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, Combat-Heavy, 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 | Medium |
| Community | Medium | 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 | Unique cyberpunk-fantasy setting blending megacorporate intrigue with magic and metahuman races. Dedicated subsystems for Matrix hacking, magic, rigging, and astral space. Edge system replaces many situational modifiers with a spendable tactical resource. Decades of published lore spanning in-world history from 2011 to the 2080s. |
| 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 as a parallel subsystem that can leave non-decker players waiting. Multiple supplemental rulebooks needed for full coverage of magic, Matrix, and rigging. Published books have documented editing and layout issues. |