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Shadowrun 1e GM Advice (discuss.online)

submitted 3 days ago by umean2me@discuss.online to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

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Hello!

I am a fairly new GM, and have only ran a few sessions of CY_BORG. I’ve played in many home TTRPG games (mostly DnD 5e) and have familiarized myself (through reading rather than experience sadly) with some fundamental RPG design and GM advice. My issue is, at the time I went to the game store to pick up RPG books, I wasn’t knowledgeable on Shadowrun and the editions/universe other than the fact I wanted to run it some day.

I have now realized, after buying the book and past the possibility of return, that I have bought the reprint of Shadowrun 2050 (1e) which appears to be the most complicated and problematic of the games in terms of system. That being said, I’d still like to run this some day and I’m mostly fine with a bit of complexity and crunch in an RPG. I was wondering, though, if there was a way that I could sort of build up to running something like Shadowrun?

Running not only a very rules heavy system but also a world with something complicated like The Matrix in it is pretty daunting compared to most RPG systems I’ve been interested in, so I’m a bit lost on resources to help guide me. It also doesn’t help that even among old school Shadowrun fans 1e seems to be the least played edition.

Thanks in advance!

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[–] INeedMana@piefed.zip 2 points 2 days ago

I don't have a direct experience with SR1 but SR5 was the first RPG I've GMed and we did check out SR3 briefly

Don't try to get everything right (mechanics-wise) from the start. It's impossible with that amount of intricacy. If you really feel that it's important to get the rule right - right now, ask a player to check in the book and continue with other thread
For the first few sessions forget about the details of the mechanics. Focus on the world appearing in the run
Remember about the three:

Meat (bribes/social/gangs/mafia/etc & violence)
Magic
Technology (Matrix & drones)

Focus on what should the characters find where and how. Try not to kill them, telegraph dangers

Without some flashback mechanics your players might get stuck in analysis paralysis in Legwork phase. Try to find a way to mitigate that, that will work with your table

Three-clues rule

Hacking will be taking a lot of time and unfortunately in later mainline editions it is only better, IMO never really good.
From what I've skimmed, the Matrix house-rules for SR3 can make it move faster
If you have the chance, take a look how Anarchy 2 approached hacking, IMO it's much better. But it might not fit your taste for crunch
Shadowrun flows very differently than D&D
Don't prepare plots
Onion plots
Split the party
* helps maintaining more divided spotlight time
* gives time to check up rules
* allows you to gauge if they are going to completely miss the mark with how they approach the current situation
IMO The Lazy Dungeon Master is THE WAY to prepare heist games and in general games where there are a lot of moving parts and players might solve a problem in a way that totally makes sense but you haven't thought about it. Having a bag of ideas instead of a planned plot makes it possible to play along

BTW, there's !shadowrun@sh.itjust.works. It's not very active but I dream some day it will be

And good luck, Chummer!
While personally I've ditched the mainline mechanics, it's a great setting and I really like running SR