This system began as Shadowrun pulled apart and rebuilt on a classless d20 frame. That ancestry is still arriving — tables, procedures, and subsystems keep crossing over from SR source material into these rules. Every import follows one law: steal the intent, never the numbers.
Why a Threshold Is Not a DC
A Shadowrun threshold sits on a d6-hits scale. A competent professional rolls 10–14 dice and averages 3–5 hits, so the published thresholds encode statements like this:
| SR6 input | What it actually means | Here |
|---|
| Threshold 1 | "Anyone competent does this automatically" | Don't roll, or DC 10 |
| Threshold 2 | "A trained pro almost always succeeds" | DC 12 |
| Threshold 3 | "Moderate — training shows" | DC 15 |
| Threshold 4 | "Hard; gear or expertise expected" | DC 18 |
| Threshold 5 | "Extreme" | DC 21 |
| Threshold 6+ | "Legendary" | DC 25 |
Transcribing the digits ("Threshold 3 → DC 3") flattens the whole difficulty ladder into automatic success and poisons every rule that shares the curve. A pro here totals roughly +5 to +9 (ability + proficiency + gear). Set each imported DC so that pro succeeds the way the source intends: routinely on easy rows, reliably-but-not-forever at the middle, gambling at the top.
For a build-for-it character against that ladder: DC 10–12 feels like the old "just do it," 15 is a real test with a bad night possible, 18 is plan-or-spend-Edge territory, and 21+ exists so that Edge, teamwork, and preparation have somewhere to matter.
The Conversion Rules
- Single-roll thresholds: use the table above. Interpolate halves toward the next-lowest band.
- ±1 threshold modifiers → ±2 DC. Two or more shifts, or any qualitative swing, becomes Advantage / Disadvantage instead. Never stack more than ±6.
- Edge grants → Advantage. Equipment-bought Edge ("gecko gloves = 1 Edge") arrives here as Advantage. The local Edge stays a GM-awarded story resource; imported text pays nothing into it.
- Extended tests convert structurally, 1:1. Intervals and time multipliers transfer directly. The old threshold becomes the progress-point goal (standard +1 / strong +2 / exceptional +3), and the DC goes flat — 13–15 for professional work, 17 for elite — because difficulty now lives in the goal size. "Threshold Rating × 3" is "3 × Rating progress points at DC 15."
- Duration spirals re-route into existing systems. "+1 threshold per 15 minutes" becomes +2 DC per interval if the scene watches the clock, but prefer routing recurring failures into conditions, resources, or clocks the rules already track — same spiral, no new arithmetic.
- Descriptive ladders don't import. Skill ranks 0–12, knowledge specialization ratings, language grades: those describe voice and expertise, and they already exist here as training tiers and degrees of success. Let them improve the prose, not the math.
- Vocabulary rebinding. Renamed attributes (Body/Agility/Reaction/Strength → the eight abilities), renamed skills (e.g., Conjuring absorbed the former Attunement skill; Escape Artist folds into Legerdemain/Athletics), no dice notation from the source, targets referenced through D20 Tests terminology only (DC, margin of success, glitch, progress points).
Dates and the Calendar
Imported years never ship as written. The campaign calendar counts from the Resurgence — year 0 — which fell in old-calendar 2040; the current year is 40 AR (old 2080 = 40 AR). The Resurgence Calendar (AR/BR) glossary entry (/Rules/Glossary/) carries the player-facing version and the resolved-date table; the conversion rules:
- Modern-era source dates (old 2040 onward) convert linearly: old year − 2040 = AR year. 2061 → 21 AR, 2069 → 29 AR, 2077 → 37 AR, 2080 → 40 AR. Decade spans paraphrase into AR bands — "since the 2050s" becomes "since the early decades after the Resurgence (roughly 10–20 AR)."
- Source dates before old 2040 convert as BR (old year − 2040) — and imports may sit before year 0. The test is readability, not the arithmetic: an import placed before year 0 must still read properly there. A mundane retrovirus identified six years before the Resurgence reads fine; a magic-dependent ritual or a metatype's emergence does not, because no magic existed yet.
- When a pre-0 placement doesn't read properly, re-anchor into the Resurgence era at the event's distance from the old world's magic-return: old year − 2011 = AR year. 2013 → 2 AR, 2017 → 6 AR, 2034 → 23 AR — which is why the imported naga, Great Ghost Dance, and HMHVV milestones sit in the Resurgence era rather than at 27/23/6 BR.
- Model names keep their years. "Colt Government 2076" and "Range Rover Model 2080" are manufacturer designations from the old reckoning; convert the prose around them ("the streets of 2080" → "the streets of 40 AR"), never the name.
- Order the results. A converted date must sit at or before 40 AR, and cross-import cause-and-effect must still read in sequence — a Strain II creature first spotted in 29 AR works because its parent strain was identified in 23 AR, and the ghoul-rights movement (roughly 11–13 AR) predates that identification because strains circulated long before virology isolated them.
Worked Example: Escape Artist
Source (intent): cheap bindings release to skill alone; hardened gear resists manipulation and nearly requires tools.
Converted, two doors because the d20 frame separates finesse from force:
| Restraint | Slip (Legerdemain) | Break (Athletics) |
|---|
| Duct tape or rope bindings | 10 | 14 |
| Plastic zip ties | 12 | 16 |
| Standard metal handcuffs | 15 | 20 |
| Reinforced prison cuffs or straitjacket | 18 | 25 |
| Containment manacles | 21 | — |
Note the conversions doing quiet work: the SR edge case "you can't brute-force maglocked cuffs" became an explicit em dash; the Advantage-circumstance "they didn't search me well" replaced a threshold reduction; the repeated-attempt penalty comes from D20 Tests' existing −2-capped retry rule instead of importing new ones. Every import should lean on rules that already exist rather than ferrying over parallel mechanics.
Converting Pressure Systems
Meta-currencies and GM-facing tables follow the same law, with a few extra patterns (worked from the Running the Game chapter import):
- Scales that are not the dice curve transfer. Street Reputation's ±10 ladder and its ±1-to-±3 deed deltas are their own scale, not a d6 threshold — keep the numbers, convert the payouts. Where the source pays Edge (reputation ±10 grants Edge in social encounters), pay Advantage or Disadvantage instead (rule 3). Where reputation feeds a roll, make it a modifier on that roll: the session-end Heat check imports the ±10/+1 and quiet-crew/−1 interactions directly.
- Probability checks re-aim on the d20. A "roll 2d6 at session end; 9 or more = the heat rises" check succeeds about 28% of the time. A d20 check at DC 14 (35%) with a modifiers list reproduces the same feel — usually calm, often warm under violence, +2 only under serious aggravation — and it reuses the system's only die.
- Real-world units transfer untouched. "Response within twenty minutes," "patrols every five minutes," "response times cut in half" are minutes and percentages, not thresholds. Carry them across unchanged.
- Effects ladders fold into existing scales. Where these rules already own the mechanic — a 0–6 Heat ladder, a −3-to-+3 faction scale — map the source ladder's tiers onto the existing one instead of importing a parallel scale. Same lean-on-what-exists rule as the Escape Artist example: the source's response-time tiers became annotations on the existing Heat states, and its bonus/malus list became the session-end check's modifiers.
- Grunt ratings map to CR. A source Professional Rating for troops converts to Challenge Rating roughly one-to-one at the bottom (PR 1 ≈ CR 1/8–1/4) and by tier above: PR 3 ≈ CR 1/2–2 patrol officers, PR 4 ≈ CR 2–5 specialists, PR 5 ≈ CR 5–8 SWAT/HTR, PR 7 ≈ CR 6–8 elite corporate security, PR 9–10 ≈ CR 9–12 special forces. Site ratings then describe who shows up; the encounter budget in Combat Encounters decides how hard it fights. Zone garrisons are static world facts — Enemy Scaling's law (common enemies stay weak) holds.
- Price anchors rebase to the local economy. The source measures cash rewards in months of its Middle lifestyle (¥5,000/month); this system's Middle runs ¥500/week. Convert the yardstick, not the number: "months of Middle living" survives as the gut check, recalculated against the local lifestyle table. The same applies to any unit anchored to a price list that was rebalanced during earlier conversions.
- Grade and tier ladders map to local tiers. Source hardware grades (alpha/beta/delta) and detection thresholds become scanner-class ladders keyed to this system's cyberware grades and zone tiers — the shape of the ladder survives (subtler gear needs better scanners), even when the arithmetic does not.
Where Converted Content Lands
| Source material | Destination |
|---|
| Physical activity tables (climb, escape, swim) | Core Rules · Exploration |
| Build/repair thresholds and intervals | Equipment · Crafting Nonmagical Items (Field Repairs and Quick Builds) |
| Run structure, clocks, suspicion pacing | GM Instructions · Drafting a Run on the Fly |
| Skill-flavor and rank prose | Folded into the owning skill's rule text |
| GM roles, rulings, session prep, comfort conversation | GM Instructions · Running the Game |
| Glitch and complication menus | GM Instructions · Glitch Ideas (feeds D20 Tests' glitch rules) |
| Security zone ratings and obstacle design | Gameplay Toolbox · Security Zones |
| Locks, alarms, sensors, and scanners | Gameplay Toolbox · Sensors and Scanners |
| Word-of-mouth reputation | Core Rules · Faction Reputation (Street Reputation) |
| Heat cycles, modifiers, response effects, reduction methods | Core Rules · Heat and Consequences |
| Contact-earning and scale guidance | Gameplay Toolbox · Legwork and Contacts (Gaining Contacts) |
| Karma/cash award sizing philosophy | Gameplay Toolbox · Reward Pacing (Sizing Awards by Feel) |
The live-play version of this standard — shorter, procedural, written for the GM mid-session — lives at Transposing SR6 Tables in the GM Instructions. This chapter carries the reasoning; that file assumes it.
Import Review Checklist
Before a converted table ships:
