Shadowrun vs Wicked Ones
Compare Shadowrun and Wicked Ones side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Shadowrun | Wicked Ones | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Cyberpunk, Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Crunchy, Tactical, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Classless, Espionage | Base-Building, Domain Management, Faction Play, Sandbox, Playbook-Driven, Fiction-First, CC-Licensed Rules |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d6s equal to an attribute plus a skill, counting 5s and 6s as hits. Reach the required threshold to succeed, or compare hits in an opposed test. Situational advantages generate Edge points that can fund rerolls or extra hits. Dice pool modifiers still apply alongside Edge. | Build a pool of d6s equal to your action rating and keep the single highest die: a 6 succeeds, a 4 or 5 succeeds with a consequence, and a 1 to 3 fails. Before the roll the GM sets position and effect, which fix how bad the consequence can be and how much the action accomplishes. Stress can be spent to push a roll or resist a consequence. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very High | High |
| Accessibility | High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | CC0 1.0 |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Community content program | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $ | Free |
| Publisher | Catalyst Game Labs | Bandit Camp |
| Year | 2019 | 2020 |
| Languages | English, German, French, Portuguese, Russian | English, French |
| Best For | Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists and enjoy mastering specialist rules together across a continuing campaign. | Groups who like the fiction-first Forged in the Dark engine and want to flip the dungeon crawl: instead of raiding a dungeon they build, grow, and defend one as its monstrous residents across a long campaign. It rewards tables that enjoy a strategic hoard-and-tier economy layered on villain-POV roleplay, and that are willing to set tone and safety expectations up front given the evil-protagonist premise. |
| Highlights | Specialist roles divide a heist across physical security, hacking, and magic, giving the team several ways into the same target. Edge turns situational advantages into a spendable resource for tactical choices. Reputation and Heat carry the consequences of conspicuous jobs into later missions. | Players design their own dungeon during downtime and later roll its traps and defenses against invaders, which turns base-building into the game's central strategic layer. Giving in to a monster's Dark Impulse earns a Dark Heart to spend for a bonus die, so playing to your character's worst instincts is rewarded rather than left as flavor. The four-phase cycle feeds each raid's fallout back as calamity and blowback that summon heroes to your door, so the campaign escalates its own stakes without the GM inventing threats by hand. |
| Considerations | Character creation requires coordinating priority choices with detailed gear purchases. Cyberware reduces Essence, which limits magical development. Wireless equipment bonuses expose connected gear to hacking. | The three magic disciplines have no fixed spell lists, so a spell's power is decided by the GM in the moment. During a dungeon invasion the player characters cannot leave the sanctum, so most of the defense is run through minions and traps until the heroes reach the final room. There is no published setting, so each group must build its own region and factions before raiding can begin. |