I got my group interested just by talking about it. Besides my tabletop group, I play regularly on a Virtual Table, we have an IRC chat setup, and some of us regularly hang out there. Now, it is all associated with D&D 4e, and most (if not all) of the players there have never played a different system.
So, when the PDF came out, I started talking about Shadowrun. About maybe putting my Darksun game on hold, and running Shadowrun
"What sounds too complex" or "Does that even make sense to anyone?" were some of the comments I would see in the chat, as we discussed various characters or mechanics. But the more we discussed the setting, and the mechanics, the more interest a few people gained. They were willing to give it a shot. So, I sat down and explained character creation to them.
The player who was skeptical the longest was immediately in love with character generation, and the Priority System. Repeatedly praising the system for forcing him to actually think about how character, weigh choices, make the tough decisions on whether he wanted a lot of starting cash, or more starting skill points. I think he even said, at one point, that this was the best character creation system he had ever seen, because he couldn't start with it all, instead he would spend time agonizing over priorities until he had his character just right.
After having played a couple sessions, some of them aren't sure what to make of the game. They like having their "heroic" characters, not people with moral ambiguity, people who would take wetwork jobs. I tell them, they don't have to accept every job offered to them. They can pick and choose. Of course, there will be consequences to their actions either way. But ultimately, I am glad that I got a group of "only D&D players" to consider, and actually play Shadowrun.
