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New(ish) GM looking for some advice regarding a group new to SR.

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neomerlin

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« Reply #15 on: <05-23-18/1949:41> »
Some more general advice as you prepare/proceed to run your game:

*Don't try to be a master of the rules from session 1. If somebody wants to play a mage, tell them you expect them to learn the rules for magic. If you've got a decker, tell them you'll be relying on them to help you run decking scenes and knowing the decking rules. Eventually you should learn how everything works, but don't hesitate to lean on the players a little at first. But be open with you intention to do so, and be open with the fact that the first few sessions might be a little slow while you all get a grip on the system (and occasionally stop to check the book).

But also don't be afraid to make a rules call to keep things moving, tell your players you're doing so, and you'll double check the rule after the session, so you know for next time. The books are not always easy to navigate in a hurry, so this will keep things moving.

*Lots of GMs ban decker PCs from the game because decking becomes a solo minigame for one player and everybody else sits twiddling their thumbs. It's not untrue, but I think this notion had more merit back when decking was actually a dungeon crawl minigame in the system. It's a lot better in 5e, and I recommend letting a decker in the game at least once before you decide if they're more of a burden to your game.

*I'm going to offer a counter-point to what the others have said about filling in holes in the team with NPCs. Not because I think that's badwrongfun, but because I think not doing so is legitimate, too.

Shadowrunning teams don't need to fill every archetype. Got no mages? No problem. The way I see it, when Mr Johnson needs some runners to steal a spell formula from Wuxing's Geomancy R&D, he's going to call Mr Fixer and say "I need a team for a job, make sure there's a mage, it's important for this job." Mr Fixer isn't then going to call up the team of runners with no mage. It doesn't make sense for runners to be hired for jobs they don't have the skills to do. It doesn't make sense for the Fixer to contact them for those jobs and it doesn't make sense for Mr Johnson not to be specific if he needs someone with specific skills. It makes the runners look bad, it makes the fixer looks bad, it makes Johnson's life hard.

But more than that, even if they do get a job that thet'd be easier with a certain skill set - and there's plenty of reasons it might happen - Shadowrun is a game where a team of two deckers and three faces can plan a run around their skills and succeed in spite of their weakness. No street samurai? Then they will (or should) plan to avoid fights and plan to get out quick if the fighting starts. Team of four samurai and a rigger? Lots of recon, tactical precision, go in hard and fast, get out faster. Over time, with successful runs, they'll begin to round out the skills that compliment their preferred method of attack.

Sometimes the players might want to round out their skill set with some hired help, but that's a cut into profits, so it probably won't be their go to plan. It doesn't need to be. More than a "well balanced" team, Shadowrun needs players to play smart and to their strengths.

So don't feel compelled to throw in an NPC or GMPC that fills a gap in their specialties. You know, unless that NPC is going to lead to some interesting plot and drama. Then go nuts.

*This is my opinion and it depends on the group you play with and the tone of your game. I lean heavily towards black trench coat games, gritty and sleazy and grimy, with frequent reminders that the characters are living in a dystopia. I also have players who love to role play, and develop their characters, and are self-motivated with their goals. Under circumstances like those, the best sessions are often the sessions between runs, when the characters live their lives, pursue their goals, and try to make things better for themselves and the people they care about.

Some games will go from one run to the next with little connecting them and little breathing space between them. If that's what the group wants, again, it's not badwrongfun, but I think it misses out on a big part of what makes Shadowrun so appealing. At least to me.

*Everything Sphinx said is great. I want to repeat the point about NPCs being ordinary people, even the opposition.

Your average security guard won't have the same skill or gear as your average street samurai. Even many above average police officers won't have that level of skill or equipment.

Shadowrun is a lethal game and shadowrunning is a lethal profession. The ones who make it have to be great at their thing and tough as nails in order to survive. Every now and then the PCs should run into somebody who can put the pressure on them, make them sweat, even kill them if they're not careful (as oppose to killing them with a lucky shot, which anybody can do). But it won't be every knight errant employee who can do that.

But what the opposition lacks in highly trained and slightly mad specialists, they make up for with resources. The law is only a PANICBUTTON(tm) away, and there's a lot of the law. If they really want to, the big corps can hunt you down for your crime, and nobody wants to be looking over their shoulder for red samurai the rest of their life. The sheer size of the organisations runners can go up against, and the consequences for a run gone wrong even after the get away should be reason enough for runners to be careful, even if they've got so much chrome they can shrug off an Ares Predator fired at point blank range.

*Whatever your game ends up being, just have all of the fun with it. Shadowrun is great. And let us know how it went.

Karrth

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« Reply #16 on: <05-24-18/1209:24> »
Had a talk with my players today and they're pretty heavy in the combat area, 1 Drone Rigger, 1 heavy weapons troll and 2 street samurai (one long range sniper, the other close range melee).

I had honestly hoped for some tactical infiltration and some tense scenes with them sneaking around but for now that's going to be replaced with well coordinated assaults :)


Overbyte

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« Reply #17 on: <05-25-18/2145:34> »
You can always tailor your game to the chars, but you should tell them to keep in mind the legality of the things they are going to be using. For instance, most Heavy Weapons are going to be totally illegal and hard to hide.
It's sorta an accepted "rule" that all Shadowrunners have some stealth capability. Otherwise, it is hard to do any job that
anyone wants to give you. Unless you decide to run a game where these guys are some mercenary guerilla fighting team.

You might point out that without anyone to negotiate they are always going to have to settle for bad pay.
Without a face or decker they might never get into any place to start with unless they shoot/blow their way in which is going to make their life pretty darn tough. You can always skew everything to allow it, but it's going to be very boring after a few rounds of that, and they'll all be dead or in jail for murder and general mayhem.  ???

If your players are new than they probably don't realize that a lot of places in SR have matrix and magical security and you can't always shoot your way through that. You might try to convince (one) some of them to be hybrids: sammy/face, sammy/decker, etc.
Nothing is foolproof. Fools are so ingenious.

Redwulfe

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« Reply #18 on: <05-26-18/1045:55> »
Ideas for tailoring the game:

1. My first thought would be the Chicago CZ, you are able to carry openly for the most part and is full of dangers that can challenge a team of runners looking to hit the streets in assault mode. just look at many of the runs in season 5 of SRM for some ideas on plot.  For the most part this could work well in any barrens type environment.

2. Name a hot spot. The team could be Mercs for hire to bring muscle to war zones. Most Fixers hire teams for jobs they are good at and your team may be more suited to a war zone than the board rooms. Still could have some really good stealth scenes with intense play. One of the missions could put them up against some paranormal threats that are hunting them through the jungles, a la Predator. Lots of good story can be told there.

3. Smugglers or runners in areas that are primarily lawless think Lagos in Africa or some such.

All in all you can still get the kind of scenes you are looking for you just may want to adjust the backdrop for them to fit the world if you wish it to be more believable or just go pink mohawk and have a blast.
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Overbyte

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« Reply #19 on: <05-26-18/1501:24> »
Another thing you can do (that many people do) is:

Make your first game and the characters "throw away".
Just let all the players know you are going to run an intro game to get everyone familiar with SR and the rules, etc.
Then after a few games, let everyone reset if they choose.

When everyone resets you can even allow them to take all their earned Karma to their new character. No big deal.
If they want to keep their char.. that's fine too. You can just introduce the new ones into the team.
Nothing is foolproof. Fools are so ingenious.

easl

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« Reply #20 on: <05-28-18/2107:52> »
My group has used an NPC decker for a long time as matrix stuff tends to be the GM and the decker go off by themselves for 45 mins while they resolve his 15 seconds or real time hack on the host. Its just easier if the GM handles all that with a few dice rolls to determine how good or bad things went and then has our NPC tell us how it went, with either a I got the paydata follow the exfil plan to OHH crap GOD just landed we are hosed GET OUT, GET OUT NOW!!!

This is somewhat off-topic but SR5 could be very reasonably streamlined by making most npc actions be thresholds instead of rolls.  So an NPC's Intuition+Firewall defense roll of 9D becomes "roll your decker action, beat 3 successes". Similarly when the pcs are on defense, it can be 'the corp hacker's bricking attack is 12D/3 = 4 successes, beat that with your willpower+firewall roll.'
 

Redwulfe

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« Reply #21 on: <05-28-18/2310:08> »
You could do this by just having all NPCs buy hits. Basically an attack is beefing your opponents success so yes you can set it as a threshold for basically the same thing. I think this would take some of the drama out of the game though but could be useful in non essential scenes.

Good thought, I may use this in my home game for filler fights and such.
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #22 on: <05-29-18/0022:25> »
It makes sense for 1 or 2 rolls, but I've been in situations where a player decided to score marks on half a dozen commlinks to then Track Icon. At this point the variable rolls often cost them Edge and gave a big Overwatch Score, which was the price paid for 'okay, here's AROs everyone, let's kill them through the walls'.
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