Greetings dumpshock, it's been quite awhile since I frequented these forums. If you don't want to get the details of the plan, you can skip ahead to the main question at the end of the thread.
I haven't really played Shadowrun for a long time, but me and some of my players miss the old good times we had in "Life in the Barrens." I recently picked up the SR5 book cheaply, and after reading some of the rules I really like the changes in initiative system, introduction of Accuracy stat and so on.
However, I still plan for some very dramatic changes. First of all, I really don't like the Ubiquitous Wireless of SR4 and beyond. It makes hacking a chore, makes everyone connected and vulnerable, a lot of AR descriptions to account for, and makes hackers, deckers and technomancers too close to one another. Secondly, what I did to limit the runners in LotB campaign was a step in the right direction, but led to powergaming and only delayed the runners becoming too good for the opposition. What I want from this campaign is more down to earth, low powered, almost like today's age except with cyberpunk elements. Inspiration for this campaign will be shows like "The Wire" and 90s-2000s LA gangstas.
The PCs will all be members of a marginalized group, either poor metahumans or even black/Hispanic humans/meta mix living in a poor neighborhood in Seattle. I want Lone Star (not KE) to be a pesky foe and obstacle on a regular basis, so smack in the middle of lawless Redmond Barrens is not going to work. I haven't quite figured if they should be all SINless or SINNers, even criminal SINers. SINless fits the dark atmosphere of being a marginalized and forgotten group of people, but also makes law enforcement less of an issue, and given the circumstances is bound to get them a Criminal SIN sooner or later. Criminal SINs however are a really bad drawback not only for shadowrunners, but for anyone given how much they are discriminated against and how little rights they would have. They will be marginalized, but they need to be able to buy stuff at a Stuffer Shack or fast food chain without getting hassled too much (unless the 'Star is bored and are in he area). If I can't decide in time I will leave the choice to the players.
This start won't be very fitting for Shadowrunners, but that's the whole point. Runners is something they can aspire to be, or even to become petty crooks. I'm planning to start out the players as friends at a very young age, probably teenager. That means they will not be fully developed, so even the "street level" starting abilities and gear will be too much. The priority system can actually help in this, as it means what they choose will be their adult potential rather than what they start with. So instead of getting say 24 attribute points, they might only start with 12 of them and get the rest later on or gradually.
Gear is even more critical. Even 5000 nuyen which is the minimum starting gear for a street level campaign is too much for a poor teenager - imagine yourself having 5 grand when 15 years, to get shadowrun stuff. Sure, if you add your parents lifestyle costs, your clothing, magazines, computer, sports equipment, health insurance and whatever else you probably had it could easily cost 5 grand to replace it all, but you shouldn't get it as free spending cash. Therefore, lifestyle will be of a higher focus. PCs will start with either Low or Medium lifestyle bought for with what their starting money would be. While starting from poor, if the players want to prioritize Nuyen so that they can in the long run become a well-equipped street samurai, I could let them start slightly more well off than the others, and then introduce lump sumps here and there: A sudden inheritance, winning a lottery game, getting a downtime job that pays decently for some time. In either case I will use the Street Level starting restrictions on everything.
As for magic, this is more tricky. If they can start at magic 6 that will obviously be unbalanced compared to a wannabe Street Samurai without a single piece of cyberware. But on the other hand, no magic at all is boring for those who want to play a magician, which I don't want to discourage too much. In my old game Simon (the sorcerer) started with Latent Magic which he later developed slowly into a real magic rating. He was extremely weak at first especially compared to the gunslinger elf adept and the troll samurai (who were fairly strong because of high attributes), but then later became really dangerous due to magic being impressive even at rating 5. What magic level is reccomended for so young and weak characters? Magic 2? Just half of what they should have? Another balancing act is to make magic expensive again. I remember Hermetic Magic in SR2 and SR3 was extremely expensive as you required libraries to learn new spells, and they cost shitloads, while Shamans pretty much got it cheap in return for looking like dorks. Since the runner will start almost without magic, he will need to learn spells the hard way, spending some hard-earned nuyen getting access to books on magic or bribing a shaman teacher. Getting a talismonger contact will be essential and could lead to a lot more adventuring for the whole party.
Besides, having Magic 3 or even 6 is kind of pointless if you don't know any spells or haven't learned how to summon spirits.
Adepts are another matter, as they might not require book learning at all. Once the ball starts rolling Adepts are mostly self-taught until they Initiate. However, I could treat this more like RL kung fu monks - that it requires patience, meditation and good trainers to develop those amazing powers. Im assuming such a mentor will be less interested in material wealth than a Hermetic Mage though, and require services, time and patience instead, perhaps with some moral lessons as well.
I can see this way of handling things could be difficult for the players, or encourage min-maxing by combining planned attribute points with early karma purchases. To avoid this I will have to limit the choices a bit more by raising the minimum attribute to 2 (costing them 8 points already), and then not telling them how much or when they will get more points. I'm pretty sure they haven't read this book anyway, and if I tell them not to read chargen rules they probably won't. They simply need to know that they can choose priorities from A to E and what kind of categories are available (and minimum priority for certain races and magical abilities).
Technomancers... I will simply not use. Maybe they exist, maybe they don't, but it's not open to PCs.
Main Question
PS this is before delving into the Matrix chapter.
How well does SR5 rules mesh with a pre-matrix 2.0 setting? Can I use the decking rules and simply require a wired connection as well as ban AR decking? Can the new cyberdecks represent the old wired ones? What would normal civilians use for communication and basic computing needs instead of the Commlink, a videophone maybe? In my game the PCs might start without even these, possibly only having access to cheap cellular phones. I don't have access to SR 1-3 books, but I want the tech to be closely matching the Shadowrun Returns computer games, with a retro feel. Or maybe keep commlink as a non-decker device.
I know there is a 2050 book using 4th edition rules, but I hear the Matrix part there is just as bad if not worse than the older editions and SR4 itself. Could be useful for fluff and basic equipment perhaps, but I do like the SR 5 rules for most things. The wireless bonus is a nice touch, but will have to be replaced with something else (wired matrix bonus?) Any tips and experiences here will be most welcome.
I will probably have more questions after reading the Matrix chapter, hoping for only needing small adjustments. Above all I want to avoid solo-playing in matrix unless it can be done outside of normal play or resolved with a single dice roll or two.
Thanks for reading! If all goes well I will probably start a new AAR for this campaign. Won't be before at least a month or two though.