How do you introduce new material?, Do you ease it in or bam now its there.. Options

[Brazila]

I just wondered how other people hande new material. Did dozens of adept "faces" come into existence the day you bought SOTA ?

[fistandantilus4....]

Nope. Picked up infusion pretty quick though!

[hahnsoo]

My gaming group typically has a discussion about how best to integrate new material (we don't leave it to a single GM's decision to do so, in other words). Most of the time, the point becomes moot simply because we are running in a different year than the release of X gadget or Y metamagic technique. As far as plot elements, we generally accept whatever new events occur that is relevant to our campaign, which usually means slim to none (at the moment, we are running in Ute Nation, and not much has been written about Ute Nation in some time).

Our Detroit campaign was pretty interesting in that we started in 2054 (which allows everything up to, but not including, Shadowtech) and made SOTA rolls every month... each time the SOTA roll indicated a new product on the market. For example, if the SOTA roll came up as Biotechnology, then a new Bioware product shows up. This turned out to be fairly reasonably balanced. Also, some shadowruns in that campaign were corporations raiding other corporations for some SOTA tech, and involved "prototypes" of products that are in common use by 2060. Kinda like doing a secret mission during World War II to find a box of ball point pens; it seems mundane to us NOW, but back THEN...

[Crimson Jack]

I ask PCs not to read so I can suprise them with new toys. My group tends to like new things introduced in this manner. So I technically don't even have to ask them.

[DocMortand]

How I've been dealing with things over here (since I am still a semi-newbie GM now) is SOTA material are being developed as prototypes. Occasionally the group does a run and they steal plans (like it should be). Once the plans are stolen, they usually get a mint in money, and have access to recreating the SOTA - and buying it on the market (because the company better release it before someone else claims copyright).

This is kinda of a awkward approach, but it is one that I'm doing now because I am getting more comfortable with controlling the flow of technology (which I wasn't doing at all when I started).

For instance, autosofts for drones just got stolen...so my group can recreate Sharpshooter autosofts for drones (none of the others, they only got this because the thief stole an entire mainframe harddrive during the run...this has complicated their lives, but given them opportunities as well) EW is still not as advanced, but gets better.

I know the SOTA books won't come into the mix (I won't even buy it) until we get closer to that year (we're in mid 2059 right now).

[toturi]

It is in the players' hands as soon as it is out. But if they want the new stuff for their existing PCs, the SOTA rules come into play. For example, if the PC wants a power that is in his Way, he gets a very low TN for his Magic Background test. But if it is not, he gets a high TN. So if he didn't keep up with the SOTA, he stands a good chance of not getting the nice new power.

[Cray74]

[Demosthenes]

My players are very happy to play the game...but most of them can't be bothered to put in the effort to read up on all the stuff that affects their characters - which makes introducing new tech a bit of a waste of time, since they don't take advantage of what's there already...

The star of my player line up is the player known only as Guibot or Geebo (not his real name, though it might as well be), who is fond of playing both street sams and deckers, but has never looked at the cyberware or matrix rules... :dead:

[Ancient History]

I like to introduce new tech. The typical response by my players is "What the frag are they shooting at us!?" Ah, I well remember the day I got the Cannon COmpanion. You've never seen an ambidextrous physad built around chopsticks instill so much fear before.

[snowRaven]

Some things I introduce immediately - let the players know it's there, and it'll be used/picked up as needed from then on.

Any canon-thingies that contradict houserule-thingies I take a discussion and if we implement the canon (which we usually do) we alter characters immediately.

Some things I hide and bring out to make the players go WHAT?! (Planning on using that approach with alot of the new stuff from SOTA 2064...)

In general, I do not let the players read a sourcebook until our date matches the date of publication on shadowland, but things from that book might still appear in the game beforehand.

[James McMurray]

I voted a piece at a time. My campaign is in 2052, so the SOTA books aren't a factor, but I will be doling out the things from CC, M&M, and MitS as time passes.

[James McMurray]