How to teach newb players to SR4 without killing them, A fledgling GM from other games is GMing SR4 Options

[Pollux710]

Me again, third post in a day. Ok so the group I am gaming with are a relatively veteran bunch as it pertains to epic gaming, such as Dungeons and Dragons and Exalted, high fantasy, high magic, that kind of thing. Now we've run several campaigns together but I don't think that they're going to get SR like they've gotten other games, mainly because they're all used to medieval era technology. How can I shock them into thinking realistically? I'm thinking about using stuff like gas, toxins and electronics. Just looking for ideas to teach them during a run, not kill them and all.

[Sixgun_Sage]

Show them that the game is lethal, have them take a few premades and explain you are going to illustrate something about the style of this game. They won't believe it till they se it.

[Pollux710]

Thats actually a really good idea. Thanks.

[Summerstorm]

I would just show them with examples ingame... on NPC's.

Having someone die before their eyes because some sniper took him out (for some reason)... without having him reacting (First he falls, then you hear... NOTHING).

Hell... you could even make it an adventure hook.

[Sephiroth]

The runners had just taken a job by a yak outfit to retrieve a runaway. In the middle of them doing legwork they got a second job to find the girl by the girls parents. Less money but I wanted to see if anyone would treat it like it was a real situation and use some damn morals. Someone did.

After finding the girl, the group was deciding who to deliver her too. Most of the party wanted to deliver her to the Yak and reap the monetary reward. One player, a real honest to god white knight, wanted to bring her back to the parents and wave the fee(as a note it was also his first time playing Shadowrun or any PnP game for that matter). This shocked the hell out of everyone, both in and out of game. He was dead serious about it. When the team rose up to object, he picked up his dice, looked at me and said "I roll for initiative first if I am going to shoot them right?"

Everyone dropped there arguments and took the girl to the drop off point with the parents. After putting her in the car and giving the cred back, the passenger window rolled down to reveal the Yak who hired them looking a bit upset. A pin drop would have sounded like a nuke, 100% distilled silence. Everyone was just staring blankly at me, then at the white knight, then at me. The look on the new players face was priceless. He learned the truth of the shadows that night.

That is how I taught my runners to do a background check on all their employers.

[Pollux710]

Word.

[Madroxx]

This is what I want to do. Wow.

[Raiki]

Sixgun- That's actually a phenomenal idea. I'm definitely going to do that before I start running my first game sometime later this year. Need to put the fear of Bob into the gun adept before the game starts.

Sephiroth- (IMG:style_emoticons/default/notworthy.gif)




~R~

[Sixgun_Sage]

Sixgun- That's actually a phenomenal idea. I'm definitely going to do that before I start running my first game sometime later this year. Need to put the fear of Bob into the gun adept before the game starts.

Sephiroth- (IMG:style_emoticons/default/notworthy.gif)




~R~

We gun adepts are not by nature a fearful sort, good luck.

[Raiki]

We gun adepts are not by nature a fearful sort, good luck.

Thanks. Like the OP, my group is much more used to playing D&D, with a little bit of starwars 3e thrown in. They have the "We understand that fighting shouldn't always be our first plan, but Hit It With A Stick hasn't failed us yet" mindset. I don't think any of them have ever fled from a combat as long as we've been gaming together. They're much more likely to just tough it out and res the fallen party members later. I'm hoping to shock them into playing SR a bit differently. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)




~R~

[Ramorta]

Thanks. Like the OP, my group is much more used to playing D&D, with a little bit of starwars 3e thrown in. They have the "We understand that fighting shouldn't always be our first plan, but Hit It With A Stick hasn't failed us yet" mindset. I don't think any of them have ever fled from a combat as long as we've been gaming together. They're much more likely to just tough it out and res the fallen party members later. I'm hoping to shock them into playing SR a bit differently. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

A few things to point out to them:

1) Resurrection doesn't exist.
2) They are stealing from a corporation that has almost infinite resources. Be it money, personel, or magic.u
2b) The only thing stoping said corporation from making their life a living hell, is the cost benefit analysis.
3) Everyone sleeps sometime. Waking up with a cranial bomb is not fun.

[KarmaInferno]

"You are mice living in a house with a great many cats. You might be the most badass of the mice, but you're still just a mouse."



-k

[SecGuard]

A few things to point out to them:

1) Resurrection doesn't exist.
2) They are stealing from a corporation that has almost infinite resources. Be it money, personel, or magic.u
2b) The only thing stoping said corporation from making their life a living hell, is the cost benefit analysis.
3) Everyone sleeps sometime. Waking up with a cranial bomb is not fun.

All good and valid points, but they'd need backing up with some practical demonstrations.

[tagz]

I recommend a run to rescue the members of another, failed, run. Someone's teammates were all captured by a mega after they tried to get out guns blazing. They got pinned down with suppressive fire from 15+ corpsec, then came the gas grenades and mages levitating over cover with armor spells and stunbolts. Give them a whole list of the nasty that happened to the group. Then have a few corpsec show up at the meet, the Johnson that escaped has a RFID tag on the back of his boot. Demonstrate that screwing up can follow you anywhere.

After that fight, let them sit and think how to get around all that nasty that the other team couldn't handle. If they decide to go guns blazing, hit them with it just like you warned them, and maybe THEN have the captured team attack them because they have cranial bombs in them and don't have a choice.

[AppliedCheese]

I can think of two simple ways:

The Story Way:

Early, before the Mr. J. have the players test a cracked Star/KE AR training sim in an empty warehouse or such. The players retain all their skills, and their hacker/fixer friend has, for shits and giggles, cued up 8-10 Lawmen for them to "blast" during the test. See how many of them die in simulation.

The Blunt Way

If you have any munchinkinites (and at some point, everybody has a little bit of munchkinite in them) show the following test with the actual dice rolls:

The Mook Test

Heroic:

Q: 4 Mooks (goblins/orcs or what not) attack you. What is the worst they can likely do the party in one round if you botched it up?
A: Maybe enough to inconvenience the squishiest of our friends before the next round where we show up and kick their ASS!

SR:

Q: 4 street thugs with cheap pistols and a sawed off shotgun decide you're on their turf. If everything goes wrong, whats the worst they can do in one round?
A: Someone is either dead or needs a trip to the hospital. Quite possibly plural.

Now tell them to imagine if those were, instead of street thugs, professional security personnel with submachineguns, body armor, hacker support, drones, and 40 buddies on the way in 5 minutes?

[Raiki]

SR:

Q: 4 street thugs with cheap pistols and a sawed off shotgun decide you're on their turf. If everything goes wrong, whats the worst they can do in one round?
A: Someone is either dead or needs a trip to the hospital. Quite possibly plural.

Yeah, I got this lesson drilled in hard on my first run. As the face, it turns out that a shotgun blast to the chest just ruined my fragging night. I got off better than the rigger though. He didn't bother to take cover when the sniper started shooting...




~R~

[IKerensky]

Kill them...

... then adjust your gamemastering and retry until you dont manage to hurt them.

Then re-adjust until you manage to put half of them out cold. Then you got the choice to either keep it that way or just go back to killing them all (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

More seriously, SR4 have the matrix wich is as good as the old Startrek Holodeck in changing a massive slaughter into a live warmup training session.

Experiment and dont be affraid of consequence, you could always avoid them, you are the GM.

[Neraph]

3) Everyone sleeps sometime. Waking up with a cranial bomb is not fun.

Not true. Crank is very useful for that. So is Nutrition, for other "needs." Healthy Glow and Fashion can help make you look like you haven't not slept since you Awakened.

[Raiki]

Not true. Crank is very useful for that. So is Nutrition, for other "needs." Healthy Glow and Fashion can help make you look like you haven't not slept since you Awakened.

Yeah, except for the fact that when you crash from Crank, you sleep for even longer. And don't even get me started on the stim spell. Yeah, you can sustain or quicken that forever...right up until someone counterspells it or you walk through a mana barrier. You'd be dead before you started to fall over. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)





~R~

[Neraph]

Yeah, except for the fact that when you crash from Crank, you sleep for even longer. And don't even get me started on the stim spell. Yeah, you can sustain or quicken that forever...right up until someone counterspells it or you walk through a mana barrier. You'd be dead before you started to fall over. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)





~R~

Wrong spell. Crank doesn't do that - Stim does, and it's worse.

Crank is sleep, for all intents and purposes.

Read your grimoire.

[capt.pantsless]

Just looking for ideas to teach them during a run, not kill them and all.

Very, very carefully explain to them the rules regarding usage of Edge. And make sure they have at least 3 points in it.

Also, a good cake run to start things off should help them understand just how dangerous a punk with a shotgun can be. If need be, fudge a die roll or two to make sure that one or two shells connect with a player - particularly if they are hesitant to go on full-defense.

[Kruger]

I've taken to running "prequel" scenarios that use one or two players' PCs as the "stars" and pre-mades for everyone else.. It accomplishes two things. Gives everybody's character a back story and creates a believable team dynamic if done right, and gives everyone a chance to adjust to the mechanics while playing an "expendable" character. I think having at least two of their prequel characters die and another get badly wounded in my Twilight 2013 campaign certainly gave the players a healthy respect for the lethality of the combat system and the tone of the game I was going to run.

Obviously the down side is that it's time consuming for the GM, and delays the start of the campaign. Of course, as long as everyone is having fun, this isn't a downside at all.

[Raiki]

Wrong spell. Crank doesn't do that - Stim does, and it's worse.

Crank is sleep, for all intents and purposes.

Read your grimoire.

Ahh, fair enough. You said "Crank" and because of the RL connotations and the fact that I haven't quite memorized the books yet, I thought Long Haul, the drug that does the same thing as the Stim spell.

Well, you can't be right all the time I suppose. 'at'll teach me to check my sources before I post.




~R~

[Blade]

"You are mice living in a house with a great many cats. You might be the most badass of the mice, but you're still just a mouse."

I like this, it reminds me of something I've had a NPC tell a PC:
"Runners are the pawns in the chess game of the powerful. They're nobodies and most will be sent to their death. If you're very lucky, you'll get to be a queen. It's great, you're more powerful and more valuable. But you still aren't the one playing the game...

And those who do cheat anyway."

[Saint Sithney]

I've taken to running "prequel" scenarios that use one or two players' PCs as the "stars" and pre-mades for everyone else.. It accomplishes two things. Gives everybody's character a back story and creates a believable team dynamic if done right, and gives everyone a chance to adjust to the mechanics while playing an "expendable" character. I think having at least two of their prequel characters die and another get badly wounded in my Twilight 2013 campaign certainly gave the players a healthy respect for the lethality of the combat system and the tone of the game I was going to run.

Obviously the down side is that it's time consuming for the GM, and delays the start of the campaign. Of course, as long as everyone is having fun, this isn't a downside at all.

I highly recommend this if you have the time/energy to swing it.

First time players won't really know how to build their character quite right. It's a balancing act, so you can show them where they're falling short or might have misunderstood how something works (or how useful something might be.)
Though, while I love putting new players through the ringer until they're out of ammo, trapped in a squat and trying to fight off ghouls with found weapons, really, that's only going to skew their builds to heavy combat.

Not that there's anything wrong with a heavy combat game, so long as the players know how to handle a good run and gun.