I was preparing to start a new game with some friends who have effectively 0 experience with traditional pnp role-playing. Everything was going fine until it came time for them to read the rules. They took one look at the size of the book and the complexity of the combat/hacking/magic, and were thoroughly intimidated by it. Everyone in the group is an adult and has life responsibilities (work and kids etc) that makes it unreasonable for everyone to read a bulky textbook just to play a game.
Is anyone aware of a site or set if house rules dedicated to making Shadowrun simpler and easier to just jump into? I'd love to get these guys into role-playing, but without a simpler ruleset it's not going to happen.