Wait, you want us to WHAT?, When Mr. Johnson asks you to do the very weird... Options

[Apathy]

Old ladies need dead hookers, too!

There once was a runner named Dave,
who kept a dead whore in a cave.
He said "I admit,
it does smell a bit,
but think of the nuyen I save!"

[Inpu]

What are the STRANGEST 'Runs your groups have been asked to do?

Mine would have to be when the group was hired to Extract Goofy from DisneyLand.

Well, it was a very specific Goofy, actually. The guy in the costume was actually a robotics expert on his "Day Off" enjoying time with the kids.

It was during this 'Run that the group found out that "The House of Mouse" has it's own SWAT Team and a whole *LOT* of Magicians. (Low powered ones, but even a low-powered magician can summon Watcher Spirits!).

Then the front yard of their safehouse attacked them.

The most magical place on earth. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Daylen]

A team of trogs got hired to guard some pop stars. here is the timeline.

T 0 - team arrives says hello

T 4 minutes - clients say a comment that leads to the team responding in a bad way and a worse comment being said

T 5 minutes - team leader looks around and says well shit lets see if the yakuza we were supposed to protect them from will pay us the 5k they offered as a bounty for killing them...

[Neraph]

In addition to GMing myself, I also offer services (free of charge) as a GM Consultant as well. One of my clients needed some ideas, so the following was spawned:

The team was hired to find a mint-condition, unopened.... 0.5 lead mechanical pencil, circa ~2000. The eccentric Johnson, upon receiving the item, opened it and clicked it, and moaned like he was orgasming while doing so.

The next run from the same guy was to find a Pink eraser, never been used.

By the way, he was paying over 200k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per person, IIRC. And he hired multiple teams, so there were gunfights, explosions, and extreme care to protect the items.

[Dumori]

Wow. Thats one bored J some ones gona get kicked by the mother corp?

[MortVent]

Wow. Thats one bored J some ones gona get kicked by the mother corp?

Not if it's his money being paid. Some people spend thousands on a little rat...err dog... damn it if it bounces when it barks it's not a dog! (bonus points if ya know where I got that)

[CanRay]

Not every Mr. Johnson works for a Corporation. Some work for the Government, some work for "Interest Groups" (Terrorists, Policlubs, Shelters, and so on), some work for themselves.

Some don't even know they're working at all as a Mr. Johnson. And it's those that you have to watch out for.

[Martin_DeVries_I...]

I don't remember the actual run we were hired for, but I do remember that our Johnson was a manager at a Starbucks--he actually had us meet in the back office of his store. I think he wanted something to help him move up the ladder. He ended up paying us with a mass of Starbucks gift cards. If one ran out he could have it reloaded with another hundred nuyen or so. Our team ended up having a lot of planning sessions in various Starbucks' after that.

[Draco18s]

My group once accepted a job to kill our group. We collected too.

I think the link is in my sig, still, to the logs from that particular campaign.
Edit: it is not.
Link.

At least, I think that part of the story was logged. Can't figure out which post its in though.

[Khyron]

A Manhattan team, the Johnson hired us to break into an Aztechnology subsidiary and steal the data on a new chip flavor they were about to unleash on the public after a huge advertising campaign. Not so bad, some food company espionage. The kicker was we also had to taint the first product batch with huge amounts of extremely powerful medical laxatives.

The team pulled it off, stole a few untainted bags and informed their closest contacts not to buy this particular brand and maybe update their stock profiles. The resulting media blitz product release parties went all wrong on world wide live Trid. We never did find out who the Johnson worked for, but the team figured it was Horizon due to the longevity of the TV embarrassment that followed.

Unrelated, but we also picked up a Marxist AI inhabiting the facility breakroom vending machine.

[Stingray]

(this is pretty lame..)
Stealing Bio-Engineered pig from hidden r&d lab..

[Lok1 :)]

Well, the "Ready Set Ghogh" mission from Manhattan is pretty weird. (For those of you who don't know you need to steal a bio-art display "A starry Night" but made entirly of live fish).
My team was once hired to transport a large conatainer to a location and deliver it to the people we found there, it was infact the body of a ex-ancients gang member who was part of our team, the Johnson was infact working on the bequest of a corperation that wanted our team out of the way, needless to say the elf gangers wern't exactly pleased when we showed up with one of their old buddy's in a coffin. Thankfully or face was able to gloss it over.

[Traul]

I don't remember the actual run we were hired for, but I do remember that our Johnson was a manager at a Starbucks--he actually had us meet in the back office of his store. I think he wanted something to help him move up the ladder. He ended up paying us with a mass of Starbucks gift cards. If one ran out he could have it reloaded with another hundred nuyen or so. Our team ended up having a lot of planning sessions in various Starbucks' after that.

You mean you did not drown him in his coffee after that? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

[Draco18s]

You mean you did not drown him in his coffee after that? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

When you're saving 12 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) a cup off every 12 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) cup and you have it, essentially, for life... You kind of don't care that the prize wasn't in cash.

You just start drinking more coffee. Maybe in 10 years you'll get your 50 grand worth out of it.

[Martin_DeVries_I...]

Yeah, exactly. This was a street-level group with no rep, so being paid in "free Starbucks for life" was actually a really good deal.

[CanRay]

Well, aside from my group thinking I was sending them after a cow (again), they've found out they're getting three "Crates" out of UCAS Customs...

A mystery crate that was mis-sent to the warehouse, and is actually a Korean Diplomatic "Pouch".

A Cargo Container (The big ones that take up a whole Flatbed Truck!) filled with "Farm Tractors" from Russia for export to the SSC.

And a wooden crate of "Chinese Electronics".

I'm really wondering if they're going to open the packages. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Simon Kerimov]

In my younger GM years, I sent a team to Vatican City to steal the Necronomicon for Aztechnology. When they finally got out of the trap-filled labyrinthine catacomb, they wanted the drop off to be in orbit. This was when I learned that space is bad for magical items.

[tete]

Steal a coffee maker... It ended up being we were a security test for the mall and the Johnson had his eye on this particular fancy coffee maker. So as he drank a particularly great cup of coffee lone star came in to arrest us for petty theft, murder (stupid phys adept...) and check our SINs.

[Hand-E-Food]

Steal a coffee maker... It ended up being we were a security test for the mall and the Johnson had his eye on this particular fancy coffee maker. So as he drank a particularly great cup of coffee lone star came in to arrest us for petty theft, murder (stupid phys adept...) and check our SINs.

Ooh... I'm using that idea, thank you! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanRay]

Steal a coffee maker...

You know you're in Seattle when...

[Neraph]

I sent a team to Vatican City to steal the Necronomicon for Aztechnology.

Was Amazon.matrix down or something? The Necronomicon is one of the most prolific occult* texts you can find.

*Occult might not be the best word here, but I'm not entirely sure how to classify that thing. Semi-religious? Spiritual? Something in that field.

[Draco18s]

Was Amazon.matrix down or something? The Necronomicon is one of the most prolific occult* texts you can find.

Not to mention which Necronomicon.

We had a book in a D&D game (we were running the World's Largest Dungeon) that contained every evil spell, as a spellbook. Any spellcaster could cast the spells without needing to preprare them at a cost of 1 permanent hp per spell level (if you made the will save against the book). We called it the Necronomicon for good reason. And it totally saved the party on like three occasions.

[Neraph]

Not to mention which Necronomicon.

Very true. Kinda like how many "Book of Shadows" there are. Almost every fledgeling wiccan (or druid... I forget which exactly) makes their own.

We had a book in a D&D game (we were running the World's Largest Dungeon) that contained every evil spell, as a spellbook. Any spellcaster could cast the spells without needing to preprare them at a cost of 1 permanent hp per spell level (if you made the will save against the book). We called it the Necronomicon for good reason. And it totally saved the party on like three occasions.

Always wanted to run that dungeon.

[Draco18s]

Always wanted to run that dungeon.

Its good. Although unless you want a (very) long term campaign, I suggest picking a single region and using it as its own thing.

The entire thing will run a part of 1st to 3rd level starting characters all the way up through level 18 or so, depending on how many regions they visit. You'll also probably want everyone to have a spare character on hand until they finish Region A; death is almost certainly going to occur for at least one person (the Region A boss is also a dick--it took four simultaneous grapples and a helpless coup de grace or three to even do meaningful damage).

Also a warning: the dungeon has been heavily edited, so be sure to read up on the region before every session just in case room #53 no longer exists on the map. Or if room #16 on the map has no description. Or if that artifact has no stat block. Or if that stated item has no location. Or no use. Or traps that are listed before any description that would allow the characters to be aware of the trap. Or....

Also: the party will want a crafter. There is a singular location to buy anything in the dungeon, so despite having level-appropriate wealth the party* will not have level-appropriate gear, even under the 1/4 cost crafting specialty of a crafter (he simply won't have the time--even if he's a warforged and never sleeps). Also don't worry if your fourth level party crafts an 11 HD clay golem. It might be able to punk anything in the dungeon for a while, but it has good odds to go crazy at some point (cumulative 1% chance to go crazy every continuous round its in combat; our group went 14 rounds once.** Standing orders were that if it did go crazy that everyone just run and hope something else can kill it).

The party will also become increasingly paranoid. It will be fun to watch ("We should spend the 5000 gp to cast Barghest's Feast on the dragon's corpse, we already killed him twice now; cutting off his head clearly didn't work" "But we don't need to! We slew his cleric!").

*Assuming they have a way of hauling it about. We replaced the dog in our "dog-cart" more than once. It was hauling around some million gp worth of "appropriated" paintings and other useless valuables that couldn't be used to craft magic items.

**14 rounds of a cumulative 1% odds works out to about a 33% chance of it having not gone crazy yet (0.99 * 0.98 * 0.97 * ... * 0.86 = 0.331).

[Neraph]

Yeah, I've looked over the thing, and I am confidant I can solo the dungeon. I am also able to keep OOC information different from IC information, so my preview of the dungeon would not give my character an advantage.