Adventure Idea, KE puts out a bounty Options

[Wolfgar]

Hello everyone, I'm just going to put this adventure idea out here for critique. Perhaps you can help me fit it into the Seattle setting.

The over all adventure idea is that Knight Errant places a reward out to find 4 people and a black van as soon as possible. That's what info the runners receive. In actuality these four men are terrorists, and the van contains a dirty bomb or similar wmd. After discovering this, the runners then must deal with the fact that their home city is under attack, and finish the run, perhaps even openly co-operating with the KE to face this mutual threat.

In implementation, I would start the run with a call from a fixer, asking to meet the runners immediately via Matrix (This would add to the urgency for my group, because we usually meet face to face with each other before every run). The fixer would hand the group a set of files on the four men and the van, all redacted to show only names and recent addresses (nothing to give away the plot). The fixer will also mention that the Johnson is KE, and that the job has gone out to fixers all across the city. I'm hoping this urgency of competition with other runners propels them into action, and then the momentum is carried as they discover the truth about the run.

That's what I have so far. I still need to pick out who would terrorize Seattle, and how the reveal to the players what's actually going on. Perhaps they could find the van first and then the dirty bomb inside, but then they're not racing against the clock to find the terrorists. Unless there's two bombs....

[Makki]

I dont think a group of criminals will realistically be better in finding terrorists than a Megacorp plus every agency that has been informed (FBI and homeland security ofc)
if you don't care: my first thought was finding one guy after another. dead ofc.

[Manunancy]

If KE is behind the run and taps just about every fixer in town, I'd expect them to include at least some information as basic as 'theres nasty stuff in that van, don't shoot it up'. Otherwise all it would take is an enthusiaic runner with a big gun to set off the bomb.

Or if they truly want to keep the threat's nature under wraps to prevent a panic, mention that the van and it's content are to be recovered intact. Oh and that the guys are to be recovered preferably alive.

Otherwise they'd run the risk of some creative runners getting paid first for finding the empty van and four corpses, then some more money for the bomb they've hidden someplace to 'find' it later.

Never understimate the player's greed and creativity. And you should beware of their flashes of disastrous stupidiy too.

[Inncubi]

A) The objection regarding the ability to find terrorists is actually relevant. If you deal with this in some way, you improve the entertainment value of the setting.

-Possible reasons KE is doing it this way:
A.1) Its not KE, per se, its someone in the middle range of power who messed up. He received an intelligence file informing him of the threat, and he decided to overlook it, was too busy in another less important matter or -blackmail alert- was with his mistress when he should have been working. This gives extra possible plot hooks for continuing.

A.2) KE wants this to be known in the streets, but not by the general populace. Maybe its a way to get runner teams active in a rushed -possibly also careless- manner and be able to catch a few select targets? The dirty bomb may be inactive...

Now, about the two bomb scenario, it can be one of the reasons KE wants this to be done by "deniable assets". What if their negotiator managed to get the first bomb defused or delivered, but this one is gone missing?
Runners may be able to get in touch with the terrorists...

Another variation is that the guys are actually sellers, they are looking for a buyer. Runners may pose as buyers, and then have to deal with the huge "qui pro quo" that might ensue: The other runners think these are the so called terrorists or sellers. The interested buyers may be angry as well... talk about a run gone bad.

If you want a reason for terrorism in Seattle... Think about some interesting twist. These guys may be aztlaner rebels wanting to set this up on the piramid, or copy the rock and raise the bar a thousand times: They are former good soldiers, wanting to make a point in adesperate situation... or... they may be a group of hooder runners who found out that KE had this in a deposit and decided it was too much of a risk. They are actrually delivering this to an expert so he may permanently defuse it.

Just some ideas to develop the scenario.

However the idea of friendly cooperation is nice, in terms of intelligence: KE wants to be able to keep in touch permanently with the team(s) so they can use the resources of satellite location, choppers flying around the city, transit cameras looking for the van...
Then again, would the runner's want to give their commlink numbers to the people who tend to chase them after they've completed a mission?
Isn't this, maybe, an actual setup form KE to earn extra PR points by snatching lots of bands of criminals?
Also, feeding all of this information, via contacts and such, can keep the excitement level high, lots of red herrings there. Heck make it so that /you/ are not sure which one is the real one, wing it, and let the scenario decide as it develops.

I think I got a little too carried away.
But yeah, some ideas. *Walks away whistling distractedly, hands in pockets*

[Neraph]

Or...

There is no dirty bomb. The fixers are actually being contracted to attack the group of "terrorists" only to have the description of said "terrorists" change (IE: Actually, more recent intelligence says 5 terrorists, two white sedans). What ends up happening is KE is monitoring the various 'runner teams in what amounts to a sponsored "King of the Hill" styled crime spree - KE is giving the description of the leading/most dangerous 'runner team on the streets, changing the description when the 'runner team dies. Let the crime elements destroy themselves.

Place it in the Barrens or another Z-zone under the premise that the "terrorists" are building the dirty bomb in the Z-zone and planning on bringing it into the city from there.

[CanRay]

Actually, one of the best 'Runs I ever put my group on was to collect a debt...

Turns out the guy was part of a Terrorist Cell that was trying to blend in, and got into the wrong poker game... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Wolfgar]

Awesome, I'm glad to see the idea sparked some discussion. I think if I run this in my upcoming campaign (which is set in Sydney, but that's just minor fluff changes, as Sydney has KE too), I'll want to keep the threat legitimate, as a sort of capstone to the whole campaign. That way the players can 'hood in a massive way by saving the city from a real threat.

[CanRay]

The Terrorists are planning to poison the Beer supply for the city.

[Inncubi]

The Terrorists are planning to poison the Beer supply for the city.

That goes against basic, decent cyber-humanity!
You MONSTER!

I mean, seriously, /poison/ the /beer/ supply! You should be ashamed of yourself, sir! That is even worse than having a Troll with a red-lined cyberarm and shock hand punch kids in the face for their candy! Worse than a pornomancer seducing furry bioware modified or Surge III rabbit-girls! Worse than VITAS! Worse than both crashes together!


Disallowed, disallowed DISALLOWED! *Bangs judge's hammer repeatedly*

[jaellot]

Depends on the beer. I mean, if the terrorists were taking out Buddweiser, I'd hail them as heroes and sponsor a parade for them.

Murphy's Irish Stout? It's on like Donkey Kong. My Natty Greene's Smokey Mnt. Porter? I will follow your soul into Hell and personally torture it for all Eternity.

[CanRay]

Northern Ale...

Oh man, I'd buy you your own Brewery!

[Inncubi]

Depends on the beer. I mean, if the terrorists were taking out Buddweiser, I'd hail them as heroes and sponsor a parade for them.

Yeah, not a big fan of it either. Then again in my country local beers are cheaper and better than it. So, essentially irrelevant.

Murphy's Irish Stout? It's on like Donkey Kong. My Natty Greene's Smokey Mnt. Porter? I will follow your soul into Hell and personally torture it for all Eternity.

Tried the first. I'd Diddy Kong with you on that. The second, I have no idea, but I'll open the doors to the furnace for your righteous anger to be vented on the sinful soul.

Back on topic.

Glad you like the ideas.

[PBTHHHHT]

How about another variant to Inncubi's rock scenario, the 'terrorists' are soldiers who decided to go against orders and are taking a small tac nuke to eliminate a hidden hive. The runners don't know of this until after they managed to take the nuke back and along with that... all the info/videos/etc about the hive. Give them the dilemma, finish the job and return the nuke... or finish the job that the renegade soldiers were trying to do.

[Inncubi]

How about another variant to Inncubi's rock scenario, the 'terrorists' are soldiers who decided to go against orders and are taking a small tac nuke to eliminate a hidden hive. The runners don't know of this until after they managed to take the nuke back and along with that... all the info/videos/etc about the hive. Give them the dilemma, finish the job and return the nuke... or finish the job that the renegade soldiers were trying to do.

I like this. A lot, specially for the campaign in Austalia where you want to show the manawarped life in there.
However this seems too close to Chicago: Bug City and what Ares did there in Cermak. However, deffinitely the idea of a "Big Destructive Weapon" (Chemical, Biological, Magical, Nuclear) that is stolen by a group of good guys (Actually make them loveable and feed this via contacts: "Lt. Summers, you ask? Well he's gotten various medals for heroism in combat, and he has a family. One little girl, she's seven, and this guy has /never/ missed one of her birthdays. Yup, he's like the dream father that doesn't exist in any street family." Play on the characters simpathies and be dirty: this guys love animals, they give free time for the charity cause that helps the character's neighborhood, soup kitchen, etc.), for a good cause (Destroy Hive, suck the life out of the worst manastorm in 20 years, save city from destruction, etc), and have the greed in the players minds get the characters in a dramatic moral conundrum (Bail out on Johnson? Deliver it to Johnson? Kill the guys?)

[PBTHHHHT]

It has lots of good elements to just make it a moral dilemma on the runners, and the nice part is it can be made where time is of the essence. I agree it's too much like Chicago, but from the starting premise of the hook, it's kinda hard not to go that route. Maybe you can do a twist, one thing would be an ares bug testing site is wrong. The ones mentioned in Threats 2(?) I think where they're messing with 'captured' bug queens. Maybe an element within KE found out and are horrified at what the corp is doing and decided to go rogue, especially for the good cause since maybe site is near a remote town and threatening to infect it. The corp has other plans. Kinda like combining this with the 'Outbreak' novel in which one of the final options is the napalming of the entire town, with the deadline being several jets zooming in. In this case, the rogue unit maybe is going in for both footages to expose the corporation and to use a lesser weapon to take out the queens or something and the major corporation wants to eliminate the entire evidence.

[Wolfgar]

I do like this Hive idea. My only concern is that if the Hive twist is added, this becomes much more than a one session plot, and gets into a two to three session run. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just a different thing.

[TheFr0g]

Could be a rogue under cover agent, originally intended to infiltrate the terrorist cell, but who eventually fell for their schtick, then used his contacts to help them gain the materials and cover they needed before dropping out of communication. Then your law enforcement agency would want deniability in recovering the asset and neutralizing the agent, or if things went bad the runners fail, they'd have a conventient stool pigeon to blame. Fun idea.

[Inncubi]

This reminds me of a very cool adventure a GM ran for us.

We were hired to get into a weapons deposit for Ares in X place, in Y city. Itsa large warehouse, has lots of security. Johnson wants a new weapon schematics he claims its on the node in there. He gives us access codes and a security account that can be used to open doors and silence alarms. Most of the outdoors security is automated, he claims.

We'd done some surveillance on the place and it seemed pretty quiet. Very little activity was going on in there. Matrix intel said only one supply van is going in during the weekend, namely saturday at Z time. We go in, disguised as the supply van, after we use the account to get into the data base the van's data so its recognized as the legitimate one. Hacker didn't want to spoil that general access by abusing it and digging too much, so he didn't check security feeds, and stuff like that. In any case most of them were stored inside and without external access to the matrix, except by hacking inside the place or by an admin account. Z time comes, we use the protocols we were given, door slides open we enter the garage...

And the floor cracks and van falls down on top of a full blown cockroach spirit Hive that's in there. Run became almost like an Aliens film, as we try to get out of there, shooting everything in sight. We even get to use nifty cool toys.


Good old times.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[CanRay]

I hate to suggest it, but the first story in John Ringo's self-professed Masturbationfest book, "Ghost", had a great terrorist plot for Shadowrunners to get stuck with having to solve.

[PBTHHHHT]

I hate to suggest it, but the first story in John Ringo's self-professed Masturbationfest book, "Ghost", had a great terrorist plot for Shadowrunners to get stuck with having to solve.

Just tell us the basic plot so we don't have to read it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[CanRay]

I feel ashamed as he's confirmed that the main character "Collects hookers... LIKE CATS!"

Basically, Islamic Extremists felt they could break the mental back of "The Great Satan" by kidnapping as many College-Age women as possible, raping them, and then stoning them to death for the religious crime of having sex without being married, on International TV. To punish the "Godless Heathens" and all that for Homosexuality or Condoms or whatever else they felt like.

[PBTHHHHT]

errr... well.. ok then.
I'll probably won't ever use that as an adventure plot.

[CanRay]

errr... well.. ok then.
I'll probably won't ever use that as an adventure plot.

Another novel (All right, I like my over-the-top military fiction!) had them save DisneyWorld from... Weaponized Smallpox, IIRC. Or just your average, everyday, Sarin hidden in bug spray bottles. Can't remember which at the moment.

On the flipside, a Hind outfitted for frontal assault (Multiple Miniguns on the wings!) blowing the hell out of emplacements with DragonForce blaring on the speakers... Yeah, that made me go, "My group did S*** like that just for fun."

*Sighs* I miss the guys back home...

[PBTHHHHT]

See, these I like a bit better. plus, the only other thing would be having the hind assault is have it followed by a secondary aerial assault/insertion with a bunch of hueys blaring ride of the valkyries just for sake of completion.

[CanRay]

See, these I like a bit better. plus, the only other thing would be having the hind assault is have it followed by a secondary aerial assault/insertion with a bunch of hueys blaring ride of the valkyries just for sake of completion.

Pissed off Asatru women hand carrying a mortar and ammo was what came next for them...

The assault was to provide the other Hind ability to resupply and evac wounded through the valley.