[darcdante]

Hi! I'm about to run my first Shadowrun campaign. I had originally planned to do this a couple of years ago, but it got delayed due to life events. Anyhoo, back when I was originally going to do it I downloaded an introductory adventure off the site where the runners are hired to guard a tent in a park while a bunch of bigwigs meet. There were a couple of minor events, like a spirit passing through and a drone flying overhead, but I liked the adventure because it seemed pretty chill and there wasn't anything too dangerous (since my whole group is pretty new to Shadowrun, I wanted to take it easy while we get the rules down). Does anyone recognize the adventure I'm talking about? I can't remember much more about it, and I can't find it on the site anymore.

If I can't find it, that's cool, I just remember liking it a lot as a laid back intro to get my group used to Shadowrun.

Thanks for any help you can provide!!! Character creation is this weekend, and everyone's stoked. We've been playing the same system for a decade (for some of us) so we're long overdue for some change, and I convinced them all that SR was the way to go.

[Crash_00]

I think you may be talking about the beginning of missions season 1. If I'm right, its written for SR3, but could easily be converted for your game. Season 1 and 2 missions are available for free off of the Shadowrun 4 site. Just got to missions instead of forums and choose Downloads (Season 1) from the drop down.

[darcdante]

That's it! Thanks a ton. I had it stuck in my head that it was a 4th edition mission. Not sure I trust myself to convert it without making the npcs severely over or underpowered.

I'll figure it out. Thanks again!

[Charybdis]

I remember this adventure,.....

http://www.shadowrun4.com/missions/downloads-season-1/#anchor-SRM-01 Mission Briefing

Was great fun, and an excellent introduction to different angles of Shadowrun attack:
- Social (Bigwigs)
- Hacking
- Rigging (Sabotaged drone, and others randomly flying overhead)
- Magic (Rogue free spirit, local shaman, magical opposition)

[darcdante]

Exactly! It has a bit of everything, so it seems like the perfect intro. I just don't know what I'm doing enough to be comfortable converting it lol, so I'll probably go with Parliament of Thieves instead. Plus we live in Colorado, so setting it in Denver might be kinda cool.

Edit: I also like the fact that the adventure frowns on brute force. There's plenty of time for that in the campaign, but since we've been playing DnD3.5 for years, we've gotten way too focused on combat, I think, which is one reason I wanted us to move to Shadowrun. It seems to be more role-playing intensive, and it's hard to make uber powerful characters since it's a point-based system instead of class based.

[Charybdis]

.... and it's hard to make uber powerful characters since it's a point-based system instead of class based.

*laughs*

Hee hee heee... 

*wipes tears away*

Ahh, the innocence of the un-initiated. I was that way once. Bless! 

[darcdante]

Well dang lol. I was definitely hoping for a system that isn't as open to abuse as DnD, but...:shrug: Really, I just love SR! I've only played a few times under SR3 rules and once under SR4 rules (at a con), but it never seemed to be as abuseable as DnD 3.5's prestige classes.

I've limited character options to only the core book, and I'm standing firm on that. I've already had a player ask for negative qualities from another book and said "no." I'm hoping that will at least keep the players contained for the moment. I just want our group to focus on roleplaying again. We have a whole new system, new world, new everything! So I'm excited lol. Eventually, they might find all the loopholes and whatnot, but for now? Well, for now we can just tell a story between friends. I've already had a player creating a backstory to explain his negative qualities, which is a great sign.

[Charybdis]

Well dang lol. I was definitely hoping for a system that isn't as open to abuse as DnD, but...:shrug: Really, I just love SR! I've only played a few times under SR3 rules and once under SR4 rules (at a con), but it never seemed to be as abuseable as DnD 3.5's prestige classes.

I've limited character options to only the core book, and I'm standing firm on that. I've already had a player ask for negative qualities from another book and said "no." I'm hoping that will at least keep the players contained for the moment. I just want our group to focus on roleplaying again. We have a whole new system, new world, new everything! So I'm excited lol. Eventually, they might find all the loopholes and whatnot, but for now? Well, for now we can just tell a story between friends. I've already had a player creating a backstory to explain his negative qualities, which is a great sign.

Prestige classes aren't available to a begginning PC in Dnd 3/3.5, so it's not quite as fair comparison to beginning a campaign in SR.

But oh wow, if you think the SR4 system (or SR3/Sr1/SR1) system is difficult to be abused, you'll be in for a shock

Sounds like you're on the right track though. Start the PC's with a limited list of sourcebooks and find the comfort zone for both GM and Players. Have fun

[Lacynth40]

*blink* I could get away with SOOOO much stuff if just limited to Corebook. Cyberpsychosis is only TOUCHED on in the Corebook. Woohoo! Essence of 0.1 here I come!

[Charybdis]

*blink* I could get away with SOOOO much stuff if just limited to Corebook. Cyberpsychosis is only TOUCHED on in the Corebook. Woohoo! Essence of 0.1 here I come!

Shush! We're trying to be good here! 

[Crash_00]

Well D&D and SR are very different at their core for a true comparison.

This mainly stems (in combat at least) from the fact that in D&D you gain both defensive and offensive abilities every time you level. Meanwhile as you "level" in SR you really only gain offensive ability. Your character may gain some defensive ability from raising body (gaining a body die and two armor dice), but it is no where near what you see in D&D.

Also, in SR you often see characters that start out nearly maxed in their primary role. In D&D you just can't do that.

That said, SR is supposed to be about roleplaying. One of the reasons I still prefer SR3 is that I fell like I'm making a person and not just a character. I would highly suggest allowing most of Runner's Companion  qualities (at least the negative qualites) for use. I personally found most of the Core qualities bland and didn't like them. Runner's Companion has things like Hawk Eye, Perceptive, Analytical Mind and it has negative qualities that work for a lot more characters (about the only ones I really care for in Core are SINner and Addiction).

[darcdante]

Hahaha @ all of you. Sounds like I'll be in for some new insights into Shadowrun's system.

It's just so different! So it's hard for me to comprehend with my little playtime. Like Crash mentioned, characters start with almost all their defensive capabilities. Compare that to D&D where characters sometimes start with a whopping 4 hitpoints lol. But at level 15+ in D&D, characters are teleporting, stopping time, talking to gods, controlling minds, casting power word: stun/kill, raising armies of undead (or the living sometimes), etc. That's the part I had a hard time dealing with. Shadowrun's setting, being a dystopia, makes it clear from the get-go that the players are at a disadvantage. The Government is corrupt. The Corps are corrupt. You're just there to survive, because the whole world is there to control you. Like Crash also said, SR is supposed to be mainly about roleplaying.

One of my players is creating a face, a FACE! I was worried they'd all be mages or street samurai, but someone's actually focusing on a roleplaying-based build! He did double-check with me cause he was actually worried that a character who wasn't combat-focused wouldn't be as helpful or would die too soon. I haven't DMed for this group in about 4 years, and they've spent the last 18 months going through the "World's Largest Dungeon" (which is heavy on fighting and not much else), so I assured him that a face would be just as useful as any combat-oriented character.

I do think I'll research cyberpsychosis now though lol, thanks for the heads up!   

I do have another question, if y'all don't mind. I decided to run Parliament of Thieves instead of Mission Briefing, since it's SR4. The adventure has the party making two border crossings (Pueblo/CAS and CAS/UCAS) but I looked at a map of North America:

http://seventh-legion.net/images/0/06/Map_of_North_America_Circa_2070.png

What's to keep the party from just making one crossing from Pueblo to UCAS? It makes sense to me to provide them the map to begin with, and if I then detail the objective to them, they're not going to bother with two border crossings when one is more direct. I could make something up, like the border between Pueblo/UCAS is more heavily guarded or there's no guide for it (since the adventure doesn't give one) but I figured I'd ask you all.

[KarmaInferno]

Just a warning, Faces in Shadowrun can be more devastating than the most twinked out combat bunny.

The Combat Bunny can shoot you. The Face can convince you to shoot yourself.

This is partly due to the fact that it is EXTREMELY easy for runners to get massive amounts of Social dice. I'm talking 25+ dice. At character generation. On the other hand the vast majority of the rest of the world is resisting those dice rolls with maybe 6-10 dice of their own.

Add to this the fact that combat is ideally only going to be maybe 20-25 percent of your play time. Maybe less. The vast majority of the rest of time is, you guessed it, Social activities.

So, keep an eye on the players and what they're building. Otherwise you could be in for a shock.



-k

[darcdante]

eeeewwww, thanks for the heads up, Karma!

I figured the easiest thing to abuse was the initiative system since getting more initiative passes means more shots means beefier. That's the one thing that worried me about the SR4 system, until I posted here. Now I have a lot more to worry about!

I'll keep an eye out for his modified dice pools for social interactions on Sunday. No one should be having 25+ dice for like....anything, I would hope.

[Lacynth40]

The initiative system tends to balance itself out, as 4 IPs are the highest you can get. 2 IPs is drek-easy to get on most characters, and trying to get 4 IP is going to cost LOTS. In nuyen, and essence, or BP if yer magicy. So, no, initiative passes, don't worry about that... Worry about the guy that dropped all 50 BP's worth of gear into ONE VEHICLE... Seen it done, and I made him remake the character...