City of Amber vs Shadowrun

Compare City of Amber and Shadowrun side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	City of Amber	Shadowrun
Genre	Fantasy, Horror	Cyberpunk, Fantasy
Play Style	Urban Fantasy, Rules-Light, Career-Based, Investigation, Mystery, Noir, Atmospheric, Roll to Cast, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly	Crunchy, Tactical, Combat-Heavy, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy
Core Mechanic	Roll d100 (2d10: one die chosen as the tens, the other as the ones) and try to roll under one of four Stats: Vitality, Willpower, Agility, or Cunning. Skills, situational advantages, or assists let the player roll twice and take the better result; disadvantages take the worse. Three Saves (Fear, Magic, Body) resolve the same way. Failed rolls, entering combat, and casting spells each add Stress; reaching 10+ Stress drains Vitality or Willpower and adds a Consequence, and a critical Save failure forces a Panic check against current Stress.	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	d100	d6 dice pool
Complexity	Low	Very High
Accessibility	Medium	High
Runnability	Low	Very High
License	All rights reserved	No open license
Cost	$	$$$
Publisher	Chrome Dog Games	Catalyst Game Labs
Year	2026	2019
Best For	Groups who want a 1940s urban fantasy with horror undertones, where ordinary New Yorkers awaken to a hidden city of orcs, fey, and shades and pierce the illusion that keeps everyone else asleep. Built for one-shots and short campaigns driven by investigation, magical awakening, and dread.	Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat.
Highlights	Amber level (1–10) is a double-edged progression: rising levels unlock new perceptions and career abilities (eventually including the power to command Grays), but falling to 0 reverts a character to a mindless Gray and hitting 10 retires them from play permanently. The Stress/Panic/Consequence cascade is the mechanical heart of the horror: failed rolls and entering combat each add Stress, hitting 10+ drains Stats and locks in a long-term Consequence (Haunted, Catatonic, Amber Dread, and nine others), and a critical Save failure forces a Panic check against current Stress. Career-gated magic means the same 20-spell list works differently across Careers: Street Wizards cast directly from randomly rolled spells, Artists bake spell effects into physical objects anyone can trigger, and Vagabonds redistribute Amber at personal cost. The Anchor (a mundane personal object worth two starting Amber points) makes every character's connection to the ordinary world a mechanical vulnerability.	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	Setting is locked to the City: characters cannot leave, and the GM improvises everything beyond its borders. Career and Kindred lists are fixed with no guidance for homebrew options. Magic is heavily gated to Street Wizards; other Careers receive one or two minor spell-like abilities at most. The 49-page rulebook is rules-light by design and leaves substantial setting detail, adventure structure, and faction development to the GM.	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.