Teacher On The Run

The introduction process should start with some explanation of the general concept of Shadowrun. Don't get into details here, just explain that it's a cyberpunk universe (and explain what cyberpunk is to those who don't know, of course) with magic and trolls and elves... Don't even think about mentionning words like "Renraku" or "Dunkelzhan" at that time unless you want to loose them completely. This part is just to give them an idea of what the game is like and to build their anticipation (the more they want to play, the better -- they'll get all bored when you get to the pont of explaining rules). To help in this task, refer them to movies such as Johnny Mnemonic or BladeRunner for the ambience or Ronin for the type of characters played (good idea to start them young with 'professionalism' in mind).

Once they have a basic idea of what the game is like, you continue with the most interesting part of Shadowrun: it's setting. Explaining the devious schemes of evil megacorps is much more interesting to hear than rules, at least it should be. Try to make it interesting and lively, telling the story like you are interested in it and not like you're an history teacher boringly stating endless facts one after the other. Your goal here is to be interesting and not too long. The best way to achieve that is to keep telling how the world is in 2060 (or whatever the year you're playing in) and detailing what really needs details about that. That way, you don't loose because they're kinda tired of listening after you've went through a complete history of 1999 to 2060 and so are much more interested in the most important info. Telling them that the world is coming out of a corporate war is much more important than telling them than it was Howling Coyote led the army of indians for the ghost dance. The history of the world will be taught while in play, you don't really need to explain it too much.

Then comes the worst time: explaining rules. For having explaining and having been explained numerous rules systems, I got a good feeling on the way it should be done. The only thing you really want to tell the players at first is how to throw the dice for Shadowrun, so they get an idea of what all those numbers mean. Don't get into any details, just show how to roll dice and determine if an action was a success or not depending on the difficulty level. Don't talk about modifiers, opposed rolls and such, these will be very easilly learned while playing, they're just a pain to explain in theory. Once these very basics have been done, you should jump straight to character building. Players are much more eager to make a cool character than learn the rules, so use that to your advantage. Of course, they won't really understand allof hte parts on the sheet, that's when they'll ask you question. That way, you can start explaining rules in a way they care about. They genuinly are interested in the question they asked, so they'll listen to the answer. Explaining to them that willpower is used to resist spell effects when they ask "What is willpower for?" is a much better way of getting them to understand it than if you make a long speech about all possible rolls. Once they've finished their character, and they're so proud of making such a powerful character as a beginner (while you're out to the bathroom so they don't hear you laugh at the "power" of that character), you can send them to a quick and easy run so they get a feeling for the system. Of course, during that small game you'll probably have to explain to them 15 times how to roll for initiative and how the damage system works (it's horrible with D&D players only, who thoughts hitpoints and levels are the only way rpgs work), but that's how they'll learn. Anyway they'll feel so stupid of always asking the same question over and over again that eventually they'll learn.

After that quick run, they should be able to understand the basic concepts of Shadowrun. Keep them on easy mission for a while while they get used to the system and allow them to build new characters when they realise that the first character they did wasn't that good after all. An important thing I didn't mention before is that even if you have every sourcebook from Shadowrun 1st edition to New Seattle, you should only allow them to use the basic book for character creation. They'llmjust become crazy if you let them choose guns and cyberware from all the books... Sure you can give them access to a specific piece of hardware (or magicware) that would really fit one of the character, but don't tell them to search through the entire books. Getting back on tack, once these first easy runs have been success, slowly ramp up the difficulty and include information about the background of Shadowrun.

Sooner than you think, they'll end up being pros who can discuss just how the Big D's assassination influenced the demise of Fucci... Don't give up, and most of all never forget to have fun!