Keep in mind the whole book is meticulously bookmarked, and that these bookmarks are *extremely* useful. They should be the regular way you navigate the book. It is admittedly somewhat poorly organized. I DO NOT SUGGEST READING IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH. ENTER PAGE NUMBERS AS LISTED. BLAKE WILL SAY MEAN THINGS ABOUT YOU AND YOUR FAMILY IF YOU ASK HIM WHETHER THESE ARE THE PAGE NUMBERS IN PARENTHESES OR THE ONES THAT GO IN THE BOX. THEY ARE THE ONES IN THE BOX. TYPE THE PAGE NUMBER IN THE BOX. Each of the chapters starts with a 'fluff' page. I skip these, you can too. Useful parts of the book: Page 42: List of & briefing on the top 10 megacorporations in the game: important for knowing story things. Each of the briefings is like 2 paragraphs, so there's no excuse for not giving it a quick looksee. Your first mission will involve these guys as players. Page 51: Beginning of the basic rules of play. -Bookmarked as "Game Concepts." Page 70: Beginning of the example character creation session. -Bookmarked as "Creating a Shadowrunner" Page 86: Condition Monitor (HP) table, Starting Money Table. Page 88 & 348: Build Point Cost Summary Table (Bookmarked) Page 89-104: Sample characters (Use one or more to get a baseline idea of what you need) -Bookmarked as Sample Characters --The chapter, not the section in Creating a Shadowrunner Page 163: Stuff about magic. 40 pages long, so long read. Essential for anyone playing a magic user -Bookmarked as The Awakened World Page 205: Stuff about hacking. About 35 pages long. Essential for anyone playing a hacker, rigger, etc. -Bookmarked as The Wireless World Page 349: list of most actions ordered by speed (free, simple, complex) with page references to explain them better. -Bookmarked as Actions Table Things I suggest reading COMPLETELY AND COMPREHENSIVELY: -Game Concepts -Creating a Shadowrunner -Combat -IF you plan to be a magic user: The Awakened World -IF you plan to be a hacker/tech character: The Wireless World Everything else you can read or skim at your leisure. You'll probably go through Skills and Street Gear on your own. just make sure you go through those chapters as you deem it necessary. USE THE BOOKMARKS. USE THE BOOKMARKS. USE THE BOOKMARKS. Likely questions, pre-emptively answered: -Can I keep the nuyen I buy with BP? --No. Spend it all. It's your starting equipment. Your starting nuyen is determined on page 86. -So what's my starting money? Your lifestyle indicates how much money you start with (page 86), but you can't really make back what you put in unless you choose Street (since it costs nothing) or High (if you roll 20 or higher). That said, having liquid resources starting off is pretty useful. -Is there a limit to how much money I can start with? Not officially, but I'd say anything higher than 200K nuyen (that's 40 BP worth) is probably going to mean your character's most useful feature is their wealth. You start with 200 BP and spending 20% of it just on gear may be a bad decision. -Help! What are these scary combinations of numbers and letters under "availability?" They're something you don't worry about at all in character creation. They only matter once the game starts and you have to buy things in character. -Should I get attribute-boosting cyber/bioware if it won't push me past the natural maximum? Sure! It is VERY BP efficient to get cyber/bioware for attributes (with the possible exception of cultured bioware), so don't neglect them just because they wouldn't push you over your maximum. If you're low on nuyen and want to start with attribute+ cyber/bioware, just reduce an attribute and buy the ware for it (if you don't mind the Essence hit) If you're good on nuyen but shaky on Essence, consider getting some Bioware. For example: Muscle Replacement, a cyberware attribute booster, gives you +1 Strength and +1 Agility per rating, which costs 5000 nuyen a piece (that's 1 BP!) up to 20000 nuyen. That seems like a steal, right? 4 BP gives you +4 Agility AND +4 Strength. But you lose 1 essence per 5000 nuyen your system costs, too. So having this system maxed out would take your essence down from 6 to 2. That's 2/3rds of your modability gone already. If that's too much essence for you, you could go for the more expensive option; using bioware to get Muscle Enhancement (+1 Strength) and Muscle Toner (+1 Agility). Together they cost 15,000 per rating, so you're spending 3 BP instead of 1 for the same upgrade, but this time it's only 0.4 Essence lost (0.2 each) per rating instead of 1. And, of course, there's the option of buying them separately. Keep in mind that, in a practice that normally takes 10 BP per tick, we just called the expensive option the one that was 3 BP per tick. Remember that if you're a magic user I'll round UP scores, so you don't have to worry about hurting your magic attribute until you lose a full point of Essence. House Rules: Initiative Passes are nerfed in the following way: --Once used, take one pass off of your sheet until an objective is completed, after which 1 is gained by all party members. --Players can also spend 1 karma to buy an Initiative Pass to a maximum of 3. Those with implants/magic that give Initiative Passes can buy up to a maximum of 3 + the number of Initiative Passes they receive from these things.