I don’t have a direct experience with SR1 but SR5 was the first RPG I’ve GMed and we did check out SR3 briefly
Don’t try to get everything right (mechanics-wise) from the start. It’s impossible with that amount of intricacy. If you really feel that it’s important to get the rule right - right now, ask a player to check in the book and continue with other thread
For the first few sessions forget about the details of the mechanics. Focus on the world appearing in the run
Remember about the three:
Meat (bribes/social/gangs/mafia/etc & violence)
Magic
Technology (Matrix & drones)
Focus on what should the characters find where and how. Try not to kill them, telegraph dangers
Without some flashback mechanics your players might get stuck in analysis paralysis in Legwork phase. Try to find a way to mitigate that, that will work with your table
Three-clues rule
Hacking will be taking a lot of time and unfortunately in later mainline editions it is only better, IMO never really good.
From what I’ve skimmed, the Matrix house-rules for SR3 can make it move faster
If you have the chance, take a look how Anarchy 2 approached hacking, IMO it’s much better. But it might not fit your taste for crunch
Shadowrun flows very differently than D&D
Don’t prepare plots
Onion plots
Split the party
* helps maintaining more divided spotlight time
* gives time to check up rules
* allows you to gauge if they are going to completely miss the mark with how they approach the current situation
IMO The Lazy Dungeon Master is THE WAY to prepare heist games and in general games where there are a lot of moving parts and players might solve a problem in a way that totally makes sense but you haven’t thought about it. Having a bag of ideas instead of a planned plot makes it possible to play along
BTW, there’s !shadowrun@sh.itjust.works. It’s not very active but I dream some day it will be
And good luck, Chummer!
While personally I’ve ditched the mainline mechanics, it’s a great setting and I really like running SR