Hi Guys/Gals at Dumpshock
I'm a big time fan of all your works, a devourer of the SR Core books and I need your help.
I just need some input on how to introduce Shadowrun to my players. I need to pitch it to them in a way that will grab their interest and give them a brief overview of the 6th World.

So the pitch. I suppose it comes down to find out what your players are interested in and change your missions/quests to include that. Two of the players are girls and (I think) like more of the social interaction, role-playing and witty comebacks, investigative and making a change to the (6th) world through their actions. The other two players are boys and, while I'm sure they don't mind the aforementioned aspects, for them its more about awesome abilities and skills, graphic description of PC caused mayhem and destruction, pulling off awesome stunts and pimping their character out to have the biggest, baddest guns/swords/etc. This shouldn't be too hard to put together, should it? Is there anything I should be aware of?

I also need a brief introduction (not a full history - there will be time for that later if I get them interested) of Shadowrun to give them. Can you recommend any?
One of the boys has read to FREAKIN FANTASTIC Wolf and Raven which I gave him. One of the girls has put up with me reading smart and funny snippets of this website to her (God bless gamer GFs ). That is the extent of the players’ knowledge of Shadowrun.

So I was thinking of putting together a brief 1 page-ish intro for them. What are some key points? (In rough groupings)

Advance of technology. SINs and Big Brother tracking. Wireless capabilities, Matrix and Augmented Reality. Cybernetics and Bioware. (Not sure if I'm going to add nanotech or geneware to my game yet)

Wars. Plagues (VITAS) and Disasters. (Not that important? Leave out?)

The resurgence of magic. SURGE and metahumanity. Dragons and other meta-critters. Magic = Power

(Leads to)

Break up of governments (NAN). The Rise of the megacorps and extraterritoriality. Gap between the Haves (Corp CEOs), Wage-slaves and the Have-Nots (SINless).

(Leads to)

The Shadows - in the cracks between have and have-nots. Shadowrunners - what they are, what they do, why they do?


So that’s the general gist of it. Did I miss any major points?

Any advice or hints would be greatly appreciated!

The things you emphasize define your personal 6th world. If you want to play up politics, you can talk their head off on all the intricacies of that. If you want to play up the cyber/tech/transhuman thing, you can make that a big deal.

There is no right way to run your world.

As to what might interest your group, you could run a con team, ala Leverage. The girls run con/face and infil duties. The guys provide muscle and rigging/hacking backup.

If one of the guys doesn't want to be a rigger, just break open the Arsenal book (p123) and show him the section on Main Guns. Slapping a GE Vanquisher Autocannon on the back on a Steel Lynx is getting pretty close to the best thing ever.

I would recommend a cinematic campaign, with abundant obvious cyberware, pink mohawks, sleazy mobsters... focus on the style of SR. "Realistic" SR can be much fun, too, but is harder on the rules knowledge.

Talk about the setting before gameday. You can suggest to read the history chapter of the main book, and then give out all currently needed details while already playing. Large introductory sessions tend to be lame as far as I remember. Start with live action, and keep it light on the rules.

I'd second the part about keeping the rules light.

Some questions to ask your players to ask themselves about their PCs:

1. Why is their character a shadowrunner?

2. What morals, if any does your chracter have?

3. How old is the character, and how has their past affected them?

4. Where did the PC learn the skills they have?

5. RE:Contacts-who are they?, how did their PC meet them?, and what is theri relationship like?

In any event, keep the books handy for reference if you need them. Help them answer the questions by offering options.

Thanks for the great info Warlordtheft, Ryu and Saint Sithney.

I think I will have to alter my version of the SR World a little bit, and I definitely think I'll steer the girls towards face-like characters.

I'll try to keep the rules light as I haven't run a SR4 game before. I like that Shadowrun is in depth, but there are a lot of rules to remember so running rules light will help me too .
Are there rules to run it cinematic-ally or is it just a style / way of running the game ?

Because the BP or Karma char gen methods (I'm not sure which one I'll use yet) are pretty involved I was going to suggest using the Archetypes chars for the players and only building a char if they really wanted to. How ever I was going to make everyone create at least a little bit of back story / fluff for their character so that they connect / get involved with their character.

Thanks for the pointers !

Just remember, when putting together a team its kinda like "the Village People". Everyone has a role to play and if you end up with two sailors and no cop you spell " YYMC "and nobody knows what your talking about.

I'd avoid handing out the pregens in the book unless it's going to be a one-shot to let them get a handle on the rules before making their own characters from a more informed position... Most of them are kind of poorly done. I still can't figure out why none of the magic characters have the Assensing skill.

Oh, and I'd be careful about trying to "steer the girls towards face-like characters"... It can come off as sexist and condescending even if you don't mean it to be. The last thing you need to do is accidentally reinforce the idea that RPGs are a boys-club.

I mean, you obviously know them more than I do, and if you genuinely believe that they will enjoy this type of character more, go for it. Pitch their interests, and they will be much more likely to play... but I've never known a woman, when given free reign, to build a face. YMMV, of course.

For what its worth, I've found the pregens good for people who haven't played SR and wanna try it. I then give the option of keeping it or creating something new

Wolfshade: Good point. This is equally viable to the one-shot run option... especially if you let the player hang on to the karma earned in that first run if they want to build another character. It's not much, probably, but it would help them to feel less pressured to keep playing the pregen if that's an issue with the player.

This is a good list of pregens that would be great for starting players to choose their characters from.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=811538

1. Pre-Gens for the first set of missions will speed things up.
2. SR has a huge back story. Break it into categories crime,tech,magic etc.. Either focus on one group each session or do a one page write up for each and give it to them at the begining of each session. Let them slowly digest.
3. Buy the Almanac when its released.
4 Do your homework between games, going back and rereading will help you learn the rules and rediscover juicy tidbits.
5. One of the great things about SR is the flexibility to tell almost any kind of story. HAVE FUN.

That's because it is sexist and condescending.

Not if the girls in question are people he knows well and they really would prefer/excel at playing this type of character.

I believe he already mentioned that the girls were more interested in the roleplay/social aspects...so face makes sense...

Edit: NM. Let's just drop it.

Thanks guys for all the great feedback from my OP. I'm trying to take all these good suggestions on board.

So yes I will as a suggestion only recommend that these particular girls have some of the more face-like qualities (and therefore the more role playing interaction type of character) because I think that they might enjoy that aspect more.
I was thinking about (I'll add it to my list of things to introduce them to about SR) briefly outlining the various roles that a 'runner team should have covered (and refer the to the RC if they want more info on that).
I will be pushing all of the characters into covering at least two of the roles, covered in RC, and being reasonably good at them. This I feel adds variety to the game (so that there are a couple of different areas where the PCs can shine), more co-operation and team work and helps prevent min-maxing. From playing other RPGs I find that I don't like when PCs are over specialized.

So when I lay out the roles needed in a 'runner team, I will make suggestions but still be happy if they decide to create something completely different provided they complement the team.
The girls will probably surprise me . (In previous RPGS one played a demolitions expert with autism and the other was famous for distracting guards with her female character's .. .. assets and then crushing them with her thighs a la Xenia Onatopp).

Pre-gens will be offered but not mandatory. And I was thinking of offering a Karma reward for those who constructed a brief back story or answered the 20 questions in RC. Thanks ShadowPavement for that list of pre-gens.

What is this Almanac that Prive Mover mentioned ?

Something that might be fun and get them all involved in the game right away is to have them play Pregen characters that are already a runner group, and already on a run that has gone awry, as a one-shot. Whatever the reason for the run having an issue, this gives you and your group a chance to use the combat or social rules right away, puts them right into action skipping some of the legwork. Legwork is alot of fun, but from the group you described, you may have better success just starting right in the action.

If the players love the action from the start, and want to keep the pregens, you can continue the story with the next part having them figure out what went wrong and who gave bad info or set them up. Or, if they want to create their own characters you could just call it a real one shot and start over.

Infiltrator.



MageFace.