I once ran a campaign were the prime objective getting to a point and surviving the journey, there was no combat what-so-ever involved and the players had very good reactions to it, The system doesnt set the gameplay but while as SR is a skillbased setting d20 is largely focused around combat, the setting doesnt set the gameplay but it can make it easier to manage, Slaughtering an entire village in D&D.. no problem what so ever, slaughtering an entire city block in SR.. you'll get Lone Star up your ass

The single most important bit of gaming advice is to sit down with your players and have a long talk about what everyone wants and expects from the game. If you can't reach a consensus (or haven't bothered to) at this point, the game will likely fail, and different people are likely trying to play different games.

That said, if you're trying to steer your players into a less wild mayhem style, I have had great success with a single run in which the PCs are being hired as assistance for another more experienced team. For example, in one of them the NPC team had taken two runs close together against their better judgement, had gotten pretty beat up on the first, and needed some help on the second one. The NPC team could provide all sorts of neat equipment and abilities, but the PC team ends up doing most of the work. I had the NPC team handle most of the plan, which helped keep the PC team from going off in too zany of a direction. Parts of the plan needed to be fleshed out by the PCs, so they still had to do some planning, but the NPC team was there to reign them in if it got too wacky. So with a solid plan they did their run, with one or two minor surprises which they had to adapt to, but again the NPC team was in radio contact in case they decided the best option involved 40 grenades.

At the end of the day, all of the parts of a typical shadowrun were there, but there was another experienced team there to keep them on the right track. Yes, it's a bit railroady, but that's good in this case. After that, the training wheels can come off.

I've done this strategy twice, for two different groups, and both times it went really well. The typical reaction from the players is something like, "Oh, I see. So that's how the game is supposed to be played. Sweet!"

Also, while everyone's learning the style and the rules, don't be too quick to bring down the GM-hammer. If they start off on a wacky plan, call a time-out and talk to them about how they see this working, how they see the world, how you see the world, some likely things they might expect, etc. If they still think it's a good idea, great, but nobody wants a TPK because the GM and the players had a different view of the campaign world.

Have talked to two of my players now, one dont really seem that overly concerned about how we play, he is mostly there for the company and he is of the opinion if we gonna play we can do it seriously anyway.. He kinda liked the idea (aswell is pretty on to the SR setting) the other one just said he liked problem solving and was to tired to discuss it any further

I have a site that has some useful stuff (I think). Most of it is geared towards newcomers to Shadowrun in one way or another.

Particular things that I think might help are as follows:

New Player FAQ: A sort of orientation guide for new players. Question 6 was written specifically with D&D'ers in mind.

Cold Blood: An introductory Shadowrun adventure. Not too hard, but with setting detail and everything spelled out in terms of what to roll.

What Would Samurai Do? - A graphical illustration of what augmented attributes actually mean.

The NPC Rosters also contain a lot of flavour text as well as some ready-made contacts.

Hope some of this is useful.

Regards,

-Khadim.

Beautiful! thanks alot, haha wonderful animation ^^

8)

You might also look into published runs. One of my favorite modules, which I have used more than once to intro a game, was Dreamchipper. It has the introduction of personafix BTL's and a good mix of fighting, planning, and talking. Although the module is in first or second edition stats. For a good fourth ed intro you might want On the Run. It can be a bit railroady [technical term], but it does have a good bit of advice and a decent plot. Of course old-timers will recognize references to One Stage Before. But I digress.

The Point: Modules.

the recognition will be lost i think ^^^
(yea im familiar with railroading)
where can i find such modules?

http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/index.p...cPath=28_187_86

http://www.rpgnow.com/advanced_search_resu...rch_in_artist=1


Sadly most of the older adventures are hard to find. My copy of Dreamchipper has been worn to tatters.

sigh these products would almost be worth while, if i hadnt to ship them across a sea to get them... Couple that with students low on cash, and spent most of what they got on alcohol.. (not the typical roleplayers now are we?) :grinbig:

I've also got a few adventures in "published" format that you're welcome to use. They're at my Shadowrun Resources site.

Also, one of my players keeps a set of session notes for the game I run. Feel free to pillage that for ideas.

Hope that helps.

The SR 4 Missions downloads are free.

Yes indeed, but modules arent ^^
Thanks for the stuff Aaron

Well... you could always buy the PDfs... heck I haven't bought an adventure since very early 3rd ed. Back then it was pretty much book only. Nowadays I'd probably only buy the PDF.

How do Dumpshock DMs handle combat when they don't use a map, or any form of physical representation? This is one of the hardest things for me to deal with.

Either good narration.. or you make a map, Big paper, 5x5cm squares and coins/marks/whatever for the players if you dont got minatures

Huh? The Missions adventures (aka Modules) are free at the site that DireRadiant linked.

doh! i thought there was a difference

Narration coupled with a quick doodle if necessary.

We use a small white board for combat.

we use a pad of graph paper with a pencil. It's more to give a general sense of range, angles, explosion radius', lines of site, ect.

Map sketch on Paper or a whiteboard depending on location. I believe a good description is by far more important than maps. But hey, we have handled 50+ people combats, more than a couple times. (yeah, one of my campaigns has a mercenary streak)

Cheers

Max

I'd recommend using fantasy gameplay to get them used to thinking outside of the Box. Wounded Ronin came up with with a very interesting campaign idea in which the PCs are all your standard 1HD kobolds but they find their home threatened by a powerful nearby city-state what doesn't appreciate having its farms raided, forcing the PCs to think outside the box to defeat an army of mid to high level characters topple the nation that opposes them. Certainly forcing a small group of level one characters to defeat a small army of level 15-20 characters encourages them to break away from the hack n' slash routine. They know exactly that their enemies can do to them because they were on the giving end of it once. Once they're able to thing strategically then you can introduce them to the more complex game.







And that is a problem why? I really didn't see anything bad there.






That's not true in general. There exist many D&D villages that lack both a sufficient defense infrastructure to repel a band of mid to high level adventurers and and sufficient outside ties to discourage adventurers from slaughtering them. There also exist villages with trading ties to powerful kingdoms and city-states who have armies led by high-level characters and wizards who can make cows fall from the heavens on the the PCs heads and such kingdoms and city-states would not appreciate roving bands slaughtering the farmers that supply them with most of their food.

There exist many neighborhoods in Shadowrun's Seattle where the authorities will take umbrage to indiscriminate killing sprees. However, there also exist Seattle neighborhoods that if someone should successfully kill every man woman and child living in the area then there would be no real investigation of any sort and if the authorities were to identify the murderers then they'd secretly regret not being able to give the killers a medal.