I'm currently gaming with a group of friends who've pretty much only played D&D. We are currently taking a hiatus from that, waiting for one of our members to come back from out west. We've talked about what to do next and have bandied about different games. I of course mentioned Shadowrun and it's been kinda dissed. I tried the standard D&D with guns, hot lesbian elves, the 6th world, mega corps. All no go. Now those are the standard easy sell arguments. What else can I add to show the pure awesome that is Shadowrun. One guy doesn't want to play a bad guy, another doesn't want to roll six siders (very into d20), and the others are all kinda meh.

Help me help them learn there is more to life than d20 and freakin' D&D.

Ask them if they know what cyber punk is--Johnny Mnemonic, Blade Runner, etc--and then go "it's that, plus Tolkien."

And remember, shadowrunners aren't bad guys, necessarily. Sure, they shoot people in the face for money, but they don't have to be bad guys (look at Johnny Mnemonic).

First time I heard it was all d6s, I was like "Waaaht? So if I get a measly +5 to a roll, it automatically succeeeeds?" Make sure they understand that the dice aren't the outcome (like D&D), the dice are the modifiers.

That said, if what they want is a very tightly balanced small-scale skirmish simulator (basically the PnP version of Diablo II), they might legit be happier with D&D, so maybe they just can't be convinced.

Finally, make them read some fluff. The one at the beginning for SR4 (not 4A) gave me a giant gaming-boner, the one where the face, the troll, the hacker and the magician get set up on a run, the troll and the hacker die, and the face and the magician track down the guys who set them up (their fixer sold them out to a Humanis politico) and force them to drink troll-soda which might or might not have been poisoned with the "additive" the runners were supposed to put in the factory's vat.

I forget the names of the characters, but the very end is the Humanis bastard trying to get up and leave when the face pulls his Predator and says "You're not going anywhere until you take a drink. I figure my friends aren't coming back any time soon, so this round's on them."

Tell them about the freedom to create and build a character exactly the way they want, with far fewer controls to stream a character into predefined molds.

Tell them about the excitement of playing in the world in which they live... only twisted. Have them look at the trends they see around them right now, and extrapolate. Where do you live? Set the game right there. How much fun it is to be rocketing down your own road, blasting away a ghoul that lives in your own (now abandoned) apartment block. Have them play their own grandchildren!

I doubt you're ever going to convince them, and you'll definitely not convince them by a) trying to sell them on the system, b) trying to make them watch Johnny Mnemonic (fer chrissakes), or c) telling them that it's a sci-fi with elves! Let them read the history from SR3, and if the setting doesn't appeal to them, abandon the idea of convincing them, because they're just not into SR.

I too have had issues with converting some of the stalwarts of that game that causes cancer to SR.

My current group made noise about it, but once they started playing turned into a rotten group of rogues. I am trying to teach them subtlety, but the troll really likes 'kicking in the door' so I roll with it.
I think the main misgivings were that it was a new system which required them learn new rules, it is a deep, rich world that they know nothing about (so it is hard to immerse in), etc.
I ran a ganger level game for them with the world scaled down for a few sessions to ease into the rules and the world. After a few sessions they wanted the whole shebang.

With a previous group, I had a similar challenge in the form of a shining virtuous christian player who was paladin or bust. I toyed with some ideas, and then pitched to the group various themed scenarios.
DocWagon HRT, Military Ops, Corp Ops, Bug hunting, LoneStar, etc
The group decided they wanted to be DocWagon and it gave them the hack'n'slash combat high as well as the moral bonus of saving people. The less scrupulous characters had opportunities for their own drama as things progressed into a full story.

Movies and the allure of Scifi might work on them too.

I don't mean that he should tell them to watch that movie (or any other) in an attempt to sell the game. It's an example. Johnny in Johnny Mnemonic is not a bad guy, but gets shot at a lot--by the authorities too--because of the data he has in his head, which ends up being the "cure for cancer."

D&D is a poor choice if that's what they want. D&D sucks as a small-scale skirmish simulator.

To me, there have always been two main sales points for SR :

-it's completely over the top. Okay, RIFTS may be more so, but SR has always been nutty enough for my tastes.

I mean, cybered orks shooting lasers at mutant vampire human-cockroach hybrids, what's not to like about that?
Gonzo fantasy mixed with punk aesthetics where what got me into SR in the first place.
Ork rights movements, dragons running corporations, sasquatch rock stars- just plain awesome.
Take every fantasy cliché, throw it into a postmodern society and see how it breaks.
And then breaks said postmodern society.


-it offers more complexity than medieval fantasy.

You do not only play in a modern society, with mass communication, complex social networks, intercontinental travel and a more open and interactive social, political and economic superstructure, which in itself takes a campaign to a level impossible in any pseudo-medieval setting if you do it right.

No, you get to utilize magic and technology simultaneously, making any encounter a threefold battlefield where you have to take into account the physical and astral world as well as the matrix simultaneously.
Plus, you get to utilize all these nifty tech gadgets, spirits, contacts- there's so much more to do than in D&D, so many more opportunities.

Really? You familiar with 4e?

I'm quite familiar with 4e, and I completely agree with that assessment. 4e is a mediocre Superhero skirmish game system, thinly masked as a shitty fantasy roleplaying game.

If 4th made combat better, they sacrificed more in classes and alignments than I cared for to bother looking at it.

And you wonder why Pathfinder is doing so well.....back on topic, the meh's might become yeah's if you approach them with some of the suggestions above. I would also suggest that you do food fight, or one of the other missions as a one shot (hopefully leading to more) using the archetypes in the main rule book.

i cant understand why your friends need any further convincing. as soon as i saw the cover art which had an elf plugged to a computer i was hooked.

Thats what got me to open the book. The classless system ( the 1st I had encounterd) had me. I can't stand even in 3.5 the classes and their limetations. I want my charicter to be what I want them to be not someone elses preconcived notion of what they should be.

All good suggestions. If I can convince them they may go for a 1shot deal. Don't know if I'll run food fight or something home grown.

With my group, when 4e D&D came out I took a look at the rules, and said "This is not for me, we are switching to Shadowrun." I transitioned with a quick game of Paranoia to get them thinking in a different direction (plus, I had already run a couple of Paranoia games with them). They were wary of SR, but I just let it be known that if they wanted to game at my table, they would play SR. They were wary at first, and a couple of them tried to resurrect their old D&D group from before I moved into town, but that did not work out.

It is good to be the GM.

Now, the interesting thing is, I recently started up an indie answer to D&D, Hacktastic D/20, on Friday nights (the SR group meets on Sunday afternoons). Despite the fact that this group still does not play D&D, most of them are not interested in the pure medieval fantasy setting anymore, they are hooked completely on SR. I only have 4 players for Hacktastic, but have 8-10 SR players any given week.

Make them read some fluff. If they are not hooked, the forget it. Tell them about Dunkelzahn, how he became president and the afterwards, make them read its Will. Tell them about Deus and the Renraku Archology incident. Tell them about the globinization.
If they don't get excited, you should:

a) give up.
b) find better friends.
c) brainwash your friends.
d) develop schizofrenia and multiple personality disorder and star playing with those.

That's a really tough situation there boss! Hope it works out properly.

If you think it might appeal to one or two of the 'meh' players, lend them the core book for a bit. Slightly long term strategy, but if they buy into it, then it's a hell of a lot easier for 2-3 of you to sell the game to the rest of the players.

Just do a one off - that's our groups standard way of vetting systems. Put something fun together that can showcase the system - keep it flowy!

Sell it as a 'taste test', 'something to do while we wait for the campaign to start', if you hate it we'll do something else.

Apologies if this is teaching hens to suck eggs, but my advice for this would be to:
a) Pregen some simple characters with not too many complications.
b) Keep PC IPs even. Throw in a badguy or two with an extra one.
c) Do some reference sheets for the players.
d) Don't try and introduce decking, rigging and magic at the same time or it'll grind to a stop.

My preference on c) would be to have incidental/(light!) hostile magic, throw in some of those funky riggable iball/spy drones and do a very light hacking intro - cameras, a sentry gun or doors or similar. But that's my prejudices!

4e sidetrack:

But the archetypes are so bad... *whine whine whine*

I agree that you should direct them to the "And so it came to pass" section of Shadowrun. If that doesn't sell them it's time to take the old game group out back and fix what ails them with a ball peen hammer.

To the guy who doesn't want to be a bad guy, tell him you can be like Robin Hood. Or Leverage. Or Burn Notice.

To the guy who just wants to roll d20s, I got nothing.

To the meh, see if you can agree to a mini-game while you wait for your friend to return. That'll give them time to try it, and you can always go back to D&D if they don't like it.

But don't try to force it down their throats, or even make them watch movies or read books or whatever. Appeal to modern fantasy if they like that sort of thing (Dresden Files, Buffy, etc.), or caper/crime movies that you know they like.

Good luck!

In D&D, the mage is a skinny little geek in girlie robes who tries to stab people with his widdle knife when he runs out of his puny daily allotment of spells.

In Shadowrun, the mage can shoot lightning bolts and summon fire elementals at first level. The mage can also wear modern body armor, and use weapons ranging from axes and swords to grenades and machine guns. He doesn't have to look like a Tolkien reject, either. He can be a cigar-chewing, burly ork with a purple mohawk and tribal tattoos on his face, wearing a mix of camo and grungy punk attire.

Shadowrun is fun. It takes fantasy, science fiction, and gritty noir, and puts them in a blender, in a high-octane, action movie universe. You can be a con man on the run from the mob, a hacker, a smuggler, a detective, or a million other things. To me, it seems broader in scope than D&D.

Just to elaborate on this, he's not joking. There's a martial arts style characters can learn called Firefight. It was created based on the crazy gun fights seen in action movies. I.E. Gun Fu.

Just to elaborate on this, he's not joking. There's a martial arts style characters can learn called Firefight. It was created based on the crazy gun fights seen in action movies. I.E. Gun Fu.

If they're not interested, they're not interested. If you want to try and interest them, have 'em pick an archetype character, and play a single session and run it with, for lack of a better term, kid gloves (don't expect them to know the setting real well, don't be a jerk about super-pro criminal tricks, etc, just keep it simple and action-packed). See how they like the basics of the rules and the slice-of-life bits of setting you share with them.

If they get hooked, great! Walk 'em through character creation, explain more of the setting, and give them fair warning that you're gonna kick it up a notch when the campaign starts (and expect a bit more professionalism, maybe, or make the jobs a little more complex, or whatever).

If they don't like it...well...they don't like it. Begging and pleading and shoving more of it down their gullet ain't gonna help, it'll just irritate 'em.


Just for curiosity's sake, but who are you talking to with this? I think most of us already know that.

Run a quick mini game with basic archetypes. Either they will like or they won't. I hated 1st edition but 4th I liked a lot. Just make sure the mission is catered to their desires and play style. The system is flexible enough to run from nonmagical to full blown future fantasy.

On offhand thought about the "doesn't want to play a bad guy" person, Explain it like this:

You're not playing a bad guy, you're playing a good guy in a bad world. Liken it to fantasy campaigns where the heroes wind up in an land ruled by an evil tyrant. Only in this case there's lots of evil tyrants, and they're called Megacorps.

Another thought if you do an "intro" game: Start out in a fantasy-styled environment like Tir or the Salish wilderness, and then gradually add in the urban and technological elements. Maybe they have to deliver a package into the city, or the "big bad" they must journey to defeat happens to be a megacorp developer looking to pave their luddite commune--the mean city streets as Mordor.

Consider yourself quoted. I can't wait to show this to my friends who're stuck on 4th Ed.

I can think of several sells, they can be applied in whatever combination you see fit. You know your friends.

1: Ask them why they don't like it. Don't argue with them; encourage them to tell you why they don't like it. After that you will probably be better prepared with arguments to counter them. I know you gave some of their arguments, and they are weak. Dig and found out the real reasons.

2: Nerd Challenge: Imply they can't hack it. Tell them SR is more complex than DnD and you understand if they are unwilling to try that hard. YMMV, of course.

3: Appeal to the "meh" people. You know their gaming hot buttons, right? Do they really like magic, or skill-monkeys, or creative problem solving? Think about the people in the middle, target their hot buttons with tailored appeals, and then at least you have a group on your side. It is much easier to persuade somebody who is on the fence.

4: Ask them straight up to just try. If they are your friends, they should be willing to try it at least once. It's your job then to make the game fun, really fun.

5: Tell the d20 guy you are worried about his RP cred if he won't try a system because of a friggin' die. Is he/she really that much of a kid? "But I don't like green food!"

6: Puppy dog close them. The term comes from pet shop owners who encourage families to take home puppies for the weekend. By the end of the weekend, the family has already mentally bought the dog, now they just need to purchase it. Give the book to one of your players and ask them to read it. If he likes it, just lather and repeat.

7: Run a one-on-one game for them. Nerds are like little kids. They want what other people have even if they don't like it. Get one of the "meh" people aside and run a private mini-game for him. Don't wave it in front of the groups' face, just let it come up naturally. They will want in because he is in.

8: Go Mojave on them. When Windows was getting really bad press for Vista, Microsoft invited a ton of people to try a "new" operating system they were working on, code-named Mojave. After they all raved about it, Microsoft revealed it was just Vista with a new skin. It quieted some of the naysayers, but the product still has issues. In your case, let the SR thing go for a bit. Then tell them you have a system you have been working on you want to try out on them. Do a quick write-up of SR yourself and get them into the game sans any obvious SR material. Use the magic drain system, etc. Let them play a few times and after the mage says how much he likes not having spell slots, tell him he is playing SR. After the big, bad orc starts talking about how much he loves being more than a beat stick, tell him he is playing SR.

Sad to say, but it's pretty standard among nerds to look down on other forms of nerdom and the people that indulge in them. For instance, DnD gets beat up a lot around here. MMO's get kicked around a lot at PnP groups, etc.

I'll confess, I used to be this way myself. A while back my group was playing 2nd Edition DnD. We had played WoD for a while, needed a change, and went back to our old classic. I played with a group of three brothers, and the youngest had been toting around 3rd Edition for a while, but nobody would listen to him, including me. Finally, he got me to just take the book home and read it. Great puppy dog close on his part. I read it and realized that 3rd addressed a lot of my issues with 2nd. When we got back together next week, he and I in concert sold the group. I've never played 2nd again. I learned my lesson not to judge a game before I tried it. Moreover, I've come to understand that just because a game isn't for me doesn't mean it "sucks."

It sounds to me like your group might suffer from this ailment of our kind. Diplomatically point out that they are judging something without trying it. If they only want DnD, then you will be disappointed. SR isn't DnD and DnD isn't SR. However, if they have it in them for a different experience, a new experience, you might have a shot.

Personally, I would gloss over some of the really big plot points. A dragon running for president just about broke my internal BS meter when I read it. Dunkie is such a giant Mary Sue and his will is such a blatant, poorly written and more poorly justified plot contrivance, that it hurts me. I've gotten past that because the game itself is intriguing and fun. Some people really like the over-the-top stuff like that, some don't. Figure out whether your players will like that stuff or not.

DnD commentary

That's how I felt.

An other argument brought forth is that the back story is to conveluded. I think I can nip that one in the bud. Hows this sound.....Indians got magic 1st and split up the country. 10 verry special international companies are treated like contries and all their stuff is treated like an embasy. Oh yeah. You can have magic and guns.


As I was typing this one of my friends said he also doesn't like the blending of the geners. Oh well

I know remarkably little of the ShadowRun history, you just kinda have to give highlights--the major stories--and present them awesomely. "2012 rolled around, dragons were spotted around the world, soon turning up as the major stockholders of large corporations.* Native Americans got pissed and performed the great ghost dance, which wrecked havok in the midwest (Mts. Hood, Ranier, St. Helens, and Adams erupt),forcing the US gave them land, and with Goblinization, the south decided to secede again, this time wins, forming the CAS, which the north allies with bits of Canada making the UCAS." Etc.

*Here you can mention companies like Krupp, Ares, which actually exist.
Note: Saeder-Krupp is owned by Lofwyr, Ares by Damien Knight (nanosecond buyout--good story there).

True from a DS character build perspective- However, for a quick easy start and as one shots there great. Especially for persons new to SR.

Huh? You lost me on this one.

Well, there are purists and there are PURISTS. If he can't accept that two-three different genres can coexist, well, there isn't much you can do.