New SR group, skills rusty

[Brett Ritter]

I haven't done SR in at least a couple of years now, and I'll be GMing
for a group of people I've never met before with unknown levels of SR
experience. (we're forming from a local RPG players list, so most of
us are unknown to one another.)

I _think_ we'll be playing 4th though that's not certain. If we do
I'm going to insist on a more Cyberpunk less Anime feel for the
setting but that's fairly small.

I've been kicking around some ideas on how to ensure this group and I
all mesh with our visions and here's what I've come up with so far:

* The players will be an established running group. I'll pull from
some recent Dresden Files RPG experience and have them concoct some
specific histories that brought them together.
* I'm going to track the reputation of the group on the below tracks,
and the ratings will be known to the players (I'm utterly ignoring any
existing rules for reptuation):

-- Subtlety
-- Effectiveness
-- Completeness
-- Expense
-- Flexibility
-- Ethics
-- Professionalism

Not all Johnsons will be interested in all ratings. This will help
the players appreciate how their actions alter what sorts of jobs they
get offered.

* I'm going to try to avoid deckers/hackers as primary characters and
instead use quick-resolution roles for anyone doing computer tasks.
* Ditto for riggers, though for both deckers/hackers and riggers I'll
bend if a player really wants it, I've just always had problems
incorporating them into flow.

Thoughts? What's the best way to ensure that a group of strangers all
have the same idea about SR?

--
Brett Ritter / SwiftOne
swif...@swiftone.org

[Henning Blohm]

I'd suggest watching a movie together in the first evening.

- Make a short list of possible titles and check with p layers which they have seen.
- Pick the one most of them actually HAVE seen.
- (Prepare short comments for scenes where your targeted gaming style is most obvious and why)
- Tell them what you plan to do so that noone is suprised by this educational viewing

This may not be the fun experience they expect from being together, but it's 2 hours well
invested. IMHO there is nothing more frustrating than repea ted conflicts of
"reality"-perception during a gaming session.

Best regards,
Arclight

[Ubiquitous]

"Brett Ritter" swif...@swiftone.org wrote:

>* I'm going to track the reputation of the group on the below tracks,
>and the ratings will be known to the players (I'm utterly ignoring any

>existing rules for reputation):

>
>-- Subtlety
>-- Effectiveness
>-- Completeness
>-- Expense
>-- Flexibility
>-- Ethics
>-- Professionalism
>
>Not all Johnsons will be interested in all ratings. This will help
>the players appreciate how their actions alter what sorts of jobs they
>get offered.

I'd love to hear more about this!

>* I'm going to try to avoid deckers/hackers as primary characters and
>instead use quick-resolution roles for anyone doing computer tasks.
>* Ditto for riggers, though for both deckers/hackers and riggers I'll
>bend if a player really wants it, I've just always had problems
>incorporating them into flow.

How have you all handled decking in your game? I tried to introduce a
new player and he wasn't impressed with Deckers and Riggers being so
broken (among other things).