pushed up to boosted a lot, they effectively couldn’t be hurt when making a ranged attack.

So the combination of these moves has the unintended consequence of making boosted shooting the safest thing to do in Shadowrun. Here’s my suggested updated attack move to fix this:

ROCK & ROLL: When you attack an enemy, roll+Combat. On 10+, you hit and deal damage. On 7-9, you deal damage, but your target deals damage to you as well if they can. If they can’t deal damage choose one complication:

– You need to move, exposing yourself to danger.

– You burn through ammo. Mark off 1 additional ammo.

– You only graze the target (-2 damage).