I'm going to be running a Shadowrun game for the first time and I need advice:

How do you go about designing challenges for your group (Specifically combat)? As in, how do you keep them from being difficult enough to challenge them but not SO difficult that they'll get TPK'ed? My first instinct is to do whatever is "realistic" for the situation but 1) I don't live in 2072 and thus my view is slightly skewed, and 2) That'll probably get everyone dead.

My big problem is that I started out DMing D&D which comes with guidelines for building encounters and I've had a hard time adjusting over the years since to systems that don't have that (ie, pretty much all other RPGs).

*pulls up a couch and comfy chair, puts on eyeglasses and gets a steno pad*

Tell me about your characters.

My first response would be to diversify your opposition. Your players are playing all sorts of different crap, so your bad guys should be the same, right? I'm not saying that your average street gang is going to have this, but a security team for the company they are hitting should shell out the nuyen for this.

Are you completely new to gaming, or just GMing? If you've played, think back on all the devious, insane crap you pulled on YOUR GM. Or take notes from your crew of players.

A good example, I had this team of being hauled out of town in the back of a big rig that was armored and all that. The team of players rolled up, spirits and spells used to conceal the hell out of them, applied a small amount of thermite (Say, maybe an inch or two larger than a gas grenade) and dropped a gas grenade down in the hole. They waited for those below to pass out, made a bigger hole (with more thermite) and snagged the goodies they needed from the bad guys. In a session just recently, I had a team of Tir Ghosts do the same thing, only stepped it up a bit more. I did 3 smaller holes, tossed in a gas grenade, concussion grenade, and a flash bang.

There's more, but basically you see what I'm getting at. Take their tricks and use them in kind. That doesn't mean you shouldn't come up with your own crap, but I go by the idea that if the players can do something, then so can I, and vice versa.

IMHO "realistic" is not a bad default mindset for SR! SR is essentially realism plus magic, cyberware, helicopters and dragons.

Basically, what you do is figure out the objective, figure out all of the avenues the PCs could use to approach it, and then build up defenses based on that. I like to use a sliding scale of punishment from the stupidest approach (GUNS BLAZING LOL) being the most punishingly difficult and resistant to the smartest approach (Social Engineering, Hacker Overwatch & Magical Invisibility/Concealment combined with Physical Stealth) being the least resistant, with nothing having NO defenses unless there's an in-universe reason it would make sense, but every security system having a weak-point.

I'd be happy to post one (or even several) examples of adventure segments I've written, the really crunchy parts, if you're interested. With two caveats, it wouldn't be till I'd tested them on my players (in case any of them are reading this and receiving spoilage) and secondly, I'd be posting it to help you out and not for a public critique of my game balancing ability/writing style.

Read this thread. Creativity is the name of the game. Avoid the vitriol, focus on the traps.

I had been "sounding the waters" for a few weeks and just now the two people I was waiting on went "Fuck Yeah!" after taking a look at the books. As such, I won't know their characters for a few days.



I have extensive experience at playing/GMing OTHER settings/systems but not Shadowrun. I have about 1-1/2 sessions worth of playing experience in Shadowrun and none at GMing Shadowrun. My players all will have less experience at shadowrun (although they're all experienced RPGers) so It'll be a learning experience to say the least :3



Cool, I'll have to take a look at that.

In any case, I don't think I described my problem quite clearly enough (although all the advice so far will be helpful):

My problem/question is that I have no idea about how tough an enemy will be when I make them until I, you know, actually throw them at the party. Maybe a better question is "How do you go about stating out your enemies?" Do you just use the grunts from the rulebook (with basic modifications) or do you stat them all out yourself? Do you stat them out using Karma/BP or just eyeball it? How much Karma/BP do you generally give them in relation to the party? etc. I know this is a really broad question but I kinda need broad answers =p

Don't be afraid to alter your mooks on the fly. Use the statted ones as a baseline and alter them as you see fit. Follow the Rule of Cool and Rule Zero - sure the guy they went down was a wimp, but he was the runt of the group and the other guys are six times as bad.

You can also look through that thread and use the environment to test your team. You don't need STR 6 to push a button to lock off the doors in a complex.

One good idea, d/l the quickstart rules, let the players pick one of the pre-gens and go through that. This way two things will happen, one, you will get a idea on how the system works (free of past editions rules mucking things up ) and two, your players will also get a idea of the rules as well before making characters. I had GM'd 3rd edition and a few other games since 4e came out, and then I jumped in feet first running Missions, it tood some getting used too even after reading the rules over.

Basically, there can be such a power variance on starting characters that you'll need to tailor the opposition to what they end up with. I would suggest taking your players' relevant dice pools and then by yourself simulating some sample combat encounters. That way you can get a feel for how the different dice pool changes interact.

I'd say have the possible NPCs ready before the run, so you're not looking up/writing down stats in the middle of combat.
Make it plausible. The run should be difficult, but you want the runners to be able to complete it.
How many guards would a warehouse realistically have available and what would they have on them?
What kind of firepower and armor should a small group of gangers have available?

If it turns out you're players are way outmatched, the NPCs can always run.
If they're getting paid minimum wage, they're probably not going to fight to the death.

I'd be more worried about making opposition too easy.

Try a fight with opposition using shotguns. The flechettes from shotguns almost always mean you end up doing stun rather than physical against players wearing armor so the combat is less leathal.

You might want to also check out this thread that looks at how many dice characters will be throwing based on bad-assedness.

It was really helpful for me to get a feel for bad guys and just gives me a number of dice to throw for what ever bad guys are there instead of always stating up everything.

You can tweak encounters with just personality. Maybe the security guard has a newborn son he doesn't want to leave behind so he runs the moment he gets hurt. Maybe he's a low-level magical talent and doesn't realize it. Maybe his hobby is hacking but he never uses it at work until a bunch of Badass Shadowrunners ™ start storming the place and he has to do something to survive. Maybe he has to pee/needs a smoke really really bad and you bust in just before his break, making him more irritable and wanting to throw everything he's got right off or the opposite where he just wants to hide and let them pass so he can take his break. Maybe the security guard is low on ammo because he got bored and started shooting pigeons/rats. Or he left his spare clip in his locker. Maybe he's lazy and doesn't clean his gun, so it's more prone to jamming...or he's a hardcore gun nut who modified his Predator to be burst-fire on his own time.

It's a lot harder to "scale" encounters in Shadowrun based solely on number crunching, but it is a lot easier to do on the fly during combat.

You can set up the encounters to be somewhat realistic without killing your players by intelligently choosing the targets the opposition will fire on, and actions they will take.

If one of your players is a great dodger, shoot at him. The opposition doesn't know he's a dodger until they see him dodge. If one of your players is a gigantic troll cyber-tank, have the opposition with lower intelligence or combat prowess shoot at him. Dumb people will shoot a tank with their side arm, it's a big target, it's easy to hit, and they'll do it out of instinct if nothing else. If the opposition is a spellslinger, have them bolt the mage on the shadowrun team, who should have counterspelling.

Make the opposition want to survive. Make them flee. It's their life, think about their motivations for fighting. low end corpsec wont sacrifice themselves for a barely living wage.

In SR, like real life, the side that starts the fight tends to win. 6 guys with heavy pistols and 6 dice who all get to shoot (twice) at the players from an ambush will tend to blow the hell out of most teams, as surprised people only get a body+armor roll against the multiple hits they are going to take.

basically you are wanting to account for the players characters.

Mage: any kind of magical defenses will be too tough for a group without a mage. It's easy for a summoned spirit to be immune to most of a non-mages attacks unless specifically prepared. There should be one security mage for each mage in the group for an even fight.
Street Sam/combat monster: generally should be able to fight 2-3 normal security guards at a time.
Hacker: Hackers can be challenged one on one, but they can also turn enemy drones or defenses against their attackers so the pc's suddenly outclass the security forces that remain. They are sort of a wildcard, you just have to always account for it in the world of Shadowrun. Just use the thresholds in the hacking chapter and increase them as the players become better.

Encounters in Shadowrun always get harder as they go, because of wound modifiers. If you want to build to a big fight, you have to make the initial ones pretty basic.
The reason why it is difficult to give you the answer your looking for here is because Shadowrun is a system that depends alot on playing smart. ,if you are careful and use cover and tactics you can take down very tough challenges, where if you get caught by surprise or try and go all D&D charge in and hit it then everyone can get pretty dead pretty quick.
The best thing you can do is start with smaller ideas for challenges, like minimally secure corporate offices or a car chase, and move into larger security forces, magical security forces, security drone riggers and prison breaks as you get an idea of what characters in this game can stand. Even start with only small arms for your first adventure before moving on to assault rifles and sniper rifles. Also, remember that in shadowrun less cover gives the advantage to the more numerous group in the fight and close quarters fighting with lots of cover favours the heavier dice pools common to shadowrunner groups.

I hope that helps.

Don't sweat it. Start easy; it's okay if the first few fights aren't a big problem, and it'll give the players time to get their feet on the ground. I don't think they'll mind having some gratuitously easy violence in the beginning; using the rules in practice will be challenge enough. Once you're all comfortable with the rules, you'll also have seen how strong they are, and at that point you can adjust difficulty with more ease.

I think that throwing a bunch of normal gangers (just a bit better armed than Haloweeners from corebook) against PCs at the start is a good way to see how the rules are working. If there is any non-human character in the team, some Night Hunters or Humanis goons are ideal. If there are 2 gangers to 1 PC (and there is at least 1 competent mage or combat specialist in the team), players shouls kick their asses in 2-3 combat turns.

Rules period mean that PCs almost always wind up taking stun (unless, you know, shit armor or APDS) which actually makes things HARDER. Some times to make things EASIER for PCs I need to switch some of that damage to physical to let the PCs STAY UP and keep fighting. Remember that depending on where you get KO'd, no one is just going to let you sleep it off. If you get stunned out in say a Mitsuhama Zero Zone facility, well...just being dead would probably be preferable at that point. Also almost all non-casters have lower Willpower than Body, and even mages don't have as much Willpower as samurai have Body, which means that by-and-large PCs will have more Physical CM boxes than Stun CM boxes. Finally, and most importantly, there is no way to INSTANTLY heal Stun damage aside from perhaps, I think, ONE obscure Adept Power. Physical takes longer to heal naturally, but can be healed instantly or almost instantly with Magic and First Aid.

In short, Stun Damage! = Easier or even less lethal. Best case scenario you have to figure out how to get an unconscious PC out of Lone Star custody (it gets harder the more you do it) or just have them "go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do create a new character", worst case scenario is the opposition isn't "less-than-lethal" friendly and walk up to the character's inert body and cap them in the head.

People are going to hit me for saying this, but "Food Fight"?

Just don't have them in there at random though, have them meeting a Johnson, or picking up something for the Johnson. Don't forget to cover things like commercial security (Like the tank's going to have a damned assualt cannon with him), pedestrians and Lone Star ™ response.

And THEN hit them with the Other Guys hired to take the Johnson/package from your pretty-flushed-with-success team. Yeah, knocking over non-pro gangers = easymode, but they will cause you to expend ammo, get drain, damage, etc. And then smack them with the hardcases who really grind the team up with hurtful things. (Or worse, knock them out, steal their stuff and leave insulting messages on their little pink bodies written in chocolate syrup)

-Tir.
Why, yes. I do have enough for everybody. Gather 'round, people, gather around...

Are you saying MediKit/First Aid only heals Physical, and can't be used to heal Stun?

Maybe someone has mentioned this already (I haven't read the full thread yet) but aside from the math, why can't you use the same basics from D&D to building encounters in SR?

If you look at any GM advice from any RPG, it essentially all boils down to the same basics. Cutting out specific character/race/math references, what did the D&D guidelines tell you?

Strategy > Tactics > Mechanics

The exact same set of stats, a team of corp security guards, can go from being inconsequential to the runners, to being the cause of a total party kill.

This is the source of tension and drama for the players once they realize this.

Are those two mall security guards regular joes working their full time job and have no interest in confronting, or even smart enough to avoid noticing, the running team, or are they wannabe Lone Star or KE guys earning some extra time off, or are they point men for an elite anti terrorist force camping the mall for a toxic spirit shaman? They all look the same.... it's the uniforms.

You are the GM, you control the NPC, you control their reactions, you control how smart they are, how dedicated, how devastatingly effective they can be.

It has nothing to do with the NPC stats.

I'd definitely start small. Even if the players make it a cake walk, since there is everyone's first time SR (except for you, but you said you've never GM'd it), it will still take some time to figure out what to roll and soak and take damage and all that fun stuff, so don't sweat it if the first couple of combats are not a challenge.

Generally speaking, in combat, you need to know three things, 1) the amount of dice to roll when attacking, 2) the amount of dice to roll when avoiding being hit and 3) the amount of dice from armor and body to resist any damage. Modifiers will come into play, but keeping it simple, I'd suggest you focus on just the raw dice pools from those three categories.

Take a look at what your players have and you can adjust your opposition accordingly. To make it really easy, I'd say take the average dice pools from all of those your players and half them, to start. That might mean you have opponents only throwing 4-6 dice to shoot a gun, avoid being hit and soaking damage, but again, you can always go bigger later.

One thing I do in my own games is not worry about "how" I get to those dice pools. I just set them and use them and if I need to figure out what kind of armor they were wearing, I can do that later, or give it to a player to figure out.

Assuming that my most badass starting character will be rolling 13-15 dice to shoot a gun, I normally set my oppositions at:

4-6 dice for super easy
7-10 for a solid challenge
11-15 for a tough opposition
16+ watch out for TPK

Those are just generalities, of course, but if you start with super easy as you are learning the rules, and then adjust later as everyone gets accustomed to the rules, then I think you'll do just fine.