Star at Night Campaign idea, need advice. Options

[imperialus]

Partially inspired by Doc Taotsu’s Not So Subtle Madness PBP I came up with an idea of my own.

The PC’s are all Lone Star FRT officers (or even just patrol officers depending on the power level) stationed in some crappy precinct in Everett working the night shift. Think of it as a little bit like Night Court but with more firepower and a healthy dose of 80’s Cyberpunk.

Here are some initial, if mostly random thoughts. I’d love to hear feedback.

I’d want the Bureaucracy of Lone Star to feature as a major player in the campaign. A few generalities spring to mind.

Lone Star is chronically under funded, especially this precinct. The PC’s would be one of the only FRT’s active in Seattle for the bulk of the campaign. This means that while the bulk of their work is going to be pretty close to ‘home’ they are on call throughout the plex if another FRT radios for backup, or a major op is going down.

By and large the officers they will deal with on a day to day basis feel they are genuinely trying to do good, or at least maintain some level of sanity in the world. Besides, they can’t be too jackbooted when it comes to dealing with SINners. The grunts on the front line are intensely loyal to each other, and that loyalty extends to the FRT members who the beat cops view as a sort of guardian angel. Training films and Star propaganda re-enforce this. Sure there are bad apples, rivalries and all sorts of politics but the staff in the precinct that the team actually operates will be quite small, a half dozen actual NPC’s and maybe two dozen beat cops. The other precincts that they deal with might have their own ‘personalities’.

In general the night shift attracts a few ‘types’ of people. Generally speaking people are either, screwups, adrenalin junkies, or greenhorns looking for a fast track through the ranks. The casualty rate is high, but at least the pay’s higher.

The precinct the PC’s operate out of is going to be old, outdated, and generally just on the wrong side of the tracks. They spend most of their time covering C and D zones. Old furniture, old tech and old security are predominant and the whole place just looks like it is in desperate need of a coat of paint, or even just a good cleaning. The building itself has stood up to a number of the worst disasters that have happened to the world however, civil disorder, fire, and both Crashes. During the chaos surrounding the Night of Rage it served as a ‘safe’ haven for hundreds of metahumans over a 9 day siege by humanist rioters. A tarnished brass plaque in the entrance commemorates the heroic conduct of the officers present and lists the names of the dead. Built in 2027 it was part of Lone Star’s initial spending spree, and was actually built to serve long term. It’s built like a fortress, and at night at least, treated like one. The tech may be old, but its functional, and honestly it’s intimidating enough that very few people are going to screw with it. There’s always at least two beat cops much more heavily armed than any patrol officer standing guard. There’s also a well stocked trauma room with a medic on staff, and very fast transport to a full hospital if necessary. The Star does provide excellent (short term) care for injuries sustained in the line of duty… just don’t get permanently disabled unless you’ve been handing 30% of your paycheque over for improved benefits.

The PC’s will operate a route in a battered citymaster that will serve as their home away from home. Like the precinct itself, it’s been shot at, survived riots, and generally is in fairly rough shape. A crazy NPC idea might be to have an AI or matrix ghost inhabiting the citymaster, trapped there since the second crash. Really give the citymaster a personality. Fill the wheelman role nicely too, since that’s never been terribly popular among my players.

The campaign will start out with the PC’s responding to officer in distress calls, dealing with junkies and gangers. All things considered things are pretty quiet in Seattle. Eventually ‘something’ happens. A low level corp skirmish, a gang war, or even a major civil disturbance if the players feel lick cracking skulls. At any rate something will up the ante and create a coherent campaign.

[Wesley Street]

If you're not familiar with it, you should check out The Wire on DVD and HBO. It chronicles a fictional and always underfunded Baltimore PD Major Crimes unit along with the trials of dealing with the bureaucracy of city hall and drug dealers who aren't always evil (depending on how you look at it). All three sides have their "good guys" and "bad guys". You could certainly pull inspiration and plot lines from that show and easily transplant them into Shadowrun.

[Blade]

If you can read French, there's a French RPG called C.O.P.S which is very close to what you describe.

[Earthwalker]

I like this idea alot.

This may not fit in to your idea of where you want to the campaign to go but I felt I should offer the suggestion. If your players have run in otehr Shadowrun campaigns as runners themselves have a breif period where Lone Star Corporate uses the FRT to cover some of thier corp assest.

Just for a few weeks have the FRT take over security for some small corp on thier patch. Make them have to deal with stopping runners getting in. See how the players like it on the other side of the fence so to speak.

Just an idea anyway, not sure you need it as the set up you have discussed works well anyway.

[DocTaotsu]

I'm flattered I inspired some more down and dirty RP (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I like this idea a great deal and, if you anything comes of it, I'd love to poach PC's/NPC's off you to interact with my players.

For grit inspiration I'd rent a copy of the first couple seasons of "The Shield", that'll give you some interesting character archetypes to play with, especially if you want to cast them as "Those big wigs from central..."

If they're patroling C and D areas I'd say that they probably spend most of their time picking up runners trying to get OUT. If the big guns Downtown can't pick up a runner team than this precint's FRT is tasked with catching them before they disappear over the mountains or into a Z zone. The only good news for the FRT is that most of the big time runners have connections to the Ork Underground and therefore disappear before they get out as far as Everett... unless they're huge racist slags or a little too crazy for OU leadership.