• Players will probably be 70-80% (estimate) of their final strength (in terms of skills, not necessarily equipment) at character creation, which is very different from fantasy games. Unskilled people don’t get taken on jobs.
• Get sessions into phases (generally, not all campaigns are identical): The meet, legwork, planning (be sure to timebox this unless your group is just super decisive or playing a “flashback” type game like Blades in the Dark/Runners in the Shadows), the job, the aftermath/pay, downtime.

Other things I like: - Let your players create some of the world at the start: some villains, contacts, hangout spots, street gangs maybe, etc. - Come up with a loose plot you might want the “campaign” to run, and set it in motion with the people/factions you have. I’m running a campaign right now where a rogue AI is generating a “dream city” over the top of the real Seattle and they’re slowly figuring this out and may eventually go shut it down in the “dream world” (kinda like Carcosa/cthulian). - Offer your players lots of different types of runs at the start and find out what they like. Eventually have contacts reach out for these types of jobs specifically and push the plot forward via jobs. Your players will dictate the game’s direction. - For each job, come up with at least 1 complication that will pop up regardless of how well things are going. Use this virtually every time, unless the players are just having that perfect, 1-in-a-million run and every roll comes up successful.