I am trying to get a game together for a few novice Shadowrun players. I recently picked up 4th edition and have copied out the pre-gen characters and have read through the rules. Does anyone here have a good stater run that they could share or list a place where I could find one (with minimal conversion)?

Also, does anyone have any good tips for running their first run?

Thanks for the help

Aric

First of all welcome here! You found the den of the master-ninjas-of-book-fu.

The standard starting adventure is "Food Fight" from the SR3-supplement "First Run" (nomen est omen). You will of course have to tone down the stats of the NPCs to SR4 levels when using this. For orientation take a look at the NPC chapter in the SR4 book, the section about grunts.

Another possibility would be to download the first run of the Shadowrun Missions Campaign from the official Shadowrun page. (www.srrpg.com)

I did not mention them with intention, because they are meant for pcs or characters of equal power. Those gangers are supposed to be a simple thrill gang. That clearly makes them grunts by SR4 standards.

But yes, there are conversion rules.

screw food fight. Start them on the original Harlequin run (if you can find it). That's one of my favorites, because it covers everything, but is relatively straight forward and not that difficult. Just gotta convert everything the 4th edition, but oyu'll be doing that for a while anyways.

The problem with Harlequin is, that it is extremely high powered and epic. And it is completely incompatible to SR4 meta-plot wise.

Thanks for all the support and help. I just downloaded Demolition Run from FanPro, and I think it will provide a decent starting run. There didn't seem to be too much in the way of conversion. Is there anything I should know about this run before I attemp to run it?

In general, is there any must have advice for a new GM?

Thanks again,

Aric

Yes, there is. Double check everything you plan for your SCs with your sense for reality. If it does not seem very possible then stay away from it.

How do you figure? The only problem that could crop up (off the top of my head) would be decking in a few places, which can be easily adjusted. If you're referring to when the Chal'hann acutally takes placem no reason you can't just change that a bit. If they're new to the game, it's not going to have that much of a noticeable effect, if any. The only exception would be if you run HqB and use Frosty, which wouldn't work anywayns, because Big D kicked it in 57, which is when that all goes down. That ones a bit more fixed.

And the first Harlequin adventure is not highpowered. The first run, your opposition IIRC correctly [SPOLIER] is two hellhounds, and a couple of sec guards. SEcong run is a realtively low powered poli club hit. So on and so forth. Nothing good plannign can't deal with. [/SPOILER]

I started my group off on this one, and they did excellent. Are you thinking of Hq's Back by chance?

Hey, I never knew there are SPOLIER tags here...

I consider every adventure as high powered that tells the story of But if I do recall them correctly the first few adventures are probably OK. The advantage with "First Run" is of course, that it has special annotations for the newby GM.

But you're right. HqB is much worse.

yeah I think you'r right on the Barghests. Sorry, my POV was more that for the runners, a beginning team can handle it . As they aren't fighting the super-elves, there's really no worries there. But the runs are really good examples of standard runs with a lot of neat twists. Just with a common theme is all.

Okay, you convinced me. Possibly "Food Fight" to learn the rules and afterwards "Harlequin".

If you want a look at what the Food Fight run is like, I'm running an SR4 version of it (I added two of my own NPC's to change it up a bit) in the Welcome to the Shadows section:
IC: SR4 First Run
OOC: SR4 First Run

Food Fight is a good first run because its more about having fun while familiarizing yourself with the rules.
The second adventure in the First Run adventure book, SuperNova, is definitely recommended for newbies, who typically have no idea of the danger an elite team of red samurai (with cyberzombie) pose nor do they typically have any clue who the megacorp boss is.

Yeah, I posted stats a while back. They were an attempt to balance the enemies to a party of three 330-BP characters, but they were able to win with a couple fudged dice.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=10217

Doh, forgot to set the date to more than 30 days back when i ran the Search for "Food Fight".

When we decided to give the 4th ed rules a try I started the run off with Food Fight. It's a frickin classic. It's funny, they give you all sorts of role playing notes on all of the NPC's and how they react to the situation, but everytime I run it the firefight erupts the minute a gun is drawn. But for any noobs out there who have never picked up a first edition book, the run is simple, one of the PC's is hungry, and so they go to a convenience store. The opposition is a jazzed up thrill gang looking to score some munchies (and in the case of 4th ed, some comm links, gear , etc.) With some rudimentary security cameras, you can even incorporate the hacker character to give the team a tactical advantage during the chaos. The most important part of the run though, is random food stuffs the characters get splattered with whenever a shot misses. It's great!

Well, I did converting of them long before the official guide came out so the stats I am using in my game are slightly off. Also, I don't happen to have them with me right now.
However I do have the adventure book with me so I just did some quick conversion and here you got (note: don't have the SR4 book with me so I couldn't look up cyber-ware/gear/spells so some SR3 stuffs is still in there):

Most importantly grunts have only one damage monitor for physical an stun damage.

I just wanted to say thanks again for all the help and sugestions. The info on Food Fight is also a nice extra.

You guys have been great

Aric

Random GM Advice

- Don’t get caught up in maps. Understand that you’re going to have runs that take place in massive skyscrapers, huge buildings and complex environments. If you start to rely on maps now, you’ll paint yourself into a corner in the future. If a character wants to crawl through a ventilation system, you really don’t need to map it out, just describe the environment. Most people want to experience the story and feel what their character is feeling. Visual aids can sometimes take away from the art of storytelling.

- When you can’t remember a rule, just have them roll some dice. Unless you have one of those annoying players who thinks everything should be done by the book, apply this method of gaming. All you need to do is figure out what will give a character the appropriate odds of success. For instance, if you think something is a 50/50 chance of success, tell them to flip a coin. If there’s no way they should be able to defeat the elemental, have them roll some dice against some number you pull out your hat. What matters is that their chances for success or failure are relative to the character’s abilities and the situation. In my view, gaming is interactive storytelling not interactive number crunching. Roll some dice and move on.

- Avoid keeping track of an NPCs every detail. I don’t use NPC stat sheets, just a condition monitor. Who really cares exactly what skills the guy has or how much ammo he is carrying. Remember, you’re a storyteller. If you give only 40 rounds to what should have been a powerful NPC, and he expends them all, pull some more ammo out of thin air for him! If it’s going to make the action better, do it. Lets say the characters get involved in a negotiation battle with an NPC. Are we at fault for not having the NPC’s details fully described? No, just pull the numbers out of thin air as you need them. Do you really need to know if you used the right formula to figure out the NPCs Reaction? No, just give him a number that reflects what you want to happen in your story. Tell the story and make the numbers match. Invent the numbers when you need them.