Long time no see people. After taking the summer entierly off Shadowrun, the university term has just started-up again and with it comes fresh meat comes a collection of gaming freshers and the return of the old gaming groups. It is a combination of the above factors that this "Dear Agony-Forum"-style post stems from.

I got a call from one of the guys in my old group saying that he'd like to run a game of Shadowrun. "Great", I think, "A chance to play my favourite game again." He's never run a game before, so we decide to co-gm it to some extent. He also dosen't want too much magic in the game (which he prefers the cyberpunk aspects of), so preferably no more than one magical character in the group.

These are to be new characters using rules from the SR3, M&M, MitS, R3, and CC. During the creation process, however, things turned slightly more silly than usual with two of the group (out of 3) going the 1M route.

This would not really be a problem as-long as we're all up-for the style of game the GM seems to be advocating (high-powered, cinematic), but we now hear that one of the new gamers is an experienced shadowrun player and she probably wants to join the group. From what I hear from people who gamed with her at the introductory session (I didn't speak to her myself), she tends to play talker characters and is a good role-player.

The problem: we already *have* a face character and not all good role-players appreciate playing with a bunch of gun-totting min/maxing maniacs. The magical character slot is already taken, a rigger might feel their territory encroached-upon, and I don't think the GM has even tried reading the matrix section yet so a decker is probably out.

Problem 2: I'm planning on GMing at some point. I like the magical aspects of the world, and would definately appreciate a mage in the party, but unless the current GM could be pursuaded to play a mage when I take-over I'd not have an awakened-plot-stick in the party to poke.

Blah. I suppose part of the problem is that I don't actually know what's happening yet. Anybody got any advice as-for a character for the new player? As "Experienced shadowrun players", what would be your reaction to joining a group with some blantantly maxxed-out characters in it be?

Clearly explain your fears to the player that wants to join. Let her decide if she wants to play or not under these circumstances.

Also, why not consider running 2 campaigns? Take the players that are more in-line with what you prefer and run a campaign like you want it. Just make sure to explain to the other GM why you're doing this, and make sure you don't take away too much time away from the other game. Make sure everyone sees your second campaign as not "competition". You have to explain that the other GM isn't doing a bad job, it's just a matter of running a game that is a little differant.

Tell her that it looks like the campaign will be a slaughterfest and there is already an attempted face. Introduce her to the attempted face so they can decide how to work that out. Whether the newbie wants to learn from her, try untrained, or if they should have a duel to the death over rights to play the face, it's better to have that conflict resolved instead of it ruining the game.

If you and the GM prepare a schedule so that your campaigns don't conflict time wise, and invite him to play in your game, the two campaigns can show the new players two sides of the same setting. This is a good thing. Many seem to base their preference of what Shadowrun "should" be on how their first campaign worked. Giving them two different sides of the setting should result in a better appreciation of the game.

After that, you and the other GM can run parallel games, one a ganger campaign, the other as a corporate team. Just to show another pair of opposing sides.

Riggers are the-more-the-merrier types.

~J

Second option, explain the sit. rep. to the experienced player. Start a second runner group and keep it in the same campaign. One team is mundane/cyber the other team is awakened. Start the mundane team off first by a few sessions, then once the GM is ticking over, start up the awakened team. Play the two groups physically close to each other so rule-checks are easy. When each group has bedded in, start moving the runners between groups. I haven't done this with SR, but when we did do it we used Werewolf and Vampire. It worked a treat and we, technically, were using two different sets of rules!

And yes, the Werewolf GM had never GM'ed before.

I always welcome new players, and while this could make things harder, I think it is a worthy gamble. If the new player comes in and RPs her ass off, she is going to show the min/maxers what some good RPing can add to a game, and you'll probably see some better RPing all around. As for the two play styles mixing it up, that can be a real problem. What I would recomend is let him set the low magic style for the base. Then when you run it focus on out of town work, so you can have new locations with a heavier magic base, without opposing the setting he is creating. Even in Seattle you can use little "nook" type places to focus on magic without throwing things off too much.

My experience has been usually the two camps don't interact well.

If she would like to try, give her fair warning and let her join for a session or two to get the feel for the group.

If it works out, fantastic - if not, you gave her fair warning and a chance to find out for herself.

-Siege

Lilt, I don't see that you have a problem yet. Did someone tell you that there's a problem? You weren't at the introductory session and she was. Perhaps talking to the woman would help you learn if there's a problem. She already met the group and has some opinions.

@OurTeam: Ack... In editing I missed-out the bit where I said I went mage. Thus once I GM if I did want to send weird drek at the group I'd probably have to NPC my character and feed my own NPC plot-hooks... If I did that I may as-well just do the run with my NPC and tell the rest of the group that they may go home.

Anyhow: Thanks for the replies. It's not like we don't roleplay, but the GM likes the more 'cool', cinematic, parts of the game. IE: He appreciates a firefight as a good role-playing scene as you pull-out your custom-finish guns (with a quote from the punnisher comic/similar on the side) and proceed to kill everything in sight, twice.

The group right now are as follows:
Face/Rigger: Anime Fan, dosen't mind what his character is like as-long-as they're pretty and can do cool stuff. Chose his archetype based on the picture. Tends to not do much unless he's asked to.
Merc/Weapons Expert: Comic-book fan, focuses on having no-nonsense characters with a handy 'killing machine' action.
Conjurer: Me, Min/Maxer, Munchkin, Powergamer, Ruleslawyer. (listed alphabetically)

I've been talking to one of the other players and we're contemplating suggesting to the attempted face (nice use of words, herald) that he go something different. He'd probably be better with a character with as few options as possible as otherwise he may get overwhelmed (Rigger is a bad idea in retrospect). Anybody got any ideas for a simple, pretty, character to play?

Simple and pretty? How 'bout a PhysAd Stealther. Make him a ninja and he's got his anime fetish all wrapped up in a pretty package.

Physad.

~J

Although he might be a little miffed when his adept eats a hail of gunfire during the first gunbattle.

-Siege

Hmm... We gave him an adept last time (even though he protested at the archetype picture until we told him he could be a hot girl in a catsuit), but this time we've got the 1 magical character limitation so I'd be displaced character-wise.

Is there a next-most-simple character type to play?

Two physads.

Discuss that with your GM. A physad is about as much like a mage as a streetsam is like a rigger.

~J

Honestly, the next most simple after Adept is Covert Ops or Weapons/Demolitions specialist. Light cyber, light bio, specialist, and required to follow orders.

I'd suggest having the new girl GM, actually, and have a three person rotation. She may enjoy a few goes at the cinematic until you GM, and then you can have a more magic interaction when she GMs.

Rotating GMs can also lead to some seriously frustrating games as the GMs have conflicting gaming styles and opposing reward systems.

The money/karma/etc. awarded in a high cinematic game would probably conflict with what the real role-player would otherwise issue.

Although this is certainly not a guarantee of conflict, the potential is there.

-Siege

Edit: Oy

Probably clearly irrelevant 'cause i havent read the most recent post on this thread but i have a dilemma

Or rather my GM has one

We have 8 players, it used to be just 4 for all those kiddy D&D games but now there are 9 of us. (Don't ask me where they came from, i go to Queensland for a week and then all of a sudden we have new friends). Only two of us qualify as half-way decent GM's (one of which is me, unfortunately)

He wants me to co-GM (which i have never done) for reasons of his personal mental health (the group is a tad heavy with ze munchies)

So anyway, out of that comes two questions

1) Is there any point to me having a runner in game at all, if i know the ins and outs of the run(s) and
2)Why me?

For thw guy with the magic limitation: I've had GMs who don't allow any magic users in a game at all and *still* allow adepts. Adepts almost aren't magic at all, in the sense that they can't cast spells, can't conjure, and in general don't really do any magic at all outside their own bodies. For the most part you can play them as if they were nonmagical and just really good at what they do. As for the picture, I don't like many of the pictures at all myself. If I saw anything like the adept walking around in 2060's Seatle, with no shirt and runic tatoos all over his body, I'd know right away that he's some kind of magic man. Typically my adepts tend to look much less conspicuous: take a look at Ghost or Daniel. Both are covert ops sams that have that anime flavor you're looking for, and neither of them are magical enough that you even have to pay attention to the fact that they're Awakened at all.


As for the second guy, you've got so many players there it's possible you and your co-GM will *both* be GMing full-time to keep up. One GM really can't keep up with nine players; heck, two together will have a hard time keeping up with eight players! For the moment I'd just stick to being a good GM, and wait for these "new friends" to quit; I'm almost certain you'll be down to five or four players within a month and you can insert yourself into the game then, "to pick up the slack."

The Gm doesn't know how to run deckers, and the character is a good roleplayer? Seems like you answered your own question there. The Gm can concentrate on heavy description matrix runs, resolving things with a few simple dice rolls when appropriate. Advise the new player that its a combat heavy group and that she might do well to build some kind of combat decker and I think you're on to a winner. The decking won't slow the game to a crawl because neither person is going to want to get involved in heavy dice rolling, and the new player will add an entire extra dimension to the group.

just my tuppence worth.

OK. The problem is vaguely sorted now. The new girl didn't turn-up, the Face/Rigger is now going a 400k sammie with social skills, I have switched over to the rigger I made-up, and the Merc/Weapons expert hasn't changed much (but we are now sharing the same Ares Roadmaster as a van/hideout/tank).

I made the descision to play the rigger as the GM hadn't read the magic section yet and I didn't want to pressure him too much (also, until he'd read the magic section carefully I doubt he'd know how to meta against magical attacks like a real security force would).

Once his game is complete, I'm going to attempt to scrape-together 5-6 people and make some pre-genned characters for a game I'll run later. I'm going for both a Decker and a Mage/Shaman on the team so I can introduce them to parts of the world they've not really seen before (besides what the mage in our old group did, which wasn't that much).

thanks guys