So I'm running a game with 3 guys (a hacker with a broadsword; an adept and a face/shaman). Should the first campaign be a milk run or a milk run gone wrong? My players like a challenge but I dont think they would appreciate it if I killed them off on their first run. I was thinking for a campaign like this: Mr. Johnson tells them to stop a gang war so a smuggler could get through town without any interruptions (should I make up gangs or use some of the ones pointed out in 10 gangs, the game is taking place in Seattle btw). Johnson wont give them any details because he doesn't know any. Then they'll do some legwork and discover that one gang has pretty sh*tty technology but very strong morale because of their leader. The other gang gets alot of powerful hardware and gets most of their funding from BTL. So, the players have the option to choose from killing the first gangs leader, destroying the second gangs armory or taking out their BTL warehouse (where they record BTL and most of the junkies sit there while using it). Should I do some big twist here that makes things more difficult. I was thinking of halfway through the mission they get attacked by some chupacabras full of cyberware/bioware. wanting to find out what happened they again do some legwork and find out its some cult trying to create symbiosis between man and machine, somehow adding machine to man without man losing his "essence" or humanity(I need some help on what exactly that legwork would be). So is it better if its an ordinary mission or do I need to add the chupacabras part?
Edit: the chupacabras are there because my guys want to fight something new and interesting every campaign and not the same thing every time.

I think it's an OK premise for a first run.
Good players will screw up your plan though.

You should be prepared for the players to try and make peace. You have a face in the party, so that should be his idea. So you will need to know what these guys are fighting about, and if there is anything that can be done about it. In Shadowrun, all other skills are only used because some one didn't have good enough social skills.
Also be prepared for them to pick a side to join up with, and wipe out the other one. I don't think the simple targets you have laid out would stop the war, just tilt it one way or the other.
Depending on the character I was playing, I might just join up with one gang or the other and steal whatever the smuggler is carrying, considering it's valuable enough for some one to go to this much trouble to protect it. "Whoops. Sorry Mr Johnson, we failed. Here's your advance back."

And I'd totally put the chupacabras in. But as a seemingly random attack while working in the barrens. The players shouldn't let it send them on a side quest, as they have a mission which I assume has a time limit (when the smugglers were planning on making their run). Then you can have it crop up again, later. 'Cause they've just screwed up the work of this strange cult, and now, the party has an enemy secretly working against them. Stuff can go wrong for months that should have worked, and eventually they'll find that it wasn't just the GM screwing with them, it was this crazy toxic shaman and his chupacabra death cult

Are you and the group new to SR? Or experienced?

If it's the first time with the system, you might want to stick to a straight milk run to get use to the mechanics. There will be plenty of time for twists and complications later.

The twist also seems a bit tangential. It might be more interesting if the twist relates to the gang war in some way. Like maybe the cult is supplying one side and using them to test their creations, while intentionally keeping hostilities high. That way, if they're interested in the twist and finding where the cybered attack animals are coming from, they can pursue it, but if they stop the gang war, the cult will just pack up and move on to sell them somewhere else. And then the cult could come up later.

Also, stopping a gang war to let a single smuggler get through seems a bit extreme, why isn't the team just protecting the smuggler? It might make more sense if the Johnson has a more clear and reasonable motivation. A smuggling ring that operates in the area regularly and the Johnson doesn't want to have to relocate them because of the investment in repackaging facilities used by the smugglers for their counterfeit goods.

I was thinking of having the strong morale guys have strong morale because their leader is a freaking psycho. He basically came in guns blazing into the other gangs territory trying to move in on their market to sell drugs/guns, so reasoning with one or the other is borderline impossible. Does shadowrun cannon have any local gangs in Seattle that match my description?

It's our first time playing shadowrun and the first time that I'm GMing in general, but I want a campaign to reel my players in and make sure they don't get bored.

That's a good plan. Talislar (sp?) and The Black Rain are fighting it out over a piece of ground in the lava flats that includes a tunnel entrance that the CIA has been using for years to smuggle assets in and out of the NAN. They don't want to do anything official and call attention to the area, so they're hiring runners to try to clean up the mess. Their Johnson is a cutout who thinks he's helping smuggler who deal in talisma and sex workers. The "smuggler" in this case is actually a CIA paid coyote smuggling a SEAL team back into Seattle. So if there is any issues, the SEALs just kill everyone Sux to be the party that decided to double cross their Johnson.

I guess that would be a good way to teach players not to F with Mr Johnson. Btw did you jsut make up talislar and the black rain or are they in cannon? If they are in canon which book/page are they mentioned in?

One of the fun things about gangs in Shadowrun is that it's easy to make new ones ad hoc. Just come up with a slightly stupid name and a slightly stupid theme and then make them just dangerous enough that no one picks on them for their stupid name.

That said, a little web-poking has led me to the Rusted Stilettos, an Ork/Troll gang from Redmond, mutated and insane from overexposure to radiation from Glow City. They're nutso violent BTL dealers, primarily, but you could always throw in some extra drugs and guns. They're enemies of the Red Hot Nukes, a dwarf gang that's got some high-minded anti-corporate personal-freedom (anarchistic) sentiment.

The Black Rains is a Puyallup Orc gang that's been around since the first Seattle Sourcebook. And there's a gang of elves from Tarislar named The Princes (or The Princes of the Blood). I didn't have my book in front of me so I screwed up the name.

edit> The Princes may have been swallowed up by the Laesa, which is more of an Organized crime organization than a gang. Seattle 2072 doesn't list them at all.

Those are good gangs and they almost perfectly fit my description. I think i'll use them.

Rather than ending the gang war, consider the objective of putting a temporary stop to hostilities for that all-important smuggling job to take place with no complications. Maybe the team should try to coordinate two simultaneous diversions so that neither gang has any available muscle to put toward offense. Bonus points for also being able to escort the smuggler, which gets ambushed by the cyberchupacabras en route.

Another twist could be that letting the smuggler through was a pretty terrible mistake that needs fixing later.

The smuggler is actually carrying un-augmented chupacabras, so no matter how it goes down, the group has become involved with the Toxic Cyber-Chupacabra Death Cult ™

In regards to the original question, I would recommend that you don't delve into a terribly intricate plot from the beginning. Any new system, be it with a new GM or not, is going to have some stuttered play as you all figure everything out. The last thing you want to do is to have this incredibly written story, only to find that you're pausing every minute to scope a rule or answer a player question with, "Umm.. I dunno. Lemme look it up."

Use the first gaming session to allow the players to stretch their legs a little bit, explore their world, and converse with one another. Give them a little bit of time to warm up to your world and then start the fun. Don't skimp on any of the details when it comes to the meet either. The run isn't just about everything post-Johnson. Getting to the meet, deciding what to gear up with, checking out the place ahead of time - all play into the fun, mystery, and dystopia that you get to create.

I like to write my runs keeping my players' skills in mind. I try to put situations in the game for them to excel in, just as much as I like to put things in the game that challenge their skillsets. This keeps things entertaining and challenging for them at the same time.

And while you may be giving them a milk run, remember that you can still give them a challenging fight in there. The run might be straight forward, but that doesn't mean that it can't culminate into a engaging and hairy fight. I guess I define milk run two ways.

And lastly, I always like to throw a couple red herrings in my runs; things to throw the runners off their game - make them question if this is part of the run or not. Sometimes it'll be a side event. Other times it'll be something that catches the attention of someone in the group to the point of them sidetracking. I think it feels more realistic this way. My runners have gotten savvy to me though. A popular saying amongst the players in my playgroup is, "hey, what does that have to do with what we're being paid to do?"

Fun stuff.

Hope something in here helped. Good luck.

I like intricate plots and so do my players, and we are aiming for a campaign with high roleplaying. Also what cyber/bioware should i put on my chupacabras? Is it okay if I include items with above 12 availability? Also do you have any advice on avoiding a TPK?
Edit 1: one of my players will have elemental strike fire and chupacabras have vulnerability to fire. Should I buff them so they provide a challenge?
Edit 2: Chupacabras have pretty high logic and intuition. are they sentient?
Edit 3: Are there any stats for Red hot nukes or Rusted stilletos gang members? Also are there any stats for Grinder(the leader of red hot nukes)? Also what are black dwarves?

#1 - No. You shouldn't change the rules to thwart a skill someone in your party has. Let it be what it is. The challenge would be to add more possibly, but I wouldn't bend the rules unless their was a legitimate reason why they were bent (i.e. a scientist or mage doing experiments on them to make them deadlier or faster for corp security maybe).

#2 - No. The critters need the power Sapience to be self aware.

#3 - There are stats for what sample gang members should be like in the main rulebook. Also rules for how to create leaders. Using the stock examples is pretty fair if you have a group of new players. The term "black dwarf" means just what it means, Grinder is an African-American dwarf. It's not a subsect of the dwarven race, like drow or something.

Also, I didn't mean for you to not have an intricate story. I just meant, don't make your first foray into GMing a new system, heavily burden with working a masterful story from the get-go. The paramount concern would be in painting an accurate picture of the world, handling the rules properly, and setting an overall tone. Especially with a new game, new players, new GM. Focus on the basic elements of the game and drop a few hints at a bigger story. Session #2 should be where you start in with a more intricate storyline. Think about the acts of a movie, or even a good trilogy, like Lord of the Rings. The intricacies of character development of the "NPCs" happen over time. You aren't bombarded with extremely heavy/complex storylines from the get-go.

Just a thought. Should make the game flow a little better since you'll have enough on your plate as it is.

1 I kinda do. They are bred by a death cult so they might be trained in certain things and suck at other things.
Also any advice on not bufffing too much and making a TPK

Sure, as long as the reason you're altering the game is specifically about the story and not about combating a player ability just to make it hard on him/her.

Not buffing too much and TPK scenarios are driven completely by you. You're the GM. Routinely, what I'll do is I'll have a couple of scenarios at the ready. If my team squashes the first volley of guards, I'll have a timer before the next volley arrives, or until it escalates to the next higher level volley of guards. This way, I'm not making shit up on the fly. The runners wax the opposition? I'll give them their respite to get done what they need done.

However, if they show that they are overpowered compared to the opposition, it's important to be ready with believable second and third responses (if any at all). I never just throw in more enemies just to do so. I keep it grounded in the story. Otherwise, you'll get something like this happen: Team waxes some BTL guards/thugs at a BTL den (way too easy), so GM throws in a few more (which extend the fight some, but otherwise are taken out too easy). GM throws in a few more and by the end of it, everyone is scratching their heads going, "wait, how many guys are in this building?"

If you're running a serious story, just keep this kind of stuff in mind.

Simply though, and I'll keep coming back to this, for your first run I wouldn't get too crazy. Keep it simple to begin with. I'd use stock stuff to begin with before you start altering things in the game. Remember, this is your and their first game. Altering the way the game works from the beginning is going to skew the game somewhat. Even for you. Run a combat by the numbers. All of you will get a good feel for how deadly it can be.

Worry about buffing things later. These are new runners too. Keep these things in perspective.

My advice for just the numbers if you're trying to keep things challenging without a TPK (at least for combat, there's actually a lot of other ways to make SR challenging and you can have many game sessions without any combat):

1. The attack dice pools for the opponents should be equal to the average reaction for your group, but the pool should be at least 6 (average agi, a little skill, smartgun system). That way the opposition will hit about half the time without a lot net successes, at that rate your team can probably take about 3 hits (if they're splitting the soak between physical and stun) from most pistols and low end weapons.
2. Play the opposition smart. They're not going to just run at your team to get slaughtered. They're probably going to go for cover and run away to fight another day.
3. For dodge pools, remember to keep them inline with what's realistic. Very few gangers are going to have reactions much bigger than 4 maybe 5. This will probably mean that your mage and adept are going to probably hit every time, expect them to drop a guy every pass. That's why the gangers are going to go for cover.
4. On soak pools, remember that every gangers probably wearing some sort of armor, even if it's low end. I usually just assign a reasonable value like 10 and don't actually worry about the specific equipment.
5. As for weapons, it may seem counter intuitive, but stick and shock and tasers are ridiculously effective in SR4. They cut armor in half, which is even a bigger penalty for your runners who tend to have a lot of extra armor, so they are more likely to do damage (even if it's stun). The stun track tends to be a little smaller for people, so they can usually drop someone faster. And the secondary effect automatically causes penalties and there's a chance they drop immediately. And since SNS would probably get them in less trouble, it's reasonable for gangers to be using them.
6. Direct combat spells. You will soon find that Stun ball and the related spells are ridiculously good and your mage can/will kick butt with them. Remember LOS and that visibility penalties can be applied to the spellcasting check. Another reason for the gangers to seek cover.

Hope that helps.

In running wild the power paralyzing touch requires a successful melee attack but does no damage. Why can't my chupacabra just punch a character and deal damage normally AND paralyze him? Or does that mean that even if it does no damage or even if the opposed combat test is a tie the power still works?

Well, *your* chupacabras *can* do that. You're already modifying the rules. The reason for this rule is for game balance. In lieu of doing damage, the chupas get to make a Magic+Charisma opposed test against the target's Willpower. Every net hit reduces the target's Reaction by 1 for (magic) minutes. Since you're making them tougher already and the fact that they're going to attack in a pack, I'd suggest taking it easy on your super green players.