So I recently started running a shadowrun game for the first time and I thought I would pick your brains on how to make a game challenging for all types of players. Currently I have a hacker, magician, adept, and samurai gun psycho. I'm finding that when I make things challenging for one, the others kind of sit there and watch. Just looking for ideas.

Many would argue that is as it should be. Everyone gets his time to shine, to be the one the others count on. It sounds as if you are challenging them appropriately. If one or two players do the lion's share of the work and the others just sit there for most of the game, then you have to worry.

As you play more with them, and come to know their individual interests and talents, you will be able to gear the runs more closely to their talents and give each player a sense she is an important part of the team.

Designing encounters for SR4 is maddeningly difficult compared to ye olde D&D game. The number of different rules a GM must have mastery over to keep things moving is pretty intense.

I find that SR games break down into Legwork (Street), Legwork (Matrix) and Legwork (Magic), Gunfights, Social Challenges and Stealth Challenges. When starting a game, I usually insist that characters be able to take meaningful part in at least two of these.

As for keeping everyone in the group busy during any given encounter, there are certainly some that are just spotlight shows. Designing combat encounters that challenge all the PCs can be a headache... but not so bad once you get used to things.

Hackers can be busy in basically any challenge of any type. Matrix legwork should be helpful at all times. During social challenges, a hacker can be hacking into anything in the room (or trying to hack in, at least) or feeding the face real time information updates to improve the team's bargaining. During combat, hackers can hack nearly anything. This can be as challenging to a player as a GM. What do I hack?! Anyone's hostile's commlink - once you are in you might be able to reset / disable their cyber (if any) or at least clog their AR displays with useless spam (a dice pool penalty! woo!). Hacking or spoofing security cameras, scanners, drones etc. is bread and butter.

Mages can always do astral legwork, read auras, case social spells to aid in social conflicts and toss the occasional stunball or manabolt. Easy peesy.

Cyber sammies can be a pain in the ass, as ye starting player will be playing a Gillette whose personality depth is measured in the terminal ballistics of a .45... When your only problem solving tool is [use gun on man], it can be hard to find a place for a samurai in many scenes. Thus I generally specify that players should do their best to make characters capable of engaging in at least two of the aforementioned tasks.

Riggers can run drones that give aerial maps, preserve encrypted team comms, give good security over a run area, mark targets (and even engage them), follow people etc.

A lot of keeping players busy is reminding them that they should always be seeking a way for their characters to fit into any given scene.

I typically add more violence, and alter the type of violence for what they're not good at.

Challenging for everyone. No Rigger, I noticed... Oh, dear, time for Bumper Cars!

"So, which one of you guys thought 'Pilot Groundcraft' was a useless skill again?"

All of these are good suggestions. I guess one of the main questions I have is when it comes to combat, how many is a good challenge? I guess I am too used to d&d where there is a set formula that works out pretty well. For example, in the first game I ran, I put them up against 7 gangers (admittedly, they were just grunts) and the Sammy killed them all in the first combat round. Nobody else got a shot off.

I guess my real question is that when things go fan shaped, what can I throw at them that will be 1) a suitable challenge, and 2) will actually pose a danger?

A good suggestion is to make multiple groups, spread them out, have them use tactics.

The Sami can only deal with the big, tough guy (Troll maybe?) while the rest of the opponents are too far away/blocked by environment. The rest of the group can then deal with the smaller, yet challenging to them, opponents.

Also, hacker taking too much time with his stuff? Give the rest of the group stuff to do: Legwork, maintenance, paying off/collecting debts, grocery runs... All of those can be adventures.

Especially the grocery runs.

Probably one of the hardest things to do in SR, end of story.

I have been GMing shadowrun games over a decade and still can run into trouble challenging the whole group without having the distinct possibility of murdering them all. When you have a Cyber Samurai who can easily killed six men in one phase of combat, you add six men to the encounter plus an extra goon for each party member... But what happens when the Samurai doesn't go first? What happens when he misses? Then you have a host of bullet hoses spraying down on a team. What about when you have a rigger in an armored van, tear assing through downtown, hitting Lonestar pursuit vehicles with twin MMGs? Well, Lonestar says 'enough with this shit' and calls in a VTOL, the van eats an Anti-Tank Guided Missile and the whole team gets smeared. Or what about when the magic 7 initiated mage summons a massive force spirit and possesses some super-powerful goon? Etc.

Simply put, directly challenging players on a one to one level like that leads to an arms race wherein the chances of a total party kill skyrocket. Whatever overcomes a particular specialist in their niche role is more than enough to slaughter the other, less skilled party members.

This thread has a lot of decent ideas that can take standard goons and make them enough of a challenge that the PCs won't get off easily.

In general, I find it helpful to think in less abstract 'room by room' style, dungeon crawl encounters. The world of Shadowrun is very dense. If you have ever been to a slum in a developing country, you should have an appreciation for the absurd effects of population density in by-standers, junk, clutter and cover.

In D&D, an encounter is a cellular space where the PCs overcome a challenge. In SR, the space is far less defined - new neutral and hostile parties enter and exit the area with regularity, the encounter area can suddenly expand or contract based on where the PCs are going, how much noise they are making etc.

The best example of this I had was the group driving around trying to throw off a tail, pull into an alleyway, and find themselves screeching to a halt so they don't hit a bunch of really big guys with a couple of briefcases, one full of UCAS Dollars and the other full of baggies of white powder. Yep, they went from one bad situation into a drug exchange!

Both sides started shooting at each other, and the group just on general principals of "YOU SNITCH!".

Turns out they also broke up a Lone Star Undercover Operation against the Vory, and things went downhill quite fast.

If the combat is meant to actually be a challenge-challenge, and not just a scene of violence depicting the violent nature of the 6th World, I have no problem making my baddies like the PC's- smart, efficient, and each capable of doing their thing.

The troll PC wit ha minigun? Definitely hit him first with a Stunbolt. The Physical Adept whose things is melee/fisticuffs? Bang bang. Shoot him before he closes the distance. That sort of thing. Combat can be more than rolling initiative, shooting somebody, soak damage, if still standing repeat.

Avoid designing encounters.

Don't fret about fine-tuning the armor/gun/stats of the NPCs, put your energy about making interesting situations, and improvise from there. Given that there's no equivalent to the D&D "Challenge Rating" formula for figuring out how-much to throw at the PC's, I say forgetaboutit, and don't make the 'encounter' the interesting part.

I find, at least with my group, the most fun comes when everyone's wondering how the HELL to get out of whatever situation I've dropped them into, and less on who gets to roll dice. Give them situations where they need to make choices. Do they try and save the wounded girl, or take the money and run? Do they barricade themselves in and fight, or GTFO?

And above all else, never forget that you get to make stuff up. Did the PC's just walk all over the crack security team guarding Mr. and Mrs. KidnapTarget? Well, there's nothing that says you can't send in some backup to make for a thrilling chase-scene. Just don't overdo it.

Use mooks. Rational mooks.

Characters have more dice, better cyberware, nicer spells and they are 3-6 vs. you the GM thinking individual actions.
They also tend to have the "Highlander Syndrome" where they think thay can't die, with magical healing and R6 medkits.

The mooks do not have those perks, so they have to fall back to dirty tactics:

a) Don't face the team unless you have superiority in numbers.
b) Try to get the best cover positions.
c) Use suppressive fire.
d) Use cheap drones.
e) SURRENDER when slightly hurt.

e) Is very important, a slightly wounded enemy, that surrenders poses a moral problem to the team, but more importantly impairs them in a lot of ways. Its not that he'll try to make a run for it, but he might trigger an accidental alarm, he might not be as fast as the characters.

Also, mooks are more easily replaced and take less time that making a team of experts.



Basically my advice, put more succintly and better explained.

Elevation and cover. You're in a city, never forget that. Floors upon floors of people with cheap pistols and old SMGs/AK-97s.

I think it's easiest to titrate encounter difficulty with opponenet intelligence and situational constraints. As has been mentioned, your average corp-sec employee has no interest in getting killed and is more than happy to stay behind cover. On the other hand, the longer any encounter lasts for the PCs, the lower their chances for success and the higher the chances of discovery become.

don't confuse 'challenge' with 'combat' sure a fight can be a hcallenge but if that is all you work you will just be ratcheing up the violence to the point that each thing is a mall flattening donny brook.

We tend to have plots and plans and double crosses and oscial interaction. Making the chracters paranoid but not so far gone that they can't order a drink in a bar without hosing the place down first.

Our games usually have theme that stretch over several sessions, IDing the theme is usually a big part of the fun,"Holy crap we're doing a...." is a fun momment since our GM's know enough to change things up so we don't dominate it once we guess. Imagine Ghostbusters, but the mob is actually behind Mr. Pecker looking for trade secrets, rather than a demon prince trying to destroy the town.

We also try to enjoy the world, the 'fluff' stuff that fills out our characters to be real people and not just numbers on a sheet.

I like to try and tailor my scenarios so that there's X, Y and Z to accomplish, all possible in at least two ways. Want information out of this guy? You can infiltrate his social circle, get him hopped up on whatever chips he's in love with, shmooze the info out of him. Or your hacker can do a number on his commlink while he's busy getting blotto, or you can abduct him and extract the information through "hostile negotiations". Find out where he lives and slip a wireless transceiver in the Roomba. Wave your hand and ask what you like. Bingo, options for the face, hacker, sam, rigger, mage - and that's just stage one of the job. There's options for synergy there to boost the odds, it's all up to your players how they play it.

Regarding encounters, I try hard to play realistic. Limited numbers of security on site; reinforcements are usually some minutes away. Computer systems and defences need regular maintenance and that costs. Corps have to balance that cost against the risk of a shadowrun actually happening and the probable potential losses. Same goes for magical defences. Passive security systems like motion sensors, cameras, fences and lights do most of the work to act as deterrents. Can your corp really justify a twelve man team with automatics and cyberware trained in lethal defence for a local office? Maybe not, but there could easily be half a dozen a few minutes away, monitoring three sites in the area, and a link to the local law enforcement in case all three alarms go off at once. Sure, megacorporate extra-territoriality is law, but shadowrunners on the run from a job? What are the odds they're carrying illegal goods, weapons, 'ware? Lone Star will be happy to get you off the streets.

all of these are great ideas. thank you all. very helpful.

Try to kill a player every session. Stop short, but do sincerely try.

I love this idea. Considering I'll be playing with an actual policeman next game, I may make it "try to kill a character", but I love the sentiment.

You want challenging?

Role Play issues dealing with your character's lifestyle.

Remember, more 'Runners live in places that have Landlords that aren't really that nice or respectful, or have much in the way of hygiene. And will have a couple of heavy Jazz-hittin' Trogs kick you to the curb and out of the building if you complain about the lack of maintenance to the building. If he's feeling generous, your stuff may follow you, or may be on it's way to the pawn shop.

And, no, you can't just shoot him.

From the party composition you mentionned it seems they're lacking in the social department, unless some of them can double as faces (the mage is the most likely candidate, though it may vary widely).

Make sure it's going to bite them : they don't get access to bars or clubs 'sorry sir, all tables are reserved' - who wants a bunch of dangerous-looking thugs in his club ? Especially if they sounds like they have the social skills of your average geek, and so have little reason to go in a club beyond mischief. Oh well maybe getting ditched by juste every gal they speak to is their idea of fun, but odds are the bouncers won't buy it.

Start with irritating and embarassing consequences first, then ramp up if they don't take the clue. Accidentaly insulting a touchy yakuza oyabun or maffia don can have lethal consequences.

"OK, roll your Intimidation." "Um... My Intimidation skill is Ares Predator." "He spits in your face."

actually, the gun toting psycho sammy acts as the face for the group. and he's got social skills out the wazoo, too.

Great... So the INSANE guy is the face and appearance of your group. That can never go wrong.

Does he have a pink mohawk and "Bite My Snake" tattooed on his forehead?

I think the biggest problem is that you are clustering your mooks in one group, where they are easy to pick off. Have them spread out more and use cover, and mix in a few things that the others can deal with - a watcher spirit for the mage to manabolt before it can report back, spotlights or security cameras that the hacker can disable, and so on. Be careful not to throw too much at the group, if one or two characters are doing most of the heavy lifting, combat-wise - but if you spread out the opposition a bit more, the others will at least get to plink a shot or two at a security guard before it is all over.

Challenge characters in areas they are weak at, occasionally, but don't be a dick about it. Do it to add the occasional bit of tension to the game, not to go "Ha, ha, you don't have skill X, so I'm going to screw you over, without lube!"

"Welcome to Shadowrun. Now bend over."

Depending on how far around the bend the sammy is, it's likely to cause some troubles if he's the only one with interacting skills. If you're showing the world a testosterone-and-adrenaline addict with his agression meter stuck on maximum as your business card, most peoples will expect the whole party to be on the rabid side. Which is likely to influence the sort of job opportunities they'll get.

What's worse, having the social element being the main comabatant can also cause some problems : your odds of convincing the nice cop that 'everything's right, it was a clear cut case of self defense' aren't exactly good if the speaker is packing enough questionably legal cyberware and guns to equip a decently-sized militia and is drenched in blood from several wounds. Or worse if he got knocked out and you have to fast-talk his backside out of custody.

Basically, it's a good idea to have some backup, especially in an area as usefull as schmoozing up to peoples. Pouring some karma in that direction might be a good investment for the hacker - mages and adepts tend to need every shred of karma they can get their hands on to fuel their mojo, where a hacker needs more cash than karma and can spare some.

I am Bubba the Love Troll, and I approve this message.

Diversification of skills and having people that have secondary tactical positions is always a smart idea. Crosstraining is very important, and key to a team.

And a damned good reason to have the Instruction skill! Spend your off time training each other in your areas of expertise.

Be a big surprise when the pacifistic Wicca Magician is able to bust the rest of the group out of prison through the judicious use of high explosives, with no casualties other than some hearing loss.

Also throw in obstacles that aren't easy to overcome without commonly-forgotten gear. Watch their gears spin while they try to come up with a solution to a problem that can easily and quietly be solved with a crowbar when their next best option is plastic explosive.

And it can sometimes be useful to use a not-so-vital situation (standard snatch-and-grab, etc.) to show them where they are lacking.

"The door is locked."

"Um, anyone got lockpicking? Electronics? Demolitions? Well damn, I guess this run was too tough for us."


Diversity is good, but in a campaign where PCs have an incentive to diversify, they will do so. Starting out, they are likelier to be highly specialized, because the system is pretty much designed to make specialization a lot easier to do than being an even moderately competent Jack of all Trades. But as soon as they get/spend some Karma, they will get better. That's what separates the upper-echelon runners from the rest. The "beginning" sammie might be rolling 20 dice for pistols, but the prime runner will also be good at sneaking, intimidation, driving, negotiating, etc.

actually he plays it pretty cool when negotiating. Think more like an antisocial type who is good at manipulating people. Being charismatic without caring for anything except how much the job is going to pay. It'll be fun watching the group have a moral quandry.

Actually, hilarious story... Different cyberpunk game.

I met up with friends I had known for years for the first time at a GenCon, and one of them ran us through a game, breaking into a warehouse.

We had the skills, but, for the life of us, a simple steel security door with a deadbolt and a doorknob lock defeated us. Picked it, broke the picks inside the lock. Cordless Drill, bit broke. Shot the locks with a "Suppressed" pistol, nothing. Just couldn't get the damned thing open.

An hour in real time, defeated, by a door!

And we had the skills!!!

Finally, someone got in through a window and opened the door, but she fell out of the window, hitting a number of crates on the way down.

Worst BlackOps Team Ever!!!

Just ran my group of three PCs through a combat in which they decimated the opposition but it was fine because they did it by planning and being smart. If they had gone with their front door plan it would have sucked but they used their heads, and then some exploding chemical vats, to take out 23 combat grunts and 12 combat ready technicians in 6 seconds while only taking stun damage. The challenge didn't lay in the combat it's self it laid in figuring out how to deal with the situation.

For those interested, it was a vehicle armoring plant. The rigger got to play GTA including running people over, the samy got shot at allot and got to produce much slaughter, and the sniper shot people through the vats causing the do not expose to air chemicals to explode.

Friend of mine used those when he cleaned oil refineries for a living, before he was hit by a dump truck full of sand in Texas. (He claims to be a cyborg now, due to the titanium in him.).

Nasty, nasty stuff!

Emphasis mine.

I've found there is a tight balance here. Sometimes my team does amazingly thorough Legwork and craft a fabulous and clever plan to deal with a potentially violent confrontation. When this happens you have an important choice to make as a GM: just how many unforeseen complications are you going to throw at them? I, personally, think that it is important to sometimes let a particularly clever plan play out mostly as the team intended. This appeals to the "Oceans 11" style of gameplay and lets the players feel like they are a well-oiled heist machine. This is not to say there are no complications or interesting situations, only that in these cases I throw nothing at them that completely fubars their plan.

You don't want to let your team get complacent. Sometimes they don't do a very good job on legwork and planning. Sometimes there are elements they just cannot uncover before "go" time. As other have already said, always try to have smart antagonists but don't give those antagonists "magical knowledge" of the the team's plans or the team's strengths and weaknesses.

I'll also reiterate what others have said regarding actual combat balance. If you have enough firepower to challenge the combat specialists on your team then you have more than enough firepower to kill the rest of the team in one initiative pass. Make the street sam(s) play smart; make them realize that part of their job is to distract attention from the more vulnerable team members. Make sure that the less heavily armored team members know that their greatest asset in combat is to go unnoticed by the opposition.

Also, make use of ambush situations when you can but be careful you don't overdo it. In Shadowrun, a Surprise initiative pass can be extremely decisive.

Especially if you're using a mortar for said Surprise Initiative Pass.

Semi-Auto Grenade Launcher works too.

ROFL-Reminds me of the session where my players came to a locked door (maglock-BTW) and could not open it. They settled for C12 instead to breach the door. Bad point the street doc knew they were comming, the good point, it was the barrens and didn't matter.

I think these things have been somewhat covered, but...

#1 You SHOULD have the spotlight shifting around to different players in different situations. Try not to have it stay somewhere too long or people zone out.

#2 Dungeons and Dragons features Dungeons and Dragons. This is Shadowrun and should feature players keeping to the Shadows and Running. What I mean is that you don't have to and should not design a series of encounters you expect them to win, thump their chest for a while, and than go on to the next. Instead feel free to design encounters where the runners are vastly outclassed, forcing them to be clever and use those stealth and athletic skills. Personally I like the idea of reinforcements. There are only basic security guards in the facility, but once the PANIC buttons start getting slapped it's only a matter of time before reinforcements show up. Spirits, airborn drones, and other drones or forces within the facility can arrive all too quickly. This makes players put off combat for as long as they can.

#3 In this edition characters don't die, they just loose edge. Give 'em a couple forgiving jobs to learn the ropes and the rolls. But after a few sessions the kid gloves can come off.

Running a D&D (*hiss, boo*) 4e (*HISS, BOO*) game featuring exactly Dungeons ruled by a Dragon, the dungeon out-classes the characters in several ways. It's actually proving quite difficult (but fun) for the party. They've avoided and/or defused a couple of situations, though. One trap didn't quite go off as planned because I had no rules on how to run it, so I'd made some up and ended with....exactly the counter getting trapped:

Hollow stone block falls from the ceiling "crushing" the unfortunate target (complete with bloodsack, oozing blood from underneath!) with a Silence spell cast on it to dull the shouts of the character trapped inside. So I figured, "Ok, so it'll be an opposed skill check, the trapped character's Endurance vs. the party's Perception. So I set it at 50-Endurance vs. Perception, higher "wins."
Trapped character rolled "average" and got a 30, being a Paladin trained in Endurance (so 50-30 = 20). Party rolled and got a 30. Darn!

Got some more traps up my sleeves though.

Killed a player last night, however. Buhaha. "Save or die" poison!

Actually... One of the people I know that can't play due to his schedule, came up with the idea of a Reality Show in Shadowrun of a Dungeon run by a Dragon that goes for Pay-Per-View/Simsense.

It's on an old Oil Derrick that's modified every time for a new maze, dealing with new challenges every time.

It's...X-Crawl.