tl;dr: How would you quickly summarize the system and setting for new players?

I'm planning to run some "show up and play" style games for a newly-opened game store in my area. The criteria I've set for the games is:
1) reasonable prep time (ideally < 4 hours prep for a 3 hour game)
2) easily sellable through the store (in print, in standard distribution channels)
3) easily teachable (new players can drop in, get interested, and potentially buy the game)
4) low player commitment / episodic (players don't have to make every session)

Shadowrun: Missions can reduce my prep time, and 5E is readily available in distribution. It's a popular enough that they can find other players if they want a full campaign. That said, I'm a little worried about point #3.

Getting new players even the basics of the setting and system seems intimidating, to say the least. I'm comfortable with my own knowledge level, but less comfortable that I can swiftly impart that info to new players.

Ordinarily, I'd try to spin off a teaching game, but there's only one of me, and I assume there will be some SR vets there on any given night who don't really want to play "Food Fight" or "Enter the Shadows" again.

All that said, how would you summarize the system and setting for new players? Would you turn them loose with pregen street samurai types for their first outing, or give them a full choice of archetypes? How would you condense down the history?

PS -- I'm especially interested in hearing how people who run con modules have handled this, since that's a roughly analogous situation. Assume the player has not done "Enter the Shadows", and you don't want to delay the rest of the table too badly.

I would not try to run a single game for all.

Plan on running an introductory game with pregen characters, mostly fighters, with at least each metatype represented. Have one or two magic users to choose from. Have a rigger with drones for the scenario and a hacker available, but only make them an option for someone who knows the game and but has never tried that type character.

Plan to run an introductory game one session and an episodic game for vets another session. If vets show up during the introductory session, see what they have played and if they are interested in playing a different type PC (or NPC if you want to whip up a quick sheet for your NPCs) and let them know about your episodic game so they can plan to make it. Likewise, if any newbies show up for the episodic game, let them know when you will be running the introductory game. Have several pregens of all types for the episodic in case vets walk in and have no character with them.

tisoz has some good shit going.

If I might suggest something?

Take a lot of prep time and design something that will let you rapidly semi-randomly design intro-level adventures, so you can cook up new ones in a big hurry. The basic framework should be cliched Shadowrun - Fixer tells you to meet Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson meets the group, gives you the job. You have some time (a day or two) to do legwork and any prep you can think of, then you have the execution of the job. Then you meet Mr. Johnson to get paid/doublecrossed.

Things like who the Johnson is (or is working for,) who the Johnson wants you to hit, whether the Johnson is going to be double-crossing you, complicating/chaotic/random factors, etc, should be randomly chosen from a pool.

Set-pieces like the meeting locations and where Mr. Johnson wants you to hit, should also be chosen randomly, but their denizens and innate factors should be set up.

For example:
Roll to determine the Johnson - he works for AZT.
Roll to determine the initial meeting location - a graveyard at midnight. Spooky.
Roll to determine where he wants you to do crime - Stuffer Shack. (Implies the presence of stuffer shack employees and minimal security.)
Roll to determine what he wants you to do - sabotage.
Roll to determine if he's lying to the Runners - no.
Roll to determine his motivations - Personal.
Roll to determine 3 random/complicating factors - Gang Presence, Law Enforcement Presence, Car Crash.
Roll to determine where the Johnson wants to meet for mission completion - Redmond Barrens.
Roll to determine whether or not it's a doublecross - no.

From this, you decide that the Johnson is an AZT employee who wants to make Stuffer Shack look bad, so he hires your players to sabotage a Stuffer Shack in some way. In this case, he gives the players several containers of some gut bactera that aren't lethal, but will give anybody the galloping trots. He wants the players to ensure that a Stuffer Shack so colossally fails a health inspection that it gets shut down and its manager gets sacked.

His motives are personal; he had a summer job there, and the manager was an absolute shit to him, and is still running the place. He wants the fucker ruined, and the embarrassing memories of his teenaged years erased. So he wants the players to rumble up to the Shack, and so thoroughly taint the place that the manager gets fired and the Shack itself closed down for major renovations.

They'll want to spend their prep-time to acquire some way of applying the bacteria without just obviously opening cans of biohazardous materials and splashing it everywhere, maybe case the place (or hire someone else to case the place for them,) or pre-hack the security systems. You can use a Stuffer Shack map (there are several already published, and that's just officially,) that's been pre-made, so you won't have to make a map for this set-piece.

Looking at the rolled complications,you determine that when the Runners go to head out to the Shack, there's red and blue flashing lights outside - Knight Errant and some Ancients appear to be arguing over who's culpable in a K-E police cruiser trashing one of the Ancients' bikes. The Ancients are actually demanding compensation from the cops, and this close to Puyallup Barrens, K-E can't be certain of a crushing victory just by calling for backup, since the Ancients can do that too, and their backup might be closer.

You pull out some law enforcement and ganger squads, and place them on the map, in the parking lot. You have the stats onhand, but since they're focused on each other, they should more serve to deter the players from making any overt moves. On the other hand, if the players catch either side's attention somehow, things could Go Loud fast... Alternatively, one or more of the players might actually decide to defuse the situation - a risky proposition since nobody likes outsiders butting into their arguments, but it could be good karma if they manage to resolve the situation and get everybody to leave.

This should be a fairly easy Run, but if the players seem to be breezing through it too easily, you can have the situation in the parking lot erupt into a firefight, resulting in the K-E beating a hasty retreat to the nearest cover - the inside of the Shack - and now the Ancients are hosing the store indiscriminately. The players are now at risk of being shot whilst they attempt to perpetrate their sabotage, but if they return fire, they're gonna get unwanted attention - and if they just cap the cops to get the Ancients to stop firing, they might earn a few friends in the Ancients, but they're definitely going to earn some enemies in Knight Errant unless they also pop all the witnesses, including the electronic ones.

Once it's over, one way or another, they need to meet Mr. Johnson the week after the run, since he wants time to see the results of their work. (Stress that their payment is in escrow, and Mr. Johnson's control over it at this point is "release" and "don't release," without "take back" as an option.) Depending on how the players did, he'll pay them; if they were absolutely thorough, he'll be pleased. If they sabotaged a few things but not enough to get the store shut down, he'll be unhappy, but will authorize half-payment. If they got caught on camera sabotaging the place, he'll be very pissed and won't pay them anything, since his goals have not been slightly achieved, since it's obviously sabotage and not something the manager can be fired for. If they went loud and shot the manager dead, he'll authorize payment since he's got his revenge, even if it wasn't the way he was expecting, and his enemy is dead whilst his conscience is clean enough for him to sleep at night.



By setting up something like this, you'll have Runs that are varied enough that even veteran players who want to can drop in with a more experienced character to bring on a milk run, whilst hopefully being flexible enough for you to customize things in a short amount of time, yet still allow you to make use of a lot of prep-work in the form of premade goon squads and set pieces.

Or at least, that's the hope.

Thanks for the responses, folks. Still not sure how I'm going to handle the situation, but I may have to play it by ear and just have some pregens ready.

I feel like it's a balancing act between too much explanation (and not enough action), and not enough (making the new player feel left out or sub-par).