Avatar Legends vs Shadowrun
Compare Avatar Legends and Shadowrun side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Avatar Legends | Shadowrun | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Cyberpunk, Fantasy |
| Play Style | Narrative, Character-Driven, Drama, Playbook-Driven, Licensed IP, Martial Arts | Crunchy, Tactical, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d6 + stat (Creativity, Focus, Harmony, Passion). 10+ strong hit, 7–9 partial success, 6- miss. Balance system tracks opposing principles: lean one way for bonuses but risk being knocked out of a scene. Combat uses structured exchanges with approach selection. | Roll a pool of d6s equal to attribute + skill, counting 5s and 6s as hits. Meet or exceed a threshold to succeed. Situational advantages generate Edge points rather than modifying dice pools directly; Edge is spent on tactical effects like rerolling dice, adding successes, or imposing penalties on opponents. |
| Dice | 2d6 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Low | Very High |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved (Paramount license) | No open license |
| Cost | $$ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Magpie Games | Catalyst Game Labs |
| Year | 2022 | 2019 |
| Best For | Groups who love Avatar: The Last Airbender or Legend of Korra and want stories of young heroes navigating internal conflict, relationships, and martial-arts action across the Four Nations. | Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat. |
| Highlights | Balance system creates internal character conflict, combat exchanges feel dynamic, five era settings span the full Avatarverse, mechanically supports emotional play | The setting fuses megacorporate intrigue with magic and metahuman races, so a single team mixes street samurai, mages, and deckers. Distinct subsystems model Matrix hacking, spellcasting, drone rigging, and astral space, each carrying its own rules depth. The Edge economy converts situational advantages into a spendable resource for rerolls, extra hits, or penalties on opponents. |
| Considerations | Three overlapping status tracks add surprising complexity, tightly locked to the Avatar IP, combat exchanges have a steep learning curve, no open license | Matrix hacking runs on its own timescale and can leave non-decker players idle during a run. Character creation spreads across attributes, skills, magic or resonance, gear, and lifestyle, making the first build long. Dice pools grow large at high skill, so counting hits on a fistful of d6s slows resolution. |