I am a completely new Gamemaster. I hate to say, but I kinda want to run the shadows and no one else can handle the job. I've never played a PnP RPG and I kinda need to know how to run a game. Everyone will tell you to make stuff up and be fair and all that, but no one even has rough guidelines on how to GM. I need the help. If anyone could shed some light on this it would be greatly appreciated.

I think the #1 rule is to be consistient. If you are generally inconsistient or you often fudge rolls or interpret rules in variable ways, people are more likely to get pissy and unreasonable when things don't go their way (i.e. their character is killed in a firefight). They'll think that whenever something bad happens that you could have handled the rules another way, or worse that you interpreted things against them in order to make things go badly.

However, if your rules related administration is rock solid and absolutely consistient each time, that is less likely to happen. And should someone complain they will themselves look that much less reasonable.

Also, be honest. Be willing to say "I'm not sure." If a call is needed right away, preface your ruling with "This is the way we're going to do it this time, it may change once we've had a chance to go over the rules."

Sit down and get everyone on the same page about what they want from the game, and then try to deliver something that aligns with their expectation.

If your team wants to blow stuff up, giving them an investigative plot line will not result in good outcomes. And visa versa.

Thanks for the advice, but what I really want to know is HOW?

Like, I know how to do that stuff. But how do you actually game master? Like, how should you act, should you try to describe everything in detail. I'm in this predicament because I have never seen a PnP RPG played. I played in one (World of Darkness) which lasted about 2 hours, it was a quicke adventure with no die rolls, and as a result, I learned very little about actually running the shadows.

People can explain all matter of technical knowledge to me, but without some kind of example, I can't apply any of them. Believe me, I've been trying.

I suppose this is obligatory by now, but if you've got new players, have you grabbed a copy of the cheat sheets?

Cheat Sheets? Like the SR4 GM Screen? Yes I did.

*Edit: You mean your own Sheets from your resource page. No, I didn't. I'm looking at them and they seem extremely well organized and thought out.

What I really need is almost to see a Run, or even a Play-by-post game, just so I know how and what a GM is supposed to do

I found this video was really helpful with GM'ing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Rop4Zt-S0

For your experience level, I'd take a look at some of the free Missions adventures. Read through a few of them and pick one to run that you really like. Then read through it a couple more times until you are really familiar with the scenes and the overall plot of the adventure.

After that, I'd say that the most important thing to remember is that you, as the GM, are in charge of everything that is not a PC. And the easiest way to portray that is through the people the PCs meet and talk to. You are the bartender at their favorite hangout, the neighbors at their apartment, so on and so forth. You really want to get your PCs interacting with the people in the area they are running in.

As for describing every detail, I wouldn't go overboard to start. When in combat, you may want to try to describe more than just "you hit, you miss". Maybe describe where the bullet hits and how the foe reacts...stuff like that. It may be a bit tough at first but it will eventually get easier.

And finally, depending on your group, they may need some handholding to all get together for a meet. So, I always find it important to know each PCs contacts and work through them. If they have given you a decent idea about who their contacts are, you can almost always get them to a meet and have solid dialogue going back and forth.

If you do all of the above, then you have enough meat in your gaming session, so when it comes down to the die rolling and combat, its not all the same, boring stuff. Its a break in the roleplaying, but a welcome change to rolling some dice and really getting to use the player's skills and talents.

Well, the level of detail you provide will vary depending on your group.

Some GM's like to provide incredible amounts of detail and some players just soak up every word of it. If your players don't care for all those details though, you might bore them.

Some GMs prefer to have their player's exercise their imaginations and provide only basic information about their surroundings. Some players don't get engaged by this type of storytelling though. Some people just need all those nitty gritty details.

What works best for you and your players can only be determined through trial and error.



Personally, I make heavy use of familiar scenes (from TV/movies, real life, comics, etc.) when providing detail about a location. I provide a moderate amount of detail and let the players fill in the details.

So, when I describe the location for a meeting with a Mr. Johnson, I might say something like:

Ah, Saint Rosa's. Its one of the classiest Italian restaurants in the district, frequented by those with the money for fine dining. Its also the place to be if you're anyone who wants to deal with the Mafia. Getting a private meeting room at Saint Rosa's requires connections - the kind your Mr. Johnson apparently has. Tonight, like every night, Saint Rosa's is packed.

Or maybe the runners are meeting a fixer they don't quite trust. The scene might turn into a fight, maybe. Or maybe everything will go smoothly...

The alley behind the warehouse in poorly lit - the overhead lights look like they're on their last hours. The rain is coming down heavy, but at least its keeping the devil rats and squatters from bothering you. You have a brief moment of panic as a Lone Star cruiser pulls down the alley, but, thankfully, it turns and heads the other way. After waiting longer than you'd like, you finally see your fixer's Nightsky limo pull into the alley. Time to get your game face on.

Or maybe they're digging up dirt on someone (or relaxing after a difficult run...)...

The AR sign announces "Caligula's Nightclub" in flickering pink, just like one of those old fashioned neon signs. Never has there been a seedier hive of perverts and freaks. Its the place to go to satisfy any kink. And if you can't find it here, you can find someone who can point you in the right direction. Its one of the worst kept secrets in this part of the barrens, but despite that, Lone Star never seems to bother the club or its patrons - at least not immediately. You're still in the parking lot and you can already feel the throbbing beat of the club's music. Looks like the party is well under way,

And so on.

In short:

• Picture the scene/NPCs - feel free to rip off from movies, TV, books, etc. Use archetypes for quick (the greasy used car salesman, the silver-tongued politico, the glassy-eyed street walker, etc.). Save yourself some work and provide the players with information that conjures up an image...
• Provide as much detail as everyone is comfortable with.
• Provide additional information when asked.

One thing to remember when describing NPCs is not to go over the top on detail with one character and not the others around him. If you do, you're singling that one guy out as special. If you provide lots of detail about a person (or vehicle or whatever), make sure you do so with everyone, unless you want the players to react to that NPC as if he was special.



Heck if I can find the link right now, but there are some podcasts of people playing shadowrun floating around somewhere. Sorry I can't be more help on that, maybe someone else here knows what I'm referring to.

-paws

This is Shadowrun

It's a podcast of Shadowrun sessions. Stopped for now, but he's still posting stuff on occasion.


Chris

Rule number two then is to understand that you will not (at least at first) be consistent. Shadowrun is a complex game and the GM's job can be quite challenging. I've been GMing shadowrun over three editions now and I still botch rule calls from time to time.

Really, my first rule would be to find out what your players want to do, and then try to arrange things so that they can accomplish this. It would really help to spend the character generation session going over what your players want to do. Do they want high risk runs against hard targets? Do they like the idea of lots of Magic, Matrix, Social or Combat encounters. You might want to drop one or two of those (Magic and the Matrix are the easiest to do this with) for the first campaign. This will let you figure out the combat and social systems first and then add the complexity of magic and matrix stuff after once you have those skills down.



This is a tough one to answer since there is no one way to be a game master. I'll give you my thoughts on it though... Maybe they'll help.

Some groups love lots of little detail, interconnected plots and complex characters. These are broadly called "professional" games where the runners are expected to act like pro's, carefully planning and executing runs with little margin for error. Other groups just like to shoot people in the face for money, and retire rich and famous. These are broadly called "Pink Mohawk" games, strange character concepts, flashy action, and a dose of black humor are the common hallmarks of them. Most groups fall somewhere in between, balancing adrenalin pumping action with careful planning. You'll eventually need to figure out where you fit on the spectrum and adjust the game accordingly or even start a new campaign with a different feel but that will come later, once you've picked up on the rules and some of the 6th world background.

For a pop culture example compare say the movie Ronin to the movie Escape from New York. In Ronin, DeNero's character tries to plan every detail and meticulously carry them out. In Escape, Solid Snake has wild gunbattles with over the top characters and the action hardly stops. Both styles work just as well. It's all in how you run it. There have been a ton of threads on Dumpshock comparing the two styles and giving advice on how to run them. I'll try and do a bit of digging when I have the time.

Anyhow, as for an actual idea, I'd suggest starting with a slightly more gonzo Pink Mohawk game. It's easier to adjust on the fly, requires less planning on the GM's part and allows for a broader variety of runs against different targets so your groups style can emerge more easily. It lets you play with the different aspects of the game and decide what is the most fun. I'd also recommend a small group 2-3 players and encourage them to focus on combat. A street sam, a Face who can do double duty as a second fighter and an infiltration/stealth specialist would be my recommendations. Your mileage may vary.

I have an oddly diverse gaming group.

A Fox-Man who may fit in with the Sprawl Ganger Archetype,
A female who really needs her hand held and can't come up with much more of a back story than she wants to fight,
and A male Elf Sniper. He's 100% sure he'll be on overwatch for the PCs, however, I don't want to discourage him by simply killing him off or making him feel like he has zero control.

And...Me, a newb GM. Yeah, sounds fun right.

I'm actually trying to run On The Run, but because my Sis (The female) hates hacking, and the Sniper is in little contact and the fox man? Well, that would work, but he wants to be a bad-ass gun slinger, there is no way to fill that rather large part of the adventure. I would do it with an NPC, but sadly, no one really wants to be a Face either.

I'll try to compromise with the Elf, but more likely than not, he'd rather Snipe. (As a good comp, maybe he could be a rigger, with drones that do what he would. He could also be the face. I'll see.

One other 'big picture' thing you'll have to consider is how your players will go about protecting their characters best asset, anonymity. Again there is a range of styles. Some GM's require little more than making sure you put on a mask and gloves before getting into a shootout with Lonestar while others demand that the PC's maintain multiple SIN's, constantly rotating Nanopaste disguises, safehouses, and all sorts of other tricks to destroy evidence. Almost every single organization that the PC's might go up against in the 6th world, from the Yakuza to Aztechnology is powerful enough to crush them like an insect but it's more important to give the players the illusion of danger than it is to actually start killing their characters left and right, especially since 'revenge' by a powerful organization can oftentimes come across as petty on the GM's part if it isn't done well. Again most groups fall somewhere in the middle. "Professional" games tend to demand more of the latter since the players are expected to plan for different events while the "Pink Mowhawk" games tend to be the opposite.

Regardless you should make the situation as obvious as possible to the players, even telling them ahead of time what to expect. You might decide that you want them to be able to get away with a lot of stuff, and so portray LoneStar as a corrupt bureaucracy where a wink and a few thousand nueyn bribe will get the booking officer to look the other way while you slip out of processing. Beat cops are intimidated by the gangs, and rely on boot to the face fascism to keep the masses in line.

At the other end of the spectrum the Star might be professional killers who keep the SINless running scared. They watch each other's backs, and will come after anyone who rocks the boat, sometimes as a message, sometimes simply making them quietly disappear.

Again, finding where you fit on the spectrum will take some time. Like before I'd recommend leaning towards incompetence, it'll make everyone's lives easier to start with.

Goodness sakes people, rule number one is to have fun. Keep your eye on that, it's why you came. Starting out you aren't going to know what you're doing. You're going to make piles of errors. Laugh some. Try and make sure they're having fun. Watch out for people who are getting pushed out of the spotlight, try and pull them back in.

Now your players are all new. That means, really, it's probably OK that they aren't Hackers or spell casters. This actually makes life easier for you as you won't have to know those rules as well. If you want you can add NPCs to the group to handle that stuff.

My advice is to play a lower level campaign with just them at first. Like set it out in the barrens (parts of seattle that feature abandoned crumbling buildings filled with squaters and gangs) , and have them fight gangs or get involved in power struggles between the different crime syndicates. Or, if they're really in the mood to fight, maybe hire them out as mercinaries for a while. There are Desert wars in Africa between the corps (televised even) over in what used to be Libya before it got nuked (the radioactivity isn't so bad these days). Plus a lot of other conflicts around the world. They could easily get hired on for the short term.

Let them know (out of game) that eventually they'll need some hacking and magic on their side to really run in the big leagues. Hacking at least they could pick up later on just by picking up the skills. (Or actually for simple systems they could just by and agent to do it, generally not as good as a metahuman and can't use edge, but not shabby if you have an expensive one).

But this is SR. They could shop around for NPCs if they want (which should make them feel less that they've have the NPCs foisted upon them).


I'm surprised youtube doesn't have some video of sessions in play. What you do as the GM is take on the parts of all the NPCs describing what they do and saying what they say. You also describe the game world.

Hurm! Actually here's one of my play by forum games.
http://www.neoaxial.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1195431274

unfortunitly the old forum crashed taking the easier to jump into beginning with it (where I actually made and explained all the dice rolls, ah well), but it gives you something of an idea of what to say and what to do. Um. Content is a little, uh, NC 17 at the least this is sort of in a dark point in this characters life (I was trying to see where they would draw the line for what they wouldn't do for money).

Actually "Thou shalt have fun" is rule zero in all gaming.

Thank you all for your help. I Think I have enough to do a run. That all makes me feel a lot better. I thought I'd need a face somehow, and a hacker and a mage, but it makes me feel better that at this point I can just relax and take my time.

I really appreciate all the help. Thaks again, I'll let you know how it turns out!

That would be great, I always enjoy hearing about others games.

Chris

I would say put in as much detail as you like, you run the game, you are the GM. Try to mix it up a bit, I really love it when my GM played music during our first runs. It really put the players in the mood and kept some of our 'unfocused' characters on track and staying in character for the entire game. There are only a few 'faces' on our team and that changes every week to who feels like talking to Mr. Johnson about the run. Sometimes the battles are awesome and sometimes the team isn't working together and some get iced. It varies every week, but I still go because I love the game.

Awww, thanks honey.

You are an awesome GM, and I'm not just saying that because you are my bf!

Aw, that's sweet. Kinda gets you right here ... *points down throat*

=i)

For more examples, you can also jump over to the PbP side of the forums and watch the flow between GMs and Players.

If you want to pick up a book that will help, Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book is great for GMs. It's Shadowrun 3rd edition, but it has tons of fluff and tips that still apply.

Well,

I actually just GM'd my first Shadowrun Session. Things went pretty well and the players seemed to really enjoy themselves. One thing I can say is don't worry to much about it. It sounds to me like you, like your players are kinda new to the Shadowrun setting, part of the fun will be learning the game together. Also like it says in the book, don't let your players nitpick every aspect of a simple mission to death. If they start to throw something at them to let them know they should be moving along. For Example: In my game the players are just starting their shadowrun careers, and they are basically getting work that is low level and no one else wants. Their mission is to clear a small ghoul haunt...however they started talking about mapping the building, knocking out the windows to flood the building with sun, assaulting from the roof, getting all information they can on ghouls etc...which is all good except it probably was more preperation than they needed for what they were doing...so I threw some gangers at em while they were nitpicking and it turned out a dwarven rigger with no combat skills got into a fist fight after bsing the gang into thinking he was one of their own and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

So after that long winded diatribe my advice is to try and keep the game moving.

Also I find using minatures and terrain helps A LOT with mapping out a scene.

-Josh

Congrats on your first session. Sounds like it went well.

I dunno about you, but I find the planning and prep to be part of the fun of Shadowrun. That's why I've got a dart board in my gaming room: when the team is planning and researching, I (as GM) have something to do that lets me answer questions and follow their planning.

But, if it looks like they're not having fun while they're planning, try this. Decide how long you want to run the adventure (I'd make this decision with the players rather than for the players). Then have everyone agree to only spend one-third of that time prepping and planning, and the other two-thirds actually playing through it (yes, this is a bastardized version of the One-Third Two-Thirds Rule). That's worked for me in the past.

Amen. I'm learning to wing it a bit more when dealing with larger scale encounters (and also by using computer generated maps and character icons on a projector screen) but using maps and minis helped me a lot with close-quarters combat in my first games.