As you may have read here, I'm introducing a friend to Shadowrun. She's working her way through the BBB, but she's wanting to play a game soon. I've never GM'ed before, and it looks like it'll just be the two of us. Any tips for a first time GM, as well as how a one on one game can work?

Also, I'm looking for some premade adventures, I lost all my old ones off my laptop, does anyone know a good place to find some, specifically for small groups?

Forever alone... ;~;

Give it time, Berry. Not everypony is a constant lurker like you or I.

Feels bad, mare...

Chip truth, omae.

Don't be afraid to improvise. If she goes off the rails, go with her. If it looks like she's in danger of curbstomping the supposed-to-be-recurring baddie in his first appearance, have him escape by jumping out a conveniently-placed window. Don't throw things at her that she isn't prepared for just to trip her up; do throw things at her that she isn't prepared for to keep her on her toes.

Above all, remember the Zeroth Law: Thou shalt (both) have fun. If both of you are having fun, you're doing it right.

I would recommend doing a "food fight" to get her used to the mechanics of the game. The foodfight is usually a shootout with gangers at a local pub or eatery. As something pretty simple, you can use it to introduce her to an NPC or two that she helps save. Probably an off-duty lone star police dective and a corporate middle manager. That will give her some interesting contacts. This will keep it light on the plot for you, action heavy for the both of you, and give you a nice way to parley into future action when the detective needs some off the books help or the corp manager needs someone of her skillsets for a discrete (or not discrete) assistance.

I suggested Food Fight 4.0, she wasn't up for it. I hope to have my own character playing alongside her, like a guardian. Is it much hassle for a GM to play a PC at the same time?

Well it's technically not, but you need to make sure its a fun and quirky character that she can interact with. Food Fight 4.0 itself isn't that interesting, but you can put a nice twist on it. Since I'm not sure what her character background is, if she's not an actual runner yet then its a good method to get her into the game. If she is a runner already, then I might suggest wrangling one of the freebie Denver missions and shoehorning it into whatever city you're in.

I'll see if I can get her to tolerate Food Fight 4.0, I'll work my Magic. She's met my character already and we're working on backstory now.

The standard food fight lends itself to getting her into running. You can adjust the food fight as well. For her first job, a local bar owner hires her as extra muscle since the establishment is getting extorted by some local gangers. Boom, turns into food fight and lends itself for a subsequent mission to put this gang out of commission. Gives her a lot of options as how to knock them down a peg. Work with another gang trying to take and help them take the other gang's territory, directly combat them, or a handful of other things.

I think the first few Missions seasons were released for free, or something, on the main website. Or maybe it was the missions for sr3. I distinctly recall something involving the missions being free. One of my group's first modules was On The Run. that may help.
I would heartily recommend tracking down some Sr2 modules, like Dreamchipper, Queen Euphoria, and Genie in the Bottle, and adapting it for sr4.

GM tip 1: Introduce an NPC hacker contact(or an Agent) so you don't have to bother with that shit bogging down the game and adding a new layer of complexity and uber-annoying rule to the stack for a first time player.
DO emphasise the presence of AR and omnipresent electronic activity when describing your locations, scenarios, and people. Think about your NPC's online habits. How do they text their friends? Do they use annoying shorthand or take the time to properly write stuff out - the devil is in the details.
GM tip 2: Handwave shit. If you don't know the answer, make it up on the fly. This is often the hardest thing for a GM to do, is keeping the game fluid and consistent, and not having to open the book every few seconds. Protip: Write rule questions down, settle them at the end of the session.
Player tip: This goes double for you too! I am positive you will have millions of questions about how stuff works or what the world is like. Write the big ones down, and handle it after the session when you're not shooting at people.
Gm tip 3: Decide what kind of game you want, and tell your players. This is good advice in general, but still applies to small games. Mohawks, mirrorshades, what kind of dice pool sizes you want to see and how much is too much. Houserules. Anything involving availability limit changes, slightly-going-over-on-qualities if it makes sense(why can't an adept go to college, exactly?), a bit of karma to flesh things out at the start, an automatic fixer contact to start you off .... Do that ahead of time.
Player tip 2: Do your twenty questions and don't half-ass it. It can be one of the hardest things to come up with, but helps your gm so much when presenting the world to your character.
Player tip 3: Give your contacts some life. Not just their occupation. Name, race/metatype, occupation, group occupation an area of specialty(sure he's a gunrunner, but can get ahold of all the fancy ammos) and a vice.(drinking, smoking, gambling, illegal porn, married but has a mistress..). Not a full size character sheet, but just enough at-a-glance info you can play off of it. This is two-fold. It helps your gm make the world interesting, and also takes a load off of him...and if a GM has to make stuff up because you didn't, they might get -creative-.
GM Tip 4: Situational bonuses are very important in keeping things fresh. Don't forget them. You don't need to memorize the list, but glancing at the Visibility Modifiers or Social Modifiers table(i think the gm screen has this too) is a good thing to do.


If you're going to do a GM(n)PC, I would suggest a sort of 'support from home base' approach, with someone on the other line, easily reachable for support, data searches, go out and offer bribes or run interference if you're across town. Someone there that can offer second opinions, a moral compass, but isn't there to steal the show. Like the typical samurai-decker archetype, cop-partner, martin blank and his secretary type deal. It may also have a side effect of adding rp moments(fun!) without getting dice twice the dice in the way of the flow of the game.

I actually think I can do all that pretty well. I got this. Help is appreciated, chums.

It's easier than you'd think...and can be more fun. You get more characters to play with, more toys to use, and you get to help her tell her story.

Definitely want to get a game breakdown once you're done. Enjoy!

It'll be going on here, in Welcome to the Shadows.

It's alright, let's just do food fight lol.

Linky?

We're working on fluff right now, I'll let you know when it starts.

Aren't you a little young to be a Fluffer?

Gotta start somewhere. I could make a career out of this.

Just watch out for Cults of Porn Star Sorceresses.

I will, don't worry. Father Randy would never let them corrupt my soul.

Nah, they'll just try to kill you.

"She was hit by a car." "That's not so unusual." "She was water-skiing at the time." "That puts a twist on it."

I'm still a guy, Can. I may be a pony from time to time, but still male.

Quoting the book it came from, from memory.

Jim Butcher's "The Dresden Files", good series, I highly suggest it.

It makes me feel better for what I put my characters through.

What have you got to make you feel better about what others put your characters through?

No one has yet to torture my characters like I have.

If you haven't hands down one of the best series you'll ever read. Very applicable to one on one shadowrunning as well. Highlights legwork, contacts, and the astral side of the SR universe. The first 3 books a bit slow, as Butcher has to spend a lot of words world building, establishing the main characters, and such. Around the 3rd or 4th book the series really starts picking up.

You could do a lot worse than The Dresden Files for inspiration. I know it's going to change some of my writing work in the future.

What about in-game with PCs?

I'd have to have a game first.

Or are you referring to the games I've run? They've been pretty bad as well. I think my record for a Hacker suffering repeated Dumpshocks in one day is four. When he started bleeding from the eyes he said, "That's it, frag you guys, I'm going to bed." He'd also been stuffed into the back of a squad car that was on fire and seen his picture on a Wanted Poster shown on a blimp for International Espionage that day. And I hadn't even gotten to the Eurotrash German yet.