Hi all, I had a couple of thoughts/questions to share, and would appreciate your feedback.
A little background about my experience. I played a total of one Shadowrun game about ten years ago. I loved it very much, but the participants all moved/got busy soon afterwards, and the game never continued. I read every single SR book I could get my grubby hands on, loving the world, the history, the characters...About a year ago, I was going to get married, and the question came up about what I would do for a bachelor party. My groomsmen are all very nice, quiet types. Doing something as...forward as a strip club would leave them nervous and uncomfortable for the most part. I know this because I've tried it in the past and it didn't work out all that well. What I really love doing is sitting around a table with good friends, some food, and just chatting the evening away about books, history, science, whatever comes to mind. I then thought- what if I ran a SR game? I had no experience DMing, but as none of my friends has any experience RPing, it would be worth a shot. I bought the SR4A and spent my time carefully studying it. To everyone's surprise, it was a smashing success, and now we play a game about once every two to three months. I'd like to do it once a month, but snacks are expensive.
In any case, I quickly figured out one thing. Shadowrun is not a game to go into for the faint of heart. Due to things like time constraints (we usually only have anywhere from 2-4 hours to play), I have a tendency to bend the hell out of the rules and situations laid out in the sourcebook. I feel guilty about it, but the simple truth is that my players are new to RPing, and I'm new to DMing, with very little RP experience as well. The fact of the matter is, if I really went for the complexity which SR allows for everything from magic to exact dice modifiers to sprites and matrix moves, the game would become too complex for my friends, and they would stop having fun.
I guess that what I'm saying is, am I the only one who does something like this? I make up dice modifiers and requirements off the top of my head, and adjust it to the situation. I feel guilty, but somehow for this group, it seems like the right thing to do. What worries me is that as well all gain more experience, if I try to use the more official rules, will this blow up in my face and leave my players hating me for sort-of changing the rules on them?
The other problem I'm having is with one player. I know, I know, every DM complains about someone like him. It's the guy (or girl) who likes to completely derail the storyline, knows he is doing it, claims to be in character but is really just being themselves. I'll have the characters negotiating with a Johnson for a future mission or something and he will demand that they get, say, 5,000 nuyen per person per day for a cake-walk job. Or demand that they get a million, or they walk. I try to explain why that is perhaps not the greatest of ideas, but he ropes the other players into trying it. I was able to turn the tables on him a few months ago. After a job, he wanted to re-negotiate with the Johnson before handing over the merch, which was a fairly potent neurotoxin. The player demanded that they get paid a million nuyen or they would set it off. Annoyed, I had the Johnson laugh and lower the price he offered, explaining he wouldn't send them out for anything he wasn't immune to, and welcomed the players to kill themselves. While my players squawked and argued back and forth, I occasionally interrupted them as the Johnson, gradually lowering the offer until they finally panicked and agreed. I think that it was not a bad solution, but does anyone else have any other tips to offer for dealing with this guy? He is otherwise a willing enough player, but his constant arguments and cockamamie ideas are driving me nuts. I welcome my players to try anything they want, and if they can get enough hits I'll allow it. But this guy again and again tries to bend the game to his own purposes, like some kind of power trip. Any thoughts?