I'm looking for some pointers and some guidance on getting started playing Shadowrun 4th Edition. I have no experience with RPG's aside from a couple D&D gaming sessions a couple years ago. I liked the sound of Shadowrun versus D&D. I've downloaded the 20th Anniversary PDF and started to read through. In the beginning, there will only be two of us (me GM'ing) and potentially growing to MAYBE 3 - 5 depending on how things go.

What information would you recommend I look at / read? Any pointers and tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

There was recently a few threads aimed at new players that may be helpful.
Gameplay examples is one.
The search function is not the easiest beast to use, but there are lots of threads to be found with useful info.

The first thing to embrace is that SR is a wide open playing field with a lot less concretes than D&D.
This is a blessing.

Here are some tips:

1) Make sure that the PCs know that they do not get exp for killing things/people. "Kill the monster take its treasure" is a hard mentality to overcome.
2) Carrying weapons down the street causes the same reaction in SR that it would in RL. (Unless your in the Barrens, then the gangers get the "Kill the monster take its treasure" mentality.)
3) This is a game of glass cannons. People die very easily and that includes the PCs.

As for what to read, you'd have to tell us what kind of game you want to run.

My advice is to start slow. SR is a complicated gaming system, though SR4 is arguably more accessible than previous editions. It sounds like you will have the benefit of GMing with only one player to begin with. Make sure they take a combat oriented character, and run a few combat sessions with them until you have the basic mechanics down. After you are comfortable with that, and you start getting more players, throw some magic into the mix. Once you have a good handle on both of the above, that would be a good time to jump into the matrix.

Just remember the first rule of gaming, have fun! Don't worry if you make some mistakes, every GM makes them, even old GMs like me. As long as everyone walks away from the table with a smile on their face and hungry for more SR in the future, your game was a success.

Number one should be easy as my gaming partner has no experience with RPG's also. It's going to be two newbies starting off. As far as what time of game, not 100% sure just yet

Welcome to Dumpshock.

I would say that the best thing you could do at this point is get with your buddy, grab a few of the pre-generated characters and start running though some simple scenarios that emphasize the different rules (street sam for combat, hacker for matrix, etc). The scenarios don't need to make sense or be consistent with the setting. Think "The White Room" from the Matrix movies. Just grab a map, throw out some opposition from the "Friends and Foes" chapter and see how things work. You might consider grabbing the Quick Start Rules, which can be helpful. (Here is a map for the Food Fight Scenario included in those rules).

This will help you learn the rules much better than reading the book, because there is a lot of stuff in the rules that is not self-evident. The added benefit is that when your group expands your buddy will also know the rules and can help you teach the newcomers. The greatest asset you can have as a GM is players that know the rules.

Good Luck,
Method

Those just list the mechanics of the system.

Everyone needs to take a look at the campaign setting itself and get familiar with it. The setting imo is one of the best around and it definitely helps knowing everything you can about it. Past that everyone needs to be on the same page in regards to what level of detail they want to play (pink mohawk vs cold professionals).

Also need to realize that if you use all the rules as written, your players will be completely screwed. You as a DM pretty much have to balance what level of detail you want vs. heroism/adventure. One example is based on fake IDs, they will fail 2-5% of the time (rating 4) when they are tested actively. It doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that the ID will be checked for EVERYTHING that they do from buying groceries, taking a leak in a public restroom, or just walking down the wrong street.

You will want to avoid sniper battles in SR as they are pretty much what you see in the movies where it's one shot one kill.

The only benefit the players get is that they are typically the ones initializing the situation therefore they will hopefully have a good plan and have an advantage over their opponents.

Game Master = GM

I agree that familiarity with the expansive SR world is important, eventually. But I would argue that its not the most important thing for brand new role-players who just need to tinker around and learn the rules. Having a basic knowledge of the world (i.e.- what you get in the BBB) is okay to start.

One of Shadowrun's strengths is that it supports a wide variety of possible playstyles. For new players and game masters, though, that can be intimidating. There are two questions that I consider to be important ones, that you need to settle after you have mastered the basic rules and setting:

1) What power level do you want the game to be?
The players are people who work under the counter for people who need deniable assets. They can be anything from cheap thugs, to subtle con artists, to mercenaries, to people who break into secure corporate facilities to swipe an experimental prototype. It is a good idea to decide specifically what kind of game you want to play. Because the benefit, and the drawback, of an open build system is that you can create characters with widely different levels of skill and experience. So, you want to be on the same page.

Not that you can't have characters from widely divergent backgrounds. But, as an example - if someone brings a lightly augmented street punk into a game with heavily augmented characters, he will be far below the power curve when it comes to combat. However, if he knows the game will be that power level, then maybe his ganger won't be a hulking beast, but be a sneaky guy with lots of connections, instead. Conversely, if the theme of the game is that everyone is starting out as a ganger, then the players will know to not get move-by-wire and Ares Alpha assault rifles.


2) What level of realism do you want the game to be?
Shadowrunning involves more than simply busting down doors. A job typically involves negotiating payment, doing legwork and planning, doing the actual job, then getting paid, fencing loot, and sometime hiding while the heat dies down. So you need to decide how much effort shadowrunners require to hide their identities, and how much of this needs to be detailed rather than handwaved. Some people enjoy playing out elaborate precautions, and intricate plans to do the job. Others prefer a veneer of grit and professionalism on a game of cinematic combat and chewing on the scenery.

Related to this, you need to decide how personally the corporations will take it when the runners hit them. Shadowrunners are part of the covert struggle between the corporations. You need to decide whether they will send a hit squad after the runners, or simply hire them for a job themselves. You need to decide what unwritten rules govern the use of shadowrunners. Maybe they don't take it personally when runners hit them, but need to send out a hit squad if the runners have left dozens of dead bodies behind.

I am pretty new to SR4/4A myself, planning on getting things started by GMing as well. I have played all of 2 gaming sessions with another GM and it didn't end well, I left that table because it ended up feeling personal and highlighting a growing sense of never contributing anything fun to the game for myself and others aka I felt like a constant FNG and it wasn't fun. I still think Shadowrun is awesome though and could be fun.

So how do I think it could be fun despite my rocky start? I think the first thing needed to be realized there are no munchkin characters (apparently mind control can get crazy though) in SR4A because of three very important factors:
1) Low hit points means relatively high damage, even with lots of damage resistance, so your NPCs can die easily and so can your PCs, they will act accordingly to try to keep themselves alive in such an enviroment. In D&D terms, this would be like the HPs never leave the level 1 to level 2 range.
2) Characters with very differing number of actions thanks to multiple Imitative Passes (IPs) in a physical/astral(magic)/matrix(digital) Combat Turn makes for seemingly very imbalanced fights but that is kinda the point, combat is friggin ruthless and can be over really fast aka The Quick & The Dead. So, often whoever goes first is the one left standing, especially with the negatives that can get stacked on the defending lower initiative and lower IPs.
3) Defaulting in a skill is -1 and some stuff can't even be defaulted in. I highlighted the physical/astral(magic)/matrix(digital) for this particularly, because this is very important to note: just because someone is a total badass at shooting other people in the face, doesn't mean they will always have the "hero" spot light on them, stealing the show away from all the other characters, if you play your cards right as a GM, that spot light should pass fairly often between your PCs and even occasionally the NPCs. And even if someone is a total bad ass in combat, it doesn't mean there aren't odds they can't over come without help from other specialties - always defaulting to combat can and will get them killed if the setting reacts like that character is always trying to kill them because they will attack them where they are weak, by astral, by matrix, by social, by tech, by magical creature, and a whole other host of crazy stuff from your imagination that will make them wish they had other kinds of specialists on their team and in their Contacts.

I would like to say I treat SR kinda like a blend of the PC games Grand Theft Auto/Saints Row series + Fallout series + Elder Scroll (Morrowind/Oblivion) series aka aka the movies Heat/Ronin/Ocean's Eleven + Blade Runner + Willow aka Criminals + Dystopian Futuristic + Magic. From that viewpoint, I think that pretty much anything goes in Shadowrun, so I would not run this like a dungeon crawler, though it is perfectly fine to design set pieces to your hearts desire, just don't throw a hissy fit when it gets turned on its head by PC decisions like my GM did when I asked if we could get the materials to swim infiltrate his freighter / dock target. Sometimes most of the fun in the game seems to be the journey to and from the target. And if your NPCs don't get into a shoot out with your PCs at the target, that might mean they just pulled off a Ocean's Eleven kinda job and that is a good thing! And also oddly enough, they don't have to kill anyone either if their character doesn't want to, in fact depending on how you see the SR world, it may even greatly benefit them to avoid killing or the heat and noteriety it brings may just end up with their character corpsified by another Shadowrunner who got a wetwork job to end their killing spree from any number of vengeful sources.

Oh, and try to make sure your players get at least a few skill points in Perception. Always seems like new players, especially myself, over look that. Perhaps my character would have spotted that sniper who put the final exclamation mark on that oh so unenjoyable session with that GM had I just put a few more points in Perception and the five, maybe six (astral/magic emotional), senses with the adept gun bunny's power points. Plus, if you as a GM write down your PC's perception skills in the six (or is it seven with matrix, forgot about that one) and maybe even their knowledge skill sets, you could always roll that behind the screen a bunch and just let them know the cool info you want them to notice as the specialists they are.

Finally, when it comes to how I think about GMing from my newbie perspective with a sandbox improvisational bent, I think of this: physical and matrix Who, What, When, Where, and Why ... then add physically present Sight, Smell, Touch, Taste, and Hearing ... then add emotions for the astral like Happy, Sad, Content, and Angry. I just quickly run my imagination over that list for the setting and I feel like I could improvise just about anything and fake consistent rolls for a fun time behind a screen, probably my SR4A book propped up. Beyond that, I just write down notes on a variety of shadowrun type jobs as they come to me, inspired by things like Firefly/Serenity or various other entertainment like Matt Reilly novels and Team Fortress 2...

Hope some of my disastrous newbie experience, take on SR (from reading a few paperback SR novels, reading the SR4A and influenced by posters on this forum), and hope to GM one day helps.

The skills you won't realize you need:
Perception
Dodge
Etiquette

The feel of a proper shadowrun:
Ocean's Eleven
Burn Notice
the pilot for Leverage
Babylon AD
(What you should take away: Sometimes you have to fight. Usually that means you did something wrong. Be prepared to deal with doing something wrong.)

It's almost always a better plan to have convinced the security guard that he should hold the door open as you carry the target of your job out the door that any plan that involves violence. If there is no violence it's really unlikely that your character will end the scenario lying on the floor bleeding out.

What do you need help with ?

Generel GM'ing advice for SR or suggestions for premade scenarios / campaigns ?

When you have a group do you plan to write your own scenarioes from scratch or use premade ? Both have both pros and cons.

As for premade i have run a few of the Denver shadowrun missions (they are free to use) with my group. Although i think they are very good, they have some drawbacks for someone starting out i think. If you are going to use them make sure you prepare well and understand what is going on (this means reading through several times, taking notes, calculating NPC attacks beforehand and so on (same goes for NPCs in the book actually, unless they improved that)). I am not very familiar with other sources, but i think i heard in here about "food fight" or "ghost cartels", maybe someone else can recommend one for someone starting out.

If rolling your own, start out simple and focusing on a very simple plot and focus on one or two main obstacles that has to be overcome by the players (like the security of building or a hit squad the players will face in some way after aquiring the target, etc.). I read a thread in here i think that was called 101 scenario ideas, maybe get some inspiration there if you need it.

As for the rules, it is important is to cover the basics of the different rules and not worry too much about the little details. If something is getting in the way at the table dont be afraid to make a ruling while stating to look it up afterwards.

Until you get a whole group assembled, do what Method and Kerrang said

Good luck and have fun.