[mirrorshades]

Hoi Chums!

I'm a new recruit to the whole tabletop scene. I've sort of come by Shadowrun from the roundabout route. I played the Super Nintendo game back in the day and dug it and I'm also a big William Gibson/Cyberpunk fan.

I finally bit the bullet a while back and picked up the 20th anniversary edition of the core rules. As a newbie to the system, it seems like there's a lot of rules and variables to take into account just for basic combat and actions like legwork. Adding magic and the Matrix on top of that and the book is making my head hurt. Am I just dense or is this normal?    Any tips for getting the rules down pat would be appreciated.

Also, I'm wondering if I should stick with 4th edition or if the 5th edition rules would be more user friendly to a newcomer like me. I have to say that I'm nostalgic for the days of neon and chrome and I would ideally like to set a campaign in the 2050s.

[Reaver]

first off,

Welcome!


And now... No you are not dense (I hope.. I don't really know you ) shadowrun does happen to be one of the more complex game systems around. If it makes you feel better, it's only gotten easier as time went by SR 2e and 3e where much more complex to learn.

And in that regard, 5e is a little easier as well, and since you don't have a head full of rules like some of us old hats here, now would be a good time to get in on the ground floor of 5e and not have old rules lurking in the back of your head


Best way to learn the rules? read them. Over and over and over again.... and then play with them If you get stuck, don't sweat it, either go with what you think is right until you can check later, or do a  quick look up if you got the book handy. I've been playing RPGs for almost 30 years, and Shadowrun for over 20, so I know it can be a pain to learn all the ins and outs of the game, but don't  worry too much, it will come with time.

[Cronstintein]

I have a similar background.  I loved the genesis shadowrun back in the day.  I started with 5th recently and I don't think the rules are too bad (I haven't dug too deep into barriers and vehicles, mind you). 
The best way to learn is to play them, I found a local group on meet-up and have a weekly session going.  Keep in mind the gm will handle some of the more complicated stuff (or use his own simplified version) so you only really need to know your character and how to use their abilities.  This subset will be a little easier to learn for starters.
I also recommend using an aid for character generation, I use idiedtrying's excel sheet and find it a bug help.

[zenbubble]

Welcome to the gang!

I've been gaming for almost 25 years, and any time I've started using a new rules system, all it's taken is to let the players know that it's a new system, and ask for some patience.

The first few sessions are usually pretty slow, with me looking up rules quite often.  Once you've played with the rules for a while, it becomes much easier, and eventually second nature.

Hope you enjoy!  I'm a huge William Gibson / Shadowrun 2050 fan as well.

-Chris

[Naptown Wendigo]

One of the most intimidating aspects of Shadowrun, especially to new GM's, is the three different and distinct "worlds" you have to run on top of one another. Those being the real/meat world, magic/astral/spirit world, and the matrix world. Assuming you're an incoming GM (since you are posting in the gamemaster section) perhaps a simple solution would be to drop either the magic or matrix worlds for the first few runs while you build some familiarity with the core rules.

You could water down the matrix rules so the PC's are only making rolls to find information on it instead of hacking and all sorts of other craziness. Pretty easy if nobody wants to be a decker. Magic could be glossed over if no one is interested in being a mage of some flavor. Of course this also means you need to tailor the opposition to account for their lack of skills in a certain area. No party wants to have all their gear hacked into dead weight by an unseen decker with no way to fight back.

[firebug]

One thing that helps is having your players know the rules for their own characters.  Try and get the street samurai to have a good understanding of combat, the magician to know how astral space and spells work, and the decker to know how hacking and the matrix works.  They don't have to be masters of it, but everyone learning a bit of their own section seriously takes the load off of the GM.

The core mechanics are, at base, not that confusing.  Everyone can understand "Take one of your attribute ratings and one of your skill ratings, then add them together roll that many dice".  The best part is that you don't need to do any of the crazy complex stuff at the beginning.  You can have your players doing very basic runs that are no more than "go here and fight off some gangers for this other gang" and stuff to help everyone get experienced with the system.

[Poindexter]

make the starting characters street level. Less gear. less things for new players to have to learn right off the bat.

[MortimerBane]

Welcome to Shadowrun man.  As far as 4th vs 5th... Just go ahead and buy 5th ed stuff as that's what all the new books/etc. will be formatted for.  As for the nostalgia of the old days, start buying up old Shadowrun Novels and read those.  You don't have to learn 4th 5th and 3rd to cover those old adventures.  Remember, most of those official Shadowrun Adventures also had an accompanying novel.  Many adventures had an entire trilogy to go along with it.  History always repeats itself, so you can take old modules and re-write some things here n' there, and drop it in a new city and can be played all over again.  Certain books, like Dragon Heart Saga trilogy by Jak Koke also show you how a Shadowrun team with a multi-million nuyen budget with bases in several countries operates.   

[Castamaer]

Figure this is the welcoming thread so....

Welcome to the shadows chummer.

I'll admit I'm not a complete newcomer to the game, but it has been quite some time since I ran in the shadows.  Got into the game around 2nd/3rd ed but the rules kind of turned me away (Could have been the GM's use of them).  But I LOVED the setting and enjoyed the hell out of the SNES game.  Snagged Shadowrun:Returns off steam a while back and thought I'd give it another look see.

And fell back into it I did.  At least, into the GM's seat.

So I may find myself posting here often, trying to help and looking for the same.

[emsquared]

I finally bit the bullet a while back and picked up the 20th anniversary edition of the core rules. As a newbie to the system, it seems like there's a lot of rules and variables to take into account just for basic combat and actions like legwork. Adding magic and the Matrix on top of that and the book is making my head hurt. Am I just dense or is this normal?    Any tips for getting the rules down pat would be appreciated.

Also, I'm wondering if I should stick with 4th edition or if the 5th edition rules would be more user friendly to a newcomer like me. I have to say that I'm nostalgic for the days of neon and chrome and I would ideally like to set a campaign in the 2050s.

The best tip for getting the rules down pat is to just start playing. Download some of the cheat-sheets that are out there and just go for it. Yeah, you'll spend a lot of time looking up random crap that comes up, but just dive in and try to make it work, don't necessarily even worry about getting it correct by the book, just adapt your understanding of the rules to what's happening, and learn the rules as you go (after a session: OHHHHH, that's how we should have done it...), it's the best way to do it IMHO. And yea, have your Magician and Hacker study up on his/her own rules before the first session, and lean heavily on /them/ to teach /you/ (and themselves). I went with the alternate attribute-based hacking rules (which I would recommend), but beyond that even I basically just simplified any Node (from 'links to drones) to just 1 stat; System (so Reponse, Signal, Firewall, Pilot = System - requires some price manipulation as well) and while it made hacking easier to learn, it ends up with less granularity and in retrospect I don't think I would recommend that unless you're really going to down-play Hacking.

As for 4E or 5, we play 4 because we already have pretty much the entire library for it, and probably won't switch to 5 until it's full library is out, but if you're just starting your library, 5 makes much more sense.