Me and a friend are setting up an SR4 campien with the idea of each one of us running our own group of around 4 runners and alternating between GMs. And my questions are:

1) What build types would you recomend?
2) Wether we should have a set Bp for each runner or a pool for the group?
3) Any ideas for an overall plot linking both groups togever but in an none dierect way?
4) How important is magic to SR?
5) Would it be easy to remove or down even more magic in the setting or reasons to keep it as it is?

Thank you for your time.

P.s I apologise for my bad spelling.

5. Very easy - just don't use it.
4. Magic is not essential - a lot of fun, but not essential.
3. Different branches of the same police department, for example: vice and homicide
2. That's up to you and how comfortable you are with the system - more BP generally means more power, which can be difficult to GM.
1. Since you're going to skip magic, I'd also recommend skipping matrix and riggers for the moment - that tends to leave samurai, mercs and variations thereof.

-Siege

Thanks for the reply. The reson it think of droping magic is just because I dont like the fell of it in 2070 adepts make sense but any big time mages I see as rare maybe even distanced from the rest of the world. Hackers and riggers I can see as being much more prominent.

I just had an idea for the Bp pooling idea I now thing of playing four 400 Bp (200 bp max for stats and other Bp related rules) runners with a 50bp tradeable alownece making for a few weaker runners and a few stronger ones.

Rereading the stuff on magic I've warm to it more than just a plane ban but with just 1% awakened I dont see it being even that like to encounter them offten.

While you could leave magic out in game mechanic terms, taking it out of the setting seems to me like taking the bloodsucking out of Vampire.

Edit: I say fuck the 1% awakened margin in my games. If it were really that low, no mage would ever run the shadows because the corp world would weigh them in gold. But the game is otherwise based on magic being an everyday occurence, so I wouldn't keep mages out of my games because one sentence of canon contradicts the rest.

The magic rules have some odd quirks, but they make a lot more sense and have far fewer basic flaws than the computer rules. If two people read the computer rules they will come up with at least 2 different interpretations of how some fundamental concepts work. And they are both right...

The 1% number is something you can just ignore if you want to. I've toyed with giving everyone the mage property at the start. This only means something if you choose to spend quite a few points on it, but it seems like an interesting twist.

my plan us really to run a more down to earth gritty plot far from the realm of magic to start. Of corse the hacking rules are a bit iffy but hope fully unwired will fox this on relese. But aside from the setting changing thoughts on magic. I would really like my frist quetiin answering. Are there any abilitys/achtypes needed to Run sucsessfully or can you get buy with any old mix of runners as long as their abilitys work with each others. In some RPGs there are builds that are almost a must to play a working group e.g DnDs Roge, Fighter, Cleric and Wizzard 4man partys. Or is SR point based system much more fexiable than that?

Ok, no magic. You need someone to get information before the run, you'd need someone who can help you get into places where you are unwelcomed and do whatever you need to do, you'd need someone who can fight well as insurance. You can do without the specialised builds, but you won't be as effective as a team and the GM has to take note of that. Personally, I feel that Magic makes things every much easier for everyone, the GM included.

Ok here's my plan a hacker not much different to the sample in the SR4 core book but human and "smarter", elven adept shooter and infeltration expert, street sam mechanic and pilot back up buy the hackers rigging skills. I need a fourth runner to macth my plan. Or any ideas to improve it.

First off, I personally recommend you run the same 4 character's, and either the GM's share our they play the same role in the team and each one get's the same karma rewards. If you want to do a campaign from 2 angles that is an idea, maybe even different sides of the same conflict, the only issue is that the characters advance slowly and sometimes get confused as to which character they are using.


Standard 4 man team: Mage, Primary Hacker/Secondary Rigger/Tertiary Samurai, Primary Samurai(B&E+Stealth skills), Face.

Non-magic: Face, Samurai, Hacker/Rigger, and either another Samurai (with different secondary skills from 1st), Technomancer, or Rigger/Hacker.


Standard build rules are fine.


There are as many possible stories as clouds in the sky. There are also over 10 years of campaign books, and thousands of years of literature to find your inspiration in. Seriously though, it really depends on what aspect of SR you want to focus on: Vampires, Magical threats, Matrix anomalies (read Emergence), Corporate intrigue, Political intrigue (running black ops for opposing presidential campaigns), Mercenary campaign (warfare, change character lineup to all sammy's and hacker/riggers), or even a magic focused campaign (Spirits, metaplanes, recommend full Mage and Adept party).

Really, you can do anything. It is all up to your imagination/inspiration. There is room in the SR world for anything, which is why I like it.


You can completely remove it, just like the Matrix. It just requires that you overlook some of the fluff. Or you can introduce mages as rare and thus not something to worry about all the time. It is a lot easier to come up with realistic threats when you don't have someone in the group that can bend the laws of physics at will, mind rape people, and use just about anyone as a puppet.


If you want to nerf magic in your setting, have at it. Just don't do it after a player rolls up a Mage, that would be unfair.

The whole 1% thing seems to be widely misunderstood. 1% is not that rare in a large population. In the U.S. about 0.29% (~ 1/3 of one percent) of the population are doctors, and they aren't considered exceptionally rare. In fact most people know at least one doctor, and few would say the idea of knowing a doctor is unbelievable, or strange or unheard of.

That's exactly why to drive mages into the deep shadows of the SR world requires fluffing of the fluff.

To clear this up. where I live at the moment there is barely any who plays PnP RPGs. So me and my friend came up with the idea of each one of us Running with a group of 4 runners each. and the Gm swap would be at the end of each run. We have diced on the over all feel of the campane but form different sides of the same battle E.g one corp vs. another or on the same side in different cites. The latter is my favorte alows for us both to keep huge gaps in each others knowledge.

Thanks nathanross, you short and simple answers helped me build up a bigger picture what I want to aim for. As for your answer to my seconded question I have had a brain wave for a compromise not a pool and not a fixed here you 400BP system four 400 BP Runners with and small pool of 25BP maybe less for extra gear of the group and just to change one or two points about a Runner.

I have not had chance to speak to my friend yet but I've got the guide for my 4 runners. A Primary Hacker/Secondary Rigger/Tertiary Samurai had that in mind before you said but that sum him up. An Adept with (B&E+Stealth skills), A Face and a Samurai Pilot/Driver with a more defensive role of keeping the rest alive if it goes pare shaped.

Im now going to make up a few Runners then i need to know of any fines point for GMing in Shadowrun.

Being a Shadowrunner means most likely having a weird psychological makeup; this is true also for the magically active, although it does not need to be more true for them. So yes, you can cast spells, summon spirits, and build wards, but you don't work for a corp -- why not? Well, while they pay might be good, a mage is not that valuable to them if they have to have a full-time therapist, life-coach, or other specialist following you around all the time. Also look at the "archetypes": obviously someone like the Radical Eco Shaman isn't going to work for a corp, and the troll is a pretty difficult match for a corporate job (actually shamans might have a hard time in that sort of heirarchical structure, unless they have a heirarchical-type Mentor Spirit like Dog or Wolf).

In any case, there are plenty of people IRL with uncommon talents who could (in some sense) be using them to make tons of dosh at an investment banking firm but really don't mesh well with that environment, and will work a more comfortable, interesting, or personally satisfying job for far less money.

I'm glad I was of some help. So you are playing 1 on 1 with GM? That sounds pretty cool. I've been trying to do the same over skype with a friend half way across the country, but he is just too busy with family. As for GMing advice, have an idea and know the rules. The finer points you'll pick up with time. There are tons of publications on how to GM (Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book, Shadowrun Companion, etc. from SR3). As for a good internet read:

Blackjack's Corner

One way to link them together is have them do individual pieces of a multi-part run. You might have to work on timing between the two groups if things go a bit wonky, but overall, the theory is sound.

For example, my group is doing a two part run: 1) infiltrate a cloning facility and steal a CEO's clone, 2) kidnap CEO and swap with clone. You could have two groups do this, with the one handing off the clone to the other group. Now not all jobs will be like that (although, I suppose you could always have them do multi-part objectives), but that is something to work with.

In a 400 BP game, I think all the characters should have a good reason why they are not using their incredible skills and abilities to live comfortably.

It's like a ex-Navy SEAL working at McDonalds instead of making a mint for a private security company. Or a surgeon, or any other high-end profession.

Maybe the SEAL just can't kill any more. Maybe the surgeon likes pills to much. There _will_ be a reason why the character walked away from that opportunity.

Man I'm so happy to see that is still online somewhere. Thanks for posting nathanross.

I used to love reading Blackjack's stuff. I recently tried to find his page (I have an old print out of his 501 plot ideas and was wondering if they were still online somewhere) but had no luck.

You can find just about anything in the Internet Archive. If it was ever online, it's probably there