Shadowrun vs Stonetop
Compare Shadowrun and Stonetop side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Shadowrun | Stonetop | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Cyberpunk, Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Crunchy, Tactical, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy | CC-Licensed Rules, Playbook-Driven, Resource Management, Fiction-First, Strong GM Support, Base-Building, Journey, Character-Driven, Worldbuilding, Exploration |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | Describe what your character does; when it meets a move's trigger, roll 2d6 and add a stat from -1 to +3. A 10+ is a strong hit and a 7-9 is a weak hit: partial success or success with a cost. On a 6-, PCs normally mark XP and the GM makes a hard move unless the move says otherwise. Advantage or disadvantage normally adds a third d6 and drops the lowest or highest; damage rolls instead roll damage twice and keep the best or worst result. The GM does not generally roll during play. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Very High | High |
| Accessibility | High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | No open license | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Catalyst Game Labs | Lampblack & Brimstone |
| Year | 2019 | 2026 |
| Best For | Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat. | Groups who want a long-running hearth-fantasy campaign centered on a village as much as its heroes. Play alternates dangerous expeditions into a darkening iron-age world with homefront scenes of courtship, harvest, and community projects. |
| Highlights | 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. | The steading playbook tracks the village's Fortunes and Surplus, so projects and disasters change what Stonetop can withstand. Seasons Change generates or consumes Surplus and grants seasonal gains, so the village's resources change with each passing season. Expeditions make preparation matter by weighing load and supplies against GM-presented travel challenges. |
| Considerations | 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. | The game is built around defending one village, so rootless or wandering parties leave its homefront engine behind. Combat relies on spotlighting, abstract range tags, and fictional positioning, which may not suit groups that want a detailed tactical combat procedure. Supplies, load, provisions, and village Surplus are tracked in several places, adding steady bookkeeping to expeditions and downtime. |