Full Version: advice needed
i am just about to run a sr adventure i have run other rpg's before but first time with sr so any help would be great. thanks kel.
Could you be just a little more specfici about what you're looking for? It will help us fine tune our advice.
Here's some advice.
1) stick to the main Shadowrun 3rd Edition standard rules for a couple months. Don't use Magic in the Shadows, or Cannon Companion, or Man and Machine expansions.
2) Players should use archetype characters (Premade characters in the main book; pictures start on page 65; real data starts on page 326) until they've played a couple months and have an idea of what type of character they'd like to play long-term.
3) GM should ignore all Rigging (vehicle activity and combat) and Decking (computer activity and combat) for at least 6 months. If your adventure requires rigging or decking, tell the players that you're doing a simplified version of it to improve speed of play, and just have the character roll 6 dice. If they roll better than average, describe a better-than-average result, and so on. Learn Rigging and Decking after you have everything else covered.
4) Practice a combat-only session with all the players before starting an adventure. Take your time, and work out how it works. Learn about Initiative, Combat Turn, Multiple Actions per Turn, Complex and Simple Actions, Movement, and Damage. Learn about penalties to actions (cover, wounds, vision, movement, recoil) all in the practice session.
5) Describe for your players what their characters know of a "Typical Shadowrun", as they have previously experienced or heard from other shadowrunners. It has "the meet" with "Mr. Johnson" (always Mr. Johnson), the pay (often half up-front), the legwork (finding out things) and the planning, and finally the execution of the run, making delivery (if needed) and final payoff. Describe the notion of "professional" shadowrunner, who knows that generating a good reputation is needed in order to get higher-paying jobs in the future. Describe the notion that a "team" is needed, because the world is so complex and no one can do it all. The most successful shadowrunning teams have a variety of skills, they back each other up on skills (who treats the medic if he goes down?), and they trust each other with their lives and expect the others to do their job.
6) You can look up rules as you go during your first game (slow but sure), or you can wing it, using your best recollection of the rules and keeping the pace fast and tense. Do whichever works for you.
7) If you can find an experienced GM anywhere (convention, local game store), ask him to help you. He might GM the first time, or run the combat practice session.
8] Magic is an integral part of Shadowrun, but it's possible to do a couple Shadowrun adventures without any magicians on your team or on your opposition. The Magic rules add a whole new dimension to the game (astral scouting and surveillance, invisibility, clairvoyance and fireballs, to name a few). If you and your players can play two or three times without any magic, that'll simplify things to start with.
Here are more suggestions, in a previous thread titled GM Advice.
1) stick to the main Shadowrun 3rd Edition standard rules for a couple months. Don't use Magic in the Shadows, or Cannon Companion, or Man and Machine expansions.
2) Players should use archetype characters (Premade characters in the main book; pictures start on page 65; real data starts on page 326) until they've played a couple months and have an idea of what type of character they'd like to play long-term.
3) GM should ignore all Rigging (vehicle activity and combat) and Decking (computer activity and combat) for at least 6 months. If your adventure requires rigging or decking, tell the players that you're doing a simplified version of it to improve speed of play, and just have the character roll 6 dice. If they roll better than average, describe a better-than-average result, and so on. Learn Rigging and Decking after you have everything else covered.
4) Practice a combat-only session with all the players before starting an adventure. Take your time, and work out how it works. Learn about Initiative, Combat Turn, Multiple Actions per Turn, Complex and Simple Actions, Movement, and Damage. Learn about penalties to actions (cover, wounds, vision, movement, recoil) all in the practice session.
5) Describe for your players what their characters know of a "Typical Shadowrun", as they have previously experienced or heard from other shadowrunners. It has "the meet" with "Mr. Johnson" (always Mr. Johnson), the pay (often half up-front), the legwork (finding out things) and the planning, and finally the execution of the run, making delivery (if needed) and final payoff. Describe the notion of "professional" shadowrunner, who knows that generating a good reputation is needed in order to get higher-paying jobs in the future. Describe the notion that a "team" is needed, because the world is so complex and no one can do it all. The most successful shadowrunning teams have a variety of skills, they back each other up on skills (who treats the medic if he goes down?), and they trust each other with their lives and expect the others to do their job.
6) You can look up rules as you go during your first game (slow but sure), or you can wing it, using your best recollection of the rules and keeping the pace fast and tense. Do whichever works for you.
7) If you can find an experienced GM anywhere (convention, local game store), ask him to help you. He might GM the first time, or run the combat practice session.
8] Magic is an integral part of Shadowrun, but it's possible to do a couple Shadowrun adventures without any magicians on your team or on your opposition. The Magic rules add a whole new dimension to the game (astral scouting and surveillance, invisibility, clairvoyance and fireballs, to name a few). If you and your players can play two or three times without any magic, that'll simplify things to start with.
Here are more suggestions, in a previous thread titled GM Advice.
I have very different advice than OurTeam does on a few points, but here is mine:
1) Have everyone make characters together. Look up the rules for each skill as you go, try to figure out how things work in advance. If a player asks you "what is drain" dont tell him, look it up and read it out loud to the whole group. This process will take an entire evening, but will get everyone familiar with what they can and can't do.
2) Prepare a FAST milk run for the players. Have them jumped by a bunch of gangers while they are eating some Soyburgers at a resteraunt. Let them get used to combat and initiative this way.
3) Don't ignore the complex stuff. Just be ready for it. During your "character creation" night run some mock chase scenes with the whole group. Just put them in a car and put an Americar with 2 gang bangers in it behind them. Let the rigger player learn the rules during this "fake chase" then let him make adjustments to his character as he sees fit (this goes for everyone)
4) Repeat step 3 with your decker(s). Let them hit a green system with a little bit of paydata as their goal. Make it guarded by some kind of non-lethal IC and get used to the system codes and such. Make sure you escalate their security issues a little so you get a feel for all the rules.
5) Repeat step 4 with your Magic user in astral space.
6) Find a way for all the characters to know each other BEFORE the game starts... just saves you so many hassles.
7) Go over each character carefully for errors and things they may have missed (skills they will want, ect)
Allow players to keep 9 skill points "floating" to buy skills with as they need them. If a player didnt buy pistols skills, and finds they need it let them put 3 points into it. Limit this number to exactly 3. If by the end of the second game session they havent spent these points, make them spend them.
That's really all i can think of right now.
1) Have everyone make characters together. Look up the rules for each skill as you go, try to figure out how things work in advance. If a player asks you "what is drain" dont tell him, look it up and read it out loud to the whole group. This process will take an entire evening, but will get everyone familiar with what they can and can't do.
2) Prepare a FAST milk run for the players. Have them jumped by a bunch of gangers while they are eating some Soyburgers at a resteraunt. Let them get used to combat and initiative this way.
3) Don't ignore the complex stuff. Just be ready for it. During your "character creation" night run some mock chase scenes with the whole group. Just put them in a car and put an Americar with 2 gang bangers in it behind them. Let the rigger player learn the rules during this "fake chase" then let him make adjustments to his character as he sees fit (this goes for everyone)
4) Repeat step 3 with your decker(s). Let them hit a green system with a little bit of paydata as their goal. Make it guarded by some kind of non-lethal IC and get used to the system codes and such. Make sure you escalate their security issues a little so you get a feel for all the rules.
5) Repeat step 4 with your Magic user in astral space.
6) Find a way for all the characters to know each other BEFORE the game starts... just saves you so many hassles.
7) Go over each character carefully for errors and things they may have missed (skills they will want, ect)
Allow players to keep 9 skill points "floating" to buy skills with as they need them. If a player didnt buy pistols skills, and finds they need it let them put 3 points into it. Limit this number to exactly 3. If by the end of the second game session they havent spent these points, make them spend them.That's really all i can think of right now.
| QUOTE (OurTeam) |
| 5) Describe for your players what their characters know of a "Typical Shadowrun", as they have previously experienced or heard from other shadowrunners. It has "the meet" with "Mr. Johnson" (always Mr. Johnson), the pay (often half up-front), the legwork (finding out things) and the planning, and finally the execution of the run, making delivery (if needed) and final payoff. Describe the notion of "professional" shadowrunner, who knows that generating a good reputation is needed in order to get higher-paying jobs in the future. Describe the notion that a "team" is needed, because the world is so complex and no one can do it all. The most successful shadowrunning teams have a variety of skills, they back each other up on skills (who treats the medic if he goes down?), and they trust each other with their lives and expect the others to do their job. |
If you have Sprawl Survival Guide, there's a nice little story/article concerning what a professional team should do on a run in terms of the meet, etiquette, paranoia, legwork, the meeting after the meet, etc.... Highly recommend reading it or its equivalent.
| QUOTE |
| 3) GM should ignore all Rigging (vehicle activity and combat) and Decking (computer activity and combat) for at least 6 months. If your adventure requires rigging or decking, tell the players that you're doing a simplified version of it to improve speed of play, and just have the character roll 6 dice. If they roll better than average, describe a better-than-average result, and so on. Learn Rigging and Decking after you have everything else covered. |
???
If you are going to simplify the rules, at least use the standard skill system. What you describe is a little too simple and will only confuse the players further as move on to learn the more advanced rules.
Misfit, I agree. I meant to say that the Rigger could roll 6 dice for driving, or the Decker could roll 6 dice for decking. Everyone else just crashes and burns.
| QUOTE (Raife) |
| 2) Prepare a FAST milk run for the players. Have them jumped by a bunch of gangers while they are eating some Soyburgers at a resteraunt. Let them get used to combat and initiative this way. |
FOOD FIGHT!
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