Oceania 2084 vs Shadowrun
Compare Oceania 2084 and Shadowrun side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Oceania 2084 | Shadowrun | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi, Cyberpunk | Cyberpunk, Fantasy |
| Play Style | GM-Less, Narrative, Collaborative, Drama, Roleplay-Heavy, Solo-Friendly, Crunchy, Open Source | Crunchy, Tactical, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | Resistance characters' Acts normally succeed as narrated within a six-phase Day in Dystopia. When a Value is challenged, roll d6 against the linked Emotion: Good Values succeed on a roll above it and Bad Values on a roll below it. | 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 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | Very High |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | Medium | Very High |
| License | CC BY-SA 4.0 | No open license |
| Cost | Free | $$$ |
| Publisher | Jocher Symbolic Systems | Catalyst Game Labs |
| Year | 2024 | 2019 |
| Best For | Groups who want a politically explicit dystopian campaign about preserving private bonds under state surveillance. It suits tables comfortable sharing narrative authority with an adversarial Big Brother player, character turnover, and post-session debriefs. | Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat. |
| Highlights | Acts normally resolve through narration rather than task rolls, keeping attention on what resistance costs instead of whether a character can perform it. Value Tests turn public loyalty and private belief into emotional pressure: success shifts a shadow emotion, and failure causes an outburst or Stress. Physical Notes written by dead characters grant 2 Hope when another dissident finds them; a Note carried into interrogation can be confiscated as evidence. | 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 | The campaign assumes the regime eventually breaks or vaporizes its dissidents, so it does not support a conventional revolution or heroic victory arc. The Big Brother player tracks a concealed surveillance economy and interprets its Reaction tables, making that role more demanding than a neutral facilitator. The game requires a shared willingness to portray propaganda, betrayal, and emotional distress, even though it includes safety and debrief procedures. | 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. |