Ok, I found a shop that has open night but noone is playing SR. While I do not think that my skills are all that, I would like to get some people into SR so I guess that means I will have to GM myself. That said I could use some pointers.

I plan to keep it simple SR3 only to begin with
Everyone has to read the introductory stuff
I'll help with character gen
NPC deckers unless somebody just has to play one
Keep house rules to an absolute minimum (but if they make more sense they will be used)

OK, I've marked the 10 GM Commandments, what else should I keep in mind/watch out for?

Thanks for the heads up.

- theartthief

I would suggest no house rules at all. Learn the core rules, and learn them well before you start making up rules. A lot of people use house rules to fill in the gaps of there knowledge of the actual rules.

As for running, plan, plan, and more planning. Think of a really good story (if your not running Missions, or First Run). And plan the story out well. If your using a module read it a couple of times.

While GM'ing: The flow of the game is more important than a +1 this or that. If you don't know the exact modifier, but feel there should be one, slap a +1/-1 on it.

During character creation keep it simple. Keep it as simple as your players will let you. Since you will have to explain the rules to them, the less Riggers, or Mage adepts the better.

Did I mention story? Have a good one. Ideas are abound. If they are new characters run them through Food Fight, it's allot of fun.

Hope this helps.

Bring simple pregenerated characters, and prepare to explain everything to them.

Go for a simple run-- a basic datasteal, or something straightforward. Don't worry about complications like double-crossing Johnsons or tailchaser runs just yet. If you want just combat, run Food Fight.

Make the opposition easier than necessary. You can always increase their threat level on the fly; but decreasing it will almost always be caught.

Make the NPC's colorful! That really helps bring the game to life.

Make sure they understand the status quo before you start introducing oddities, like otaku and shifters.

Have fun!

Kill them all in the first 30 minutes, then hand over the pregen sheets to the replacement players.

Don't mop up the blood until the police arrive.

Definately stick with NPC deckers until someone's gotten into them enough to read through Matrix. The way deckers work in SR makes many common decker functions--Matrix overwatch in particular--downright impossible until you can get your DF above 7; I wouldn't be comfortable with anything less than 10-12 considering the number of dice that hosts throw at you even on simple runs. At least that's how the numbers look to me; someone else with more experience can no doubt twll me how I err here.

The archtypes presented in the book are good for newbs. They're well-rounded enough to be fairly diverse, and once players get into the chargen rules they will soon realise how easy it is to improve on these designs, too.

When letting them design new characters, show them the NSRCG. The program's becoming reasonably complex and robust now, particularly for simple character design, that it really is a good aid in comprehending the rules.

Spend a few minutes working over your spiel about what Shadowrun is -- include movie or literary references if necessary.

Don't harp on any one movie or literary source too much -- I've found players will try to re-enact the quoted source material too literally.

-Siege

No riggers or vehicle combat. No deckers.

I'm a pretty crappy GM (I would use other words, but I see this as a public widesite.) Though I will agree with the already mentioned. No deckers, and no riggers.

It might be adviseable to try to allow a character to get into rigging later, what I mean is try to have it open to him (i.e. don't have them blow all their essense.) Rigging is not to complex, definitely if you don't get into to many chase sequences and stuff.

I would like to note that I myself am very against having a decker, because a have to create the matrix overlapped world for anywhere they go and well. It can mean double the work. But this may just be too restrictive, and part of why I suck so much.

Ohhh, and don't explain Lone Star as being security guards. There is this association with security guards being these guys with a flashlight and a pouch of coins for the real police. I guess I was so used to seeing a security guard being a guy in a hulking combat armor, and armed with at least a SMG (I think I take that from the 2nd edition picture of such.)

Mages, though being complicated should be used. I find that there are to much basic stuff that is missed without them.

And another thing is that, though Adepts may seem complicated. I think they can be so much more simpler then your cyberfreaks. Though them being part of the magic section can definitely make them seem so much more then they are.

The only thing I can say is definitely watch out for the Lone Star part.

Right; Lone Star is the cops *and* the National Guard rolled up into one. You don't want to get in a long drawn-out fight with LS; they truly have nothing better to do than hunt you down and kill you in your sleep, especially if you're SINless and thus have no more rights than lint.

Deckers and the Matrix really aren't that hard to run; you just don't have enough material for them to be able to do anything important without Matrix. The Matrix is not nearly as disjointed from the rest of the world as, say, the astral plane or the metaplanes. The thing to realise is, even though sculpted realities gives you an incredible amount of freedom to make a host's metaphor completely different from the corresponding space that it controls, doesn't have to be any different at all. In fact, for most office buildings, warehouses and the like, the Matrix host should look exactly the same as the physical space it controls does, wall for wall and cubicle for cubicle.

But what makes things even better for you is that you don't need to be nearly as detailed with the host; all you need is metaphorical "locations" for each of five subsystems. Making up the host's stats shouldn't be any harder than making up stats for the sec forces in the building either. All in all, the Matrix stuff should take much less time, and should be much easier to do on the fly, than any of the physical stuff.

Encourage and reward roleplaying. Speak in character, use slang.


Keep up the flow. Keep the game moving, don't bog it down by flipping through books, that will kill not only your game, but their interest in it, as well.

Be flexible with in-game situations.

Above and beyond everything else, make sure people are having fun. If they are, they'll come back, and you can figure out the rest later. Fun is top priority.

Consider doing a "non-standard" SR team for the first game. Pregenerate half a dozen gangers and have them hired to go beat someone up (or something equally straight forward). The next game, you might bring shadowrunners and do a basic run. The game after that, it'd be time for everyone to make their own characters (give them some cash and karma from the previous missions to reward them for learning how to play). Then there you go

I've been GM/DM for well over a decade + 5 years on it.**Just can't seem to stop RPGing**

Have a simple plot with a twist.
Expect the group to get the adventure done in a way thats not planned the wat you have planned.
Keep relaxed, make sure you have the groups attention.

And most of all have fun beign a GM, I personally have more fun running a game than playing some times.

We did the our first run with the example characters who needed to get a dog.
Our opposition were only a couple of gangers that were severely whiped before they could act. there was also a nice twist which we found 15 sessions later: the same dog was the carrier of a virus....

My first run was breaking into a hotel room and stealing pictures from a guy. I had everything planned out as far as times and such, and what the guy would be doing- where he'd be, etc. It could've gotten really messy, but they managed to, due to dawdling, show up when he was in the shower. Then, when he emerged half-naked from the bathroom, the (male) cat-shapeshifter adept threw himself at him and kissed him, keeping him effectively pinned as my npc rolled terribly to resist.

Which brings me to the biggest thing: Trying to anticipate what your players will do is good, but don't expect them to actually do anything you anticipate. Due to sheer luck and creativity, my guys got out of their first run with nary a shot fired. The 'shifter's player got karma for innovation and amusement value.

They're people. They do weird stuff. 's why I love GM'ing.

-Alex