Ask The Readers: Shadowrun WaRPed?

220px-Shadowrun-logoOver the last few weeks I have been thinking a lot about Shadowrun. A while back my players asked me to run Shadowrun for them, and since then I’ve looked into various editions of the game. The 5th Edition actually caused me headaches (I’m not kidding) and while the 4th Edition makes much more sense to me, I still find it way too crunchy for my tastes. In my search for an alternative system, I looked at Fudge, Savage Worlds, a Shadowrun Hack of Apocalypse World, and a few others.

Last but not least I remembered the WaRP system by Atlas Games. WaRP is a very rules-light system which has powered the famous Over The Edge RPG. The whole system is just about 30 pages long and is freeform enough so that it can be used for almost every genre. From what I’ve seen so far a “normal” cyberpunk game could easily be run with the WaRP system. You just need to define fitting Traits during character creation and you’re done.

Alas Shadowrun is not just cyberpunk but also has several fantasy elements. Adding the various subspecies of Metahumanity is pretty simple. Just include a reference in your Central Trait. It gets more complicated when you want to create a character with magic abilities. WaRP allows the character to pick Fringe powers (which can be everything from magic to Psi or the abilities of superpowered humans). What I am wondering now how I could easily use WaRP’s Fringe powers to emulate Shadowrun’s magic. Alas I am lacking experience with the system, so I am asking for your help.

Do you have experience with both Shadowrun and Over The Edge (or the WaRP system)? How would you handle magic in a Shadowrun game powered by WaRP? Please post your ideas below!