Shadowrun vs Symbaroum

Compare Shadowrun and Symbaroum side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Shadowrun	Symbaroum
Genre	Cyberpunk, Fantasy	Fantasy, Horror
Play Style	Crunchy, Tactical, Combat-Heavy, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy	Dark Fantasy, Atmospheric, Player-Only Rolls, Corruption, Exploration, Roll to Cast, Classless, Tactical, Gritty, Lore-Heavy
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.	Roll a d20 and try to land equal to or under one of eight Attributes: Accurate, Cunning, Discreet, Persuasive, Quick, Resolute, Strong, and Vigilant. Opposed tests apply the opponent's relevant Attribute as a penalty, written [Attribute←Opponent's Attribute]. Only players roll dice, so an enemy attack becomes a player Defense test and NPC stats appear as fixed modifiers on the player's roll.
Dice	d6 dice pool	d20
Complexity	Very High	Medium
Accessibility	High	High
Runnability	Very High	Very High
License	No open license	All Rights Reserved
Cost	$$$	$$
Publisher	Catalyst Game Labs	Free League Publishing
Year	2019	2016
Best For	Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat.	Groups who want long-form dark fantasy exploration with mounting personal cost: expeditions into ancient ruins where each use of magic and each encounter with the corrupted forest leaves a lasting mark on the characters.
Highlights	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.	Corruption tracks the mystical cost of every cast power, tainted artifact, and hour in dark Davokar: passing half a character's Resolute pins a permanent Stigma like blackening eyes or fangs that only rituals can lift. Reaching Resolute in total Corruption turns the character into an abomination and hands them to the GM, putting every mystic and every cursed treasure in tension with continued ownership of the character. Witchsight reveals the colored Shadow around any creature or object (green and red for things of nature, gold and silver for civilized beings, black and purple for the corrupted), but each glance risks taking on temporary Corruption from what was inspected. Only players roll dice, so combat resolves as the players' Attack tests, Defense tests, and damage rolls against fixed NPC values rather than back-and-forth opposed throws.
Considerations	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.	Mystics pay heavy attrition for their craft: every learned power and every casting generates Corruption, and the four traditions only partially insulate the caster, so spell-heavy characters require careful tracking and trend toward eventual transformation if used freely. Combat resolves each attack against multiple thresholds (rolled Armor for protection, weapon damage against Toughness, and a Pain Threshold check for whether the hit knocks the target prone or triggers a free attack), adding bookkeeping in busy encounters. The core book deliberately limits its setting to the region around Davokar; the lands south of the Titans and the broader world receive only brief mention.