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> 'World changing' campaign
Hyde
post Jun 30 2007, 05:33 PM
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I don't want to play street level and I really hate being a spectator of the storyline...
I need ideas of what my runners could be involved in that would, in the end of the campaign, play a major role in the Shadowrun world !

Anyone can help me? ;)
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Ravor
post Jun 30 2007, 05:42 PM
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The runners are hired by the Draco Foundation in order to gather up various artifacts and spell formula that appears to be relics from the Fourth World, if they manage to either gain trust (Yeah like that's ever going to happen.) or do some rather difficult and dangerous digging into the "why" they discover that the Draco Foundation is gathering up relics in order to "protect" the world from an invasion of otherworldly beings from the Deep Metaplanes.

However in the campaign's final adventure the runners discover that they've been played for fools, yes they were helping the Draco Foundation gather up relics of the Fourth World, and yes those relics could ahve been of use against the Horrors, but as per Big D's wishes, the Draco Foundation uses those artifacts and spells to build direct bridge for the Horrors to cross en-mass and start the new Scrouge.

The real reason? Well Big D had finished whatever his "real" goals in the Deep Metaplane were, probably something about evolving beyond a Great Dragon.

Now the real question is, can the Runners limit the damage before more then a few major named Horrors and several thousand lesser Horrors swarm through the Bridge or have they just spelled the end of the Sixth World as we know it?

*Edit*

So even in a best case scenerio, the Runners are directly responcible for a second "Bug City", and in a worse case, the next Scrouge. :cyber:
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FrankTrollman
post Jun 30 2007, 06:37 PM
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Individuals can make the greatest difference in places where the social order is at its least powerful. A group of runners can't seriously take down the Confederacy (even shooting the President would simply cause an orderly transfer of power to another man representing a nearly identical set of interests), but they could easily make or break a country in the Balkans or Africa.

Maybe you don't like the Arabian Caliphate and you want to install secular leadership in the north running from Jordan to Kuwait. You can do that. Take out some hardline religious leaders, hold some of the Caliph's family hostage, bomb some military installations and you could seriously get everything from Al 'Aqabah to Kuwait City to secede from the Caliphate as a secular republic or even an atheist dictatorship - whatever. Syria and Iraq would probably help you do it if you had a good face sell it to them.

Maybe you want rghts for Ghouls throughout the world. Well, if Asamando could get its act together to supply basic services throughout Lagos, won a few key military victories against S-K forces, and put together a navy capable of enforcing the Queen's Will on the pirates of the area, nations and corporations would feel compelled to recognize them as a country. And in doing so, they would necessarily place themselves on the road to recognizing ghoul rights in their own nations. So you'll need to kidnap some city planners and whack a few gang bosses, maybe do some structure hits on Ghanan S-K facilities, and capture a pirate base or two. Totally doable within the contexts of a campaign.

Maybe you want to secure a homeland for Bosnians. This involves weakening the forces of the various groups that want to take your Bosnian homeland away (Serbs, Croats, Hervegovenians, Turks, Macedonians, Dalmatians, Hungarians, etc.), and it involves putting together some military and econmic strength for Bosnia. You'll need to steal some nuclear weapons and blow up some Turkish military bases. You'll want to arrange for some factories o b built in the area. You'll need to gun down a bunch of leaders and supporters of the Allied Islamic Territories.

Maybe you want to turn over Cambodia to the Nagaraja or Queen Rochefort. Either way, you'll have to run around the jungle playing Apocalypse Now. You'll have to shoot some people in firefights while you're hip deep in water. You'll have to survive on pocket rice for weeks at a time. And you'll ultimately have to either recover the sword for Nag Kampuchea by killing Queen Rochefort, or you'll have to kill the Naga pretender for the Republic of Cambodia. Also, you'll probably have to do a bunch of propaganda and import in a bunch of food to buy off various tribes and local constituencies for whichever side you want to win.

---

Destroying the world is hard. Destabilizing major countries is hard. But nation building in minor countries or toppling small time dictatorships - that's possible.

-Frank
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Eugene
post Jun 30 2007, 06:38 PM
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Or, if you don't want the betrayal angle, they're collecting those relics to take the fight to the Deep Metaplanes and either stop the Horrors or find a way to seal those planes off forever, and (naturally) they want the PCs help!
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Ravor
post Jun 30 2007, 07:53 PM
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Well sure, but that would *gasp* assume that there are actual 'good guys' in the Sixth World! :cyber:
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Kyoto Kid
post Jun 30 2007, 08:36 PM
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...Participants in the Rhapsody in Shadow Campaign read no further under threat of bovines reentering from orbit
[ Spoiler ]
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Hyde
post Jul 1 2007, 09:52 AM
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Thanks !
I quite like Ravor's idea but the discovery during the final adventure seems a bit too much for me. I may try to make my runners slowly realizing what's happening rather than telling them everything in just one adventure.

For the other ideas, while they're quite good, I don't see my runners as such a bunch of good people willing to save people from the hands of evil dictators. If I were to do something like that, they would become the dictators :grinbig:
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Synner667
post Jul 1 2007, 10:31 AM
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QUOTE (Hyde @ Jul 1 2007, 09:52 AM)
Thanks !
I quite like Ravor's idea but the discovery during the final adventure seems a bit too much for me. I may try to make my runners slowly realizing what's happening rather than telling them everything in just one adventure.

For the other ideas, while they're quite good, I don't see my runners as such a bunch of good people willing to save people from the hands of evil dictators. If I were to do something like that, they would become the dictators  :grinbig:

Hmmm,

Well, in one of the TSR FREELancers books, a private agency of enhanced people is hired to take a country back from someone previously sent into safeguard the country from others.

So that's a whole series of shadow ops right there.

Whilst there, however, they learn that archaeologists have discovered catacombs and information from thousands of years ago.

So that brings in a whole new set of shadow op options.


Really far-reaching campaigns really require a whole lotta work - and the need to be willing to live with the projected results, or all the variations.

I guess if you know what the end result is, you can structure scenarios accordingly.

In one of Gibsons books, it's all about AIs gaining sentience.
In Harlequin's Back, it's about the Horrors.
In a GURPS Cyberpunk scenarios, it's about a nanomachine plague that decimates a city [London in my version]
In many Call of Cthulhu scenarious, it's about Beings From Beyond Time And Space just killing millions.
In Traveller, it's about information that proves one of the Races shouldn't be ranked as a Star Faring race, because they found their technology instead of inventing it.
In TORG, it's about a war with Beings From Another Dimension.

All pretty far-reaching, and all with major consequences.
All involve people being hired for shadow work, then being involved in something bigger than they were led to believe.
None of the characters are necessarily 'good', but saving folks usually involves a big bonus, or at least lots of loot [so that's a good enough reason, if heroism isn't enough].


Just my thruppence..
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hyzmarca
post Jul 1 2007, 11:06 AM
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Corporate intrigue. Instead of Shadowrunners, the PCs are at the bottom of the top. They've reached the point on the Megacorporate ladder where they can't advance any further without killing a lot of people with their own hands and killing even more with expendable assets.

So they plot and they scheme and they form alliances and they betray. Their goal is nothing less than global domination, but they'd settle for control of a AAA megacorp, either by wresting control from someone else or siphoning off enough capitol to start their own. As lower-upper Megacorporate managers, they'll make alliances and enemies of similar individuals in their own Megacorps and others, as well as with people in various government around the world. As they betray and slay their way up in the ranks, they'll make world-changing decisions and kill some of the most important people on the globe and in orbit of it.
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Hyde
post Jul 1 2007, 12:01 PM
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QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Jul 1 2007, 01:06 PM)
Corporate intrigue.  Instead of Shadowrunners, the PCs are at the bottom of the top. They've reached the point on the Megacorporate ladder where they can't advance any further without killing a lot of people with their own hands and killing even more with  expendable assets.

So they plot and they scheme and they form alliances and they betray. Their goal is nothing less than global domination, but they'd settle for control of a AAA megacorp, either by wresting control from someone else or siphoning off enough capitol to start their own.  As lower-upper Megacorporate managers, they'll make alliances and enemies of similar individuals in their own Megacorps and others, as well as with people in various government around the world. As they betray and slay their way up in the ranks, they'll make world-changing decisions and kill some of the most important people on the globe and in orbit of it.

That's some GREAT idea. However wouldn't it be hard to have a cybered street sam (for instance) in a corporate ladder :eek:
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hyzmarca
post Jul 1 2007, 12:14 PM
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Not really, remember that JFK commanded a PT boat during World War II and Queen Elizabeth served as a Second Subaltern in the WATS while Doctor Ruth was a highly-trained sniper in the Israeli Militia. In the Sixth World, all three of these individuals would be well-cybered death-machines, though Dr. Ruth would be a death-machine without cyber and almost certainly knows sexual positions and techniques that would kill a mortal man.

The point being that it is common for individuals of high-rank to get their start in the military services, and it is pretty standard for military personnel to have cyberware, these days. Less-noticeable combat cyber- and bio- 'ware, such as synaptic accelerators, kevlar bone lacing, muscle enhancements, and smartlinks should be common on ex-military higher-ups, the sort of guys who were sons and daughters of important people and thus were both fast-tracked and given the best possible 'ware.

If you're playing a high-powered game, allowing access to betaware would help this even further, as betaware is substantially less noticeable than standard cyberware and bioware.

For a cannon example, try Johnny Spinrad. He was the CEO of a major megacorp yet he was almost entirely cybernetic due to massive replacements after a horrible accident. He was always upgrading himself and could have easily been a death-machine.
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knasser
post Jul 1 2007, 01:02 PM
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The general principle is that where the government is closely in bed with the military, it is common for people in the latter to be rewarded with positions in the former and it is convenient for someone to swap between them because a lot of the people, connections and corruptions are the same.

The same is true, come to think of, where the government is closely in bed with organised crime. All too easy for people to slip from one to the other (and back).

Ex-military and ex-crimelord politiicians and corp managers are easy to justify.
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Gargs454
post Jul 1 2007, 01:38 PM
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QUOTE (Hyde)
For the other ideas, while they're quite good, I don't see my runners as such a bunch of good people willing to save people from the hands of evil dictators. If I were to do something like that, they would become the dictators :grinbig:

That in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing either though.

Becoming a dictator under these circumstances is one thing. Maintaining that dictatorship is quite another. This scenario, as with any world-changing scenario for that matter, will require you to be adaptable, but it also offers the advantage of granting the PC's a whole lot of latitude in where they go. They won't be railroaded that's for sure.

So, while they might think they've foiled your plans by taking over the countries themselves, they've actually played right into your plans since now there are a bunch of other factions that also want a piece of the pie. Then as the fighting continues, it naturally spreads and soon the entire region is in conflict. From there, its just up to you to decide how far you want the conflict to spread.

Personally, it seems as though it could be a lot of fun to run a campaign like that. Additionally, Shadowrunners tend to be a paranoid lot to begin with. Now, they're potentially planning to put themselves into a position where lots of people will want to assassinate them for not other reason than that they have the wrong genetics, religion, shirt color, etc. It would only take one assassination attempt to really get the PC's jumpy.
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