Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: myrddin000 on <04-04-13/1014:39>
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Hello All, I am planning to start a SR4A game with my mates. I've spent the last couple of weeks pouring over ALL the books and have (what I think) a really good grasp on the game. They nor I have ever played before. I'd like some advice on the order in which to introduce them to the game. My plan so far: introduce the world and brief history of the SR universe, explain runner archetypes, explain skills, exlpain general combat, give an overview of the Matrix/Astral Space, explain hacking/cybercombat/programs/rigging/etc., and then dive in with the pregen. options in the Quick Start rules.Is this a good layout? Anything to add or change?
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I'd recommend keeping things low-power to start, by which I mean primary pools around 12 for your players (but no more than 15 modified - so after Smartguns and Personalized Grips and everything) and even less for their opposition. And be realistic (and encourage your players to do the same) about being shot. If you take 9 boxes of damage - you're probably not going to keep shooting. Runners probably have more reason to go to the bitter end (like avoiding being locked-up for life), but most rent-a-cops aren't going to keep fighting until they die. I would have most night-watch or rent-a-cop type security type personnel or Gangers make a Composure Test (Wound Modifier Level), to even shoot each pass once the've been hit (instead they take cover). Lonestar or more security-professional types, leader types and/or other runner types wouldn't have to make one until they've taken -3 wound modifiers or get Knocked Down or something, and then maybe have it at the wound modifier level +/- (depending on how you look at it) 1 or 2. So, a 3 wound modifier would be a Composure (1 or 2) Test - depending on how stalwart you want them to be. Anyway, there's things you can do to scale back the lethality and might even make it more interesting - what do you do with a wounded guard? - you want them to learn, not fear for their lives - yet... You can step it up later.
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Thanks! yeah that's about what I was thinking.
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My advice? Running them through the Food Fight in the quick start rules is a good way to introduce them to the combat system. Also, get the Runner's Toolkit. Cheat sheets and the Anatomy of a Shadowrun file are godsends. Especially that second one. Side-by-side trail of fluff and game info as a team goes through planning, scouting, and executing a run. After that, pick up the Missions series, and run one or two of those. They are good, low-level adventures that can be taken separately, or be turned into a campaign. For the love of all that's holy, don't start your group off on things like Dawn of the Artifacts or On the Run.
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I'll download those right away!
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My advice? Running them through the Food Fight in the quick start rules is a good way to introduce them to the combat system. Also, get the Runner's Toolkit. Cheat sheets and the Anatomy of a Shadowrun file are godsends. Especially that second one. Side-by-side trail of fluff and game info as a team goes through planning, scouting, and executing a run. After that, pick up the Missions series, and run one or two of those. They are good, low-level adventures that can be taken separately, or be turned into a campaign. For the love of all that's holy, don't start your group off on things like Dawn of the Artifacts or On the Run.
I'm going to second this. Food Fight and Runner's Toolkit are great starter material. Mind, I ran Food Fight with characters I'd built (and thus a considerably more optimized Runner crew), so I didn't get a chance to do much of the food everywhere shenanigans you get when you use the (much lower powered) pregens, as 3 characters pulverized the 4 hit men in 2 rounds even with a slightly beefed up encounter (and the second round was mostly mop-up). The rest of the session was pretty much a bull session while they ran after Mel Cozi for some vengeance/hooding.
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As far as starter missions go, how does the Elven Blood series rate? I like the idea of relatively short, self-contained arc to get my players and I into things.
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Because you deal with things like hopping borders and gang politics, not to mention all the wonderful implied racism when dealing with the Ancients and the Tir, I'd wait until they were immersed in the setting first. As things go, they're nice, low-level adventures, but I'd toss a Mission or two at them first, just so they can get the attitude down before they (potentially) piss off the new leader of the local chapter of one of the biggest gangs on the West Coast.
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As far as starter missions go, how does the Elven Blood series rate? I like the idea of relatively short, self-contained arc to get my players and I into things.
They were written to be Missions compatible, which means trying to make them accessible to a half-dozen new players who just randomly met up at a convention, while allowing them to be scaled up to 30+ die pool monstrosities sitting on a couple hundred karma. Most of the scenes and conflicts err on the lower side (with GM advice for how to scale it up), though, especially in Ancient Pawns and Hopping the Fence, the first two adventures.
There are encounters that can be made particularly nasty (just based on what the GM wants to do), and there are situations that can be especially lethal (if the players can't keep their yaps shut in a few places, or don't try to stack the deck before a big fight)...but for the most part they should work just fine for new-ish players, if the GM takes the time to get comfortable with them in advance, and/or tailors them to fit groups that might not be as optimized as more diehard players. They were written to match up to archetype-level characters, potentially (because, again: random convention team).
That said, you might want to get them more involved in the setting (and Seattle, or where-ever you want to have your main game), before hauling them down into the Tir and tangling them up in politics and other nations and whatnot.
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In my case, both my players and I are quite familiar with the overall setting, though I think I'm the only one really up on the current continuity. Myself and two of the players are 1E/2E vets and the other player is a 3E/4E guy, so we're needing more of a mechanical introduction than a setting one.
Does sound like I might want to pick something else after Food Fight, though.
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In my case, both my players and I are quite familiar with the overall setting, though I think I'm the only one really up on the current continuity. Myself and two of the players are 1E/2E vets and the other player is a 3E/4E guy, so we're needing more of a mechanical introduction than a setting one.
Does sound like I might want to pick something else after Food Fight, though.
Everyone should go through Food Fight at least once. Heck, I think I've been through it three times.
All three times, the caster opponent killed--not knocked out but killed--himself with his Lightning Bolt, critically glitching the Drain resist each time.
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My two cents; Keep matrix and magic to a minimum to start (the PC's can play as them, but baby step through it), along with the low tech mentioned previously. Definitely use the karma awarding for PC's who are in character and those who play in character well. This should encourage them to flesh out who they are playing as (which is what stands Shadowrun apart from other table tops, there I said it).
Use the players contacts as plot points from time to time. On that note, make sure that if they have contacts they actually flesh them out (or at least have a paragraphs worth of history). This rewards the PC's for taking time and helps you in the long run with plot points.
I'm new to this too, so by all means don't take my word for it. Feel free to PM me if you wanna swap stories/campaigns/ideas/blahblahblah. Us new DM's need to have each others backs.
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I myself am new to the GMing of this game and our little group of 4 runners is about to start our first session Friday night. One of the previous posts mentioned dont use "on the run" from the runners toolkit. I picked it up the other day and flipping through it (on the run) seemed alright to use as a starting point. Our guys have NO role play experience at all and I have been trying to give them the gist of the setting which they have taken to enthusiastically.
So just wanted some pointers as to why on the run would be a mistake to start the guys off on their RPG path.
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I myself am new to the GMing of this game and our little group of 4 runners is about to start our first session Friday night. One of the previous posts mentioned dont use "on the run" from the runners toolkit. I picked it up the other day and flipping through it (on the run) seemed alright to use as a starting point. Our guys have NO role play experience at all and I have been trying to give them the gist of the setting which they have taken to enthusiastically.
So just wanted some pointers as to why on the run would be a mistake to start the guys off on their RPG path.
On the Run is a piss-poor example of a good run in that in order for the players to actually get into around 75% of the 'adventure', their characters would have to be completely unprofessional and question (and dig into) the motives surrounding the Johnson's hiring them. Really, if a team did this, they would probably never get work that paid more than 10 nuyen again.
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In 'On the Run', people with the "I do the job, I get paid, I go home" mindset will never see most of the adventure, unless some heavy railroading goes on from the DM. The kind of paranoia you need to check into a job when things smell fishy is learned over time. You want to do 'On the Run' after the players have had a Johnson or two screw them over, and they've started learning why you need to check into the 'why' of the job. And it isn't just the players. I'll admit I've played through 'On the Run' before. But my character was new to the shadows, and didn't really know how things worked. So my character didn't question the job. He just did it and got paid, because there weren't any characters who suggested that maybe they should check into this job a bit more.
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I myself am new to the GMing of this game and our little group of 4 runners is about to start our first session Friday night. One of the previous posts mentioned dont use "on the run" from the runners toolkit. I picked it up the other day and flipping through it (on the run) seemed alright to use as a starting point. Our guys have NO role play experience at all and I have been trying to give them the gist of the setting which they have taken to enthusiastically.
So just wanted some pointers as to why on the run would be a mistake to start the guys off on their RPG path.
On the Run is a piss-poor example of a good run in that in order for the players to actually get into around 75% of the 'adventure', their characters would have to be completely unprofessional and question (and dig into) the motives surrounding the Johnson's hiring them. Really, if a team did this, they would probably never get work that paid more than 10 nuyen again.
Seeing as the general alternative is getting killed when a job turns out to be something more than was let on... When a Johnson hires runners he has to be expecting to be checked into. It's due diligence, not unprofessionalism.
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There's a fine line between the two. After a certain point of digging, it definitely strays into unprofessional, unless you've been badly burned before. Checking to see that the Johnson is who he says he is? Part of the gig. Double-checking the intel given at the meet? Expected. You get the package from the guy who was going to be selling it, and then start asking questions about what the package is and why a music mogul wants it? Now you're straying into unprofessional.
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There's a fine line between the two. After a certain point of digging, it definitely strays into unprofessional, unless you've been badly burned before. Checking to see that the Johnson is who he says he is? Part of the gig. Double-checking the intel given at the meet? Expected. You get the package from the guy who was going to be selling it, and then start asking questions about what the package is and why a music mogul wants it? Now you're straying into unprofessional.
Except that in order to properly secure and transport it, you need to have some idea of who might be coming after it. Which means you do, in fact, need to have some idea of what you're dealing with.
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Getting it to the drop and getting paid before anyone knows you have the package is still the best means of securing the package en route.
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You're being paid to acquire and deliver it, not to question why the employer wants it. The why is none of your concern, and in the case of a closed/sealed container, what it is is none of your concern.
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Getting it to the drop and getting paid before anyone knows you have the package is still the best means of securing the package en route.
One would hope. But it's not always the case - if they know about the exchange in advance, for example, and your defence relies upon people not knowing...
And, frankly, if it was just a matter of rapid delivery, you wouldn't really need runners in the first place.
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The only reason I ever saw in On The Run to dig into the package is that you're told the guy stole it and he makes rather clear he is the actual owner. If the Johnson doesn't feed me full intel, fine. It's my job to dig and I don't need to know everything about the employer anyway. But don't lie to me. You lie to me, I have to double-check everything. Tell me you want the thing stolen, fine. Tell me I'm retrieving stolen goods when it's not stolen goods, that's pissing me off.
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There is absolutely nothing that drives players away from a game like a GM who gleefully reminds their players how pathetic and ineffectual they are compared to any given nameless NPC thug.
Except a GM that doesn't even take the time to remember the character's name.
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I'm about to GM On the Run this weekend as our first run, and my plan is to have Mr. J tell the players his employer got wind of a significant data haul, but he doesn't know anything about it except that its valuable to some people he considers his competitors. Mr. J needs them to get the haul, verify what's on it, find out as much as they can about what makes it valuable, and make sure no one else gets it.
His only lead is that he knows someone out there is trying to sell this haul, but he hasn't been asked to make an offer directly, so he needs the runners to start by putting their ear to the street. From there, everything proceeds as written.
From what I've read, I don't think this changes anything about any NPC's motivations or actions. Sure, if the shadowy employer knew what was on the disk, he'd know the runners could get more money elsewhere and never encourage them to find out what's on it, but I don't see any reason the shadowy employer needs to know what's on the disk. After all, if he got the offer email or knew what it was, why didn't he tell the runners who sent it instead of wasting their time tracking it down through Nabo? Or tell them about any of the various leads?
OR, maybe the shadowy employer is JB himself, and the whole thing is an elaborate test to see what the runners are made of for his future machinations, so there's no explanation necessary for why he does the convoluted things he's doing except that he wants to watch the runners work.
Disclaimer: I'm new to GMing Shadowrun to maybe I'm talking out of my rear end :)
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You do hit one snag there. With that adjustment, you pretty much guarantee that nearly no runner would reach the parts of the mission where the runners dig into the info and are contacted by other motivated parties. Which can be a good thing, really, though it wastes the intrigue.
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I'm obviously not sure how my players will handle it, but I assume someone will still be alive that knows about the disk's existence by the time they get it -- meaning someone who REALLY knows what it is. That person will have talked to someone else about it (the people in the hacker bar talking on shadowy forums, or Loomis whining out loud about it to the gangers who pass along the info to someone more connected, or Ari blowing up out loud at people while in his offices), and suddenly all the same people who were looking for it before are looking for the runners. That doesn't mean they'll find them right away, and in the meantime, the runners will want to figure out what's on the disk as per Mr. J's instructions -- first to play it at the hacker bar, then to find the original studio in hopes of getting the engineer who made it to decrypt it, then her turning out to only know enough to send them into looking into The Shadows, and ultimately them visiting the haunted house and (hopefully) learning enough there to feel like they can tell Mr. Johnson. I think I'm confident they'll end up doing everything up to visiting the haunted house, and I'm not too upset if they skip that since its a little more complicated a scenario than I'm comfortable with just yet. I'm OK "railroading" the offer from Risa and her crew -- either JB heard about it from one of the above events, or he's the one who hired them in the first place and is making the offer to test them -- but if the runners decide to stay honest, then I'll just save that battle scene to toss into another adventure (Risa will be mad they ignored her, and Ari is a vindictive SOB).
What do you think?
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Hm... Given how the disk is already on the market at the time, clearly JB has been looking into it already and has someone monitoring the matrix to see if any chatter pops up. If the runners are told by the Johnson to figure out what's with the disk so he knows what kind of buyers to set up, then they will leave a trail that JB's hacker can pick up on yes.