Herein lies the tricky balance. You don't want to have to say "Well you're doing this run whether you like it or not" but you don't want to waste a whole prepped adventure either.

Regarding the too-good-to-be-true example above and similar situations, I think a lot can be done to save it. For one thing you can keep it alive by showing more of your hand than you had wanted to. The Johnson obviously has a reason for offering so much so have him explain it. He doesn't want the players to walk so don't take 'No way ho-say' for an answer too readily if it's going to scupper everyone's fun.

Personally I think SR is one of those settings/systems where it's prudent not to plan out adventures in very much detail beforehand. Dungeon crawls work well that way because they are that much more predictable. Instead, plan out the basics, stat out the key players and prepare the key visual aids but don't spend hours on verbatim speeches, scene descriptions etc. Then spend the time saved to similarly sketch out other adventures, really simple ones if they're only for emergencies. That way not only do you have a back-up or two on hand but you can salvage plots, characters and ideas from the rejected run for another day. Hell, if they walked at the first meeting you probably only need to change a few details and the players will never know they're accepting the same gig they turned down the week before.

Also a good approach.

In fact, it is possible to make a fun evening out of pure downtime. Roleplay a bit of trouble with a contact, have an intruder wake them in the night, work through whatever little jobs the characters might do to earn a little beer money (bodyguarding, carjacking, etc.), spin out the process of finding some cool gear they've been hankering after, the possibilities (as you should expect from an RPG) are endless. Basically anything that is normally handled by a couple of rolls can be roleplayed instead or as well.

Exactly... unlike say DnD, shadowrun plays more towards true roleplay catering. You might have a list of challenges, where those challenges get placed or what rolls will happen, that depends on how your players tackle the problems, where they go and how they go about things.

Having pre-built encounters to slot in where applicable (mainly having stats ready) is important. It's also a game where I believe combat should be secondary to the roleplay and process, infiltrating a building can be as much a challenge as shooting it out during a fire-fight.

The best part is no adventure is tied together at the hips. You can take a premade, go at it with a cleaver and take elements and put them anywhere. I know for my campaign if any of my newbie players want something coo tech-wise they might end up having to steal it from a tech warehouse.

This is where you change your GM style. Run offers and acceptance go at the end of the session, so you and your players have the time between games to think up what comes next. That way, you never detail a run they don't go on.

So basically, your suggestion is to put on the conductor's hat and start up the train to force a character--or group of characters--into doing what YOU (or whoever) want? That's sure what it sounds like.

The problem for me was the sheer recklessness of my teammates. They wanted to go in guns a blazing against a whole gang over a drone. The job itself was not "dangerous" when we started out but having kicked the proverbial hornets' nest, I wanted to re-approach the situation carefully. Our characters had a week 'in-game' to do this job and the hacker botched it in the first 24 hours by hacking that drone and attracting the gang's attention. No one wanted to wait a few days to let the heat die down and plan out a sneaky way to get into the gang's garage. It was all "I want revenge, they shot at me."

If my adept died in combat during the first encounter or later if we had tried to sneak? I would have accepted that. Runners die all the time. And as I've said before, my husband dropped some pretty big hints that they needed to cut their loses and give up that run, but cest la vie.

I would agree that if the players constantly turn down jobs and err too much on the side of caution that it is insulting to the GM. I havent really GMed myself but I know its a delicate balance of baiting and reacting to players. We'll see how the other players behave in the new game we're gonna try to start up.

Until one of your players is Matrim bloody Cauthon and tosses flaming dice to figure out which way to go.