[Console_Cowboy]

Scan this, chummers.

So my brother in law and his friends have expressed interest in playing Shadowrun because they've heard stories of the setting and style of the game . Basically it sounds like the coolest thing since the Ares Predator because, well, it is. I'm the "old gaming vet" they all know. I've been involved in the hobby for 25 years, run my own digital press and even do some freelance work in the industry. They're all 'round abouts 20 years old and asked me to run SR for them, to which I gladly agreed.

Well, I've been playing SR since 1st ed (but I skipped 4th) and a friend of mine bought me SR5 a few months ago. So I finally cracked the cover and started reading. It feels cleaner and still has that specific Sixth World sensibility. But some lingering concerns are still present and I was wondering if you guys n gals had any insights.

First of all, these kids have played d20 and 4e D&D almost exclusively. Only one of them has any experience at all with SR (he played SR4). Given this, I'm concerned with them catching on to the mechanics - particularly the more detailed stuff concerning the Matrix and Magic. Being awesome, they've agreed to let me pre-gen the group. This'll make my life easier.

So, with 4 PCs I considered keeping it simple: A Street Sam, a Decker, a Rigger, and a Magician. A nice, well-rounded group. The problem with this is that it means I'll have to have fairly extensive knowledge of the fiddly bits of the game to help them learn their roles and I've never run SR 5. Any ideas?

Also, we come to one of the biggest problems I've always had with SR: Decking. First of all I love deckers. They're my favorite profession in the game. But it seems like whenever the decker is in the Matrix, the rest of the party sits around while he's code-slinging and fiddles with their predators, if ya know what I mean. Does SR5 do anything to streamline decking or make it so you can hop between VR and the land of the skinjob with a fair amount of ease? The matrix chapter seems cleaner, faster, and such - but in actual play what are people's experiences?

Lastly, I was considering running a fairly straight forward series of missions.

Mission One: A Johnson hires them to do a standard datasteal from a corporate office. The data is disconnected from the matrix and stored in a local grid. So to extract, they'll have to be onsight. Funnin' and Gunnin' w/ corp security and Lonestar is sure to ensue.

Mission Two: The same Johnson hires the party to do a datainstall. They want the PCs to break into a different corp and plant some data into a mainframe. Similar to the first adventure, except this time a team of rival runners is onsight and the things hit the fan.

Mission Three: The PCs get a call from one of the runners who was part of the adversarial team they faced last mission. His whole team got gacked after the last run and he thinks the PCs had something to do with it. He asks to meet with the PCs at a safe, public location. The meet goes down, but a sniper takes out the runner and goes after the PCs. I'm imagining a running gun battle through the Barrens as the players try to figure who wants them greased.

Mission Four: The PCs learn of a cold corp war going on between two companies. These two companies are the ones from missions 1 and 2. The runners were being used to insight a corp war so the companies would destablize and a third company could buy them out as stock plummets in the wake of the choas. This third company is the one in mission 3 who tried to have both teams waxed in mission 3. The PCs get a call from a fixer who sets them up with a new Johnson. The Johnson wants them to assassinate the corp exec who's trying to facilitate the take over and put an end to things. The exec is a big Urban Brawl fan and has choice seats to the the Seattle Summer Brawl of '75. The Johnson says security's super tight, except for the brawlers themselves. The Johnson says he can get them in under assumed identities to participate in the brawl, but they'll need to get off the grounds and get to the corp exec's observation helicopter and take him down.

I figure it's pretty simple, but has enough twists and turns for a good short campaign. Thoughts? Comments? Free money?

[Medicineman]

it reads like a straight forward Mini Campaign.
Nothing tooo complicated and with a lot of Action.
I really like it. I would like to be a player in that mini  campaign
It even has Urban Brawl in the Finale.
If You understand German I'd advice You to get Blut & Spiele A german SR4 sourcebook on Urban Brawl.
Tips:
-Be generous (not too generous) with ¥ and Karma. ImO Chars in SR5 need more Karma and Money thanbefore.
-the new Matrix is kinda easier than in SR2 or 3 and also quite different ! You should read it twice a start a Hack all by yourself just to see how the rules work out and where the Pitfalls are.
-The Rules from SR4A and SR5 are convertable/exchangeable .One of your players has some SR4A experience ?
 maybe he has some Books you could use ?

hmmmm

First of all, these kids have played d20 and 4e D&D almost exclusively.

Thats no good news !
You should try and ...."steer them away "from their Boardgame experience towards more roleplaying. Its not an easy task but worth the try

with a german Dance
Medicineman

[Console_Cowboy]

Also,

I'm considering just using the templates: Street Samurai, Decker, Occult Investigator & Drone Rigger. Sound like a good idea, chummers?

[Bushw4cker]

Well if they are coming from D&D to shadowrun.... feel free to use any of my Archetypes I've posted in last few weeks. I posted Bard, Barbarian, Paladin(Rigger) and Ranger

One of the first times I GMed 4th Edition, the players Fixer sent them a Matrix Game to Try out before he sold the pirated copies (He wanted to make sure that no one got their brains fried) They Played Dungeon Run. I made a bunch of characters using Shadowrun rules and took a D&D adventure and made it Shadowrun, using Critters (Replacing the D&D ones with a Wendigo, Naga, Ghouls, ect..) Players had a lot of fun, and it helped them learn the 4th edition rules.

I would keep things simple for first few runs and wait till players get a feel for game. Maybe you can start game out with a Bar Fight, or Food Fight.

There are few options with Decking...
Do any of your players really want to play a Decker?.. If no one really wants to play one, NPC it.
If you do have player that wants to play Decker
... I've done virtual meets with a Johnson. Trodes are cheap for the characters without a Datajack. Other characters, that aren't Matrix savvy can still do stuff in Matrix, interact with icons, have a drink, eat, talk, even use some of their skills. The more prepared with Matrix and more you know rules the quicker things will go. Have some Systems pre-made. Things that you think team decker might need to hack in order to complete run. Government records, Police, university, ect..

[Csjarrat]

the matrix in this edition is easier to use than in any other version imho.
that said, i wouldn't force it on anyone as it is the most abstracted of all the roles really (even magic is pretty simple concept wise).
Be ready to have an NPC run the matrix side of things if no-one wants to pick it up.

also, make sure you have a really good read through of the rigger side of things. unfortunately a lot of the rigger rules are spread around and are vague in places.
in particular, have a look through sensor targetting, control methods (AR/VR/Pilot etc), autosofts (in the errata document) and make sure you've had a read through the vehicle chase rules (use the control rig as a bonus to speed limit, not bonus to speed stat, otherwise you have supersonic cars!!)

[Console_Cowboy]

Am I better off tossing them the PreGens from the core book or should I do some originals? I've found that the templates in previous editions are a bit underwhelming. Opinions?

[Agonar]

The pregens in the core book are not legal, but ZeConster did a nice writeup on how to fix them
http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=11847.msg218332#msg218332

I might also recommend the digital box sets as well, as they come with 5 pregenerated characters.  That are all built legal, and then given a purposeful boost in a small fashion

As for first hand info.  I run an online game for 5 players, and only one of them (my tabletop player that joined) has any prior experience with Shadowrun.  The other 4 were all D&D only players before this, so they tend to approach the game from a D&D mentality.  Kill the badguys, loot the bodies.  So, if you can do anything to discourage that mentality quickly, it might help. 

One of the guys made a Technomancer (I still think it was because the name sounded cool, and not because he wanted to be a hacker).  He has since Submerged, gotten Mind over Machine Echo, and is trying to be a technorigger.  But this is mainly about the hacking.

The hacking is cleaned up.  If you Decker/TM stays in AR mode, then he should be able to hack stuff all the time.  Enemy gear, files, hosts, etc.  He can be slaving the group's important gear to his Deck, staying on Matrix overwatch, keeping an eye on marks and the activity of enemy Deckers, and trying to brick opponents stuff.  The system does a good job of encouraging your Deckers and TMs to stay with the grou.. well, Deckers moreso, since TMs can't be the Master of a PAN, so they can't protect their teammate's stuff as easily.

They get better initiatives in VR, so can do multiple things, and still do it side by side with the rest of the party, but in VR, they might also want to stay safe inside the car, van, house, whatever while the group goes on the run.  This has it's risks, but it has the payoff of being easy and safe too, so it's what the TM player in my game always wants to do.  He'd rather stay locked away from danger, and jump into his drone to accompany the group, than stay with the group.  So, enemies  will start getting wiser and harassing his meat body while it's conveniently away from any support, and maybe then he will see the merit of remaining with the group. 

I would talk more about hacking on the run, but this player is new to Shadowrun, and he still doesn't think of things he should be hacking.  He doesn't Snoop on enemy communications, drop AROs on priority targets...  They went on an infiltration run, and he never even hacked into the cameras to get a look at what was going on in the building.  Instead, he spends most of his time randomly trying to home in on silently running devices, instead of focusing on the ones he knows about.

I am trying to teach him through subtle hints, and a few times when he couldn't make it, I've NPCd him doing some of these things, so maybe the group will start asking him to do some of these things more often.

[Efe]

I found the sample characters playable. But compared to well-build characters they are indeed underwelming. However, if all of them are, it doesn't really matter.
A bigger problem in my opinion is that the sample characters as they are written in the book are not suitable for new players. For example, basic questions like these arise: What does B A  R S W L I C mean? Which number under the letter of which I already forgot the meaning should I add to the number that's behind the pistols skill? Why is there a number between brackets? What is my armor class? What does SA/BF/FA, RC mean? What can you actually do with your skills and qualities? Some might be obvious, but others are not and no explanation is given. 

[Agonar]

I found the sample characters playable. But compared to well-build characters they are indeed underwelming. However, if all of them are, it doesn't really matter.
A bigger problem in my opinion is that the sample characters as they are written in the book are not suitable for new players. For example, basic questions like these arise: What does B A  R S W L I C mean? Which number under the letter of which I already forgot the meaning should I add to the number that's behind the pistols skill? Why is there a number between brackets? What is my armor class? What does SA/BF/FA, RC mean? What can you actually do with your skills and qualities? Some might be obvious, but others are not and no explanation is given.

Everything you ask about is explained in the book in their relevant sections.  Even an Index Search helps, but reading the book will help more.

B A R S etc relates to
Body Agility Reaction Strength, etc.. all of the attributes are shortened to their first letter

When you augment an attribute in some fashion, you write the augmented number in ( )'s, and use that for calculations.

Look at Pistols skill, and you will see what attribute it is linked to, and therefore what attribute to add to it in combat (also explained in combat section as well, as to what to add)

There is no Armor Class, but if you mean Armor Value, go to the gear section and look for the Armor Value for any armor listed on the pregen.

SA/BF/FA Are explained in the combat section, as well on page 417 in the Gear Rating Glossary section.

[pariah3j]

I decided since my players are experienced in having made characters in other systems and would feel the difference for their own in-visioned runner vs the premades, I opted to delay getting started an extra week, getting together with 1-2 at them at a time and us slogging through the character generation.
It was a little slow, I have given most of them the pdf (I'm the one w/ the physical books) and I don't think they have been doing much reading; But by doing the character creation step by step w/ them and answering questions they all came out pretty well made. Dice rolling is a little slow at times because I'm having to point out to use this attribute's dice w/ said skill but I think it would have been twice as bad if I had handed them premade characters and tried to do the same thing.

[Belker]

A suggestion if you go with everyone making their characters - after you do that, run some sort of short mini-adventure first. This will give everyone a chance to see how the major parts of the system work. Then give them the chance to change up their characters based on that experience - even radically, if need be. Perhaps someone decided initially to play a magician or technomancer and after seeing how things worked, realizes they'd prefer to play a face. Or it could be more subtle, like a hacker realizing that they'd prefer to focus on brute forcing rather than hack-on-the-fly, and needing to shift their Codeslinger quality appropriately.