So your Johnson is an investigative journalist... Options

[mielikki]

Being the group's secondary GM, I get to throw in occasional niche runs and have far more time to think about them than the regular GM.

For some time now, I have been planting in the game newspaper messages about a war between two newspapers - one is being ran by Brackhaven Investment, the other by KSAF. A guy from KSAF has found some dirty info on BI and possibly also Brackhaven himself, and after a series of murder attempts on him, he had gone missing. Runners will be hired to locate him, rescue if possible, and will be offered a lot of extra money if they can come up with evidence who is behind this all. The background is that one of the BI news guys hired runners to scare the KSAF guy, and when that didn't work out, to kidnap him, question him on his sources, destroy evidence and get rid of him - but then it all went wrong and poor KSAF guy was left in the Barrens to die, where the PCs, if they are quick, might still find him alive.

The first two parts are a standard run, the last one I am not sure. What would constitute "evidence" for a journalist? What would be enough to make it a case for the news? KSAF is not doing any yellow press, so I think they have to have enough to actually come out with some kind of statement?

Finding the runners hired for the killing, that's no good. After all, they are disposable assets. Getting their Johnson, that's another story - but would that be enough? I mean, so you have the guy who you know hired the killers. He's not likely to testify that at court, is he? So if you publish anything, you will get sued by Brackhaven for slander? I am a RL lawyer, not a journalist, so I don't know what is the "general market practise" in investigative journalism, let alone what will be the general market practise between two corporations in 2070'

Any suggestions are welcome!

[Mesh]

Who's hiring who to do what? And why? I don't follow. Needs more twists and turns.

Mesh

[Daddy's Litt...]

Look to the money trail. The Johnson did not pay out of his own pocket. IF his sources can be traced to BI then at the very least there is a big PR problem. Either 1) they are paying for runners or 2) they are throwing money around without knowing what they use it for. The second one is probably going to be a bigger PR problem.

[Prime Mover]

Newspaper? Isn't that the stuff they sell in pet shops to line bird cages? (sorry)

[Daddy's Litt...]

My husband lights the grill with it.

[hermit]

Where I am from, we wrap fries in it and put mayonaise on them!

[Method]

I think this is a great idea for a run. Not sure where Mesh's confusion is. If you want evidence to be an adventure in itself you could give the journalis a secret cyber eye cam or headware memory with the evidence. If he's dead, the body has been "salvaged" and they have to find the ware (insert ghoul infested taminous den here). If he's alive, maybe he has traded his ware for protection by a local gang, who are holding him as a prisoner/source of amusement. The runners have to save him from the gang or meet their demands in return for the ware (a strike against the rival gang or maybe steal an Ares weapon shipment for them). I think you could go lots of ways with this.

Also, for ideas you should check out the SR3 adventure Eye Witness.

[Caadium]

I think another twist to consider is the possible hit to their own rep. There are not a lot of employers, especially big money corp types, that take kindly to you taking their money for a job and then turning around and using that knowledge to help their competitor. In other words, they should be very careful about taking this job. If BI finds out, they might want revenge. If KSAF finds out it was the runners they just hired they seem the type to publicly destroy the reps of the party at the very least. In all honesty, this is the type of run I'll often offer to players to watch them squirm as they figure out the best way to deal with the messes they've previously made. I once had a group pass on a run so that they could focus on staying 1 step ahead of whoever the Johnson actually hired as they tried to clean up and make sure the job never succeeded. A no-pay, we stay alive and out of jail, type of 'run' for a gaming session can be a lot of fun as the other team breathes down their necks. I just didn't set it up in nearly the same fashion, I love this approach.

[mielikki]

Well, I guess to prevent confusion, I will sum up the scenario again:

1. team A (not PCs) was hired by BI to kill a journalist working for KSAF. Said journalist is not dead yet, but might be soon if the PCs don´t take action.
2. team B (PCs) is hired to i) find and rescue said journalist and ii) find out what happened and get evidence.

All the rest is clues and fluff the PCs already know so that they will have an idea what is going on even before they meet their Johnson (or maybe not, as I will finally find out if anybody reads the game website I run)

I really like the "money trail idea" that Daddy's Little Ninja brought up - however, don´t most Johnsons pay in certified cred, to avoid this? Of course, maybe the BI Johnson is not as clever...

The "Eye Witness" adventure that Method - is it available in pdf? Unfortunatelly, living in a God forgotten country in the middle of Europe, my access to hard copy resources is rather limited...

As to the evidence available from the journalist himself, he can definitelly provide a lot of info on team A, but that will be about it. And hunting down team A will not help KSAF, ´cause team A is just a disposable asset...

[Caadium]

Well, I guess to prevent confusion, I will sum up the scenario again:

1. team A (not PCs) was hired by BI to kill a journalist working for KSAF. Said journalist is not dead yet, but might be soon if the PCs don´t take action.
2. team B (PCs) is hired to i) find and rescue said journalist and ii) find out what happened and get evidence.

All the rest is clues and fluff the PCs already know so that they will have an idea what is going on even before they meet their Johnson (or maybe not, as I will finally find out if anybody reads the game website I run)

I really like the "money trail idea" that Daddy's Little Ninja brought up - however, don´t most Johnsons pay in certified cred, to avoid this? Of course, maybe the BI Johnson is not as clever...

The "Eye Witness" adventure that Method - is it available in pdf? Unfortunatelly, living in a God forgotten country in the middle of Europe, my access to hard copy resources is rather limited...

As to the evidence available from the journalist himself, he can definitelly provide a lot of info on team A, but that will be about it. And hunting down team A will not help KSAF, ´cause team A is just a disposable asset...

My mistake then. I misread it and thought that your PCs were the team that BI had used and now without knowing it KSAF was hiring them to figure it out. Still a twist I'll have to keep in mind moving forward.