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> Balanced Breakfast, Help me flesh out a run
PH3NOmenon
post Jul 12 2006, 05:14 PM
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Hoi chummers,

I've been planning a run for my non-magical group and though i have the rough outline ready I need to run it by some players to see what kind of fancy ways they can come up with to totally ruin the run before i let my players at it. I also could use some professional suggestions into the finer points of the run.

The group runs out of the United Netherlands, and while skimming through the SoE book i came across a fun little tidbit of info: Nestlé, a corp that in 2006 specialises in foodstuffs and is known amoungst the people for their breakfast cereals, survived the awakening and is alive and kicking in 2070. Nestlé (most likely an A, maybe AA, corp) was targetted by Zeta-Imp Chem for a takeover, increasing their revenue and market share over the current AA leader in western europe, AG Chemie.

Enough of the history lesson, lets get to the basics of the run:
AG wants some runners to infiltrate a production facility of Nestlé to add a common street level drug to the food additives. The ensuing media frenzy will take a fair bite out of their revenue, on top of what they'll need to spend to recall and destroy the crackcereal, plus Zeta-Imp Chem will lose face quite a bit.

How do they go about this?
I see two options for this:
1) They switch a truckload of food additives to a truckload of crack and they never even have to set foot inside the facility, save a quick incursion to make sure it passes the inspection. How they'll score such a huge amount (how much exactly?) of drugs remains a question, but a Maas-Wachter Security depot (Lone Star equivalent) could have apprehended a sufficient amount from smugglers in the north of the country, which is fairly fitting for the setting really and is an extra run by itself.

2) A small quantity of a particularly fun enzyme could be injected into the storage of the additives, the enzyme will be engineered to alter the chemical so its structure transforms into the drug. I can't think of any plausible explenation of who would produce such an enzym though, and it would have to be provided by the johnson which is kind of a deus ex machina... could use some help here.


The Aftermath:
Once the news gets out that kids are going into psychedelic sugar rushes far beyond anything ever seen, and after a few unfortunate deaths, Nestlé will have no choice to clean up the mess. Ofcourse large quantities of drugs that are stored until their destruction are always lucrative targets, even if they're in cereal form. The few lucky druggies who were lucky enough to buy a few boxes that supply them with part of a balanced breakfast along with their daily fix inspire a local gang to raid the storage facility and get away with the food. The runners would be hired as extra muscle for this, or as infiltrators to liberate the drugs while the gang plays the role of cover fire. This would depend on how itchy their trigger fingers are getting at this point.

There you have it, dead children and streets overrun by cerealjunkies, how's that for influence in the gameworld? :D



I know there is someone on this board that works in the food industry, it'd be great to get some insight in how these things are produced on a large scale and what kind of checks there are before products are actually used in the process.

Also, if anyone spots any flaws in the run, possible shortcuts or knows interesting possible twists, please note em here! Lets pull together to make this one hell of a sweet run! (pun intended)
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JRDobbs
post Jul 12 2006, 05:27 PM
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I thought there already was crack in Frosted Flakes...

Great idea for a run. I'd just make sure that you phrase the job such that the group is aware that there are several ways of getting the mission accomplished other than dumping buckets of meth into the cornflake machine (i.e., something like "the cereal has to be tainted with a street drug of your choice, sufficient to cause a recall.")
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James McMurray
post Jul 12 2006, 05:31 PM
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I'm assuming their pay will include compensation for buying the drug? If it didn't my players would walk away.
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CradleWorm
post Jul 12 2006, 05:47 PM
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I can see players getting an empty truck and painting it up to have all the company markings on it along with all the paperwork and driving into the plant with contaminated materials to be used in the production process as well.

What were you planning on for opposition? I would certainly think heavy matrix and physical security given your groups make-up, but I might want to push the edge by throwing a mage in or some spirits.

Finally... one of the Shadowrun staples:

It just isn't a run until you get screwed by Mr. Johnson.

Where is the twist? What do you have to throw at the players that isn't expected?

Also, think about the scope of the adventure. Does this run lead to a mafia boss's kid getting high and finding out the players pulled off the job?

Do you want to keep going on this theme for more then one night?

The short description you have is good enough for a GM to wing a one night adventure, if your planning on more then I think you need some more details. We need to know who the NPCs are and what are the motivations?

Very rarely would I ever make a run in which corp A wants to screw over corp B and they go to Shadowrunners. To me it always makes more since to think of motivations on a personal level. Why does this particular Johnson need to make this run happen? If there are personal motivations beyond nuyen you will find much more for-filling stories to tell.
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James McMurray
post Jul 12 2006, 05:50 PM
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Dear Lord no. Don't subscribe to the "the Johnson has to screw you" mindset. Most Johnsons would a0 be too afraid of these hired killers to screw them, b) want to be able to hire future runners without a history of double-crossing, or c) have more to lose from backstabbing then from playing square. A run where the Johnson screws you should be rare, otherwise it loses it's bite and just becomes another expected portion of the evening's gameplay. "Ok guys, we just got the target, let's go hole up somewhere and wait for the J to try to hand us over to Lone Star or something."
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stevebugge
post Jul 12 2006, 06:05 PM
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QUOTE (James McMurray)
Dear Lord no. Don't subscribe to the "the Johnson has to screw you" mindset. Most Johnsons would a0 be too afraid of these hired killers to screw them, b) want to be able to hire future runners without a history of double-crossing, or c) have more to lose from backstabbing then from playing square. A run where the Johnson screws you should be rare, otherwise it loses it's bite and just becomes another expected portion of the evening's gameplay. "Ok guys, we just got the target, let's go hole up somewhere and wait for the J to try to hand us over to Lone Star or something."

Absolutely agree with this. When I first started GM'ing Johnsons regulalry screwed the group and it became so predictable that a few months in to playing one of the characters came to the meet, politely listened to the Johnson then shot him. Everyone was like "why did you do that?" becasue it pretty much killed that night's game and his reponse was "well he's just going to screw us later".

On your adventure, the Johnson works for a chemical company right? WHile you might need Dozens of Kilos of street cut drugs to pull this off, a lab made very pure sample would only require a fraction of the amount and could be procured by the Johnson rather easily (maybe use a completely synthetic drug like Hyper or a Meth derivative). Of course once Nestle has time to analyze the tainted cereal this would be pretty obvious (so either this isn't a good idea or you can leave this in as a Johnson Faux Pas deliberately) and Nestle might come looking for the runners to get them to turn on the Johnson and/or hire them to do a counter run to clear Nestle's name.
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GrinderTheTroll
post Jul 12 2006, 06:23 PM
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QUOTE (PH3NOmenon)
<snipped>
Enough of the history lesson, lets get to the basics of the run:
AG wants some runners to infiltrate a production facility of Nestlé to add a common street level drug to the food additives. The ensuing media frenzy will take a fair bite out of their revenue, on top of what they'll need to spend to recall and destroy the crackcereal, plus Zeta-Imp Chem will lose face quite a bit.

How do they go about this?
I see two options for this:
1) They switch a truckload of food additives to a truckload of crack and they never even have to set foot inside the facility, save a quick incursion to make sure it passes the inspection.


I like that you'd got a few options, but give them a bit more and let them handle more of the execution and less of the "how do we get 1 ton of crack" unless that's what you'd like them to focus on.

For example, in Option #1, have Mr. J say, 'We need a team to switch the food additives in a certain batch of foodstuffs. We've have the new ingrediant, and we've managed to get you all hired as "Temporary Foodstuff Technicans" for the next week we need the job completed within that timeframe. The pay is..."

Now the task becomes figuring how to get the stuff into the mix instead of scoring the drug. Players could case the place and get placement of cameras, security details, etc and plan a time to put the stuff in the mix. It might even require them to come back after hours and penetrate the security.

Add a twist or two to round out the "simple job" scenario, maybe the night of their infiltration there is a massive security audit, or visiting corp big-wigs means double security, extra maintenance, etc.
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James McMurray
post Jul 12 2006, 06:29 PM
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Even if they have to get the drug themselves they'll still have to plan how to get it in. Leaving drug acquisition up t them adds challenges, it doesn't detract from the other challenges inherent in the run.
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Geekkake
post Jul 12 2006, 07:02 PM
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QUOTE (James McMurray)
Dear Lord no. Don't subscribe to the "the Johnson has to screw you" mindset. Most Johnsons would a0 be too afraid of these hired killers to screw them, b) want to be able to hire future runners without a history of double-crossing, or c) have more to lose from backstabbing then from playing square. A run where the Johnson screws you should be rare, otherwise it loses it's bite and just becomes another expected portion of the evening's gameplay. "Ok guys, we just got the target, let's go hole up somewhere and wait for the J to try to hand us over to Lone Star or something."

This is generally true, and much what I try to say to people without phrasing it that well. However, on the other side of the coin, runners are "deniable assets", and as such, if the J screws them to death, who's gonna report it?
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GrinderTheTroll
post Jul 12 2006, 07:12 PM
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QUOTE (James McMurray)
Even if they have to get the drug themselves they'll still have to plan how to get it in. Leaving drug acquisition up t them adds challenges, it doesn't detract from the other challenges inherent in the run.

True, but my players hang themselves given enough rope. ;)

Really depends on how much work the Mr. J has done ahead of time and how much is expected of the team.
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ShadowDragon
post Jul 12 2006, 07:19 PM
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I don't think the Johnson should screw over the group, but you should definately think of a twist of some kind. For example in On the Run...

[ Spoiler ]


You should also read the intro story in the rulebook. Very very similar to your run idea, and it includes a nice twist.
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deek
post Jul 12 2006, 07:27 PM
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I like the idea of having them be temp employees, but you really don't need to have that done, as part of the fun would be casing the facility and finding a way in, while working on covering their tracks.

I think Mr. J should supply the chemical. Maybe his motivation is more to test the chemical that they have developed and he wants to use another company and their customers as the guinea pigs...

I think you could also make it a part of the job to recalibrate the "quality" machines/programs, so not only do the runners need to infiltrate and drop the vial of chemicals into the batch, but they also need to get into the system and reconfigure. Maybe Mr. J gives them a program or specs that they need to load as well, so the batch will get processed undetected...

You may even want to make it that the specific batch that is going to be "fixed" is being processed that night, so putting a limitation on the time as well could work to your advantage and make it a solid, quick hit adventure. The runners get a couple hours to case and infiltrate, then a couple more to make the drop and respec the quality processes before the batch is processed and the run fails...

Just some random thoughts.
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Backgammon
post Jul 12 2006, 07:28 PM
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Ah, from what I've seen of the food industry (ok, I toured a Kraft foods production plant) there's no way you can just innocently throw some CRACK in there without anyone noticing big time.

Your best bet is to say the entire facility is automated, with abolutely 0 human presence. The facility is monitored remotely by a team in Nestlé HQ somewhere else. As long as the machines don't report a malfunction (which actually happens fairly often but it's no big deal), no one comes to check up on them.

In order to achieve 0 human presence, the machines have an insane level of complexity and highly advanced sensors. IRL, there are so many little things that go wrong that humans always have to be around to constantly perform small maintenance tasks. So to have a fully automated facility, the technology level has to be very impressive.

This doesn't really matter for the runners though, it's just something for you to keep in mind. As far as the runners are concerned, the hurdle is this: the sensors WILL detect that there is a foreign ingredient (cocaine) in the cereals.

The runners will therefore need a good hacker to mess that machine up and let it pass the cocaine, probably by adding cocaine into the Recipe List the machine has in memory to compare against.
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hyzmarca
post Jul 13 2006, 02:00 AM
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Today, as we speak, Nestlé intentionally murders one million children every year, give or take. In 070, a little crack in tehir cereal will not faze them. Recall and destroy? Hell no. Just divert new shipments of the tainted cereal to Africa and South America.

As for adding the chemical, this is best done in the warehouse, not the factory. By the time they're in the warehouse they're sealed in airtight containers and all the testing has been done. All you need to do is jab the bags with hypodermic needels and fill them up. Repeat 20 million times or so. Drones help.
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toturi
post Jul 13 2006, 02:10 AM
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Woah... Please try to keep RL(even if it is real) out of the game world, will ya?
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Backgammon
post Jul 13 2006, 03:40 AM
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That's like the third time I hear Nestlé is like the epitome of evil... what's up with that? I'm missing a story here I think...?
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Hida Tsuzua
post Jul 13 2006, 04:49 AM
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Another way to do this would be to bypass production entirely and just go after random cereal boxes in stores. Grocery stores will be far less secure and there will be no further checking of the cereal. With a large enough effort, this will still cause the scandal desired (how large of the effort depends on how many childern severely affected you think is needed to become a media target, I would say 3). For added effect, get plane tickets and do it to scattered places all over North America or the world. That'll help slow down the invisigation as they'll likely assume at first that something during processing or transport is the cause of the problems. This will however remove the whole "warehouse full of crack" subplot.

Hey why crack? Microbes make lots of interesting compounds. Just inject some spores into the bag and let nature take its cause.
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hyzmarca
post Jul 13 2006, 04:57 AM
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QUOTE (Backgammon @ Jul 12 2006, 10:40 PM)
That's like the third time I hear Nestlé is like the epitome of evil... what's up with that? I'm missing a story here I think...?

It isn't that they're the epitome of evil, its just that thir business practices kill babies. It isn't like there's anything wrong with that. They have to make a profit somehow. Gerber kills babies, too.

Basicly, Nestlé gives out free samples of baby formula to new mothers in many countries, including third-world countries. They give out just enough to keep the baby well fed untill the mother stops lactating. When that happens, the mother must buy more formula. This is a great way to get customers. Babies have to eat, after all. The only problem is that nestlé's most aggressive formula marketing campaigns are in thrid world contries where most of the population is too poor to afford clean water and certain can't afford a regular supply of formula. The result is that Nestlé makes money selling formula in these countries but the formula is mixed with contaminated water and the babies are not fed enough of it so they die from water-borne diseases and malnutrition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestle_boycott

Note that the 1.5 million dead babies per year aren't all Nestlé's, they're just the biggest offender. Gerber and other baby formula manufacturers use similar tactics.

Over the past 30 years Nestlé and other formula makers have kicked the Nazi's asses when it comes to death tolls. They've beat both World Wars combined.
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PH3NOmenon
post Jul 13 2006, 09:22 AM
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QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Today, as we speak, Nestlé intentionally murders one million children every year, give or take. In 070, a little crack in tehir cereal will not faze them. Recall and destroy? Hell no. Just divert new shipments of the tainted cereal to Africa and South America.

And while that is going on now, most people don't even care or know. Imagine what it would be like in 2070, when there's dragons, magic and techno razzle-dazzle to contend with in the news.



Of course they'll clean it up, they'll even make a big point of it, people are paying attention to what happens close at home you know...





Anyways, there's some good and juicy stuff in this thread, keep the juices flowing, i'll post a refined version of the run this weekend. By the way, Does anyone have any prices for the drugs listed in the BBB? I can't seem to find one, and figuring out how expensive the run would be with a "truckload" of drugs on the line is proving rather difficult. Even when assuming 1/2 a dose per box (kids will reach an overdose easily), and assuming a 100.000 boxes shipment that departs from the production facility to a shipping & handling center that's still 50.000 doses...
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Crusher Bob
post Jul 13 2006, 11:00 AM
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Well assuming you are paying 5Y for a crack rock, that's 250K Y for 50K crack rocks. In addition, you'll have to do some processing on the crack to get it into a form that you can contaminate the food with. Of course these would be street prices for the drugs, and you hardly walk up and buy 50,000 doses of a drug from your corner dealer. Of course, you can probably buy hazardous industrial chemicals for muhc less. Or even better, bid on a toxic waste disposal contract, so you get paid to haul away the stuff you are going to later poison the food with :D.

Of course, good spin doctors with the Nestle could make the company look like a fellow victim instead of the villian here. A much better choice would be to find some toxic chemical that Nestle produces, then miss-direct some of it into the food production vats. Then Nestle won't be able to play the 'outside agitator card', after all their own toxic chemicals somehow ended up in the food.
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ornot
post Jul 13 2006, 01:09 PM
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The way I see it is that using a drug allows a bunch of other follow up runs involving the drug tainted cereal. Sure, using a bacterial or fungal agent might also work, but in all honesty that's probably going to get noticed before the poor unfortunate eats the cereal. You might try something a little easier to administer than crack though. LSD could be entertaining :) plus it's very concentrated and a little goes a long way. Ethically minded runners would also probably be more comfortable with LSD as it is not going to kill due to an overdose.

Targetting the cereal once it has reached stores is useless, as the producer will blame the distributers or retailers. It needs to be done at source so that the paper trail leads to one complete batch not to the odd packet in many different batches.

The runners will need to do some hefty research on the manufacturing process, either talking to a worker or somehow getting the face into the facility so they knnow the appropriate point at which to plant the compound. If, as has been suggested, the plant employs zero labour some other tack would need to bhe taken.

Regardless the machinery used in food manufacture is invariably large, shiny and very complicated. A cursory glance would probably not yield adequate understanding to operate the machine. Also, these machines can be quite dangerous incorporating high pressures, high temperatures and, on occasion, whirling blades. Be sure to drop unprepared and arrogant runners into the machine so the rest of the team can enjoy Runner Flakes, Runner Pops and Chocolate Coated Puffed Runners!
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