[jeremyjc]

I have been looking through the forum and have found some great advice on new GMing techniques.  I would like to start my campaign with pre-compiled adventure in order to make the start easier.  From what I am reading Splintered State is not good for a beginning campaign even though it is stated in the description.  Do you guys have any other suggestions or have I been reading comments on Splintered State wrong.

Thank you in advance for the help in getting this kicked off.

[Namikaze]

I think Splintered States can be okay as a second, or (ideally) a third or fourth game into the world.  Part of the reason is that there are at least two scenes that can be absolutely brutal on new players.  And it can be tricky as a new GM too, because you have to juggle a lot of information about the various factions and such.

Is this the first time that you and your players have run Shadowrun or any edition?  What is your experience (and the experience of your table) in RPGs?

[jeremyjc]

Thanks for your response Namikaze.

I used to be very active in Rifts and White Wolf back in the late 90's.  I am just now getting back into tabletop RPGs and have never played Shadowrun.  My table's experience is BRAND new to any RPGs.  My wife decided she wanted to play and I am JUMPING to make it happen (She has already bought her pretty dice  ).  She is excited about Shadowrun's world, but I am frightened for her on the depth of the rules.  I am planning on hiding some of the complication by just saying what to role.  Any help with making sure this first RPG experience with my family is amazing is greatly appreciated.

[Namikaze]

Man, I know your frustration there.  My wife had never played a RPG before this, and she has no desire to get in deep with it.  So I let her make her ideal character, which is a sniper, so that she doesn't have to talk too much, but still gets to participate.  Every now and then she jumps into the table talk, and that's when I get a glimmer of what I see coming out of her shell.  It's awesome.

My suggestion: let her play whatever she wants, but try to steer her toward the more straightforward archetypes.

As far as first games go, it's hard to beat Food Fight or Fast Food Fight.  Both are similar in concept, and they are available in the starting demo box sets or online as free downloads.  Food Fight is for 4th edition, so it might require you to make some simple changes, and it can be found here.  Fast Food Fight is directly intended for 5th edition, so it takes no adjusting to make it work.  It can be found here.

[jeremyjc]

Yea I am planning on doing Food Fight 5.0 this weekend at our family camping trip.  Mainly as an introduction.  I am thinking of creating characters post food fight and looking for a good campaign starter.

[Namikaze]

Gotcha - at one point, Michael Chandra posted up a list of what he felt were the best introductory published missions, and their order.  IIRC, it was the even-numbered Missions from Season 4.  Someone else is bound to have a better memory of his post than I will.

Aha - found the post:

Splintered State is a perfect Introductory Adventure for Experienced Players who want to switch to SR5. It sucks for others.

If you want to really build up Seattle, here's what I'd do:

- Play Copycat Killer, the original start of the Mayan Cutter Trilogy. Convert it, Carbon Copy is in part its SR5 version so you can take inspiration from it. Edit it down a bit to make it easy enough for the rookies, especially if you use Street Level or Street Scum chargen rules.
- Play Seasons 4, 0+odd Missions only. Do NOT play the Artefacts Missions! They're far too tough for now. Convert of course.
- Consider Splintered State now, but only if you started as normal runners and your players are now veterans. Ignore it otherwise, just let them hear the gossip about what happened.
- Play Sprawl Wilds: Ashes and Sprawl Wilds: Carbon Copy. The others you can do if you want.
- Consider the even Missions of Season 4 now. If you played Humanitarian Aid, definitely use Romero&Juliet.

This is absolutely a great combination of missions.

[LionofPerth]

Personally, I'd actually avoid Food Fight 5.0, get people happy with their characters first up. Now, while I think this isn't the most friendly game for new players, it's certainly friendlier than previous editions.

As for how I'd plan to do it, this is of course, you've written your own story/narrative campaign in mind. I'd look at building a very basic situation for the group, one that uses all of their skills to a certain degree. Maybe even time it as well. Explain that's it part of a test for a particular Johnson and they need to find out how well the group works, shoots, thinks and reacts. Don't be too gentle on them, give em some basic security to deal with, some alarm systems, some on site hacks etc. If you need inspiration for it, the job descriptions in the core rulebook aren't to be laughed at. It's just a case of making sure it feels right. Don't have a warehouse job happen in a large office block for example.

I believe that, this coming from different groups, a gentle, subtle introduction to the campaign is one of the best things you can do. If you can get people a guideline to what they should expect, what you intend to do, it's going to be better for you, the game runner long term. Also take your time with the mechanics, be patient and let yourself build up to longer and more rules complex scenes.

This, I would suggest is the most difficult of the possible options, but in my mind the pay off is that much greater for it. In my mind, it also gives the group an initial hook, group identity, something that can be a real help for relatively inexperienced groups and players. I think a lot of people forget how important group identity can be and it's a hard thing for Shadowrun to encourage.

I'd also, in terms of game experience, not encourage players to back stab etc. While Shadowrun is set up for it quite easily, playing around with themes like that takes practise and a certain amount of skill. You also need a group that has a certain lack of attachment to their characters, you're going to see multiple characters out of every player with this style game.

On another and final personal note, if you can avoid magic, technomancy, try to. Keep it simple, keep it elegant and keep it about the players.