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, Deadly, Fiction-First, Grimdark, Lore-Heavy, Mission-Based, Narrative, Rules-Light | Crunchy, Tactical, 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 | High | High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| 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. | 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 | 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 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. |