Shadowrun 1e GM Advice
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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!
-
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!
This was my very first RPG, back in 1990.
The first piece of advice: Don’t have player character deckers. Make them NPCs. The decking rules are a horrible, horrible mess that takes the action away from the table.
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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!
I wouldn’t worry too much about the actual edition people could play with it 40 years ago, and there is enough nostalgia to do a 2025 reprint, so they must be somehow playable.
With my limited shadowrun experience,
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Beware of Decker going to the Matrix and mage doing Astral projection, it “splits the party” lead to a player having their own overcrunchy game-phase spending a hour to open a door or locate someone. I believe some latter edition got better but the early one where like their own game in the game
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I see shadowrun like the diesel engine of "crunchy system"it’s heavy, slow to start, but there is a point where it runs smoothly
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Just like every other crunchy system, and especially older one, feel free to ignore half of the rule (You know the meme about aircraft carrier, but more seriously never saw a GM caring about the Grenade dispersion roll)
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J Jürgen Hubert shared this topic on
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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!
Why Shadowrun 1st edition? It’s not the game at its best. Burst fire and full auto require rolling dice for every single bullet! (And I say this as someone that was introduced to RPGs through Shadowrun 1st edition, and even has a Shadowrun tattoo)
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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!
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
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Hacking will be taking a lot of time and unfortunately in later mainline editions it is only better, IMO never really good.
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From what I’ve skimmed, the Matrix house-rules for SR3 can make it move faster
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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
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Shadowrun flows very differently than D&D
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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
