New Guy Options

[Eltern]

So here I am, a guy who has only played D&D his whole life. He's heard of Shadowrun many times, and liked the concept a great deal. Now it's the summer before he goes off to college and he's looking to do a handful of one or two shot adventures with his friends. What does he need to do, other than buy the core rulebook and a couple premade adventures? Any hangups in particular he should watch out for? Specific adventures?

Thanks!

[mfb]

watch out for the rigging rules, and the matrix rules; they're both notoriously confusing for first-time players. once you've figured out the matrix rules, they're not so bad; the rigger rules are probably the same, but i haven't mastered 'em.

[Lilt]

Try not to be put off too much by the magic rules though. Magic is what separates Shadowrun from cyberpunk and is a very interesting (and powerful) aspect of the game.

If you're going to be GMing and someone in the group is awakened then don't underestimate the importance of warding buildings and having awakened guards ETC. Likewise if you have awakened defense then you might want to advise the players to have a magical member (or two, or more if you must) of the team.

[TinkerGnome]

Get the core rulebook and pick up First Run (if you can get it for cheap, it's even better). Run Food Fight and possibly the others if you/he wants to. Alternatively, you can get the free stuff from www.shadowrunrpg.com and use that as the crash course in SR. Try to steer clear of the core addon books (Man and Machine, Cannon Companion, Magic in the Shadows, Rigger 3, Matrix) until you're familiar with the basics. Then go about the business of learning new rules.

As an aside, it's hard to run Riggers without Rigger 3 and it's somewhat hard to run deckers without Matrix.

You might try your used bookstore for the SR novels, as well. I hadn't bothered with them, but I picked up a few last week and just finished the first one (Never Deal With a Dragon). While they're not the best literary works I've ever scene, a lot of the key SR themes get covered in a way that makes them stand out well.

[kevyn668]

Definately Food Fight!!

And for the love of Ghost, DON'T RUN SUPERNOVA!!

As far as rules, if you've never played before you should look over the rules for riggers and deckers. If you don't get it, tell people they can't play one. Period. It happens all the time.

On the other hand, if you do manage to get it (I barely do) its not that its difficult to play one of these characters w/o the add on books, its that it is difficult to play a highly effective decker or rigger. But since you, as a GM, probably won't be throwing any of the really tricky stuff at your players, it should be a good learning experience for all.

When it comes to awakends, for beginers wards may be a little much. It all depends on what magic level you want to set. If wards are everywhere, your mages and shamans may get frustrated. Simple solution: more sec mages and spirits, less wards. It'll making sneaking around harder but its helps to set a "magicy" tone early on. (As opposed to there just being "force fields" everywhere)

[TinkerGnome]

Another side note, it's perfectly okay to set limits on your group such as "no more than 1 mage and 1 adept" or the like. Encourage the PCs to build their characters as a team to help playability if nothing else.

In general, an SR team should have:

• Muscle (Street sammies, mercs, etc)
• Transport (someone with a car and a drive skill or a rigger)
• Social skills (a face, generally)
• Contacts (also a face, generally)
• Matrix coverage (decker or decker contact)
• Magical support (full mage or shaman)

Characters can pull double duty and you can fill in holes with contacts, but that's the basic of it.

[Eltern]

In D&D the system is being geared towards four players and a DM. How many runners are in a standard group? Sounds more like six, am I right?

[Entropy Kid]

I think you can get away with only four, although six allows for more specializing. As long as each character can do more than just one thing an effective team doesn' t have to be a large one.

TinkerGnome covered the requirements. Mages with high Charisma (for Conjuring) can do the work of a Face archetype, as can Deckers in some cases. Unless there isn't going to be much combat, someone should be really good at killing. Street Samurai and Physical Adepts fill this role well, sams often specialized toward guns and adepts often toward melee combat. Some people make Riggers that can also deck. Some GMs don't like having to deal with the Matrix at the same time as the "real world" so deckers are NPCs in those groups.

[Lilt]

It varies widely. I've rarely played in a group larger than 6. Although I'd hardly say it's geared towards 4 players, around 4 players is a good group size for many games. More players in shadowrun just means you'll have more overlaps or people can specialise more.

I'm not sure how much you've read about the SR system, but one big difference between characters in SR and characters in D&D is that characters in D&D have character classes. In SR you buy what you can. There's nothing to say that the mage can't be atheletic and good at handling an assault rifle. Muscle types can learn technical skills and hack computer systems on the side just as easily as they could learn to use a rocket launcher (albeit a good hacking deck is far more expencive than a rocket launcher).

[AnotherFreakBoy]

You could cover all your bases with 3 by, eg:

* Merc with Car and Car skill
* Face with Decker contact (among others)
* Mage/Shaman

And you can run without magic/muscle/social skills depending on the style of your game. The game I am currently in consists of a Decker (me), a gun bunny, and a total amnesiac who allowed the GM to make his character, but we haven't figured out yet, and appears to have Leadership/Small Unit Tactics.

Basically it's up to the GM to make the adventures suitable to the group. It makes sense that in the shadowrun universe if a runner team has a focus on combat skills they will be hired to take on combat jobs. Same with Magic, Social, Decking, etc. Having a truly diverse team allows you to take on more varied jobs, but that probably isn't a factor if you are just looking to run a few one-offs

[TinkerGnome]

Other vast differences between SR & "typical" D&D:

• Combat in SR is generally the very last resort.
• Combat in SR is highly lethal.
• Getting hit in SR can result in very long, very expensive healing times
• Opposition in SR is not necessarily scaled to the PCs. It's possible that the PCs can run into a security system or team that will kill them to a man with little effort.
• Combats in SR happen FAST. A good street sam can take out an entire street gang in under ten seconds.
• SR Snipers are deadly. A round to the back of the skull can take out the aforementioned sam in < 1 second.
• SR character generation is an order of magniture longer than D&D. It can literally take weeks.
• SR characters start out a lot stronger than D&D characters. There is no SR equivalent to a "kobold cave". Unless you count Food Fight, which really just lets you learn the rules.

[Eltern]

So SR involves a lot more recon action, then highly orchestrated surgical strikes to dodge security, then something goes wrong and you grab the computer chip and get the hell out of there, hoping to dodge the cops and robots before a well thrown grenade kills you all? :)

[TinkerGnome]

I think you'll do fine :)

[Ancient History]

I'll be away for a few days, but if you need any info on metaplot and history, give my site a gander. I can get back to you on specific questions when I return.

[I Eat Time]

This is just personal opinion, as your mileage may vary, YMMV, but I forego decking or any Matrix characters unless I'm running an entire Matrix campaign. Decking, hacking whatever, tends to take away from the action in a way that only allows one character to have fun (the decker) or everyone else to have fun (the decker sitting around waiting). Not to mention, the rules are pretty complicated.

If you think you've got the technique down, by all means, go ahead, but I warn you it's pretty rough.

[Czar Eggbert]

For the most part a starting level SR character is about as good as a level 10 D&D character... but they tend to just branch out from there...

-The Eggman

[kevyn668]

[Abstruse]

Leave decking and rigging out of your first attempts at Shadowrun. Have a decker contact for the group or something. Unless you're really into it and you can figure out the rules (the Idiot's Guide to Decking thread on here is a perfect start after you read through the decking rules a few times).

Shadowrun can be played with as little as two PCs if you scale the adventure properly, but you generally do best with 3 players -- Two muscle-types and one magic-type, or one muscle-type, one talky-type (face/detective), and one magic-type. Four is IMHO the best number. Two muscle-types (a samurai and an adept or two samurai), a magic-type, and a face/detective or a face/decker (it can be done). It also depends on what kind of games you want to run.

However, that's just for a general game. If you're playing a specific type of game, that can all change radically. A mystery-based game where there's not much combat works better with a decker and a face/detective in your group while the muscle just sits and watches. A gang-based game is going to bore a decker or a face to tears while the muscle is out busting heads. But no matter what type of game you run, a magic user is almost always needed.

BTW, I think Supernova from the First Run game is great as a first run if you just change the ending...(spoilered for those who haven't played it yet)

[ Spoiler ]

...from the point after the characters beat the Red Samurai, leaving out all the crap with Richard Villiers. You can modify it easily

Most of all, have fun!

The Abstruse One

[simonw2000]

[simonw2000]

[DeadNeon]

[TinkerGnome]

[Abstruse]

NSRCG is a bad thing for a new player IMO. You should learn how to create a character the old fashioned way that way you know why the program does what it does. But do expect to spend a good couple of hours making your first character, flipping back and forth between pages constantly.

But yeah, in Shadowrun, if you have to draw your gun you've screwed up 95% of the time. Of course, the game wouldn't be nearly as fun if the players didn't screw up :P

The Abstruse One

[northern lights]

can i move in with you abstruse???

i can't find me a group that wants to do anything but draw their weapons. tonights session was just an extreme munchie excercise so it's off to the begging for players mode again.

but personally, i use nsrcg for all my implants and gear. it would be good for a beginning character, just deselect the appropriate books. although, i do admit, i'd make my first 2 or 3 with the books.

[CardboardArmor]

If I had absolutely nothing better to do, I could slam out a character in two hours or so: background and everything. Granted, s/he might not be 'optimized' but they'd be in good shape.

Add in an extra thirty minutes or so if I'm making a mage...Spell choosing takes me a little longer. :)

Course, YMMV. I've just had an obscene background in roleplaying.