For thousands of years, human beings have told stories. It stareted with oral histories passed on from the old to the young, and with time, these stories evolved. In a world where television does most of the storytelling, roleplaying lets you tell stories in an even better format. You see, storytelling on TV is passive. You plop down in front of the tube and you let it tell you everything. In roleplaying, you are in control of the story.
In a roleplaying game, a group of people come together to play a game. I guess you could kind of call it "make pretend" with a loose set of rules. All of the players take on the roles of the important characters in the story. In this way, the players have control of the story. They play out the strugles, hardships and successes of the characters.
What's better is that there's no game board. There's no cards. You don't even need batteries. All you need is a character sheet, some dice and a healthy dose of imagination. But, there is one final thing that tops off a roleplaying game. The Gamesmaster.
The gamesmaster is the person who has familiarized himself with most of the rules and keeps the characters within the story. He acts as the eyes and ears of the player characters, telling them where they are, who's around them, what their setting is like and more. From the Gamesmaster's (or GM's) information, the player characters react, and then, the game is started!
In the game this particular page is dedicated to, "Shadowrun", the players take the part of shadowy operatives known as shadowrunners. Runners can be Humans, Orks, Trolls, Dwarves and Elves. They live in a dark future where the line between man and machine blurs and magic has given rise to mythical creatures like dragons and wendigos. Armed with the best weaponry, the hottest computer programs, cybertechnology and magic, shadowrunners do covert dirty work for megacorporations. It is a dark place in 2060 A.D. and it's up to the player characters to do their best to survive and maybe make the world a little brighter if they can.
There's more too. There is no win or lose situations either. There's no goal other than having fun. As long as you had a good time, the game was successful. So why not give it a try?
So now you're familiar with roleplaying. Maybe you've done it for years or maybe you're just starting out and you realize that you have a problem. Where are the other players? How do you find out who wants to play? How do you go about finding them?
All of these things are problems when it comes to playing Shadowrun or any other game. I myself had a group I ran with two years ago that sadly dissolved when we all went to college. I came to a new place filled with new people and I really wanted to play again. But finding new people was difficult, but now I have another group of players again, and I'm back in the game. In the next few paragraphs, I'll give you some help on starting your own campaign and finding a new group of players.
To find other gamers is the first step. They're not everywhere that you look. When trying to find players, the first thing you have to look for is people who have a good imagination. Without it, playing becomes difficult. A good way to find people who can roleplay well is to introduce the concept of the game and ask if they want to play. There's one of two things almost every gamer will ask initially after being asked to join. One shows that they could play, one shows that they probably won't. If they ask "how do I play?" they probably are good to go. If they ask "How do I win?" that's usually the sign for you to back away. However, even if they don't answer the right way, that doesn't mean they can't try. Many players are uncomfortable roleplaying, but later they adjust. Don't limit your players to certain groups. Roleplaying can be done by anyone with a mind open enough to understand storytelling.
Also, don't fall into stereotypes. Admittedly, yes, roleplaying is a male dominated industry, but that doen't mean that girls can't play. There has always been at least one girl in every group I've ever played with. In some cases, there were more women playing than men. Don't limit yourself to who wants to play. Even the "How-do-you-winner's" deserve a chance.
Get a big table to play on. Cramping players into a tiny little room with a small table leads to problems not only with everyone competing for space, but there's also no place to roll dice, put the soda pop and the Doritos as well. Space is important and everyone needs it.
Also, I have a personal rule I always keep when gaming. I refer to it as the eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not have more than six players and a GM." When there's more than six players and a GM things get messy. Not to mention, you get the problem with table space again and everyone feels they need to compete for the GM's attention.
Once you've got about four players (three players and a GM) you can start a game. From there on, it's just a matter of getting them so interested, that they want to play again. After that, the rest is easy. Just try to follow those guidelines and things should work out.
Anybody who's roleplayed for even a small amount of time knows that one player who has everything. The guy who secretly runs megacorporations, has the remote control to the railgun on Luna or the Fairlight Excalibur cyberdeck that anyone else would geek him to get to. The bastard with alpha grade cyberware and powered armor. Yeah, that guy. There's a word for those kinds of people:
Munchkins.
We call them munchkins because when you take their toys away from them, strip them of their status and take their weapon focus at level ten away from them, they're no better than your average goon player. They turn out to be very little in the grand scheme of things. Munchkins are one of the biggest pains in the butt in any campaign. They kill your villains that you wanted to bring back later. They cause the story to go off course. They make your life a living hell when trying to keep the game in control. And you'd make them pay if only you could get to them in some way.
You can do it, but it's never as obvious as it seems.
You see, most GM's don't have the nerve to stand up to those munchkin characters. That's how they get to where they are: the GM doesn't keep the munchkin in control. Well that's why as a GM, you have to toughen up to eliminate the munchkins, and by eliminating the munchkins, you are doing the world a favor...
Wise man once say however... "Cheat.... That's why the DM gets that nifty screen thingy!" Actually, I don't call it cheating so much as, uh.... fudging the rules a little. You really actually don't have to cheat at all. Follow some of these tips and the munchkins will be stripped of the goodies that make your life a nightmare while GMing. Here's how!
How to vanquish a munchkin:
