[Teabeeyea]

I am going to run the FOOD FIGHT encounter from the quick start rules for the first session of my new group.  But I expect more than four players.  Any way to further complicate the encounter without a TPK?  I've thought about bring in a "Lone Star" team after a few rounds to respond to the explosion.  Any thoughts on that?

Also I've thought about triggering the sprinkler system at some point during the encounter for a -2 Dice pool penalty for anybody in the store.  Thoughts on that idea?  I mean why not make a royal mess of the place?

[Medicineman]

  I've thought about bring in a "Lone Star" team after a few rounds to respond to the explosion.  Any thoughts on that?
You should rather add 1 or 2 more Goons.
Messing with the Cops at the first Szenario might be a bad Idea

Also I've thought about triggering the sprinkler system at some point during the encounter for a -2 Dice pool penalty for anybody in the store.  Thoughts on that idea?  I mean why not make a royal mess of the place?
I usually do that too
and another -2 from flickering Lights & partial Darkness
By-the-Way I usually take the Elf as the Widow of a recently killed Fixer (the Goons want to finish the Job,thats why they're chasing her and the Baby)
and when the Chars save her (she begs for Help ,even offers Money if all else fails)
they have their first "Team Contact" a low Level Fixer who can give them their first small Jobs
The Elfin continues her late Husbands Illegal Work and tries to pay the Mob back what they did to Him & Her
but that its a long Term Goal

with a Long Term Dance
Medicineman

[Teabeeyea]

Why would messing with the Cops be a bad idea?

[Medicineman]

Because Cops will hardly be alone
As soon as they start a fight, it would be more than logical for the Cops to call for Reinforcement

More and more Cops will appear, Mages, Drones,etc
than it'll develop into a Chase and beginning Chars have hardly a Chance to escape especially if you have beginning Players who don't yet know the SR-World and even if the Chars manage to Geek the Cops before they can call for Help there will be automatic surveillance (from the Copcar, from cameras, drones,etc).
so they'll be in ...."deep shit" (is that the right Word ?)

with a Deep Dance
Medicineman
 

[Teabeeyea]

Ok.  I see your point.  But since I'm going to have them use "stock" pc's that will not carry over to the regular campaign consequences of a cluster f!@# are not as severe.  I guess what I will do is ask them what kind of game they would like to play the first night and see how much fun everyone is having.  Then end things Deu Ex Manchina before the TPK.

[Crash_00]

Well keep in mind that even if the character's don't carry over, the tone you set will. Messing with the cops in a prequel learn the game session could easily lead them to believe cops should be messed with all the time in the real campaign.

For more players, you can always just increase the number of gangers. Or have the entire event happen just as another group of gangers decide to hold the place up (making a whole mess of fun).

[Walks Through Walls]

It could set the feeling of "we need to mess with the cops", but if the cops do a good job and descend on the Stuffer Shack in mass with force it could
teach the team that the cops are nothing to be messed with if can be avoided without long term problems for the team

Just my 2 nuyen

[SirDelta]

I would just add a few more mooks for the runners to take out.

When my group ran it, we ended up with three bombs going off, followed by getting into a giant gunfight with not only the gangers, but also terrorists who are chasing my character, and some sercretive organization members going after our mage.  It was a huge gunfight between all four partes, and everyone had a good time.

[Xzylvador]

Won't the sprinklers (more specifically, their -2 visibility dice pool modifier) be a help to the 'runners?
I don't know the specific details of the scenario, but generally a 'runner has a higher dice pool than your average goon.
Lowering all dice pools by 2 will hurt the goon (dice pool dropped to 4, resulting in lots of glitches and misses) a lot more than Mr. StreetSam (dice pool dropped to 12, resulting in not having one shot kills all the time but just most of the time) and might actually make it easier on the 'runners.

For a first SR game, definitely not cops! If the players are still in a DnD mindset instead of the less-forgiving SR setting, they'll treat the cops like some fantasy-town city guard and actually stick around to fight them. Long story short: they can't beat the 'copter with the minigun.