I am soon going to be running an SR game for a bunch of people who have gaming experience ranging from having played D&D once or twice to playing RPGs regularly and having played a bit of 2nd and 3rd edition SR.

I've helped people make characters before and they have turned-out fine, but I'm wondering if there's a better way. I'm drawn between giving them sample characters from the book, helping people make their characters (IE: What do you want? Ok, you'll want XYZ attributes and ABC skills...), acting as a knowledge base ("Can I get thermoptic camo from Ghost in the Shell?" "Sortof. Check P28 M&M") just giving them the books and letting them play what they come-up with (within the rules), advising them modifications to their character once they've finished, or some combination of the above.

So: Does anyone have a favourite technique to introduce new SR players? Are there any techniques you would consider ill-advised?

Start 'em with pre-made archetypes and then modify as needed. If that really doesn't work for them (ie. nothing appeals, or the mods are too complex) then make a character with just the main rulebook first. If they make a special request based on their ideas, then you can direct them to a particular piece of special gear from another book.

The biggest problem is hitting people with the whole scope of complexity of the possibilities right off the bat. That's just overwhelming and possibly alienating.

--K

I'm facing the same situation pretty much. I even went so far as to buy the main book for everyone . What I plan on doing is actually sitting down with everyone and spending a session making characters and working on game play. I'm going to go over the sample characters (I'm sure someone will want to just take one of them).

I'm also limiting the game to the core book. Thats enough options for a first time player without throwing four other books and a ton more rules at them. Then we can bring in other rules as they start the understand the existing ones (plus I am not forking out that much money for them ).

My concern is that the one player I have who is a veteran twink will run rampant with his character because he's willing to spend hours and hours and hours min/maxing his character while most of my other players aren't so fanatical about it.

So what was my point? Oh yeah, keep it simple. Keep creation to the core book for everyone. That limits what the new people have to learn and keeps them from being buried under additional rules.

Edit: Doh, curse my longwindedness!

Being a recently converted newbie myself, something I've found that helps a lot is the NSRCG. Obviously it's no substitute for the books or sitting down and creating a character with a veteran looking over your shoulder, but it's already good enough to deal with just about everything related to making characters, and then some, especially if you're not including rules for DNI-mods or implanting stuff into cyberlimbs (neither of which is properly handled yet.) It also helps when going into the rather tricky rules for upgrading skills and attributes using Karma.

(EDIT): The best part is, the machine does a lot of the error-checking for you, and does a good job of tracking starting cash, Essence, and which skills link to what attributes, which are by far the most painful things to keep track of on your own.

You have to know the person before you help them build. If they are like me (and always striving/failing to be cool) then they want to go with an outlandish character. Case in point, my first character was a shapeshifting bat, probably the most fun I have had with any character. Case #2, a good friend of mine (who I believe has a similar sarcastic/egotistical complex) was not happy with a normal character, he wanted to play a gnome adept specialized around groin punching. I helped him make it and we played for about 2 hours before he passed out drunk. But it was still fun.
Point of these stories: Introduce the metatypes and shapeshifters, give many options, but push for adepts, they are the easiest and fastest to make.

I go with the "what do you want to play" for most new players. I even tend to do that with experienced players from other systems. SR is just so... different. I also tend to be lenient on altering things after chargen.

One thing you want to do is do it with the whole group together. It is a team game, so they can talk with you and among themselves to come up with characters who can work together.

Now, that doesn't mean they have to come up with a perfect shadowrun team that covers rigging, decking, magic, etc. If they all want to play sammies and adepts, let them. You can have an NPC decker, rigger, and mage if you have to, or they can work with such NPCs on a run by run basis.

The main point of doing it together is that you can be sure everybody is on the same page - no combat monsters running amok in a game where everyone else is a detective, face, or covert ops specialist, no gimped drama queen characters where everyone else is a brutally effective professional, and so on. Heck, you might want to talk with them a bit before they begin, to decide what kind of game it is. That way, you won't run into problems like stone cold merc killers in your heroic campaign, or larger-than-life heroes in your "slice of life in the Barrens" game. If everyone is on board on what kind of game is going to be run, there will be less potential problems later on.

Also, doing character creation together lets you avoid things like the spoiled elf brat from the Tir running with the ork mercenary who fanatically hates those "uppity" elves, or any other mix of people that would have no logical reason to work together.

You might want to try making their first characters for them, if they're new to role-playing, not just to Shadowrun. Try this:

Get them to read some of the fiction. Novels, whatever.
Have a chat with them to get them brainstorming. No books at this point, just you taking notes. Kick around ideas. (A hint for this stage: 'light roast' coffee actually has more caffeine.) Characters from the fiction. From movies. Cool powers or cyberware or personalities someone might want. Get them to expand on why they want things. Offer suggestions. Try to expand the depth and diversity of each character.
Now, in private, make the characters for them. Try to give them what they ask for, but tweak the characters to make them survivable, avoid overlapping, but make each character diverse in skills and abilities.
Then take them on a trial run. Not just food fight, or they'll think it's a combat game. Meet mr. Johnson. Break a maglock. Knock out a security guard. Hacka computer. Run from a barghest. Come back and get paid. Really easy. However, you should make sure that every character has a moment where they show off their area of expertise. (For example, if someone's playing a rigger, make damn sure there's a car chase.) Otherwise, everyone will want to be the samurai.
Now debrief. What did they like? What did they not like. Questions they might have. Suggestions from you about what they could've done. Not just to use the character better, but to role play them better.
Now give them a choice: Make a new character, keep the character they have the way it is, or redesign the current character. Should make everyone pretty happy. Good luck.

for starting out with the ruels the first trime we let the person tell us what they had in mind and then we created the character, "Ok then how about taking this and that, but not those"

That way they have an affinity for the character and feel like they created it without getting all bogged down in the rules. If you just hand them an archetype- "OK you're a go ganger, Your a former NAN Border guard, you're a dwarf merc"
It's just numbers on a page they don't have any real feel for.

For people who play RPGs (including non D&D in their diet) regularly, I would recommend that you just throw them into the deep end after you immerse them into the atmosphere of SR (via novels/online fiction/etc). Those people already know how to swim, so after testing the waters, they should be just fine.

If they are new to RPGs or have exclusively played D&D, I think it would be best if you guide them along. No matter who they play, street sam/mage/adept, they should get to use skills and make all kinds of tests (open/opposed/etc), combat and get a general feel for the rules of the game.

I'd back toturi's statement.

Also take a look at what results you want: Chargen on one's own and then meeting each other first is an interesting way for a party to come together, the downside is that you can have 2+ players having the same ideas and having a testosterone battle over who is the best in area X.

Or go with Chargen as a group. Takes longer (pass CC, please. After I'm done), and should include too much that is modified, i.e. own car, gun, spell, etc from the design rules.

Don

with my crossover form other game charechters I explained the basics of the world, gave a short history lesson, gave them the basic paramaters of what they were expected to do as runners and then had them tell me what they wanted there charechter to be like in broad terms.

I made the inital charechters, and talked them over with the player, made some modifications based on what they saw different and then we ran with it.

after you have played the game a few times and have the number system for combat nd tests down, than you can let them make there own charechters.

I use NSCRG, it's just faster than paper, as long as you recognize it's limits.

-Mike R.

My first character didn't have GM involvement at all, oddly enough. An experienced player showed me the ropes of charactergen as well as how the numbers worked. It helped that I'd played many other games by that point and SR's mechanic is something between that of White Wolf and L5R.

That first character had plenty of flaws, but he was fun... a physad with a SMG and handgun thing. Looking back, the character is still playable, but didn't quite get everything out of the system that he could have.