First Run |
Adventure Set |
||||||
Pros: Accomplishes its goal of detailed rule explanations for the GM. |
|
||||||
Cons: Much worse at creating a consistent atmosphere for the players. |
When 2nd edition Shadowrun was released, I remember reading that 1st edition had been written with experienced gamers in mind, and that the 2nd edition was intended to revise the rules so that the average gamer, new as well as experienced, could understand them. 3rd edition Shadowrun clearly has a high priority of allowing new gamers to quickly and easily adopt Shadowrun.
This is a good goal, and as long as FASA continues to feed me interesting world developments, one that I approve of. First Run is part of that policy. It is intended to be for first time GM’s and players, allowing them a chance to get used to the rules and character potentials. First Run consists of three adventures: Food Fight, Supernova, and Site of Desecration. Food Fight is taken from the 1st edition main book and updated to 3rd edition rules, and is intended almost entirely to be an introduction to the combat system. Supernova consists of a more complete adventure, and introduces player and GM to the series of changing scenes that make up an adventure. Site of Desecration is less linear than Supernova, allowing for some small additional freedom on the part of the players, so that players and GM can learn to relax and have fun.
Food Fight, while dear to the hearts of many an long-time runner, is a horrible first adventure in my opinion. Teaching the players to fight first means that that will be their first reaction for some time, leading to characters built around fighting. After training many a virgin role-player, it is my humble opinion that the best introduction is to drop them into a social adventure with minimal combat. They may fret for a bit, but soon they try something...and when it doesn’t hurt, and works pretty much like a normal person in real-life would, they try more. Shortly, they understand role-playing. Food Fight _is_ a good introduction to the combat system, and First Run patiently and explicitly explains how things should work, but I would suggest running it AFTER Site of Desecration.
I do not recommend running anything after Supernova, because I wouldn’t recommend that anyone run Supernova. The very first part of the adventure isn’t bad at all, and First Run explains how fixers work, how the runners are hired and what terms can be expected. However, in very short order the players are facing one of the deadliest combat teams of the Shadowrun world, and later they end up face-to-face with one of the most powerful men of the Sixth World. Not only is it completely unrealistic that the characters should have this happen, it is also vastly unrealistic that they should survive, and if they do so, I doubt they will have the proper level of respect for the most powerful entities in the game when they faced them all down on their first or second run.
Site of Desecration is the best of the lot, if there is a best. It introduces smugglers and non-corp based running. It is also where First Run first fails to properly explain rules, as it represents an excellent opportunity to go into a detailed explanation of magic use in non-combat situations. It does not do so, however, and really is just a mediocre run that you can test the experience supposedly given to you in the other runs.
A set of adventures that take extra care to explain the rules is a great idea. First Run also did a fairly good job of that, although I think that magic, as one of the most confusing areas, could have used some more attention. The selection of runs, however, is horrible. On the other hand, any GM that massages these runs enough to correct the problems has gained valuable experience indeed.