I've just started running a rather large group of seven people. Turns out, three the them have some experience with shadowrun; they've been a big help. The other four, however, know nothing about the rules and almost nothing about the setting - I used the spreadsheet character generator to put together basic characters that roughly fit their playstyles / enjoyments, show them to the players, explained bits and pieces, made more changes, ran them through Food Fight, and made the hopefully final set of changes.

Three of them are quite happy with their characters, and the three experience players approved / saw no problems. I'm stuck on the Mage, however.

For combat, I ran them through Food Fight, which is fairly solid. Nice, handy module. Helped a great deal to introduce most of the basic mechanics.

For hacking and AR/VR, I had them do a basic extraction from a hospital - the hacker (one of the new players) had to get into the gateway node, eliminate the agent that spotted him, get administrator access, cancel the alert, move to a different node, modify the file to set up a fake transfer, get the targets medical logs, delete the logs tracking his changes/presence, and log out.

To set this up, I used / was inspired by Three Data Monty and the Sample Matrix sites pdf (which I have lost the link to). Again, very handy, made giving the new players a broad interactive lesson on how the matrix works quick, easy, and mostly importantly fun.

I'm now trying to figure out something similar for the newbie Mage in the group. She missed the Food Fight run, and one of the experienced players is also playing a mage - he's a hermetic type, she's a witch (wiccan tradition - possession is broken and complicated), so they shouldn't step on each others toes too much.

I need something that I can use to show her everything she can do - something that's not "read these chapters from these books" or "I say a bunch of stuff at her"; neither of those are fun.

I would like a scenario that would put a newbie mage through the paces - spellcasting, astral perception, astral projection, dual-natured, magical foci, wards, astral barriers, spirit summoning, spirit fighting, and anything else I'm forgetting.

Unlike the matrix (and "in the meat") I haven't seen any examples focused heavily on magic. I know enough about the system to understand roughly what I need to show/teach her, but I don't know quite enough to be able to put it together in a cohesive fashion, at least not quickly.

Given my previous experiences on these boards (thanks a bunch, by the way), I'm assuming there are several good resources that do exactly what I'm looking for, and I just don't know they exist yet.

Send her against a group of ghouls. The ghouls are all dual-natured, which makes projecting and nuking them from astral easy enough. Make the ghouls have 1 or 2 mages, and 1 or 2 bound spirits. Put the setting in the sewers or something. The mages will have set up some magical defenses for the ghouls, because they're so obviously vulnerable to astral threats. Wards, barriers, etc. They will have it all.

...I'm trying to not screw over any of the characters in the process.

Ghouls + Newbies + Fighting = infections.

Ghouls + Newbies + Fighting = infections = ghouls = yummy Type O technomancer >_>

Not if the mage is projecting. Which is literally the only safe way to do it.

which is my point.

It's not a bad encounter/scenario/challenge/whatever. But it is a bad introduction to magic. I'm talking about a player who has never played Shadowrun, or Mage, or anything like that - just D&D and L5R.

I need something basic but comprehensive. Ghouls are not the answer. I'm not sure what is, which is my problem, but blind flesh-eating infectious zombie-monsters are definitely not the place to start.

What spells does she have?

Magical investigation work. Involve some spirits (both friendly and hostile) and some astral projection and perceiving, culminate with a good mage fight (with some gruntlings for the other memberes).

Or, instead of just a mage fight, that is where you can use something dual-natured. Maybe a shapeshifter eco-terrorist type. Something along the lines of an Eagle Shapeshifter/mage with an eco-terrorist cult. Start the run off as a Johnson hiring the runners to figure out what corpt hit their facility. Retaliation may or may not be part of the original job, but no matter what I don't see slightly deranged eco-terrorists ever being happy that some corp flunkies tracked them down.

With a framework like this there are all sorts of possibilities for mixing in different magical uses.

My suggestions would pretty much be along the lines of what everyone else is saying, but I've one thing to add to it:
Encourage Overcasting.
At least once, and not by too much. But it really helps, IMO, to show the mage what they can truly be capable of. Other may have a different school of thought than I do, but my favorite character was a shaman I played who was almost suicidal in his casting. After taking as many means possible to resist drain (Positive qualities, lots of Foci, big willpower scores, other stuff I'm sure...) I would continually overcast and destroy everything in my path.

If you're curious, yes, he did eventually die from his own casting, but in his short life span he ended up leveling most of downtown Seattle.

So like I said, encourage her to overcast once, it can be a real big help in at least keeping her interested and thinking of new and clever ways of using her magic, which is most certainly an important part of playing ANY character

Note: Second generation ghouls aren't contagious, they just crave metahuman flesh.

That being said, I like eliminating the ghouls from the sewers.

Maybe even make it a job from Humanis. Put a ghoul mother/child in there to tug on their heartstrings.

Hey man. Ghouls are people too.

Seriously, they have average metahuman intelligence, are perfectly capable of sight, and most at least used to be metahuman. Chances are they don't want to be ghouls, but they're forced into slums because of what they are. Some were born ghouls, and it's all they know. Sure some are bitter and lash out against society, just like any other oppressed minority. But they are still metahuman at heart.

I could see a family of ghouls that saw horrible things happen in their local slum, and decide to pack up and head to some isolated sewers so that they didn't have to raise their child in that kind of hellhole. Instead they settle for a sewer near a graveyard (Ghouls gotta eat, and those chummers sure as hell don't need their meat anymore) that's a little too close to a Humanis chapter house. Joe Humanis hires a group of runners to evict them, since they "Will not listen to reason, and will have to be forcibly removed." Lonestar is not brought into the equation, as Humanis wants them gone NOW.

The runners get down there to find that a small family of ghouls has taken up residence in a service corridor / series of rooms. The ghouls will refuse to leave if talked to, and will immediately respond with magic and/or guns if shot at or obviously threatened.

I'd say for a group of 7, 4-5 400BP ghouls (2nd generation, non infectious) who will retaliate will be enough. Probably one mage, one mystic adept and two mundanes. Bang bang, shots are fired, ghouls are "Evicted."

Runners will probably loot the bodies. They get to the back rooms to see if there are any left. They see a female ghoul huddling in a corner, sobbing, facing the wall. They need to make a perception (3) check to see the baby she's shielding with her body.

Congrats, you just killed a poor girl's entire family. The baby will never know its father, if it even survives.

Welcome to Shadowrun, chummers.

As an aside, most graveyards have either been uprooted and the corpses burned, or are heavily warded due to that whole shedim thing goin' on.

Alternatively, they eat mostly vat-grown meats or targets of gang warfare when they can get it.

Two words. Abortion Clinic.

Delicious. There's a ghoul warren in the game I'm running that is one of the best places to hide bodies.

As, uh, as long as you don't need them back.

Look, I'm not ragging on ghouls - they are awesome. I never once said they weren't.

But they really are a bad way to try and introduce a new player to the setting and the magic and the mechanics.

To do ghouls properly, you need to run an introduction to ghouls. The stories above are fine for that. But it's too much, it's several orders of magnitude too much, for something that's meant to introduce, and let me emphasize this, a brand new player who has never read anything at all about the game, setting, or system to everything mages deal with.

mage 101. Basic, broad introduction to what mages can do and a wide sampling of what they are likely to face. Not "Ghouls ghouls and more ghouls". Ghouls and dual-natured creatures are part of what mages deal with, but they aren't all or even most of what mages deal with. They are, in fact, very specialized - a good storytelling mechanic when used within reason. Use them too much or too soon, and they aren't nearly as good.

please, drop the ghoul idea, or make it it's own thread, or something. It's not helping.

Look, you want everything a mage has to deal with in one run. Throw 'em up against a wizgang for control of a package transfer from facility to facility, something that the corp doesn't want people knowing exists.

Ghouls may not be exactly 101 material but they're not 410 material, either. Bugs, Horrors, A nemesis mage with Hidden life, etc. are all much greater threats than a couple of ghouls who literally have no protection once you've blown away their mage.

If you want to go really easy on them have them perform an exorcism or a cleansing on a haunted house or something.

Okay, how about this: Johnson hires runners to snatch an artifact that a local talismonger seems to have gotten hold of from his shop. There would probably be about one mage and two or three spirits of resistance. The talismonger will likely have his astral lodge somewhere in the building too.

Lets you fight some mojo baddies and your mundanes can snatch some interesting magical goodies while they're in there.

Our GM, Tagz, actually ran this one last session. It was Fun, especially since we don't have any mages in the group.

And since Dual-Natured was something you mentioned wanting to introduce the player to you could add in some dual-natured critter guards (Barghest for example).