[Rylas]

Hey guys,
I was just looking for some advice for new GM's. A friend and i have recently started running the 5th edition beginner box and alphaware missions for our group and we're finding some of the stuff is lacking a bit when the players want to do something that isnt directly outlined in the books.
I haven't played before but my friend has experience with 3rd edition. Just wondering if theres any sort of lists or anything that we can use to help move things along because with us workign things out we're taking a long time to get through the rounds.

[Glyph]

Bach_The_Fox is hosting some GM resources here.  Look under misc aids for cheat sheets - they might help make it a bit more clear, at least for combat.

[Hobbes]

Keep the action going.  Make a ruling that seems appropriate, look it up after the session is over.  If you were wrong, let the players know and play it correct going forward.  Or houserule it.

Shadowrun has a silly amount of tiny little rules scattered around.  You're going to miss some, don't sweat it. 

[Reaver]

Is the problem the rules and your understanding of them?

Or is this a case of the players choosing option "G", when the adventure only lists outcomes for options "A" though "C"

If its the first, listen to Hobbes.

If its the latter, welcome to SR! Where players WILL throw 5 months of your (GM) work out the window because... well, "just 'cause!!!"

Best advice? Learn to think on your feet Listen to what the players are trying to do, make a call on it, and work to swing their direction back on course. How to actually DO that? Well that depends how far off the mark they are.

If they can't seem to find a direction to go, have a contact drop some intel in their lap. If they are not sure what to do with the intel, have them roll a character "smarts" test as i put it, and give them some hints . (This represents their character smarts-who actually live this shit, as opposed to us die rollers what the player may be stumped on, the character puts together in 5 seconds flat!)

If they are randomly shooting blue haird grandma's in the street, you have a bigger problem. Contact the mental health department

[Rylas]

Thanks Glyph, thats got some cool stuff!

And yeah its more that the runners are throwing us off because the premade missions have little room for improvisation from what we've noticed. Or they don't have the stats for things they should. I think making up some of our own missions will help with that so we can more think on the fly with them. The little rules are getting there too. Thankfully our group is being patient.

[phydaux42]

"its more that the runners are throwing us off because the premade missions have little room for improvisation"

And that's why I don't run pre-gen missions, or try to recreate the plot from books or movies.

In fact, when I GM I tend to give my players on objective (say, "intercept this courier package") and a time limit ( like "before the Oyabun's birthday party tomorrow evening").

Then I just leave it up to the players what they do while throwing random obstacles at them.

[Rylas]

Yeah we're only using them at the moment because I've never played before and the other GM only has experience with 3rd edition >.< we're writing our own stuff now

[devitch]

Me and a group of friends have just started playing (I last played 1e when I was about 13) and to start us off easy we've been using the missions from the Alphaware box as well.

There does seem to be quite a bit missing like basic stats, but we've just worked around it, mixing in info from other sources (like stats for NPCs).

So far it's going pretty well even if sometimes play does stop so I can look things up (as the only guy there with previous experience I've ended up being GM). What I've done when this happens in order to stop it getting dull is throw in a random event covered by the rules I do know well enough already.

Not sure about the exact mechanism for a rigger action? Throw in a random Knight Errant patrol for them to evade. Let them discuss what they are going to do for a couple of minutes whilst I find what I need and then once I've found it, hurry them up and make the rolls necessary (if any are necessary) for the distraction action and then move on.

Realise something is missing from the pre-gen mission, have them come across an NPC that they can choose to interact with (or not) for colour, let them decide what they are going to do, if anything, whilst I plug the hole.

Don't get me wrong, a bit of prep time beforehand can help avoid a lot of these issues, but you can never prepare for everything. I've mostly used the pre-gens as outlines and searched the internet for additional ideas to have ready in the wings.

[Artemis Entreri]

Hi!

I'll probably sound a bit dumb here, but take it as it seems.

I'm kinda experienced GM, but Shadowrun can be tough even for long-time plaers/GMs.

But, if you really look through the system, what you really have to do is to get confidence with the basic test structure and work with it during sessions.
I'd suggest avoding complex builds and don't exagerate with options.

Most of the time, complexity comes out (I'm not saying it's your fault, I'm just sayin' that it happens to everyone) from the fact that we read rulebooks without actually getti' the core assumptions.


SH 5ed evolves around a simple test structure (which you obviously know, but I report it to streghten the concept): SKILL + ATTRIBUTE [LIMIT] (threshold).

If you have doubts on how the game handles specific stuff, just stick with it. You have to make a "running contest"? Just Roll Running + Strength [Physical]. Who gets more hits wins. Don't care if the game states specific sub-rules about meters or something.
If that specific test is common, just scroll through the pages, find the rule in between sessions and that's it: you learned a rule.


The biggest mistake you can make is tryin' to master Shadowrun system. Just master the basics: everything evolves around that test construction, stick with that and let the game mechanics flow through the sessions.


If you're in the middle of a fire-fight, the worst thing you can do is quit and start lookin' and discussin' for rules: it's a lot worst than common-sense ruling. Try to find the soft-spot of the scene and work with that in advance.
Some advices:

Enemies
Are you gonna handle multiple enemies? Great: don't overprepare, just scratch down basic pools, like this (at least that's what I do):

Example of standard hit&die dude:

- physical attacks/defense: 8/9
- mental / social tests: 5
- damage: 8 + net hits.
- Absorb 8
- initiative 11 (usually do 4 + 6/9 depending on the character)
- Condition track: 8 (avoid multiple malus. You get -2 after 4 damage; die after another 4).
- Defense (+3 dice)

Don't mind if you don't have "body, agility or stuff". You have everything you need to know and you can fill a whole page with this mini shit with minimu variations, creating effective enemies for all tastes.


Better Sheets
There are sheets which are better than the standard ones, mostly because they've more space and are more clear to read. I attach an example.


Class Management
Have your characters fill those extra sheets and note key stuff of their characters. A bunch of paper sheets work well too. Don't let them scroll through the book everytime: they can spend 10 minutes of their life to compile easy-to-access stuff for their own runners.

If you have a magician, just ask him to sign up her spells and effects (basic infos).


Cheatsheets
As suggested above, you can find many schemes on the web. Make a copy for yourself and one for the table, so that everyone gets in confidence with it and every player can help during tough scenes.


General management
Elect one player to track down initiative and (possibly the same, but it's not needed) another to track down effects or something.
So that you can focus on "the black guy throws a bomb, it'll explode in 3 rounds (the elected players countdowns)"


Make it simple when it's obvious
I see lots of players/GMs rolling for useless stuff.
Are you down, almost dead, disarmed and someone points a gun straight to your head? Boom. You're dead.
Ok, this is an extreme case, but that's how you should handle obvious scene: if you're crippled and someone at full health with a good athletic skill runs before you, you lose the contest. Period.

Just cut-off useless rolls and describe, so that the action flows and your players will take care of their choices and moves rather than "numbers".


Hope it helps.
My 2 nuyens.
Chhers

[Rylas]

Thanks! That's some really great advice
We actually had a session the other day that went really well because we did a few of the things people suggested instead of being really strict with the pre written mission especially when it offers plan A, B or C and the players take plan J but it all worked out pretty great and everyone had fun. Even shy players ended up role playing

Thanks everyone for the advice

[farothel]

Another thing you can do is for instance for the mage, have them put a short description (although most are self-explanatory) and page numbers by his spells.  That way if you need to look it up, you can do so quickly because you know where to look.

I did the same back in 4th edition when I created a hacker.  Both me and the GM were not all that fully up to date with the matrix, so I made cheat sheets of all hacker actions with what they were (very short), the dicepool used and contested dicepool if any, plus the page in the book where to find it.  That way if we weren't sure, we could quickly look at the full description.  By the time I had the sheets completed, I knew most of it as I'd read the rules a couple of times to create the file.

And encourage your players to know their own most important rules.  While the player of the street sammie shouldn't know how to work out drain, your mage player should (or at least write it down on his sheet).

[Rylas]

Yeah we're working on some cheat sheets now as a group

[Tiaexz]

These are sheets I saw in another game. Might be helpful -
http://imgur.com/a/MtenP

[Beta]

Allow some time when you buy the full rule book.  It is not organized in a way that makes for easy looking up of references.  It is not so much like a modern library organized per the Dewy Decimal or Library of Congress systems, more like some ancient mages library....everything is in a place that made sense to somebody, and nearly everything is in there, somewhere.  But you just need to put in some time to learn where to find what.

As to adventures going off the track, sometimes there are opportunities to move scenes from where they were planned and drop them in front of the characters.  Like, the adventure assumed they would go to a certain bar where they would see Mafia enforcers shaking down the bar tender.  If the key part is that they cross paths with the mafia enforcer, have this happen in a store that they are in (either because they decide to buy more ammo or whatever, or just because life happens).  If the important part is that they meet the bartender then put him in whatever bar they do go to, and book a meeting in a bar if necessary.

It doesn't always work, but sometimes it helps.

And not directly to your issues, but a general speed things up thing:  Make sure you have LOTS of dice (I'm sure you've seen why by now), but ideally get them in sets of four, so you can really quickly grab a certain number of dice without much careful counting (need to roll 11 dice?  Four green, four white, and three red). 

[TheWayfinder]

When I do any RPG, I do a lot of prep-work.  You may not want to do this, but I find it fun and relaxing. 

I build what I call a Battle-Book, and in this is the campaign, with area maps, prominent NPCs, factions, and so on.  For my Shadowrun PDX, my Battle-Book (actually, I now have three) has everything I need to run the game, even if the PCs want to do something that's not adventure related.  I also have a few decks of 3x5" cards that have nothing but critters and NPCs in them.  I even sort them out by affiliation if necessary; I have 65 active shadowrunner NPCs in the PDX area, with 10 of them Prime Runners, 30 of them regular shadowrunners, and the rest street-level types.  I have gangers, corporate troopers, contacts of all kinds, military forces, government officials and agents, and just ordinary people just trying to make a living.  There are a lot of apps and programs you can download to help you out with this, but I haven't seen too much yet for SR5. 

For my big area maps, I just use maps that are available anywhere at your local bookstores or even from convenience stories.  For local maps, I use gridpaper or I might use Campaign Cartographer or Roll20 to make maps when I run the game there, and I also use Obsidian Portal to keep my guys all connected. 

Matrix stuff is very easy now in SR5.  I don't know what it was in SR3 or 4, but I remember how bad it was in SR2.  All my locations have Matrix stuff attached, including any available IC and security measures; some places, like strip clubs, have a great deal of security, because some people don't like others to know they go there.   

Of course, I don't do all of this all at once.  When I made my first book, I mainly concerned myself with areas, locales, and important NPCs.  Then I just kept adding things on my on free time here and there, to the point now I have the three books and more than a thousand cards of NPCs and critters, and tons of maps for all kinds of places.