New Game, Fresh DM, Need opinions on Story Arcs Options

[mechagm]

Hey there guys,

I'm just started a Shadowrun game, and it's my 1st time really running this game in a serious manner. I got the rules done and anything I have questions on I usually find here in dumpshock but I don't have a good recourse when it comes to comparing my story arcs to others (I live in a D&D town). So I have come here to ask the almighty meisters of Dumpshock to give their opinion on my stories.

My 1st arc involves a chip and a dead Johnson. The Team has come across a datachip that was in a cyberdeck that was ditched in the Redmond Barrens about two weeks before the run. When they reached the meeting place for the Johnson afterwards they found him dead. They got out of there really fast and found someplace to hide. The chip itself is a generic datachip with only a bar code on it to indicate that is belongs somewhere. What the party hasn't found out yet is that the chip is a firing key to a top-secret weapon being built by Ares. About three years ago Ares announced a new state of thee art space station designed to collect solar energy and transmit it (using microwave signals) to the planet for an unlimited and eco friendly energy source. To top it all off the station will be complimented by a network a transition satellites so that will be able to provide power to the entire world. Anyone get where I going with this? A little retro fit and a one of a kind firing algorithm and Ares can start any war, kill any completion and snipe any Runner team in a matter of moments. Whether or not Damien Knight realizes this is up the air. I have a secret agent working for the corporate Council investigating the station and I have a few AAA Corps, including Ares hunting for the chip and here the team stands with out a clue.

I am going to apologize now for the long post because I have another story arc I wish to ask about.

The Second Arc I have is going to have involves mixing in the Earthdawn links to Shadowrun. Now when the scourge swept trough the land the races of Earthdawn hid away in giant dome like places. The introduction mentioned that most were left intacted after the scourge but some didn't. This is where Shadowrun comes in; the team encounters a weird creature of some kind after killing a seemingly possessed person on a job. This starts a long line of Jobs that lead to one of the Cears that Earthdawn denizens used to protect themselves only this one failed. Opening the Cear they find it is filled with the Horrors of Earthdawn. Can someone say Mana Battery? I have a few surprises involving possession and a certain white dragon before they figure out what to do about the Horror Cear.

So that pretty much sums up my 2 arcs that I need opinions on. Let me know what you think.

[Spoonfunk]

Greetings and welcome to the shadows.
I think your idea's for a campaign are pretty good for the first arc. There are a couple things you might want to think about however.
1) Now I am not a science guy but I would have the technology for the space station down pat. i'm not saying necessarily, that you are wrong i am just saying that it really adds a certain flavor if the Doomsday device the players are about to stop can really happen theoretically.
2) I would put a little more thought into the applications of said space station, at least ares behalf. There are a couple things that prevent corporations from building things of that nature and that is the fact that something like a rechargable orbital nuke could be interpreted as a threat to the corporate court. Now thats not saying that they don't have such things but if a space station that could do what you are saying it could do, I would bet that ares wouldn't of build it for the primary purpose of zapping runners from orbit. They would probably would be a alot more interested in its Energy collection uses as oppossed to the weapon applications. You can also use Ares's lack of interest in the strategic capabilities of said space station to introduce a third party as a twist near the end of the arc.
3) How long are these arcs gonna be? Cause this particular scenario could go on for a very very long time you realize.

As far as the second arc, I have never been much of a fan of earthdawn and even though I do accept that earthdawn and shadowrun are linked I don't pay homage to earthdawn It my personal opinion that linking the two brings down the realism of shadowrun (something wich is hard to maintain as it is with dragons and fireballs). I think that with all the repercussions that could be generated by the first arc you don't neccasserily need to change pace that fast but hey go ahead its all fun right? I think that you could probally do an entire murder mystery thing with it.

Well good luck and all that jazz I hope my comments have helped. Maybe one of these days ill actually find the time to sit down and post my campaign notes

[DireRadiant]

[Dashifen]

Why do you say that, DireRadiant? I've had a very successful career as an SR GM running school-year long story arcs for about a decade now. What have you encountered that results in the players breaking them?

[DireRadiant]

The players break everything you plot in too much detail. It's their job. It wouldn't be fun unless they did something surprising and unexpected. :)

[Kerris]

I think if you had read the OP's arcs, you'd realize that they were truly over-arcing stories. They didn't have much detail, they just had ideas as to what's going on independent of the PCs, and how the PCs are involved.

To which I say: Good job. Sounds like it's going to be a fun campaign. I'm unfamiliar with Earthdawn, so I can't really comment on the second arc, but the first one sounds amazing.

[eidolon]

Eh, if the players are all there to have fun and enjoy the game instead of flashing their one-up peens, story arcs work just fine. Depends on the group.

I think the first one sounds really cool. Lots of potential stuff going on. "How did they manage to emplace this system without the Court knowing/shutting it down?" "Who knows about it?" "What's being done about it and by who?" Very cool.

As to the second, I'm using one of the remaining Kaers in my current game, so I approve. No Horrors when the characters were there, but they found some interesting stuff. :D

(Well, I hope it was interesting. ;))

[DireRadiant]

[Dashifen]

[DTFarstar]

I also live in a DnD town, as far as I can tell me and my group are the only ones here who play any edition of SR. Luckily I've always been kind of a wing-it DM so it wasn't as big an adjustment to the free-form nature of SR. My opposite on Fridays has had significantly more difficultly adjusting and it makes his game suffers.

Chris

[Riley37]

I have heard that Japanese solar-power beam-to-Earth stations are canon in Sixth World history. If only one party has them, then they can be competition to those with Thor Shots; if enough parties have them, then Mexican Standoff or Mutual Assured Destruction applies.

Possibly, there are designs which are very difficult to redirect or tightbeam, and the Corporate Court encourages people to use such designs. Perhaps there's a variation which *looks* like it's fixed-configuration but is actually variable-configuration and can switch modes quickly.

I recommend watching "Real Genius" for ideas (and for laughs). Also "Enemy of the State".

So... yeah, it takes a password to confirm an instruction to the beam station. It also takes a really large Signal; geostationary orbit is 35,786 km, and that's the most plausible for a satellite maintaining constant beam to a receiver station. Low orbit is 200 - 2000 km, and the lower end of that would be a really bad idea due to atmospheric drag. So putting that chip into your Fairlight Caliban isn't gonna get a command directly to the beam station. There's presumably a ground-to-orbit transmitter on the roof of Ares Central, but that's guarded and so are the Matrix links to it.

Also, the key is never the *only* way to open/activate something. A skilled engineer who was on the beam station could "hotwire" by installing a duplicate beam-redirection gadget. This might be a really tough task, but then again, it might not, depending on the design.

"You have something that powerful others want" is a classic. Cf. the Neil Gaiman story about Dream getting possession of the key to Hell. Many people offer him a high price, but no matter who he gives it to, someone's gonna be upset.

If the person who designed this system does not have the personal authorization of Damien Knight, then as soon as he finds out, he'll take action; if the PCs try to reach him directly, well, good luck, but they might trigger an internal war between Ares execs who want to curry his favor, and those who want to keep the secret. If this isn't his project, but he learns of it, and the PCs make the potential embarrassment go away, then he might be grateful, or he might choose the most permanent and foolproof method of sealing their lips.