It has been a long road, but I would say we finally managed to kick off our Shadowrun campaign yesterday with a success. Being played entirely online thru Roll20, this is a new experience for all the players, not only with the technology but also the game system and settings. Due to numerous real-life challenges, the game schedule has been on again and off again for several months, so it was good to start to see how the players adapted.
Of course, we continued to have technical challenges – the first 90 minutes or so was just figuring out sound and video before it was stable and workable. The other major challenge was understanding the basic mechanics – dice rolling in particular in Roll20, using Shadowrun mechanics, is not very intuitive. By the middle of the session though, most of these bugs had been worked out, and it actually started to move decently well. We managed to get thru most of the adventure intro, with the meet of the group with their contact at a concert. This involved several roleplaying challenges, skill challenges, and two combats – which the group demonstrated their typical unorthodox tactics. Along the way, I would add in general advice regarding the setting (always bargain for more pay, etc), to help them settle in.
For my part, the hardest challenge seems to be really understanding and knowing the rules and mechanics for various actions. Given how non-traditional the group was, they quickly caught me not knowing many of the processes – for example, how do you jump from a height, take fall damage, and tackle an opponent? Computers, search tools, and a bit of add-libbing helped move us thru, but there were several stages where we had to pause to look up and understand the rules. That gives me some research to do, to make sure I can cover all the pieces quickly, or at least faster. And we are still challenged by not having full copies of all the characters, so it is hard to reference during the game, or advise players on improvements or changes they may consider.
