Offering the players an out in a sticky situation Options

[HMHVV Hunter]

On the off-chance that any of the players in my Shadowrun game at Get Your Game On in Ann Arbor, Michigan are reading this - if you are one of those players, do not read any further please.











Anyway.














Alright, I've got an idea for what could be a cool adventure, but I could use some advice in how to be fair to the players while making the situation tough at the same time.

Basically, the idea comes from a Shadowland entry in the "Shadows of North America" sourcebook. There's an entry about a Tir Tairngire corporation that Lofwyr moved to buy out shortly after he resigned from the Council of Princes, but somebody sold off everything before Loffy could get his hands on it.

The plot idea is that Lofwyr has finally ID'd the corp that did it - and now he wants his revenge. He hires the runners to utterly destroy the company (a small multinational with a presence in only Seattle and Wales), physically and Matrix-wise.

Behind the scenes, however, the plot is much greater than that. This small A-rated corporation is controlled, through some intermediaries, by the great dragon Rhonabwy, and this is a cover for a shadow conflict between the two dragons.

I can't see how the players would discover this before taking the job however, putting the runners in a tough position of having to piss off a great dragon no matter what they do. It would be more dangerous to piss off Lofwyr, as he suffers neither failure nor traitors and will wait years to get his revenge if he has to, but I can't imagine Rhonabwy being too merciful either.

My question: how do I offer the players an out in this situation without making them feel that the whole thing has been a waste of time with no in-game monetary pay-off?