thought id just chuck this up here, might be interesting to people or not, who knows.

Anyway, i just started a new SR4 campaign and thought id post whats happened so far, maybe give inspiration to other GMs or better yet so people can yell at me and tell me how bad i am

So this new game is with a group of friends, some new to rpgs, some new to SR.
The characters made are as follows
Troll adept samurai type guy
Street thief
Ex-military/ field doctor/ assassin type
Rich Boy Face Hacker
and Vlad, the loveable russian rigger/ wheel man

I thought the characters meshed together pretty well, the only big hole is our lack of magic, the mage for this campaign had to drop out post character production, so im a little worried about throwing other magi at the team. I have a feeling they will just get splattered without someone counterspelling or at least being aware of the presence of magic. What do people think?

In the teams first run, they were asked to burn down a couple of warehouses that the mafia were running cheap drugs out of, in direct competition with the local hispanic gang, who hired the team. They tracked the vans, did a bunch of recon on where the warehouses were before storming the place and really just taking no survivors.
I had a couple of problems with this, firstly in the first section only two of the characters really got to do a whole lot, the face hacker was in ever node imaginable and off collecting social info, while the rigger was using drones to spy around and stuff. The other characters did some minor sneaking/ intimidation type things but they seemed pretty bored in general for this part of the run. Im not really sure what to do, i urged them to make characters that didnt do just one thing and they tried but didnt seem to find much fun in what they were doing...
The second problem was the character skill level, the street thief thought it would be a cool idea to have no 'ware, she wanted her character to be some vanilla bro, using only his skill and since he was on the street he wouldnt have heaps of cash to spend on 'ware, i thought this was a pretty cool idea so she built him as such. The military guy on the other hand went for the traditional min-max, he took a bunch of ware, the best guns and a whole lot of edge. The problem was that on rolls that the thief should be really good at (stealth for instance) the soldier would just spend a point of edge and massively out roll her. This was really frustrating as it was treading on peoples toes just because he could.

The second part of the run, was the storming, in this lot everyone had a lot more fun from what i saw. I GM powered the troll who hadnt been having a lot of fun up to this point, and gave him a bunch of cool bonuses as he jumped off the side of a wall he'd climbed with gecko tape gloves and plunged his sword into the roof of a moving van, killing the drive. Sure the rules dont specifically say that he can, or if they do, that he can with any ease, but i thought it would be good to get him a bit more revved for the game, was this the wrong thing to do?
Meanwhile the thief did pretty well throwing knives into people and slashing them up with snapblades, the military guy sprayed bullets into people like no tomorrow and the rigger charged his car into a group of unaware thugs.

The next run i think ill introduce a rival runner team, maybe through some more mystery into the mix. Any thoughts or tips?

Well, yeah, I know i just blurted out a bunch of text and probs a few people did the "too long did not read", but yeah id love to have your opinions on the run as i play it, it will make me a better GM.

Thanks for your time =]=]

-Con

Remember that spending edge means it's not coming back until the GM says so.
Usually after each session, if you wanna be harder on him, after each completed RUN, when they get karma too . .

As for powering the Troll: nice of you, but remember to be fair and do so for the other characters too, if they are starting to feel useless.
Cool action should be rewarded sometimes.

Allow your street thief to redesign her character, possibly as an adept (who's not aware of her awakening) if you want to keep the "no cyber" theme. Pure mundane characters are easily overshadowed in a group of augmented/awakened/emerged characters without the latter even trying, and is in fact intended by design.

Agreed. When my group first started shadowrun, I thought the idea of purely mundane sounded cool, but looked into it and compared to what could be accomplished with and realized how hard it would be. Told the few players that had looked at the idea with interest to save it for the next game because it would take a better understanding of the game to make it work.

So my advice would mirror the above and recommend that she wait to pursue that path until your more experienced in the game. a Latent adept or magician may be a good way for her to branch out in the game. And she wouldn't be forced drastically change her character between sessions. And possibly add some character depth.

You might want to put in the thread description that this is a play report.

Have you GM'd before?

Running without magic isn't too bad. In the past I have let people get a street shaman to bind a counterspelling focus to them even though they're mundane to make up for not having a mage and make magical threats a little easier. There are other manatech options that can be really useful for mundanes. The biggest problem I've found is the spirit search power. If someone is looking for the group with a spirit, they'll find them in an hour or two tops.

It's the nature of shadowrun that usually there are footwork sections and some people don't get to shine as much in a given section. Mature players will be able to deal with this or design their characters to be helpful even when they're not the center of attention. If it's really a problem, you can have them roll for NPC's to keep them busy in their downtime. Be careful with this, immature or petty players will be a pain with this and try to dick over the other players (insisting that they would use edge for an everyday perception check or an NPC randomly deciding to reboot their commlink because they know out of character that the hacker is hacking them; this is rare and I've only had one player pull this sort of crap and I've been letting people run NPC's for ~8 years).

The mundane vs. cybered dilemma isn't something you're going to fix easily. Some qualities can help (though they're more expensive than ware) and you might consider raising the quality cap for the thief is she agrees to start with no cyber. Some suggestions: Lightening reflexes, surge qualities (metagenic improvement, etc.), catlike, Perceptive, School of Hard Knocks, Trustworthy, Hawk Eye
These will make her better at infiltration, give her better reaction, better perception checks, a better social skill, and good street knowledges (all fit with a street thief).
You could make a number of qualities similar to lightening reflexes, which would make the no cybered thing more workable. I think someone on here even has them in their signature or has posted them.
Don't let her forget the value of good equipment.
Drugs can also help the mundane.
She can also go the adept route.
And in the long run, edge runs out, so just require a few different rolls rather than a single infiltration roll for getting into the whole facility and the thief will be much better.

Sounds like you did good so far, and it seems your players are enjoying themselves. Regarding your worries:

1) Legwork/Casing the joint
As you noted, faces, hackers and riggers (surveillance drones) tend to grab the spotlight here, but there are a few things you can do to encourage the other PCs to get involved.
- No reason other PCs can't work their contacts for info as well, assuming they have relevant contacts of course.
- Get some of the other characters involved in these activities. For example, the face might need a sammie-type to act as muscle if he goes looking for info in the more dangerous parts of town, and the thief could help with surveillance.

2) Going up against magic
Mundanes do tend to get hosed going up against magical opposition. If you plan a magic-heavy run, have the fixer/Johnson lend them the services of a mage for the run. You could run the mage or throw down the character sheet and let whoever is least involved in the action take turns to run the mage as well as their PC. If you do run the mage yourself, make sure it is a one-off; the road to a Mary Sue GM-PC is fraught with danger, young Skywalker!

3) The street thief
I would second allowing her to redesign as an adept/latent adept, or go the super-high edge Ms. Lucky character. Goodies like ruthenium coats/cloaks, gecko gloves and IP enhancing drugs can help a mundane, but unless played very well and very smartly they are almost always significantly less powerful than their awakened or cybered counterparts.

4) Stealing the limelight
If it becomes a problem, the best first step is usually to talk to the players involved OOC. I would advise against nerfing the high edge of the merc, after all he payed for it and should be able to use it to do stuff well from time to time; saying that, if the character is using Edge like candy, you are probably refreshing it way too often. As noted, Infiltration often involves a number of rolls to keep moving on and remaining unnoticed so the thief should be better at sneaking than the merc in the long run, even if he uses edge to ace a roll from time to time.

Good luck!

You might consider allowing the Rule of 6 to apply to all rolls as well. This should benefit someone who invested in a higher natural dicepool far, far more over the long run than someone who invested in being Mr. Lucky.

You should explain to your street-thief that Shadowrun characters are meant to be augmented, either with magic or with cyber. Either confiscate ten karma without telling her why (to give her Latent Awakening,) or provide ample opportunities for her to get chromed up.

Thanks for the feedback, its a big help.

I did urge the thief to possibly go adept or at least some cyberware but she really didnt want to, i knew that she'd be somewhat underpowered from just playing the game in the past however its hard to force someone to play a character they dont want, so i mean if thats what she wants to do i can really just make her change. She also seemed pretty keen on no drugs, which limits it even further



I have GM'd before, not a whole lot, i'm mostly a player



Problem is, Mr. Lucky is rocking some pretty huge dice pools in other things, i.e. guns and i feel thatd just make him even more ridiculous



Where are these qualities, i dont think ive seen them yet, i still dont have all the books but that could be really useful.



Problem is the character is already pretty decently powered in other skills like guns etc, so he just spends his 5 edge on stuff that he doesnt have a whole lot of skill in. It sorta makes sense, using luck over skill, but yeah i was refreshing at the end of the run, it just wasnt a super long run. Not that he knew that mind you, he just decided to spend a bunch early. Usually i would have no problem with this, however the thief already had volunteered for the job of sneaking into the place and he sorta just stepped on her toes and came for the ride, if that makes sense. You do make a good point, i should have forced them to make more rolls for infilitration, thats probably the way to go, make more rolls so edge becomes more precious.


Thanks again guys for the feedback and info, u've been great, ill chuck up what changes i make and the next part of the run next week

-Con

p.s.
how do i go about doing that?

I'm all for a player wanting to play a concept they like and making it work, especially since this is not an overpowered concept. The qualities I listed are from runner's companion. Without drugs she's going to have a hard time in combat, but you've got a street sam for that anyway. I really think that qualities is the way to go then, and just let her know she's probably going to have to take a lot of negative qualities to balance it out. (which could be interesting if done well, a street thief should have a lot of negatives. i.e. in debt, Criminal SIN, Poor Self Control, Paranoia or wanted etc. also in runner's companion)

Most of the skill modifier qualities cost 10 BP for a bonus to two skills or 5 BP for a +1 to a large group of knowledge skills, if that helps you in making some that are applicable to the thief.

Catlike- +1 infiltration and shadowing, 10 BP (skill modifier)
Hawkeye- +1 to ranged perception checks and reduce range modifiers by 1, 5 BP. Does not stack with magnification and augmentation. (A good pair of glasses with enhancements is probably more useful.
School of Hard Knocks- +1 street knowledges
Trustworthy- +1 to one skill in the influence group, 5 BP
Perceptive- +1 to all perception checks, 5BP. This can be taken twice.

There are also metagenic (mutation) qualities that could benefit her, but that might not fit with the mundane concept.

Here is the link to the qualities that are similar to lightening reflexes that I mentioned. (Lightening reflexes is the same thing for reaction and costs 15 BP). They're useful for making a competitive mundane, but they also are way more expensive than cyber/bioware and they don't let you reach the highest possible attribute ratings so most power gamers avoid them.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=1142850

I was just curious about the new GM thing. The first few sessions are always hard. I've played with 7-8 new GM's. No one's great the first time. (And inevitably always end up getting the GM cap handed back to me, but that's another story.)

Good luck.

Here's my 2

First off, I have no problem with letting the adept "Do something cool". Personally, I like to encourage this sort of thing when I'm running games. that being said, just be careful to make sure that he doesn't start to use it as a crutch, and still relies primarily on his regular dice pools.

With regard to the initial recon, that's always going to be a bit of an issue with Shadowrun. Some characters just are not really built for the initial recon/info gathering of the run, but then they tend to shine more when the bullets start to fly. Its a give and take.

As for Mr. Lucky: I think others have covered it pretty well. Multiple rolls for infiltrating, spying, etc. will help balance it out, plus its also likely (especially since the party lacks a mage) that Mr. Lucky is going to be a primary focus of attention during fights. He may soon find that he wants to save some Edge for dodging and damage resistance. Nothing sucks worse than having a couple of automated machine guns open up on you and you can't spend edge since you used it all while trying to be the thief.

As for the Thief: This is a tough one. She doesn't want to be an awakened and she doesn't want to use ware. In general, that's going to put her well behind the eight ball compared to the other characters. The only real saving grace here is that she should have quite a few points available for skills since its unlikely she would need to spend much money on gear. One possibility might be to allow her to spend a few extra points on abilities with the understanding that she doesn't cyber up (or become awakened). This would be one way to help even things out. Additionally, if she's not interested in ware, as time goes on during the campaign, its likely that she'll soon become pretty flush with money and so you might be able to allow her to buy qualities with nuyen later on. Not sure about that, or even what the rate should be, but it might be worth considering. In general, the common tools of her trade will be relatively affordable so either she'll be saving all that nuyen, spending it to get well off the streets (though higher lifestyles don't always have much effect in game) or she's just going to be buying random toys/loaning it to her teammates. Anyway you slice it, its going to be a bit tough since she isn't really giving you many options (and I agree wholeheartedly with not forcing a concept upon her that she doesn't want).

Finally, with regard to magical threats, yeah your group will struggle a bit against them (though things like mana barriers are useless against your group). One thing to keep in mind though is that a Johnson will usually have a pretty decent idea of your group's capabilities. They won't ask a team without a hacker to hack a military database, and they won't ask a team without a mage to find something in the astral, etc. That doesn't mean you can't throw mages at your party, just make sure you don't run scenarios where a mage is absolutely critical to success.

All in all, it sounds as though you are off to a good start!

Also, you may see how she feels about gene treatments (found in Augmentation.) They're expensive, not as powerful as cyber or bio, but she may find them less invasive from a character standpoint. But you can get a little bit of a boost with things like React, Sync, and some of the ones that add to Attribute based tests. Don't have the books in front of me so can't remember their names, but there are some that add to all intuition based skill for example.

Still, allowing her to take more positive traits and get a lot of add-on gear will be good. Focus as much on stealth as possible because she's not gonna be able to excel in combat unaugmented and with a chameleon suit and some serious sensor equipment, she won't need any augs or magic for sneaking. Focusing on combat would not be a good idea. Basically, the only time she should fight anyone is if she can kill them in one turn. Maybe make sure she's not picking up entire skill groups of skills she doesn't need, like firearms and close combat. Standard optimization stuff. While I tend not to like it when players min-max to the point of stupidity, in this case, its for a good cause. If you don't, she's just gonna be out-shined every 5 minutes and she's not gonna have as much fun (which is the whole point of playing)

The concept behind the thief was that she didn't start with any 'ware, owing to her strictly streets background. I don't see anything in there that says she's opposed to getting augmented later on.

So, like I said: give her plenty of opportunities to get chromed up, bio'd out, and so forth and so on.

Considering I hate the "roll till you fail" aspect, you can divide up an infiltration into multiple slices.
Each skill check will cover a number of slices equal to your skill rating. The player can choose to reroll prior to moving to the next slice if they want to. (RP sense that they barely managed to slip by and need to rethink their plan)
Your actual hits determine the quality of the attempt.

This modification would allow a high skill person to breeze by whereas someone relying on just luck will have a harder time.