Dungeons & Dustbunnies vs Shadowrun

Compare Dungeons & Dustbunnies and Shadowrun side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Dungeons & Dustbunnies	Shadowrun
Genre	Post-Apocalyptic, Fantasy	Cyberpunk, Fantasy
Play Style	Rules-Light, Comedy, Gonzo, Beginner-Friendly, One-Shot Friendly, Theater of the Mind, Improvisation, Survival	Crunchy, Tactical, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy
Core Mechanic	Decrease Dice: each character has one die, starting at d20, that serves as both their health and their resolution roll. To attempt a risky action, roll the die against the Difficulty your class assigns that skill; meeting or beating it succeeds, while a normal failure costs only the attempt. The die steps down a size (d20 → d12 → d10 → d8 → d6 → d4) whenever you roll a 1, take major damage, or voluntarily force the scale to convert a failure into an automatic success. A character whose die would drop below d4 falls Exhausted or dies; sleeping in a safe shelter resets it to d20 and consuming a sugar ration steps it back up one size.	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	d4–d20	d6 dice pool
Complexity	Very Low	Very High
Accessibility	Very High	High
Runnability	High	Very High
License	Proprietary	No open license
Cost	Free	$$$
Publisher	Castamar RPG Studio	Catalyst Game Labs
Year	2026	2019
Best For	Groups who want a quick, comedic one-shot or short campaign as thumb-sized survivors scavenging a household that has become a hostile wilderness, with a ruleset light enough to read in a few minutes before the first session.	Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat.
Highlights	The Decrease Dice mechanic collapses health and resolution into a single die, so every roll both tests the action and visibly wears the character down as the die shrinks toward d4. Forcing the scale lets a player turn any failure into a guaranteed success by stepping their die down a size, making each clutch moment a deliberate trade of long-term stamina for an immediate result. Monsters are rated by a Threat Die that attacks and spells whittle down, and several (the chitin-armored cockroach, the static-charged dustbunny) shrug off ordinary weapons until players expose a weak spot or switch to fire, water, or magic.	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	Combat has no initiative or turn order (the GM narrates enemy intent and players react with defensive rolls), so there is little structure for tactical positioning. Rolling a 1 on any skill check (including routine Stealth, Alertness, or social rolls) steps the die down the same as taking a hit in combat, so avoiding unnecessary rolls becomes a survival strategy rather than a purely narrative choice. There is no advancement system: skills are fixed at character creation and the Decrease Die only ever recovers to its starting size, so characters do not grow mechanically over a campaign.	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.