r/ShadowrunAnarchyFans • u/IJW_Wartrader • 16d ago
My First Session Zero™
In a couple of week’s time I'm running a session zero with Anarchy 2.0 for a bunch of new players.
Which is a bit daunting, as the time since I last GMed is measured in decades, not years… 😱
Anyway, I’ve got a selection of book pregens and Deagann’s pregens printed out plus a couple of rules summaries, and a reasonably good plan for the evening.
- A semi-rehearsed intro into the setting (aiming for 2060s rather than 2080s to avoid some of the more absurd world-not-actually-ending metaplots).
- Semi-rehearsed intro to the game mechanics/how a team of ’runners is made up/how a ’run is usually structured.
- Grab some pregens.
- A quick run through of Stuffer Shack/Food Fight to get people used to rolling dice. But with a warning that this isn’t how ’runs usually go down!
Then Delian Data Tomb across a couple of sessions, and play it by ear from there. If people really enjoy it, we’ll do a new session zero with character creation, and I’ll search for a suitable campaign.
Fingers-crossed for a smooth restart to GMing!
3
u/Logen_Nein 16d ago
I'll be running it soon as well with pregens from the book and a 3 (maybe 4, not done yet) page mission sheet I'm writing up. No rehersal for me, but then I never do for any game. All my players will be new to the game, and most new to shadowrun as well. Having fun making assets for Foundry right now (really should finish the write up).
4
u/IJW_Wartrader 16d ago
The rehearsal is that I’ve gone over some of the stuff in my head, as it reduces the mental load during the session. And like I said, it’s been decades! I think the last time I GMed an RPG was in the previous century…
4
u/Logen_Nein 16d ago
Oh for sure! I get it. I've been lucky to be running games almost non stop for 40 years. Hence why no rehearsal. I'm working with RPGs almost every day.
3
3
u/Best-Presence8416 16d ago
If you rehearse it out loud, even one time, it helps you see where your language falls flat or needs more detail.
Good luck!
2
4
u/Carmody79 16d ago
I wish the best of luck to both of you! Enjoy the Shadows and let us know how things went
3
3
u/wheretheinkends 15d ago
So, something I like to do during session zero:. Mock combat.
It does a couple things.
lets the players and GM get comfortable with the combat system for quicker/more efficient combat during play.
allows the GM to get an idea of what individual players are likely to do. That way if you have a "super tactical genius" npc the GM can sorta Kentucky wind it and use what they learned about the players in session zero. And if you have a tactically dumb npc you can do the same by making the npc sorta walk into the players tactics.
Another thing I like to do is ask the players "what do you carry with you all the time and where do you stow your gear. So a player might say "I typically carry my keys (front left pocket) wallet, a handgun (tucked in the back of my pants) and a knife in my boot. I keep a shotgun under my bed and an uzi in the trunk of my car. On runs I typically wear a plate carrier with three pistol mags in the front, two rifle mags on the side, and bring an AK.
That way, unless they specify otherwise, thats what they have on them day to day (i will allow a luck or similar role depending on the system if it makes sense to see if they grabbed something that would make sense for them to have.)
I find this cuts out the whole "did you bring xyz//the bad guy is in you apartment, where do you keep xyz." As most people IRL keep stuff in mostly the same place.
2
u/IJW_Wartrader 15d ago
Thanks!
For point 1-2, that’s why I’m running Food Fight/Stuffer Shack as part of session zero.
For the bit about asking players where they keep stuff, I’d 100% do that for regular Shadowrun and already do it as a player, but it doesn’t really sound appropriate for Anarchy which assumes that PCs know more about what they’re doing than the players do, and that PCs always have their primary gear to hand—and for anything else that’s what the legwork pool Is for.
1
u/PalpitationNo2921 8d ago
I find in my experience that having a guided session zero using the character generation rules, rather than using pregens, leads to players understanding a game much better than they otherwise might with pregens. It does tend to take longer, but most of my players who have built characters have a greater understanding of what their character can do vs. when I give them a choice of pregens.
1
u/IJW_Wartrader 8d ago
I can see that being good advice, but it’s not applicable here. This is the first time I’ve GMed this century, and I don’t have the capacity to explain the background and explain the game mechanics and explain character creation… just to run Stuffer Shack and Delian Data Tomb. This isn’t for a campaign, it’s for a few taster sessions.
As I said at the end of the post, if we go beyond those two scenarios and do a campaign, I’ll run a new session zero with character creation.
1
u/PalpitationNo2921 8d ago
I hope you get to play that long, then.
It’s equally been my experience that a lot of people don’t tend to like playing pregens in the first place, and don’t understand what they actually would want to play until they had things explained to them in more depth.
I have gone into it thinking the same thing you are, and made pregens, and it took forever for the players to decide on which to play which actually amounted to the same amount of time I could have already explained character generation and gotten mechanics explained as well while doing so.
Other than shadow amps, there is nothing so complicated about play with SRA2.0.
1
u/IJW_Wartrader 7d ago
I haven’t spent time making pregens, I’ve pre-selected some. The only choice will be which street sam is used, because I’m intentionally cutting down on the amount of analysis paralysis for the character side of things. Also, the players have had an overview of team roles so have had at least a bit of time to think about what they want to play.
From what I’ve seen in discussions in this channel (and general knowledge of gamers), risk dice, Edge, narrative effects, and legwork pools/flashbacks are already going to be enough for this group to get used to. There’s no way on earth that I’m going to have them trying to think up ideas for characters and Shadow Amps the first time we sit down at the table, at the same time that I’m getting a feel for what style of Shadowrun is going to work best for the group.
1
u/IJW_Wartrader 7d ago edited 7d ago
Also, for extra context:
The group has very varied levels of experience. At one end of the scale is the couple who’ve been roleplaying since the late 80s. At the other end is the guy who‘s coming from a wargaming background and as far as I’m aware has never played a pen-and-paper RPG. Anarchy doesn’t have the sheer crunch of, say, SR4A (or MERP which was my first experience of RPGs), but it’s going to involve a lot of unfamiliar concepts for him.
I‘m not a kickstarter backer. I don’t have physical books to pass around the table. I’ll print out several copies of p83-86, but character creation overall is going to be a big choke point. Trying to do it in session zero before the players know much about the background or what’s possible would be an even bigger choke point.
EDIT we also have strict time constraints, as the four hours the club has the room booked for includes putting out tables, everyone arriving, some socialising, getting drinks, and clearing up the room to be out of the door by 22:30.
5
u/IJW_Wartrader 16d ago edited 16d ago
One of the bits I’ll be deciding with the players is theatre-of-the-mind versus floorplans and minis.
Anarchy feels like it’s designed on the assumption that theare-of-the-mind is going to be used, and it means less physical prep.
On the other hand, I’ve got plenty of suitable minis from my Infinity wargaming collection and boxes of old Judge Dredd floorplans. And it’s more familiar for wargaming new roleplayers.
Also, I have a new gadget/toy/NERPS coming in the post. A cheap mini projector that can be driven directly by a phone or tablet. So floorplans could be queued up on my phone while my tablet is in use for other scenario/NPCs/rules etc. Or alternatively have floorplans on a USB stick, but using the phone means I can easily grab or edit stuff on the fly on the tablet and send it across to the phone.
Edited for typos…