[GeekSquad]

Hoi Chummers.

New to Shadowrun, always loved the game but can't find a group to play in. I finally decided to bite the bullet and just start GMing a group to get my fix.

I'm a super noob,  never even played the game before, running 5ed with the terrible pregen sample characters and a play group of 7 (a lot I know)

This topic is mainly to do with the setting. I've decided on Seattle in 2070 which is a bit earlier than the 5ed present day. I'm wondering, other than the stuff listed in the shadowrun time line, what other aspects of Shadowrun should I keep in mind/run differently considering the 5 year difference. Can I still use GOD? Should people be more wary or Technomancers? Are there any major incidents which haven't taken place? How should I handle major time line incidents? If I put my runners in an important mission in the shadowrun time line and they change shit how do I deal with the Fallout?  (What if, for instance, my runners want to kill Lowfyr or something ridiculous )

I'll probably have more questions later but that's the big one.

[Sterling]

For the timeline your best resource is going to be a book called "The Sixth World Almanac".  It gives you a full game history from the late 90's to 2072.

Technomancers are only really discovered in 2069 and are pretty scary.  GOD isn't brought in until late 2074.

If your runners do try and take down Lofwyr, they're going to need new characters.

The moment you begin a campaign you are deviating from canon, but that's what is so great about the game.  Let the major events happen, because runners can't really affect them directly, but keep them in the background.

The game revolves around your players.  The world doesn't.

Most of all relax and have fun.

[Herr Brackhaus]

I've given this quite a bit of thought as I'm planning the same thing, so here's my advice.

Disallow technomancer player characters; the events of the Emergence book is around 2070, and this could be very tricky to integrate without a massive effort on your part. Alternatively, use the new Otaku to Technomancer rules from Data Trails (require a datajack, though ).
Move part of the events of Storm Front forward; specifically, the new Matrix protocols that completely reworked the Matrix. Set it in 2070 to coincide with the start of the game to avoid having to mess around with commlinks and programs for hacking and go straight to decks.

Read up on pretty much all of the 4th Edition material. There's a ton of it, but there's also a ton of material you can use. Specifically, reference the following document to add canon events to your timeline: http://www.mattdroz.com/PDF/SR_Publish.pdf

Most importantly, talk this over with your players. If they know that they can read up on the setting up until 2069 but that anything after 2070 is up to you you'll have a good start in terms of managing expectations.

That's really all it boils down to as far as I'm concerned. Most of the major events leading up to 2076 do not significantly change the game to the point where using the 5th Edition ruleset from a 2070 timeline perspective becomes problematic. In other words, as long as you address the Matrix you're good

[Reaver]

For the most part you are free to do as you please. Dispite what players think, their actions are so limited in world that their effects on canon are fairly limited.

(For example, mo matter how good the characters are, they will never single-handedly cause a megacorp to fall... any more then a single person can cause a nation to fall)

If your players really decide to "go off reservation" with their actions, well that is were it falls on you to bring them back on track. (Just don't avoid all the fun that can be had bringing them back on track!)

[GeekSquad]

Hey thank you for the advice! There's a lot of info here that I can use.

Few questions though. I often hear a lot of GMs disallowing and suggesting disallowing Technomancers. Is there some serious problems with them? I know according to the lore there's a lot of negative press targeting Technomancers and from what I hear gameplay wise they're apparently scary broken (or can be). But could someone explain a bit better to me exactly the game stigma around Technomancers?

Additionally, because I'm very new to Shadowrun  I'm considering removing (or greatly downplaying) one of the three major shadowrun aspects in the Arcology. Eventually I'd like them included and I don't want to just meta my group to "just not try decking for a bit" so are there any creative ways to work in roadblocks to Magic, or the Matrix?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Technomancers are difficult characters to make and play if you treat them like deckers, and most new players in particular likely will. Additionally, their rules are, at the moment, not very good. Thematically, they are supposed to be able to do things that the rules don't really support, which is unfortunate.

If you were playing in 2070 there is also going to be a big technomancer scare, and a big bounty on bringing live "samples" to the corps for study. Thus, playing a technomancers becomes something a player character would potentially need to keep secret from his team. I know some people are cool with playing characters with a Big Secret (TM), but for my money I prefer running teams that are more harmonious than adversarial, because the latter can get ugly real quick if the players start blurring the lines between player character knowledge and player knowledge.

Disallowing technomancers for me is a thematic choice; they're just starting to emerge in 2070 so I'd like to keep them as a plot device instead of player characters, but that's entirely a personal opinion and/or choice. I would strongly recommend the books Emergence and then Unwired from 4th Edition for more information on Technomancers, so you can make an informed decision.


Deckers have become a lot less challenging than they were in previous editions, particularly the first 3. Where you usually needed a 15-60 minute minigame between the GM and decker to find some information or even just open a door lock, you can now boil down a lot of that to a couple rolls. I would suggest running through the quick-start scenarios for an introduction to the game in general, and I firmly believe that Matrix is no more difficult than Magic. As a GM, however, you will need to know a little of both, so I'd suggest leaning on your players to know their respective rules better than you while you try to wrap your head around the entire ruleset at once

Good luck!

[Reaver]

Ok, this is where things get a bit tricky, as both magic AND the matrix are CORE to the setting and feel of shadowrun. But, they can easily over whelm a new group of players (let alone a new GM!).

I would suggest that you talk to your players, and find out if they have any excitement for either before you cut anything. Obviously, you don't want to cut something your players are interested in

But assuming you have done that and decided to cut:

The matrix:
If you are looking to get rid of technos and decking, while still keeping the technological feel of SR, the easiest way is probably an NPC decker and "Handwavium". Have the NPC deal with the matrix issues and "hand wave" the results as needed to advance the plot or add complications. Just DO NOT let the npc over shine the players in any way. The npc should be a "follow the leader" type, and there to assist the players, not take away their fun.

This allows you to play up the matrix side of SR in a more RP fashion to introduce the players to it and its interaction with the world. As you get more comfortable with the matrix rules, you can slowly include more and more in for your players to experience; with out a "sink or swim" feel to it.

Magic:
Keeping the same feel of SR and magic with out actually smacking your players with it is both hard, and easy. On the Easy side, magic use is actually super rare! Only about 2% of the world population is awakened, even less have the training to actually DO something with it. But those few that can actually DO something? Yea, they CAN DO SOMETHING!!
So, the first option is the same as for decking, just for magic, and for all the same reasons.

The next option, is to have magic around them, but they themselves never actually, directly confront it. So while they may see spirits manifest, or spell effects, they will never actuall fight a spirit, or be hit by a spell.
By canon, this IS possible (however, highly unlikely), given how rare magic is. But this also places a challenge on you, as higher end facilities (especially AA+) almost always have magical protections of some sort.... but then again, this hives you the option of slowly introducing magical threats at a pace you feel your players can adjust to.

[cyclopean]

5th edition matrix is way easier to use and incorporate into runs, as others have said, so I would definitely move the timeline on that.

As to how to limit the amount of crazy back and forth between physical/magic/matrix that can happen, just be real with your players. Especially if you're using sample characters to start, make a group of physical characters (street sams, phys/gun adepts, a face or 2, maybe a rigger if you feel up to drones) and use those until you get a handle on how the system works. Then add some spellcasters/summoners when you feel comfortable doing so. Then matrix down the line somewhere (or just have an NPC do it).

Also, consider running some of the published stuff- the Artifacts series is awesome, and since you'll be in the early 2070's would be a great introduction to the setting/lore/etc and will leave the characters with a ton of international contacts. They're really well written up, too, as are many of the early 2070's Missions, and would only require some transcribing of gear and calculation of limits to work in 5th. But that stuff will give you a good idea of how to set up runs, what security can look like, how to blend the 3 realms, and so forth.

Technomancers can be really cool if played/built correctly, but they are complicated and I wouldn't recommend them for a new player. They have the same problem as full mages/adepts, where they don't have a ton to do with nuyen (as opposed to cyber characters, deckers, riggers etc), and are very reliant on karma for their major upgrades. I would suggest using the Missions cash for karma/karma for cash rules if you do want to allow technomancers to give players more options.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Generally, you'll only need to deal with the physical and the matrix at the same time; rare is the occasion where you have to deal with the astral.  Even then, if you have a physical event, you can often simply have the mage be with the party in the flesh, and assense, adding the astral overlay to his portion of the game the way you can add the matrix overlay to the decker's portion of the game.