Hello, everybody.
Yesterday, displaying a prodigious case of what may be called “foolhardy optimism,” I volunteered to GM a Shadowrun game for some friends. No problem, right? Well, not quite, as I come to the table with a couple of disadvantages:

1) I have never been a GM.
2) I have never played Shadowrun.

My friends gave me an overview of the setting—Shadowrun’s history at one point diverged from the one we know, and magic has come back with a vengeance. Terms like “cyberpunk,” “corps,” and “meta-human” flew fast and thick.

This forum was suggested to me as a place to begin my further education into Shadowrun and GMing, and since I could not find a specific thread for newbie GMs, I decided to start one here. So I ask you: where do I start? Are there books to buy? There was talk of novels that would help me get a feel for the place. I have some experience in playing D&D 3.5, if that information is useful to you.
Thank you in advance for all your help, and I look forward to working with you,

-Camilla

Start with an idea. What story do you want to tell? Once you've settled on that, start to flesh it out. You can literally type Shadowrun plot hooks into Google and get hundreds of premade scenarios if that helps. I'd also suggest the Sixth world wiki as a good point to start on the background.

if your friends don't have the books, and you're willing to invest I suggest a copy of the Main Book, or the Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition Main Book. The others are useful, but not actually needed for starting out. (And until you're sure you'll enjoy why by more than you need to.

The novels can be found at most local libraries as I understand it. Or cheaply if you're willing to invest at places like Schuler's or Barnes&Nobles; comic book shops and gaming shops sometimes carry them.

The Shadowrun Quick Start Rules are a free PDF that might give you something to just take a peek at, to get started. They include a mini-adventure (good old Food Fight) that offers a glimpse into some of Shadowrun's setting, too.

For novels, I'd check local libraries if possible, but if you really want to dive in head-first I think eBay is still the way to get the best bang for your buck; you can do a search for "shadowrun lot" on there and sometimes get a real treasure chest. Since the quality on some of the SR novels is kind of hit-or-miss (often due to stylistic choices made by any given author, or the overall power level they choose to focus on), well, it's often safer to cast a wide net, and try to haul in as many of them as you can, as cheaply as you can.

The only book you'll unequivocally need is, as mentioned, the "core" SR4A (Shadowrun 4th, Anniversary edition) book. Anything past that is optional, and largely dependent upon what's going to be popular in your particular campaign. Street Magic for mages and adepts, Augmentation if folks are already drooling about being awesome cybernetic killers, Arsenal for a plethora of guns, armor, and vehicles...etc, etc. For setting information Seattle 2071 is the way to go for a single-city campaign (in the traditional SR default setting), Sixth World Almanac has more of an update on more of the world, and an expanded timeline that might help you get up to speed. Other sourcebooks beyond those couple, and their utility, are really going to be very campaign dependent. Hopefully some of your friends -- the ones volunteering you to run a game that's brand new to you -- will have a few rulebooks/sourcebooks of their own that they can make available to you.

One fairly recent product that I think might be a big help, though, is the Runner's Toolkit. It's a fancy-schmancy boxed set that comes with an adventure, compiled gear tables (from several of the books I already mentioned), some handy quick reference sheets (almost like mini, character-skill-specific, GM screens for various players), and a plethora of other stuff that's all aimed squarely at new GMs, to make their lives a little easier. I don't suggest it to everyone, but for someone that's new to the game, but who's made up their mind to give it a shot, I think it could be pretty handy for you.

Not, buying stuff out of the way? Start like you would any other campaign, in terms of trying to get things rolling. Talk to your players and get an idea of what they want to play, cross-reference if you can to parts of the book (if any are available to you just yet) that look do-able to you, and start to communicate and coordinate with your players. Shadowrun's a big game world, with a lot of different themes and flavors and power levels available to it. One of the first jobs of any campaign is to get everyone "on the same page" and set realistic expectations for what will and won't fly in your game. If one dude wants to be a barely-getting-by street ganger that's trying to get a little respect as a Shadowrunner, and another dude wants to be Iron Man or Wolverine, you'll be in for a long, frustrating, campaign, trying to juggle them.

Okay, let's see if I can make this a step by step thing to help out a little better:

For a free information about Shadowrun and it's setting check out:

The Official Shadowrun webpage. Where you can find the Quick Start Rules.
The Sixth World Wiki
A Fan Made but accurate map of Seattle 207x, which can be handy because it's over laid upon Google Maps.

Once you read up a little, and have settled on actually playing Shadowrun you'l need the following to play-a copy of the Main book-I'd suggest the 20th Anniversary Core Rulebook, pencils, paper (I've found I like graph paper for both mapping and making characters-but you can always print out character sheets.), and some six sided dice.

Once you have all that as the GM you'll need to settle on some things:

• Where you want to run your game at. Seattle is the easiest choice, and is covered in great detail in several books.
• Time Period. The easiest route is to take the current time line, and set your game in 2073 or so-but you can always adjust that as you and your group progress. I'd also suggest here's a good place to settle on a season-spring, summer, fall or winter. (The more detail you fill in for yourself the better you can answer the players questions when they ask.)

Once that's done figure out how many players you have, and if possible set up a session to generate characters as a group. Even though you're the GM generate a few yourself. It helps you understand the rules, and how characters are made.

Once they have generated characters it's time to design an adventure around them. Just like any other game it's no fun playing a game that they can't win. You want it to be challenging, but no t impossible. Discuss ahead of time and modifications to the rules you'd like or they'd like.

Then write up your adventure: Keep it simple. Jot down notes about where it'll take place, and what things they can interact with-and how those things or people could react to those things. As mentioned elsewhere on this site you can post up your notes, and you'll likely be bombarded with both useful and useless information. Cell from those comments what feels good to you.

The number one rule is have fun. Even if you fall flat on your face as far as the rules go as long as everyoe has fun it's a hit.

Cyberpunk with Elves and magic is the short description.

Just curious... I assume your friends do play SR already? I'm curious how someone who has never played SR and never GM'd anything would end up in the position of volunteering to take on GMing a group of people who are familiar with the game?

A ground work question before we send you off head first into the rule books... have you ever played an RPG before at all or do you at least understand what the role of the GM is in a game? (not being critical, just asking to see how far down into the basics we should start)

So it sounds like some gaming experience at the very least.

This is great! Thank you so much for your kindly and in-depth replies!

The books I have available are:

Shadowrun 4e Core Rulebook, Arsenal, Augmentation, Corporate Enclaves, Feral Cities, London Sourcebook 2e, Runner Havens, Runner's companion, Running Wild, Shadows of Europe 3e, Sixth World Almanac, Street Logic, and Unwired.

As for a story, my players have told me they'd like a subtle spy-run, information-gathering or sabotaging, with little or no firefights. Is there a reference that I could use to get up to speed on networks and hacking mechanics, or is that covered fairly comprehensively in the core rulebook?

Stalag: My players are experienced in Shadowrun; they've been itching to have a game for a while now. I've been wanting to learn how to GM, so it seemed like a good way to start.

doh - lol

Unwired's got the extra hacking goodies you might find useful.

[shameless plug]
Since they're talking about a subtle, spy, type game, if you're interested, Spy Games might have some useful stuff in it for ya.
[/shameless plug]

The only book you need, as mentioned, is the core rulebook(the 20th anniversary edition is the most recent). The other "Core Rulebooks", Street Magic, Runner's Companion, Unwired, Arsenal, and Augmentation are all good, but not neccesary, you can pick them up later when you want to(I personally think Street Magic and Unwired are the best buys, and Runner's Companion is the least important, but opinions vary).

As a GM, I cannot stress enough that you need to read the whole rule book before you run the game, that includes the equiptment chapter and all the sections explaining setting. Shadowrun can be a pretty deep rabbit hole to go down, and you don't want to jump in without reading the directions first.

As for ideas, there are a number of sources to draw inspiration from. Neuromancer is a great book, and the primary motivator for the cyberpunk genre, I also get a lot of milage from watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

what Camilla needs now are some good GMing advices,right Camilla ?
my first general advice would be:
be like Water my Friend. If you put Water in a Teapot it becomes the Teapot,if You put it in a Glas it becomes the Glas. Water can flow,but it can also crush....
Be flexible and go with Your Players.
I think its a bad GM that insists that only his Story is the right one.Avoid Railroading !

HokaHey
Medicineman

One good idea is to get some of the Missions and run one or two of those to get a feel for the setting and rules.

So progress report? What steps have you taken? What questions have evolved from what you've read?

Ok, some experience with the game that causes cancer (D20). Ok the similarities are this:The GM set the scenario. 2. You make rules judgment when rules are fuzzy. 3.You control the pace of character advancement.

The differences:
1. Combat is downright deadly should you make it so. Ambushing the players if successful will more than likely result in a TPK.

2. PC's are not newbies fresh to sprawl. They can be, but with the standard character (400BP),
you'll find most PC's fairly proficient in their specialty.

3. I'd encourage you to offer suggestions for the PC's for your game but with them having more experience in the game it
should not be needed.

4. This RPG (IMHO) is not encounter based, it is more of a sandbox game. As others noted, railroading is bad. Depending on the party composition, skill set they may go in conning people. They may go in stealth wise, they may go in hacking wise or some combo of all three-none of them. They will surprise you.

5. Don't get caught up in the modifiers, keep the pace of the game flowing and don't get bogged down in the details.

I'm sure this isn't everything, but its a start.

This may start an argument, but make sure to keep a decent karma to nuyen ratio for your rewards. If your awarding 6-8 karma a run, but only 2-5k nuyen a run, awakened characters will get very powerful while those who rely on augmentation, programs, and drones will fall behind fast.

For 6-8 karma a run I usually award 10k+ nuyen a run, with the occasional run that awards a good deal more. 2-2.5k nuyen per karma over the long run is a good number to shoot for, but exact numbers require depends on how many runs they go on a month, and how much expenditures they go through(if the party only gets 1 run a month(thus more lifestyle costs), and has to pay a lot for bribes and getting new fake SINs, they need more money, but if they do several runs a month and generally only no to replenish some ammo/medical supplies each run they can work with less.)

The Core 3 from the Other System are basically all contained in this system's (lovingly referred to as) Prescious. The Core Rulebook here is effectively the DMG, MM, and PHB.

I'm pretty sure a more common name for the main rulebook is BBB as in big blue book. Or simply SR4/SR4A for the Fourth/Anniversary Edition.

[nitpick]It's Precious not Prescious[/nitpick]

.....oO( how about 'Priscilla Precious' as a Name for a fake SIN ? )

with a thoughtful Dance
Medicineman

So far, I'm just trying to read as much of the corebook as possible. There's a lot to get through, but so far it's making sense. If I have any more questions I will definitely ask.

Thanks again, everybody. This has been extremely helpful!

Something should probably be said regarding the capabilities of your team, and what you throw at them. Too, it might be good for you to limit their (our) dice pools from the start, or maybe (if you're comfortable) use Karmagen rather than BP gen (the standard chargen method presented in the BBB) as it tends to produce characters with a more diverse skill set (rather than characters who are built to throw lots of dice for a relatively small set of skill checks and don't have much more to bring to the table) - that way we don't run into issues of "To challenge the Street Sam I need heavy artillery, but that same heavy artillery would mince the Hacker and the Mage," and that sort of thing.

Also, how many people are you (we) going to have in this group? While as a new GM I can certainly understand the desire to keep the number low (and therefore manageable) but the fewer people you have the more roles each one will have to cover, and therefore the lower their dicepools will be in any given skill. Basically, that means the challenges you throw their way have to be scaled to what they can handle. Also, with the various subsystems (for lack of a better word) have to be covered (i.e. Matrix based stuff, Meatspace stuff, Magic stuff) if you're going to throw threats at your team from those directions (for the most part).