New to Shadowrun

[tylermalan]

This is the second thread I've started recently about my group getting into a game that we are all new to. The first was about Call of Cthulhu, and this is about Shadowrun!

So my group and I are ready to try out Shadowrun 4th Edition. We're going to have two games going at the same time with two separate GMs, and both groups will have 4 players each.

We're just starting to read through the new rules and all took a collective stab at character creation the other day.

Of the GMs, one has run Shadowrun before, but not 4E, and the other has never run or played in Shadowrun, but does have experience with futuristic RPGs in the form of RIFTS.

My main question then is really a call for any sort of good, introductory, published adventures. No one in either group has any real experience with Shadowrun except for the one GM I mentioned.

My ancillary question would be: is there anything to watch out for as new players? Any rules that are overly complex? My first thought for my character was to be a Technomancer, but a glance at the section on technomancy horrified me.

 

[DandD]

Magic will be the most versatile, strongest, and if you really go out for it, bestest character choice in the long run (meaning, if you've earned 25 karma+ total). So watch out not to sour the gameplay of the non-awakened (awakened is a SR-term for those with magical abilities, be they full magicians or adepts), when you levitate your gang, heal your wounded, manabolt any opponent, go invisible, summon fire spirits to kill entire groups, read emotions as at-will action, and mind control your way up, while the cyber-sammie can only kill people with his smart-linked gun, and do nothing else that is terribly interesting.

Hacking can be substituted by an NPC contact who does if for you, or the getaway-portion with a rigger-controlled car.

One message board where you can specific help about Shadowrun is the dumpshock forum, where the game designers of 4th edition SR hang out too, as a quasi-official SR message board.

Technomancy isn't that much more complicated than playing a magician, they're just limited with only the core rulebook.

What a group must have (can be filled by an NPC) is a hacker.
Having a face for negotiation and infiltration is a very good idea. A muscle like a street sam or a physical adept is also quite necessary. A rigger (hacker specialised on running cars and drones) is a good help, but tell the game master upfront not to destroy too many getaway cars or drones, because they do get expensive, and it sucks for the player with that role to lag behind the other players because he hasn't any money left. A full mage is going to be invaluable, what with his million abilities that no one can reproduce, and him being the only effective counter-measure against enemy mages and spirit.

As for character creation, let everyone at least have some points in stealth and one or two fire weapon, because in the end, every one has to sneak around together, or all land in jail (if you've got lucky, that is). And never ever let the fight escalate.
A shadowrunner team doesn't have a chance if a swat team with massive drone and spirit support simply hold you down.

Here are some good links for you:

Shadowrun RPG - Catalyst Game Labs - Shadowrun Introductory Products
Free Shadowrun Quick-Start Rules
Dumpshock Forums (Powered by Invision Power Board)

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Shadowrun rules are complex. Fourth Edition made them much smoother in application, but they're still very complex.

For an introductory game, honestly I'd suggest just run three or four combats. Get an in-game feel for just how deadly combat is in the game, and master the concept of dice pools and modifying them on the fly.

I can't suggest any published Shadowrun adventures for SR4, because I'm only now beginning to buy the game. (I was an SR3 completist, but modifying one of those adventures wouldn't be easy for a novice GM. If you were to take a stab at it, I'd suggest "Mercurial." Tone down some of the campier bits, mostly in boxed text, and it's a very good cyberpunk plot.)

For handling the complexity of the rules, I always found that I had to rely on my players. If a player wanted to play a rigger, for instance, or a decker, or anything but the most vanilla mage or shaman, he had to buy the appropriate rules and learn them cold. Even among mature roleplayers, that approach requires a lot of trust, because Shadowrun really is so deadly, the temptation to fudge rules in one's favor is going to be there. As GM, I would gradually learn each rules subsystem in the game, but IMO it's just too much to absorb in anything less than weeks or months of play.

Good luck! I'm trying to jolt my group out of the D&D rut we're in, and SR4 (along with Mutants & Masterminds) is a leading candidate.

 

[Thanee]

The biggest complexity is found in the Matrix and the rules can be quite intimidating at first. Technomancers aren't any worse than regular hackers, but the whole Matrix rules take a while and a few read-throughs to get used to, I'd say. As a redeeming quality, once you have figured out how things are supposed to be, they do run pretty smooth, however.

GMing Shadowrun is a lot more difficult than DMing D&D or similar games, because you really, really need to find a good balance between the super-powerful corporations, and the existance of shadowrunners.

There are so many ways, that when giving them some thought, will totally and utterly screw over anything shadowrunners and thus the players will be able to do, you really need to learn some restrain in these matters.

My #1 rule for shadowrun is simple: #1 There are Shadowrunners.

If anything threatens to break this rule, it has to be reconsidered.


What to watch out for...

Spirits, most definitely, are way too easy to summon at high Force values, which are then virtually undefeatable without magic. I would probably restrict summoning to the Magic rating (instead of twice the Magic rating) in the beginning.


As for adventures...

On the Run (if you can still get it) is an introductory 4th Edition adventure for new players.

Emergence is a 4th Edition campaign, which is meant to introduce the Technomancers and might be worth a read, even if you do not plan to play it, for players interested in the Matrix.

Bye
Thanee

 

[skoriaan]

I'm one of the two DM's he is talking about. Are there any threads on here that speak of Shadowrun, that would be good to read? I've read through the 12 pages of threads (not every thread, but at least their titles) on the Dumpshock forums, and I've looked at a lot of things on the Shadowrun4 page as well.

Tools, GMing tips for setting the mood for 2070, things to keep in mind when running in this era, "broken" rules to watch out for (possibly like that spirit summoning mentioned above), house rules that fix them, etc.

Thank you,

M.

 

[Wik]

Well, I love SR 4e, even though I'll probably never get a chance to run it. However, I've been slowly putting materials aside for that eventuality. A few thoughts:

1) Get the GM screen. Not only is the screen probably the handiest screen ever (you'll find yourself using the modifiers a lot more, which I think fit the tone of the game better, and reward players who use things like Flash Compensation), but it also comes with a booklet that can help you generate fairly simple shadowrun adventures.

2) Start with only the main book, and don't try to take everything on at once. If you run a SR + Splats + Source Material, it will seem like way too much (it is). The game runs much better if you slowly introduce splat material as prizes from shadowruns, and new tech slowly being released onto the gray market. I say this coming from earlier editions of SR, but it still applies to 4e.

3) SR is a "sandbox" game - it's probably better as a GM to figure out the site your players are going to hit, the schedule of the guards, and things like that, rather than plotting out an adventure. The PCs will find some "mission: Impossible" way to break in, and that really is a huge part of the fun of SR.

4) Combat isn't everything. Seriously. If your group tries to run a combat-based game using the Rules-As-Written, they won't last too long.

5) Were I you, I'd run a few "mini-runs" where the players make 200 BP characters (no magic, no rigging, no hacking, little cyberware, etc...) and slowly introduce game elements, until everyone's comfortable with things.

6) SR isn't "balanced" like D&D is. Some character types are more powerful than others, but I think that's part of the game. Even if the mage can blow everything up and read minds (and summon combat spirits and heal, to boot!), there is still a need for combat/computer/social specialists.

 

[Ahglock]

4e SR. I'm playing in 2 games of it now. The rules are more streamlined than previous edition's and you can basically wing it off of the core concept of attribute+skills+or-mods. The exception seems to be the matrix, which is program+skill because being smart doesn't help you with computers.

House rules I'd say you need to go with. No mental manipulation spells, they are stupidly broken. come up with a dice pool limit for active skills(basically everything but body+armor tests) people can build some really lame 40+dice to certain types of skills characters, and any other characters who don't follow suit look the lame. Have a starting edge limit, edge is really absurdly powerful.

Normally I'd suggest going with an earlier edition, because while its streamlined, it gained more flaws than features. One of my games is probably switching back to a 2e game, since the problems in the rules with 4e just got to big.

 

[mmu1]

I'm one of the two DM's he is talking about. Are there any threads on here that speak of Shadowrun, that would be good to read? I've read through the 12 pages of threads (not every thread, but at least their titles) on the Dumpshock forums, and I've looked at a lot of things on the Shadowrun4 page as well.

Tools, GMing tips for setting the mood for 2070, things to keep in mind when running in this era, "broken" rules to watch out for (possibly like that spirit summoning mentioned above), house rules that fix them, etc.

Thank you,

M.

As far as rules go, I'll just say that 4E is a very min-max friendly system - more so than most. If you have any players that tend to take this kind of thing too far, be on the lookout for starting characters with absurdly large die pools - it can make balancing things quite difficult.


However, the most important thing about running Shadowrun (any edition) is not the rules, but making sure you and your players are on the same page when it comes to what the world is like, what exactly it means to be a Shadowrunner - what it means to be a professional criminal in the world you're running - and where you expect to draw the line morally, if anywhere. I've lost track of the amount of arguments I've seen stemming from players and GMs not being clear on what assumptions they were operating under.

Do you expect your players' characters to survive on the pittance the SR books have always recommended GMs hand out? If yes, then are your players ok with running characters who'll risk their lives for less than they could make stealing a couple of mid-size cars each week?

When you think of how a "perfect" run should go, what kind of movie do you imagine? If it's Heat or Mission Impossible but your players are thinking of Smoking Aces, you may have a problem. (actually you have several problems, one of which is that your players saw and liked Smoking Aces, but I digress...)

If (or when) things go horribly wrong, do you intend to bring down all the weight of Lone Star - aerial drone surveillance, magicians and spirits, deckers, etc. - down on them, or do you intend to keep things more relaxed?

How do you deal with it when your players blow away several security guards who did nothing wrong (other than work for a corporation) like they were a bunch of orcs, and then take pot-shots at the cops when getting away?

Will your players take it personally when you do your best to kill their characters in a world with no Raise Dead? Or do they expect the typical SR mortality rate?

I could go on and on, and maybe you've ran SR before and thought about all this (and more) but it's still the best advice I can think of for a new Shadowrun GM.

 

[DandD]

I'm one of the two DM's he is talking about. Are there any threads on here that speak of Shadowrun, that would be good to read? I've read through the 12 pages of threads (not every thread, but at least their titles) on the Dumpshock forums, and I've looked at a lot of things on the Shadowrun4 page as well.

Tools, GMing tips for setting the mood for 2070, things to keep in mind when running in this era, "broken" rules to watch out for (possibly like that spirit summoning mentioned above), house rules that fix them, etc.

Have you clicked the quickstart-rule link that I mentioned above? Quite helpful for your group familiarizing with the rules. It's got the ever-popular food fight-scenario, so that you can play out combat and look if you like it and what you need to include as houserules.

One good idea is to follow the hints in the core book how to speed up gameplay (SR is a game where you roll very often).

 

[skoriaan]

2) Start with only the main book, and don't try to take everything on at once. If you run a SR + Splats + Source Material, it will seem like way too much (it is). The game runs much better if you slowly introduce splat material as prizes from shadowruns, and new tech slowly being released onto the gray market. I say this coming from earlier editions of SR, but it still applies to 4e.

HA! This, luckly, I have already done, although a few of my players keep asking for exceptions, (mostly for the "street magic" book), I've staunchly said no.

As for some of the other advice, I'll take a look at the quick start rules--I haven't yet. And my plan was, as mentioned above, to come up with the normal operations of a target, and let the players figure out how to get in, collect the info, etc. Given the nature of some of the other games, I have a feeling, they will try to blast their way in the first time. So we'll see how that goes. I think it will be good to run a combat or two before hand, to give them a feel for it.

Thanks for the advice! Keep it coming!

M.