Pendragon vs Shadowrun
Compare Pendragon and Shadowrun side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pendragon | Shadowrun | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Historical | Cyberpunk, Fantasy |
| Play Style | Character-Driven, Domain Management, Lore-Heavy, Deadly, Simulation, Crunchy, Social Intrigue | Crunchy, Tactical, Combat-Heavy, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d20 against the relevant skill or attribute: a result equal to or under its value succeeds, a roll exactly equal to the value is a critical success, and a natural 20 is a fumble. Opposed actions have both sides roll under their value, with the higher success winning and a beaten-but-successful roll scoring a partial success. Personality traits and passions use the same numeric scale and are rolled the same way when a knight's character is put to the test. | 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 | d20 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Medium |
| License | Proprietary | No open license |
| Cost | $$ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Arthaus | Catalyst Game Labs |
| Year | 2005 | 2019 |
| Best For | Long-running Arthurian campaigns where a knight's aging, death, and dynastic succession are part of the genre, and where playing out a character's traits, loyalties, and passions matters as much as winning fights. | Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat. |
| Highlights | Thirteen opposed pairs of personality traits and a set of named passions are rated numerically and rolled like skills, and a passion roll can leave a knight inspired to heroics, disheartened, or maddened beyond the player's control — the heightened behavior that drives Arthurian drama. Every chivalric act — combat, generosity, romance, piety, holding a title — feeds a single lifelong Glory total that sets social rank and rewards embodying knightly ideals over simply winning fights. A yearly Winter Phase resolves aging, estate income, and family events between sessions and passes the line to an heir on death, so a campaign can span generations from Uther's court to the fall of the Round Table. | 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 | Core rules restrict player characters to knights, with no mechanics for playing magicians, priests, or commoners, which narrows the cast to the warrior aristocracy. The Winter Phase's multi-step annual procedure adds meaningful between-session bookkeeping to every campaign year. High-damage attacks such as a couched lance or great sword can end a fight in a single exchange, making disadvantaged or improvised fights disproportionately dangerous. | 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. |