Any ideas for Seattle/Denver runs?, I need an adventure hook... Options

[Ooe]

Hoi chummers!
Im playing a Seattle (and maybe even Denver) campaign with a Troll Wpn Specialist, an Elf Decker and a Dwarf Drone-rigger. But im out of run ideas. Any suggestions? It would be great if someone has been thinking of or even played a run that the players loved, and they want to share the idea. Awaiting an answer... :|

[Nikoli]

Where are you in the timeline?

[RangerJoe]

Nothing like a rollicking CombatBus ™ trip from Seattle to Denver through awakened and hostile wilderness.

That is to say, turn the heat on in Seattle (botched run, etc.) and have the only way out of town be as freelance mercs defending a CombatBus (and its passengers, driver, cargo, etc.) on the way to Denver.

As a shaman in our group once put it: "You can always run away to Denver."

[Ooe]

[Firewall]

[RangerJoe]

You can run CombatBus™ however you want it. Maybe it's a no-frills Greyhound-type line, where passengers are expected to defend themselves (needless to say, there's very little restriction on what kinds of gear "passengers" can bring with them). Maybe it's a regular shuttle for people who are suspicious of air travel. Normally CombatBus has its own guards but either a) a PC has a buddy in the company who's willing to let them freelance guard to get out of town with their gear or b) something has been eating CombatBuses (and their guards). Something big and nasty. As a result, there are, ahem, job opennings.

I see the vehicles as being either some kind of Bison-type hauler, or maybe even a large industrial hovercraft.

[Ooe]

[Glav]

You're the GM, right? Decide that on your own :)

My favorite generic run hook: Sit them down with their fixer/regular johnson/good bartender buddy/lonestar friend and have them say "Someone's been asking around for you...and it doesn't sound pretty. Remember when you did X and Y to Z? Well..." The run pretty much plays itself out from there. While they're running around checking up on contacts, checking out digs, scoping out buildings, you can figure out just what villan/former secguard/red samuraii/wagemage/otaku group/secret cabal they did frag off, and how they can survive it. :)

[Ooe]

[Glav]

[RedmondLarry]

child custody battle: spouse in Seattle wants son/daughter kidnapped from ex-spouse who has custody in Denver (adventure Divided Assets).

corporate: corp in Seattle wants data/property/employee stolen from a corp located in Denver and then returned to Seattle

shadows: corp in Seattle wants the runners to track down and kill a Shadowrun team that betrayed their Johnson. Legwork reveals most of them fled to Denver.

destruction: corp in Seattle tells runners that their rival has set up an extensive protected computer facility at an old abandoned military base near Denver. Pays runners to blow up their computers. Provides as many timer detonators as the team wants, and gives team a contact name in a city half-way to Denver who can provide C-12.

IE: a Fixer hires the team to steal an item from Elf-posers/corporation/Indians/Deckers/ or Women's Investment Club and leave in its place an item the team stole in an earlier run.

[Bearclaw]

Try using the run from the first NAN book. It gets them out of town in well into the NAN. Then, maybe in Vegas, 'cause I like Vegas, have the run go very wrong. Maybe one of the drones gets hit in the brain box and opens up on a city bus or something. Anyway, they're a thousand miles from home, and everyone wants them dead. Too many meta's to go west, too many white people to go south, too far to go north, and that leaves Denver. Some fights, some running and hiding, some chasing, then a smuggler needs some guns to ride to Denver with him. No pay, but he'll get you out of Vegas and Pueblo CC, and get you all rating 3 credsticks for the Utes (or is that vice-versa?). Anyway, that'll get you out of Seattle for a couple months.

[Ooe]

Thanks for the info everyone! Im making a nice lil adventure now, and Ive got plenty of inspiration from you and some from Deus Ex 2: IW

[Kesh]

The runners are contacted by a Johnson from corp A. They are to meet a person when contacted, and escort this person to a location in Denver. He is to be protected at all costs, and travel should be as inconspicuous as possible. Enough payment will be made up front to cover the runner's fees for most reasonable precautions (whether they try to do fake IDs and get tickets on a jet, pay off a Panzer smuggler for travel, or what have you), with full payment upon delivery.

*Background*

The contact is a wageslave for corp B. He was 'promoted' to Information Courier Specialist, which is a fancy way of saying he has lots of headware memory, encryption for the memory, and a cortex bomb.

Said wageslave worked at a research facility for corp B. Since the research was supposed to be kept under tight wraps, the facility had no Matrix linkup. Instead, all data transfers were done by this courier, physically taking the information from one facility to another. In this case, the research is nearing completion, and the researchers want a full backup delivered to a safe location.

Unfortunately, the wageslave was originally a plant who works for corp A. His 'promotion' was a fluke, and up to this point he's been watched too carefully to ever get at any of the data in his head. This time, corp A knows he's carrying something big (they just don't know what) and has elected to take special measures. The runners were hired to escort him to a corp A safe location in Denver, while the wageslave 'corrected' his papers to make sure the corp B escort personnel will arrive late at his meet location. Thus, the runners should have no problem picking him up.

Afterwards, the researchers for corp B will have a fit. Turns out, their research was not sanctioned by the corp. Instead, they were fudging their reports, while working on the head researcher's pet project (which had its funding revoked two years ago). Since they can't ask for help from the corp, after lying about what they were working on for years, they only have their own resources to send after the runners.

To further complicate things, you could throw in some government investigation into the activities of corp B. Or, perhaps a specific government has been wanting to get their hands on said research (not knowing it's the pet project instead of what they were supposed to be working on in the lab).

At this point, the runners will be trying to evade at least three groups who are after their mark, and the courier just wants to get this over with so that his head doesn't explode. :D

(Yes, I've been watching Johnny Mnemonic too much. Sue me. ;) )

[Eyeless Blond]

Yeah, the only problem with that is that headware memory is so damn Essence-hungry that even with a data compactor noone can possibly hold a backup copy of anything like a site backup in their head without being a cyberzombie. :)

[RedmondLarry]

Good point, Eyeless. Perhaps he's holding the decryption key for a datastore being transported separately.