[StarManta]

In the last few months I've introduced an awful lot of people to Shadowrun, and have learned some things about what kinds of characters are good for newbies to play. Discussion encouraged. From easiest to hardest.....

Combat archetypes - Easiest because they're so easy to wrap your head around. There's a bad guy, I'm gonna shoot him.
Street Sam - Guns are powerful and easy to make work.
Adept Ranged - They'll need their bonuses spelled out, but otherwise pretty easy.
Melee (Adept or mundane) - Newbies are often shocked when their melee character is useless at 30 meters (more experienced players learn to work around this by stealth, tactics, and reliance on teammates)

Mage - on the condition that you don't have the newbies read and attempt to comprehend the magic rules from the book on their own, mages are fairly easy to play. Magic rules are easy to understand, but not well explained in the book. If a newbie gets a ten minute crash course on spellcasting and summoning they're usually good to go.

Rigger - More complicated than combat because you have to learn all your drones, but not by much, and a hell of a lot of fun.

Face - Faces can be played by newbies but typically require a lot of hand-holding that disrupts the flow and makes the game less fun for everyone else.

Hacker - I used to have hackers played by newbies, but not anymore, because if you're playing a hacker, you have to bring your own fun. Playing a hacker first time out has left a bad taste in at least 3 newbies' mouths for Shadowrun, because if you don't fully understand the world and the Matrix, your character is nothing but a tool to be used by the rest of the team, and that's not fun to play. I'd sooner have a character just buy a R6 agent to do all the team's hacking than have a newbie with a boring character hack.

I figure a list like this is good for GMs bringing new players into the fold, to maximize both fun and usefulness of newbie players and their characters. Thoughts?

[CanRay]

Depends on the newbie.

If new to RPGs period, yeah, give him a gun bunny and tell him to act like James Bond:  Part action hero, part spy.

If a Fantasy originator (Introduced into RPGs by D&D, for example), a Melee character with some firearms skills would be good to start as they already have the "Swing sword, hit thing dead" mindset down pat pretty good.  Just got to get them used to not killing everything for XP.  Stun batons are great for this.  Slowly work in ranged combat, drones, hacking, magic, and so on through other players so they can get into the swing of things.  (Pun not intended for once.).

If they've LARPed, a Face might actually be good as they're used to ROLE Playing as opposed to ROLL playing and will only need hand holding for the dice part.  (Frankly, the Shadowrun Sheets are pretty decent with the Dice Pool calculated on there so the math is right there.  I've seen a lot worse.).

If someone like me, who has played a large number of games and can wrap his head around things, then let them choose on their own, they know their own learning ability on their own, as well as their own preferences.

[Glyph]

Melee guys aren't bad as long as you stay away from unarmed combat, which is disproportionately BP and resource heavy to be any good at it.  But 'ware to boost your Agility, be tougher, and have multiple IPs are all things that are just as good in ranged combat as they are for melee.  The only difference between a close combat specialist and a ranged specialist is that the melee guy will have the 6 plus specialization in a melee skill, and a 4 plus specialization in a ranged skill - while for the ranged guy, it will be the other way around.  That's the key - don't make the melee guy a one-trick pony, and definitely take some kind of ranged skill.

[Phylos Fett]

Melee guys aren't bad as long as you stay away from unarmed combat, which is disproportionately BP and resource heavy to be any good at it.  But 'ware to boost your Agility, be tougher, and have multiple IPs are all things that are just as good in ranged combat as they are for melee.  The only difference between a close combat specialist and a ranged specialist is that the melee guy will have the 6 plus specialization in a melee skill, and a 4 plus specialization in a ranged skill - while for the ranged guy, it will be the other way around.  That's the key - don't make the melee guy a one-trick pony, and definitely take some kind of ranged skill.

Actually, I think the secret for newbies is to not make any of their characters one-trick ponies, otherwise they're not going to have as much fun, and quite possibly be disruptive if they want to use the one thing they are good at as often as they can in inappropriate places and times. By the same token, they shouldn't make a character that does a bit of everything - jack-of-all-trades rarely work well in Shadowrun.

[Joush]

A good tip for running for new players is to give hints to useful actions and things they could do.  Make sure to mention locations where they could take cover when a fight breaks out and basic tactics that could be useful. Don't make these the only option, and make sure to give more then one choice.

Strong suggestions: Do not heavily optimize for a new player. A dice pool of 9 to 12 is -fine- for skills in their area of influence, and means they will be well rounded then an optimized Automatics 6 (Assault Rifles), Agility 7 character. Heavy optimization also means they won't have much sense of improvement in play.

Make sure each character has something to do in a fight, something to do in an investigation and something to do in a social encounter.

Yes, Shadowrun discourages that, but it's frustrating and annoying to have a whole scene where they can do nothing to contribute. Just adding an Olfactory Booster, the Scent perception specaility and some ranks in tracking to a character can make them have another trick they can try for investigations and social encounters.

[FastJack]

Stick to basics. Don't even let them consider any books except the SR4A. Depending on the player, you may want to restrict them to Street Sammies/Phys Addies, just so they don't have to go through the Magic/Matrix chapters.

Of course, the caveat to this is, if they really want to use a different character, and you're willing to put the extra time and effort in to help them, let them go hog wild.

One last thing, though. Make sure you stress the fact that Shadowrun is very much more lethal than your typical D&D game.

[Medicineman]

I don't think that SR is more Lethal than D&D (especially not at first Levels) considering Edge and armor,Medkits,Tech.
But SR is more complicated than D&D and there are more ....ways to Fail.Thats what to consider

For Newbs I'd advice an Adept, a Streetsam,a Gun Bunny, maybe a Driver Kind-of-Rigger.

Make sure each character has something to do in a fight, something to do in an investigation and something to do in a social encounter.
a very good Point

HokaHey
Medicineman

[FastJack]

I don't think that SR is more Lethal than D&D (especially not at first Levels) considering Edge and armor,Medkits,Tech.
But SR is more complicated than D&D and there are more ....ways to Fail.Thats what to consider

For Newbs I'd advice an Adept, a Streetsam,a Gun Bunny, maybe a Driver Kind-of-Rigger.

Make sure each character has something to do in a fight, something to do in an investigation and something to do in a social encounter.
a very good Point

HokaHey
Medicineman

It's more lethal in the "there's no coming back" sense. In a D&D game, if a player's killed, even at low levels, there are ways to bring him back.

[kirk]

Something I've seen used for other games and seem to recall occasionally done in SR is to allow rolling development of characters.

Tell them they're going to do 2 or 3 games with their characters (or till they all die, whichever comes first) not fully set. After each game they're going to be allowed to change up to ~50 BP of their build around.  Allow them to keep some or all the earned karma/money/gear of any still living characters.  They'll still be the same basic character but the tweaks will allow them to fix traps or egregious errors.

[UmaroVI]

I'm going to contradict some of the other advice. My experience with SR4 is that, aside from the Matrix, playing SR4 is not nearly as complex or newbie-unfriendly as making characters for it is. I would suggest either using a premade character, or just building them a character, or asking a more experienced player to help them, or whatever. SR4 character creation is like a maze filled with dead ends, unsupported concepts, and trap options.

For what type of characters: I suggest two things. First, don't give new players generalists. Give them characters who can handle themselves, but have one or two things they are distinctly good at. This is so that they (a) get involved and (b) know when to get involved. If you give the new player the Face, then they'll get their spotlight time during negotiations - maybe with a bit of prompting, but that's OK. If you give them Captain Third Best At Everything, they may not actually do anything noticeable.

I also suggest having as much of their stuff as possible on the sheet. Having spells from four different books? No problem - but copy them to the character sheet! Do the same thing with guns, vehicles, dice pools, adept powers, etc. They should ideally be able to run their character from the sheet alone without ever referencing a book.

The Matrix rules are a pretty huge clusterfuck of confusion and I recommend for sure not having new players mess with it. If you must, though, I would suggest a mundane hacker with the same rating for all their goddamn programs, and hold their hand a lot while hacking.

[All4BigGuns]

Those cardstock rules handouts in the Runner's Toolkit--I think--can go a long way toward helping a newbie effectively play just about any character type in the game. Just do what was suggested and either make their character or give them guidance in the creation process and you're golden. The PACKs could also help the newbies out by simplifying the creation process quite a bit.

That said, I probably would shy away from putting a Hacker in the hands of a new player too, but mainly because their role is so specialized that they probably won't be that effective should a fight break out...well unless they hack a nearby car and remote control it to run the opposition down, but how many newbies are gonna think of that?

[Mirikon]

Honestly? If they are completely new to the system, what you ought to do is build their character for them, and then give them a cheat sheet with what they roll in certain situations. With a good cheat sheet, anyone who has any experience with RPGs should be fairly well off until they get the hang of things.

What is more important for newbies is to give them a primer in the ATTITUDE of shadowrun. In fantasy or superhero RPGs, you are heroes, or at least people who can get into knock-down drag-out fights with powerful creatures and expect no consequences. You kill things, take their stuff, and live large. In other words, you act in all the ways that will get you killed in Shadowrun.

I'm going to be starting a group of complete newbs on Shadowrun soon. The players are my weekly D&D group, and I'm running the game to give our DM a chance to take a break from the big chair. I handed everyone the 'History for the Reality Impaired' section of the core book a couple months ago, so they have a chance to get that through their heads, and I've given them copies of the quick-start rules. Most importantly, I made sure to tell them, in no uncertain terms, that they were not going to be heroes. Doesn't mean they sell their buddies to Tamanous, but you're not heroes. The Sixth World is not a nice place. Racism and sexism are alive and well, even in the shadows. And everyone has flaws. Could be an addiction, or you piss off fire spirits by breathing, or whatever, but every character has flaws. The other point I made was that if you have to change clips twice in the course of a firefight, you're doing something horribly, horribly wrong.

Proper use of cheat sheets can help people out, until they learn the system themselves. What is most important isn't the character type the person's playing (though some people are better suited to playing street sams than faces, natch) but indoctrinating them into the history and attitude of the setting is more important.