Players working for the Corps, Shadowrun Blue Shift Options

[imperialus]

I've been toying with the idea of running a high powered campaign for some time now but rather than the players simply being normal runners with cooler toys I wanted to try something different. I started thinking of having the PC's as members of a corporate strike team. Now for this to work the unit they are with would have to be recognizable from the SR cannon, I don't feel like doing a backstory for an entirely new unit. First 4 obvious choices are Renraku Red Samurai, CATco seraphim, Ares Firewatch, and Azzie Jaguars.

seraphim are out right off the bat since Cross is no longer a AAA. It might be an interesting campaign to run but it's not quite what I'm going for.

Red Sam's would be a pretty boring choice. Lets face it, they arn't terribly pro-active serving as more of a goon squad/bodyguard unit than anything else. Not only that but by my understanding they are almost all street sams and I want more variety than that.

Jaguar Warriors might be interesting but I don't know enough about Aztechnology to really portray them well and I'd have to sit through hours of terrible Mexican accents and Scarface quotes.

That leaves Firewatch. I'll have to restructure them somewhat from being simple bug hunters to being a more general anti-terrorism unit sorta structured around Section 9 from Ghost in the Shell. The individual teams will be largely independent and capable of acting under their own inititive at least insofar as how they go about accoplishing their jobs. There will be a reasonable amount of investigative work as well as they try and follow the trail of runner teams and recover or otherwise deal with whatever the runners poked their nose into. They'll also have to be politically savvy and capable of keeping a low profile so as not to draw unwanted attention to their actions. They won't be black ops per say but they will oftentimes have to overstep their jurisdiction and occasionally take more direct action against other corps.

That said though they'll have considerable authority in areas where Ares or KE has jurisdiction. They'll be able to requisition just about anything within reason, their badges will get them a long way, they'll be able to issue press blackouts, commandeer Ares troops and KE security, take over crime scenes, and they'll have an extensive support network that can supply them with anything from transport to a team of professional corp hackers to help them carry out their missions. Minimum rank within Ares' military/security apparatus would be at least O3 and they'd all have a high lifestyle without needing to actually make a payment.

I have a few ideas for adventures that I'll post later tonight but would like to hear any input that people might have about this concept. If anyone has any ideas on how exactly I should go about structuring the Firewatch teams that would be nice too. Right now I'm thinking of naming them after letters in the Greek alphabet but that's as far as I've gotten.

Anyhow I'll post more on this as it comes to me once I get home tonight. Like I said I'd appreciate any comments or suggestions that people may have.

[Jack Kain]

Remember you can easily make up a "Section 9" or "Division 6" or what ever for what corp you want.

You could easily make say a special Covert Ops group in Renraku called Ronin 5 or what ever.

[SL James]

[imperialus]

so what's wrong with high powered PCs? As long as the challange is scaled to match them I don't see an issue. This puts them in a position to actually affect the metaplot of SR and lets face it what player doesn't take a look at some of the crazy gear found in the SR supplements and want to try it out?

The idea is that dispite the fact that they have all this power on paper they will still be limited by different circumstances than runners will ever have. Political fallout, PR issues, dealing with threats on the scale of Bug City and stuff like that all has potential. It'll be a different Shadowrun but still recognizable.

That said though your fun isn't my fun, I've been GMing and playing street level campaigns since second ed. I'd just like to give somthing different a try.

[fistandantilus4....]

Personally I'm with you imperialus. Variety is good, and sometimes it's great to play a group that's just plain bad ass. Like you said, run a game that requires it, and make it require more than just stats, and you're good to go.

I like that Ghost team, loved kicking my pc's asses with 'em, because it reminded them of the old adage :"there's always someone better." Sometimes you just want to up the ante and not play someone's whipping boy, but be the whipper.

Besides, how often do you normally get to buy Delta Move-By-Wire?

[Kesslan]

Aye, I'm certainly all for the out of the run of the mill type group too. I mean with D&D for example you were allways the 'good guys'. Something I started playing back in public school. We promptly got bored of the norm and had a great time playing in an 'evil' game.

WHere instead of a standard getup of a mage, paladin, theif and cleric we instead had a human Anti-Paladin, a Human Assassin, a goblin fighter and a draconian wizard.

It for example lead to great fun when I, playing the Draconinan Wizard (And the only one who knew how to cook) wound up making Elf stew. Much to the distress of our human companions (The goblin however was overjoyed and asked for seconds). Thats not exactly something you'd run into in a 'good guys' game.

Shadowrun has much the same, and infact in SR Companion I belive it is they even go so far as suggesting all sorts of alternatives. From playing members of a Doc Wagon HTR team to corporate security to mercs and all sorts of other things.

I mean instead of being hunted by corp sec they can instead this time play the corp sec having to hunt down the runners in retaliation. Or have to fight off an extraction team to save a VIP. Or hunt down that assassin and deal with them before they can kill a VIP or some such.

And if you (or the players) want to then sort of return it to yoru more run of the mill shadowrun at some point? Screw the party over!

Have them take the fall for a job gone bad and have to go into the shadows to survive. You can even later on reinstate them back into the corp by giving them a chance to expose the antics of their one time boss to some other exec competing for the job. Afterall it could be their previous boss was crooked and this new shark while ruthless is honest enough that he'd want people as resourceful as the players working for him. And since it would just be a matter of clearing their names with the company and exposing his competitor to the corp in some sort of intercorp powerplay it would all be good.

I mean there are all sorts of angles you can play with that kinda scenario alone.

[fistandantilus4....]

imperialus, like Knasser said, the SR Comp might help a bit. Another one that I'm a big fan of is the Missions book. Basically all non-shadowrunner games. You can play a special forces unit, Doc Wagon, LoneStar, and even .... *drum roll* a group of Ares Company Men.

Even better, when I ran the games, they were actually good runs, IMO at least. I acutally adapted a few of them to just one charater doign the "Special Agent" bit, which required the charcter be quite the toughy. Worked out really well.

[Lord Ben]

I've always been a fan of a DocWagon campaign for some reason. Not sure about many plot ideas but the idea of not having more than 30 seconds of prep time before some combats would be good.

That said sometimes high powered can be fun. But one key I've found in various games of that style (Exalted, Legend of the Five Rings) is that sometimes the best challenges are of a RP variety. Knowing you can march into the Kings throne room and kill him and his castle full of guards is one thing, but if you do it then your social reputation will suffer and your followers will think you're a monster... etc.

In a high powered game with corporate connections the worst enemy might be a blogger with lots of connections and allies who seeks to expose the true inner workings of Renraku (or whatever). Killing him outright means his friends will assume it's Renraku and post all kinds of theories and the media will generally believe it (like the dead russian spy) even if there is no proof. He'd be a tireless adversary with no easy way of dealing with him.

[knasser]

[SL James]

[imperialus]

Thanks for the suggestion of the SR companion. I still have that buried in my gaming stuff somewhere. I'll have to dig it out. I really like the blogger idea too, it definatly deserves some more development that's for sure. As far as plot goes I'll post my initial thoughts in spoiler tags since people I game with read the boards.

[ Spoiler ]

Right now what I'm considering for a long term plot would be attempts to recover a very powerful insect/toxic/blood shaman that Ares has had in custody for quite some time. The facility he was held at was attacked and he's disappeared. It isn't clear if he was the target of the raid or if he just escaped in the confusion of the attack. It'll be a long term game of cat and mouse as the players try and recover the shaman alive before he manages to do something horrible or even goes public and creates a PR nightmare for Ares.

[imperialus]

SL James: How do high Karma characters break SR 4? I've had some high karma characters in SR 2 and 3 but never gotten up to the more elite levels in SR 4. Anything you figure I should be aware of would be helpful.

[Kesslan]

I'm not so sure SR4 chars do necessarily break when they get 200 karma or so. I mean unlike SR3 you have hard caps on both skills and attributes.

Allthough that 200 karma skillwise at least goes -alot- further, since you have more generalized skills than SR3 (Like how SMGs, and assault rifles are under 'automatics' now instead of SMG and Assault Rifles)

[Charon]

• You can't refuse a mission. Not without losing your job anyway.
• Better support

The main beef I have with starting above 400 BP is that standard PC are already fairly tough and increasing their power will cause problem when they earn even more through karma. I mean, if you are already a member of the Ghosts, what's left to do? Mind you, it's the nature of most RPG to have their character learns too fast.

That's no problem for a short campaign, though.

---

I think the best when playing corp is to play as close to standard runner team facing standard runner jobs but with a different perpective.

You should play 'men in black', troubleshooters, cleaners...

You essentially do the same thing runners do for a corp but with the difference that when you are called in loyalty is more an issue than deniability.

Still, many differences give it a different flavor.

Better support.
Less autonomy (you ain't refusing a mission!)
Less Extractions, sabotage and theft because failure could have catstrophic consequence .
More assassinations, intimidations, blackmails and other missions designed to clean up a corporate problem.
More immediate negative consequences if the PCs attract attention, even if the mission was successful.

[Brahm]

[Butterblume]

We played an online campaign, where the chars were members of Saeder-Krupps Special Security Group.

I played a soldier/face (ech of us had 500BP), the officer of our small unit. One of the most fun part for me was the lack of moral issues, since we were totally loyal and did as we were told. Like my char put it, Corp is mother, Lofwyr is father.

[toturi]

[ornot]

[ChicagosFinest]

Fire Watch is a good Idea Ares has a lot of Angles besides bugs to play off of. For instance they could be fireing up a robo cop program and need the team to watch lower management to make sure that their robotic monstrosities dont go haywire.

As far as the BP arguement goes I would have to agree with SL on this. Allow them to build as a unit and loose sometimes to. It will make for an interesting game to be apart of Firewatch but not be so Kick ass. In fact it might be interesting to see them start off lower that the average BP, let them gain quick Karma until they balance out to 300 bp and then let them earn 450 moderately slow. That way your characters grow as a unit and learn what they are weak in before they get to powerful.

Good Idea though good luck and dont just make one long term plot make 3 to throw the PC's off. That way they would have to connect the dots at the end to acomplish their overall goal.

[Thane36425]

[Thane36425]

A mercenary campaign is also an option. They function like corps because most of them are and there is a lot of fighting. There might not be as many moral problems, but that depends the GM could take care of that. Suppose you are in a merc groups providing security to a corporate facility somewhere in the Gold Coast of Africa. That facility is getting raided by the locals and you are ordered out to teach them a lesson. You could also be sent against the Ghoul Nation. Ghouls seem to have a higher standing in 2070 than they did in the 2050's when they were walking bounties, so perhaps the character or players will have a problem with that. Lots of work for mercs in SR, and lots of chances to be made to do things they don't like.

[imperialus]

One thing that I know beyond a doubt they'll have to do is at some point raid the home of some twinked out street sam who has taken over an apartment block in redmond with a panther as a security blanket.

As for twinking, I trust my players... I think. I have one that I know would want to create a dedicated combat monster but we'd need one of them anyhow. The rest will branch out as much as necessary and I'd actually require that we do a team building session so that they can make sure they complement each other.

Also if it turns out everyone wants to play combat monkeys, this give me the opportunity to let them do so while still having a support structure to fill in the gaps. No hacker? No problem, Ares has a team of dedicated security hackers and you get to recruit the best. Rigger? Heck use a different one for every job who specializes in whatever vehicle you happen to be using.

No social skills is the only thing that I could see causing problems though I'd require that they design their characters in a way that they could pass a fairly stringent psych exam so no lone wolf, cleaning my gun and mumbling to myself, shoot him in the head cause he keyed my car, shoot him in the knee cause he looked at me crosseyed types.

[cetiah]

I love the idea of a no-Lone Wolf rule for this kind of game. Psych tests. Awesome. Might as well have mind-probing loyalty checks while you're at it. :)

You probably might want to treat the corp as a contact, that way you can use the "favor" rules whenever the group needs something, like a specialist hacker to join them on a run or they want to "borrow" a fancy new citymaster.

Borrowing some things from Armegeddon 2089 (which I do frequently for Shadowrun games), here's some other considerations:

(Note: All references to Street Cred are treated as a general reputation, and reduce the Notoriety from Street Cred before using your Street Cred value.)

Mercenary (standard) Shadowrunners
-Earn more money for jobs, but jobs come less often
-Pay for all their own stuff
-Have freedom to take what jobs they want
-No real restrictions on behavior, who to work with, what to buy, where to live, etc.

Corporate Team
-All members of the corporate team are required to purchase a Connection-4 contact, representing their higher-ups in the company. The character with the highest Loyalty for this contact is considered the team leader.
-You must keep track of how much BP worth of resources you purchased for your character. All equipment purchased is considered corporate property. If corporate needs your gear, they can take it at anytime, although your "budget" remains the same and you can purchase different items.
-Occasionally, corporate may require the team leader to field-test a new piece of experimental equipment.
-Players may add their corporate Connection and Loyalty ratings to 12 to determine the maximum Availability of items during character generation. To purchase a Forbidden item, however, requires a Swag check to get authorization from the accounting dept.
-Players needing vehicles, special gear, or specialist runners temporarily (for 1 mission) can roll a Favor check for their corporate contact.
-Players must take all jobs the company tells them to. They do not get paid per job (but still earn Karma), but rather get paid a salary each month equal to 5,000 times their Street Cred.
-The group will not usually know who the target is or why the corporation wants the job done. Legwork (snooping in on corporate's affairs) is frowned upon.

Government Squad
-All members of the corporate team are required to purchase a Connection-4 contact, representing their employer. The Loyalty for this contact is a measurement of your character's rank. The character with the highest Loyalty for this contact is considered the team leader.
-The PCs are free to spend BP on resources, but never see this cash directly. Instead, the government issues them equipment based on their resource budgets.
-The squad must take all jobs assigned to it. PCs do not earn money per run, but earn a monthly salary of 1,000 times their Street Cred, plus their 1,000 for each point of Loyalty with the Government contact. In addition, their resource budget is automatically increased by 2,000 for each Street Cred increase (and reduced by 2,000 for each Notoriety increase).
-Requisitioning heavy weapons, high-availability gear, specialists, and vehicles is rather common for Government squads. This requires a favor check with your Government contact. You get two extra dice for rolling favors for any kind of combat support, such as additional personnel, air support, artillery bombardment, etc.

[imperialus]

well I think my first big project will be to bust out Rigger 3 and develop a large military transport version of the Ares T 55 series and then convert it to 4th edition. I want them to have a large tilt wing as their primary means of getting about while on a mission. It'll allow them to operate more independantly than if they were forced to rely on short range helecopters, ground transport, and civilian airliners. This should be fun :|.

[cetiah]

Are you sure? I kind of like the idea of them having the corporate offices as their main base, and having to return there after every excursion and greet the secretary, report to Mr Black (or Mr Green or Mr White or Mr Brown, depending on who's top dog this week) and attend endless meetings and efficiency overviews. When the alarm bells go off, those PCs will be running out the doors and onto the helicopters so fast, Mr Black's head will go spinning. :)

Having them able to operate independently, away from corporate management feels a little more like standard shodowrunners again. Of course, in a wireless world, you are never far from corporate management...