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Well, first and foremost, you're going to need a set of the rules. Around here at least, the Shadowrun, Second Edition rulebook sells for 25 American dollars. I've seen it advertised for less at Discount Games' website and I know someone who paid a little more, but $25 is the MSRP. While you're buying your copy of the rules, you'll also want dice if you don't have them. Shadowrun uses only six-sided dice (the ones shaped like little cubes), but it uses _lots_ of them. Other than that, all you need is a pencil and some paper, or a good substitute (like a pen and paper or a computer or something you type/write/transcribe stuff on/with). Once you've got that, you'll want to sit down and read the book. Spend some time figuring out how the rules work and what they do, and get comfortable with the setting of Shadowrun's game world. Assuming you have some other people (about 3 to 5 other people is a good number) to play a game with, you should be ready to play now. The only other thing you'll need to know is that the guy who knows the rules best is most likely going to wind up as GM.
As long as you're on the Net, you'll probably also want to check out the various .net publications for Shadowrun, specifically NERPS, NAGEE, and Plastic Warriors, as well as The Shadowrun Archive, where you should be able to find links to or archived copies of each of those. If you want to find out what other people are doing with Shadowrun and what some problems are that other GMs and players have encountered while playing, the ShadowRN mailing list and rec.games.frp.cyber are good places to get mass interaction from other people who play Shadowrun. If you're looking for in-character interaction with other people all over the world, then there's Shadowland, any of a number of #Shadowrun IRC channels (at least three that I know of), and ShadowRN's sister list, ShadowTK. Finally, if you want to find out what FASA has planned for Shadowrun, then you'll want to check out their website.
All articles at The Shapeshifter's Lair are copyright by their original author(s). Shadowrun is a Registered Trademark of FASA Corporation. Original Shadowrun material Copyright 1994 by FASA Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission. Any use of FASA Corporation's copyrighted material or trademarks in this file should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks.
