Inevitable vs Shadowrun
Compare Inevitable and Shadowrun side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Inevitable | Shadowrun | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Cyberpunk, Fantasy |
| Play Style | Atmospheric, Character-Driven, Dark Fantasy, Deadly, Fiction-First, Grimdark, Lore-Heavy, Mission-Based, Narrative, Rules-Light | Crunchy, Tactical, Combat-Heavy, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | Build a dice pool of d6s from Reputations, equipment, and risk-taking. Roll and take the highest: 1–3 fails with a Consequence, 4–5 succeeds but with a Consequence and earns a Showdown Token, 6 succeeds cleanly. In climactic Showdowns, one character faces the Threat alone — roll d6 plus bonuses from negotiated Costs against a target equal to Threat minus accumulated Showdown Tokens. | 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 | d6 dice pool | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Low | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Low | Medium |
| License | All Rights Reserved | No open license |
| Cost | $$ | $$$ |
| Publisher | SoulMuppet Publishing | Catalyst Game Labs |
| Year | 2024 | 2019 |
| Best For | Groups who want a narrative, play-to-lose fantasy RPG where doomed cowboy knights sacrifice everything to defy prophecy in a richly detailed kingdom on the brink of destruction. | Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat. |
| Highlights | Play-to-lose structure makes failure and sacrifice mechanically meaningful rather than punishing. Six classes (Errant, Mystic, Godsman, Taleweaver, Roamer, Shadowjack) each with unique abilities and Reputation suggestions. Nested quest structure — World Quests, Stepwise Quests, Doom Quests, and the Fall Quest — creates escalating campaign arcs. Showdown mechanic focuses climactic confrontations on a single character negotiating personal Costs against the Threat. | 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 | Tightly bound to the Kingdom of Myth setting with no toolkit for other campaigns. Play-to-lose premise requires buy-in from all players. GM must manage interconnected Doom timelines and escalating Threat levels across multiple quest types. No tactical combat system — conflicts resolve through the same Challenge and Showdown mechanics as everything else. | 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. |