[XelosUchiha]

I need some advice here guys! I'm not new to DMing Shadowrun but I am new to this group. I've been looking through these forums to see what people have said on this topic, and haven't found anything so maybe we can help.

In the past, I've had players that have liked to play combat-heavy. Pretty much everyone took weapons skills and the magicians were combat mages and combat adepts.

In this new group, its not so much. I've got a couple players who actually took no combat skills. once is a very charismatic face who can talk his way through anything. Another is a stereotypical computer "nerd" who has no idea how to fight but is a wiz with the matrix. I have a blind mage who only operates on the astral plane and a chromed out troll who lives for battle and thats about all he focuses on. We only have one magician who has focused on both social and combat. My problem now is how do I spend enough time with each character?

Whats been happening is that each character will go do his little thing. The hacker will spend some time working on security, the face man will play his little part in the plan, whatever that is. So if I'm running a session that is all about subterfuge, maybe pulling off the perfect secret heist, my Troll player just sits there for the whole session and barely does anything. Vice versa, running a combat session leaves out more than half the group. I've been trying to intertwine these things all together but its been tough. If anyone has any ideas I would really appreciate it! I've never played with such a varied group before!

[Julius Q Enderby]

That, my fellow GM, is really the crux of what running this crazy game is all about. I don't know the answer other than your players must understand they need to be patient with you and each other.

Shadowrun more than any other RPG I've encountered excels at segregating the PCs by virtue of its myriad juxtaposed-yet-not-always-easy to interact settings: How long can you try to make justice of the astral plane for the magician player before everyone else gets glassy-eyed or their small-talk starts to get distracting? How much can you detail the Matrix in interpreting the myriad account-creation and/or hacking tests so as to engage the hacker before the rest of the group buggers off for a smoke? Sure, in game time it goes zippy fast since they get 3 initiative passes but that just means your real-life players have to wait longer. A "balanced party" in Shadowrun certainly demands more extra care to run than a "balanced party" in D&D/Pathfinder, in my experience.

Yes, you can have layered encounters where the magician is tangling with the astral security while the grunts are neutralizing the critters while the techy is disabling the blast doors while the hacker is editing the footage but man, you're not getting more than 3 combat rounds done that session. At least until the rules get familiar. Maybe hold off on the hundreds of pages of extra stuff from the supplements until things gel.

The settings are rich enough that you probably could have a party of just hackers or just adepts or just riggers etc. But all of those settings simultaneously is a big part of what makes Shadowrun tick conceptually. It's also a nightmare to run. I'm lucky in that my players have all run games before and are already hooked into the setting so they're generally more than willing to let everyone have their turns.

Good luck  and thanks to anyone that can post anything actually helpful rather than just commiseration like I did  ; I'm also interested in other strategies.

[John Shull]

A team like this is very interdependent on each other.  If one doesn't do his job the whole team suffers for it.  Once rolling together they will maximize each other.  The strength is that they almost always have a different approach if they hit a wall, for whatever reason.  Right now they are learning what each other can do in game.  Its hard to run team exercises when no one knows the abilities of the others.  So you could try some of these concepts to build team bridges.

1.  Success is the Worlds Greatest Team Spackle Next session let them showoff for each other a bit.  Help the others see what the other PC can do that they cannot .  Being a bit one dimensional they will really appreciate having someone who can get them through hurdles they always been limited by before.   So if one character has a problem and the other one solves it, that other character is now my friend.   Something kinda like this:

(They are trying to get info out of stubborn clerk/secretary.  The Troll comes in and gets loud about the information they want.  As she starts to panic and call the cops maybe the Face will burst in and 'chase him off''.  Introduce himself as a undercover cop, with some electronic ID fakes by the Hacker, trying to track down the Troll and has to know what the Troll is after so he can get him off the street and out of that witnesses face.  The mage in the waiting area astrally perceives her to verify the clerk/secretary for extra info in line or in their waiting room.  Troll watches from distance and gets clued in on the silver tongued devil.  Face is liking his new ID making buddy.  Everyone is happy the big Troll in the room is on their side.)
 It shows what you can do with a little teamwork, even if I kinda overwrote it a bit.

2.  Survival is a real crowd pleaser  I had a group whose Merc turned around to get a great view of a materialized Fire Elemental, the teams mage was a conjuration/summoner and she banished the thing as the Merc dove into the next room shooting at it ineffectively.  He kept the Conjuration/Summoner around him at all times after that.  Such sudden appreciation can flower from many a  situation.  It doesn't have to be so life threatening but it surly doesn't hurt. 
    So if certain death shows up on your PC's and one turns around and saves the day, there will be someone getting a beer bought for them and a little team synergy will have been achieved.  It can be a little tricky to arrive at just the right threat the other can help at.  (Attack drones are lighting up the Troll and team is on the run til Hacker comes to the rescue, etc.)

3.  Getting the Fish back into the Pond.  PC falls into a situation they need to be walked through to handle.  Its done for the PC but with a lot of help from the other PC.  Hacker has to teach the Troll how to disarm a bomb over his comm or some such.  It is a situation where one Player is severely reliant on another PC to get through something.  It is simple and effective.  Conversely you could make it where a teammate could help get the PC something they want instead avoid something they are avoiding. Your just stressing how someone gets by with a little help from their friends.   

These are all variations on a theme but the stress the approach of together we stand, divided we fall rather well.  They have worked for me in the past and I hope you find them somewhat useful as well.

[Reaver]

First off, wow! Great responses!

From a more RP perspective, turn up the "punk" elements in Shadowrun. Highlight the differences between Corp run property and the "otherside". Have informants want to meet in crappy places (now that cyber troll has a reason to be active...) Heck, have some of those "leads" turn out to be ambushes (nothing fancy, just a 21st century wallet grab) and that troll gets the most playtime as backup to all the other players!

And because of the very real possability of a setup, most other players probably won't mind the troll "tagging along" either! Now, it's just up to you as the GM to spread out the quality time for each player.

[Fallen]

It amazes me just how much simpler things come out to be whensoever one gets the chance of discussing matters of some difficulty pertaining to the game.  I sort of wish we had this kind of setup way back when: it certainly would have made things run their course much more smoothly.

Whats been happening is that each character will go do his little thing. The hacker will spend some time working on security, the face man will play his little part in the plan, whatever that is. So if I'm running a session that is all about subterfuge, maybe pulling off the perfect secret heist, my Troll player just sits there for the whole session and barely does anything. Vice versa, running a combat session leaves out more than half the group. I've been trying to intertwine these things all together but its been tough. If anyone has any ideas I would really appreciate it! I've never played with such a varied group before!

It may take some time for your players to find a comfortable enough niche in their individual play-styles and the intrinsic vagaries of their chosen characters (all of which, as you point out, will ultimately be bound to attend the matters in which they are most proficient in).  My advice is not to panic, nor see it as any sort of ordeal.  Handle each situation one at a time, but not necessarily in any way that's completely too linear: a bit of back and forth between you and the players in this process ought to help matters along and open the door for some strategic cooperation on their part.  After all, even though a character may not be the expert another is in handling a particular thing it doesn't need to mean they can't have some insight or thought about how it can conceivably be tackled.

At any rate, consider the advice the others have given you.  It should help you out quite a bit!

Good luck and have fun!

[The Big Peat]

I think I'm slightly echoing John Shull here, but the thing that sprang to mind (other than tell the players to be patient) is getting characters involved in areas outside their speciality, and getting them to work in teams. The precious Princess demands three physical bodyguards around her at all time. What do you mean one of the Hacker or the Mage must abandon their usual support role and get their hands dirty? Too bad. Troll doesn't want to talk? Tough, he's the only guy the Troll gangsta will talk to. Just like the Mage is the only guy who'll get the other Mage to talk, and the Face is the only guy who'll be able to infiltrate the high society gala and do the killing that allows the rest of the team onsite unnoticed.

And encourage them to start thinking of these sort of things themselves. Like having a contact suggesting using the Face to lure a guy out so the Troll can beat on him. End of the day I feel, its both about players being patient when it's someone else's turn to shine, and players finding ways to support the guy who's got the metaphorical point in a sitaution.

[Blond Goth Girl]

Definitely go with the round robin style of playing. 

Keep in mind that ideally if you have 5 players each should get 20% of the focus.  While that's the goal, it's not possible because some players are shyer than others; sometimes its more of the combatants game and others where it is the investigator and so on.  To help each player, I have the shyer players sit near me and give them a little more plot involvement.

One way to get them more cohesive is to let them roleplay with each other.  Ask each PC a question about another PC (like something they did) and if they answer correctly, they get a kp.  They can only answer stuff they were present for.  This does work.