[Telemicus]

So I'm probably going to be running an SR4 game for a few people in the next couple of weeks. At least half of the group has no experience in pen-and-paper RPGs and the rest of us are completely new to Shadowrun (I've been GMing for about 15 years now, but my primary group hasn't wanted to do SR for some reason).

I've picked up the 20th anniversary book and have been reading through it, along with some cheatsheets from http://pavao.org/shadowrun/cheatsheets/. Everything seems to be laid out quite nicely and the rules make sense as I read through them.

What I'm really worried about is creating a really rich campaign that helps the players get into the SR universe.  We haven't done any character creation yet, so I've got no idea what anyone's doing, but I'd like to get a sense of what to include (whether as a backdrop/set-piece or a story element) to give them the feeling of the universe.

If it helps, I'm thinking of a Blade Runner style film noir tone with their first job being to 'recover' someone's runaway daughter. What they'll find out (sooner or later) is that a criminal group is hiring low-end runners to kidnap certain people for joytoy lobotomies. I'll give you two guesses as to who their Johnson works for and the first one's free.

After that, I have no idea, but I figured that a little misdirection and a 'bad' job might give them a proper intro, once it's combined with the proper set dressing, as it were.

Thanks in advance!

[RelentlessImp]

First thoughts on eyeballing the spellcasting cheat sheet... it has an entry for spellcasting foci being able to add to drain resist. This was the case in SR3, I believe, but is no longer the case in SR4. Spellcasting Foci only add to Spellcasting and Ritual Spellcasting pools, not drain resistance pools.

[tzizimine]

Well... first re-read the rules concerning dice pool modifiers near the beginning of the book. That part right there is really the only limitations you have concerning the size of the dice pool modifiers your players will be getting and if it is overlooked, it is way too easy to get a pool of 30+ dice for just about anything.


Second, make sure that everyone understands that combat in SR4 is not supposed to evenly share the spotlight among the players. If four players have 3 IP and the last person only has 1 IP, it will work as: Everyone's First IP, in order of initiative (PCs and baddies), Everyone that has a second IP, in order of initiative (the other 3 PCs and a good number of baddies), Everyone that has a third IP, in order of initiative (the other 3 PCs and a few number of baddies), End of Combat Turn. Repeat.


That person with the one IP will be going something like once per half an hour while everyone else will be once per 10 minuts.


It is tempting to add in all of the other books since they are available on pdf, but unless it is absolutely required, don't do it at the start of game. Yes, it will present more options, but it will also slow things down, looking stuff up, rules checking, reading the errata, reading the forum when the errata is lacking, etc.


When making the characters, set certain options to be the default options to speed things up. Force is always the Magician's Magic unless stated otherwise. Multiple-Round bursts are always Narrow Bursts, unless Wide Bursts are specifically chosen, etc. Also, make sure the players know the dice pool for anything that they are likely to do a lot of. The adding and subtracting of dice is probably on the parts that slows the game down the most, because it happens so often.


Lastly, something that should have been mentioned more clearly in the main book:


  Drones and Vehicles have commlinks / nodes just like your player's commlink. The default rating for the Firewall, Response, Signal and System is 3, with things that designated 'security' having a 4 (and no there is no clearly marked security attribute) and those that are 'military' are 5 (and again no clearly marked attribute... *shrug*). Like all commlinks, the System cannot exceed the Response rating and no program rating, including Pilot, any autosofts, or anything else, can exceed the System Rating. These can be upgraded, altered and hacked just like any commlink.


 

[FraustyTheSnowman]

I'm new to 4th also, but started running back in second edition. There's many more quallified than I in giving rule/play advice, and it looks like there's some good responces so far. What I'll focus on is feeling. Find a theme that you and your party want to explore, and try not to worry about everything else. There is ALOT of room in the SR universe to explore, and if you try and throw in everything plus the kitchen sink you'll drown.

SciFi noir sounds like a great idea. Gritty, street level, full of attitude. Finding a lost daughter sounds like a good first run, especially with the twist. You could have the runners come across the girls real parents, but don't come out and say what's what. Let them decide if they believe this is the real parent. hmmm, battery on the laptop is dying, I'll try and get more up later...

[Mirikon]

To set the atmosphere for my group, I told them to watch Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Johnny Mnemonic, Hackers, and Equilibrium. Then I told them to add magic to that equation. That gave them a pretty good idea of the range of what was going to happen.

[Telemicus]

Thanks for all of the advice

@Frausty:

I'm thinking of writing up some quick news blurbs, one of which will be a report of disappearances in the area. If anyone bothers paying attention and asking around they might be able to piece something together that way.

[Tagz]

I'll echo what tzizimine said about the books.  I wouldn't start out with them all.  It'd likely be too much to take in all at once.  However, Arsenal might not be a bad one to start with along with SR4A because it's mostly just more gear with a few extras.  This one I might consider.  Oh, but if you have a drone rigger in the group I'd at the very least allow him to pick from drones in SR4A & Arsenal even if you don't allow the rest of Arsenal yet.  SR4A alone has very few options for drones and the drone rigger won't have much to pick from.

Here's another.  If your group of players are used to D&D, or other more traditionally linear type games (things geared towards dungeon crawls, heavy handed or plot railroad type games, etc), they group may have trouble with initiative.  I don't mean combat initiative, I mean coming up with a plan of action and acting to achieve a goal.  Sometimes too many possibilities can making picking one very hard.

It can be difficult for new players to get moving on something.  Be ready with not only giving them the start of the adventure, but have different ideas that can help give them more info or ideas on what they could do in case they hit a snag.  An easy one is have a player's contact call them out of the blue, he/she heard a rumor that might interest the player.  But ultimately remember that it has to be the players that decide what they do.

One thing I do, I have a house rule in place that lets players spend an Edge point to get a direct hint from me.  It's never something major, just usually something they've missed or overlooked.  It tends to be things like "Maybe you should go check out those docks Drew mentioned before the firefight happened."  It works ok, the players are reluctant to do it because they know in my games they need their Edge but it's helped them out more then once.

[FraustyTheSnowman]

Telemicus...news blurbs are always good. Make sure to have some unrelated stuff too, just to make it a hint and not straight up giveaway. If the plot is going where it sounds like your going, I have an idea...it sounds like someone is going out and snatching specific people, maybe for bunraku parlors? Might have spelled it wrong, but what I'm talking about is the brothels in Shadowrun where they get (or make) a hooker that looks like someone famous, put in a personality chip, and let you go to town... If so, if/when the party looks into the dissapearance news blurbs they could come across how a bunch of the missing people looked like hot sexy celebrities. Maybe even have a news story hit where Justin Bieber (sorry, not up to date on famous people in the Shadowrun universe at the moment) is found dead, followed up by an update that it was a Bieber look alike, and then finally an update that's discovered the "truth"...it being a prostitute who's recieved cosmetic surgery to look like Bieber.

[All4BigGuns]

Personally, I say open up Arsenal, Augmentation, Street Magic and Runner's Companion (use NO optional rules from them--just the gear and qualities, maybe the lifestyle stuff in Runner's Companion). The only one that really needs to be held off on for a while is Unwired, and that's only because hacking is pretty complicated anyway, and Unwired just makes it more so.

Mentioning optional rules, avoid the optionals in the core book too because they tend to screwball everything else. That said, I have seen one house rule posted that doesn't really mess with anything, and that's the "Cha x 2 build points for Contacts" (though I'm tempted to try Cha x 3 the next time I run to see how it works).

If any of your players buy Doc Wagon contracts, you may wish to find the post on these forums--somewhere--where someone outlined improvements to make Doc Wagon more useful to the majority of shadowrunners (since that company won't go on extra-territorial grounds without permission).

[tzizimine]

I, in turn, will echo what Tagz said about players used to D&D... but for different reasons...


The non-linear / sandbox approach to Shadowrun is a big difference from the typical D&D story line, so yes it might be a bit overwhelming that the players have so many options to do this or not do that. But, I find that if you remind them that the characters are not adventurers without ties to their area and they are people that make a living by being professional criminals, it helps put into perspective. A good example (trust me on this) is compare the original Conan to Ocean's Eleven. Both involve a party of like minded individuals eventually breaking to a place and robbing them and in the process getting revenge on some villan. The methods that they go through to accomplish this however are very different. Brute force vs. guile. Strength vs. charisma. Straight up combat vs. multi-layered deception.


The other thing that some players from D&D or other fantasy games may try is to loot everything that isn't nailed down (or take a monofilament chainsaw or tow-chains from the rigger's van to pry it loose). Technically, this is not prevented, but impressing upon the players through their character (and the response other NPCs will have to their character) that this is a bad idea can be a little difficult. One thing that I find helps is having a contact arrested a few days after the character sells his ill gotten goods. The contact is tied up for a few days to a few months and when he is finally out, he comes back with a "no-fence" policy toward that character. Likewise, don't be afraid to have the runner's toys get them into hot water. If they just raided a yakuza warehouse when they were only supposed to take a idol, have the yakuza hit them back. Blow up a residence when the character isn't there (or on his way back). Have the local neighborhood vendors turn down his business (who really wants to triple their commute time just to go grocery shopping). Have local police put obvious survellience on his common stomping grounds, making it more difficult to do business.


The list goes on.


This goes back to the difference between Shadowrun and other RPGs and the motivations behind the players. Another things that I strongly recommend is to have each player fill out the 20 Questions (from previous editions). This should be at least two pages if not three or four. And if the GM cannot be convinced of how this character thinks, acts, etc... well back to the drawing board.

[Raven Runner]

Tzizimine, great info and awesome cheat sheet, is that all standard SR4A rules?

Also, how can I find this 20 questions sheet you mentioned?

[raggedhalo]

20 Questions can be found in the Runner's Companion, pg. 18-19 as "Character Quiz."

[tzizimine]

The vast majority of the cheat sheet is standard SR4 rules, but not all of it. The parts that are not as cannon are:


The time of a Combat Turn (SR4 rules: 3 seconds, my game: 5 seconds)
The time of a Initiative Pass (SR4 rules: not really determined but less than a second, my game: 1 second even)
Movement during Combat (SR4 rules: move as desired between your IPs, my game: you move each of the 5 IPs in a Combat Turn, even if you don't have an active pass)
Grid Combat (SR4 rules: no rules listed, my game: using the rules from Pathfinder with the grid being 1m x 1m squares)
Speed (SR4 rules: no change, my game: to get the speed of something per IP, divide what's in the book by 3, rounded normally).
Chase Combat (complete redesign)

I made these changes because my players are all coming from Pathfinder and are used to having lots of maps. I will admit that the IP / Initiative system is something that I find 'clunky' but have yet to find a smoother approach to it.

But the dice pools and modifiers are from SR4 rules. If there is anything doesn't match or make sense, please let me know.