help with shadowruns Options

[Metapunk]

I am gonna be GM once again for SR, and I gotten through the basic rules now and I got my hands on augmentation, though my first campaign is gonna be with core rules only.
but I am a bit unsure about how to make my campaign, I have an idea that I will describe shortly, and hear if that is something like a shadowrun or I am in the wrong direction.

IDEA: to let a johnson contact the team to firstly make a datasteal and grab some information about an elven diplomat, and it will end with a wetwork job to assasinate the same diplomat.

hope I am not totally wrong here (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[Muspellsheimr]

Technically, Arsenal, Augmentation, Runners Companion, Street Magic, & Unwired are all Core Rulebooks.

[Fortune]

There's nothing wrong with your idea. 'Shadowruns' can be pretty much anything. Someone somewhere is always willing to pay someone else to do their dirty work. It doesn't necessarily have to be corporate-based, or government-instigated, or even organized crime-inspired. It could literally be a 'shadowrun' to escort a little old lady and her pet chihuahua to the annual dog show.

[Metapunk]

Technically, Arsenal, Augmentation, Runners Companion, Street Magic, & Unwired are all Core Rulebooks.

yeah okay, though I am going with only the basic rulebook, SR4. but I intend to let my world grow together with my experience as GM

[Ehleric]

There's nothing wrong with your idea. 'Shadowruns' can be pretty much anything. Someone somewhere is always willing to pay someone else to do their dirty work. It doesn't necessarily have to be corporate-based, or government-instigated, or even organized crime-inspired. It could literally be a 'shadowrun' to escort a little old lady and her pet chihuahua to the annual dog show.

I am so having my group do that run at some point. Hehehe

[Drogos]

Going base book to start is strongly adviseable. Then add books and optional rules to taste. And runs can be anything. I suggest watching NCIS, Law and Order, CSI, et al. and look at the crimes being commited and the motives. Those will give you a good basis for ideas to build from. Just put them in the context of Megacorporations and magic and you'll have a dramatically compelling story with equally rich backstory and reasoning. Just make sure the world is living and isn't just a backdrop to Adventures in Runnerland. The more the players see and hear about the world around them and how they affect it, they will feel more in character and thus provide more entertainment for all involved.

[Dashifen]

I ran a game wherein a pot-smoking johnson got the munchies and paid the runners 10 grand (each) to get him some snacks. But, they had to do it before he ran out of weed and they needed to get through some pretty nasty gang territory to get to the closest stuffer shack. Plus, it was in Denver and that stuffer shack was just over the closest border. Actually turned out to be a reasonably fun adventure.

[Malachi]

Page 21 of the SR4 Core Rulebook gives some quick examples of the nature of Shadowruns. Start there as a template.

[DireRadiant]

SR Missions FREE download chock full of ideas and useful aids for the GM.

Also FREE Quickstart Rules to hand out to players, and it includes it's own introductory adventure!

Aaron's Cheat Sheets also FREE!

[BookWyrm]

Thanks, Dire. Forgot about the goodies on Aaron's page. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Metapunk]

I actually seen Aarons site, really really useful
really like it and use it alot, if you see this Aaron, TY

[ornot]

I've not been there lately... I'll have to check it out.

[kanislatrans]

here's an idea that worked well for us...I put the basic concept together (two pages of notes and a crude map drawn on the back of a sale flyer i got in the mail) in about an hour. One of the things I love about GMing SR4 is that you can really let your imagination go crazy. for instance, I didn't need 6 "monster manuals" to make the horde of baddies, I just found something close and adjusted it. (in this case shedim) . so really, Dashifen is right on, anything can be a shadow run.
have fun

[ Spoiler ]

ust thought I'd drop this here in case any one wants to use it or parts of it or maybe it will inspire someone to something completely different.

I was running the set up for Ghost Cartels last sat. I wanted to get the team into the feel of the upcoming Tempo war without giving any thing away.

For starters, I brought in an enemy I had been teasing them since their first run about 6 months ago. Her name is Martina Lowell,aka "Sunshine", a unicorn shaman. See, in that run, they were tracking a bounty on a wendigo and after being chased by a ravenous group of squirrels, were trapped in a metal building with about 30 dead bodies. as they try to figure out what to do next , they meet a member of the first team to get sent after the wendigo and discover that one of his team is working with the wendigo on some "evil Magic drek" so they sneak up on the wendigo and the traitorous magic Chick and proceed to dump enough flash/bang grenades to drop the chick and wound the wendigo enough for the troll adept to jump in and finish the job with a haymaker from hades.

So the mage chick is barely breathing and the team decides to just leave here laying there. like any devious GM, I scoop her up and after a long crawl and a stint in intensive care + some cyber eyes and ears, put little miss sunshine back on the street . so every so often, one of the team has a crystal unicorn mysteriously show up in the darndest places. the best part? none of the players even remembers that they left her in that little encounter on the mountain top.

So anyhoo, I decide its time for Ms. Sunshine to show herself. The Dwarf ex-cop Hoz gets the call from the fixer about some possible work. The fixer says it looks legit, but doesn't really know the party involved so watch yourself. The team gets paranoid and demands a meet on their turf, an exclusive "exotic dance venue" they tend to visit. The J shows up with a some muscle and after preliminaries that amazingly don't end in bloodshed, Sunshine drops her disguise and lays the job on the table. she is willing to let bygones be bygones if they take this job(she's semi-retired and looking to settle into a Johnson role, as she has trust issues with fellow runners)

The job is this:It seems a son of a Denver mafia family has gone missing while on his way to meet with some folks who are trying to set up a pipe line for Tempo. The teams job is to find him and any info on who he was dealing with. Last known where abouts is some where between Denver and Seattle.

Much footwork ensues. Hoz discovers that a Lone Star forensic team was hired by the the mob family and found the sons doc wagon bracelet hanging in a tree in the middle of nowhere in the foot hills of the rocky mountains. The team Hacker,Bozo, tracks down two locations in that area that could be used to hide a kidnap victim. Both are corporate factory farms that raise pigs. They decide to hit the one with the military grade firewall on its node. smart move chummers.

Using the team mage's smuggler contact they catch a T-bird to the area, and after surveillance make their entrance The factory has hermetically sealed doors and decontamination air locks cause factory pigs have no immunity to anything. Now, I am a little worried at this point,cause if they do the smart thing( sterilize all gear and close all the doors) its going to be a pretty boring run. But they don't let me down, and leave the outer doors open and force the inner doors.

a little info on factory farms. basically , they are really just a big tank full of pig crap with cages built over top. the pigs are in 28x50 pens and they spend their whole life eating , pooping , and waiting to become bacon in one spot. not real nice. given the fact that millions of pigs lived and died on the spot and the big vat of sewage beneath them is toxic,I give it a conservative background count of 2.

The hacker finally busts the system and starts digging around and finds a hatch in the center of the 4 square acre factory that is not part of the system and looks like a good spot to look for the missing mafioso. In a shaft in the center of 6000 cages holding 6000 pigs lies their target. Cake walk, right?

They open the hatch and enter a room with a manual control for some kind of drone network hooked to rails that run all through the factory. Smart move here would be to disable them. once more, they do me proud and leave them be. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) in a room to the right they find a torture chamber with a dead body on it . hard to tell if its the target, but they photograph the teeth, bag the body and the hacker who is busy as hell attempts to match them to their target.

Meanwhile, the team investigates the only other room and run into a couple of biodrone sabretooth nasties whom they quickly dispatch. these get bagged also I let the tension relax for a second or two before letting the mage in on a little secret.

I tell the mage( who is projecting) he is in a spiritual meteor storm as hundreds and then thousands of spiritual entities come screaming across the astral landscape. He is a little confused until I describe how all the piggies life lights are going out and that the entities are plunging into the freshly dead porcine corpses. ...He gets the hint and rushes back to his body to let the team know they are entering zombie pig hell.

The team has been busy, checking for any other clues and trying to carry the corpses of the biodrones and the dead guy out. upon being told of the piggy problem they plot a course for the exit . unfortunately, that is where the pigs zombies are coming from. so, they call for an emergency exit and start running in the other direction. The mage drives the land rover to the side of the building where they need a door and lets loose with with a force 8 powerball that does make a nice big door. unfortunaly it makes a bunch of dead pigs between the runners and the door . chaos ensues. grenades fly . runners curse. and I am a happy GM. Cause this is when the automated defenses activate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) Rail drones with shotguns and incendiary rounds. Oh! the beauty of it alll!!!!

through skill and every point of edge the team possesses, they survive, return the head of the mafia guy with the info in his data jack, and get paid...


Have I mentioned I LOVe this Game?? > Grin Grin

[Dashifen]

zombie pigs .... today, sir, you win the game (IMG:style_emoticons/default/notworthy.gif)

[Fortune]

... so really, Dashifen is right on, anything can be a shadow run.

Why does he get the credit? I said it first! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Dashifen]

Yeah ... but I said it last. BOOYA!

[kanislatrans]

correction:

intro paragraph,last line should have read " So really,the statements by Fortune and Dashifen are right on, anything can be a shadow run. " (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Fortune]

Much better. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Scoot]

There may be something wrong if you have to issue errata for your own posts.

[Fortune]

Kind of fitting for an RPG forum though ... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[kanislatrans]

only if I have to errata my errata. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)