It seems to me that we get a new thread every week or so about new roleplayers, or how to introduce gamers to Shadowrun. A good deal of them keep mentioning the initial complexity of the game and the system.

So...

What I propose to the Dumpshock community is to create a crash course fact sheet. Ideally, it should be three pages:

1) Brief intro to the Sixth World, what is a shadowrunner and what are the usual stages of a run.

3) Game concepts and basic mechanics like the rules of Six and Ones, open tests, etc.

2) Character creation steps. Easy and simple. Avoid deckers, riggers and the more complicated magic rules.

What do you think? Who's up to the challenge?

Sounds like a good idea but I´m certainly not up to it.

You know there´s an official quick-start book right?

Sure, but that means buying it. I'm looking for something that can be easily given to anyone. Ideally, you get the pages, read them and are ready to start making your first shadowrunner in 30 minutes.

Not bad... I think I'll give it a try.

Leave out the rules for character creation. That's not the place to start a newbie. They want to jump in and enjoy the game. Good pre-made characters, with some background that describes the Shadowrun world from the character's point of view, gets them started very quickly.

Handouts for the Combat Turn, or Ranged Combat, or Melee Combat, or Spellcasting, might be useful.

But the biggest thing for involving new players is the GM.

We've been giving out quick Matrix, Magic, and Rigging 101 handouts at the Shadowrun 101 seminars at Gencon and Origins for the last couple years. I never have time to attend the seminars, but I'm told that they tend to do pretty well.

The handouts are aimed at bother players and GMs.

IIRC I no longer have the source files for them, but they would be pretty easily re-created; maybe we could post them on ShadowrunRPG.com or use them as optional handouts at SR demos/SRM games/etc.

I only see one problem.

If they can learn everything without buying the books... why buy the books?

I'd love to help, in the name of spreading the game, but I can't, in the name of supporting the game.

Most groups have one set of books, and if they already have them the chances of the new guy buying any are pretty slim to begin with. Secondly, I think a handful of pages of quick reference sheet, which will probably reference the books anyways aren't a bad thing.

Something that gets players up and going in a short amount of time and then they can go back and read the books, buy them if they get that interested and need to, etc. are probably not going to keep anyone from buying any sourcebooks. A few pages overview of the mechanics to get someone comfortable with the system is hardly a replacement for a copy of the BBB.

You can get a feel for the game and a grasp of the basic concepts from a sheet, but there's no way you can run a game from them. There's obviously no way you could fit everything in the core book onto a single (or even a few) sheet(s) of paper.

White Wolf, at least when I started playing, had some 'quick start' rules on their website. They were heavily cut down but got me hooked and started my descent into regular roleplay.

I like the idea of cut down rules that would let you play a character but not enough to GM though; some pre-gen sheets and enough mechanics to play them maybe.

This is a good idea to help lessen the pure fright that the SR rule system instills in those used to D20 systems.

I would like to suggest again a central location for these to be kept so that if people have "standard questions" they can be referred to the FAQ and then come back before asking the questions. That way, one doesn't have to search the exact wording to find it nor dig through many pages of posts. We can move the Matrix walkthrough and the Rigger walkthrough there when they have been completed.

Starter Set:

3rd Edition Rules
SR Companion
Sprawl Survival Guide

All 3 go without saying.

Bring back the Quick Start Rules!

The SSG does not go without saying. Personally, I'd put Corporate Download above it; the information on how the corporations work helped the Shadowrun world attain cohesion in my mind rather a lot more than SSG would've.

~J

I'm doing my part..I'm doing a shadowrun demo in about 2 weeks at my local game store.

I'd say just the BBB and maybe the character creation rules from the CC.

I say maybe b/c I personaly think having to assimilate all the relevent stuff from the BBB is tough enough. Then you throw in another creation system (that arguably makes it look easier to Munch), edges and flaws, enemies, gouls, shifters, and metavariants. Oh my.

How could a first timer possibly decide and retain his sanity?

Character creation rules from the CC? "My character's an assault rifle with a conceal of 7!"

~J

I have a number of crib sheets (one for combat, one for magic and even a 4 pager for the Matrix (of which 2pages can be ignored if you never get into cybercombat, and 1 page is a list of common system ops)

I use them for my demos and think I may have sent them to Adam (or was it Rob Boyle) for putting on the website but had no reply.

Until I get the official word I won't distribute them for fear of copyright infringement.

The SSG is absolutely essential as a starter book. I can't say it enough. Nothing introduces characters to the setting/flavor like the SSG. I only wish I had it when I first started.

I want to see those Matrix cheat sheets before I have to make my own Really, all you need to know for a matrix run are what apps go to what operations, what types of operation each is, and some of the tables for Matrix combat. I just haven't compiled it into a few pages worth of stuff yet