For all the viewers waiting for some character crunch, this is it! This preview contains several pages of rules about generating Shadowrunner characters.

This iteration of the character generation system is very interesting, and has a foot firmly planted in the origins of the game. The priority system is back, and back in a big way. In addition there's a point buy system ON TOP of the priorities. So once you generate your character via the priorities, you allow a large range of customization by buying extras.

Another innovation involves metatype. When you buy an advanced metatype with priority, you get an additional choice to determine if this person has a high number in thier "special attributes". These special attributes are Edge, Magic, and Resonance. For instance humans remain the luckiest people in the 6th world. They have a minimum of 2 edge when putting metatype at priority E. If you instead buy your human with priority A instead, your Edge could be stratospheric.

It took me a little while to wrap my head around some of the design concepts, but I'm pretty excited about the changes. I think this will give a lot of customization options. I also like using the special attributes as a way to balance and highlight differences among the metatypes. While the Trolls, Elves, and Dwarfs all have qualities that make them stand out from human norms, humans can have that special 'something' about them. In most of the gaming groups I've seen, players avoid playing humans. Partially this is for the cool factor of playing a Troll or Elf, but the better stats available to those metas are always a big draw. This change looks like it might be in place to give humans that extra "oomph" that makes them the default in the Sixth World.

I'm getting excited about this edition, and look forward to the release.