While I have played D&d for 22 years and Shadow Run for 13, I have never GM ed before.I am planning on running a game for my younger brother and his friends this weekend. So to get ready I have been making characters in my spare time, I find its the easiest way to learn a new game system.
Iv come up with the fallowing house rules based on both past gaming exp, house rules I picked up from my parents and other past GMs and mostly from just making character using the base book rules. I plan on using the following rules.
1. I plan on using the Karma build system, probable 500 points to start with since my players are new to gaming. I like the karma system over the other two because it seems to let you make more rounded characters.
2.I am going to let them take any meta race or variants they want .
3.I am not going to put a cap on + or - qualities. If they want to spend a large chunk of karma on + qualities that's fine. As for negative qualities the stipulations I have is they have to all be linked some how like if your playing a nerdy mage and take Asthma, combat paralysis, and a butch of allergy's that's fine. But if they take a bunch of odd ones I want back story as to why you have them. I was also thinking of letting them be able to take the Debt quality multiple times up to 1/2 their Chr but each time have it with a different group for instance if the had a 4 Chr they could take 60 bp or 120 karma but owe 30/60 of it to the yakuza and the other half to the mob.
4. I liked the idea of giving them Chr X 2 or (Chr X 3 if they play a face) In free contacts. I plan of doing contacts a little different, for one I am thinking of doing the Connection rating as not just who your contact knows but how well they do there jobs because were a rating 6 face who knows allot of people makes sense a rating 6 stripper doesn't, so what I plan to do is have them specify if the connection rank is for connections or for job skills. If they do job skills then there contact is awesome at what they do which can translate to an easier time getting stuff fixed of made, like if they had a rating 6 mechanic of armorer their guns and vehicles get fix faster and they can get any of the upgrades they wanted for cheap .
5.Gear wise I am going to go with if they can afford it they can have it but if its anything over availability 12 I want a back story as to why they have it and from there I may or may not tweek the item. For instance Bob buys a panther cannon. Bob were did you get the panther cannon?, Bob says it was his dads .Bob why did your dad have the panther cannon?, Bob says that his dad was a former Shadowrunner.I say fine you can have it but since its old and beat up from some of your dads runs the cannon can only load ammo by clip and has a tendencies to jam. Bobs happy cause he got his panther cannon, that may or may not jam on a glitch, and I am happy cause I have back story I can later use to mess with Bob .
7.For spell casters since they get karma raped, do to paying for magic initiation and every other thing they have to spend karma for I am going to give them their caster stat in free spells like if their Chr was 4 they get 4 free spells or if their Log was 6 they get 6.
8. I put some thought into the Spell/SpiritKnack Quality and turned it from something worthless into something worth playing with. The way I worked it is as such Its works pretty much like the magician quality with the following Exceptions.
1.You Get your chooses of 1 spell and one spirit type to cast and summon. You can only bind half your Chr in spirits. 2.Knack Spellcasters have Astral Perception but not Astral projection. 3.You get a +2 die modifier to casting and summoning or to dealing with the drain. 4. Because your casting the same spell day in and day out the spell you pick will have some sort of tweek to it, such as a Fireball that is not as draining (f/2)+2 instead of (f/2)+5 or the Fireball could affect a area twice a big as normal or when casting the spell you could overcast it and the drain dmg would stay S instead of P. Another example spell could be a Shape change that only affects the caster but allows gear and cloths to be absorbed, the caster could turn into any animal with a body difference of 4 instead of 2. The Tweek can be player made but has to be Gm approved. 5. The spirits you chose seem to like you, this translates into a few benefits. One when summoning you can choose one of the following perks to happen, spirits opposing test is done at half force,you get twice as many tasks or spirits stick around for a full 24 hours instead of dusk till dawn or dawn till dusk. Second binding is easier, spirits only use force instead of force X 2 to resist . If you have the Spirit Affinity Quality you can pick two of the perks when summoning and if you glitch or pass out during binding the spirit will not attack you. However penalties for mistreating spirits is steep in addition to loosing all the above benefits, what ever the penalties normally associated with mistreatment of spirits are double.Spirits should be treated as friends and with the Spirit Affinity quality they are best friends and family treat them as such. 6. Knack spellcasters can initiate and in addition to being able to learn meta magic skills they can also learn Astral Project or to summon a new type of spirit. After Initiating knack spellcasters may learn a new spell that they must design, learning the spell costs 10 karma and they may never have more spells than 1+initiate grade.
So far this is what I am going with tell me what you all think.
