[Elektrycerze3]

Hoi!

This weekend I'm running Splintered State on RoleCon in Moscow (You've probably never heard of it :-P). I don't expect any experienced players - most likely few of the players have ever played SR before, let alone SR5. So I want everything to go as smoothly as possible.

We'll be playing from 11am till 8pm with two breaks. The first hour goes into explaining the world and system, and the breaks are around an hour long together, so that leaves about 7 hours of gaming.

I'll be using character Archetypes from the book, with fixes by ZeConster (thanks for them, btw), minus the Technomancer.

So, could someone please spare some advice? =)

[Raunalyn]

I started running Splintered State last weekend.

I completely skipped over the intro section; it felt contrived and a little rail-roady, but YMMV.

I just had one of the runners with a contact that had decent connections to contact the runners for the initial B&E job. Once they get the item they're looking for (as well as the second item), they get their money.

I didn't have to worry too much about getting them hooked for the next phase of the run. However, if no one seems curious about the second commlink, play it up. Maybe have Mr. Johnson mention that he can't access the commlink and that it has some pretty hefty encryption. Hey, it might have some good paydata on it!

My team didn't need any nudging, fortunately...they dove right in. They didn't contact any of their contacts (unfortunately), but just tried to break the encryption on their own. Make sure you keep track of what the group does here, because it will determine who and what they will be dealing with in the coming scenes.

If they get the fragmented data off of the commlink, play up the paranoia. This is serious drek that they find, and if you have any Metahumans in the group, make sure they notice the connections to Alamos 20k and Humanis...that should motivate them.

Once the comm's owner contacts them, again play up the paranoia. If the owner of the device was able to realize that someone has his commlink, then who else could know? Once that little bit about how much the owner is willing to pay comes into play, then the group should really worry.

That's as far as I've gotten with my group right now. I tried to make this post as spoiler-free as possible. Hopefully, it will help.

[Ryo]

You need to emphasize the second comm. Play it up as important in every way you can. Maybe even have the Johnson suggest that the runners can keep anything else they find in Oxycode's room as further compensation if they don't like the money he has to offer. My players managed to piss off the johnson and got less money for the job, and in a rage the sammy threw the other comm into the air and smashed it with his club like a baseball. Because somehow that seemed like a good idea to him.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I didtch the first enocunter as well.  I have yet to find the player who likes me reading them box text about how they were arrested without any fight.  Similarly in the meeet with the comlinks original owner, I find giving dice rolls to stop the box text event still ends up with the box text event but allows players to both recognize that this might be serous opposition and allows them a shot which players almost always want.

Issues, that came up for me.

1. When they first figured it might be something dangerous they came up with a decent strategy to reduce chances they would be found, so just jumping them at their safe house was out.  They stayed on the move with someone driving the Decker around and occasionally meeting up for a transfer of the decker to another vehicle and driver.  Luckily, for me one meet spot was a known local of one of the players.   The downtown Seattle mall.  Which was awesome because an epic chase seen ensued i blues brothers driving through the mall fashion for pink mohawk awesomeness. 

2. this one wont come up for you, but my players had done some of the set up adventures for splintered states so were ready to hand it over to the orc underground without any of the meet the original owner ideas. They eventually went to the meet but that was only because I had the hit squad be the KE goon squad allied with the orc underground so that chnanged their mind about going to them first. 

3.  The meet and the shooter.  I had and still have a hard time figuring out where he was shooting from and how that  surprise round" was supposed to work.  I ditched the auto surprise round and went with rolls and different placements that made more sense to me.

4.  I have a crappy memory so the final chapters layout through me off, I should have put a sticky note in their saying skip a few pages ahead as this is something that happens in the future. 

[Elektrycerze3]

Thanks for your advices! =) They proved useful.

I loved the story and how everything went. 3 players from that Convention are now totally into SR5. Although I do have to say that "introductory" adventure is a serious misnomer: the story is very confusing for gamers new to SR.