Running the Denver Missions, spoilers, potentially, for 1-4 and 8 Options

[Ghantu]

I've been collecting Shadowrun books since SR2, but never had a serious group until now, so I've been running the Denver SRM adventures to get a handle on how the universe works. We've gotten through the first two and had a blast so far. My group is pretty low-power but they like problem-solving, so we've actually managed to get through both Parliament and Best Served Cold without firing a shot. Obviously that won't work very well with The Grab. I'm excited to see what happens when the lead starts flying though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Some questions have come up for me though.

The Grab
Should I really run this as #3 when Chasing the Dragon doesn't show up until #8? We play less than once a week--one of my players has a funky work schedule--and I just feel like the resolution is awfully far out. The Chasing the Dragon intro text says something about it taking place about a month after The Grab, but aren't the runners assumed to work less than once per (in-game) week? I'm trying to read through the whole set of adventures ahead of time, but I've only gotten up to Rose-Colored Display Link--plus reading Dragon because I read a post on here that it should be run after The Grab--so I don't know if, as a newbie of sorts, I should start messing with the episode structure this early on. Any thoughts on running this sequence? Have anyone else's players felt the gap is obnoxious?

The Go-Gangs
Having already tangled a little with The Fronts and about to face The Godz, the group's biker-wheelman ork has gotten a good payoff from his "motorcycle gang leader" contact--sort of. Unfortunately, Parliament contains almost no info about them, and The Grab similarly has almost nothing on The Godz. Thrash the Body Electric has a paragraph or so on them, but I really feel like I owe the character some more in-depth info. I'm not opposed to making it up myself, but I'm assuming they play a bigger role later in the cycle, so one of the other adventures probably has more details on them I can use, and I don't want to do work overwriting it if I don't have to. Can anyone tell me which adventure would have that info I can glance over so I don't have to read through them all before Saturday? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Denver itself
I've found a laptop + Google Maps to be super-helpful for giving the team an idea of transit times and border locations. I sat down and made a custom map with the new North American borders (not quite complete) and one that's just the Denver sectors, but some things weren't super clear, since the map in the back of SR4 is just borders, not colors. I based the Denver map on the one in the Commando Quarterly pdf, but it only goes so far--do we know who owns the land between the Denver sectors and the Pueblo/Sioux nations? Do the sectors just extend kind of like dartboard regions out to the national borders? Who owns Colorado Springs? Boulder?

Anyway, the adventures have been awesome so far, major congrats to those responsible. Usually I hate published adventures and find a million ways to break them, but the only thing that has stuck out for me so far is the potential-cybercombat encounter in Parliament seemed awfully forced, but since it was optional I just skipped it. I am loving all the intrigue and I can't help giggling sometimes after the run when I think about the information the team missed and the way it colored their interpretation of events.

Oh, actually, that reminds me of one thing from Best Served Cold.
How did everyone else handle Belenkiy's connection to the Casquilho? It never came up in our game because nobody had a Mafia connection to ask about him, and there didn't seem to be any clues at the crime scene. Did I miss something? The run went okay without it, but my team really wanted to know who hired the Black Cats, who certainly weren't talking.

[Game2BHappy]

I ran Chasing the Dragon immediately after The Grab and it worked great. I saved the following quotes from someone else's post a while ago and it helped a lot:

"Try to play 1 (Parliament of Thieves) & 3 (The Grab) before 8 (Chasing the Dragon)"

"Try to play 6 (The Flip Side) before 10 (Twist & Insult)"

"Try to play 5 (Through a Rose Colored Display Link) before 17 (Patient Zero)."

"Try to play 7 (An ounce of Protection) before 15 (Critical Care), and both of those in addition to 14 (Wetwork Pure & Simple) before 21 (Happenstance)."

"16 (Primal Forces) & 19 (By Any Means Necessary) will both be better if you've already built up some faction with the different syndicates."

"Don't try to play 24 (Hubris & Humility) or 25 (Done Deal) as your first Missions. (Which would be kind of silly anyways, since they're the end of the campaign.)"

[Ghantu]

Thanks, that's a big help! I found a similar post, but it didn't mention nearly as many as that quote.

[Black Jack Rackh...]

...both of those in addition to 14 (Wetwork Pure & Simple) before 21 (Happenstance).

To that I would now add 14 before 21 before 23 (Prodigal Son)

Mark

[the_dunner]

Can anyone tell me which adventure would have that info I can glance over so I don't have to read through them all before Saturday? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

The Fronts appeared substantially in SRM2-10 Twist and Insult. The Godz weren't every meaningfully fleshed out beyond the level in SRM2-05.

do we know who owns the land between the Denver sectors and the Pueblo/Sioux nations? Do the sectors just extend kind of like dartboard regions out to the national borders? Who owns Colorado Springs? Boulder?

For PCC and Sioux, yes, the dartboard description is accurate. Colorado Springs and Boulder both fall under PCC jurisdiction, if memory serves.

[Ghantu]

Excellent, thank you. Naturally it turned out we couldn't play last weekend, so I've got plenty of time to get ready for The Grab. I'm planning on running Thrash after that, and then Dragon the next week, then back to the regular order. The Fronts and Godz info will come in handy for Thrash. =D