The Johnson --> Fixer ---> Runner model doesn't really lead to a cohesive story so much as one offs with recurring characters. So I'm just asking how other people go about getting that into their games.

I cheat.

I replace characters in adventures with contacts they know, to give player characters a hook for the adventure - a sense of continuity for the world they play in.

I try and have jobs available for them to hear about, so they can approach a Fixer and note their interest..
..And people approach them based on what's gone before.

The game we run is basically centered around one main fixer and a couple of other key players who contact the player to do some work. I also toss out random plot hooks that I feel will appeal to a particular player/characters interests. These generate side jobs that are either handled by a character between games or evolve into full on runs.

That and I have metaplots running that resolve themselves after a time even if the players don't try to influence them.

The players did an exceptionally well on their first couple jobs so it made sense to me that their main fixers would come to trust them and see them as an investment. "Pick Up Game" Runs always struck me as the minor leagues of running. It's how you make a name for yourself but it's also a pretty good way to get screwed out of a paycheck or sold out to the relevant corps/gov. Characters who make a habit of doing jobs and doing them well are probably going to find fixers who want that kind of professionalism and will pay both in hard nuyen, heads ups, and loyalty. To a point. It also helps that most of my fixers function as Johnsons too. Why pay a middle man?

So I guess our game is:

Long time fixer/johnson->Runners +/- Plot

In a lot of the games I have played in (and GMed), the players themselves drive the plot a lot of the time, finding their own jobs, or pursuing their own agendas. This is usually interspersed with the occasional job offer from a variety of sources, not necessarily only Fixers.

Longterm story Arc(s)

Generally speaking I have an over-reaching story arc that I want to pursue.
With-in that story arc I pick-up arcs from each players background and run through those, sometimes in sequence sometimes jumbled together ala:

overreaching story arc ------------------------------------------------------>
_____________Player 1 arc --------------->
Player 2 arc ----------------------------------------------->
_______________Player 3 arc --------------->_______________------------->
Player 4 arc----->


Most the time I end up being able to satisfy all arcs with-in the main arc tying it all together nice and tidy. Oh, and thoroughly having the players screw themselves in the process. Now unlike many GMs I know, I do not go out of my way to kill characters or have them live. If the characters really screw up beyond what is acceptable (ie: charging Aztechnology Arcology with guns blazing because you think they are evil...) you have to expect to die.

I however do go out of my way to cause hardship and situations with the characters that the players have to work their way out of, and sometimes that involves alot of pain.

Back to the point, I typically use the normal Johnson/ Fixer/ Runner model to start each arc or portion there of. From that the stories develop based on what is going on in game and where I want it to go to meet up with the next arc or cumination to the finale.

I finally took the plunge and GM'ed a 4th ed game last week end giving the regular Gm a break and to flex my evil,bat like creative wings abit.

First hour had no plot, just me playing Wack-a-mole and figuring out how the controls on this crazy bird called shadowrun worked. Players stuck with me and finally got some flow going for the next 5 hours .guess I did ok, they didn't try to lynch me.

what I worked out looks sorta like:

Fixer is setting up jobs, gettiing several teams running cause he has a personal agenda aimed at a certain recording company.

side arc with dwarf ex cop- he has bumped elbows with the news snoop who cost him his job at LS.

side arc with face- trying to stay away from "family"business. should be fun since the Mob isn't famous for accepting "no thank you ,I'm not interested"

side arc with occult investigator - He needs a friend . I have just what the doctor ordered. .(grin)

sice arc with hacker- Why is he wearing a clown suit? therapy may be in the future.

all in all I had a great time and look forward to mixing things up a bit. possibly bring in some problems with the ancients as they toasted 5 gangers and trashed a gang run drug lab.

as they get some street cred, I intend to move things away from the Fixer>Johnson>runner thing even more. maybe have some damsel in distress runs or something. One of the things I love about Shadowrun is there really is no "Formula " for setting up the run. Hell, you could start a run having one of the runners in the hospital and having some rich guy in the next room sneak in and try to hire them

"Psst, I heard the nurses saying they think your a runner. maybe you could help me with a problem..."

honestly,the reason I quit DM'ing DND is that everything ended up sounding the same no matter what spin I tried to put on it... and that is why I love SR.

I try to emphasize ninjas.

Yeah honestly I think the point of playing SR is to breath life into the 6th world

...overly cute and annoying little girls who know how to use explosives very well who tend show up at the most inopportune time and always get into trouble resulting in the need to bail them out, but if you shoot them you know you will be hunted down to the ends of the earth by their moms who roll a 36 ct cube (+ Edge) of dice for any social test and can convince you to gladly put the barrel of your Ares Alpha in your mouth and hold down the trigger until the clip is empty.

...and a lot of intrigue.

Ninjas are old and boring, not fun and exciting like pirates!

OMG I can't believe no one else is giving robots props on CYBERPUNK FORUM!!!! you all suck

Sake is more manly than rum. Just watch any kabuki play!

Our center is the "Mafia Lt. -> Runners with debts" model. In actual play, it's more "Mafia Lt. NPC makes the plans, chaotic runners screw it up, hilarity ensues". But there's an overall plot, although it only surfaces in a subtle way every few months.

Awamori is much tastier than sake...

And it actually ages!

We play under the assumption that a certain set of contacts is shared by everyone (BP cost is 0). So you only have to buy those special contacts, not a basic Johnson and a basic StreetDoc. Most contacts have an agenda.

Johnsons should represent a small number of interest groups, not whatever comes along. Some campaign arcs should have their own Johnson.

I treat it like a soap opera. Individual character development arcs for each player when appropriate that can include the entire team. Overlapping location story arcs (typical Shadowrun jobs) and I use the Catalyst published plot books to create mega-arcs. Fixers, Johnsons, contacts and other NPCs can be killed or swapped around when necessary. I don't like my players getting comfortable.

In my SR3 games I have 3 different campaigns:

The Original Guys:
This group is composed of the runners that my players initially created when we all started playing SR3. The players are your typical mix of adept bodyguard, street sam, former corp assassin, rigger... etc.

They met via a pick-up run in a Shadowrunners' watering hole (modeled after my own local watering hole.) Their joint fixer was the owner of the bar. Sometimes he offered them jobs, sometimes on of hte players personal contacts offered jobs.

One memorable one was when a bunch of fundamentalist terrorists were threatening to use a small nuke in a Hilton in the center of downtown Seattle. The stage for their demonstration? The XXX Porn Awards show being held in the convention hall in same said hotel. The runners we contacted by their bar owner fixer who briefly managed to use his hidden comlink. . Seems he was a judge at the event. The setting and mood was GREAT! Here they were in it for hte personal. Their fixer Stan had never once let them down, so they all met in the bar where the bartender (a former runner himself) kicked everyone out and htey made storming plans and raided the bar's armory for weopons and gear. It was all personal and gritty this time. I kept thinking of the scene in Running Scared with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines when the y loaded up to go save Billy's ex-wife. It was a GREAT run. They had to bypass Lonestar (tweaking off a certain Special Lonestar Commander they had run-ins with many times before.) They had to take out the rather tough npc terrorists, duke it out with the deluded prophet who was a mage, secure the bomb and possibly disarm it... there were tons of twists, moral dilemmas and nail biting moments. They also did missions for the TLA (Tir Liberation Army) since two of the characters were elves, the adept being washed out of the Tir Ghosts.


Da Trolls:
Made to be a loose collection of standalones centered on a troll go-gang (for when major players couldn;t show up to play), this group took on a life of it's own as the players loved the scenario. It centered on a Troll gang named the Redmond Barons that took over their slice of turf in their namesake area. They quickly ran afoul of the Yaks and started working the streets for a Yak looey. They also ended up being mega-stars by playing in the sporting event called Turfwar... basically a big televised cage match. The Special Lonestar Commander ended up being re-assigned to go after them in a part of a clean up the streets campaign.


The Denver Guys:
More the regular Shadowrun scenario with actual runners... this time in Denver. (I really loved the Denver boxed set!) The PC's took on assorted missions from their joint fixer. Eventually they learned that a majority were runs sponsored by a minor feathered serpent that was involved in the Atzlan Freedom Underground.


In my SR4 game, there's currently only one set of characters:
Team Pheonix:
Decided to mix it up and have the PC's be the "good" guys. Their introductory adventure started with them all being homicide cops for Lonestar in Seattle. They had a huge case that ended up shaking up a lot of corruption. They ended up being approached by the UCAS government to be a special ops team designated as Federal Marshals working black ops. Their team leader is an NPC that was my Character in the 2006 SR Gencon Tourney my team won, "Third Law." (Marshal Nelson for htose of you familiar with that event.) Their regular employer is the federal government. But... there's a certain feeling that someone is pulling their strings for some personal motives.


Overall, runs end up coming form everywhere in my games. Some of them are your basic "fixer needs some guys." Some are personally motivated runs by the characters. Sometimes they are jsut thrust into events. Team Pheonix gets assigned missions, sorta like Mission Impossible. Some of them center on the backgrounds of one or more of hte characters.

My personal advice is to never let yourself get stale. Sure, most runs end up being some form of B&E, or a snatch, or assassination, or protection/bodyguarding. The key is in the flavor. Always try to have new hooks. The big thing to do is make it personal for the characters. Utilize their backgrounds, their contacts. Make the stories personal. Give them a chance to grow their characters and bond with each other. Really develop those recurring NPC's. You don't have to be a great actor to bring an NPC or contact to life! Just figure out their motivations, a few quirks and make them real and then always ask yourself what you would do in their place. Hmmm, this sounds like Inside the Runner's Studio with James Lipton *L*



Vlad

The question is whether you want a movie or a TV series (or, if you prefer, an epic novel or a book series). Do you want one big story arc, or do you want a bunch of "episodes?" Me, I like to do episodes with little strings of plot arcs popping up and overlapping from time to time. Incidentally, the best source for this style is a soap opera (which I believe has been mentioned). If you're not into the whole daytime drama thing, I suggest trying to watch a season or three of Dark Shadows.

But no matter what, my games are always always always about the players and their characters.

Actually anything can work for a series. I like the Runner-->Fixer or Runner--->Johnson gig as a whole. The thing is to remember background and use it. My games get to be very involved and plot heavy right away...solely on the PCs and their interactions with the world around them. We even had one story line go "epic" on us starting from three bush league Runners who knew one another and a bar girl who suddenly Awakened. Yeeeeowww that was maybe the best game I've ever seen. It grew organically on it's own and it all hung together beautifully. The Team ended up being the ones who stopped the Elven Fire incident, pulled the Harlequin runs, then Harlequins Back and then ended up running two separate tracks of the Mob War. So, by the end of it all they had shaped Seattle as surely as Renraku or Aztechnology had. But those only represented about a third of their total runs and scenarios. The rest grew entirely out of them and the friends, enemies and, at one point, fan base, that they had built up.


Isshia

Perhaps the ultimate campaign would be a Fixer campaign with a few players based loosely on "Stanford And Son".

Back in the old days our GM just ran the pre-printed adventures in an episodic format. Now that we're back to SR and playing in 4th edition I've been working on a few stand-alone episodic adventures mixed with a short arc to form up a sort of 'first season' for our games. Creating the linkage for an arc isn't so hard, really. Your group starts to make a name for itself and gets repeat biz from those Johnsons and Fixers that don't screw them over (or keep the double-crossing to an expected minimum, everyone has to get their cut afterall). If the employer has the resources to keep going to a group of runners for multiple jobs, he must be into something big. Then there are plots that are utterly unrelated to running, until it becomes time to use those plots for a run in some way. That's why I asked my players to provide me with information on non-work related friends and possible romantic interests.

Is "Stanford" the British butler version of Sanford and Son? "I do believe I'm expiring m'lord! I'm expiring!"

Red Foxx's Fred Sanford would make a great fixer or fence character.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO I self-pwned.

Synchronicity. One of the minor (but most used) Fences in my old 2nd edition game, waaaaaaay back when was Ed Standford, a Junk Yard owner who our Rigger characters always fell in love with. His watch dog "LaMount" and his crazy former sister in law, who got nick named "the Church Lady", somehow always got involved and once in a while I even got to utter the famous "it's the big one, I'm comin' to ya hunny" as he'd stagger around looking for this battery powered zapper to smack against the lead on his chest to jump start his cranky cyber heart.

Fun times.


Isshia