Greetings!

So, Bull threatened to .... uhm. Nevermind. I've decided, out of the goodness of my heart I assure you, to take on the role -- at least some of the time -- of Mr. Johnson for an advice column in Bull's Dumpshock Data Haven tentatively titled Dear Mr. Johnson.

The goal is to try and tackle some common GM and player questions in the column. So, since I want to put as little effort into this as possible (I keed, I keed), what sort of questions do you want to see. Edit: we're looking for system style questions for the moment. Meta-plot related stuff may be included later.

So, fire away. Post them here and we'll cherry pick the ones we like or think we can handle. If your question gets picked, you'll be the envy of your friends and and Eidolon promises to pay you twice what Bull's paying me.

How do I work the matrix in, outside of combat, without slowing down the game and causing everyone to leave the table?

two of my most hated game mechanics are grenade scatter and shotgun rules. what are some common houserules that supercede or at least streamline these beasts?

As a friendly note, please do not commentate on or reply to any questions in this thread. Start a new thread if you would like to discuss something. THis trhead is only for posing questions to Dash for his Dear Mr. Johnson column. Any other posts will be deleted from the thread.

--Bull

How doest one get a player to get into character or roleplay when at the table?

Oooh, I cannot wait for this one myself...

How does damage from ramming work? when you hit a car, person, tree. and what about saftey gear? seatbelts,airbags, saftey foam?

How can I incorporate Powered Armor into the game without throwing the balance out of whack?

How does shooting people with capsule rounds filled with drugs work, exactly? And darts, too, just for completeness.

Also, an actual step-by-step example as part of the answer to any system/rules related question would be great!

Chases. I'd like to see how a runnin' and gunnin' scene might go.
Mark

Dear Mr. Johnson,

- What are common mistakes for a new Shadowrun Game Master and how can they be avoided?

- What are the best ways a GM can make the SR game fun?

The rest of this are not questions per se, I am wondering if I am on the right track, but as an aspiring new SR GM when I have barely even been a player, I am trying to develop a mindset for the position to give myself the best chance of making game sessions something that other new players to SR will want to continue. I'm finding it really difficult to find players so those I do find I want to keep and give experiences that would encourage them to recommend my game to others. I hope that it will help if I think of myself as just the setting and not the players opponent. I am also thinking of the setting like it is sorta like the PC Game series Grand Theft Auto or Fallout, thinking about options and consequences for the Player Characters. I want my future players to feel like their PCs can turn down a job if they want. Trying to sorta memorize the SR4A book at the moment too. I'll appreciate any advice I can get on this, thank you in advance.

Dear Mr. Johnson,

The other day, I was visiting my little brother at college. Being bored, I had hacked myself an admin account to one of the campus's drones. When I went to delete other admin accounts, I found that I couldn't. This surprised me, because the rule of thumb that I was taught when I was learning hacking was "No action or command is denied to an admin account." How did the owner of the drone lock me out from purging his admin account, and what other limits can be placed on what users can do?

Dear Mr. J,

What kind of items do you suggest for a "get out of town" bag, and where would you put it? What kind of digital assets should we also have cached and ready to go? (SINs, licenses, fresh comcodes, etc.)

How does legwork go down EXACTLY? I mean, you could have each PC roll the Loyalty/Connection of one of their contacts each and resolve what happens with them in order, or you could have the entire team pick ONE contact to get information from, then keep going if they dont have the info required, or the GM could roll Loyalty/Connection secretly and draw some RP value out of the meet, or.....

Can you explane how called shots work in meelee in 4e? My group has had a little confusion towards this end.
For example can I in a knifefight try stabbing between the gaps in my foes armour or as another example have my microphilimint whip aimed right at my foes neck in a attempt to decapitate him?

Excellent stuff. We're looking to cover two or three questions this time around so we'll grab some from the list above and get them into the magazine. Keep posting questions, though, and we'll save them for the future. As questions are answered in the magazine, I'll edit the first post of the thread to indicate what's been answered and link to the appropriate article so that we can have an on-going, online (unofficial) FAQ-like repository.

Dear Mr. Johnson,
What have the NEO-A's been up to in Berlin? Is it still a good place to crash and lay low after a bad run? Chicago has a bug problem, Lagos just has problems, and well Milan just does not feel right, too many Mafioso's running around (I've disrespected more than a few capo's, they have no sense of humor).

-Der Nacht

Dear Mr. J,

How's Mrs. J faring these days?

I'm not sure if we'll be able to answer questions like this or, if we do, it's unlikely that we can call them canon. Our current plans include providing alternate running locations within the DDH, so maybe Berlin will be one of these, so this sort of thing might be best left for those installments. Regardless, I'll chat with Bull and see if this is the sort of thing he'd like me to try and tackle.

Dear Mr. Johnson,
I´m in trouble with the G.O.D. and need flexible help with a little problem. Unfortunately I have little experience with the shadow biz. What kind of team composition and level of expertise (group makeup and dp levels) would you require for a simple extraction run (a starting group)?

Thanks in advance,
Sleepless-in-Seattle

This has been a popular question on the forums with no definite answers, be a good one to clarify.