I find just about any RPG works just fine anywhere in the 3-6 PC range. The real concern isn't so much the player count as it is diversity. With this sort of game, really, the more people you have, the less variety you want to the group. Simple example, if everyone's skills and interests are all over the map, and you end up needing to run through a backroom mob meeting with character A while character B is hacking a security system and character C is picking a fight out front for a distraction and so on and so on, it could get a tad stressful on the GMing side. If everyone is just crassly tossing guards around demanding access to something though, it's just a question of having enough guards.

Man. :) Always the best villain, creature, whatever.

Parisa wrote:

I am curious to know, how much do you leave to the players, and how much do you plan?

I plan the game board, the NPCs, and have a general timeline of events. However, you always need to anticipate the characters zooming through your plot way faster than you anticipated, taking a completely novel route, or waiting to be lead by the nose. Players are strange creatures.

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Also, what do you think is the ideal number of player characters?

4 is probably 'ideal'. I wouldn't go over 7. 5 isn't a problem, as long as the players aren't complete newbies. The more familiar they are with each other, the easier it is. One thing to remember with EP is that, basically, the characters are capable of anything. It's not like D&D where you need a particular spell for a particular effect. Unless you specifically forbid it, it's most likely possible with sufficient ingenuity, skill and time. Regarding monster of the week... Yeah, the scariest monster is 'man', but that requires some forethought to make a proper conspiracy, and you may not want to do that for your first time. The easiest answer is to run a pre-written mission. Ego hunter came out yesterday. Or look at some GURPS Transhuman Space missions, which can be easily ported over. Or take a mission and rewrite. Failing that, the general 'dungeon setup' is probably one of the simplest missions, since it requires no real plot and you just have to manage combat. Set up something simple like breaking into a derelict ship to retrieve old stacks. Populate it with crazy people, exhumans, technology run amok, or exsurgents. Play up plague, paranoia and mutation. Shake thoroughly. Serve.

Who is creating these monsters (and for what purpose)? Regarding the adventures... One of them seems to have a pretty linear, 'go here, do that' plot I'd consider 'getting led around'. One is an investigation so I guess you follow the clues? Two are 'get here and retrieve X', so the players are left to their own devices. It's a nice diversity. I used to always hate pre-generated adventures. I felt like I was cheating. But when my SR campaign started winding down I pulled some out. A well-designed module doesn't feel like you're leading the characters around, it just presents an environment, a problem, and lets them go to town.

Parisa wrote:

I guess I have been put off by a friend who has run the same game like 4 times, 2 of which I have seen,

Unless that mission is 'Food Fight' for Shadowrun, yeah, that's a bit strange. Bear in mind also that all of the missions are available for free, if you want to go that way. Download them, read through them. If you don't like any of them, nothing lost. If you do like them, buy the ones you like (or all! PHS won't say no), and run with it. The only thing risked is your time, and most of them are fun to read through even if you never play them.

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Well my campaign is a mixture of investigating a disappearance, and attempting to retrieve alien artifacts. Of course they may run into some exsurgents with their own ideas. And by may, I mean most certainly will. I have mixed some strains and put some new things together, to make it a bit more interesting, but I am focusing on the digital and xeno strains.

Exsurgents are a card to do whatever you please. You can have them seem completely normal, but run by an alien intelligence, creepy monsters, something that steps through the fourth spatial dimension, whatever. The question then is what sort of setting are you trying to create. Paranoia? You want viruses or dopplegangers. Action? Freaky monsters. Horror? Setting is most important, but an inhuman monster (maybe a swarm?) works. Aliens are also an excuse to 'make cool'. Reading Revelation Space, I'm dying to do a freaky alien artifact. Crazy robots, wandering egos, self-replicating weapons... Remember there's a reason the race isn't hanging around any more, and those few defended caches of egos and cultural artifacts, and both are likely to squash a transhuman like a bug. Once you have a size for the hole you want to fill, you need to put your distinctive twist on it. Creatures don't exist in a vacuum, so pull that in too. A creature in space may be a distributed dust, invisible against the vacuum. A creature in a city may have perfect camouflage or leap from person to person, assuming identities. Setting is really important, I can't stress that enough. For me, I tend to look at ancient mythology (especially demons) and any monster-related stuff I can get from Del Toro for inspiration. I'm looking for more sources, so if you find any, pass it on. That or I ask my wife, "what is the most frightening thing you can imagine exploding from your eyeballs?" and I just write that down.