Why Shadowrun Works Alone
A shadowrun already has the shape of a solo story. There is a job, a Johnson who may be lying, legwork to find out what you're walking into, a plan, and the moment the plan meets reality. Alone, you play your runner and let the dice answer the questions a gamemaster would. The tool for that is the one you already know: a pool of six-sided dice where 5s and 6s are hits and too many 1s mean something has gone wrong.
Everything on this page except the rules of Shadowrun itself is a house rule: the oracle, the scene check, the attitude roll, the sparks and the heat clock are tools for solo play, not part of the Fifth Edition rulebook.
What you need
- A runner built with the normal rules (or one of the Character Examples).
- About ten six-sided dice, or the Solo Tool below.
- Somewhere to write: a notebook, or the session log built into the tool.
- A job. One line will do: who wants what, for how much, by when.
The Oracle
When you want to know something a gamemaster would tell you ("Is the loading dock guarded?"), phrase it as a yes-or-no question, decide how likely a "yes" is, and roll that many dice. Then count hits, as for any test with a threshold of 2.
| How likely is "yes"? | Dice |
|---|---|
| Nearly impossible | 2 |
| Unlikely | 3 |
| Even odds | 5 |
| Likely | 7 |
| Almost certain | 9 |
- 0 hits: No.
- 1 hit: No, but… Not what you asked for, but something close or useful.
- 2 or 3 hits: Yes.
- 4 or more hits: Yes, and… Better than you hoped.
- Glitch (more than half the dice show 1): whatever the answer, add a twist that works against you, and mark 1 heat.
- Critical glitch (a glitch with no hits): No, and… something goes badly wrong. Mark 2 heat.
Don't spend Edge on oracle rolls. Edge is your runner's luck, and the oracle is the world's.
Exact odds
Worked out from every way the dice can land. Glitches overlap the other columns: a "Yes" can also be a glitch.
| Likelihood | No | No, but | Yes | Yes, and | Any yes | Glitch | Critical |
|---|
Scenes, People and Sparks
Scene check
At the start of each scene, say in one line what you expect to find, then roll one die. If it is equal to or under your current heat, the heat has caught up with you: the scene is interrupted by the people you have crossed (corporate security, a gang, a rival team, the police). Otherwise a 6 means the scene is altered: one important detail is different. Anything else and the scene is as you expected. With heat 0 that is 1 in 6 altered and 5 in 6 as expected; every point of heat adds a 1-in-6 chance of interruption.
Contact and NPC attitude
When you meet someone and their mood matters, roll 3 dice. For one of your own contacts, add a die for each point of Loyalty above 1.
| Dice | 0 hits: hostile | 1: wary | 2: helpful | 3+: eager |
|---|
Attitude is a starting point, not a verdict. A wary fixer can still be bargained with: that is a real Negotiation test, with a real dice pool and limit.
Sparks
When the oracle says "but" or "and", or a scene is interrupted, and nothing comes to mind, roll two dice and read them together: an action and a subject.
| Die | Action | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Betray | a fixer or contact |
| 2 | Steal | a paydata file |
| 3 | Protect | a corp asset |
| 4 | Hunt | a spirit or something astral |
| 5 | Expose | a gang or rival team |
| 6 | Bargain for | a host in the Matrix |
Playing the GM's Part
Tests and fights
Anything your runner does that could fail is a real test: skill + attribute [limit] against a threshold, or opposed by an NPC's pool. Set the threshold or the opposing pool before you roll, using the rulebook's guide (Easy 1, Average 2, Hard 4, Very Hard 6). Guards, drones and spirits roll their own pools; the Dice Roller handles opposed tests, damage resistance and Condition Monitors.
The heat clock
Heat measures how much attention you have drawn, from 0 to 6. Mark 1 for every glitch (yours or the oracle's), 2 for a critical glitch, and 1 by hand whenever you do something loud: gunfire, a tripped alarm, a failed Attack or Sleaze action in the Matrix. Heat makes scene checks more dangerous. When a scene is interrupted by the heat, play it out, then clear the clock to 0. When a job ends, clear it too, unless you left witnesses.
A crew of one
A single runner can't do everything a team can, so pick jobs that suit them, or give them a contact or two who can handle what they can't. Contacts are already characters with ratings: roll their attitude, then decide what they will do for the price you can pay. Keep Edge for the moments that matter, and remember how it comes back in Fifth Edition: 1 point after a good meal and a full night's sleep, or when you (as your own gamemaster) award it for a great moment.
Solo Tool
Heat: 0 of 6
Session log
The log and the heat are kept in this browser only.
Your First Solo Session
- Make a runner and a job. One runner, one fixer, one Johnson, one job with a payout and a deadline.
- Do the legwork. Ask the oracle what your contacts know, and roll their attitude first. Every answer is a fact you can plan around.
- Make a plan. Write it in three lines: the way in, the objective, the way out.
- Frame each scene. One line of what you expect, then a scene check.
- Play it. Ask the oracle what a gamemaster would tell you. Make real tests, with thresholds or opposing pools set first, for anything your runner does that could fail.
- Watch the heat. Every glitch and every loud move makes the next scene more likely to go sideways.
- Get paid, or don't. End the session when the job resolves. Whether the Johnson pays in full is a good first question next time.
An Example of Play
Kite is an ork infiltrator: Agility 5, Body 4, Reaction 5, Strength 4, Willpower 3, Sneaking 5. Her Physical limit is [(4 Ă— 2) + 4 + 5] Ă· 3 = 5.67, rounded up to 6. A fixer has a job: get into a warehouse and photograph a shipping manifest. Heat 0.
Scene 1: the warehouse fence. I expect a quiet back lot. Scene check: the die shows 6, and heat is 0, so the scene is altered: there's a delivery truck idling at the dock.
Oracle: "Is the loading dock guarded?" With the truck there, likely: 7 dice. They show 2 5 3 6 1 4 2. Two hits, so Yes. One 1 out of seven is no glitch.
A real test. Kite creeps past the guard: Sneaking 5 + Agility 5 = 10 dice, limit 6, opposed by the guard's Intuition 3 + Perception 3 = 6 dice. Before rolling, she has about a 67% chance of getting more hits. Kite rolls 6 5 5 2 1 3 6 4 5 2: five hits, under her limit. The guard rolls 5 1 1 3 1 2: one hit. Three 1s out of six is exactly half, which is not a glitch. Kite wins with 4 net hits and is inside.
Oracle: "Is the manifest on the office terminal?" Even odds: 5 dice. 1 1 1 4 5: one hit, so No, but…. Three 1s out of five is more than half, so it's a glitch too: a twist, and heat goes to 1. The manifest is on paper in the foreman's desk (the "but"), and the twist is that the foreman is still at that desk.
A fight. It goes loud: mark 1 more heat, now 2. The foreman draws a pistol and hits with 1 net hit. In this example the pistol's DV is 7, so the modified DV is 8. Kite's armor is 12, more than 8, so the damage is Stun. She resists with Body 4 + Armor 12 = 16 dice and gets 5 hits: 8 − 5 = 3 boxes of Stun. Her Stun track is 8 + (Willpower 3 Ă· 2, rounded up to 2) = 10 boxes. Three filled boxes is one full row, so −1 to her dice pools from now on.
Scene 2: the way out. Heat is 2. The scene check die shows 2, equal to the heat: interrupted. Spark: 3 and 3, "Protect a corp asset". The truck at the dock wasn't a delivery; it's corporate security, here to move the same shipment. After that scene, the heat clears to 0.
That's the loop: ask, roll, interpret, write a line, move on. Whether Kite tells the fixer that a corp is moving the shipment is a question only you can answer.
Where to Go Next
- Dice Roller: Pools, limits, glitches and Edge with exact odds, plus damage resistance and Condition Monitors.
- Planning a Run: Legwork and plans to give your solo jobs shape.
- Contacts & Lifestyle: The people your runner leans on when there's no crew.