Hell everyone, my friends and I decided to try Shadowrun recently and I offered to GM. This is my first time GMing shadowrun and I've only played a few games with 3rd edition (I used to play 2nd Ed. but that was a while ago). I have a couple of questions:

Firstly, since most of the people in the group haven't played SR before I figure I should start them off slow, I've got a couple of ideas for runs kicking around but could use some advice on fairly simple runs that give a good idea of how things work in Seattle in the 2060's before sending them on something big.

Second, how much should I reward the player? For example, one run I was thinking of sending them on was to hijack a small weapons shipment en route for their fixer. For this job I was going to pay them 30% of the cost of all the weapons they deliver him (plus maybe a bonus from negotiations, as per the 'finding a fence' rules) plus a bonus (also to advance a plot involving the triads). Does this sound reasonable? Also how much karma should I give out for a run?

Third, is there anywhere that I can get a good map of the Seattle of Shadowrun (preferably free)?

Thanks in advance

I found food fight didn't work nearly as well as I wanted it to, but Infected Greetings, which can be found online (I believe as part of a TSS) was a great starting run. There's plenty of insurance to keep the runners from getting killed (you can remove the training wheels down the road), the story is straight forward enough to not be confusing, but there's also enough flexibility to let the runners be creative.

I believe standard stolen goods pricing is 10% cost. I gave my runners 3-5 Karma each for the first run, and 5.000Y, with the potential to find significantly more if they were creative (paydata on the mainframe). That seemed to work well enough.

JaronK

At work they have the same thing. Dry wallers have the "board stretcher", and everyone knows the "Long Weight" The long weight is esspecially good, because you're told to go get it from someone, and that person will tell you to wait where you are, and they'll get it for you. Naturally, they never return. It's a wonderful pun.

As for GMing advice, I find that the biggest mistake of new GMs is trying to predict what they're players will do. I find it's best to simply be highly aware of what the various people/forces involved are like, and determine what they'd do in response to player actions as those actions happen.

I like GunnerJ's idea. You can put them in smaller, controlled situations and give them some idea of what's out there. It's arguable one of the harder game worlds to wrap your head around at times.

I still take new runners to "The Stuffer Shack" from SR1 after "the first run" they complete just to put a cherry on top.

Good-luck!

At Kesler AFB, we used to send the pingers up to the roof in full weather gear (rain slicker, hat, boots, etc, even in summer) on "hurricane watch".

The Navy guys like to send newbies to find prop wash.

Or, in the old non-PC days, we had the EMHO reports, which would be gathered by a new female airman. EMHO = Early Morning Hardon. I guess I can see why that one wouldn't fly these days

For the first run, don't get too involved with planning it out. You might even want to hold off on the massive footwork part and just go straight forward. This seems to work better I think, and then after a few straight forward runs they'll develope a knowledge of how the SR world works.

Come up with a simple run, and whenever your runners do something, think "What are the consequences of this action?"

Also, I would just give them 1 or 2 karma or so for a job well done at the end and then use the guidlines in the BBB for additional (good roleplaying, guts, creativity). I also generally try to pay them enough cash that they make more than they could doing something easier. Also, for a bonus, gear makes a great reward, or the name of somebody who can find said gear for you.

"Third, is there anywhere that I can get a good map of the Seattle of Shadowrun (preferably free)?"

Well, I don't know about any Shadowrun 2060 maps of Seattle but I don't believe that much of the urban layout has changed, so you could have a good look at the following sites:

http://www.mapquest.com/
Provides good maps. Handy to plan possible actions/encounters/settings.

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/
Who can plan a commando raid without satellite intelligence on the place?




I hope these might be of some help...