I have a planned Shadowrun game for this Friday afternoon. I have never run a Shadowrun game before, am barely familiarized with the rules, and have not had nearly enough time to work on making a campaign and learning the rules. Originally the game was just going to be for a couple of friends, but now some people none of us know have expressed interested via a local college mailing list. Should I forgot running my own mission and use a prefab, or just cram the rules tonight and work on the adventure tomorrow (no work)?

If you can get your hands on On The Run, the introductory adventure for SR4, it's not only a good entry level adventure, but it's especially handy for newbie gamemasters because it walks you through running each scene and even offers look-up page references for many of the relevant rules as they crop up in the story.

If you do want to include the new arrivals, possibly your easiest option is to hand out the archetypes from the BBB to the players (let them choose, but no more than one of each) and go with a prefab adventure. This will let you and your players capture the flavour of the SR world and the feel of the rules without committing too much into those who might never turn up again.

If it works out, maybe set the next session as a custom character-building session (including the all-important first meeting); and then plunge into your planned campaign the session after that.

The problem is most of them know the rules better than I, and are all planning on brining characters to the first session.

Note that, even using the archetypes from the BBB, you'll still have to look up stats on some equipment. Specifically, the weapons.

Back when SR4 had just came out, I ran it with a very minimal knowledge of the rules. But I described everything well, provided an interesting situation, and my players had a good time.

Case in point

How long of a session do you think it will be?

If you are talking about 4 hours, I'd say that you could easily fill that time with your basic hook to get all the runners together, like a Johnson meet via their own contacts. Just do a quick outline of what the job is going to be, so you can give them some details, but you don't have to do the whole adventure for tomorrow.

What I would do, is detail the meet place, and create a couple scenarios, maybe an altercation in the club, maybe one after the meet as they are getting ready to leave. I think a single combat scenario is going to fill up an hour or so, but still be fun, plus you can focus on cramming combat rules now.

Map out the meeting place, give your Johnson a personality, and get one combat scenario set up. Assuming that when you all get together, you take some time to review character sheets, have some small-talk around the table and then dive into everyone getting a call from a contact to meet with Johnson as Club X, you should be able to fill a session and not have to go overboard on the planning. Plus, as a GM, you will be getting a feel for your group and then have an easier time fleshing out the details of the run...

1) Don't stress. It's a game, not an exam.

2) Try running your first game. Nothing ambitious, a small run.

3) If YOU don't have fun, figure out why and correct it.

What Backgammon said

This is unrelated, but some internet snooping revealed one of the players is some 16 year old goth/emo/wiccan girl. I am somewhat worried about this. I'm 21, but would her parents be weirded out if she went to some old boy's house and he was drinking? Because I have some IPA in the fridge and I was saving them for Friday...

As for rules, I the way this run is set up is a lot of walking around and experiencing things, not so much disabling security and such. Hopefully this will work.

Also, in my experience, gamers are generally pretty understanding about new GMs, and their lack of experience with rules. Most people I've played with (and GM'd for) have been very helpful. Remember... you're doing them a favor. The wouldn't have a game to play if it weren't for you.

(Just don't let that go to your head )

I'm just saying when I had this idea to run a shadowrun game for a couple of friends, I didn't expect to be running a game for some 16 year old goth girl... makes me feel old too

I hope this doesn't come out too un-PC, but I would recommend trying to treat her the same. I've been in about 4 different groups that we had a girl in (a couple were a friend's girlfriend or wife, other times was just some of our friends), but every single one of them, she got preferential treatment from the GM...

I guess I should say that favoring any player is bad, as that sucks too, but I do see a tendency that females, when in an all male group, end up getting better treatment in-game...so, don't treat her any different...16 year old girl or 16 year old boy...and I think the rest of your players will appreciate it!

I agree that for your first session you should probably prepare a one-off as mentioned earlier. A published adventure can be good for this too as it will give you more time to simply brush up on the rules rather than worrying about preparing the adventure AND brushing up on the rules. Having a one-off as mentioned, also lets you and your friends decide whether or not you want to keep the "outsiders" in your group.

Ultimately, its up to you as to what you want to run, but it might make sense if you are still learning the rules to use a published adventure since it should, in theory anyway, be fairly balanced and will save you time. Obviously, much of the fun of Shadowrun comes from creating your own story so you will ultimately want to create your own adventures most likely, but there is always time for that later on.

Finally, if you find out that the "outsiders" are not a good mesh with your group, then it makes it easier for you to plan out your campaign as you'll know how many players you have. Nothing is worse than designing a run that is a good challenge for 6 players and then only having 3 stick around.

As for the girl, do what you are comfortable with. If you are not comfortable with having a 16 year old girl in your house, so be it. Everyone should understand, and if they don't, then you probably do not want them in your group anyway.

It is a good idea though to try to avoid being in the house alone with her. Have your friends come over extra early to be safe, etc. Also, it is illegal for you to provide her with alcohol. Its not a problem for you and those over 21 to drink, but if she drinks, you can get into trouble, both criminally, and be liable in civil court should she later injure somebody. (i.e. gets drunk and drives home but gets into an accident) etc.

I've was in a similar situation when SR4 came out, and I was lucky enough to have someone I trusted in the group to help me out with Rules.

In my view, a GM's job is not to be a rules reference, it is instead to create (and maintain) a coherent world full of enough openings to enable Wacky Hijinks on the part of the players. Concentrate on that part, and you've already pretty much won the battle.

Let your players know that you're still getting used to the rules, and try to make them understand that things may be a bit rocky to begin with.

If you have questions about characters that people are bringing you, ask them to explain them. If the explanation sets off your BS alarm, let them know that you are not entirely comfortable with the character as it stands.

As for the use of pre-genned adventures, I've always been against them - but they seem to work for a lot of people.

Speaking of the whole "girl in a gaming group" issue, I currently have a slight issue in that direction; I and one of the players have a friend (she's not my girlfriend or his) who is curious about what we're doing--mostly because she wants to understand the references that Ben and I keep on using when the whole gang (the three of us and about ten others) gets together for pizza and movies and such. So she's debating on sitting in on one of our gaming sessions and just watching us play. I warned her that she'll be confused, bored or both, but she's still considering it.

so... *gestures vaguely* any advice on how to handle this?

Let her. Is there a problem with someone watching you game? Do you have gamer anxiety?

As far as I understand it, the original poster isn't concerned with the "girl in a gaming group" issue. Gaming with girls is not a big deal. Gaming with underage girls, while drinking... that's the problem. It's the combination. Gaming with a girl by itself isn't a problem. Gaming with an underage girl is more of a problem. Gaming with an underage girl while consuming alcohol is yet more of a problem.

I'd say as long as you don't plan on getting totally drunk, you'll be fine.

Generally you're right, I've seen a lto of S.Os sit in on agmes and get bored/confused/interuptive/whatever. But the fact that she wants to show some interest in what you're all talking about , don't say no, just suffer through it. If that is what happens, oh well, you potentially had one bad game. however, if she ends up liking it, you could have a new layer. I've had both happen.

You could try talking to her about the character types and the wetting a bit , see if perhaps you can write her u pa quick character and see if she's actually interested in playing, that way she can be included. Even if her char mostly sits on the side lines for the first game, there wil be a better feeling of inclusion.

Yeah, I'd let her sit in as well...she's just interested in what her friends are doing, no biggie there. You may get lucky and get another player for the group. Girl or not, anyone sitting in on a game, should be allowed as long as they agree not to be disruptive. That's the last thing you want, no matter what the gender.

Honestly, its no different than a guy friend that has never played sitting in. Everyone gets a little self-conscious at first because it is something new. Once that has worn off, then everything gets back to normal!

What I should have said is I'm used to playing games with my college friends, or friends of their friends, so people of around the same age and disposition. All of a sudden finding out I'm running this game for an underage goth, you understand how this threw me off a bit.

Yeah, I'll brush up on the rules, and I think instead of using a prefab I'll be running my own mission. It's pretty low key, basic breaking and entering an unfinished office complex. Still, I'm a bit worried about if one of my players is a because I have NO idea how those rules work.

So, here are some more specific questions: with from 4-6 players, how much firepower can I throw at them so they are challenged but can survive if they play smart? I was planning on having them run into some Humanis Policlub skinheads looking for trouble. Then, the mission itself involves infiltrating an unfinished office building. What kind of security would make the mission exciting but possible?

Talk to the parents if you need to or, better yet, talk to her. It sounds like you don't want to run the game for a group so large so tell one of the other people that are knowledgable to run a second game while you run yours. Then both groups get smaller parties and the young woman will be in the other game.

It sounds to me like you agreed to run a game for a group and then after that agreement took place, the group changed. That means you can change your decision, too, if this is starting to become something you don't want to do.

And you say "underage goth" like it's a bad thing .... I was an underage goth back in the day

Heh...I guess I am a bit worried here because it sounds like there are like 6-10 players this new GM is going to be running for, yet he is worried about the one girl...in a group that big, especially with some new players, I probably wouldn't even remember all the new people's name come the first session:)

And I think that is why it could be a problem, because the GM is already singling out the girl before even rolling a single die...

I'd use Aaron's cheat sheets. They're here and they'll probably be rather helpful.

It sounds like the girl stands out for three major reasons:

• She's a teenager, and most of the crowd is 20-21
• She's not a friend, or a friend of a friend
• She's a girl

The rest is being inflated because of those three factors -- and perhaps most of all that she's not a friend of a friend.

The immediate issues are an uneasiness with the unfamiliar and someone not known or vouched for besides, an alcohol issue (since you guys were planning on drinking), and a concern how it will be seen by others that an underage girl is hanging out with these guys.

Unfamiliar I can't help you with. All I can say is that all of you will initially come across as unfamiliar to the others, potentially even to the same degree: but that in most cases it won't be gender-aggravated. That's just ice to be broken, if it can.

Alcohol -- my own experience with my first group, I was also underage, they were drinkers, they didn't know me from Eve. As it happened, I didn't drink. It was all cool. I was there for the gaming. Several years later I ended up splitting from that group, in part because I preferred to game without being drunk -- but it was amicable, and again several years later. And then I ended up starting my own group -- and some of them were young teenagers also, completely unknown to me except in a common interest in roleplaying.

You'll just have to decide what your alcohol policy is going to be for everyone who is underage -- good odds a couple of the others might be as well, after all -- and then stick to it. Btw, would it crimp your style to set the alcohol to one side for everyone for that first session? It would make life simpler all around.

A late teenage girl hanging out with a group of guys shouldn't generally raise any eyebrows in a quasi-college environment. (In saying all this I'm assuming, of course, that you aren't referring to a generally chaperone-type social environment.) The group environment does alter perception; so if you guys decide to hang out afterwards, it's a group thing, so do it as a group. She's young enough relative to you that I'm going to guess there should be no romantic interest by you guys. After all it's a gaming night among potential friends, not a date. During the gaming night, she's just one of the guys, and that's the way everyone treats it, her included.

It's probably already known that webpages are sometimes as much wish-fulfillment as reality, yes?

I don't know how this turned into a "can you handle gaming with a girl" thread. I've rarely played in all-male games, and when I did I was outnumbered by my gay friends (funny stories abound). Honestly I was half-joking at the expense of her age and gothic-bent. Seriously, don't paint me as this xenophobic misogynistic GM! Its kind of frustrating seeing the thread derail like this. The alcohol thing is fine, my IPAs can wait.

If you are only worried about age and maturity, I would say let her play and see how it goes. Certainly its possible that she will not fit in well with the group. Its also possible though that she'll make for an excellent member of your group.

Particularly with another female present in the group, I would not be concerned.

Good luck and have fun!

Back to my ORIGINAL concern (sigh) if I wanted to set up an office complex, unfinished, with minimal security but enough to be challenging, what would I do? Sensors, drones, etc? I was planning on including maybe some sort of paracritter watchdogs. *shrug*. Also, was 400bp too much? Originally I had thought there would be 3-4 players and this would be a low key run. Now with 5-6 players, does the "feel" of the game change from up and coming runners to well practiced running machines?

I'd advise against having someone sitting there watching. It has so many negatives compared that same person joining in. I have it as a hard-rule at my place. If you're there, you play. Other people are not there to provide you with a show.

Regarding the sixteen year old girl, it doesn't sound as though your concerned about her, as you are concerned about what her parents will think. That's for her to deal with, not you. She's sixteen and old enough to be deciding whether or not she wants to hang out with you all, drink or not, etc. You shouldn't let other people be the arbiter of what you think is right or wrong.

As to adventures, I have a game that is specifically written to be an introductory adventure. It has a lot of the dice rolls that are needed to accomplish specific things such as subverting cameras, locks, hacking drones, etc. explicitly listed. The power-level is low and somewhat kind to inexperienced players, but it should be fun. The direct link is here. Let me know if it's any use.

I would also recommend enforcing pregen characters initially. It sounds like you have a few descenders heading your way and they'll have their own preconceived ideas of what the game should be and that will probably be to their benefit. Descenders is my term for those people who just suddenly descend on you from nowhere and start overturning everything. I had an unpleasant experience with a game I ran for a few friends when suddenly dedicated role-players descended upon us and started turning everything around. Having pre-gen characters ready to hand out which you are familiar with is a good way to do an introductory game when you're not fully comfortable with the rules.

Hope this is useful,

-K.

That should be helpful.

I'll lay off the newbie girl angle -- only one post of three in this thread in any case -- and you've already had my two cents about starting with unfamiliar players in an unfamiliar game system. And now you've got several pointers to quick game rules familiarisation.

But as to

My bad Talia. I wrote that message like 2 minutes after I found out about this perspective player, and wasn't really thinking. Anyway, for knasser's "cold-blooded" adventure, I am definitely going to use some of your material retrofitted for my plans, but you never include how much the shadow runners will receive for this service. How much should a run like this earn?

The best way to learn the rules...honestly, is to play. I read through the combat section about three times before I actually ran a game (and this is coming from a longtime DM/GM, in multiple game systems). I learned the most while playing and to this day, I still keep a copy of the core rules by "my throne" and page through, normally picking something up that I didn't catch before.

From my experience, most fights are last between 3 and 6 IPs (so under two combat turns). Granted, these are players with mostly 3IPs, so things get done pretty quick. What I would do is set up a wave of gangers, if you have 5-6 in the party, then make it 8 gangers. Don't double the opponent, for the first combat.

Then, just see how combat goes...if the runners kill a few but are really struggling, have the gangers run away because of a nearby siren. If the runners dispose of the 8 gangers pretty quickly, you know that you either need to increase numbers, increase their power level or use different strategy to present them with a challenge. There's no one rule that is going to help you out, you just have to find what your group needs for a challenge. Sometimes that will be more firepower or bigger numbers, other times that will simply be to hurl a couple spells...

For a first run, regardless of what you have them do, I would pay them more than 5,000 to 7,500 nuyen a piece...you don't want to go too high and have them always expect a lot of nuyen...its also not too low for a few hours worth of work...

excellent advice deek. The only thing to be careful of with the multiple waves, is that sometimes a fight can go real easy for one side because of the luck of the dice, but there really isn't anything you can do about that.

Still, even if the second wave starts to mop up on your PCs, you can still have them run away when the sirens start blaring. This could even work within your building under construction setting. Perhaps the developers, hoping to save a little cash, decided to hire a band of really affordable mercs to handle security instead of going with a professional outfit. The problem of course is that these "cheap mercs" want almost anything but contact with law enforcement authorities.

*cough* Stout *cough* Porter *cough*

Unfortunately, I've never been able to effectively gauge the difficulty of encounters in SR. That, or my combat tactics aren't very good. Also, I have a tendency to fudge rolls in favor of PCs far too often. It's a habit I need to get out of, and nobody should ever pick up. Seriously. Don't be afraid to hurt the player characters. That's what street docs and DocWagon/CrashCart are for.

Well, my friend came and watched--after about an hour, she asked to see the BBB and started generating up a character. She's planning on joining us in another two weeks, which will give us time to go over the rules and flesh out her character. And, amusingly, she's planning on being an Awakened elf eco-radical from the Tir; the reason that she picked the elf metatype is simple: because her hometown is Portland, and when she asked what had happened to it, we gave her the straight answer.

One of the most important things you can do as a new GM is to set the tone of the game before everybody hits the table. Did you want Heat? The Matrix? When Gravity Fails? The Diamond Age?

A common failure point for new GMs goes something like this:
Player one: cool, we are playing SR, that'll be like Sneakers, I'll make a sneaky hacker guy who is trying to pay off his student loans.

Player two: cool, we are playing SR. That'll be like Apocalypse Now. I am sorry, Mr Johnson, I am unaware of any such run; and even if I were, I would not be able to discuss such details with you.

Players three: cool, we are playing SR. That'll be like West Side Story but with trolls and elves. I'll make a troll ganger iwth a heart of gold, and he'll be able to sing and dance up a storm...

SR can be used to run any of the above games, but I doubt they will all fit together at the same table.

Oh, and behold the power of thread necromancy:

A survey about great GM's, What makes or breaks a great GM
Ten commandments of interactive storytelling, Rules and cool stuff do not a story make