I typically write up adventure modules for my players weeks or even a month in advance of a game session. I typically follow the standard SR module format of Tell It To Them Straight, Behind the Scenes, and Pushing the Envelope and format it out in a MS Word document. Naturally, my players always think of something I didn't but at least I've given myself a solid framework to work with.

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of my favorite in-game Tell It To Them Straight bits and I'm hoping that all of you GMs who do the writing bits are willing to share your favorites as well.

TELL IT TO THEM STRAIGHT
Genji: You awaken to the sound of your internal commlink’s email alert notice dinging in your head. Your squalid flat comes into focus as your cybereyes engage and attempt to compensate for the copious amounts of beer your brain has been marinating in. The clock in your lower right vision informs you that it’s 07:00, a scant two hours since the last of the Crimson Crush and their assorted hangers-on passed out in a booze or drug-infused slumber. Your friend David Calbway lies face down on the floor beside you. Comically, you notice that at some point during the party he has lost his pants. A topless dwarf skank (Tilde? Trudy?) is propped up against him, eyes closed and drooling, her ample bosoms pointed skyward. David farts loudly, a counterpoint to the snores of the Crush gang around you.

You wipe the drool from your mouth as you pull your face from the ratty futon you typically crash on during long hours of Matrix surfing. A quick nostril check is made and you wipe a booger at the foot of the futon. There’s no way your Inbox should be active, especially at this hour of the morning. Unless… With a mental command you open the waiting message.

Aw, fuck.

Genji. A debt is owed by you to me for services provided during your gang war investigation in January. I am now collecting upon that debt. Be at my home by 14:00 this afternoon. Bring your runner companions if you choose.

There’s no signature but the email code stamp is clearly Omasu Tomozawa’s. Groaning from dread rather than the oncoming hangover you see racing at you like a MiG LAV you lay your head back down. You didn’t truly think Omasu would forget. But you still hoped he would. There are no free rides with the Yakuza, a lesson you’ve learned all too well throughout your life. Looks like it’s time to call in the team. But only after a wee bit more shut eye of course. The world goes a warm and fuzzy gray to the pitter of Seattle rain on your skylight.

I'll give it a shot. This is from a PBP game I'm running at the moment. For some context, Orange is an Ork infiltration expert. He comes from an extended Redmond barrens litter. Jackson, the leader of the family gang, was killed by Orange in a fight the other night. Beth is Orange's squeeze, but she's sick. Orange took up running as a ghost for a pro shadowrun group, headed by Crazy May. I sometimes use flashbacks to times running with Crazy May to contextualise information I give him.

"Orange:

You didn't sleep well. Your tricked out cyber-ears picked up Mama crying for Danny in the night. She's lost so many kids to the streets, you're a little surprised it still phases her, but she cries every time, and another boy didn't come home last night. You listen for a while, tuning the bands tighter to get yourself some sleep, but still can't sleep. Beth is groaning again, poor thing. You can't bring yourself to tune out that frequency, at least not for a few hours, those groans are what keep you going. But it's not the sounds keeping you up, really. It's the chip hidden in your fingertip. It's Crazy May. It's the job. It's the knowledge that some corper wants that data to bolster his profit margins, or push back a rival's deadline a few days, or for some water-cooler office powerplay, and he's not the one who has to wade through the blood of dead shadowrunners and impoverished and sick family members to get it.

She slowly fingers the stem of her wine glass, staring with lidded eyes of brilliant green over the rim at Mr. Johnson. He's good. he doesn't loosen his tie, he doesn't breathe heavier. He doesn't even blink. You know Crazy May doesn't have much of an interest in men, but she puts on a good show. The hispanic man is first to speak, in accentless english. If it's chipped, it's expensive.
"Well, do you agree to the terms?"
Crazy May doesn't register a response. But you hear the buzz of her thought-voice over your comm,
>>Forval, how long are you going to leave me hanging? Should I order another Merlot?<<
Forval is slow on the response, the Johnson must be good.
>>His aura is ice cold. Null sweat, chummer. But he's definately playing with you. Give him hell.<<
Crazy May does. She slides her finger up the stem to the rim, and spirals around it with a finger, and you hear it ring. You're not suprised your ears beat the white noise generator, it's May's and your ears have been tweaked to filter out the garbage, but you're surprised the glass is real crystal. What a yuppie breeder joint.
"We'll talk about the terms when you take this seriously... Johnson." She cocks an eyebrow.
"Surely the brevity circumstances preclude squabbling over a fee like a common mercenary?"
"My team needs to eat, chummer." She hisses coldly. You laugh. The hispanic offered twenty grand straight off. That would feed and clothe the family for a year.
This time he raises an eyebrow. Crazy may stops fragging around.
"Double or nothing. You know I'm worth it."
Johnson leans forward, stroking the black box on the table. Probably a skin-linked commlink. He's probably calculating whether it'll cut into the fund for his second swimming pool.
"Thirty."
"We're going to be here all night, aren't we?"
"Fine, thirty five. But don't think you'll be working for me again. You don't look a gift horse in the mouth."
>>Prep the wheels, looks like we're walking in two.<<, Forval mutters over the comm.
She gives the Johnson a stare that could melt plascrete with her acid-green cyber-eyes and arches her back, "Martinez, you slot, I heard what you used to do with that mouth back in Panama. You could afford a dozen prepubescent Aztlaner joyboys a night, you can afford to pay me what I'm worth."
A few stools down from you, your eyes catch the vatjob jap's synthetic muscles tighten for trouble in his suit as he glances towards the Johnson's booth. Poor ghosting, he's revealed he's Johnson's muscle. May stands to go.
"Leave a message at the bar for the horse's mouth when you've got the paydata, Mayflower." the J says with a smirk. It's time to go.

Thirty seconds later, you collect your blades and piece from Club Penumbra's "coat-room", and the bouncer smirks at you as you pass. The slot had May pay a bribe for you to get in, as if he could smell that your suit was a hire. Fragging racist. Forval is already on the street, dragging on a nic-stick.
"Isn't it nice meeting May's old chummers?", he remarks on an exhale.
Crazy may approaches behind you, "Shut up forval." She hisses and turns to you,
"get in the car."

You wake to the lingering sting of your arm. The anaesthetic derm has worn off and you can feel the burn. You climb out of Beth's bed and step over to the window, and the acrid smell of burning garbage and flesh hits your olfactory tech. Some squatter beetle-head probably loaded up on dreamchips and fell asleep in the garbage piles again. The Redmond municipal garbage drones haven't come to your neighborhood while you've been alive, and every now and then some spark burns the piles down again. The dark clouds on the horizon will probably put the flames out by nightfall with another hard rain.

You look down into the yard, and the gangers are standing around the yard, snorting lines of betameth off the slab of concrete erected over Jackson's grave and tussling with eachother. A tribute. Except for Bones, leaning against the crumbling gate and staring up at your window. He takes a drag of his nic-stick and spits the fire out. You feel the burn in your arm again. A tribute.

What are you gonna do now, chummer?"

This was from my adaptation of Emergence's "A Run of Luck" plot seed. The mob boss was the uncle of my player's character Genji, an ork hacker of Japanese descent; disowned due to the shame of being a metahuman.

TELL IT TO THEM STRAIGHT
As you enter the Bellevue district the dark mid-day sky opens up and a heavy downpour hits your windshield. Your wiper blades can barely keep up with it but GridGuide is solid in this part of the metroplex so you don’t worry about staying on the road. Omasu’s neighborhood of Hunts Point lies beneath a mini-arcology dome allowing its rich patrons filtered air to breathe and jade green lawns untouched by volcanic ash or acid rain. The private security guard at the gate is dressed in a crisp, high-collared gray uniform reminiscent of an officer in the Third Reich. He gives you all the stink-eye, especially those of you unfortunate enough to be Driving While Meta but after a quick call on his commlink you’re told to proceed inside. You notice that it's raining inside the dome as well but you also know this water has been so heavily filtered you could drink it. Omasu’s home sits on a large parcel of land but the building itself is modest in size and in a traditional American style with a few Asian accents. And not unlike the other homes in the neighborhood it is surrounded by a decorative stone wall with an open gate. Walls, within walls, within walls. Even residents of a rich secured neighborhood feel the need to mark the borders of their mini-kingdoms.

As you pull into the circular drive you spot two pairs of Japanese men sporting colorful suits holding equally colorful woodblock print umbrellas. They open your vehicle doors for you and one announces in unaccented English that Tomozawa-san is waiting in the stables in the rear acreage. The Yakuza soldiers escort you under their umbrellas around the house. You notice two Arabian horses running in the open field that is the backyard. One snorts and whips its mane, blasting out droplets of water like ball-bearings from a claymore mine.

Inside the stable building, the rain quietly taps out a Morse code version of Kitaro Nishida’s “The Logic of the Place of Nothingness and the Religious Worldview� in the original Japanese. Two mares stand in individual stalls quietly munching on green hay. Manure and straw are not smells one would typically associate with the Seattle Metroplex and it feels almost alien to you though your lizard brain knows that this is how life should be. Standing in the center of the stable Omasu Tomozawa has his back to you and is brushing what looks to be… a unicorn. From deep within you a powerful sense of inner peace fills you. Just being near this powerful creature brings contentment.

“Beautiful, is she not?� Omasu rumbles at you as your escorts position themselves casually by the stable entrance. “I had her brought over from Europe. Genji… did you know I was part of the Japanese Olympic Equestrian team? But that was many years ago. We need to talk about the now.� Omasu continues his slow orbit around the unicorn, horse brush in hand, as he speaks. “I need you to find a man named Gregor Stample. He has been a customer at the Shotozumi-gumi Captain Fun Rich Land gambling arcade in the International District. The arcade's security is my responsibility. The man has been incredibly… lucky. He never loses. Not once. And he need only play for a few minutes before winning. And before you ask, yes, I had my men approach him. He possessed no commlink or any type of hacking device. From the way he dresses he looks like he could not even afford one. So we had to let him go. My staff confirmed that our arcade network has not been breached though the machines he played on revealed some unexplainable software errors.

“Now understand this and understand it well: I do not want Stample dead. I need an explanation as to how he is able to beat the system and assurances that he will not set foot in my arcade again.

“There is one other thing that you should know. It has come to my attention that Stample’s streak of luck has not been limited to my establishment. He apparently frequented a slot machine arcade, the 777, run by the Eighty-Eights. Their security noticed him but he made a break for it before they could catch him. Rick Wu, the Eighty-Eights’ leader has ordered a mark placed on Stample and has brought in a group of hitmen to eliminate him. You will need to eliminate these assassins before they find Stample.

“I will not be paying you directly as this is an obligation that Genji is honor-bound to repay. However you will not go without some compensation.� Omasu snaps his fingers and one his guard approaches carrying a long box made up of a rich and dark lacquered wood. Omasu takes the box from the guard and opens it. Resting inside on a bed of red felt is a matched set of ornate katana. To your eye the metal work appears to be extraordinary; there is an ornate floral pattern in the metal that tapers off into the blade. And rather than wood, the grip of each appears to be made of an orange-gold metallic or ceramic material wrapped in tightly woven cords of black leather. “These were your great-great-grandfather’s. Complete the task and they will be yours.� Omasu snaps the case closed. “Your father, Genji, left a contract for an enhanced protein exchange procedure in his will. I find such procedures distasteful but the contract may be yours. Finally, he was in ownership of 60,000 basic shares of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies. Again, yours. Do you have any questions?�