Originally posted by Superuser:

Hi Dave & forum,

I haven't played Shadowrun before and I'd like to start with the original Returns campaign ('DMS'). I've been told this is a good way into it. I'm not much of an RPG fan in terms of mechanics, I just like story and setting really.

Dave advocated for this mod as optimal when searching the subreddit but I've seen various opinions including mentions of instability and raised difficulty, I personally like my RPGs easy as it's not a genre I like for the mechanics.

I currently have the original Shadowrun Returns without expansions (bought years ago, never played), could you please advise on what's optimal for a beginning player?
1. Just playing Shadowrun Returns
2. Playing it through the DragonFall engine, which AFAIK it can just be dropped into.
3. Playing this mod, Vox Populi

There are two ways to do this for me, would be grateful for your advice here:
2/3a. Upgrading to Deluxe, which gives the 'Anthology' is all it says. I think this is DragonFall and Hong Kong, not sure if it's the Director's Cut and Extended Edition respectively? And will it have the same engine features?
2/3b. Getting the games standalone and downloading as such

Thank you kindly in advance.

not sure what your asking for exactly.
You asking for good builds? I Mean alot of builds work and its REALY up to personal taste ill explain
Some people love spirts! some people Hate Spirts and how they work for example its up to you realy but

I will give a few basic tips and what my 'starting' build tends to be via with how i like to play and such as well as a good Basic Starter build (It wont be the best but its easy to f-in learn/play)

So Magic + cyberware is pretty much a no go, Cyberware lowers your essence which basicly hurts your magic rating its a rare thing to see both it can be done but thats for 'advance' players mostly

for an RPG this is going to require some type of combat Eather go with spellcasting or quickness for range weapons, Melee can work but it dos require a bit of good knowledge on how to move/play and what knock, For a starter i wouldnt go melee

Dodge can be a useful Ability to level up under quickness It makes you harder to hit and makes people tend to avoid you, Its useful but being ignored tends to sometimes means your other team mates will be targeted more often Which can be a bad thing (Up 2 you)

For Specilization into Range Weapons? Up to you personaly I dont spec into range weapons coz of the 2 range weapons i use dont use specs (I tend to use a Sniper Rifle / Nad Launcher and then a Spell for my basic attacks as i tend to play more of a mage/shaman hybrid) otherwise its kinda more up to you

Charisma is important on the main character for diologe checks being able to get extra info among other things otherwise you might miss out on some things as such you might consider a Shaman which is basicly a differnt type of mage which uses Charisma. Then again just upgrading charisma on a shooter is fine

Frankly the build I tend to use is kinda a hybrid and thus a bit advance
I Go Human custom class go 3 body 3 will with 3 spellcasting 3 charisma 3 conjuring 4 quickness 4 ranged combat for overwatch and 3 into Dodge to make myself a bit harder to hit early game 2 Int and 2 Bio so i can see eveyones HP Total

I Normaly skip upgrading dodge as i will be upgrading body and such, I tend to get 6 quickness/weapons 6 will/spellcasting 6 cha/conjuring after that I mostly go with whatever I feel like maybe 3-4 Int for certain spells Shaman/Mage gives me acess to all the buff spells i like to have on me and behave like a super buffer Haste/Aim/Armor/Heal that good ♥♥♥♥

Now some spells require Intelligence how much depends on the spell your trying to learn

A Good Basic build would prob be someone who dosnt use magic

Possibly something like 2 Int 2 Bio just so you can see HP Counters
4 Quickness/Range Weaposn for over-watch (Useful)
points into Cha as in terms of Etiques I dont remeber which are best I just tend to take things for flavor works for me (Academic and such)

Prob 3 Points into Body at least
Will power helps Defend vs Magic but Meh you dont have to have it and if your not going to go spellcasting you dont have to have it, However it can be nice to have in my option

So its up to you want freekin to use Magic or wanna go with Cyberware or just stay Neutrol?

If your going Neutrol you can start with 4 Body 4 Quickness 4 Range Weapons 4 Charisma 2 Int 2 Bio for HP Bars being shown/numbers (It just be a bar now its a bar with numbers telling you exactly how much hps for your character only however)
With your remaining karma you can spend some in Will to upgrade vs Magic D but its not like thats super common, more Body or Spec in whatever weapon you think looks cool / use
or just upgrade Quickness/Weapons some more or even Dodge

Its realy up to you again not 100% sure what your asking for.

Going Deluxe won't change your experiance. The anthology is a collection of short stories, that's the basis for one of the characters in this mod and much of it's story expansion.

Returns is a fun story. Ours is the same fun story, slightly expanded. It's probably easier, since the crew gives you a ton of free money that should've been used to hire runners to help you. So you can always have the best gear.

Returns doesn't run in the Dragonfall engine. The original Dragonfall was an expansion for returns engine... But the version you can currently buy is dragonfall Director's cut, a stand alone expanded version.

IMHO get the base games when they go on sale, and play them. If you enjoy them, try some of this high rated UGC (user generate content)

Thanks for the replies! @THAC0, my question was what the best version of the game is, but thank you still for your long post on builds for when I get to play it.

@Dave, thank you very much for your answer. I like the idea of expanding it - you have a very popular mod after all. I have the base game so just to be clear, in my circumstance you recommend playing the base game instead of your mod? I don't mind spending some extra cash if your mod is the definitive version of DMS. Thanks!

They're the same basic game. Mine uses the more advanced HK era engine, so a lot of the rougher mechanics have been smoothed out. There's some less popular changes, like integrating aspects of HKs matrix throughout.

I can't really say one is better than the other. We based ours off of theirs, with flavor enhancing stuff that we liked. Not everybody likes / appreciates the additions however.