[Jack of Tears]

So, I've been GMing for over 20 years, but I've never got around to playing Shadowrun.  Currently I am awaiting my copy of 5E to arrive in the mail, so I can start a campaign in a couple weeks.  What I would like is some feedback about what I should expect from the system, what surprises lurk in its dark corners waiting to bit me in the ass; plus, what things should I be aware of about the setting that sets it apart from all others - what advice can you give me that you wish you'd known when you started the game?  I'm really looking forward to advice specific to Shadowrun.

Thank you, in advance, for your help.

[north]

Shadowrun is not D&D.  You don't trade hits with whoever you are fighting.  In shadowrun the sneak attack is king.  He who has the initiative is most of the time the one that walks away.  Most of the time PCS are ether unharmed by combat or just barely alive if they are lucky.  That's my 2 ¥.

[Reaver]

You are probably going to need more then a few weeks reading and planning before you GM your first game.

SR is a complex game, made more complex with 3 different realms of influence playing off and against each other. (And this is not counting what is considered a poor editing job on the book itself).

SR's style of play is also much different then other traditional games, which gets players AND GM's into trouble...

[Kiirnodel]

If you've been GMing for 20 years (I'm guessing D&D?) then you probably have the story telling and player wrangling aspects down. If you have had any experience with White Wolf's Storytelling system or any other game where the setting is more modern you have a decent advantage with that as well.

Now things can vary from group to group, but generally the Shadowrun setting is a bit darker than other games. It takes place in a world where people are racist, and really mean it. For a while in the history (and even continuing in some places) it could be down-right lethal to be "walking while Troll (or Ork)." For example in Japan, they just had a whole island that was abandoned where they just deported all their "unfavorable" metatypes. But there are plenty of places to go looking up background information about the setting and chew your way through that.

As far as the rules and running the game goes, I would definitely devote a session or two to character creation. Particularly for a new group (particularly if they are new to the setting/system), character creation can take a long time to work your way through. Again, you probably know your group, so you can focus where you need to, but I definitely recommend working out what your "team" is going to be working toward. Because the setting of Shadowrun tends to lend itself toward the idea of people only looking out for themselves you definitely want to know from the outset if people are going to be doing something like that.

I recently started a new campaign, and I had the group sit down together and decide how they wanted the group dynamic to really work. I was able to talk with the players and they decided (note I said "they" not "we" the decision was totally up to them) that they were going to be playing a team with some heart. The idea being that we didn't want to start the first mission and find out that we have half the group strapped to the gills with firearms just looking to shoot everything that moves and the other half trying to be the community watch program and help all the poor SINless people. By deciding a few details ahead of time we were able to avoid some of the conflict that can be overly problematic. We do have inter-party conflict, people still have differing opinions on things and we have some built in tensions that make the game really interesting and fun, we just avoided the scene where the half-crazed street sam just sprays bullets across the entire street and kills everything while the Bear shaman gets angry about the needless violence and blood-shed...

In any case, I'm rambling. I can go on and on about various situations, it might actually be best to narrow things down a bit. What sort of information do you already know? Have you looked into how the base mechanics work or the setting at all?

[Jack of Tears]

If you've been GMing for 20 years (I'm guessing D&D?)

Actually, I've run over a dozen systems, some of them modern, some of them Sci-fi, which is why I use GM instead of DM.  Not to suggest there's anything wrong with DnD, though I'm one of those old fuddy-duddies who think 2E was still the best edition. 

generally the Shadowrun setting is a bit darker than other games

I knew most of what you said here, the darker setting is part of the reason I wanted to run it right now - my group has been playing the good guys for awhile, I figured it was time to have them play something a little more morally ambiguous.  From what I understand of the setting it is Sci-fi Fantasy Noir, all genres I enjoy.  I have also played the three recent Shadowrun CRPGs, so I have some grasp of the setting one its surface.

I would definitely devote a session or two to character creation

As with any new system, I had been planning on devoting a session to character creation.  Is there anything specific I should be watching out for in CC? 

In shadowrun the sneak attack is king.  He who has the initiative is most of the time the one that walks away.

This makes the system sound broken, was that the intent?  Someone else told me that character death is very common in SR, should I be expecting a large body count and if so, what tips do you have for players to maintain the longevity of their characters?  Aside from "play smart" which I always expect from them.

If the system is broken, is there a good list of house rules which fix this?

Thanks everyone, so far, for your input.

[Reaver]

You have to think about things from the in world view.

A shadowrun, traditionally, is about a small group of people breaking into a secured and guarded facility to steal shit. (Be that paydata, a prototype, a file, or a person!).

They will be out numbered, out gunned, with no back-up save what they can provide.... meanwhile the target of the shadowrun has drones, live guards, critters to call on.... not to mention other assets in the city. Not to mention law enforcement!

What do YOU think happens if the players try the old 'kick in door' routine? They die. Quickly.

So what is a small team to do? You hit hard, you hit fast, and you hope you can take the opposition down before they can summon help..... Or, avoid the fight all together!

To give them an edge over typical security, many Runners rely on an Edge.... be that magic, Ware, drones, or the matrix.... They do what they can to squeese out every advantage they can...
●●●□

Things get brutal in SR quickly. A single shot from just a light pistol can leave some characters gravely injured...... let alone the massive damage capable from fully automatic assault rifles, grenades or spells...


You my friend, have a lot of reading ahead of you!

[Beta]

First of all, the 5th edition rulebook is rather verbose ('tis a book Gary Gygax would be proud of ....), and the details of the rules are often buried someone in paragraph or two of text.  So allow plenty of time for reading before you start anything.  Consider flagging things with post-its, or even defacing your book to highlight where rolls are defined.  The rules overall work quite well, IMO, but finding them all, interpreting them in places, that can be a bit of a task.

When it comes to character creation, I strongly advise talking with the players and agreeing on character objectives.  The system plays a bit like many point buy systems, where you can be super good in one area if you want, at the cost of versatility and balance.  I'd almost say 'make some super specialized characters for one session, just to get it out of your systems, then go build the ones you'll play for a long time.'  Anyway, up to your group how you want to play, but I do suggest guiding them or coming to a group agreement.  Also to note: the sample characters are rather low specialization, because they were built with a skill restraint that is not in the rules as printed (something that was dropped during development).  there is a thread on here where there are more 'competitive' variations of those builds.  Oh, and making a competitive technomancer in 5th is hard, so guide players away from that unless they really want to do it, in which case the player and/or you should do some reading up on these forums on the topic, to avoid intense frustration.

Shadowrun is a lethal system if characters want to have stand up fights.  It is one of those systems where as you take damage, you take penalties to nearly everything you do, so once you start losing things can get bad quickly.  Think of detective or spy movies, there may be some violence, but almost never set piece battles.  Combat may fill a lot of the rules, but the goal of the characters should usually be to avoid combat as much as possible (and therefore they need skills to do that).

The game can play anywhere from almost action movie to super-serious-spy-vs-spy, first wrong move you are toast, style.  You need to decide on that tone, and make sure the players are on board.

[Xexanoth]

In shadowrun the sneak attack is king.  He who has the initiative is most of the time the one that walks away.

This makes the system sound broken, was that the intent?  Someone else told me that character death is very common in SR, should I be expecting a large body count and if so, what tips do you have for players to maintain the longevity of their characters?  Aside from "play smart" which I always expect from them.

Well the "sneak" attack is just part of the setting, Reaver pretty much said it all. If you're not sneaky you're not smart, and that means you're dead.

A shadowrun is 20 minutes of objectives, 3 days of planning, and 600 seconds of mayhem

As for the lethality, it's easy for a character to go down, but wether or not he actually dies depends on how you play the game,as  you can prevent dying either via
-having a decent amount of armor, which will turn physical damage into stun damage, that only knocks you out. Armor is cheap and easy to get.
-burning a point of edge(loosing an edge point until rebought via karma) to mysteriously survive something that should have killed you.
-having a DocWagon Contract, unless you die in the middle of an enemy base/ghoul attack/nowhere or get turned into chunky salsa, these guys pull you out and you wake up in a hospital with a nice bill a few days later.
-the faction who downed you heals you and now you have to work for them, new cranial bomb implant optional.

[firebug]

Combat in Shadowrun is over quickly, and usually is clearly in favor of one side.  But that isn't a balance issue; that's because combat is so rarely "two sides meet in an equal arena with equal preparation".  Your standard character can take two or three shots from mid-sized weapons (that is, bigger than most pistols but not shotguns and above) but tankier character can easily absorb bullets like a videogame character.  Most combats will be one group being ambushed by the other, often the players ambushing guards.

PC death is uncommon though.  Edge doubles as essentially extra lives, like Fate Points in some other games (the Warhammer RPGs for instance), and the convenience of healing magic and armor.  Literally any character can begin the game with enough armor for most small arms to very rarely do lethal damage, and players won't generally go up against targets as well armed as they are.  And when they do, it's a big deal--  Prettymuch a boss fight.

This works because death is rarely the primary way to "fail" in Shadowrun.  In D&D, general adventuring is a quest where you're risking your life for rewards or to save others.  In Shadowrun, you usually have a clearer objective, like "steal this" or "kidnap him".  With advanced security systems and alarms, you're more likely to screw up and have your objective destroyed to stop you from getting it than simply getting a TPK.

Finally, due to how the character growth system works, you don't have to fight just to level up.  Most groups will have a combat specialist because often, fighting is inevitable, but the players (and their characters) don't come out with less rewards if they don't kill every potential target.

[Reaver]

Too add to Firebug's last point (which nails it almost on the head!):

Through combat characters can often fall behind! Everything in SR costs. Either money, essence, or karma. Combat is no different. Excessive combat will deplete a character's resources through the restock of ammo, reagents, and repairs.

For some reason( ) many characters run around with either APDS or EX ammo as their first option. This is some expensive ammo! Esoecially if they are firing 200 to 300 rounds of it every run on combat that could of been avoided (through planning, trickery, etc)
Getting hurt costs a character time and money (hospital bills)....so why waste that time or money on risky combat?
Repairing drones and decks costs so much, that often times its easier just to buy a new one! Why risk the loss when it could have been avoided??

The simple economics of SR practically scream at players "DON'T FIGHT UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO!! LIE, CHEAT, STEAL, STEALTH YOUR WAY PAST PROBLEMS!!!"
But, people don't listen And the best laid plans go awry. And sometimes the job IS combat....

So yea, the deck is stacked against a Runner team. This is why they load up on cyberware, or magic, or anything that can give them an edge. This is why a Runner will attack from behind, or from concealment. They have to if they want to survive the 'long game' that is called Life

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

What they all said.

My advice is to make your first TWO sessions character creation, with a quick baseline fight - like the 1e 'Food Fight' scenario, not like the unfortunately-involved later one, which is a run all in itself - to get you and the group used to how combat works.  Use this time as GM to create a run where combat does not need to take place - one where the gun/swordbunny CAN get a bit of combat it, but where that combat is restricted to 'can I out-target-shoot this guy', or a basic 'duel with shinai' sort of thing.  This run is there specifically to make sure your players are out of the KIATIS (Kill It And Take Its Stuff) mode, and are into 'bleak future' story mode.  Combat Monster (cousin to Cookie Monster, don'cha know) will see plenty of action later on down the line, and after all, he DID just get a Food Fight all his own (per se), but reacting to everything with 'combat combat combat' will get everyone dead dead dead, and so the first 'real' run gets everyone a bit more into the 'how to avoid starting a fight' mindset.

[Spooky]

All good comments so far. Shadowrun as a system has no classes, therefore each player must have a concept before starting creation. Keep this in mind when starting your first (of 2-3) CC session. I highly recommend starting with a discussion on party play style/mode and what each player wants to see. Sounds like you will be all getting into the pool for the first time together, so have the discussion now. It avoids so many problems later. I have a writeup of a mission that is a good introduction to Shadowrun's general style, I can send it to you if you'd like to see it. So far, I have run three separate tables through this mission, and every table has hated me for it. (or the mission, sometimes hard to tell) Spend at least a month reading the book, as the editing can be very confusing (although as someone who has played every edition, it's not that bad compared to previous editions, which says something....) Remember that everything has a price, characters should charge just like their suppliers will charge them. And as a final thought, check out the books and movies for dms threads here to help you get a feel for the setting's overall feel. Shadowrun can be played as everything from "sweetness and light" to "so dark and dreary you can't even see anything", and can easily swing between these extremes, so it is very important to know where everyone playing wants to be.

[Coyote]

In shadowrun the sneak attack is king.  He who has the initiative is most of the time the one that walks away.

This makes the system sound broken, was that the intent?  Someone else told me that character death is very common in SR, should I be expecting a large body count and if so, what tips do you have for players to maintain the longevity of their characters?  Aside from "play smart" which I always expect from them.

If the system is broken, is there a good list of house rules which fix this?

It's not broken, it's a part of the game's design. In Shadowrun, buffs are huge compared to other games. Reminds me of City of Heroes compared to other MMORPGs, to use a different genre. You can buff up with drugs, spells, summoned spirits, etc. Also, you can "buff up" by taking your heavy weapons and combat drones, if you know that you're walking into an ambush in the warehouse, rather than just walking around looking for some clues. So the difference between the character "walking around in the city" and "walking into the warehouse knowing there is an ambush waiting" is huge in terms of both offense and defense statistics. Buffs often get to +4 to an attribute, which means +4 to a die pool of 12-16 dice, which is a relatively large increase.

Compare that to AD&D, where buffs are usually around +1 or +2 to a d20 roll, so not a large increase... and not every group is buff-heavy, while almost all solid SR teams are. And in AD&D, you're pretty much always walking around in your best armor, and with your best weapon. And temporary buffs like potions are either non-existent or expensive, so you're not usually going to pull them out in anticipation of every fight (usually, you wait until you know that this is THE fight). In SR, by comparison, if you know there is going to be a fight, you're going to buff up with every spell that you can Sustain, and every drug that you have available, and also summon a spirit.

Basically, SR is a game where buffing up makes a huge difference, but takes time and preparation. So if you're prepared and have good knowledge of the situation, you can be FAR stronger than your baseline stats. And you can do this for every fight. And so can most opponents. So, getting the drop on the opponents is not only a matter of "he who shoots first, wins", it's also "he who gets the ambush off usually is buffed up against unprepared opponents with base statistics".

This is pretty much intended. The designers wanted to have a lot of buff spells and abilities, but did not want to have all of them active all the time for various balance reasons. So this results in a game where if you time all of your buffs to be active for the fight, you can improve your abilities tremendously. Other games did not choose to make so many buff options available, or chose to make them a lot rarer (like a spell that you may cast for a fight once or twice a day... when you may have several fights in one day). So for them, your base stats play a far larger part in what you can do, than what buffs you have up. And that's beside the whole "I didn't bring my Weapon Focus-2 Combat Axe to this fight because they had a weapon check at the door", which doesn't happen in AD&D. You don't have to go through metal detectors at the entrance to the Tomb of Horrors.

[silentninjadesu]

Oh man I disagree with a lot of what's being said here.

Shadowrun has a perception of being a very lethal game because everyone does a lot of damage and health tracks are short. But player death only happens when the player wants because of the edge or "luck" mechanic allowing people to completely avoid death.

Combat is over fast and high intiative characters have a big advantage, but shadowrun can be very defocused from combat. Your hacker is unlikely to be much good with a gun, for instance, and that's ok.

Combat is very hard to balance! When I started gming I killed the whole team twice, looked at the rolls and changed the enemy state on the fly. I would start with puffball fights and build your way up so you can get a feel for player ability. And the game is verrrrry complicated and the book is poorly worded. And has some balance issues. Technomancers, aspected magicians and alchemists are under powered and riggers cost too much.  But the new rigger book does wonders for them, so you should check that out if anyone wants to play a driver. My table has a few house rules I can show you if you're really interested.

Shadowrun, just like every other game, is what you make of it. Playstyle can run from "mirrorshades" to "pinkmohawk" where mirrorshades is the more slick, cool, sneaky, professional aspect of the game (think oceans 11) and pink mohawk is the more loud, over the top, 80s punk aspect of the game (think tank girl). The rules and setting do support both, idk why everyone in the forumns likes to pretend it's only mirrorshades.

Friend, if your players want to play trolls on rollerskates with four arms wielding a machine gun and able to take 100 bullets to the face, they can.

Edited to add: spirits can get very powerful very quickly. Watched out for summoners, they can break the game. There are balance issues for sure.

[Glyph]

Shadowrun sneakiness is like James Bond sneakiness - you need to sneak in and use your gizmos to bypass security features or nab/make a data copy of the maguffin, but at some point, alarms will start blaring and people will be shooting at you with automatic weapons.  The game is inspired just as much by action movies as by heist movies.

But as freelance expediters and troubleshooters, shadowrunners are not stuck doing nothing but difficult break-ins.  They can also be hired for other criminal acts, as well as odd jobs such as bounty hunting, bodyguarding, paracritter hunting, and so on.

One thing about character creation is that it is pretty wide open.  Even if you have everyone use the same character creation system, expect a lot of variety in skill level, combat effectiveness, and other areas.  You can end up with a party like Lord of the Rings - someone will be playing Gandalf, and someone will be playing a hobbit.  But don't worry too much about "balancing" them - just try to give everyone equal spotlight time.  However, it is good to give them a bit of extra guidance for your specific campaign, though.  If you tell them they will be playing hard-bitten pros who know how to keep their heads down, then you will be less likely to have one player show up with a centaur shaman based on Fluttershy.