[SDTroll]

Has anyone experienced a player brand new to Shadowrun trying out 6th Ed?  Especially if they read the rules and learn to play on their own, like we did back in 1st Ed?  I'm wondering how much of the confusion comes from preconceived notions and previous editions.

[Noble Drake]

I have a player in my group who has never played any version of Shadowrun before sitting down to play SR6.

They haven't read the rule-book for them self, though... but my experience of players over the years suggests that it is a rare sort of player that actually does crack open the book to really read it rather than just reference the things that have gotten written on their character sheet.

Mostly, their confusion during a session comes down to having never played a dice-pool-based system before so they need reminders of how to figure out how many dice to roll for something (and they kept trying to roll damage, but that's normal for newbies to think they need to do).

[SDTroll]

I've always been the guy who reads the rules and teaches everyone else how to play, so I'm just wondering how the game would be to do that if you didn't come in with previous editions in your head.  Trying to read them and figure them out is giving me a major headache, which is really rare for me, since I've taught myself to play dozens of games before.  Just trying to get a handle on how much of it is the rules and how much is me.  So far I've made 5 characters and I'm not positive any of them were made correctly.

[jman5000]

I am a GM of a new 6e game.  I have 4 players.

I have never played a single session of any edition of Shadowrun.  nor have I run any games.
3 of my 4 players have never played any edition of shadowrun.
1 of my players was a GM, back in 1st edition or 3rd edition (can't remember which).

I'd say we are about as green as you can get.

2 of us own the CRB.  everyone else will be trying to learn as we go.  we have a TON of questions - there is so much assumed knowledge based on prior editions.

but we are all super stoked.



Cheers.

J.

[Noble Drake]

I've always been the guy who reads the rules and teaches everyone else how to play, so I'm just wondering how the game would be to do that if you didn't come in with previous editions in your head.  Trying to read them and figure them out is giving me a major headache, which is really rare for me, since I've taught myself to play dozens of games before.  Just trying to get a handle on how much of it is the rules and how much is me.  So far I've made 5 characters and I'm not positive any of them were made correctly.

When learning a new edition of a game, prior edition knowledge can be a burden. That's where the "change blindness" thread comes from, because it's very easy to unintentional stick to the old rules because you haven't realized how they have changed.

What I do to reduce that in myself is to mentally categorize every new edition of a game as an entirely different game, and force myself to constantly remind myself that unless I read it in the new book that I do not know a thing. I then supplement that with reading forums related to the game to see what issues or questions other people are having, and then look up those specific things and make sure I know how to make them work.

For the most part I haven't had any trouble figuring out how SR6 works (though some thing I admit I've had to rely on my own judgement for, rather than text in the book) - though during my session last night some vehicle stuff came into the scenario and I realized that I had not actually figured out things like what kind of action(s) are called for to hop into a nearby truck, start it, and drive away. And then I got the classic Shadowrun experience of thinking I knew where to look, being wrong, trying to use the index to find it, that not working, then trying to skim the relevant chapter but giving up and making a judgement call because it was taking too long to find the official answer.

So thanks for reminding me I need to go look that stuff up now.

[SDTroll]

When learning a new edition of a game, prior edition knowledge can be a burden. That's where the "change blindness" thread comes from, because it's very easy to unintentional stick to the old rules because you haven't realized how they have changed.

What I do to reduce that in myself is to mentally categorize every new edition of a game as an entirely different game, and force myself to constantly remind myself that unless I read it in the new book that I do not know a thing. I then supplement that with reading forums related to the game to see what issues or questions other people are having, and then look up those specific things and make sure I know how to make them work.

For the most part I haven't had any trouble figuring out how SR6 works (though some thing I admit I've had to rely on my own judgement for, rather than text in the book) - though during my session last night some vehicle stuff came into the scenario and I realized that I had not actually figured out things like what kind of action(s) are called for to hop into a nearby truck, start it, and drive away. And then I got the classic Shadowrun experience of thinking I knew where to look, being wrong, trying to use the index to find it, that not working, then trying to skim the relevant chapter but giving up and making a judgement call because it was taking too long to find the official answer.

So thanks for reminding me I need to go look that stuff up now.
[/quote]

That’s what I try to do, for some reason I’m having a hard time with it. I can understand the basic mechanics, but so many details seem counterintuitive for me. That’s why I’m wondering how a new player handles it. I appreciate hearing from some. I just keep stopping and going “wait, what?” when I’m reading

[Xenon]

That’s why I’m wondering how a new player handles it.

Shadowrun (any edition) have a rep for being notoriously crunchy.

While a lot of rules are streamlined and the abstract level is much higher in this edition (too high according to some) there are still a lot of rules to go through.

...but overall it seem as if this edition is the easiest edition to learn for players that have no prior knowledge of shadowrun.


Example of stuff you would have to learn in previous edition that you don't have to bother with in this edition include "limits", "recoil", "armor penetration", "armor - soaking damage with 30-50 dice", "Matrix Authentication Recognition Keys", "spells use force - drain, reagents and edge", "masters, slaves & direct connections", "randomly spotting silent running devices in the vicinity", "initiative score bookkeeping", "melee teleportation", "skill bloat - 10 different piloting and repair skills",  "extensive use of situational modifiers all over the book", ....

[MercilessMing]

I have three players in my group who are brand new to Shadowrun. So far though I haven’t pressed them to read the CRB, opting instead to teach them myself. Honestly, I’m kind of embarrassed by this book and want to present this game I love in the best possible light.

[Singularity]

I think two of my group had experience with previous editions, with one of those having experience back to first or second edition Shadowrun. The rest of us had experience with other RPGs, but hadn't tried Shadowrun before. I ran a test combat so that we could all see the rules in action, and we would pause to look up those things that we weren't sure of (especially needing to look up some of the card typos in the main rulebook). The most experienced guy caught a step that we were missing from 6th Edition, but none of us were all that confused by it; we just didn't particularly care for the system ourselves after testing it.