Ok, I have some friends that want to play Shadowrun. I've always been a player and never a GM for Shadowrun, so this concept is new to me.

I just wanted some advice (some of my general ideas are from the botched and fun games i've played, taking what i learned from those GMs and using or ignoring things)

Couple questions:
-As for the players' characters, do you think its better to have the players meet ahead of time to discuss their characters? or find making up a random run around what they show up with would be more fun?
-Do you think starting the characters off knowing each other and running a while makes it easier than pulling them all together for the first time ever and having a room full of paranoid players?

those are the only real questions i can think of right now, but any tips any seasoned GMs would have to pass on would be GREAT.

*breaks out notepad for note taking*

If this is your first time GMing seriously, I suggest you have the players talk to each other about their characters. Even if you still get 5 players insisting on playing nothing but Hermetic Mages, then at least the players are aware of this. Some players get really tweaked if they make what they think is an awesome character only to have it outshined by a guy with a similar or the same concept who either a) built his character better, b) roleplays better, c) just rolls better, or d) otherwise steals the spotlight in that area where each character is supposed to shine. If you don't want to, don't insist they all fill in the important roles (nothing is worse than a hacker character that doesn't care at all about hacking, for instance), as you can always throw in an NPC to fill in a missing area. Your characters will probably work together naturally to fill in different roles out of a desire to contribute in their own, unique way (at least one would hope).

Also, I would start them off as a solid group. You can feel free to insert their backstory and how they met each other intermittently here and there in flashbacks or when the moment for roleplaying comes up. In addition, you could even run little solos or smaller group side adventures of the characters' pasts, including how they met one another. You get a lot less of this paranoia that prevents the group from functioning when the initial 'paranoia' is part of a flashback or past history and the player already knows that the characters trust each other in the present.

It also really depends on your players. If they like intrigue and suspense even amongst the players, perhaps some paranoia is fine. But if even one of them delights in backstabbing his fellow players at the slightest excuse of a 'It's what my character would do,' then I wouldn't let that be a possibility.

I think you sit down together first, and talk about what you expect. You can ask your players those questions, and make decisions together.
- will the campaign be more action oriented, shadowy black ops, intrigue ? no special theme is also possible.
- The starting position of the team : thrown together by a fixer ? a reality show organized by Horizon ? elite hunters for the NAN ? eco terrorists or anarchists ?
- Perhaps the players wish to focus on a particular aspect of the sixth world. If most of them are TM's and hackers, for example, you're gonna need to GM lot of matrix action.
- basically you should identify story hooks in each character's background story. This will help you nudge the story along later. The street doc that installed the sammi's cyberarm might have been up to no good, and put something else in there. Oh, and he's also a Tamanous organlegger. No wonder those creeps show up a lot to "clean up" the character's mess.

Come prepared with a general milk-ish run and if you have time run it after the talk.

Shadowrunners should always be paranoid at some level, but most runners need to be able to trust each other with their lives during runs. So I think part of the talk should be how the characters
know each other.
Shadowrun happens in three distinct planes of existance, all the time. You should detail the physical, matrix and astral attributes of important locations, just to play it safe. The physical will probably be the most detailed.

And that is all I can think of.

Mirillion is spot-on. A talk amongst the players and with the GM for expectations really ensures things don't get off to a bad start.

I think it's also a good idea to get the players on the same page about how they will tackle runs. SR has a lot of "mini-games", parts of the game where some characters excel and others can barely do anything. Astral quests, extended hacking (although this was more of a problem in previous editions), social situations ("We send in the face while everyone else stays in the van.") and even sometimes combat ("The face get's back in the van and everyone else gets out.")

It's a good idea to make sure that people are building characters that can work together, whose schtick would take a long time (table time, not in game time... I don't care if the tech takes two months to do something, as long as the rolls can be handled in a few minutes) or be exclusive to them or part of the group. When mini-game aspects do come up (astral recon, etc), it's best to have it planned with stuff the other characters are doing so you can cut back and forth between the two groups. That way, you can spend five minutes with one group while the other is making plans. (Five minutes is a good guideline, ten is pushing it as peoples' minds will wander.) Try to pick cliffhanger moments to keep the tension up.

Our GM does a good job of running scenes involving these various 'mini-games' as labeled above by making sure everyone has something to do at this time and by jumping from character to character (particularly at climactic moments!). While the Face is checking with one of his contacts, perhaps he has the streetsam as backup, the mage is doing astral recon, and the hacker is probing the defenses of the target's systems.

Since you're new to GM'ing remove as many variables as possible. let the players start out knowing each other and understanding each other. There will be enough balls in the air without adding a meet and greet for the characters.

Thanks everyone, this has been a great help. The current SR game that I'm in just started and the GM started running it right off the bat, half the group had made characters before the session and the other half was still coming UP with their characters. So nothing was discussed, no one had ANY reason to trust anyone, and the run we were put on feels like a random run without any thinking about what kind of characters we made.

I'm gonna try my hand at it if this game goes south, so this was great advice to go with.

The beauty of Shadowrun is there's no penalty for the party not knowing each other. The reduction of variables comes from their sharing a fixer. The fixer hand-picked them and they all feel a loyalty to this fellow binding them together. They're getting paid to work together. It is oftentimes their knowing each other prior is actually MORE complex, because the players don't know what they know. They don't know their shared experiences or how they feel about each other. If none of them knew each other before, they all know exactly how much they know and how they feel about each other.

Paranoia isn't the hugest of problems because they trust their fixer and, frankly, they need to trust in order to work.

I always recommend meeting with the players and finding out what they want. Then figure out what people want to play and what the group needs. Some players are willing to play any role if there is a gap other wants 1 type of character in particular.

I would recommend using the bonus build points for characters answering the question in the runner's companion. The more plot hooks the more build points they get during initial creation. My recommendation is 1 point for a good honest attempt, fleshing out of the question and thought put into it. An outstanding effort gets 2 points. It will help the players feel an attachment to their character, and it will help you for adventures.

When you get to the point of creating your own runs for your group to play, check out the threads that I have in my signature. The first half of each one is an extended commentary on how I come up with ideas for my runs and how I develop them into a fully fleshed-out adventure.

I misread your first question, sorry. Yes, players meeting beforehand would be good. People generally role-play easier if they feel friendly already with the other people.

If it's a small group, don't stress too much about meeting all roles, but don't plan too much of your plot 'til you have them in. A group with no mages will be able to take on different runs from a group of all technomancers, for instance. You can fill in gaps with NPCs if necessary. With larger groups, some pre-planning is important to avoid people having redundant roles and feeling outshined. If you can get your players to talk beforehand and balance out the group more evenly, that definitely makes your life easier, though.

Also a great discussion on adventure design HERE.

And if you're still interested, the Food Fight scenario is available HERE for free. Maps HERE.

Ha! The food fight scenario! I totally forgot that one!

I think I have a good grasp on what to do here now.

Yes. Spend at least one night/session familiarising them with the world of SR, more so than the rules. They'll get a hang of the rules as they go on. Emphasize this is ROLE-play (like in acting), not ROLL-play (as in dice rolling). Make sure that you tell them they are helping craft the story, NOT just (you) the GM.

If the other players know of an SR game before yours, have everyone sit-in and watch the game to get a feel of the world and action. Diving head-long into a game with almost to no prep will screw up the game for everybody.



I agree with running "Food Fight" as a test scenario, see how they do as a team. Thier mutual Fixer tells them to meet him/her for a possible job, but stop off at the conveiniently placed Stuffer Shack before the meet (if one PC is a caffiene-lover, they need to stop at the Stuffer Shack of a fix of soy-kaf before the meet; or a couple of the PCs skipped breakfast before leaving their squat, so in they go...). Then, when the proverbial drek hits the 'cycler, let's see how they do before the 'Star shows up....

Talk to your players. Have your players talk to each other.